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You are here: Home / Archives for News

Light at the End of the Tunnel

April 21, 2021 by Scott "Q" Marcus Leave a Comment

Every column I’ve ever written lives on my hard drive.

(For those keeping track, this is number 596.)

As March was ending last year, I wrote, “the U.S. now has 7,668 cases with 117 deaths. The world count has risen to 212,799 with 8,787 people succumbing. It is recommended that those of us 65+ ‘self-isolate,’ a term utterly unknown but a few weeks past. Recommendations are that we limit crowds to fewer than ten. Pubs, restaurants, and eateries are shuttered. The markets are off approximately 35 percent from their highs, companies are failing, average people — like you and me — are without income. San Francisco is closed. Hospital ships are being sent to New York and the West Coast.”

The numbers are tragically quaint compared to where we now stand.

Last year at this time, we were barely scratching the surface of what the pandemic would entail. Streets were deserted; fear ran rampant; information was fluid. Grocery shopping was the most dangerous event of the week; we garbed up in masks and gloves and carried with us containers of disinfectants. We were told to bleach our food.

Times change.

Like characters in a horror movie resurfacing from being entombed, it certainly feels like we are pushing aside the soil, scratching our way above ground after being covered for over a year. Surviving underground because it was unsafe to come up again, we looked to the heavens, waiting for a signal that we can reclaim the world we were missing.

Little by little, it is returning.

We are unburying ourselves, beginning again to glance to the skies, not yet really even sure we can emerge. Some will not. Others are. Eyes blinking from the light, wiping the dirt from our faces, we are starting to stand unbowed again, a little shaky, a bit unsteady, but mostly optimistic. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hope, Inspiration, News, Newspaper Column Tagged With: covid, covid 19, current events, Hope, pandemic

Message of Encouragement

September 16, 2020 by Scott "Q" Marcus Leave a Comment

These are troubling times, to say the least.

We are confronting the most widespread, extensive, global health emergency in at least 100 years. Our economy is staggering like a boxer battered into delirium. Opinions have become “facts.” Social unrest is boiling. Political “discourse” (such as it is), centered around the removal or retention of arguably the most controversial, divisive, polarizing administration anyone can remember; has devolved to that of a couple of three-year-olds shouting “You’re a poo-poo head!” “No, your face is!” It feels like we’re together, untethered in a 1950s rusty, claptrap old school bus; sans seatbelts, careening down a potholed mountain roadway, out of control, hanging on for dear life while screaming in terror for someone to save us as we hurl towards a cliff on November 3. We’re hoping we don’t go over the edge; assuming all will eventually be okay. Yet, that grating, inner voice refuses to shut up, saying, “Don’t get your hopes up” continues to grow louder. I just want it all to stop.

But wait, there’s more!

Ghia, Mother Earth, is facing an existential crisis, resulting in unending firestorms, relentless flooding, bone dry draughts, and – in general – exceptionally severe weather, which is devastating property and lives (including non-human) on an unprecedented global level. (For the record, I long to live in a world where the word, “unprecedented” is no longer a standard adjective.)

The vise-grip, chest-squeezing, anxiety-producing catalog of happenings has us on hairpin triggers, damaging our collective and emotional physical, and mental health. For those of us who can remember it, 1968 is a Disney fairy tale compared to the Stephen King horror story of 2020. No one – not a single person alive today – has lived through an upheaval like this ever. Not one of us.

Of course, I don’t need to tell you that. You see it. You feel it. You’re living it, just as am I.

As goes the curse, we are living in “fascinating” times. It’s challenging to hold hope high when even the sky is covered in a thick blanket of burnt smoke.

Yet, a flicker crossed my mind.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Events, Happiness, Health, Inspiration, News, Newspaper Column Tagged With: attitude, catastrophe, change, covid 19, frustration, inspiration, self acceptance, stress

We Will Adapt

September 9, 2020 by Scott "Q" Marcus Leave a Comment

photo of orange skies from northcoast journal

Photo was taken from www.northcoastjournal.com. Click on the image to be taken to the story.

Today was supposed to be a sunny warm day on the beautiful north coast of California.

you know, that part of the country known for majestic redwoods; rocky coastlines; Victorian buildings, and breezy blue heavens. Yet, instead of light gusts and azure skies, the atmosphere is strangled by a thick, putrid orange-brown, which is holding back the light from getting through. House lights are on yet darkness swallows us. I have to remind myself that this is not night; it’s lack of light. Because of the gloom, I keep thinking any moment will rise the sun and the skies will clear.

Alas, not today. This is the day of the dark.

I know I’ve said it a gazillion times. I know virtually everyone else has too. But 2020 is a year for the record books. This chapter in time makes the tumult and turmoil of 1968 seem like a fairy tale compared to what we face these days.

It’s hard to remember that as the year began, the biggest points of contention were political: a couple of dozen Democratic candidates vying for the presidency; an investigation into the president; and the subsequent impeachment. We were divided. We were angry.

News of a pandemic began its spread in late winter; come March, our vocabulary included terms previously unknown: social distancing and self-isolate. We secluded ourselves. We were scared.

We did our best to adapt.

The economy and stock market collapsed. Events of every nature were canceled. Workers were laid off, companies shuttered, food lines returned; it was a flashback to the great depression a century ago. We were alarmed.

We adapted as well as we could.

Countless millions the globe over, took to the streets to proclaim black lives matter and protest the deaths at the hands of police of black men; “Karen” became a meme of privilege. We were outraged.

And again, we adapted.

If you’re old enough to read, you’re old enough to remember everything else that has happened this year; almost 200,000 dead Americans and millions of infected fellow citizens; voter suppression; super-spreader events; hurricanes and floods; accelerated climate change couple with the hottest day on record; bringing us to today’s fires. As fall approaches, we are warned of election tampering and more violence. Oh yes, come winter the pandemic will bring with it the winter flu.

“Apocalypse” has been thrown around like a water balloon on a hot summer day. One might say it’s overused. However, it feels like the end-of-days is right around the corner. These are undoubtedly unmatched times. None of us have lived through a pandemic nor experienced an economic crash of this magnitude. Only those of us that are older have been through this much social upheaval. Climate change has never been so dire. Needless to say, the combination of all is indeed “unprecedented,” another over-used but accurate word.

It’s difficult to keep the choking fear at bay. Although I’m not an angry person, I find myself mad almost all the time; wishing desperately to blame someone, something – anything – for this B-quality horror flick in which I find myself. If this was a script, it would never have been green-lit. “No one will believe this,” would have been the studio execs response.

However, we are here and we must yet again adapt.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Events, Hope, Inspiration, News, Newspaper Column Tagged With: compassion, fear, health, inspiration, stress, wildfires

The Only Path Forward

October 10, 2018 by Scott "Q" Marcus Leave a Comment

My son, half my age at 32, asked me if I can remember a time when things were “this bad.”

“No,” sadly I replied. “We seem to be at a new low.”

Later that week, speaking with an octogenarian friend, I posed to her the same question. Her reply was the same as mine. “No, we seem to be at a new low.” Should I ask someone celebrating 100 years on the planet, I fear the response would not change.

We might disagree as to the definition of “bad” — or even “things” — but I am convinced we’re all in agreement: Colloquially stated, “What a freakin’ mess!”

At the risk of harshing your mellow, let’s examine a couple specifics:

  • After observed the most divisive Supreme Court nomination process in history, one might argue we are also witness to the fabric of our nation being ripped asunder. Not only have we have drawn lines in the sand, we have fortified them with cement, and constructed walls to prevent passage from anyone of differing views. More than one political observer has postulated that our country’s temperament is akin to the mid 1800s (sic), prior to — and triggering — the Civil War. There are many who offer that “this great democratic experiment” is sunsetting; our future looking like George Orwell’s classic novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Hang on, that’s not the worst news.

  • The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in what many consider a moderate perspective, implores “urgent and unprecedented changes” are needed NOW to prevent global warming from climbing over 1.5º Celsius (2.7º Fahrenheit) by 2030. Should we continue on the path on which we now find ourselves, expect an uptick of approximately 3º C (4.5º F) resulting in major cities flooded; island nations wiped off the face of the planet; extreme droughts and heat waves; insect infestations; and wars over water and food — um, just to name a few. Yes, the planet will carry on – but it will become close to inhospitable.

I could – as I’m sure could you – site countless more illustrations, yet once one has enumerated the end of humanity as a potential outcome, everything else seems, well, somewhat inconsequential.

Yes, things are indeed bad.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Communicating, Current Events, News, Newspaper Column Tagged With: environment, political discourse, politicians, politics, quality of life

Walking a Minefield: Tribute to Friend

April 4, 2018 by Scott "Q" Marcus Leave a Comment

It’s been said the difference between depression and grief is that the former seduces, while the latter attacks.

Whether it’s delivered by phone, direct conversation, email, or – ever more prevalent these days – via social media; the effects remain the same. Word blasts you in the solar plexus as a surprising sucker punch. A tsunami of shock flooding away whatever thoughts had been active the instant prior, blood rushes from your head, you stagger slightly, and then the awful reality of the moment clamps itself firmly on to your psyche, a rabid dog unwilling to let go.

Shake it as you might, the jaws of grief hold tightly; the only effective tools to pry loose its pincers are acceptance of this new horrific, hurting actuality; and patience, allowing time to apply — however slowly — its healing salve.

Looking back on the twisted road that to date has been my life’s journey, one of the main thoroughfares on which I’ve traveled has been my involvement in the media.

Starting as a college DJ at UCLA, I spent decades on the air and behind the scenes, eventually ending up as a media coordinator and consultant (among other jobs). There was an expression among “air personalities” back then: “You can tell the success of a disc jockey by the size of the trailer attached to his car.” Between the years of 1977 and the early eighties, I had no fewer than nine addresses. Tribes of nomads were we, wayfaring across this vast land, U-hauls in tow, pursuing larger audiences and higher wattage, mostly in pursuit of the Holy Grail of prime time on a clear-channel 50,000-watt blowtorch.

Some found it. Most took a detour — as did I, ending up on the Northcoast of California in 1983 to program an AM/FM combo. My original plan? Stay among the redwoods for a few years before moving to the bay area, intent on afternoon drive on KFRC. Should 35 be labeled as “a few years,” there’s still time. (Of course, KFRC has been gone since 2005 so there is that.)

Over the last 24 hours, I’ve heard distressing news about two of the tent posts of my life for these last three-plus decades.

One of my closest friends has been fighting cancer. Recently, he was told there was nothing left to do, “Go home and live your life as well as you can.” I fear that a future column will pay tribute to him.

Yet, today, I awoke to find out that Pete Meyer, morning personality on Power 96 in Eureka, passed away shockingly, suddenly, without foretoken.

It’s appropriate that as I write this, gray clouds suffocate our sky line, embracing the melancholy that this community now collectively bears.

If you don’t live among the towering titan trees and rocky coasts in Humboldt county, I’ll bet you know someone like Pete.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Baby Boomers, Inspiration, News, Newspaper Column, Personal, Relationships, Tribute Tagged With: death of a loved one, facing death, facing fear, gratitude, grief, happiness, loss, relationships

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