Fighting Absurdity

So of our "Full Squad," which consists of Wifey, Me, the Ds, and their husbands, only D2 has seen "Hamilton." She is a huge fan -- saw it two times, I think, in NYC. Wifey found out it was playing at our local theater, the Arsht Center, and promptly bought us 6 tickets for the final Miami show, a matinee set for this coming Sunday.

But then coronavirus happened. On Thursday, Miami Dade Mayor Gimenez put the County on a state of emergency, and smartly canceled all events where groups of people more than 250 gather. He was practicing so called social distancing, which disease mavens have proven is the single biggest effective way to combat the spread of this disease. All AAA events, the big tennis tourney, NASCAR, etc. were off. EXCEPT...

The Arsht Center sent out an email -- the show would go on! There'd be no refunds or exchanges. I wrote to them -- turns out the CEO is either a Swiss or German guy -- and asked them to reconsider. The theater seats 2400 -- ten times the size of the Mayor's guidelines for social distancing. Nope -- they were stubborn.

I reached out to a Herald reporter, Doug Hanks. He was shocked -- didn't believe me, at first, and I sent him copies of the CEO's email and my attempts for a refund, and, more importantly, a plea to postpone. I even cited the famous Philly/St. Louis example from 1918, apparently classic epidemiological stuff.

Turns out that during the 1918 flu, the Philly health commish refused to cancel events. They went ahead with a War Bonds parade that attracted 200k people. St. Louis's commish canceled everything -- even made riding the streetcars a staggered event. Well -- St. Louis had HALF the death rate than Philly. So the social distancing works -- clearly.

So Hanks did his article, which came out last night, and quoted me. Apparently, having the final quote is a big deal, according to my nephew of another mister, Scott, who is a pro journalist.

Hanks emailed me this am that he thought Arsht would reconsider. They didn't.

In the mean time, Wifey ran into a neighbor, and told her the tale. She said she would take the tickets. Wifey asked if she wasn't afraid of getting sick. The neighbor said "Nah -- we travel a lot -- I probably already HAVE corona virus."  Exactly!

So I emailed the Arsht again today, relayed that tale, and asked their "permission" to sell my tickets to my neighbor -- knowing she might indeed infect everyone. Sure enough, I got a prompt response asking for my order number. I am staying tuned.

In trying to figure out why the Mayor is wussying out on ordering the theater closed, while he ordered much bigger venues to close, I did some research. The Arsht is run by a local politician of a certain background -- a very powerful guy. Our mayor is going to run for Congress and would need the Arts Director's help -- so my theory is he (the Mayor) is afraid to step on those toes.

All I know is, we ain't going Sunday. If they refund my $1200, fine. If not, I told my buddy Mike I will be lead plaintiff in the easiest class action I can think of -- essentially requiring patrons to attend an event after the Mayor said doing so violates public health safety.

Of course, that assumes coronavirus doesn't cause a true zombie apocalypse.  Then this whole deal will be pretty insignificant.