That's Still Funny

One of the silver linings in the coronavirus cloud ("bad cloud", as opposed to "good cloud" like Microsoft's Azure and Amazon Web Services) is that boredom and ennui have led to revisiting old videos.

Tosh Togo

The Three Stooges were a top-three favorite when my parents let this kindergartener watch on the old black-and-white during the '50's. I howled at the ridiculous physical comedy, complete with the sound effects of face-slapping, head-bashing, and eye-poking.

[Related: I also enjoyed watching the fake violence of pro wrestling on Saturday mornings and was later thrilled when Tosh Togo got the role of Oddjob in Goldfinger.]

But back to the Stooges, who had material for the adults, too. In 1940 they starred in one of the first anti-Hitler Hollywood films. You Nazty Spy! is filled with Nazi references such as "storm" troopers who wear raincoats while carrying umbrellas and "books" burning to erase gambling debts.

When arms dealers seek to install a puppet dictator, they entice wallpaper hanger Moe and his assistants Larry and Curly. Dialogue:

Paper-hanger Moe smears black
paint above his lip by accident.

Moe: What does a dictator do?

Arms manufacturer: A dictator, why he makes love to beautiful women, drinks champagne, enjoys life, and never works. He makes speeches to the people, promising them plenty, gives them nothing, then takes everything. That's a dictator!

Curly: A parasite! That's for me.

The cinematography is obsolete, but the script is not.

Life is But a Stream

Two weeks ago our rector reluctantly withdrew from streaming church services:

Today was his last sermon, at least until the lockdown is lifted. He turns 66 this week and, according to both the Diocese and the County of San Mateo, cannot attend even small gatherings.

I spoke too soon. He simply pre-recorded his sermon and spliced it into the livestream on YouTube. And why not?

(Image from Ascension Press)

Long before the 21st century Christians believed that it wasn't necessary to be physically present in order to participate in worship services.

From the Apostle's Creed:

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen

When I first learned in Sunday School about the ghosts who gather around the altar during Holy Communion, it freaked me out. Now I kind of believe it's true (he said apprehensively).

RV Trend Confirmed

Three weeks ago I picked up shares of Winnebago (WGO) at $36.40 due to a late-night inspiration.

Winnebago's Solis starts at $100K

When summer travel partially opens up, there are two near-certainties: gas will be cheaper than it has been in generations, and COVID-19 standards of cleanliness in hotels, airplanes, and car services aren't guaranteed.

RV's provide a solution--see America without having to worry about bedbugs or worse.

Today's WSJ confirms that travel by recreational vehicle is a hot trend this summer:

Solis interior (Winnebago photo)

Only 14% of travelers feel safe taking a domestic flight, and 17% feel safe at a hotel or resort according to a late-April survey by MMGY Global for the U.S. Travel Association.

Jon Gray, the CEO of RVShare, a similar peer-to-peer platform boasting more than 100,000 recreational vehicles among its nationwide listings, has noticed that a lot of people don’t want to risk hopping on airplanes to get where they’re going: “We’re seeing our drive-to markets doing particularly well right now.” The site has seen a 650% rise in RV rental bookings since early April...

“We have been flooded with new inquiries, and an unusually high number of longer rentals (lasting from one to three months in duration),” said [Livmobil CEO Bill] Ward. “I think this is going to be the trend for the remainder of 2020 and 2021, at a minimum.”

WGO closed at $50.58 yesterday.

The COVID-19 San Francisco Earthquake of 2020

Despite widespread lease defaults by apartment tenants, retail stores, and restaurants, the entire real estate market has not collapsed: [bold added]

Investors are flocking to America’s mega landlords, drawn by signs the companies that emerged from last decade’s foreclosure crisis owning huge pools of rental houses are weathering the economic shutdown far better than feared. Many also expect that the coronavirus pandemic will make suburban single-family homes both more desirable and more difficult to buy for even the relatively well-heeled...

Rental executives say some recent move-ins chose to rent instead of buy given the economic uncertainty. Others have leased houses to get out of apartment buildings, given the contamination risks associated with close living.

There's been anecdotal evidence of fed-up San Franciscans leaving the City for open spaces, and we expect that future tax and payroll data will confirm this suspicion.

A month ago we wrote:

Post-war Levittown, PA (photo: J Reps)

Here is a pretty safe prediction about attitudinal change and consequential action: the urban model is passé. Mass transit is dangerous. The risks of city living are too high for children. The flight to the suburbs and rural areas will accelerate because living there is not only safer but cheaper.

The suburbs boomed after World War II changed the country. COVID-19 is likely to have the same effect.

At the time we hadn't mentioned commercial real estate, but a similar decline appears inevitable. Not only are weaker tenants defaulting, but financially stable companies are realizing that working from home requires much less office space. (Headline: Twitter announces work from home policy will continue indefinitely.)

The great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 destroyed real estate values. The coronavirus earthquake of 2020 will have a like effect, though few are aware that it's happening.

Meat Prices: Trends Continue

Econ 101: more supply
means lower prices

Last week we noted how beef prices were rising faster than pork, despite the coronavirus having significantly affected all meat-processing capacity.

Since then the pork belly has fallen by 80 cents to $2.99 a pound, while the 10-pound beef brisket had risen again to $4.99 / lb., double the price of last year.

The crisis of high beef prices is simultaneously the opportunity to prepare dishes that we would otherwise have never learned to cook. Use your time wisely, grasshopper, for this crisis and opportunity may never come this way again.

Commercial Aviation: It's Worse Than You Think

The Kinsley Gaffe--defined as politicians saying a truth that they had not intended to reveal (for example, what they really thought about some of their supporters)--is a political term, but it can apply equally to business leaders. For example, here's Boeing CEO David Calhoun: [bold added]

Now he smiles rarely (Chicago Trib)

Boeing’s report came as Chief Executive David Calhoun painted a dire near-term outlook for the airline industry, saying growth wouldn’t likely return to 2019 levels for three to five years.

Mr. Calhoun told NBC’s “Today” show that passenger traffic won’t be up to 25% of pre-pandemic levels by September, possibly approaching 50% by the end of the year.

He predicted the collapse of air-travel demand would “most likely” force a major U.S. carrier to go out of business.

Mr. Calhoun and Boeing have been trying to walk back his statement that United, American, or Delta will go out of business, but that's what many analysts within the industry are already saying.

From an aviation webinar: how many companies will survive until 2023?

In "normal" aviation downturns, there are always some bright spots in the industry. For example carriers may postpone new deliveries but keep operating older airplanes intended for the scrap heap, and the MRO (maintenance, repair, and overhaul) sector of commercial aviation does well.

This time demand has fallen so drastically that old and new airplanes are being put in storage, which means that airplanes requiring multi-million dollar overhauls per FAA regulations are themselves parked and a new one pulled out of inventory. There's much lower demand for MRO in the next two years.

To an industry that operates on thin margins and high fixed costs and debt, conditions are the worst that anyone can recall (9/11 was a blip compared to COVID-19). The number of players who have cash and credit resources to survive until 2023 is minuscule.

I'm glad to be retired.

“James, You’re the Best”

Carly Simon, on the making of the theme to The Spy Who Loved Me (1977):

The piano player who looks like an accountant (WSJ)

The next day, when the doorbell rang, it was the tax guy with heavy glasses in a black suit and tie. I went into the kitchen to make us tea.

As the water boiled, I wondered why the tax guy was playing my piano. When I came out with the tea, the pianist turned out to be Marvin [Hamlisch]. I didn’t realize he looked like an accountant.

Marvin sang and played “Nobody Does it Better.” Then I sang it back. I don’t read music, but I when I listen, the music sticks.

The movie starred Roger Moore as James Bond and one of Bond's all-time villains, the metal-toothed Jaws. I only liked the movie, but loved the song.

Measure Twice, Cut Once and Quickly

Prof. Huggy Rao

Looking good on television or streaming video is a key component of leadership in the modern age. Unfortunately, some people may make the mistake of ignoring other qualities.

Knowledge of specific details and the ability to listen, communicate clearly, work tirelessly, and set a good example are still equally, perhaps more important.

Stanford Business School professor Hayagreeva “Huggy” Rao cites the example of a military leader not well-known to the younger generation:

(Arlington Cemetery website)

I think the best military leader America ever had was Matthew Ridgway. Ridgway was a brigadier general during World War II.

He replaced Douglas MacArthur on the Korean operation. He’d never fought in Asia, never led a land battle. He had no idea about Korea.

As soon as he took charge, he spent the first couple of days flying around Korea. He took the navigator’s seat. They flew all over, noting rivers, lakes, mountains.

Once he understood the geography and topography of Korea, he met regimental commanders and would ask them a series of questions to assess their leadership readiness. Often, his first questions had to do with geography. Where’s the nearest river? How deep is it? If the commander wasn’t able to answer, he was fired instantly because he was going to endanger their troops. That is wartime leadership.

Despite the pressure, Matthew Ridgway took some time figuring out what to do. Once he knew, he didn't hesitate to act.

Mother's Day, 2020

Last year the church presented yellow roses to all the ladies; this year there were no roses, much less a worship service, just pixels on a screen.

Last year I purchased an arrangement from a local florist. This year I placed a Costco bouquet in an old vase. For dinner we had take-out chicken sandwiches, not the same as last year's dinner in a nice restaurant.

Mom and caregiver

I called Mom. She was happy to have received a few visitors, despite the hassle of putting on a mask and having to go to the main entrance. Each one of her children sent her a card and thanked her for being their mother.

A lot less was spent on food, gifts, and travel this year, but I suspect many had a good Mother's Day anyway.

Coyotes, Toads, and Goats

With San Francisco Bay to the East and Hwy 101 to the
West ducks and geese are the only wildlife in Foster City.

It's been only a few weeks of hunkering down, but already the animals are coming out of hiding:

It turns out boar, deer, coyotes and birds have been right under our noses all along.

In dystopian science fiction the death of civilization is represented by deserted, crumbling cities. Fiction permits writers to bypass decades; in our current reality the empty alabaster cities aren't crumbling...yet.

(WSJ image)

(Digression: Horace Smith's Ozymandias is not as well known as Shelley's. However, the former does make explicit the impermanence of modern edifices, while in Shelley's version--the much better poem--it is only inferred.)

Among COVID-19's many lessons: film-makers, if you're going to depict a humanity-less future don't stop with dogs, cats, and rats in the city. You might want to add coyotes, toads, and goats.

A mountain goat in Llandudno, Wales, in March. (WSJ Photo)

Blood Thinners and CPAP Machines

Randomized double-blind placebo-controlled (RDBPC) studies are the gold standard when it comes to testing vaccines and medicines. Unfortunately, they take a long time--typically well over a year--to conduct, and the coronavirus' damage to health and the economy doesn't allow leeway to develop RDBPC solutions.

Medical practitioners are now forced to make educated guesses about possible treatments: [bold added]

2013 sleep study resulted in
us getting a CPAP machine

Regardless of the cause, anecdotal evidence of blood clots in COVID-19 patients is prompting many physicians to examine more closely whether a certain subgroup of these patients — those sick enough to be hospitalized — should receive blood thinners as a preventive measure as soon as they’re admitted.

The American Society of Hematology’s recently updated recommendations include the use of low-dose blood thinners for hospitalized COVID-19 patients unless they have a condition that puts them at higher risk of bleeding...

it was New York emergency room doctors who told their West Coast counterparts about the apparent unexpected benefits of keeping patients off ventilators as much as possible...

This is a pivot away from earlier thought, which was that COVID-19 patients who came to the hospital struggling to breathe should be intubated, or placed on a ventilator. But anecdotal evidence from hospitals in New York and Italy shows that patients often do better than expected with less invasive treatments that help them breathe — CPAP machines, which administer oxygen through a mask, and high-flow nasal cannula, where oxygen tubes are inserted into the nostrils.

Blood thinners and CPAP machines are not the gold standard, but anecdotal evidence is still evidence.

Falling and Rising and Choosing

Like any punter, I brag about my wins. So permit me to chortle about the pick I made two weeks ago.

Winnebago (WGO-click chart to enlarge) has appreciated 31%, while the principal indexes have gone up 1-5%.

So I'm chortling away.

401(k): the amount lost is equal to years of salary.

Not very pleasurable is the status of the 401(k). Allocated to the stock of a former employer, there's a lot more invested in the 401(k) than in Winnebago and a lot more to lose.

Ever since the pandemic cratered the stock market it has been painful to look at brokerage statements.

On the bright side stock market analysts say that we have seen the bottom and the market is rallying because the country is re-opening for business.

I don't feel the confidence. The infection rate is down but we don't know why. For people who do become severely ill, there's no vaccine and no guaranteed treatment (remdesivir is only somewhat effective). The lockdown did "bend the curve" so hospitals weren't overwhelmed like Italy, but it seems to your humble blogger that we're re-opening and crossing our fingers that the second wave won't hit.

Everyone will have to judge for themselves whether and how much to go out and practice social distancing. Everyone will have to judge for themselves how important it is to work and how much health risk to accept.

Perhaps that's what America is all about----not locking down or opening for business but giving people all the information and letting them decide for themselves what's right for them.

Cooking What is Available

Costco pork belly at $3.79/lb.

Meat shortages are increasing as factories have closed due to the coronavirus: [bold added]

America’s farms are still packed with animals raised for meat production. The problem is that the virus has made it increasingly hard to turn those animals into store-ready packs of pork chops or ground beef.

That’s because Tyson and many other meat processing companies across the country have paused operations at a number of plants where workers have tested positive for COVID-19. According to the USDA’s weekly report from April 27, beef production was down nearly 25% year-over-year, while and pork production was down 15%.

After the rubdown.

Vegans, nutritionists, and environmentalists may applaud the decline in production for different reasons, but carnivores like me should also look at this as an opportunity to expand their recipe repertoire.

Cheaper cuts of beef, pork, and lamb are still plentiful, and next to spices the other ingredient one needs is time--time to marinade and slow-cook--and time is what I've got plenty of these days.

The belly had shrunk by a third

Last week Costco was selling pork belly strips for $3.79 per pound, about half the price of chuck roast. A few months ago I had tried to slow-roast pork belly at 200°F. After four hours in the air fryer the product was rubbery and greatly disappointing. It was time to complete the experiment.

I rubbed the strips with prepackaged char siu (Chinese red pork) seasoning and left them overnight in the refrigerator. The next day I tried various combinations of temperature and roasting duration, one strip at a time.

The best result for this air fryer turned out to be 90 minutes at 275°F. The pork strips were fork tender, with a slight crisping around the edges. A great deal of fat had been rendered; the cooked belly had shrunk by a third. I put the fat in the fridge to solidify for later disposal in the compost bin.

Pork will go onto the shopping list. The coronavirus has brought us closer to our grandparents' life by forcing us to fix things ourselves, rediscover the joy of driving, and learning to cook what is available, not what we want.

Cinco de Mayo, 2020

Learning never stops: now I can find the date on the calendar. From 15 years ago:

SF CdM Festival, 2016 (Chron photo)

There’s a Chevy’s Restaurant near our house, and every Cinco de Mayo the cars overflow from the parking lot into our quiet neighborhood. It doesn’t matter whether one is Latino, Anglo, Asian, or black; the urge to party spans all races and cultures. Today we are all Hispanics, just as we’re all Irish on March 17th.

At least I’ve expanded my cultural horizons. When I first became aware of the holiday, I approached assorted individuals and asked, “When is Cinco de Mayo?” Years later, when I learned to count in Spanish (and French and Italian….) it dawned why they gave me strange looks.

If you're gonna ask a stupid question, you may as well ask the stupidest question.

SF Empty Storefront Tax: Oops

Last year we noted different views on San Francisco's empty storefront problem.

(Chronicle diagram)

Businesses asserted that one main factor was the lengthy permitting process that required small business owners to survive at least 12 months before opening. (Click to enlarge diagram, right.) Other reasons were

high construction costs, as well as the need for seismic retrofits, which account for a quarter of the neighborhood’s current vacancies. San Francisco’s high rents and labor costs have also hurt.

Progressives had a different take:

Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who represents North Beach, blame[d] landlords who have “unrealistic expectations of value” and “greedy brokers” who inflate those expectations.

The progressive view prevailed, and an empty-storefront-tax initiative passed in March. It will charge vacant properties $250 per foot of linear frontage.

The timing couldn't have been worse, because in two weeks the coronavirus shuttered even more San Francisco storefronts. (Some closings appear permanent, according to friends who walk by them every day). Even Aaron Peskin can't ignore the new reality:

The tax was slated to go into effect Jan. 1, 2021. On Tuesday, Peskin introduced legislation that would postpone the start date by nearly a year.

But the supervisor is undaunted:

Peskin said he still expects “the best behavior of property owners relative to helping stabilize small businesses.”

We expect you to behave....or else, comrade.