My Almost-Fight in a Liquor Store for Not Wearing a Mask
Get Pumped and Proud with Tesstamona's 'Let 'Em Know' for #FreedomMusicFriday
As I have written previously, I found myself—especially during covid-mania—gravitating toward defiant music: Rebellious. Hard-edged. Sometimes angry. I hate to use the word “empowering,” but that pretty much sums it up.
I wanted to listen to music that spoke to my feeling of resentment and revulsion at the tyranny and compliance all around me.
I wanted to listen to music that spoke to my feeling of pride in not complying.
I don’t recall exactly when—probably in the spring of 2021—I had a pertinent conversation with my wife. Here is the backstory…
I was the guy not complying.
There were times when I was the only one not wearing a mask (the mark of the slave) out of several hundred in, say, the local Walmart. I am looking around, thinking, “I know at least some of you #$%@ers know that this is all BS. Why are you making me be the only one actually standing up against it?”
In the aggregate, women are more agreeable, more conflict-averse, and more social, than men. (Those are statistical realities, so please don’t yell at me.) So I understood that a larger portion of women might feel more reluctant to risk public conflict by not wearing a mask.
But men, in the aggregate, are less agreeable, less conflict-averse, and less social. So where were they? Every one of those dudes who knew that masking was BS should have been right there with me. But they weren’t.
It had already almost come to blows once, between me and some random slob in a tank top. I am not the strongest guy—a lover, not a fighter—and as you all know, more focused on philosophy than fisticuffs. But I didn’t give a crap. I squared off with this guy, and he backed down.
And I would have done it again. In the ensuing months, I got looks from a few other dudes who had decided to deputize themselves enforcers of the regime, but the look I shot back with my maskless face made them think better of pursuing the matter.
My wife was there for the almost-fight in the liquor store. If he had thrown a punch, my plan was to block and then immediately go for a roundhouse kick to the outside of his left knee, to take him out of the fight quickly, before he had even thought of the possibility of kicks. I also would have happily hit him over the head with a liquor bottle. I was not going to lose a fight to Mr. “Wear a Fucking Mask.” The owners of the liquor store (and their cameras, I’m sure) were watching. At that moment, I didn’t care.
My wife would probably have joined in. That’s how she rolls, once pushed far enough.
But she really does not like getting into those situations. She is a strong woman, but she is also generally conflict-averse, until, as I say, she is pushed too far. My general defiance in public—with medical offices, flight attendants, stores, etc.—did sometimes make her uncomfortable, and she definitely did not want to be put in the position of getting into a fight, bailing me out for an assault charge, searching the ground for one of my missing teeth, etc.
We were talking about all this one day, and suddenly it occurred to me to say, “Yeah, but at least you are married to a man who will stand by his convictions.”
In that moment, I grew a few inches taller. I realized the rarity of that trait—how few people actually do stand up for their beliefs, especially in the face of public opprobrium. There may very well come a day when my courage fails. Or I may calculate that certain stands are not worth the risk of martyrdom or injury. But on that day, I realized that I was very proud of being a part of the small cohort who were actually taking a stand.
If you are reading these words, you are likely to have been among that number. Maybe the stand you took was less public, or maybe it was far braver. Maybe you did not fully realize what was going on then, but you get it now, and you know you will never let them do that to you again.
You deserve music that recognizes your courage. You deserve music that makes you feel strong, proud, and ready to take it to the next level. You deserve Tesstamona ‘s “Let ‘em know.”
The lyrics are in the video. Get pumped. Be proud. You’ve earned it.
PS: the #FreeedomMusicFriday movement continues to spread. (See below.) Who’s next…?
I have a customer that owns a huge gym and health center in the town I live. I’ve done all the carpentry/contracting there for almost 40 years. His manager is a brilliant Jewish guy who’s helped me here and there with minor tech issues, we are friends. I was working at his house in Canton Mass and we got into a bit of a heated conversation to say the least about the president forcing the vaccine, masks, social distancing etc… Eventually he said because I’m unvaxed I should be locked in my house and not allowed out period. I told Steve that my father volunteered to go to Germany, risk his life, to help free his ancestors from the same type of totalitarian bullshit he was pushing on me. I told him my father was shot in the back by a Nazi that had similar ideas to his and that my father had a lung ripped out of him after being shipped to England on his death bed. I mentioned that my father died when I was 20 mainly due to the hell he went through in the battle of the bulge etc saving his friggen relatives. I told Steve I will never comply to his Nazi thoughts of locking people up for not taking a shot that I don’t believe in. I also said back in Nazi Germany they would inject Jews with different chemicals to see what would happen and that this created the Nuremberg Codes one being informed consent. This they decided was essential to all. Steve was dumb founded and never brought anything related up about it again. J.Goodrich
I've come to the conclusion that people who wear masks (in their car for instance) like to be hidden.
Kind of like the people who throw punches online in forums and commentary who don't even have a picture of themselves showing. It empowers them, because they are basically cowards.
Now, I give a broad stroke to older people in Walmart who still mask up because they really don't want to get sick, and if the mask has even the slightest possibility of helping them avoid it, they are all in. And they're not expecting everyone else to follow suit.
But I've always felt like our face was the centerpiece of our expression. There's a reason we have a face, and a reason why it is so expressive. Hiding my face was an absolute affront to me. I did it for a short time at the time, but I can count on one hand those instances, and it always made me sick to my stomach and angered me greatly, as well as resentment when I discovered how it was being used to normalize servitude and remove identity from us, much the same way as slaves have no identity.
I had a lot of RATM on my playlist in that time.