by Al Drinkle
“It is Time to get drunk! If you are not to be the martyred slaves of Time, be perpetually drunk! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you please.”
Charles Baudelaire
If this pandemic continues long enough to exhaust useful Baudelaire quotes, we're all in serious trouble. 150 years after they were written, his words resound with wisdom; although as much as we all love poetry, we've noticed that it takes a considerable amount to achieve drunkenness. In idle, isolated times, and while fleeing the tyrannical pursuit of one's thoughts, wine is an indispensable ally.
Rarely do we debase this forum or abuse your email contact in order to voice political opinions (except in the very rational favour of public consumption of alcohol ), but I feel the need to do so here. Please don't take this as a cheap, thinly-veiled endorsement of Metrovino, unless you're willing to do so within the greater context to which such self-promotion coincidentally belongs.
It's a fact that the crisis that we're currently undergoing is going to change the landscape of commerce in our city, and throughout the world. It's too soon to know how much leeway will be offered by landlords, which in turn will depend on the concessions that banks are willing to provide. The brutal truth is that many businesses won't make it through this unsavoury situation. (I fear most for the independent restaurants).
What I'm about to say is valid even at the best of times, and these are far from the best of times. We don't often think of it this way, but every time we spend a dollar, we are casting a vote. We are proclaiming, “this is a business that I value, one whose modest necessities I hope to help meet, and one that I hope will be able to keep its doors ajar for another day so that both it and I might further enjoy the mutual benefits of its existence.” Often the “it” in the equation can be personalized in the form of humans with whom you may have interacted with for years. And no matter how much you might enjoy the pleasantries exchanged, or the appealing quaintness of the operation, the survival of the “it” is based entirely on enough people spending money on the goods or services provided. When we spend money, we are voting for the kind of world that we wish to live in.
There is a legion of phantasmagoric question marks looming above a multiplicity of businesses all over the world. At this moment, more of them than ever are in a precarious situation, and never has your vote for the future of the ones you believe in been more important. I understand that this transcends the idea of business, and that countless individuals are also facing financial uncertainty. But when you do spend money, I urge you to do so with conviction, envisioning the world that you want to participate in on the other side of this crisis. If you want it to be all Amazon and Costco, you have every right to this vote (though I for one would rather perish from Covid-19 than have to participate in such a drab existence).
Even as I write this, countless local, independent businesses are re-strategizing and stalwartly adapting in order to serve you in the current environment. Your shopping-from-home choices have never been so vast and personable! These are going to be hard times for all of us, but that's no reason to sentence ourselves to chain restaurants and big-box retailers when we can nurture a brighter, more vibrant future for local operations. Please consider the power that you wield at the moment, and the future that you’re presently voting for.
