Joe Kaminski

Joe Kaminski

In this interview Joe Kaminski shares his views on Covid during the first encounter with it and how it still affects us today.

Detroit Historical Society

Detroit Historical Society

en-US

Joe Kaminski

Kevin Hawthorne

22:47

Joe Kaminski: Hear you what?

Kevin Hawthorne: Hello, this is Kevin Hawthorne with the Detroit Historical Society. With the oral history project I am here today with, if you may, introduce yourself.

Joe Kaminski: Joe Kaminski.

Kevin Hawthorne: Could you spell your name for the record?

Joe Kaminski: J o e Space K a m i n s k i

Kevin Hawthorne: Thank you so much. In what area do you currently live in?

Joe Kaminski: The Dearborn area.

Kevin Hawthorne: About how far outside of Detroit?

Joe Kaminski: Like, I don't know, like maybe two miles.

Kevin Hawthorne: And are you often in the Detroit area?

Joe Kaminski: Yeah. That's awesome.

Kevin Hawthorne: Yeah. And what is your, line of work?

Joe Kaminski: I run a record store for you.

Kevin Hawthorne: And when did you start working at the record store?

Joe Kaminski: Seven, eight years ago. Okay.

Kevin Hawthorne: So shifting to that seven years ago. All right, so with the onset of Covid 19, do you remember, where you were when you first heard about it, or, what? Just your first initial reactions to it.

Joe Kaminski: Yeah, I was at work. We were talking about it, and I vividly remember people discussing it, and they're like, I think this is going to be a big deal. Think something's going to happen with this? Or do you think that it's just kind of. It just going to. However, I say, I think it's just going to probably stay in China. I think it'll move over here that fast. Then a week later, we were like in lockdown. So.

Kevin Hawthorne: And what was your experience with lockdown in general?

Joe Kaminski: Like my personal experience with lockdown. Like what I was doing. Are you asking, like, my thoughts on, us going into a lockdown?

Kevin Hawthorne: Just your personal feelings on lockdown and, like, your experience. Personal experience.

Joe Kaminski: I think it's the right thing to do. I think, I really hope that saved a bunch of lives by going into lockdown. I personally had a very enjoyable time. Like many people during lockdown, I got really into hobbies. I got really into woodworking. Made music. I started to paint. It was just those three hobbies, mainly, for me in my free time. Not working a full job for a few months.

Kevin Hawthorne: And how did, that affect, like, how the record store worked, like, in terms of, like, you know, ordering records and just in general running, obviously, probably during like the initial lockdown, you guys are just straight up not open. But when you guys reopened, what was like that, like with the initial wave of Covid?

Joe Kaminski: Initially we didn't open to the public. We only did mail order. So, we yeah, we moved all of our focuses to shipping. Everyone, started working in the shipping department. Everyone's packing orders constantly all day, and we had enough orders because people, but people got into vinyl at that time. Because they couldn't. There's like a whole thing if people couldn't see live music, but they wanted to experience music in some way. And listening to a record spin is is almost. That experience. But not. Not that it's an experience in itself that people really latched onto in a time when they couldn't see somebody in person. So I think there was a crazy high demand for vinyl at that time.

Kevin Hawthorne: So you guys were able to still be like, breaking even throughout that time and being able to keep the doors open. Well, you know, like a metaphor, metaphorically.

Joe Kaminski: The metaphor of. Yes. Think we are doing pretty good, especially right after lockdown when people could. I would say like when lockdown ended, which I think is like a fuzzy term or fuzzy phrase because it ended for different people, different times. We opened to. Curbside. Before we did anything else. And, people really like that. But it was weird. We, we would have, like, lines of cars in our parking lot, and we'd just be walking orders out all day.

Kevin Hawthorne: And when you guys became fully open to the public, did you noticed a shift in how it was before, from before Covid?

Joe Kaminski: Can you give me an example of what you would escalate what you're asking about?

Kevin Hawthorne: Yeah, just the like the kind of just the vibe of people of like, you know, who would come in versus the people who would come in pre-COVID and like, just like the general atmosphere.

Joe Kaminski: I think people were more determined to find music than before Covid. That's like my first reaction. Like people were crate digging way more than before. You see a few crate diggers a day, but it was like every other person was just digging in every box that they could try and find stuff because it was like you couldn't find anything. Everyone was buying. Buying records. I couldn't do anything else. So. It's important during the holiday season. It's like that when, like less, less concerts are happening during like the month of December. We also selling records because it's like it's Christmas time and, you know, gift giving and whatnot. But people also like, I can't go to this concert. I can't go out and have fun outside. It's cold. So just staying inside and listening to music that I enjoy in this format, that's a little more special. Yeah.

Kevin Hawthorne: Was there any record in particular that you noticed was especially popular during lockdown? Was there like one record you were getting a lot of orders for?

Joe Kaminski: I well, it came out after lockdown. The folklore by Taylor Swift. Okay, easy.

Kevin Hawthorne: Would you say that was the soundtrack to the, for the lockdown? For a lot of people.

Joe Kaminski: For a lot of people. I mean. I don't know, I would. I. I would love to write a think piece about what how Covid 19 drastically helped the career of Taylor Swift.

Kevin Hawthorne: That is definitely a great idea for to think this.

Joe Kaminski: And I thought that before. I think it's like an original thought at all. But, I would love to look at numbers. I wish I could, like, get her stats before Covid, like see her Spotify streams, but also Spotify skyrocketed during Covid and as a as a platform too. So I don't know, it's kind of everything skewed because of that. Like no numbers make sense. Yeah.

Kevin Hawthorne: Just because Covid just fundamentally changed the way people interact with not just music, but with like a lot of different art forms in general. Like, you know, TV movies, like movies barely stay in the theaters for more than like two weeks now. Whereas it used to be you had to wait like monster, a movie, to come to direct video. And now I like I see a movie in in two weeks later, like now you can buy it on your at home. I'm like, oh wow. And it really is like the impact of that.

Joe Kaminski: I think we're moving back to that though, because I feel like, we're not moving to like, I feel like I remember it being like six months after a movie was in theaters. It was becoming a home video. But, I didn't see the movie that I wanted to the, I saw the TV glow. I just saw the TV glow. If that movie, it's coming to streaming in the next month, so, so I my my dog is going crazy right now.

Kevin Hawthorne: No, that is totally okay.

Joe Kaminski: Do you hear her?

Kevin Hawthorne: Only a little bit. It's fine.

Joe Kaminski: Okay.

Kevin Hawthorne: All right. And then you, are a musician as well, correct?

Joe Kaminski: Yes.

Kevin Hawthorne: How did. What are you booking shows before Covid? Were you trying to, like, book stuff and was anything canceled?

Joe Kaminski: A bunch of stuff was canceled. My old band was going to open a bunch of, like, shows for, audio three presents. Sorry. I'm just gonna put my dog or my lap. He's just begging for attention right now.

Kevin Hawthorne: That's totally okay.

Joe Kaminski: We had a bunch of shows booked for Covid and we kept getting the. Things are getting weird with Covid emails. So we're going to just delay. We're going to push it back to like May. When this all should be straightened out. That's 2020.

Kevin Hawthorne: Yeah. And then May rolled around and obviously things did not straighten out. So how many shows did you end up having to cancel?

Joe Kaminski: 3 or 4 that I can recall. I mean, they were all like. They were booked through, fusion shows. So they were, like, bigger shows. I remember we were opening for the bands Summer cannibals and the band. The bomb pops. But but yeah, those two shows, I vividly remember both. They both got canceled. And. We. Yeah. They just didn't get rebooked. So.

Kevin Hawthorne: And how is that that feeling of like just because those were pretty big opportunities, and to see them kind of just slip through your fingers through something that, you know, obviously you had no control over. What was the general feeling of that?

Joe Kaminski: Personally, I didn't really care, because I thought something more important was going on, like, like, I don't know if anyone was, like, how I can't play the show when, like, a, you know, a global pandemic is happening. That's ridiculous. That's like a really selfish. Rude. Mean thing to say or to think. It's like super selfish and disgusting to me. So I was like, yeah, there's bigger fish to fry here. Yeah. Cancel the show. I don't care.

Kevin Hawthorne: No, absolutely. And you said you started getting into recording. Had you been recording at home before Covid?

Joe Kaminski: No.

Kevin Hawthorne: No. So Covid really spurred you just started getting more in home recording?

Joe Kaminski: No.

Kevin Hawthorne: So what did you, you getting home recording?

Joe Kaminski: Well, I guess I did some home recording. I would do like, lo fi, like phone recordings and stuff, and I would do like really basic recordings on my computer before Covid. The recording stuff at home didn't really start until after Covid lockdown ended. It was just because my band was breaking up. So I had to do something creative. And I, kind of lost my passion for painting a little bit. And I was in the midst of moving, so I really couldn't like. And I didn't want to make anything with wood. So I was like, well, what am I even going to do? So like the two pack, the two, like other artistic, avenues I had, were kind of shut down. So I just got in the home recording, as a means of, like, artistic, artistic expression.

Kevin Hawthorne: So would you say, like, like lockdown kind of changed your artistic perspective, or was it just heading that way in general? You think already?

Joe Kaminski: I think it showed me avenues that didn't know or possible for me. Because I got into painting when I literally had Covid and I couldn't see anybody. So I would, I would mask up and go outside in my backyard and I would paint outside. And I would like to splatter paintings and whatnot. One second, I'm going to.

Kevin Hawthorne: Yeah,Yeah. For the record of people who are listening back to this, Joe is showing me a very wonderful splatter painting. He did.

Joe Kaminski: Yeah. This is like one of the first ones I did. And I really like this one. But, I just kind of over here. I don't know when I could see people again. I painted less and less and. I have probably like 20 blank canvas in my house right now. I just haven't used and I want to work on them. But I also don't feel that that specific artistic drive currently have. It's been making music. Keep doing that thing again.

Kevin Hawthorne: And then getting a little bit more specific. Have you caught Covid within the four years?

Joe Kaminski: Sorry. What?

Kevin Hawthorne: Have you caught Covid within the four years of, you know, between 2020 and 2024? Have you contracted Covid at all during this time?

Joe Kaminski: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what I got. I got Covid in October of 2020. And that's when I got into painting. And I've gotten it possibly two other times. I can't remember the exact times I vividly remember being sick on Halloween. 2020. So.

Kevin Hawthorne: What was just your general experience with having it?

Joe Kaminski: Terrible. Awful dont recommended awful. I got very sick, and. I was, like, bedridden for days. This is like what I got in 2020. This before. Before like the vaccine rollout. So it was like really hit me hard. I lost my sense of smell for like six months.

Kevin Hawthorne: Oh, God.

Joe Kaminski: Yeah. I was like,cooking dinner six months later. I was like, frying onions. And then I smelled them. I was like, whoa. Sense of smell is back.

Kevin Hawthorne: And have you had in have you noticed any like, long Covid symptoms that you've had.

Joe Kaminski: I had fatigued for a very long time. Like after the six months I was just tired all the time. I haven't had Covid in, a year and a half. Two years. And I'm hoping to keep it that way. Yeah.

Kevin Hawthorne: And, in general, we were talking a little bit about the lockdown. With the lockdown, with both the state level and national level. How did you feel the response was?

Joe Kaminski: What do you mean? The response? Like the like the people's response.

Kevin Hawthorne: The government's the like local the government that runs. Yeah. Also people too if you how people in your neighborhood reacted as well.

Joe Kaminski: People in a neighborhood were pretty awkward about it. Like my neighbors talking to me, like over the fence line. And they're like, yeah, this is going on. What's up with that? You know this. Like they're also like older people. Not that old people like don't know what's going on, but I feel like. When you're older. I feel like sometimes you have more things to do. Like you have kids you have to deal with. There's like, you have a job, you have kids. Those things have to do. So like watching the news and figure out, like global pain that was going on is like lower on your list of things you have to get done today. So, it was like, what's up with all that? That was kind of the vibe.

Kevin Hawthorne: And just in general with this experience, like, obviously this is something that is pretty unprecedented within our lifetimes. Like, obviously we had things like, I remember growing up there was the, swine flu and then a couple of even just like a couple years before Covid, there was that a Ebola outbreak. But in general, like this is very like unprecedented for this lifetime. Are you concerned about something else happening like this within your lifetime?

Joe Kaminski: Yeah. Well, yeah, I'd rather not happen, I thought. When when I heard about Covid, I was like, oh, it's going to go the way of the swine flu. It's going to. Not be that big of a deal. Hopefully not. It wasn't so good. And that's I mean, underplaying the seriousness of Covid. It was like, you know, in like January, February of 2020, I think we I don't think very few people knew how bad it was actually going to get. Yeah.

Kevin Hawthorne: No, absolutely. I think only like, like people who are really crunched in the medical field were probably the only ones who are like, hey, it's going to be really bad.

Joe Kaminski: Yeah.

Kevin Hawthorne: And is there anything that we haven't touched on with this interview that you would like to discuss?

Joe Kaminski: Oh, I don't think I even said anything about the government rollout for lockdown. I skipped that, did not answer that question.

Kevin Hawthorne: I didn't know if you just didn't want to answer it sometimes as people. So, yes, the government response.

Joe Kaminski: I thought it was kind of half a half assed leave that in that. That's not a spare.

Kevin Hawthorne: Yes. So could you go a little bit more in depth of why you thought that?

Joe Kaminski: It was just kind of like everything was like a half measure, like, okay, you can go out, okay? People are mad. So you can go out a little bit as a treat. And I felt like that was the response to everything. There's few people yelling that they had to wear a frickin mask when I went to the grocery store. And they're like, okay, we'll leave it up to the stores to decide. It's like, why are we passing the buck like this to everything? For national Health, it's annoying.

Kevin Hawthorne: You know? Absolutely. And with that said again, is there anything else you, we haven't covered with, in discussions to Covid and just anything you'd like to discuss?

Joe Kaminski: Are you going to. So are you going to, like, discuss the vaccine rollout in this thing that you're you're doing?

Kevin Hawthorne: We haven't done it as much. If there's anything you'd like to discuss about the vaccine rollout.

Joe Kaminski: I can say that I had a pretty positive experience with the vaccine rollout in Dearborn. You know what you have. Sorry. My doctor has something. Okay. In Dearborn, he was pretty positive. I hear what the deal the city struck with, it was Moderna. Where we got the vaccine here. If you were a Dearborn resident, you got it earlier than most people. So that was that was very nice. Because I think I got it in like. February 2021. March 8th, 2021. Now I feel like that I was I was one of the first people I knew that was able to get. I wasn't over the age of, like, 55 was the first people who got it or something like that.

Kevin Hawthorne: And have you kept up with the vaccine roll out of like being able to get the newest booster when you're able to?

Joe Kaminski: Yes. When I, when I remember to, I, on record, I don't know if I need another one, I can't recall. I guess I'd have to ask my, my physician if I have not if I'm up to date or not. Yeah.

Kevin Hawthorne: All right. Leave us with one final question, then. A lot of people, same, seem to say, like we live in the post-Covid world, which is, you know, not technically true. Covid is still here. What would you, you think, say to those people who think about like, COVID's fine and not a big deal anymore?

Joe Kaminski: That's a really good question. I mean, I have, I have. A close family that passed away from Covid after. After Covid ended. So I would say those people. I want to swear.

Kevin Hawthorne: You can swear.

Joe Kaminski: Just like, get your head out of your ass. Like, what do you mean? like people are still getting sick and people left. People are getting sick. That's true. But people are still dying. And. And I usually get the argument like people still die of the flu. It's like, yeah, they do. It's not good. Or you can tell people that died of the Spanish flu. That's like 100 years later. People are still dying from that. And they're like, just deal. Just deal with that. It's fine. I want to get my I want to be able to go get my Halloween decorations in July. Yeah. I don't know if you got that.

Kevin Hawthorne: I got, I got that. I hope the listeners will get that. Okay, listeners, look up Tim Robinson, Halloween. And you'll find a great video. Which which family members passed away from Covid, if I may ask?

Joe Kaminski: Both are my fiance's side. Her mother and her grandfather. Okay.

Kevin Hawthorne: I'm very sorry for your loss.

Joe Kaminski: Thank you.

Kevin Hawthorne: Yeah. I'm sure that was, you know, hard to deal with during lockdown when you can really see anybody.

Joe Kaminski: Oh, this was after lockdown.

Kevin Hawthorne: After lockdown. And again, like.

Joe Kaminski: They passed away. Your grandfather passed away the end of 2021, and her mother passed away at the beginning of 2022. And quite like, you know, come on. I'm. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's a second.

Kevin Hawthorne: Yes. Two, three. And like you said, like people thought that like, the pandemic was quote unquote over at that point. So I'm sure that was extra, you know, you know it. I'm sure if I didn't help, like with the grieving.

Joe Kaminski: No, not at all. It was pretty. It was when, my fiance's mom passed away. We, the doctor came in and told us that she wasn't gonna make it. Then we were visiting. And, the doctor started crying. I never seen a doctor cry before. And, she said that this is the first Covid death we've had in a year. I like.

Kevin Hawthorne: Yeah. That's. Again, sorry for your loss. That's really rough.

Joe Kaminski: Yeah, to get really dark and real there. But it was like she. She didn't know that she had a lung condition, you know, till after she got sick, which. Which is the case. That's like how people that's how a lot of people passed with Covid.

Kevin Hawthorne: You know. But, I think with doing oral history on Covid, we expected some things to get dark and real. So thank you for being open with that. I really appreciate that.

Joe Kaminski: Yeah. No problem. All right. Do you have any other questions?

Kevin Hawthorne: Is there anything else you'd like to say?

Joe Kaminski: If you're sick, wear a mask. If you're at all sick, wear a mask. It doesn't matter if it's about Covid, just like, don't get people sick. I think that we should learn that from this. This is, if you're a little sick, wear a mask around people. It's not weird. It's wrong. It's not embarrassing to wear a mask.

Kevin Hawthorne: I absolutely agree and Joe, thank you so much for being here today.

Joe Kaminski: No problem.