HUMOR FOR COVID TIMES AND ALL TIMES

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In Casablanca, Rick says to Ilsa, “Here’s looking at you kid,” but between the cigarette smoke and the masks they are wearing, he embraces the Captain of Police instead, thereby creating the first LGBTQ film in the 1940’s.

In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy decides not to go back to Kansas, where masks are mandatory, and opts to hang-out with the Munchkins at the clubs, which resemble Wisconsin roadhouses on a bad day, which is every day. Trump hats, smokes and bad beer, teeth optional.

In The Day the Earth Stood Still, Gort blasts everyone without masks in the entire United States of America, starting first with fat, white people in Texas who insist on going to pancake houses, stating gorging on high fructose corn syrup is part of their first amendment rights.

In Psycho, Norman Bates can’t find Marion in the shower because the steam and the mask have fogged up his vision, so he ends up slipping and hitting his head on the bathroom floor. He dies instantly and she takes off for the coast with his mummified Mother for a companion.

In True Grit, Rooster Cogburn, drunk and disorderly as usual, but wearing a mask to support his hero, Rutherford B. Hayes, shoots himself in the leg and is thrown under his horse. He stops bounty hunting and opens a brothel in Pahrump, Nevada.

In The Godfather, Don Corleone, who mumbles anyway, can’t be heard behind the mask so no one gets killed for the entire movie and instead learn pasta making skills and open a chain of restaurants in Brooklyn called Sonny, Mike and the Don.

In Jaws, an enormous mask is torpedoed onto the mouth of the Great White Shark, rendering him incapable of eating human flesh. Beaches are reopened on the east coast, where more fat, white people congregate without masks, eating chili cheesedogs and whining about how social distancing is a Communist plot.

In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O’Hara ingeniously creates masks out of the green velvet drapes in her aunt’s drawing room, thereby causing a fashion sensation. Southern belles clamor for her masks. Mammy becomes a millionaire and works with Lincoln on drafting the Emaskcapation Proclamation. Rhett Butler says he doesn’t give a damn as he can’t smoke Cuban cigars with a mask and leaves the country.

In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nurse Ratched injects Randall and the other patients with Lysol to see if this will clear up and clean up their minds. When it doesn’t work, she attaches N-95 masks to their lobotomy scars and sends a picture to Washington where it is immediately minted onto a 95-cent coin with the face of Trump resembling Alfred E. Newman. Instead of e pluribus unum, it’s What, Me Worry? The new national motto.

Popcorn now drenched with hydroxychloroquine. Butter optional.

Now that the COVID pandemic has changed our personal and artistic pursuits, let’s consider how our favorite operas and stage plays will be changed by social distancing.

Streetcar Named Desire- T. Williams

Blanche du Bois wanders the French Quarter uttering, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” but no one can hear her behind her silk mask, so she gets hit by the streetcar and is impaled by the bottle of vodka concealed in her tattered negligee. Stanley Kowalski’s big mouth is unhindered by the mask made out of his Dago t-shirt.

William Tell- Rossini

William Tell can’t accurately shoot the apple off his son’s head because the mask impairs his depth perception so he kills the Grand Duke instead and is exiled to Elba where he and Napoleon invent Peach Melba. 

Cyrano de Bergerac-Rostand

All future performances will be cancelled as there is no mask big enough to cover Cyrano’s nose.

No Exit- Sartre

Inez, Joseph and Estelle are forced to wear masks the entire time that they are in exile and in verbal combat. Inez complains incessantly of not being able to perform sex acts with her masked mouth. Estelle complains she won’t be able to repair her makeup and where is her lipstick? Joseph is pissed the ladies can’t see his infamous sneer. They sit throughout eternity snapping the elastic bands on their masks while Inez screeches renditions of La Vie en Rose and other Piaf tunes.

Medea

Because all the students are wearing masks Medea can’t find her children to murder as she wanders the playground of the Peloponnesus Day School. Instead, she drags her bony ass to the seashore and drowns herself. 

The Phantom of the Opera- Leroux or Lloyd Webber, if you must

Erik the Phantom gets to be with his beloved Christine, because she never sees his deformed face behind the mask and he never sees hers, thus keeping the reality of her overbite and pug nose a secret throughout eternity. Amor vincit amnia, said Virgil, who ripped up old togas for masks.

Un Ballo in Maschera- A Masked Ball- Verdi

Everyone remains masked during the entire opera thereby keeping Riccardo alive. Ulrica the witch goes out of business as no one can sniff her psychedelic herbs and get high. The peasants dance and sing and manage to swill potent cheap wine through holes in their masks. These masks are then passed on to the gypsies in Il Trovatore, which keeps unemployment down at the Metropolitan Opera.

Shakespeare

Richard the Third- can’t find a horse behind his mask.

Othello- can’t strangle Desdemona as her mask is encircled with jewels that hang to her bosom.

Macbeth- Lady Macbeth, wearing a mask and far-sighted, never gets those damn spots off her hands.

Romeo and Juliet- Romeo, wearing a heavy ornate lion mask and being near-sighted, falls off Juliet’s balcony and is plunged to an even earlier death.

Peter Pan- J.M. Barrie- Peter Pan, having vision problems with his shadow mask that Tinkerbell booby-trapped because she hates Wendy, can’t find Neverland. He gives up flying and permanently moves in with the Darlings, watching reruns of Seinfeld and Bonanza and ordering curbside pick-up Domino’s pizzas.

And for the poets-

He jests at scars that never felt or wore a mask.  Romeo

Two masks diverged in a yellow wood. Robert Frost

If masks be the food of love, wear on. Count Orsino

How do I love thee? Let me count the masks. Liz Barrett Browning

Methought, I was enamoured of an ass in a mask. Titania

Oh, my love is like a red, red mask. Robert Burns

A mask! A mask! My kingdom for a mask. Richard III

Awop-bop-a-loo-mop alop-bom-bom. Little Richard, R.I.P.

Etiquette, for those of you who flunked basic vocabulary, is polite behavior in society.  In the olden days, Great-Grandma read Emily Post* to find out what was the fish fork at a formal dinner, how to write a thank-you note for a wedding gift and what was a proper bereavement note for the family of a deceased person.  No more.

Now that society is mainly comprised of Zoom and Google meetings, classes and parties, oh my! Here are some rules to follow.

Don’t talk about how being on Zoloft for ten years has affected your orgasms.  We don’t need to know.  Ditto, for how you can’t cry anymore, because of your meds.  This does not excuse 10 minutes Zoom melt-downs as we all wait to open our gift cards.

Please be dressed, at least from the waist up.  Watching you drop guacamole on your hairy chest is really a turn off and does not promote bonhomie.*

Don’t fight with your partner or scream at your kids.  Save it for later.

Cover those damn parakeets, they squawk so badly, I dropped my drink.

Try to stay awake during the daily staff meeting.  I know hearing the boss reading from Dale Carnegie* is over your head, but try to blink once every minute, it helps justifying not firing your ass.

We will not discuss politics or religion at work, at cousin Annette’s baby shower, and during teleconference appointments with the urgent care physician’s assistant about your possible STD.

Please mute your audio if you have to belch or pass gas.

Likewise, please kill the video if you have to scratch, vape or yawn.

Remember, Zoom is the room of the now and the future. Put on your lipstick, shave that stubble and smile, smile, smile.

Emily Post 1872-1960.  Manners for a New World. 19th edition.

*Bonhomie- good feelings

*Dale Carnegie- How to Win Friends and Influence People. 1936.