Someone has got to stop him. He keeps doing it and it’s not funny. It wasn’t funny the first time and it’s not funny now, after the fifth time.
We’re here to pay our respects to Grandpa Mac who died tragically last Saturday after getting hit by a loose shopping cart in a Vons parking lot. He was a great man and my psychobilly cousin, Mike, is being obscenely disrespectful by going up to his open casket and pretending to play it like it’s a bass. It’s especially fucked up since it was Grandpa Mac who first paid for his bass lessons in middle school.
Honestly, if he does it again, someone has to stop him. I can’t do it because the last time he and I got in a physical altercation, he poked me with a switchblade. It was one of those switchblade combs but still…it really, really hurt.
This family has done so much for him. We all supported Mike when he changed his name to “V. Carnal II.” We all told him his pompadour “looked great” even though we all thought it looked dumb. And the whole family went to go see his band, the Lonesome Cemetery Maniacs, when they played their first show. All that love and still he’s still behaving like a fucking shithead.
I seriously wish I could say this was the first time he’s done this. He’s pretended the casket is a bass at every single family funeral for the last five years. He did it at Grandma Edna’s, at cousin Mark’s, and he even did it at his own twin brother’s. My Aunt Deb says Mike does it because he doesn’t know how to process his grief and that he’s been working on dealing with his pain productively in therapy. Personally? I think that’s bullshit. I think he’s doing it because it fits his stupid psychobilly “brand” and he thinks it’s funny.
If he won’t listen to his family members, maybe he’ll listen to his girlfriend, Rita D. Ghoul. Someone should talk to her! I can’t do it because the last time she and I had a disagreement she tried to choke me with the red kerchief she was wearing around her neck. She’s really strong!
Welp…there he goes again, for the sixth time. Someone. Please. Help!
Season 2 starts off with Rachel finally ready to enter into a relationship with Ross, only to find that he’s reconnected with an old flame while in China. In an attempt to console her crestfallen friend, Phoebe says “Hey, I’ve got a bat over here whose all fucked up and sick, wanna do science stuff on it?” The gang quickly isolates the novel coronavirus, and against her better judgment, Rachel secretly infects Ross to sabotage his relationship, unaware of its high spreadability. While moments like Chandler quipping “Could I be more respirated?” were funny at the time, in hindsight, it was a pretty irresponsible thing to put on network television.
Upon learning that Joey’s movie in Vegas fizzled out, and he is in fact working as a gladiator in a casino, Chandler and Monica decide to go visit him, and the rest of the gang decided to tag along. Their mission: Give Joey Covid-19 as payback for lying about his movie. Could they have picked a bigger travel city?
When Monica is stung by a jellyfish, Chandler is forced to urinate on her wound to relieve the sting. Insulted, she prays to Poseidon for a means to exact revenge. Suddenly a seashell washes onto the shore before her and opens itself, revealing a vile of COVID-19. The episode ends with Monica grinning as Chandler complains he can’t taste his latte, the other patrons of Central Perk all coughing behind them. While this episode was an instant classic for originating the catchphrase “We were on a break!” its glib treatment of COVID-19, the virus that put the whole world on a break, is not forgivable.
When a writer threatens to kill off Joey’s soap opera character, he stages a stunt to change his mind—posing as a real doctor at a real hospital. Unfortunately, it works too well, and in his hubris, Joey tells the hospital staff “Get me some absolutely fucked up bats, I mean seriously the most ill-looking bats you can possibly find, and some needles, stat!” A week later Joey gets the call that his character won’t be killed off after all and he’s pumped, then we cut to the writer dying of Covid.
Monica rushes Ross to the hospital after what he believes to be an allergic reaction to kiwis. Turns out it’s COVID-19. Meanwhile, Joey and Chandler accidentally leave Ross’s baby son on a bus, unmasked, spreading the novel coronavirus to hundreds of commuters. While the gang didn’t invent COVID-19 in this one, Pheobe’s anti-vaccination anthem “Smelly Vax” did a lot of harm.
In this classic bottle episode, the gang franticly tries to get ready for an important event at the museum, with some hilarious single-room antics. Joey puts on Chandler’s clothes, Rachel has an obsessive meltdown over her outfit, and Monica keeps fiddling with a bunch of medical waste and pangolin carcasses she found. They almost bail, until Ross reminds everyone that the Imuno-compromised patrons’ dinner only happens once a year, and they go, as the camera stays on a Covid-19 test strip slowly turning positive. Cue laugh track
When Pheobe becomes a surrogate mother for her brother and his fiance, she becomes transfixed with the awesome power of science, telling the gang “I bet I could create new variants of Covid-19 if I set my mind to it!” When they mock her, she hits the lab determined to get her revenge. She succeded, and the death toll is 3 million and growing.
When a cheesecake is accidentally delivered to Chandler’s apartment, he and Rachel just can’t stop themselves from wolfing it down. They feel guilty about it, but when the same thing happens again they just eat it again. Angered by their transgression, the rightful recipient has a third cheesecake sent to Chandler’s home, this one full of coronavirus. Chandler and Rachel are so angry that when a 4th cheesecake is delivered they eat the entire thing immediately with their bare hands like animals, even though they can’t taste anything.
Chandler and Monica impulsively decide to elope in Vegas, but when they go to the chapel, who do they see coming out? An incredibly drunk Ross and Rachel, who just wed themselves! Meanwhile, the world around them is in chaos. The COVID they irresponsibly gave Joey as a prank spreads like wildfire through the casino. Vegas is swiftly placed on lockdown, but it’s too late. Between the jet-setting high rollers and sex workers, Joey interacts with, the virus is global in a matter of hours. Hospitals are overrun, nonessential workers are told to stay home, and food supply chains are rapidly breaking down with no plan to fix them in sight. The gangs’ response? Backing away slowly whistling nonchalantly.
The gang decides to watch a home video of Rachel and Monica getting ready for their senior prom. After some very tasteful and funny fat-shaming of Monica that has aged like wine, Rachel’s date seemingly bails, and Ross decides to save the day by putting on a tux and taking her himself. By the time he gets ready Rachel’s date arrives, and Ross is left crestfallen, muttering to himself “Well, I guess I’ll go finish that Covid-19 virus I was working on. We don’t have cell phones or Zoom yet or anything so it’s going to be extra funny I guess.” Moved by what she has seen in the video, Rachel kisses Ross, and immediately begins dry coughing, prompting the whole gang to say “Here we go again!”
No way in hell that Uncle Dan has even heard of Genesis. The guy was locked up for grand theft auto for like a decade and works as a firefighter in the Cayman Islands now. Does he even like music? I’ve only seen him listen to Atlanta Braves games from the ’70s on the radio. This is a major no – I think that if he saw Phil Collins in the wild, he’d dunk him like a basketball.
Uncle Leonard was pushing 80 last time I checked (he’s the first born), and he sure as shit isn’t getting any younger. Not a great look to be covering a band when you’re older than all of the original members. His tinnitus is already a total mess, and I’m pretty sure if he picked up a drumstick his arm would crack in half. Keeping this guy away from any amplifiers is a must.
Uncle Stevie is really, really cool. He rides a motorcycle and drinks beer with his shirt off every night. Never got married, never even had a girlfriend, according to my mom – said he never really bought into the whole “listening” thing. I asked him once when I was 16 if he’d ever heard “Selling England” by the Pound and he blew cigarette smoke in my face. He’s not interested.
Uncle Mark is pretty busy with his King Crimson cover band already – doubt he’d be interested in double dipping.
Uncle Matt loaned me my first-ever guitar when I was a kid, gave me a bunch of Bad Brains tab books for Christmas once too. As a result of his punk tendencies, I don’t really think he’s ever really listened to a song that’s more than 90 seconds long. I reckon he’d freak the hell out around minute eight of “Cinema Show” if he ever had to play it live. Not a great fit.
Okay, we’re starting to get somewhere now! Uncle Zane loves Peter Gabriel, he’s got the words “you could have a steam train” tattooed on his ass. Gregarious guy too, would have killer stage banter I’d bet. Maybe I could convince him Gabriel never left the band? He did a ton of coke when he lived in Berlin in the ’80s and tends to forget major details from his wife and kids’ lives.
Uncle Patrick has straight up zero musical talent – he is, however, a professional foley artist for the movies, so he does know his way around his bleeps, borps, and noisemakers. Obviously Tony Banks was doing all that experimental electronic stuff on the keyboard during Genesis live shows, but I’m sure any cover band would be thrilled to have a “weird sounds guy” in the crew.
No, no, I’m not talking about founding member and guitarist Mike Rutherford! This is just my Uncle Mike. He brews his own beer, which is always a huge “get” for any cover band practice.
Any dude from here on out would be stoked to start his own Genesis cover band. Uncle Billy is a prog nut and had a Foxtrot poster in his first apartment. He’s been playing the drums for like forty years and is about to retire from his job doing customer service for a battery company. The only reason that he isn’t number one is because he legitimately has zero friends.
Uncle Kevin told me that he once spent a whole summer in the English countryside in his early 20s, milking cows and translating an old version of the Farmers Almanac from Gaelic. He’s one of those weird Anglophile dudes who only reads books by Welsh poets – Kevin, you’re from Raleigh, brother! No doubt in my mind that this guy would love to play all of “Wind & Wuthering” in his buddy’s two-car garage.
Aw, man, Uncle Keith. This guy rips! He’s probably the most talented “amateur” pianist that I’ve ever met. Very spiritual dude, sits around all weekend in his gazebo smoking weed from a wizard’s pipe and doing literary analysis on the interconnected universe of the Genesis discography. He even designed his own tabletop role-playing-game loosely based on the events of the band’s history – I rolled Phil as a Cleric with him and his boys last summer. You’re the man, Uncle Keith!
Yeah, yeah, this time I am talking about founding member and guitarist Mike Rutherford – who’s also my Mom’s third oldest brother. He’s getting a little antsy and wants to play the hits again!
