You know who the real heroes of this pandemic are: doctors, nurses, first responders, sanitation and utility workers, grocery store and retail workers, mail carriers…
Still, there are a lot of other good folks, in positions of less importance, who who help us get through this. I’m glad they’re along for the ride.
Too many evenings, I’ll sit down, drained from a long day of too much bad news and conflict, and happen to see an incredible video that somehow makes me smile, or laugh out loud.
The source is usually a wildly talented young comedian – more often then not, a female comedian – who is riffing on the inconceivable rantings of Donald Trump.
* * *
The first video I saw was by a young New Yorker, J-L Cauvin. (They’re all young New Yorkers, it seems…)
His imitation of Trump was dead-on, as he declared that he was opening the US economy – by Easter, no less!!
It’s just so horribly funny, so deliciously wrong, that you can’t believe you’re laughing, as he brags, “God… he’s a good God, he’s done some strong things… but let’s be honest… his record is not so great… He brought one guy back from the dead, and it was his son… so he was biased.”
His “Trump” rages on, announcing, “I’m gonna fire Fauci on Good Friday…. Call it Great Friday for Trump!” before punctuating his press conference with a sudden, violent cough, and declaring, “Perfect health!”
I know that Alec Baldwin has long said he’s tired of doing Trump, and wishes he could hang it up.
The first thing I thought after watching it was, you can rest easy now, Mister Baldwin… we’re in good hands.
Saturday Night Live could call Mister Cauvin in for the next season, and we would be more than ok.
His word fetishes and his mannerisms are so good, it has inspired a game:
People play audio clips from Trump, and then J-L, and have somebody guess which was the real “President.”
J-L has a whole playlist of Trump videos on YouTube (along with some fake ads and some great movie parodies – he does a good Adam Sandler), and several CDs for sale.
* * *
Two things contributed to this wonderful phenomenon of Trump impersonations: Trump’s daily Coronavirus briefings, and Tik Tok.
While J-L Cauvin has had fun with the briefings, no one has taken it and run with it like the incredible Sarah Cooper, using Tik Tok like an artist.
The beauty of her performance is, she uses nothing but Trump’s own words, Trump’s own voice.
Well, that and some of her perfect, off-the-wall facial expressions.
The first one I caught, along with most people, was “How to Medical”.
It was her natural reaction to Trump’s suggestion that we inject ourselves with disinfectants.
Wait for it: Her suggestion on where we might insert the “very powerful light” into the body.
Then there was, “How to More Cases Than Anybody In The World,” in which Trump explains that we have more cases because we have more tests….
Wait for it: When she sniffs the Sharpie.
Then there was “How to Obamagate”.
I thought the Diet Coke was a nice touch.
When Trump announced he was taking Hydroxychloroquine – well, she really had to do something…
Wait for it: Her get-up as a wide-eyed, enthused little girl, as “Trump” passes out the Hydroxy pills to her, like candy on Halloween.
Of course, there are lots of people to make fun of, besides Donald Trump.
Here she does Elon Musk, discussing his baby’s new name.
Wait for it: She hurls the “baby” to the floor in disgust, because the interviewer doesn’t recognize “the coolest plane ever” reference in the name.
Sarah is not exactly laboring in obscurity. Early on, she caught the eye of Chrissy Teigen (who has successfully gotten under Trump’s skin with her Twitter game). As Chrissy put it:
“Sarah is so funny, but what this really does for me is remove his surroundings and overall horrific look and lets us pay attention to just his words. His insane, incoherent garbage rambling.”
And now, Sarah’s world has taken off. She’s been on Ellen, and all over social media.
As she joked, “It’s so exhausting being everybody’s one black friend now.”
Among other things, she’s an author; one of her works is How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men’s Feelings.
I haven’t read it, but I know she’s funny, just from the title.
As she said on Twitter, “When I started my career, I never figured my big breakthrough would be doing silent movies in 2020.”
And she is a damn fine follow on Twitter. Some of her prime Tweets:
- “Literally not one single ex-boyfriend has reached out to me in the last week. Damn I know how to burn a bridge.”
- “Every morning I ask myself the same question: is it too early for pizza?”
- “I just sneezed into my paper mask how’s your morning going”
- “I just asked my husband what he’s up to today and he responded, ‘none of your business’ so quarantine is going well”
- “Shout out to everyone whose relationships were being held together by a thin thread of ‘if only we got to spend more time together’”
Granted, it’s not, “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” or “OBAMAGATE!!!” but still…
* * *
Not all these artists are making hay off of Donald Trump. (Although he does provide an endless supply of material, every time he opens his mouth.)
Maria DeCotis – yet another New Yorker – has turned her attention to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
And though done more lovingly than Sarah Cooper treats Trump, they are just as hilarious.
Ms. DeCotis is mostly delighted by Cuomo’s relationship with his daughters (as he has brought them right to the forefront of his daily briefings), and she has a blast, imitating all three of his daughters, as well as the Governor.
Here he/she is, discussing his daughter’s boyfriend (to her complete humiliation).
A bonus: she acts out the part of the poor boyfriend, too.
Here he/she is, on watching the TV news with his daughters, and how they like to humiliate him.
She gets to play all three daughters, along with the father.
* * *
I’ve got all sorts of people – my daughter, some friends – telling me to get on Tik Tok.
My reaction to that is, I’m too old for that. But I should probably listen to them.
That’s where you’ll find Kylie Scott, another master of the Trump imitation.
This is her masterpiece: “Drunk in the Club After Covid”.
That’s Kylie’s “Trump” character. In all her videos – waving a slice of pizza around in an Uber, slurping up wine at an outdoor cafe – she plays Trump rambling like a drunk.
Honestly – are Trump’s bizarre ramblings that much different than the annoying drunk in the bar next to you at closing time, stringing together words that have absolutely no meaning, but seem so important to him?
I’m no comedy expert, but it seems to me that we’re in a golden age of female comedians: Taylor Tomlinson (who’s just an American treasure), Whitney Cummings, Louisa Omielan…
Some are just raunchy as hell, but always in service to an intelligent, raucously funny joke. And the truth.
I feel like the path was cleared for them by others like Amy Schumer, and Sarah Silverman, and Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson of Broad City, who showed them that women could talk that way, too.
* * *
Let’s end with this wonderful video of a woman trying to enter a grocery store in California without a mask. (Remember back when that was all we had to worry about?)
She is the (purely unintentional) comedy of this video, as she tries to “expose” the grocery store employee and his manager, for “discriminating against her,” and “violating her rights.” The woman posted the video on Reddit, as a statement of her crusade against “tyranny.” It backfired, and she got laughed at so much that she eventually deleted it from her account.
(By the way, apologies to any Karens out there, but how delightful is it that that name has become synonymous with whining, complaining neighbor ladies? I don’t know how that happened, but I love the younger generation for it.)
Here, the grocery store employees are the heroes. There’s the good-natured “greeter”, dancing to the Michael Jackson song coming out of the store speakers as he cleans the carts, always smiling, never reacting to the barbs thrown at him by the maskless woman.
Then there’s the calm but firm manager, offering to buy her groceries for her, before she dashes off in a huff.
Just remember: These people have to deal with this, every single day.
Oh, ok… one last feel-good video… Watch these Staten Island grocery shoppers drive a maskless “freedom fighter” from their store…
It’s nice to see the good guys win one.
Just remember our mantra:
There’s a lot of idiots out there.
But there’s more of us than them.
We won’t give up.
Daddy Gibs 
Colin Gibson bringing Tiktok to the uninitiated……. I ve been on Tiktok since January(before Erod, mind you). She told me that it was only for teenagers. At first I only saw teens from China doing the renegade dance. Now Ive curated alot of really funny adults. All your suggestions and more. During this time of isolation Ive found a 20 minute dive into Tiktok can lift me up. I feel like based on the day’s news its an instant barometer. People listen to the news and then create content right away. An example, after the murder of George Floyd there were lots of southern men- redneck types- talking about how this shit has to stop. Black folks talking about being black… how racism has affected them. Some so poignant that I cried others really funny. Somehow I don’t see any pro-Donald stuff. Thank you Jesus. I like that you post on fb. Maybe you, Daddy Gibs can lift fb up from the cesspool that it is!
Sent from Sue’s phone
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