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PO Box 3201
Martinsville, VA 24115
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Stephen H. Provost is an author of paranormal adventures and historical non-fiction. “Memortality” is his debut novel on Pace Press, set for release Feb. 1, 2017.

An editor and columnist with more than 30 years of experience as a journalist, he has written on subjects as diverse as history, religion, politics and language and has served as an editor for fiction and non-fiction projects. His book “Fresno Growing Up,” a history of Fresno, California, during the postwar years, is available on Craven Street Books. His next non-fiction work, “Highway 99: The History of California’s Main Street,” is scheduled for release in June.

For the past two years, the editor has served as managing editor for an award-winning weekly, The Cambrian, and is also a columnist for The Tribune in San Luis Obispo.

He lives on the California coast with his wife, stepson and cats Tyrion Fluffybutt and Allie Twinkletail.

Coronavirus humor: The good, the bad and the sarcastic

On Life

Ruminations and provocations.

Coronavirus humor: The good, the bad and the sarcastic

Stephen H. Provost

Everyone’s up in arms over the novel coronavirus, aka COVID-19 (its droid name). But if you can’t beat it, make fun of it. So, here’s the good news and the bad news about the panic and pandemic that’s sweeping the nation Gangnam Style, faster than Beanie Babies amped up on caffeine and My Little Pony if her name was Secretariat.

Beer (burp)

  • The good news: Corona Extra beer won’t give you coronavirus.

  • The bad news: Corona Extra won’t give you any extra protection from it, either – unless you get drunk at home, pass out and don’t go out. Well, I guess that’s one way to self-quarantine.

  • More bad news: You won’t be able to get that Corona Extra as easily, because they’re closing down the bars. What’s Norm Peterson gonna do?

  • The good news: This means fewer drunk drivers on the road and fewer bad pickup lines. It means fewer alcoholics falling off the wagon. It also means fewer people doing screechy, off-key karaoke renditions of Love Shack, Unchained Melody and Paradise by the Dashboard Light. Except in the shower, where they’ll (hopefully) be washing all those icky germs off themselves.

  • The bad news: Our lives will be a lot more Closing Time and a lot less One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.

Social (antisocial!)

  • The bad news: We’re stuck with another artificial, overused buzz phrase: “social distancing.”

  • The worse news: It doesn’t apply to social media. So now, people will spend more time yelling at each other about politics, blocking each other and spreading conspiracy theories about coronavirus because they’re stuck in the house with nothing better to do.

  • The good news: Did you hear? They’re working on a vaccine for the coronavirus!

  • The bad news: The antivaxxers will refuse to take it and spread the word on social media while they’re “social distancing.” So more people will get sick, anyway.

  • The good news: We’ve got more polite way to tell salesmen, religious doorbell-ringers and garden-variety SOBs to fuck off.

  • The bad news: It’s a lot more satisfying to just tell them to fuck off.

School’s out (completely)

  • The good news: Kids have to be loving the fact that they don’t have to go to school. Thanks to the coronavirus and the reactions/overreactions of elected officials, school’s out completely (to quote Alice Cooper).

  • The bad news: They won’t actually learn anything, in which case they may not graduate and won’t go to college.

  • The good news: They won’t take out student loans and be saddled with a lifetime of debt.

  • The good news: Kids are less susceptible to the effects of coronavirus, which means future generations are safe, bless their little hearts.

  • The bad news: This includes middle-school students, who should probably spend three years in quarantine anyway for their own safety — and everyone else’s.

Play ball (not)

  • The bad news: They canceled spring training.

  • The good news: The Astros won’t be playing.

  • The bad news: They canceled the NCAA Tournament.

  • The good news (for Vince McMahon): The XFL might get more people to watch, except ...

  • The bad news (also for Vince McMahon): They canceled that, too.

  • The worse news: The Summer Olympics are coming up. (Forgot about that, didn’t you?). They only come along once every four years, so if they’re canceled, it will be a long wait for the next swimming, 100-meter dash and badminton gold medals. Yes, badminton really is a team sport. No, American football is not. Sorry, XFL castaways.

Endangered species (nonhuman variety)

  • The bad news: It’s a “pandemic.”

  • The good news: That doesn’t pandas are dying, just people. This is actually really good news, because there are only about 1,500 giant pandas living in the wild, and more people than that have already died from the coronavirus.

It’s the economy (stupid)

  • The good news: Maybe dinosaur corporations will finally figure out the advantages of telecommuting and the tedium of worthless meetings.

  • The bad news: No, they probably won’t.

  • The bad news: The stock market’s down.

  • The good news: All those rich one-percenter corporate thieves are seeing their unearned profits go down the toilet.

  • The bad news: They’ll pass the pain on to the rest of us and keep living the high life, anyway. Coronavirus trickles down a lot faster than those profits, which never seen to go viral, do they?

  • The good news: We don’t have to attend dinner parties thrown by people we don’t like and have nothing in common with, and pretend to like them just so we can drum up business.

  • The bad news: We won’t be drumming up business. We won’t be drumming up anything. We’ll be like Led Zeppelin after John Bonham died. No drums. Nada.

Politics (estranged bedfellows)

  • The good news: Cable news is covering something other than impeachment, election news and politicians being politicians.

  • The bad news: We’ll get sick of 24-7 coronavirus coverage just as quickly. (Yes, I wrote “get sick of it” on purpose.)

  • The bad news: We’ll be getting more medical bills.

  • The worse news: We don’t have universal health care, and it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting it anytime soon.

  • The good news: Because they can’t afford it, sick people will be staying home instead of going to the hospital and infecting others. Isn’t that a form of social distancing?

  • The bad news: They may wind up dead because they’re not getting treated.

  • The worse news: Politicians don’t care enough to do anything about it.

  • The rule: Candidates want you to avoid large crowds.

  • The exception: Except, of course, at polling places on Election Day … but only if you’re voting for them. Your health is sooooo important to them, unless it interferes with their political prospects!

Literary (and scary)

  • The good news: Since this is a novel coronavirus, you won’t get it from reading nonfiction.

  • The better news: Actually, you won’t get it from reading novels, either.

  • The best news: You’ll have a lot more time to read, now that you don’t have anything else to do ...

  • The bad news: A lot of you will binge-watch The Walking Dead instead, which means you won’t be reading my wife’s exciting Mad World trilogy about zombie apocalypse that’s triggered by (you guessed it) a pandemic.

  • The good news: That pandemic involves a strain of the black plague and is a whole lot worse than what’s happening with the coronavirus.

  • The bad news: Coronavirus ain’t fictional. In fact, it’s a big enough pain that it could drive you to drink. Hey, man, pass the Corona! Cheers! Did I just say “hey, man”? I’m starting to sound like Joe Biden. I think I need something stronger!

 

 

tags coronavirus, Covid-19, quarantine, lockdown, pandemic, social distancing, social media