Irritable Vowel Syndrome

This sketch was inspired by a curious behavior we here at CoBaD have observed in people when they start to get old. We noticed that the older an individual gets, the more likely he or she is to cut loose with a vowel, usually in conjunction with simple tasks like standing up, slowly sitting back down and fidgeting in the chair like a cat kneading its bed. So what better place to get a pulse of how much pain people are in (and tip off the pharmaceutical industry in the process) and get a lesson in applied gerontological phonics than with a retirement community’s morning vowel enunciation report?Show more

To be fair, this sketch isn't entirely poking fun entirely at retirement communities. Retirement communities are wonderful places where individuals in the sunset of their days on this earth gather together, bitch about the kids today, lament about the “good old days” (which, upon research, one discovers that those days weren’t really that good after all) and try to one-up each other with their fantastic stories about past surgeries and current prescriptions. What this sketch is also poking fun at are housing community developers. We think it’s rather amusing that community developers will buy up large swathes of wilderness, bulldoze the trees and chase away the wildlife, then put up a bunch of multimillion-dollar cookie-cutter houses and call their high-priced slums “Pine Meadows” or “Deer Trails” before running off and leaving the locals to deal with the traffic headaches, the overburdened sewer system and the overtaxed power grid. MacDonald’s Old Farm takes the absurdity to a new level, where Brave New World Holding Company buys up the farmland, but keeps the farm infrastructure intact, rebrands the duck pens, chicken coops and cow stalls as “homes,” then charges naïve retired folks an arm and a leg for their cells. We think it’s only a matter of time before slimy housing community developers start using this tactic as well. After all, After all, as the saying goes, “There’s gold in them there over the hills.”

The sketch was also inspired by a conversation a member of our troupe had several years ago with a coworker who was getting ready to retire. He was boasting to anyone who cared to listen (and even those who didn’t care to listen; he didn’t discriminate, you know) that he was going to move down to a mega-retirement housing community in Florida, and even bragged that the community was going to provide him with a complimentary golf cart. The more he talked about this community, the more this troupe member thought the mega-community sounded like a mix of a theme park and something from a dystopian novel (like “Brave New World”) where everything is perfect (allegedly) and everyone is happy (supposedly). It was rather disturbing, but this troupe member didn’t want to ruin the soon-to-be-retired man’s “dreams,” so unlike his coworker, he kept his mouth shut.

The sketch also pays tribute to the bygone era of creative names. Much like the names in MacDonald’s Old Farm (Ruder, Thebay, Ertrude, Girving, Elekiah, Felistus), the roll call at real senior centers is full of classic and memorable names (e.g., Ginny, Addie, Orville) that are unfortunately no longer considered cool by today’s allegedly hip and fashionable yet unimaginative and bland SUV-racing, latte-chugging, multimillion-dollar cookie-cutter-house-dwelling moms and dads.

Felistus: “Ms. Ruder Monns, the hearing and listening impaired old bag in Room 202, gave an ‘EEEE’ yesterday morning…” - Close front unrounded vowel

Felistus: “Mr. Thebay Ginns, the doddering old former VP at Nonsense Missile Defense of Beltway Bandit, Virginia, cried out an ‘AAAA’…” - Open front unrounded vowel

Felistus: “And last night at 10:30pm, Mr. Ertrude Arch groaned out two vowels, ‘EHHH’ and ‘OOOH.’ He then uttered ‘UHHH’ as Ertrude’s wife, Girving, hit him over the head with a frying pan…”

EHHH – Open-mid front unrounded vowel
OOOH – Open-mid back rounded vowel
UHHH - Mid-central vowel (schwa)

Felistus: “Also of note is Mr. Elekiah Burg, technical director of this newscast, who cried out an ‘OOOH’…” Another open-mid back rounded vowel. Well, as you saw, Elelkiah was a usurper; so of course he going to steal other people’s work…

Felistus: “…when playing pitch and catch with his grandson yesterday morning at his son, Hezekadiah’s home.” – Not ready for MacDonald’s Old Farm yet, but Hezekadiah’s still got a great name. HIS pop don’t drive no stinkin’ SUV.

Felistus: “However, since this grunt took place offsite, the camp administrator’s office has deemed it a football-related enunciation, and therefore ineligible for inclusion in the daily vowel report.“ - A spoof of NFL’s non-football related injury designation. If a player is injured and the injury is not related to football, NFL teams are neither required to pay the player his base salary nor report his vowels to the league office.

“The Supernumeraries” promo – A member of our troupe many years ago played a supernumerary for an opera company. Much like an extra in the movies, supernumeraries are volunteers that get to stand in the back of the stage and fill out a scene. The time on stage varies; in Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca,” he was on stage for a grand total of 30 seconds. In Vincenzo’s Bellini’s “I puritani”, he played an 18th century guard and was in all three acts, including a fight scene in the first act where he was trained to fight with a pike. Lots of work but great fun. So this promo pays tribute to these unsung heroes. From left to right, the operas depicted are Puccini’s “Tosca,” Ruggero Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci,” Giuseppe Verdi’s “Il trovatore” and Verdi’s “Otello.”

Voiceover: “Follow the kooky hijinks of the hilarious, wacky and screwball family from the Kingdom of Diplopia, the Don-DeRoad-Stars…” For more on Mr. Don-DeRoad-Star and his “extended family,” see “The Diplopian War” skit.

Voiceover: “…as they stand at the back of an opera stage in period costumes and mouth the word ‘watermelon’ over and over again in excited, pretend conversation while all around them sopranos and tenors are being shot, stabbed, poisoned or strangled.” –A troupe member of ours had a friend who one said that if you find yourself in an awkward position where you have to sing a song but don’t know the words (e.g., you’re at a New Year’s Eve party and you’re supposed to hold hands with everyone in a big circle and sing “Auld Lang Syne”), this friend suggested just mouth the word “watermelon” in sing song fashion and no one will be the wiser. Not really something that was taught in supernumerary school, but we suppose it could have worked.

Voiceover: “That’s ‘The Supernumeraries’ up next, except on the west coast, when it will be seen at its regular scheduled time three hours ago.” – A spoof of the famous promos that would appear at or near the end of late afternoon NFL games. A troupe member lived on the east coast and was often puzzled by the statement. Why can’t we all watch “60 Minutes” at the same time? Aren’t we all equals? Or are some more equal than others? Pigs. They’re just setting themselves up for spoilers, anyway.

Scrolling Caption and Voiceover: “MacDonald’s Old Farm is a Brave New World Holding Company, in a ‘Me Telling You What to Do and You Doing It’ partnership with Alpha Homeowners Association and Epsilon Undocumented Workers, Very Limited.” – A reference to Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.”

Noticed we here at CoBaD ran the entire skit without a single reference to “Wheel of Fortune.” Sorry, folks, we don’t care for low hanging fruit around here. Apart from that “unsung heroes” pun that is.

References:
Wikipedia. Close front unrounded vowel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_front_unrounded_vowel

Wikipedia. Mid central vowel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid_central_vowel

Wikipedia. Non-football injury and illness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-football_injury_and_illness

Wikipedia. Open front unrounded vowel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_front_unrounded_vowel

Wikipedia. Open-mid back rounded vowel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_back_rounded_vowel

Wikipedia. Open-mid front unrounded vowel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_front_unrounded_vowel

Wikipedia. Supernumerary actor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernumerary_actor

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Convulsions of Birth and Death (CoBaD) is a comedy sketch troupe founded in September, 2022 that posts skits on social media covering varied topics such as music, history, art, science, sports, literature and events encountered in everyday life. The title was inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” (1849), an essay written as a protest against the U.S. government taking his “gift” (i.e., his taxes), and wasting it in ways in which he did not approve (e.g., war and slavery). CoBaD writes sketches in the spirit of Thoreau, but instead of strictly casting its nets outwards towards governments and figures of authority, it projects its protest inwards by taking a humorous, lightheaded look at humanity and specifically those who take the greatest gift of all, life, and senselessly and stupidly waste it on greed, narcissism, self-centeredness, petty-mindedness, arrogance, opportunism, power-grabbing, quid pro quo, the status quo, ulterior motives, and the most despicable waste of all, social media.