7/19/08
Upon closer examination…
- There seems to be a small thermonuclear explosion happening in the Vargas front yard.
- Gil is being held hostage by Mrs. Vargas.
- Judging by the scars it leaves, Midget Mexican baseball is more dangerous than I originally suspected.
- Bugs McCoy has a portable toilet on his raft to nowhere, and enjoys using it while on the phone.
- Toxic fumes from Bug’s current activity are quickly destroying local trees.
Kalamazoo? Really? I just pulled the Kalamazoo River reference out o’ my ass (first mentioned on July 2nd). If I didn’t figure the lead time on producing this comic was waaay more than three weeks, I’d wonder what the deuce was going on here. So I’ll just chalk it up to Neal and I agreeing that “Kalamazoo” is an inherently funny word and should be used as often as possible. Now let’s just see if he’ll take it to the next level, and have the Kalamazoo Kings play their also-hilariously named Michigan rivals, the Traverse City Beach Bums.
7/21/08
“Yes, Elmer, the Kalamazoo Kings are a real team. In fact I already updated their Wikipedia page to reflect the fact that we just mentioned them. But it doesn’t matter, because they’re good. And you’re not. Bugs just called me because he wanted to say the word ‘Kalamazoo’ in a sentence. And have me contact you to remind you that you suck and got deported. And to rub it in that he got that schmuck Jimmy Hughes drafted rather than you. Hey, while you’re on the line, I also should tell you that here in America, we have the technology to use our toasters as telephones. So enjoy your squalid village where the internet access is still just a 56k dial-up connection! Oops, gotta go. Your mom just spilled coffee all over my pants and is insisting I take them off!”
Why is Elmer on a pay phone? Did his vicious midget baseball brawls get him kicked out of the house for good and he lives in a pay phone booth now? Did his delicately honed baseball-sense compell him to drop everything, park his 1967 Chevrolet Suburban under the nearest silo and call home collect? I find this the most compelling and multifaceted detail of this entire storyline.
Speaking of which–nice, Gil. Instead of just taking the number and calling him yourself, you’re making the Vargases pay the long distance bill and stand there listening while you call your deported former student to taunt him about how he sucks at baseball. I hope Mrs. Vargas clubs you with that bizarre coffee pot something fierce.
Comment by gaucho — July 21, 2008 @ 9:53 am
Gaucho, you said everything I was thinking…thanks, because I was too lazy to type it anyway. I’ll just say one thing…Gil said what we’re all thinking: ElMullet sucks.
Comment by Regina — July 21, 2008 @ 9:58 am
Hey, Gil: Nice way to talk to the kid who carried your team’s offense! If ElMullet sucks too bad for indie-league baseball, what does that say about the rest of your pathetic loser squad? (And your coaching prowess, hmm?)
So we’re using the Kings as a pretext to bring Mullet back into the country on a work visa. Touch choice for Mullet: exile in Mexico, or ten bucks a game to sit on the bench in Kalamazoo. Hint: the food’s better in Mexico.
And I still suspect that an under-the-table kidney donation to Buggsy is part of this deal.
Comment by johnw — July 21, 2008 @ 10:14 am
Huh? What?
Gil thinks El Mullet blows as a baseball player. Jimmy’s dad thinks his kid is not good enough to get drafted by the Danbury Tigers let alone the Detroit Tigers.
Milford has some great parenting / adult role models.
Back to Jimmy, and shooting the now dead horse, what round did Jimmy get drafted? Unless you are a top 15 pick, you have almost zero chance to make it to the majors. Thus, the Tigers may have burned their 36th round pick on some slacker who a gomer scout thinks has at least 1 of the 5 tools. Or is a complete tool himself.
Comment by bevo — July 21, 2008 @ 10:15 am
To explain the phone situation, as best I can figure it: Brizuela, Jalisco, Mexico (pop. 3,790) has but one mode to communicate with the outside world: A pay phone in the center of the town. And since nobody likes Elmer enough to call him at a designated time, he has to call them. (No doubt using the multitude of phone cards Branden purchased for him.) Hopefully the phone cards will soon run out of minutes, and everyone can just forget about Elmer forever.
Comment by jasbeattie — July 21, 2008 @ 10:42 am
Wow, cell phones, pay phones, toaster phones: I guess you could say Neal’s really been “phoning it in” lately! (Sorry.)
I don’t get it. El Mer gets a green card if he signs with some unaffiliated sub-minor-league team that plays in a league two levels below high school ball? If that’s the case, why not “sign” with The Bucket as a bus boy?
Comment by sourbelly — July 21, 2008 @ 11:20 am
So what’s the deal coach? Does Bugs think I should try out for this team or not?
Oh, no. Bugs didn’t even mention you, Elmer.
But Bugs did call you, right coach?
Yeah.
And he told you about the Kalamazoo Kings, right?
Yeah, the Kalamazoo Kings, of the Frontier League.
Okay, right, I got that. Sooo what does this have to do with me?
Nothing, really. I just think it’s neat. Kal-a-ma-ZOO! Sounds like something a wizard would say.
So you came over to my parents’ house to wait for me to call so you could tell me this.
Yeah, pretty much. Plus I heard your folks had a single slice toaster phone and I was thinking about getting one for Mimi for our anniversary and I wanted to try one out. So how’s Mexico?
It sucks pretty bad, coach. I don’t understand what anybody’s saying and I miss my family and my girlfriend and…
Oh yeah, I remember what else I wanted to tell you. Jimmy Hughes got drafted by the Detroit Tigers.
Jimmy?!
Yeah, Jimmy.
Jimmy Hughes?!
Yeah, Jimmy Hughes.
The Detroit Tigers?!
Yeah, the Detroit Tigers. I don’t like this toaster phone, it seems to have an echo or something. Say, I’d love to gab Elmer, but your Mom’s coffee packs quite a wallop and I’m going to be making my own “run for the border” if you know what I mean.
Coach? Coach? ¡Ay Dios mío!
Comment by Ned Ryerson — July 21, 2008 @ 11:34 am
He’s going to Michigan to see the sweetest gal in Kalamazoo… zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo!
It is a pretty bizarre name for a city. I’ve run into folks who thought that the city didn’t really exist, but was just made up as a rhyme for songs or shorthand for a silly sounding place. I felt a little shame puncturing their fantasies.
Comment by El Santo — July 21, 2008 @ 12:49 pm
Is it a good thing that a comic strip of such scholarship and prestige is supporting the skirting of immigration laws because this kid Elmer has such a fine mullet? I am all for granting amnesty to my gardener, or illegally sheltering the parents of said gardener, but children of undocumented white collar workers goes one step too far. Thorp is getting very preachy with this new artist (perhaps a clause in his contract with Thorp, Inc.?).
Next thing you know, Gil will be looking for a way (bribe, blackmail) to get a pardon for Jarvis White Sr. for his drug dealing car antics. Jarvis Sr. deserves to rot in jail for his horrendous crimes, unless Jarvis is an illegal from Norway, or somewhere
Comment by Kevin — July 21, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
I lived in Columbia, Missouri, which for a few years had a team in the Frontier League. Even went to a couple of the games. (Well, technically it seems like their team has only ’suspended operations’ and is not actually defunct, but whatever).
Comment by Scott de B. — July 21, 2008 @ 2:13 pm
ned. that was, in an overly used word, awesome.
Comment by Emily — July 21, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
I know it’s become quite passé to remark on this, but that is one huge kitchen at the Vargas house.
Comment by rug thief — July 21, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
The Frontier League’s quality of play is somewhere between the Green Grass League and the California Penal League.
Comment by Doug Puthoff — July 21, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
I live near where the Windy City Thunderbolts play. Great! I can go watch Elmer play. Or not play.
Comment by RobM — July 21, 2008 @ 6:30 pm
Somewhere in one of the many Frontier League websites I viewed today, I saw mention of a minor league team in London, Ontario with the nickname Werewolves.
AAH-OOOOOO, Werewolves of London.
Comment by Ned Ryerson — July 21, 2008 @ 7:25 pm
I just can’t, as a fisherman, or a fisher, if you will, get over the obvious fact that Bugs no I’m not married and can smoke cheap cigars indiscrimately McCoy has a fly vest on but is using a baitcasting reel.
Which would be tantamount to me skiing down the backside of Snowmass with two 2×8 pine planks duct taped to my feet.
Comment by southmauldin — July 21, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
LOL at all !!! And huge kudos to Ned #15 on Werewolves of London – AAH-OOOOOO!
Needed a good laugh to end my Monday LOL.
Comment by Gil'sBarber — July 21, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
The Brizuela water tower looks like a giant soda can, or possibly the first stage of an expended Nasa rocket that they fished out of the ocean.
Comment by JanB — July 22, 2008 @ 5:08 am