Frank Gehry’s Fast Food Masterpiece

If you’re not knocked off balance by panels one and two, in which the architect of The Bucket tells Euclid to piss off, then the shifting narrative and stilted dialogue (plus mystery girl in panel two) shouldn’t present too much more of a challenge to parse.

For myself, I can confess nothing but disappointment that we aren’t getting another chance to continue talking about the shitty cars we drove in high school (and/or are driving presently). As it stands, I suppose we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to understand why these characters are being introduced.

Bonus question: Why is the strip’s date inserted front and center of panel two?

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These Are All Terrible People, Even The Kids

P1: A story from TimP’s own life: Person A did me wrong some time ago. Person B, an erstwhile associate of Person A, learned of this and, while he couldn’t undo the wrong, mitigated some of it. Some weeks later Person B called me up out of the blue and told me all of the terrible things that had lately happened to Person A, thinking I would enjoy hearing about it. I did not. It was all rather sad when taking all of the circumstances into consideration.

P2: Fear of failure can be a hell of a motivator. The problem is that it motivates all kinds of bad behavior. Gil is almost being a good coach by asking an open ended question to such a shitty thing to say.

P3: Feeling like you have to perform especially well because you have to ‘prove’ yourself after getting jobbed can be a hell of a motivator. The problem is…

Cripes, what is in the water in Milford? [Checks notes.] Milford is most likely in the Midwest, probably Central Michigan or Northwest Ohio, so lead. Lead is in the water in Milford. This is why Gil drinks naught but distilled rotgut. He may be stupid, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to get much stupider.

Edited to add: I can’t believe I went back and looked this up but the Milford in Ohio is near Cincinnati, a town I once almost lived in but then got lucky and didn’t. Also, there is a real life Milford Country Club. It is in the vicinity of Boston and has a nine hole par 3 course. Although I’ve visited Boston many times, I’ve never had the opportunity to live there. The last time I visited, it was zero degrees Fahrenheit with 45 mile per hour winds seemingly coming from every direction.

Inside-The-Park For Barry Bader!

Lotta chain link fence today taking in a relatively large amount of actual action.

My favorite thing about today’s strip is in panel three where it is clear the entire team (including the guys on base that he drove in I guess?) is pretending what happened didn’t just happen.

Competing To Alienate Everyone

Guys and Gals, can I ask a (kinda) serious question?

What does it say that, of the Bader Family Trio, Ma Bader is the least functional and possibly most psychologically damaged?

I bet those frames don’t even have prescription lenses in them.

Edited to add Frank Zappa’s tribute to the imaginary journalistic profession, Packard Goose:

Meanwhile Barry Bader Is Posting Angry Rants To Youtube

And Gil hasn’t even noticed his absence from… practice? I guess? Shouldn’t Kevin be getting rejected as a QB from the local 7 on 7 teams?

Panel one: As I don’t understand the difference, with respect to baseball teams, between D-II and JuCo (and can’t be bothered to research it), I’m going to guess Gil did the ‘right’ thing in steering Ryan to D-II. Of course this is the second or third time we’ve even mentioned Ryan’s recruitment even though he’s a hard throwing lefty so… another job well done by all involved.

Panel two: “On the other hand, if he hurts his arm, they’ll drop him like a rock and he’ll end up pumping gas at the station outside of whatever town D-II School is in.”

Panel three: “What about The Secret?” “I suspect people will be asking why we’re still talking about that guy for the rest of our lives (of reading Gil Thorp).”

Minus point: What exactly is even going on today? Seriously, at this point I’d almost be OK going down to Milford Country Club to watch Gil ruin the game of golf for a bunch of preadolescents.

Happy Thorp Of July, Everyone!

Please enjoy the adult beverage of your choice in moderate moderation and set off lots of fireworks!

P1: Wouldn’t it be better to have, rather than a more or less anonymous character ask, someone like Ryan Von Auken poking holes in K-Pel’s aspirations?

P2: Sigh.

P3: Double sigh.

Edited to add the following as it looks like our Fourth will be washed out. I was at this show (one of two that night). It was incredible.

Edited to further add the following:

Clearly The Recipient Of Gil’s Call Is A Former Player…

Because, just like the rest of us, he’s as surprised as hell to find Gil taking any sort of interest in him.

FWIW, per some cursory research, for Michigan State and Ohio State (to name two State U’s in the nominal vicinity of Milford) the average entering GPA’s are rather higher than 3.5. Let’s hope Kev was taking lots of AP courses… hey, maybe that’s where he got tipped off to the whole launch angles thing.

Just to wrap things up before I turn my attention to more serious concerns, but what is going on with all of the awkward chin touching by Counselor Drew? I mean panel one is I guess kinda normal (well, that flipper does look like it could be thalidomide induced), but your guess is as good as mine when it comes to whatever messed up salute or gang sign she is flashing at Gil in panel two. I don’t think wrists quite bend that way…

HEJA SVERIGE, Y’ALL!

I Would Have Guessed That, At Some Point, A Permission Slip Of Some Sort Would Need To Have Been Signed

P1: Whatever Ms. Rizzkk is on probably needs to be dosed a little lower. The way she vacantly smiles while DD and (checks back to May 12th) Jay Bhatia discuss such weighty matters is disconcerting to say the least.

P2: Speaking of disconcerting, in a strip with a long history of poorly depicted high fives (seriously!), this one enters the canon and impels me to create a new category.

P3: Holy Shit! Someone tell Chief Linde to check the Bader family’s crawlspace!

Song that came to mind while writing today’s post: