The freak hands are better.

OMG – filling in for Teenchy today as he’s on a long day trip. Chris produces a full page stat sheet that I’m sure is available on both the internet and your local bathroom wall at a sports bar. Nothing like perusing those 4 for 9 stats while taking a leak next to some dude who’s 3 sheets to the wind, pissing for 10 minutes. . Multi-tasking at its finest. I go to Hooters every now and then and they have the sports page on the wall above the urinals, so this aint far-fetched.

Chris’ teammate points out (literally) that he’s better served dishing the rock for assists, even though the only points we saw the big guy score were after Schuring got faced on a layup attempt. Chris looks like one of those small guards who would be wise to stay out of the paint, as otherwise any big guy would shove the ball down his throat.

Then we see P3 and he’s actually TALLER then the center?? Hey Gil— your lineup needs work buddy.  Chris must have zero vertical leap if he’s blocked by someone who then allows the real Shorty to get the put-back.

Playing offense in your head?? How about playing it on the court? Methinks that’ll work better. Team of duffusses, these guys. At least they have great hands.

 

Nothing Like a Roast for the Holidays

knock-kneed (/ˌnäkˈnēd/), adj. 1. (of a person) having legs that curve inwards so that the feet are apart when the knees are touching. “The patient had a distinctly knock-kneed gait.” 2. Teddy DeMarco Teddy DeMarco’s stooge (see edit below).

So when dude with the roadrunner fade (who turns out to be Teddy DeMarco; thanks Tim for pointing that out) and Captain Marvel shirt challenges Teddy stooge to “go old school,” that means “walk up to a kid in the cafeteria and roast him.”  Ohhh-kayyy.  Shouldn’t the roast be at least fully baked?  Without the punctuation of a high-five, would anyone have known that was the punchline?  If the roastee is already engaging in self-deprecation, doesn’t that kind of take the edge off the roast?  It’d be easy enough for Chris to come back with something like “Yeah, I know, but basketball’s not my main sport. I was the starting quarterback on the football team, in case you hadn’t noticed.”  Easier still to escalate into a roast battle: “Oh, I guess you were too busy holding that aspirin between your knees to notice. You shouldn’t have bothered; it’s not like anybody wants to go between your knees anyway.  And what’s with your pal there? Coyote after you?”

The apparently good-natured Chris Schuring doesn’t seem to be aware that Teddy just tried to roast him or, for that matter, that Teddy doesn’t even like him, something Alexa alluded to recently.  He may not be the golden child that True Standish was but so far we don’t see that he has any negative qualities.  Something tells me he will serve as the mirror which will reflect Teddy and Alexa’s shortcomings back on them.

*metapost: Edited to reflect which character is actually Teddy.

Bonk, Bonk on the Head, Alexa!

Alexa Watson is not only smart and tragically accomplished, she likes to reenact old Star Trek episodes. At 6’1″ and ripped, she looks to be this year’s Kenzie Hanley. Will she brk some jaws in the process? Maybe after one too many jokes about her name.

We’ve seen that swoony pose on Phoebe Keener before but not paired with, apparently, a sundial for a nose.

metapost: Apologies for the late post. Caught a redeye from the Thorpiverse, literally; bad weather on both ends put me home just before sunrise. Haven’t slept in over 24 hours so this post may reflect that.

Alexa – Start A New Plot

Oh boy! This is our new plot. Alexa Watson has to endure idiotic jokes about her name. This is going to be great!

Sorry for the delay. I’m dogged by connectivity problems. Also, I spent most of yesterday shopping around for a vehicle with a roomy pink interior.

Good Ol’ Blow Top

Mudlarks chowin’ down on sloppy joes
Runnin’ the two-a-day drills
Then Sam Finn passed out and had to go
Whose fault? Sure wasn’t Gil’s
Junior Mudlark tailback Charlie Roh
Had the job in his hat
Got showed up by some old sophomore
That was the end of that

“Blow Top, you’re gonna be
Totin’ the rock for me
Good ol’ Blow Top
Blow Top Chance Macy
Blow Top Chance Macy”

Charlie’s dad tried to derail Blow Top
Diggin’ for bones in his past
The trail he left, they didn’t need a cop
It bit him in the ass
Chance’s fits of rage called “Blow Top”
His backstory is weird
Livin’ with his gram and grandpop
So-called parents? Disappeared

Blow Top, you’re gonna be
Treated by Charlie
Good ol’ Blow Top
Blow Top Chance Macy
Blow Top Chance Macy

Ballard’s in the doghouse with his wife
Didn’t have to make it so hard
Now his credit’s gonna take a dive
Charlie’s got his gold card

“Blow Top, Can’t you see?
Tonight’s tabs are on me!
Good ol’ Blow Top
Let’s hit Ricozzi’s

Let’s hit Ricozzi’s
Let’s hit Ricozzi’s!”

(apologies? No apologies; this song makes me want to throw something sharp)

metapost: Dunno what’s gone wrong with my spacing, or why the YT clip isn’t showing. Maybe it’s time for me to hang it up.

Fixed!* – TimP

* Well, not the line breaks. Not sure what’s going on there. 

Oh, What a Feeling!

Is Chance trying out for the cheerleading squad or auditioning to sell Toyotas?

I realize I’m dating myself with the latter reference (“Ok Boomer” is the pissy way the kids are saying it this week IIRC). Speaking of pissy, nice shift from pissy-faced to all smiles by old Gildeaux there. You’d think Gil would be having a cow about one of his starters benching himself with a fake injury to give his backup some playing time, but it didn’t faze him that much when True Standish did it for Jarrod Hale a few years back.

Nope, Gil’s just relieved that Chance is staying away from The Bucket, where they have sharp utensils handy. Better Macy and his shadow teammates punch the air harmlessly, another audition to shill old Toyotas…

 

Of Bulls and Talking Horses

I recall having a convo a few years ago with mrs. teenchy* and her late grandmother, a woman born before the US entry into World War I and who nearly lived long enough to see the centennial of the Great War’s start. We were talking about TV and mrs. teenchy asked her grandma if she ever watched The Lawrence Welk Show. “Heck no!” replied grandma, “that show’s for old people!” In her mind, Lawrence Welk’s target demographic was people born in the 19th century.

Previously I’d speculated that Gil Thorp‘s target audience might be people who read GRIT, but now it’s clear: it’s people who are old enough to have watched Mr. Ed**. But yay continuity, if in name only. Visually, it’s another Ed that’s getting the shout-out.

It just dawned on me that it’s never been established which NBA team Jaquan plays for. Today’s strip establishes that he does not play for the Bulls, so the color version of the July 4 strip is just flat out wrong. Blazers maybe?

It also establishes that lawyer Ed V. Baxendale has become kinda clueless. He should have some idea of the average partner salary in Chicago, even if those average salaries are a bit depressed due to “the city’s historic practice of making lawyers partner at a younger age.” The upshot is that Jaquadley has enough disposable income (and, probably, no student loans) to own multiple properties, including pretty much anything in Milford. Also pretty clueless of him to think that Hadley would have to leave her job for the sake of the relationship. Pretty sexist, too, but that’s par for the course*** in the Thorpiverse.

*Yes, Virginia, there is a mrs. teenchy. Shocking, I know.

**Hey, remember when Mr. Ed took BP with the Dodgers? Wouldn’t a horse playing for the Mudlarks have been more interesting than that TCFS nonsense this past spring?

 

***That’s the only golf reference you’ll be reading here for some time.

Old Home Week? More Like Old Home Summer

Picking up a few of the pieces of the meet-cute backstory from yesterday. TWIM old-timers, you may want to fast-forward through this (or read this kinda summary from two summers ago).

In 2005 Jaquan Case, then playing for Bishop Tardy, was under pressure to turn pro straight out of high school. The pressure was coming from his Uncle Rudy, who was Jaquan’s guardian after the death of both of his parents, and from the sporting goods company Tronix (which would rear its head years later by sponsoring a football camp for college prospects). Meanwhile Hadley V. Baxendale, spawn of lawyers, was making her case that the Lady Mudlarks weren’t getting the perks and attention that the boys’ team was getting. Gil shot Hadley’s demands down whilst manspreading, except the one for letting the girls have the gym on a Friday night because the boys wouldn’t be using it.

After meeting Jaquan in Gil’s office (where he ducked his handler to study), Hadley decided that she needed to help Case make his case to postpone his NBA plans and go to college. With then-boyfriend Steve Luhm’s help, Hadley arranged a meeting between Jaquan, Gil, and Hadley’s lawyer father, Ed (what is it with lawyers named Ed in the comics?) who confirmed that Jaquan’s dealings with Tronix wouldn’t harm his college eligibility. Turned out Rudy could fail and Jaquan could go to college.

As a way of thanking Hadley for helping him make his case, Jaquan pulled some strings and had Tronix send new practice jerseys and game unis to the Lady Mudlarks, who proceeded to work their way through the playdowns against several teams from the Philly suburbs. What Jaquan still thought he owed Hadley is best left to the imagination.

Hello, TWIM readers. We’ve come to the point in this post where those who didn’t read through all of this will have to stand up, or sit down and scroll down the page. In fairness to those readers, we’ll now take a few seconds before we begin side two.

 

 

Thank you. Here’s side two.

Once again Gil reminds us that Milford is a man’s man’s man’s world. He can’t be bothered by such trivia as wedding dates and locations, knit hats, rally hippos, merit badges, and winning ball teams. Those spatula-shaped second-degree burns on the back of his hand might bother him, though.

Oh look, another old character pops in this summer to make us forget about golf.  This time we don’t have to go back a decade and half but only a few months to revisit the tale of Tiki Jansen. You’ll recall Tiki was a New Thayer football player who wanted out of New Thayer because he was being bullied there, so his fam rented an apartment in Milford to give him a fake address and let him play there. Looks like the Jansens are keeping up this charade but the MHS School Board has no interest. How do these plot lines come together? Probably by letting Hadley get in some pro bono work.