Times are tough at the Milford Star. Ad revenues are way down and they have a staff of three: Marjie Ducey, middle-aged management/editor type guy and the bearded one. It still has physical offices and the nice little sign out front from its heyday (“Covers the Valley like the Dew“) but it can’t afford to replace that window that mysteriously got broken after the Star ran its piece on the Milford Pirate Network last basketball season. Well, it’s either that or the window tint fell off; otherwise how could we see the convo between editor type guy and the bearded one?
Bearded guy’s hard-hitting investigative journalism doesn’t really do much to satisfy Editor Guy’s curiosity but it nudges the plot forward just a teeny bit. Maybe Bobby has rented two billboards and put the same message on both of them two different times, and now plans to do it again. (“COACH THORP: TAKE A HINT FROM URBAN MEYER AND MARK RICHT”) Such the suspense!
Meanwhile in the halls of Milford High, unidentified student needles Filion with the slang term that Filion’s been singlehandedly trying to make a thing with the Mudlarks. Filion fires back with that already tried-and-true phrase of the Milford lexicon, “Ease up!” Next Gil is accosted by one of the faculty, no doubt to talk about said Filion. Why she goes to Gil instead of, say, Dr. Pearl is beyond me but then again this strip isn’t named Dr. Pearl. Probably safe to say that any behavioral anomalies among the Milford student body can be directly attributed to events that happen under Gil’s watch. He’s used to it by now, so her inquiry is not met with a spit take. All in a day’s work for the most laissez-faire coach in the Valley.
oh god.. so Tiki is orchestrating a fight so it can be shown on camera to prove to Gil that he deserves to play football? What a ton of effort for something so shallow.
Love the fists in P2 and P3. I recall a scene in the Flintstones where Barney got his thumb in the way of all the pictures. The fist almost hides the cameraman.
Why do these guys get to just walk out of the school at any time when they want? My school never would put up with that, but again, this is Wierdville.
You KNOW this plot is wearing out its welcome when the World Book Encyclopedias are in full view in P3. Usually those things are off in the background or in the corner of the cartoon panel out of the way and you have to be rid of toxic wastes or sober to notice them. But today, you could be stoned on Jack or reached Nirvana on your heroin and experiencing a Triple Cheese Bucketburger and Diet Chili Fries and medium drink (tax included) down at The Bucket with Timothy Leary (with Timothy picking up the tab) and, damn, what is Gil doing reading in the “G” volume of Encyclopedia Brittanica? Is he looking up “Gardening”? Helping Kaz with the latter’s Introductory Geography class because the latter forgot the capital of Guam? Read the Milford Enquirer in the Stock Market Report and saw a future in “Granite”? Just don’t use your house or Mimi’s team as collateral, Gil.
And remember when Dagwood, in the Chic Young days, would go to the department store with Blondie and shop for clothes and jewelry and cosmetics, etc. that Blondie had a hunkering for? And remember when Blondie would bounce ideas off of Dagwood and eventually say something comical or stupid, Dagwood would ejaculate a retort, accompanied in the background by a clump of people (again, normally the corner of the panel) who were always present at Dagwood and The Amazing Technicolor Retort? As if they were in the Lawn and Garden Department shopping for weed eaters or in the Electronics Department shopping for “Howard Stassen Sings Slim Whitman When He’s Not Running For President Again” CD or the Hardware Department sniffing out the cheapest Sam’s Choice light bulb (4000 hours and still keeps on going even if you accidentally piss on it) but if they heard Dagwood rebuke Blondie with a damning squelch, they’d drop the Stassen CD and come running like a herd of buffalo just in time. I’m surprised the buffalo never broke the glass on the counters in front of them. Bison stopping on a dime? Impressed.
But now the bison HAVE broken the glass and just about devastated Wal-Mart altogether, making Black Friday appear to be kindergartners overrunning the substitute teacher because they wanted an extra cookie on their stomachs during nap time. In other words, WORLD BOOK HAS TAKEN OVER YOUR OFFICE, GIL. Don’t Fear the Reaper, Gil, cuz he and World Book and the bison snuck through your prairie-style windows and set up shop.
Therefore, I brought along a VERY popular group from the late ’60’s-early ’70’s, Chicago, to kick some booty on this plot and sweep up the detritus even as we kick. Originally called Chicago Transit Authority, they were forced to change the name when the City of Chicago threatened to sue over copyright infringement. So they became Chicago which to me has a better ring to it anyway and I’m sure the group of Robert Lamm, Terry Kath (RIP, My Man, Hendrix loved you) Peter Cetera, Danny Seraphine, James Pankow, Lee Loughnane, and Walter Parazaider would agree.
As I walking up to Gil one day
He showed me that his Sportswatch lost a gear and lost the race cuz it went cold deeeeaaaaaadddddd
Yeah
And I said
Does anybody really know when this crap will end?
Does anybody really care?
And so I can’t imagine why
We’re not on tenterhooks while it dies
Gang, we know we are subjected from time to time to a bad joke teller who gets on our nerves with his/her jokes only his/her mother would laugh at(occasionally debatable). But we’re all Christians and we don’t want to hurt the poor schmuck’s/schmuckess’ feelings. Therefore, we laugh politely, hoping he/she will see “mene, mene, tekel, parsin” like Daniel did in The Bible and stop with the bad comedy schtick and move on, preferably to Qatar. Many time Joe/Jane Jokehacker indeed leaves on the next ocean liner to Angola or at least goes home(unfortunately, like moonshine, to brew more bad humor). We’re off the hook because we laughed politely, if not sincerely. C’mon, the joke was bad, we’re just steering out of trouble.
However, so that both parties wind up in a win-win situation, DO NOT implement the Elmer Fudd Polite Laughter Technique, i.e., HAHAHAHAHAHA. Not only will he think you are just trying to get him/her off your back, he/she won’t go home to conjure up more crappy humor. Now you’re stuck with a major problem. Allow me to demonstrate:
Joe: What is white and black and looks like Mt. Everest all over?
Jane: I give up.
Joe: Gil’s hair.
Jane: Shhhhhhhhhh, be vewy, vewy, quiet. I’m hunting wabbits. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Joe: You didn’t think it was funny?
I think you get the message. Here’s another example:
Gil: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Kaz: I give up.
Gil: To get to the other side.
Kaz: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Better late than never. Pialeavinte (“PEEL-a-VINT-ee”) Hernandez, of Jeffersonville, Indiana, gets a shout-out after showing me her lust and zest for life even though she is confined to a wheelchair. “Can’t do” is not in her vocabulary, not at any time. She now works at Wal-Mart and stocks the shelves with the best of them. Rather than sit at home and mope, she has chosen to wise up and live. Gotta hand it to her, she is an inspiration to me and I hope she is to you. God Bless You, Pialeavinte. I salute you.
This I encountered at the Shell Convenient Mart at their mini-TV screen while I was pumping gas
The Word of the Day: Stentorian: Loud and harsh-sounding, often in a rude and obnoxious manner.
Okay. An example is in order
Mimi was confronted in the gym by the Milford Police after her stentorian coaching to her players about how to implement the pick-and-roll was heard several blocks down the street, reaching the second-shift bartender at the Milford Lounge.
Oh, what the heck, how ’bout another example, gang?
Dr. Pearl’s stentorian threats to the union steward representing the cafeteria ladies that Dr. Pearl would hire scabs if the union wouldn’t cave in to the 1.00 an hour increase(union was bucking for 1.50/hour) fell on deaf ears. The union was going to proceed to picket in front of Milford Mall.
And, I’m sorry, but the only thing that comes to my mind when talking about living in uninhabited quarters is The Amityville Horror. Aside from the fact that the book is one of the few that scared the Living Hell out of me, this plot is not only pressing its luck, it’s doing so with unnecessary weirdness.
“Sure, Coach, I’m fine. Every now and then I see Ronald DeFeo, Jr. hacking up his mom and dad in the bath tub and machine-gunning the children in the breakfast nook and, wait, I also see buffalo stampeding Ronald Defeo, Jr. in the laundry room every night at 1:00 A.M. and Dagwood and Beezelbub singing “The Antichrist Is Coming” in a duet to the tune of “Christmas is Coming” (…please to put your claws and fangs in some dead rat’s blood…) on the verandah and pigs and buffalo look at my house every morning when I leave for school and I’ve occasionally heard a marching band play “Moon River” by the front door, Andy Williams coming from the grave for an encore, otherwise, I’m eligible.
Shout-out to Shawna Vickers, from Louisville, Kentucky. She does an excellent job in dispatch at TARC (Transit Authority of River City). With all the routes and drivers running this way and that, she is VERY patient in straightening out any problems that may come her way. Remember, many people have doctor appointments and important meetings to go to but she ALWAYS delivers in motivating the drivers to those people there. Shawna, if nobody else recognizes the hard work and aplomb you put into the job, I WILL. SOMEBODY needs to notice. I salute you, Shawna. You make the city of Louisville AND America run.
Gil: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Kaz: I give up.
Gil: It heard the Milford Stadium might be sold out and so it ran its ass off, avoiding getting run over by J.B. Hunt semi’s and Yellow Cabs and a station wagon full of soccer kids and mopeds and Evinrude motorboats and Apollo 8 rockets and Milford & Oakwood Express to get to the other side to get an early seat.
Kaz: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
As I was walking down the street one day
I caught Mimi cussing at her diamond watch with 19th-century diamonds dug during the Victorian age with a lap timer for the Milford Marathon and was once pawned off by Winston Churchill when the British economy was stagnant before Bretton Woods could address the issue replete with sapphire studs around the wristband that glow in the dark a plus when Mimi’as trying to find her key to get inside and a partridge in a pear tree and she said Gil spit his phloem at the wrong angle and that it was cold deeeeeaaaaaddddddddd
And I said
Does anybody really know what time this trash will cease?
Does anybody really care?
And, Lord, I honestly try to imagine why
All the excuses why we shouldn’t cry
Today’s headline in the Milford Enquirer
“Milford Oil Inc. Fined $25,000 For Illegal Parking!!!!!!!!!!”
sub headline
Milford Oil spokesperson insists tanker was parked between the yellow lines.
Shout-out to Lisa Kik for 21 years at Workwell Industries. Man, I’m impressed by your dedication and hard work to make this great nation even greater. Whatever you do, you attack with a vengeance. You ALWAYS put 110% into what you do. And I will also remember your niece, Adline (AD-leen) . She is very dear to your heart, I can tell. And that is how it should be, to care for things and people that will always pay you back down the road with their gratitude. I hope Adline becomes like you, Lisa, hard-working, unselfish, and great believer in God. May God truly bless you.
Oh, what the heck, the examples keep popping up in my head
Marty’s stentorian drinking at Milford Lounge was only matched by the stentorian chewing out by the WDIG President of Marty because the ratings had hit the skids at last week’s football game.
Gil’s stentorian snoring forced Mimi to sleep in the boiler room at Milford High School because Steve Luhm was applying the final coat of wax in Mimi’s office. Mimi refused to sleep any further with Gil until he marched his ass down to Milford Men’s Clinic and treated his stentorian erectile problems AND subsequently marched his ass down to the Dr. McCoy Sleep Apnea Center at Milford General to treat his obnoxious, stentorian snoring.
Dagwood: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Mr. Dithers and Blondie: We give up.
Dagwood: To get to the other side.
Mr. Dithers and Blondie: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Dagwood: You didn’t like the joke?
Insert rebuke
Mr. Dithers and Blondie: Do you realize how old that joke is?
Buffalo stampeding the Children’s Department at Kohl’s, ripping up all the Underoos.
And I was walking down the street one day
Being pushed and shoved by Mudlarks trying to break these panels and dump this plot on its head
And I said
Does anybody really know what time this plot will end?
Does anybody really care?
And so I cannot fathom why
We left our brains from this to fry
Gang, comment away. I have another example of stentorian to leave you with (If you don’t like it, may you be eternally confined with Tiki at his living quarters with pigs and buffalo). Take her away, Bob Eubanks
“Couple #3, How would you describe your sex life will your say as ‘stentorian’?”
Coach Shaw on a roll
“Oh, man, when I’m humpin’ and pumpin’ like a dog on a fire hydrant and skinnin’ my wife like a 10-point buck and rippin’ her guts, not literally but sexually, she turns me into a saber-toothed tiger!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Well, Tony the Tiger, the answer is not so GRRRRRREEAAATTTTTTT!!!!!!!!! She answered when you’re arguing while you’re trying to avoid her and you wind up in the sugar maple tree in your yard because your whim-whim got beaten down by the stapler.”
“Honeyyyyy, you know we sold the stapler at our yard sale last week.”
“You still have to use the magnet to yank out the staples.”
“Coach Shaw, I hope the Superconductivity is high.”
The Milford Mudlark gym-turned-into-studio audience roars with laughter.
Good ol’ Bob. Knows how to keep cameo coaches in line. Like that in a man.
Gil: Why did the chicken cross the road?
Kaz: I give up
Gil: It was heading to Milford Community College because it heard there was a symposium that was in the process of solving Fermat’s Last Theorem and it had the proof and the papers in its claw, pointing out several flaws such as the 1 hadn’t been carried when they were adding x^n + y^n = z^n, that the n was a prime, not a composite number, throwing the whole proof off, therefore the radical had to be a negative within the radical, naturally, rendering it an imaginary number, therefore stymieing Bertrand Russell’s assertion that imaginary numbers belonged in Marty’s goatee, and that the exponent n was really part of the Commutative Property of Equality, refuting the argument that
x^n + y^n = z^n
However
z^n doesn’t equal x^n + y^n when switched around,
thereby rendering Side-Angle-Side Theorem totally futile and the chicken was on the verge of achieving fortune and fame via negating this misapplied thesis but before it could stand on the Shoulders of Giants, the Pepsi truck ran it over in the parking lot.
Kaz: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Gil: You didn’t think it was funny?
Kaz: Some of my best friends love imaginary numbers.
Tiki had to leave New Thayer. We will find out why if we are allowed to have more straight answers.
So, Tiki’s family, in order to contend with his removal from New Thayer is renting an apartment in Milford to establish residence. Something about that doesn’t add up. I don’t expect further explanation of why or how they did this. It’s just another one of those things we are supposed to accept.
That pose in Panel 2 is used a lot. With tilted head, a character clutches the side/back of the neck. Maybe there are swarms of mosquitoes in Milford and characters are often swatting them.
jasbeattie
nedryerson
robmize2013
tdrewhardin
teenchy
timbuys
