Gil Gets His Dig(g)s In

One of our Central City protestors (the Tommie Smith/John Carlos descendant) gets a name and becomes as central to the plot as any Milford girl.  The “other item” Gil was shaking Skip down for must have been her name and digits. I leave it to the readership to discuss the propriety of what Skip and Gil have done. Suffice it to say it doesn’t leave a very good taste in my mouth.

I’m assuming Gil’s convo with, I’m assuming, Ryan will pick up tomorrow with, I’m assuming, what Gil said to Ms. Diggs after appreciating her “taking a stand” that wasn’t written here.  Odds are it will involve some gentle variation on “keep your ****in’ mouth shut.”  I’ll be surprised if her response isn’t some variation on the “HA” behind her head.

From the Pantheon of Mysterious Objects Dept.: Diagonally striped thing above and to the right of the GIL mug (or is it below and to the right? I can’t tell); backdrop of P3 (they’re standing outdoors, presumably; is it a huge backstop, more Prairie Style Windows, or what?).

Maybe, But Does Ryan Have a Super Bowl Ring?

Today’s big highlight is getting to watch Papa Van Auken morph from Dabney Coleman into Carl Brutananadilewski. Holy crap where did his eyelids go? Between Pop’s chest slap and summoned rage and Mom’s agitated temple rubbing, the Van Aukens are starting to pile it on in defense of their son. Granted the Valley is full of gossips with nothing better to do than play telephone and potentially ruin some kid’s life, but dad’s overreacting a bit himself. It’s not like Alyssa and Ryan got married or anything.

is Gil gonna buy their version of the “Ryan hit Alyssa” story? Will he wait to get straight from the ‘Cane’s mouth? Or is a road trip to Central City to meet Alyssa in order? Those don’t often work out well for Milfordians…

Why Would The Central Coach Apologize For A Disruption On The Road?

With his first appearance in his namesake strip in nearly a month, Gil is apparently already halfway to cracking the case of the protesters who basically held up a sign silently for a half inning or so.

Clearly, the Central coach (Is he named Skip or is Gil calling him Skipper?) is about as clued in as Gil typically is. It must be nice coaching in the Valley…

Just to summarize the advancement of today’s plot: We now know ‘those girls’ are Central Students and that Ryan left after the game… Also, when Gil drinks his coffee right handed he has the L in Gil staring him in the face…

Signs, Girls, or Girls with Signs

Ryan got a jolt yesterday because he remembered seeing Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker. His secret thoughts might lead us to believe that’s not really Patty, however. My guess is that the ‘Cane remembers her because he hit her but didn’t know who she was when he did.

This begs the question: If ‘Cane hit some rando girl in Central City, how does Dafuq reach the conclusion that the girl he hit was his girlfriend? Why do I get the feeling that this little show by granddaughter of Tommie Smith (or John Carlos) and her entourage will lead Daftpunk down the road of true investigative journalism to uncover info that will, at least in part, exonerate young Van Auken? Maybe because I don’t have much else to hang my hat on today after yesterday’s big reveal.

Speaking of hats: Take a closer look at Ryan’s today and in yesterday’s P3. The rest of the Milford crew wear that big, indistinct, Miramax Films-like sans-serif “M” but the cap Ryan wears clearly has serifs on the block “M”. It’s almost like he’s not on the same team. What says his teammates will treat him that way once they learn more about his backstory? They’ve been known to do that, y’know; just ask Barry Bader.

So, I Took A Little Vacation From The Blog…

May 30, 2017

And this is what I come back to… Nothing wrong with the first two panels of Tuesday’s strip and I even get a kick out of The Bucket supporting the baseball team, confident in the knowledge that they”ll more than make back their advertising spend through increased sales of milkshakes and french fries. But, boy howdy we swerve back to the Volcano hit a girl plotline and I got just about nothing.

May 31, 2017

I am trying to imagine that part of Ryan’s shock is coming not from the sign, which looks about a third the width of the one they were holding in panel three of Tuesday’s strip, but also the incessant clacking and clanging of those bracelets.

A pitcher that hits

And the plot takes a very different turn as a background check on Ryan reveals something the Milford enrollment committee should have seen when they were reviewing his application. I dont know how public schools enroll kids; I went to a Catholic high school and everyone had to take an entrance exam, which was a basic indicator of if you could handle a college-prep school like the one I went to. A couple of my grade-school friends wound up going to a public high school entirely because they didnt score high enough on the exam to warrant admittance at my Catholic school. It wasnt a big school, and only could admit so many freshmen at once. I know they were a little dissapointed, but life went on and they wound up as productive members of society. I know they were smarter then a couple of kids that Were accepted and wound up either leaving the school due to failing grades or other non-academic reasons. Anyway..

I suppose public school admittance has a little more leeway due to more size and the fact that we the taxpayers are funding the tuition that my parents paid to send me to my private high school. Transfers would be a different story; we had a few here and there every year, but none were troublemakers before that I knew of.

Again I figure Gil knew nothing of Ryans past trasngressions, but we’ll find out next time he’s on a panel. Looks like the sports side of this strip is definitely in the back seat for the time being. My next question is what stage of the assault charges are we at in the past city, and was one of the girls in the panel where they are talking about him his victim? (May 2, Panel 2, and May 12, Panel 3)

We also need to find out more details about the incident; was he intoxicated or did the anger issues stem from other life problems like bad parenting, etc. Got a lot on the plate all of a sudden gang..

 

 

 

More kid gossip

So after the Bucket stare-off, we find that both the guy and the girl thought the other guy and girl was impressed with them. Egads. I cant keep anybody straight at this point. All I know is someone is gonna get mad at somebody for no good reason. P3 adds to the confusion with 3 more girls deciding to go … where? Who knows who likes who at this point and who cares? We got games to play.

METAPOST: I couldnt upload  the strip because GOcomics wasnt working properly, so I put the link from the Seattle Times in instead. I dont know why I cant copy/paste the Seattle link anymore but if someone can tell me how I’d appreciate it.

META-METAPOST: Not sure the issue, but hope you don’t mind my fix, Rob. TimP

What’s Next?

I am sure Dafne will easily be able to top her takedown of a prominent school board member. Stories like that are a dime a dozen in the student newspaper.  Meanwhile, these oddly shaped and attired Central City Cretins are apparently planning a road trip to Tanktown Milford to do…. what exactly? Rile up what’s his name? The volcano guy?

I guess they don’t have anything else to do two weeks from now.