You Can’t Travel, Joe. Oops, My Bad, I Thought We Were Talking Basketball.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, that’s a real knee-slapper, Filion. Way to get things on the right foot with the oldest prank in the book. Not even Dennis the Menace would stoop that low.

“OWWWWWWWWWWWWW, MY EYE HAS POPPED OUT OF ITS SOCKET, MR. WILSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“George, you big bully, you had to use a rake on him? C’mon, Dennis, let’s have some milk and cookies and I’ll see if I can find an adjustable crescent wrench to screw it back in.”

“Martha, I was just raking leaves!!!!!!!!!! Next thing you know, he and Ruff are on the ground in an epileptic seizure. That’s gotta be one of those gumballs he got out of the Milford Kiwanis gumball machine at the Milford Laundromat.”

“They just don’t want to admit they need a Band-aid. Here, I’ve got some peroxide in the Lazy Susan in the kitchen next to the Cheerios and the Arm & Hammer Baking Soda. And we’ll put Ruff to sleep after I feed you some Wheat Chex.”

“Ruff’s just constipated, Martha. I’ll get some Ex-Lax in my glove box and stick it in his Alpo.”

 

And you old timers remember the Gomer Pyle episode about Sergeant Carter’s eye? If you whippersnappers will bear with me too, an artist came on Camp Pendleton to survey who she thought might be a perfect person to represent the Marines in their advertising posters. Well. she’s making a few sketches throughout the show and it looks like she is sketching Sergeant Carter when in reality she is sketching Gomer. Sergeant Carter is performing all these manly poses from standing on Gomer in triumph during a war games drill to pointing the troops to victory as if he was at Iwo Jima. Naturally, Colonel Gray is shocked at the artist’s decision and eventually so is, naturally, Sergeant Carter. Gomer, of course, is the Man of the Hour on the posters, standing tall and proud in his dressed blues, representing everything you want in a Marine and what a grunt aspires to after boot camp and beyond. Still, as you could understand, it’s an awkward situation as Sergeant Carter is left out in the cold after he had high hopes. The artist senses that and so draws Sergeant Carter’s eye which lays in the background(“Behind every Marine is a Sergeant ready to mold him” or something to that effect which the artist uses to explain her rationale)  like the road-narrowing-to-a-point-in-the-distance perspective which lifts Sergeant Carter’s spirits considerably. In fact, at the end of the show, some passer-by sees the poster on a display on a street somewhere and sees Gomer and understandably says “Hey, that’s you!!!!!!” And as fate would have it, Sergeant Carter cuts in and says “Yes, but that’s my eye there behind him”. Of course, the passer-by has no clue what Sergeant Carter is talking about and the show ends with Sergeant Carter desperately clinging to his sliver of fame with the passer-by.

 

So as long as the football plot lost all the wheels on the car and we never knew the denouement of the season thanks to Thorpiverse evidently having trouble budgeting its time, I might as well tie up some loose ends with

“For every great Mudlark, there’s a coach who inspires him to perspire if he wants to win the brass ring” with Tiki running with the football to the end zone with the Sharks from New Thayer in hot pursuit while this toupee of Gil’s floats proudly and arrogantly in the sky, topped by a halo and surrounded by the Cherubim. Marty Moon is in the other corner being dragged down in Hell by Carrie White and the rest of the demons. Mimi and her basketball team are at the Pearly Gates cheering on Tiki to greater heights, heck, they have the time, they only play 5 basketball games.

On the bulletin board at The Bucket

“Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tiki, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!! You’re a real winner in that poster!!!!!!!!! You kicked some major Shark ass and you pulled a Doug Flutie to help win the game Thorpiverse forgot to print in this overextended season!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What’s your secret?”

“No secret, really. Just hard work, plenty of Kellogg’s Sugar Corn Pops-”

YES, BUT THAT’S MY HAIR BEHIND HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everybody looks befuddled.

MY HAIR!!!!!!!!!! MY HAIR!!!!!!!!!! THE BAD DON EVERLY REPRINT WITH THE GRECIAN FORMULA SMEARED ALL OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Can you say FILLER SPACE? What else could this be when we avoided the Jets and Sharks rumbling in the streets when one of the Jets had a camera and shot hog-wild with it and escaped by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin(as did the other Jets) and NOW we are about to begin basketball(and that ain’t gettin’ off on the right foot given a Mudlark showing off his Air Jordan moves in his negligee) which evidently required some kind of transition and I guess Joe at the Movies a/k/a Joe at the Travel Agency footed the bill.

I guess it’s better than the alternatives

At the Milford Lounge

“Gil, that’s the 13th Bud Lite you’ve had. The plot wasn’t THAT bad.”

“Oh, yeah(burp)? We had more action in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark: Indiana Jones Excavates Principal Ek’s Class Ring’, which Joe showed in one of the  game film sessions than on the football field. Man(belch), I feel like a fifth wheel. I hope Mimi doesn’t see me this way.”

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem. She just downed her 12th Bud Lite watching ‘Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman’ in the Family Room.”

Orrrrrrrrrrrrrr,

“We’re gonna film ’em TONIIGGGHHHHHTTTTTT

Their hood caps better fit tiiiiigggghhhhhhtttttt”

“Leonard, you get a good camera angle on the short guy’s crack; he’s not wearing Fruit of the Looms

And Andy, catch that bruiser with the tattoo when he’s smiling. That Mammy Yokum profile will drive him and the rest of the losers out of Milford, no question”

“Riiiiiggggghhhhhhtttttttttt”

“We’re gonna film ’em tonnnniiiiggghhhhttttttttt

The turd faces better take fllllliiiiggghhhhttttttt”

“Tonight, tonight, won’t be just any night…”

Ahhhhhhh, better save Tony and Maria for a rainy day

Orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

“DAMN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a time to lose my Off! spray. I can outrun that elephant if I get to that footbridge. I never knew Milford Nature Area could be so gargantuous. Maybe Peaches’ll be there for a quickie.”

Really, any of these could have been the pinch hitter and we could sashay into Aardvark on a breakaway slam under the influence of one of his mother’s medications before you know it. Trust me on that one.

 

Shout out to Wayne and Steve Kuchenbrod of Lyndon, Kentucky. They are fraternal twins and when I saw them they were going to the public gym on a workout program. Good for them. It was COLD when I saw them and they could have stayed home and nobody would have blamed them but they chose to get out of the house. I’m proud of them for choosing to get busy living and work on improving their bodies as we all get older. I salute both of you and think you represent America. Treat ’em with respect, gang.

 

“In a moment, we’ll see if Marty can escape the pack of lions that Gil let loose in the Milford Nature Area from the Barnum & Bailey Circus.”

 

“Hi, this is Colonel Harland Sanders for Kentucky Fried Chicken. I’ll bet many of you think that because I now have the Andy Warhol profile on all my signage right down to the coffee cup and I have the voice of Boss Hogg when the record’s running at ’78 that it was all mashed potatoes and gravy. Boy, have you been eating one Liver Cheese Burger too many.

I actually started in Milford when it was the Milford Chicken Pits Company. We would shoot chickens out in the woods and even hock a few from Gil’s Grandfather’s farm next door. Shheeeeet, the dude possessed 1,275,898 of them, he wasn’t going to miss ’em any time soon. His abacus couldn’t count that high.

We would pluck the chicken one feather at a time, then use an Uzi on their head. Couldn’t be too careful. No sense in using a toy gun on them babies if ya wanted things finger lickin’ good. We just needed below the neck. Then we’d dip it into a battere that’s a secret recipe but I’ll throw a hint at ya, we had to dodge the revenoors when we drove in the woods. We opened our first restaurant right here in Milford, right down the street from The Bucket. Gil worked as a teenager, driving the unused chicken parts out by where the varmints smashed the still. Carry Nation wasn’t about to dig up nasty chicken breast bones and burn ’em nor raid Gil’s Chevy.

Over the years, we’ve grown to several restaurants, fightin’ The Bucket every step of the way over property settlements, advertising, and softball bragging rights, oh, SHIT, and the food too.

That’s why I’m here to plug our new 5 Dollar Fill-Up that’ll put any Bucket Chicken Sandwich or Bucket Burger to shame. For 5 dollars, you can load down with 150 wings, 353 thighs, 241 breasts, 15 gizzards, 2 tons of jowl bacon and 75 potato wedges and a chocolate ship cookie. And at no extra charge, the Bucket, not the Pop’s Cholit Shoppe wannabe, you dummies, comes with a side of cole slaw and mashed potatoes. We’ll even throw plastic silverware. Just be careful not to let the spork get submerged in all the thighs.

And wouldn’t you know it, our Bucket beats The Bucket’s Bucket. They only offer one ton of a Bucket o’ Jowl Bacon, 352 thighs and, hoooeyyyy, they include 100 Bucket Cheese Burgers which are manufactured from grain-fed beef, an EPA bête-noire.  To add insult to injury, their cole slaw and mashed potatoes come in thimbles. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be sewing  my Milford letter on my sweater with gravy all over me.

Come to KFC, where we do chicken right and let The Bucket burn their burgers on a cross of gold. A 5 Dollar Fill-Up Bucket is better than a Bucket o’ Anything at The Bucket, commode included.”

 

 

 

Gang, I’m STILL trying to figure out the freak hands in P2. You know those optical illusions where it’s an old lady in one perspective but a young woman in another? Yes, but that’s TWO SEPERATE ENTITIES!!!!!!!!!!! Here, the thumb and the forefinger is on the same hand. I’ve seen papier-mache artwork that my niece (great artist, BTW) concocted int he 3rd grade better than this guessing game of an appendage. I THINK that’s a thumbnail. Oh, what the hay, the thumb just got stapled on to the hand. Plus, nobody uses the thumb to emphasize a point. Try imagining Lincoln attempting the maneuver while giving the Gettysburg Address.

FDR at the mike

“Today will be a Day of Infamy”

Okay, one more last-ditch attempt,

Lou Gehrig giving his Farewell Speech

“I am the luckiest man alive.

Nahhhhhhhhhhhh, keep your thumb for safekeeping.

 

 

Oooooooooooooooookkkkkkkkk, Gene Rayburn is back in the studio to sabotage things and he is chompin’ at the bit to do so, thusly, take ‘er away, Gene

“Dumb dora was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO dumb (HOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! DUMB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) , she thought basketball started now because of ______________________”

 

If ya refuse ta turn the telly and watch the NBA or anything else for that matter even though ya have 151 channels ‘cuz youse callin’ the Cable officials about who won the tractor pull after they yanked the show fer “Heidi”, ya might be a redneck.

 

Big shout-out to Donna Bouquet(boo-KAY) of Fern Creek, Kentucky. Donna gets up EARLY to go to work at the Fern Creek Kroger and she keeps the store running with her hard work and determination. She is great to talk to and I have learned a ton from her. She is also very close to her family and they look out for each other, especially in times of need. She contributes mightily to America’s welfare and represents what America is all about. She just flat-out gets it done either at work or at home as typified by her beautiful house and well-manicured lawn. Keep on going, Donna. America needs you. You’ve earned my respect.

 

“Will Marty escape the mongoose??????? Will the mongoose grab a hold of Marty’s family jewels?????? Find out in a moment for the exciting conclusion!!!!!!!!!!”

 

“Are you planning a big Christmas Eve celebration where everybody will be exchanging presents with everybody right down to the Tonka Train Set and ugly ties but you lost your job because the new guy could figure the stats quicker and cheaper? Hi, I’m Coach Thorp on behalf of the Milford Beverage Warehouse. No, Milford Beverage Warehouse can’t refer you to that 24-hour truck stop for a job as a dishwasher nor give you any references in that regard but, boy o boy, they have a great deal for you. The $100 Fill-up Deal will get you a cover letter in record time. You will get a steel drum filled with all kinds of wines of your choice for that discriminating alcoholic in your family plus Lowenbrau and Michelob 24-packs for the slushees watching the NBA at Christmas; they may not know the score at the end of the game or even care, but with golden elixirs such as these and even a free case of Bud when you tell ’em that you heard Uncle Gil on the radio talking about the Warehouse, you won’t go wrong. And don’t forget the party snacks, that’s right, the Warehouse made sure to cram them suckers and wedge the Milford Vending Beer Nuts and Milford Vending Cashews, not to mention Charles Chips, between the 28 Pink Truck Wines and pina coladas. And what’s chips and peanuts plus Bolthouse Farms Baby Carrots and Milford Farms Celery Pieces without some dip? C’mon, admit it, you dip plenty of Charles Chips Barbecue Chips in the Milford Dairy Spinach Dip and Milford Dairy Cinnamon Cream Cheese. And how could I forget the bagels? The Warehouse put the star on the Christmas tree in short order. Silly me. Hey, sounds like you’re gonna have a party without Milford Finance sending a tow truck in your driveway to repossess your car. By the way, you can return your steel drum to The Warehouse and get a rebate good for a purchase of Drewry’s Dark. With all these incentives, why go anywhere else? C’mon what does the Milford Wal-Mart liquor department have to offer besides Sam’s Choice Malt Liquor? I’ll bet they don’t even need a crowbar to cram  Great Value Cheese Puffs into their shopping cart. Nope, the Warehouse Fill-Up Deal is non-pareil. Why, I saw Rob Walton sneak in the emergency door to check out the haps. you’re not fooling me, Bud and Sam.

Come to Milford Beverage Warehouse, your headquarters for Christmas party shopping. Yes, at The Warehouse, just because you have to tighten your belt doesn’t mean ya gotta put a leash on The Good Life. Heck, the only time you’ll say you can’t load the drum in the bed of the truck is when you’ll tell the loading crew at The Warehouse you’ll hoist it yourself. Hey, at The Warehouse, have it your way.

 

Gang, have it your way. I think affairs are already getting staid if there are no nets, backboards, basketball racks, scoreboard, popcorn machine. Hell, at least draw a free throw line so I know this isn’t a hockey rink. Yup, just some friends in their basketball uniforms that are sneaky resemblances to gym clothes gathering around to talk about the New York Rangers. Happens all the time.

 

JODYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!! JODY DAVIS!!!!!!!!!!!!! CATCHER WITHOUT A FEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Harry, I think the Senility Meter broke the mercury out of the tube. The baseball plot was two sports ago.”

Sorry, Robmize, one last Cubbie joke before next year(ha).

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Where Do You Sleep?

Thalidomide Kaz

Threatening to take Tiki

Back to his dojo

 

To “sleep.” Yeah, whatevs.

Kaz’s dojo is simple

Not unlike himself

 

Far simpler than

Tiki’s complicated life

How complicated?

 

I don’t think we’ll know

Until the end of next week

Oh, such the drama

 

“Do” more definite

Than “could.” Might mean that Tiki

Sleeps in his Plymouth

 

Not matter of where

Tiki sleeps but where he could

Kaz, how do you sleep?

 

It’s Not Just The Win That’s Moot

Marty had a point

Season is already lost

So bench best player

 

Even if he starts

An impromptu striptease in

Front of the coaches

 

Gil’s a defeatist

Many teams make the postseason

With losing records

 

So can we assume

There are less than two games left?

Please let it be so

 

Making kids examples

To show that Gil has standards

It’s the Milford way

 

Until he finds out

Tiki has legit reasons

Then he must save face

 

He’ll give Marty

Some lame-assed excuse about

Special teams lapses

 

If he’d spent more time

On the offense, they would face

Fewer fourth downs

 

What happened to Joe

And Kaz’s fancy software?

Bolek could have helped

 

Or was he busy

Hanging the uniforms so

Neatly in lockers?

 

 

 

A Season – Sort Of

It looks like we’re going to have to endure this game, or some facsimile of a game.

The players from Oakwood don’t want to be doing this any more than we do. They’re just closing their eyes and swinging. They still scored three runs. Let’s file this away for next spring and see if we revisit Jay Bhatia and his quest to be the staff ace.

Pelwecki’s launch angles are off a smidge. The coach from State U. has already forgotten his name.

Who are we kidding? It’s still all about Barry Bader, whose face says, “What about it, guys? All is forgiven, right? Right?”

Del’s a Witch! He Turned Me Into A Ballplayer!

Alright already with the glasses propped up on your forehead, Ma Bader. Have you had to read any print since you answered the door for Dafne, served brownies and sat down on the couch? Not that I can see. That’s just a minor gripe before moving on to the main issue…

What the hell is going on here? Why did Ma Bader invite Dafne over to have a front row seat for her Come To Jesus talk with Barry? She told Dafne she was there to “help me save my son”. How is Dafne supposed to help? Clearly Ma Bader needed to have this talk with Barry. Dafne’s article and Barry’s reaction did provide Ma with a “teachable moment”, but Dafne doesn’t have to shouldn’t be there. Boundaries, people!

It’s also clear that Ma Bader is in way over her head here. She’s calling her son damaged and attributing the damage to Del. I’d love to hear a reaction from an experienced family therapist on this line of conversation. It seems overly confrontational and judgmental. However, it is apparent that Ma Bader has suffered much too and in Del’s absence has only begun to come to terms with how to help Barry. They need professional help, not Dafne Dafonte.

Rough Expectations

Well that was anticlimactic.  Given that (1) Barry has been treated like dirt by his teammates, his schoolmates, and his coaches ever since his father’s crash into Addison “Boo, But Not the Boo from To Kill A Mockingbird” Radley (b) no one, not even Counselor Dern, has suggested Barry get help or talk to someone except as a means to generate a lede, and (iii) Rubin has taken a ham-fisted approach to so many of his “ripped from the headlines” arcs only to end them in a flurry of tell-don’t-show moments, I fully expected today’s strip to feature Barry shooting up the halls of Milford High.  Rubin could wipe out underdeveloped and name-dropped characters in one fell swoop and turn the summer arc into a month-long episode of A Very Special Gil Thorp. I even implied as much in my Thursday post.

Art snark aside: Dafne and Bestie Who Looks Like An Extra From Room 222 (not to say that Dafne herself doesn’t look the same from time to time) have each lost a chunky bracelet since yesterday. Dafne and Barry are a bit closer in height than they were previously.

Back on topic: Maybe l’affaire Bader et Dafonte will still erupt in violence.  Maybe the adults in the teachers’ lounge will read the article and see it as the cry for help Barry has so desperately tried to make for the past two years.  Maybe the Nats will stop free falling, turn their season around, claw their way into a playoff spot and finally win a postseason series for once.  None of these things seems likely at the moment, and none of them are going to happen soon enough.

metapost:  timbuys’ Thorp of July post had some of us drifting off in Costello/Lowe reverie and realizing that we may have been in the same room at the same time.  Doubtless, then, the latest news from Mr. MacManus may have hit some of us like a ton of bricks. The news does seem positive, however, and I’m hopeful The Living Elvis will remain living for some time to come, which leads me to…

metapost 2: For the past couple of years I’ve been the Thursday and Saturday poster, a fact that always makes me think of a certain EC song.  As such, I usually end up being the guy who gets to weigh in on an arc’s final strip. Not this time, however.  I’m going to be traveling over the next two weeks, so one or more of my esteemed colleagues will get to see this train wreck into the station.  Thanks for hanging in there with me today.  I leave you with that certain song that almost always comes to mind when I enter the Thorpiverse.

Soft Recruiting (Coach Colvin Wrote Me A Letter)

I’m not going to pretend that I know anything about the actual mechanics of college recruiting or if sending letters through the mail is still the primary way for communicating with “recruits”.

What else does it say?

If your grades aren’t good enough to be admitted, walking on is going to be problematic.

If you think Gil Thorp doesn’t give a shit about baseball, wait until you get a load of The Colvin Way.

Do you have any relatives that live in Idaho? Out of state tuition at State U. is brutal!

Gil is probably standing right next to you, right? Say hi to that old reprobate for me!

Coach Colvin needs to see a trainer, amirite?

Where’s Rick Scott or Heather Burns when you need them?  Poor Coach Delano Colvin has suffered an horrific ankle sprain or worse (link is not for the squeamish).  Gil may have run into Delano on the Mudlarks’ trip back from Bluffton earlier in the season. That might lead me to believe that “State U.” is the one in Raleigh; however, a GPA of “almost 3.5” looks like it won’t cut the mustard there, being a reach at best.

While Pelwecki gets called to the office over the intercom (instead of Gil having the message sent to Pelwecki’s next period teacher, as he is often wont to do) we get spirited back to the Trumpet office in what is essentially a tell, don’t show repeat of Thursday’s panel 3.

Meanwhile, in an assisted living facility in an unnamed town, Herk the Mauler watches old wrasslin’ highlights and wonders when his rematch with Beau Dandy is coming up. Here’s a wrasslin’ highlight from one of my all time favorite heels.