In Milford, Some of Us All Look Alike

Wow, feels nice to free myself from the constraints of the haiku form.  Wish I had more to say today.  Bet it would feel nice for Whigham to free himself from the constraints of using the same facial features and hairstyles for all of his Mudlarks.  Let’s take a closer look at that first panel, shall we?

Do these two not have identical noses?  I leave it to you, gentle readers, to draw your own conclusions.  Guessing Marcell doesn’t use his first name, Duwan.

I reckon after multiple seasons Rubin has decided to imbue Man of a Thousand Faces and Hairstyles “Marginal” Mike Filion with a personality and backstory.  He’s been quiet ever since we’ve been introduced to him, speaking only when spoken to by Gil or Kaz.  But Neal needs another extroverted look-at-me guy to make his plots go, so Filion it is.

Meanwhile Bobby Howry plots his revenge via billboard…

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Like We Needed Another Plot Twist

Tiki Jansen was

Eligible after all?

Anticlimactic

 

Why didn’t we see

Dr. Pearl? Always up for

Granny Clampett* action

 

Gil is hesitant

To reinstate Tiki ’cause

He’s a good player?

 

Well, that seals the deal

Gil knows he’s being unfair

Tanking the season

 

Proves beyond a doubt

Milford’s state championship

Was just a fluke

 

“Damn that True Standish!

Unicorn in football cleats

Made me have to work!”

 

Any Milford wins

Come in spite of Gil’s “coaching”

Not because of it

 

What’s this? Another

Plot twist? Something besides the

“Slow sister” excuse?

 

What kind of baggage

Is Tiki dragging with him?

Do we even care?

 

Maybe he should try

Anger management classes

Worked for Van Auken

 

 

*Yes, I know her character’s actual name was Daisy Moses.

Gil’s Next Trick Play: The Tiki Eligible

Kaz can’t conclude that

Tiki eligible, so

Off to the weight room

 

Then while bench pressing

Bet Kaz wasn’t expecting

Gil to teabag him

 

There’s no clear-cut call

On eligibility

To keep us guessing

 

Gil Thorp logic:

“What would our opponents think?”

They don’t have to know

 

No Urban Meyer

More like Kirby Not-so-Smart

Or next Petrino

 

Andre Ruffin sez:

“Wish you were playing tonight.”

“The jury’s still out.”

 

Benched Tiki again?

Didn’t even dress him out?

Why did he show up?

 

Surely Marty Moon

Has noticed. He should be on

This like white on rice

 

Through all this shitshow

Where’s the movie buff punter?

Off watching game film?

 

Is he reviewing

This travesty of a plot?

Give it the finger

Meet Skip Tracy, née Bob Kazinski

Here we go again

Kaz plays detective because

He can’t coach for shit

 

Pine Trace landlord is

Quick to give the deets about

Tiki’s apartment

 

Like a Motel 6

Maybe Kaz should work for ICE

Where’s “Rick” Soto now?

 

Next, Kaz is calling

The Microsoft campus. Why?

Oh, it’s COACH Redmond!

 

Is he at New Thayer?

Must be. Why the hell else would

Kaz be calling him?

 

New Thayer must have

A real crappy school system

To leave for Milford

 

Why else would you move

Into a dumpy place on

The poor side of town?

 

The missing subtext:

The Valley’s full of income

Inequality

 

Here’s Where The Story Should End

Gil lit Tiki up

Worse than any wide receiver

That ain’t Andre’s biz

 

Just keep practicing

But never suit up for games?

Just quit already!

 

“Lit up” for nothing?

Mudlarks can lose without you

Still miss the playdowns

 

Tiki’s sister is

More important than football

Family comes first

 

Sticking with Gil Thorp’s

Transit analogy, that

Car won’t drive itself

 

The only thing that

Keeps me interested in

This stumbling plot:

 

Anticipating

The crow Gil will have to eat

When truth comes to light

 

 

 

Let’s Hope Gil Doesn’t Bring In Social Services Again

We’ve been down this road before, a little over a year and a half ago to be exact. Nosy classmates stick their noses where they don’t belong, Gil gets wind and the next thing you know another Milford High kid’s getting his family busted up like…uh, well, another family that got busted up.  And what’s up with Andre and Movie Boy Weird Joe Bolek getting so chummy so quickly? (I thought Andre’s first word balloon had an extraneous comma.) Are they gonna turn into this year’s Ken Brown and Mike Granger?

Why should Gil know about Tiki’s excessive tardiness? Is there some unwritten rule that Milford athletes who are chronically late to school get kicked off the team, or suspended for the first half against a cupcake non-conference opponent, or something?  Gil suspended Barry Bader for getting ejected but made him travel with the team; maybe there’s some similar obscure punishment in Tiki’s future. (Sorry, I left this sentence unfinished last night.)

Stranger things have happened, so if this ends with a GoFundMe to replace Tiki’s beater Plymouth with something newer so he can get his sister to school on time, then I’m cool with it. Sorry to keep y’all waiting on today’s post.

 

 

Milford @ Jefferson: Haiku

The Jeffs are wearing

Helmets that look like Dartmouth’s

Or pencil sharpeners

 

Another team dressed in

White at home, like the Cowboys

Or Bayou Bengals

 

When did the players

Stop wearing wristbands and switch

Over to Fitbits?

 

Tiki Jansen won’t

Be getting torched on this play

Saw that pun coming

 

But wait, he’s been flagged

For making a reacharound

Not in the shower

 

Marty Moon cannot

Believe his eyes; dancing ice cubes

In front of floodlights

 

That’s liquor talking

It’s just some good old lens flare

Lay off the rotgut

 

 

I came here to snark on bad coaching, not to become a cineaste!

Kaz and Joe stood there and looked at each other in silence for five minutes?  That settles it: Kaz is not salaried faculty or staff but hourly contingent labor. In any universe even remotely based in reality a coach might have given a student 5 seconds – okay, 10 seconds if we’re being generous – to answer before telling them to get out of their office the hallway and go to their next period class, or catch a school bus, or whatever.

As with The Legend of Bagger Vance, I’m not going to rehash the plot of Rififi here. The Wikipedia entry for the film states that “[a]fter he was blacklisted from Hollywood, [Director Jules] Dassin found work in France where he was asked to direct Rififi. Despite his distaste for parts of the original novel, Dassin agreed to direct the film. He shot Rififi while working with a low budget, without a star cast, and with the production staff working for low wages.” Low budget? No stars? Staff working for low wages? We could be talking about the Mudlark football team and its coaching staff.

I’d be okay with the next 28 panels of this strip having no dialogue and just action. You?

 

metapost: Do any of you loyal readers read TWIM on a smartphone?  I compose it on a Dell laptop with AdBlock Plus installed, but usually read comments during the day on an Android phone. Often when I do, I get spammy popup ads telling “Dear Andriod User” that I have won something or other and which I cannot close or navigate away from without closing my browser.  If anyone else is having those problems, please comment (I mean, in addition to any snark) so we can get to the bottom of this. Thanks.