We Never Did See That Scrimmage

“I was at a Comic Con last weekend – and I have this Wasp bobblehead to prove it!”

“I don’t think anybody asked – or cared – where you were, Nancy.”

Pretty tricky of Nancy to hold that bobblehead steady as the floor and the lockers slide away from beneath her feet.

Speaking of writing blogs… Tiny credit where credit is due, or acknowledgement that Whigrub must see this blog: Whigham is gradually moving away from putting huge earrings on his teenage girls to putting multiple small ones on them. Still has this thing for the ears poking out out of the hair elf style, though.

Alright then. All this hoohah about the scrimmage and who didn’t show up for it and why has been going on for two weeks now.  When does it advance the plot?

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Flogging Molly

Meow!

Pretty damned presumptuous of  Linda to assume Molly’s skating event didn’t involve her family.  Most young people I’ve known who have been involved with events on ice have had massive family support, not only in dollars but in time (predawn drives to rinks for ice time come to mind).  Also presumptuous of Linda to think her volleyball extracurriculars are somehow more worthy than Molly’s synchronized skating.  Guess that’s what happens when your high school only offers football, basketball, baseball/softball, soccer and track (the latter two we almost never see or hear about because no one named Thorp coaches them).

People who shed in their lockers shouldn’t throw stones, nah mean?  Now Steve Luhm’s gonna have to show up and sweep all that hair off the locker room floor.  More likely, we’re gonna be treated to a couple of days of Molly’s “nobody understands me or my skating hobby” pity party.  That, or Mimi signing up all the Lady Mudlarks for skating lessons so that they can become as graceful as Molly in the field.

 

 

Now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently a beast.

Riddle me this, TWIMers: Is this our first visit to Barney’s Pub? It’s not one of Del Bader’s old watering holes, like Selasky’s Supper Club, is it? Did it take over the Coffee Cantina’s space, or did they just steal the CC’s plates? Something about the place seems a little off-kilter, like the nacho salad with ketchup and the idea of Marty Moon drinking in public rather than in the lonesome misery of his own four walls.

That’s what’s off – not just Marty’s public drinking but his choice of beverage. He’s been shown to be a Johnnie Walker man on more than one occasion. He’s also shown a historic callousness to the feelings of others, not caring who he pisses off as long as it’s good radio. That’s why I read his greeting to the ladies as a dig, especially at Mimi. Everybody’s been ignoring the Lady Mudlarks, so why shouldn’t Marty? Hell, he’s already mentally moved on even as Marjie Lite fires a lame retort. Look at the thousand yard stare on Evil Spock’s puss.

That said I expect Mimi, Peggy & co. will pull Marty back to reality over the next several strips, by pointing out that it’s not just them who’ve been ignoring him but WDIG listeners generally. They’ve come for the B/Robby Howry show and Marty is just old and in the way. That, and station manager LBJ’s diming B/Robby out for throwing broad hints at wanting Marty’s job, will be the straw that breaks the lush’s back. It’ll be Marty who runs B/Robby out of town on a rail, sparing the Coaches Thorp any dirty work and letting their players and ex-players remain squeaky clean.

Special Guest Cameo: Looks like Richard Moll is passing through Milford and has dropped in to knock back a frosty mug.

Apologies for the lateness of the post. I’ve been on a brief hiatus and my timing’s a bit off. That’s what spring training’s for, isn’t it? Inspiration for today’s post title, if not the name of this latest Milford watering hole:

“Gil, Don’t you think ‘Vocational Guidance Counselor’ belongs in the shed?”

Ya gotta be kidding me. I’m presuming that’s Booby on the other end of the line unless he is following up with a prank phone call (outside chance) .

“Do you sell Mudlar-K-Cola in cans in the cafeteria?”

“Yes, we do.”

“You better let the Mudlar-K out.”

Yeah, if I wanted to see my nephew’s baseball coach fired (and I DIDN’T. He was an excellent coach-RIP, Coach Sparrow) , I’d go to the office secretaries at the school. The buck’ll stop there, fer sure. I’m confident the office temp from Milford-Rent-A-Sec will be on the same page with me when I complain that Gil doesn’t know how to flash the bunt sign. And she’ll cheerfully respond how She feels my pain, that Gil didn’t execute the hit-and-run in the 3rd inning last year against Madison because he didn’t know how to overcome the stench when the base umpire passed gas. Get an oxygen mask next time, Thorp, when waving a guy home. HEY!!!!!!!!!!! Whattya know, we have a connection!!!!!!!!!!! Before I put my Marlboro out in the ash tray by the seats where 2 new enrollees are sitting, me and the secretaries will be talkin’ like Casey Stengal.

Dr. Pearl, coming out of the office with her Night School Attendance Report-2017,

“Can anyone around here coach this game?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only in Thorpiverse do we have Dirty Harry practically being asked to run the vermin out of San Francisco and Milford (Quite a bit of ground to cover-aaaaa, he’s Harry, the scriptwriters will think of something) but not before he asks “Mother, may I?”. And the fact that we are dealing with 2-3 other inchoate plots that will more than likely remain inchoate just makes for a nightmare of a season. I pity ESPN. It’s like Mike Patrick and Dickie V. doing the North Carolina-Duke game, then switching over to the History Channel for the rest of the season, basketball swept up in the Dust Bowl. “Yeah, they’re rockin’ and rollin’ here in the Colosseum!!!!!!!!! Gaius Maximus Atrivius is one of my Diaper Dandies. I’ve seen him dunk on a lion with such strength and agility!!!!!!!!!!!” I think you get the point.

Anyone dumb enough to believe  Gil will finish what he starts need only check out the golf plot where a bunch of rag-tag assholes run our heroes in the ground, then disappear while Gil tells his heroes that it’s always important to use Scout’s Honor when figuring the scorecard. The Perry Mason episode that never was.

“Raise your right hand and repeat after me. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

“I do.’

“You may be seated.”

“Now, Mr. Palmer, I understand there was a discrepancy between what you wrote down for Mr. Nicklaus and The Golden Bear’s own version. He’s saying his one shot didn’t count because he was doing an instructional video during The Masters.”

“That’s correct.”

“And yet you say all shots count whether you swing your club to fend off the flies, disseminate an odor when your grandmother farted, or, in this case, when you’re showing the kids how to putt around a tree.”

“That’s correct.”

“Don’t you think you should allow leeway when putting around a redwood? Line up the shot? Shoo the squirrels away so they don’t ruin the eagle you’re about to sink? In fact, didn’t that happen when you were at Mount Kilimanjaro Country Club, an elephant herd  interfered with your hole-in-one?”

“The male was horny and had been to the Milford Men’s Clinic for ED and got cured in 2 hours and was chasing a reluctant female and the whole band of females turned on him and ran him out of the savannah…”

“Just answer the question. No need for National Geographic.”

“Yes, it happened.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, I’m here to assert that Mr. Palmer should implement honor and dignity, as well as mercy when playing a Gentlemen’s Game. The Machiavellian way of thinking that Mr. Palmer is employing-”

“WILLLLLLMMMMAAAAAAA, where’s my Fruit of the Looms? I’m late for work. Mr. Slate will kill me!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“In the clothes basket in the den, dear.”

“Gee, Fred, I wouldn’t get too worried. Mr. Slate said you could use another tardy and you’ve saved up a bunch of ’em. You won’t get fired anytime soon. In fact, you might want to use a few on your bowling game, a hee hee hee, a hee hee hee hee…”

“Har dee har har, Rubble. I bought that new Brunswick at the Bedrock Sporting Goods store. The pins won’t know what hit ’em…”

 

And we still have Robby “2 Billboards” Howry to deal with. Well, gang, you know I’m not going to leave you empty-handed. Without further ado, Monty Python has returned, handcuffed to Arthur “2 Sheds” Jackson. Oh, you Python junkies know who I’m talking about. A composer who was thinking of buying a 2nd shed, hence got plastered with the moniker, occasionally bristling at this moniker.

But wait, there’s more. If you read my post NOW, you’ll get not one but TWO Monty Python sketches, a second one, “Vocational Guidance Counselor.” If that isn’t enough to make you get off the Laz-ee-Boy and get to the phone and dial the 800 number, I’ll throw in a free Gil Thorp coif, Special Everly Brothers Edition, 1959, but you must act now. Operators are standing by and you’re running out of Rogaine.

Anyway, without giving away the rest of the sketch, “2 Billboards” Howry was kind enough to take time away from muckraking Gil on his Outdoor Advertising and interview with Marty “2 Weeks” Moon on WDIG. Let’s eavesdrop.

“So why are you called ‘2 Billboards’?”

“The same reason why you’re called ‘2 Weeks’. It wasn’t planned that way but in the end, the nickname stuck like brown-stained underwear. At least I didn’t use profanity.”

“Look, ‘Equipment-Manager-cum-2-Billboards’, I’m doing the interviewing round here. And why waste time with billboards? Plenty of other advertising mediums. Like us at WDIG, for example. We have an advertising slot for “Gil eats worms, Spaghetti O’s, and the Big One, not necessarily in that order” between Milford Muffler & More and Mudlark Denture Repair.”

“Thanks for the offer. Right now, billboards seem to be working and the most cost-efficient I can find at this point.”

“Pshaw. Where else are you going to gouge Gil at $50 per slot? We can undercut the competition because we’re WDIG. Ethics belong in a Gideon’s Bible, not here in my studio. And we even supply the writing team. Free!!!! Gratis!!!!!! BTW, I understand you conjure up a lot of YOUR ideas in the equipment shed.”

“This is a false rumor based upon Pee Wee Herman being caught jacking off a shoulder pad. I am nowhere near the shed when I’m writing billboard slogans.”

“In spite of the reports that you were seen with Pee Wee at the basketball games, carping on Gil’s strategy.”

“Look, I’ll admit Pee Wee said that Gil should have done a triangle-and-two on Jefferson and I agreed. Their guards were lighting it up all not long. But that’s all there is to that.”

“Right . Now I understand your billboards got a Triple A Rating from the Better Business Bureau-”

“What is THAT????”

“What is what?”

A wide-screen photograph of Pee Wee in the boy’s bathroom at The Bucket reading a Gideon’s Bible, among other things, in stall #2 appears in back of them.

“It’s Pee Wee!!!!!!!!!!! Get it off!!!!!!!”

“He is.”

“Remove the damn photo on the screen!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Marty nods to someone offstage. A picture of “2 Billboards” Howry standing with Sir Edmund Hilary on Mt. Everest with “2 Billboards”‘s billboard shows up in its stead.

“Now as I was saying, the Chamber of Commerce nominated a couple of candidates last week for President of the C of C Board. They both liked your billboards. They endorsed “Come to Milford, where the only bad part of town is the coaching”. In fact, Dr. Pearl and Pee Wee called me personally and wanted you to be their campaign manager. Billboards are a great inside track for running for office plus it’s great sex therapy and will solve Pee Wee’s ED prob-”

THERE IS NOTHING BETWEEN ME AND PEE WEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“You don’t have to shout. It’s OK to admit that you saw Pee Wee have an affair with Dr. Pearl behind the stack of football helmets, sharing a Bucket Chocolate Shake, feeding each other burgers-”

“What’s that got to do with BILLBOARDS????????”

“Is he giving you any trouble?”

Bacon appears after The Mamas And The Papas, Second Edition just finished an album at Milford Recording Studios.

“Yes, a little.”

Grabs “2 Billboards” by the collar

“All right, ‘2 Billboards’, we’ve had our belly full of your trysts with Pee Wee and dragging down the team as a result. How Gil can design a Statue of Liberty with you 2 love birds in the equipment shed is left for Mary Worth to figure out. Or even Roscoe Sweeney.”

Throws “2 Billboards” into the WMFD station wagon which just stopped at the light

“Get your own comic strip, punk.”

“Yeah, WDIG Studios isn’t big enough for the 3 of us. We can thrash Gil without your help, ‘2 Billboards.'”

 

If yore posin’ in the 20 degree weather in front of the Polaroid One-Step by the billboard advertisin’ Gil takin’ up drag racin, Midget Division, at Milford International Speedway cuz ya admire Gil takin’ up somethin’ he can actually perform without a hitch, ya might be a redneck.

 

I think we can leave P1, comforted that Bozo the Clown is not expressing his concerns about Thorp’s X’s and O’s. He may be a clown but he’s not an idiot. Bozo knows all about going to school board meetings (“Okay, boys and girls, today we’re going to learn about Parliamentary Procedure after I pass out these Archway Cookies. Ummmmmm, isn’t strawberry delicious?”) for questioning-of-coaching-methods procedures. I think it’s also safe to say that that isn’t Mr. Moose, Mr. Green Jeans, Grandfather Clock, or Mr. Burns, Homer’s boss (which doesn’t belong on the list?-I can see the brain teaser) .

And really, as long as “2 Billboards” is short on reality, why not cut reality even shorter by walking into the station manager’s office at WDIG and asking him what your purpose should be in life? Y’know, “2 Billboards”, I will remember that the next time I’m having a mid-life crisis, suffering from a career change. Simple. Call Murray the K. Skip the employment agency, they only steer you to Whopper-maker at Burger King (“Come dress to impress. Must be able to work at least 32 hours and know how to run the Whopper press…”) , Howry. Let’s hit the Mother Lode and ask Wolfman Jack if Janitorial Science is the right career for you.

Clap for the Wolfman

“Awooooooooooooo, do ya like toilet plungers, My Friend?”

“Sure. I always use ’em, especially when the gas won’t pump in my gas tank hose. Just one plunge and the octane hits bottom.”

“My Man, awooooooooooooo, I think yuz on the right career path. Milford Community College has an 8-week night class beginning in March. And they’ll waive the enrollment fee. The last 2 weeks of the class is on-the job-training. By then, you’ll know what sanitizer to use when filling the soap dispenser and toilet brush to use when cleaning the vomit out of the toilet. Awoooooooooooooo, Wolfman can get carried away with the Jack when doin’ the night show. They’ll start you off on the 3rd floor latrines. The Wolfman’ll feel safe takin’ a #2, knowin’ I’m in competent hands.

But hurry, classes are fillin’ fast. Ya got me as a reference. That ought get ya in if ya enroll late. Awooooooooooooooooo.”

 

Today’s Black History Month entry goes to John Marshall Alexander, Jr., or Johnny Ace. A man with an excellent even voice, the dude strung together several hits like “Cross My Heart”, “Please Forgive Me”, “The Clock”, “Saving My Love For You”, “Never Let Me Go”, and his #1 hit, “Pledging My Love”. He is embraced by musicians such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, David Allen Coe, Elvis Presley, and Paul Simon, who, like me, enjoy his irresistable crooning. He toured heavily with B.B. king and Big Mama Thornton. In fact, tragically enough, while touring with the latter on December 25th, 1954, while carelessly messing with a gun, he accidentally shot himself and instantly died. A VERY promising career was needlessly cut short. Please join me in reviving his career by spreading the word about a VERY talented and outstanding career who only saw good times ahead, had he lived.

 

 

So introducing P2 orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

vocational guidance counselor

Vocational Guidance Counselor

VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE COUNSELORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

 

“…and Mr. Thorp, based upon your test results, I think I can say, without fer of contradiction, that the best vocation suited for you is chartered accounting.”

Gil “Several Plots” Thorp is stupified

“But I already AM a chartered accountant.”

“Well, we can always dig into the files again. Have you tried banking? Or perhaps international finance? You can work with Bhutan on all their bankrupt ledgers-”

“No, no, I’m fed up with 60+ years of figuring people’s taxes, revenues, debits, credits, that sort of thing. I want something ADVENTUROUS.”

“Adventurous? You dare want to be a lion tamer???”

“Nah, too easy. I kicked one in the nuts at the Milford Petting Zoo. I had him lickin’ like Dino when kids would feed him  Milk Bones.”

“Or underwater shark hunting?”

“Shoot, you checked out Red Lobster’s menu? There’s so much shark meat, they sold the excess to Hardee’s because they had a Thickburger shortage.”

“What about the Green Berets??”

“We’re the ones who assassinated Hussain. It was a cinch. Caught him air-guitaring “Rocky Mountain Way” in a minaret. Dead duck.”

“Then what Is it that you want with your life?”

“I’d like to coach.”

COACH???????????

“Sure. It looks easy. Boss around some players, they win the State and you get all the credit. Don’t have to worry about plots or plays, they just work themselves out while you live large on the golf course. After the players win the 10th State Championship, they’ll build a mansion for you where you can retire and vacation in Florida in the winter. Player’s’ll go south to visit you. They have been for the last 60+ years. Except for Pulver but he’s an asshole.”

“Coach, it’s not Easy Street as you envision. Long hours, irate parents, players always wanting PT, bad officials. Then you have Marty Moon.”

Gil is cringing

“Have you ever ween him without his goatee???? ARRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH”

“NO!!!!!!!!!!!! NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! He’s a Bohemian who LOOKS like a Bohemian!!!!!!!!!!! Take that picture away. I didn’t know he had that many teeth!!!!!!!!!! Or pimples!!!!!!!!!! He has more than on Mimi’s butt. Just don’t let him broadcast. They’ll think Beetlejuice took over the mike at the Milford games!!!!!!!!!! And that overbite…”

“Folks, you can help Mr. Thorp realize his true calling in life by writing to this address

The League For Milford’s Chartered Accountants

P.O. Box 7777

Milford, USA

 

Must be sent as Registered Mail. It’s a serious problem, folks.”

 

Gang, comment away. I’m going to see the station manager later on. I hear there’s a career in oil-well drilling in North Dakota. I can pay off my Meijer card.

 

 

 

 

“Awwwwwwww, SLAM BAM JAM, MIKE. What a dunkeroo by Hieronimus Adolphus Caesar, they got him groomed for the next Head Caesar job when he graduates. That was a manhood-stripper. He made that lion eat his lunch!!!!!!! He’s on my all-Chocolate Thunder team, along with Julius Flavius Vextus. Too bad Vextus got eaten cuz he couldn’t out run the lions on the fast break. But that’s college basketball in the Colosseum.”

 

“Awoooooooooooooo, Werewolves of London, Awooooooooooooooo….”

Mick Fleetwood just shakes his head as he throws the drumsticks in the corner and looks mournfully at John McVie. Mac is packing up his bass.

“Booby, hate ta tell ya, mate, yore no Zevon. Stick ta billboard-scrawlin’.”

Shakin Bacon

Its a bird its a plane its…. Maxwell Bacon??? Huh? Oh yeah. December 2014…

..and January 2015, where he changes his name to Max, for 4 years anyway.

So Maxwell is now 21, and he’s got nothing better to do then to walk into the school unnoticed, where schools all over America have security that prevents any hoo ha from just walking in and possibly taking a gun to the whole student body, and say hi to Coach Thorp, who should be asking — “‘Seriously, what the fuck are you doing here?? Go back to your senior year at College Of No Hope and graduate so you can get on the wait list for Mopman of Milford, currently held by Steve Luhm, another former Mudlark who was resurrected to make sure everyone slips on the floors of Milford High.”

Well, Max (no, Maxwell) is wondering whats up with that rascal Bobby Howry, who has joined the name change parade and become Robby. Max hasnt gotten the memo that Bobby is now Robby. You mean he’s so busy he doesnt even have time to read this strip??

Whatever– yet another old character is roused from the Milford grave to assist in the storyline that isnt. Why not develop yet another character thats already been developed, and rotted away like an old uneaten banana? Hey, if his last name was Sausage we’d never hear from him again.

It looks like this is how the Howry part of the storyline is gonna be resolved. By having old Bacon back in town to reunite with RobBob and officially plaster him to his own billboard, right under FIRE GIL THORP NOW.  Face-first. He’ll think a swirly is nothing after that.

 

 

Never Happy? Are You Kidding? They’re Delirious!

Somewhere on the streets of Milford, an unknown man leaves his dumpy apartment on Poplar for his dead-end job. Maybe he stocks the shelves at McShane’s Hardware, or washes dishes at Schultz’s Polynesian Garden. He’s gotta wring every last drop out of his tired ’90s econobox (maybe a Plymouth Breeze?), so when the steering wheel rubber starts to crumble, it gets covered with one of those lace-it-yourself leather covers from Milford Auto Parts. He’d been saving up for an aftermarket stereo for the beater but bills gotta get paid so it’s still the tinny AM-FM unit for now. It can’t pick up stations outside the Valley so it’s good old WDIG for him. At least he can listen to Marty Moon; that’s one guy whose life can’t be any less miserable than his.

But what’s this? Marty sounds practically giddy on the air this morning! Must be that new kid sidekick of his, Howdy Booby or something like that. Listen to the two of them feed off each other, like a couple of leeches they are. If it wasn’t for Coach Thorp these two jagoffs would have nothing to talk about. You’d think they’d cover college ball once in a while. Wonder how that Miles Standish kid is doing at Wake Forest? Or the one who didn’t talk, like Mongo. Didn’t he go to State U?

Yeah, that Coach Thorp. He’s the straw that stirs the drink in Milford. Wasn’t for him there’d be no media in this tank town. One fewer blog on the intertubes, that’s for sure.

That reminds me: did you ever have the feeling you were being watched?

 

Sad eyes – turn the other way..

hey gang – I’m back from a weekend in Muskegon where I went luging for the first time- – my fastest run was 21.3 seconds, about 2 seconds slower then the bronze medalist (the gold and silver went to kids, who probably live nearby and can get more practice) and the weather was ideal; about 11 degrees while we were luging in the evening, and we got 6 inches of snow all weekend so the winter sports activities were in full swing. It was a ton of fun and I’ll be back next year to bring home a medal! Thanks again to Ed for filling in for me last Friday.

Well it seems the cop that found these guys preparing to graffiti Bobbys’ sign is pro-Bobby, otherwise why the hell would he permit a sign like that in the first place?? How dare he take down a sign that says Fire Gil Thorp.?  How does one get permission to put up something like that anyway? I think the guy thats luckier then smart is Bobby. All these kids are doing is righting a wrong, to them anyway, (I know that if Thorp got shot out of a cannon to the moon tomorrow there’d be much cheering in Mudville)  but how on earth would law enforcement allow such a sign about a guy who stands for Milford more then Bozo stands for the Circus? ( Hey thats a great analogy!)

So when Gil finds out about this maybe he’ll sneak out at night and try to cover it himself. I recall him sneaking around a golf course at night some years back and Chief Lind finding him trespassing. Of course it was covered up.

 

I’m just a multi-dimentional asshole.

My given name is Robert.  I remember when I was a little kid everyone called me Robby. My dad said when I got older people would call me Bob. I preferred Rob. I thought it sounded friendlier and warmer then Bob. So that it was. I even got a vanity license plate with Rob on it when I got my first car. I remember ordering it and requesting ‘Rob” and the state sending me a letter saying ‘Rob’ was taken, but ‘Rob 1108’ wasnt so here you go. I said fine. And I’ve had the same plate for 28 years now, my vanity plate surviving a state-ordered redesign of the plates last year. It only costs $11 for a vanity plate with letters and numbers, and $70 for only letters. So I got off cheap as well, and my old plate sits proudly in my garage like an old trophy, next to my dads VFW plate.

I wonder how often a character in a comic strip changes their first name. First of all they arent even human so they dont really care. But the strip writer does, and maybe Howry wanted to change his image? What the hell other reason is there? I think he was wearing the same blue pants when we last saw him assisting the basketball team in March 2015–

 

but he found another shirt and ditched the red sleeveless vest he wore 2 days in a row.

Anyway– its nice that alumni give a crap about the basketball team, even though they only play once in a blue moon, but Howry is going a bit overboard; most people in college or shortly thereafter are busy discovering their careers, or otherwise trying to get a job, and not worrying about someone elses job. Calling for a high school coaches head is completely foreign to me and anyone else who follows high school sports on a part-time basis. The coaches are also teachers at the school who are salaried as teachers and coach the teams on their own time.  The basketball coach at my high school was also an English teacher and guidance counselor. The hoops team sucked all 4 years I was there, but the coach was never publicy criticized nor should he have been. John Wooden couldnt win with what we had.

Going forward, it will be interesting to see what Robby has to say about all this, including perhaps his reason for his name change; but of course like most Milford characters he comes off like a dope.

**I added a new category, Bobby Howry, since he used to be Bobby and we can tag old posts with his references, plus find his old stuff faster. I guessed on the year and came up roses.