…and 99 other pithy maxims I said when I was on the basketball team that I will tell my grandkids and collect to publish a book. Surely there’s a market for “Inane Commentary to Stall the Plot That I Think Is Funny and Will Be Referenced By The After-Dinner Speaker at the Monthly Milford Kiwanis Club Meeting”. Just stick it next to the Wall Street Journal at Borders and VOILA, instant New York Times Bestseller.
“Get off your butt, Marcell, you wussy. And did you hear the one about the traveling salesman and the point guard on their way to the game?” Six figure sales on that daddy of a witticism.
Shout-out to Stanley Clark of Louisville, Kentucky. He fights for his life EVERY DAY and winds up winning in resounding fashion. He goes to his rehab clinic with his best face forward and has chosen to Do The Right Thing as a result. He is hoping to walk one day and if he keeps working his butt off at the clinic and gets out and about in general, I have no doubt in my mind that that dream will be a reality. Rootin’ for ya, Big Guy. You got my blessing and my respect to press on. I believe you will.
Gang, I don’t know aboutchoo but the basketball plot is already a flat tire. Hoo boy, does this mangled Michelin need a visit to the Milford Men’s Clinic to pump things up, errrrrrr, never mind.
So far, all we have seen are Mudlarks in their gym clothes practically playing Cooties with each other, one Mudlark in his night gown because he forgot his gym bag, and basketballs. THE COACHES HAVEN’T EVEN SHOWN UP!!!!!!!!!!!! WHERE ARE THEY?????????? I follow a lot of college basketball and I have a ton of respect for University of Kentucky Men’s Basketball and their fans and one of the reasons is Midnight Madness is a HUGE deal and you’ll see guys practicing basketball at GOALS and the scoreboard is THERE and RUNNING and there will be REFEREES there to call the game, the players and the referees will not be acting like the kids on Romper Room like we’ve seen in the Mudlark Fellowship Hall, scratch that, Gym. And you can damn well be sure the coaches will not be negotiating the rapids at Mudlark Falls with Marty and Peaches in the Milford Nature Area. There’s a word for that. COACHING.
Gil, truncate this tomfoolery we’ve witnessed the last few days in the playground you call a gymnasium or hand in your whistle.
The consolation prize is that TA-DAAAAAAAAAAAA, WE NOW HAVE COURT DIMENSIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I said we have lines on the basketball court, I didn’t say they were legal, accurate, or even fit to line up and chalk down like the Milford Playground Courts. In fact, the Mudlarks may as well play there because I am totally confused on the dimensions in P3. I thought at first the arcs formed part of the jump circle but unless we are expecting King Kong and Godzilla at tip-off, really no way we should justify that appellation and maintain a straight face. Look, I wouldn’t want to be the one throwing the ball in the air. I’d be crushed by Godzilla when he’s tapping it to a teammate for an easy 2.
Soooooooooooooo, is that part of the 3-point arc? Maybe. Big maybe. Trouble is they are circling around and for all intents and purposes intersecting each other. Also, the arcs are facing AWAY from their respective buckets so unless you’re Curly Neal and you plan on keeping sharp with the Globetrotters with your 47-foot heaves, it’s best to shelve THAT notion and pretend the soccer team uses the court when the basketball team isn’t playing or practicing.
Actually, the b-ball team is just doing a bad imitation of Joey Bishop so expect DC United and the Mudlark soccer team any minute for their annual exhibition match.
“GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lionel Messi has put Italy up, 1-0, over Uruguay as the match has reached the 63 minute-”
“Filion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Give me 50 on the ground. If you don’t want to do the rebound drill, hit the showers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
And for the life of me, I am trying to figure out the line which I will assume for the moment ( I said for the moment) surrounding the, for lack of a better word, jump circle. If that line is running east-west (using your compass included in the Go Comics travel kit) , where is that other Line going beyond the, crossing my fingers, out-of-bounds line???????? Is that Yellow Brick Road leading to Oz? I guess we’ll know after Filion is done with his poor excuse for stand-up when Dorothy, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion appear on the court. Really no way the Tin Man could be taking a shower after playing one of those “O-WEE-O” monkeys on the racquetball courts. Must be wiping his butt with his oil can in one of the stalls.
And I PRAY that same line is not north-south unless that line is the half-court line. Otherwise, the gym displays a very short stage for Filion’s “Bert and Ernie” material. We’ll probably never know because nobody’s playing ANY basketball, including Mike “Take my wife, please” Filion.
And WHERE IS Coach Thorp? In his office listening to The Clash’s “Rock the Casbah”? If I see an armadillo running across one of those Etch-a-Sketch lines, I’ll have my answer.
Unclear as to why we need models on the back of a Healthy Choice Smoked Turkey Breast, replete with mashed potatoes and refried okra other than for image and image sells (which I understand) , but willing to run with it
“Try our Milford Slaughter House’s Finest Whole Hog Sausage, now in Hot and also Mild. Whether you’re ordering a sausage biscuit off the dollar menu in The Bucket drive-thru or you’re planning a Baptist Men’s Breakfast at Milford Baptist Church, Milford Slaughter House’s Finest is your sausage of choice.”
Cut to Marty moon on the back of a package posing in his Armani Double-Knit suit and Gucci Shoes (The Sopranos couldn’t be prouder, observing their sartorial personality on display in a pig sty) with a 5-ton Yorkshire. Only John Lennon did it better with his porker on his album. Image is everything, Folks.
“Marty, where the Hell you been? You got mud all over you!!!!!!!!!”
“Just doing a little modeling and earning some extra cash.”
“Well, thank God you’re in the studio reading the Milford Community Calendar. They won’t see you.”
Big shout-out to Mike Flanders of Middletown, Kentucky. Though essentially confined to a wheelchair, you would never know it by his hilarious sense of humor. The dude had me rollin’ the entire time I was with him (“That’s not my cane, that’s my Abel” GOOD ONE, Big Guy) . And he is very close to his cats, Wilson and Nemo. The latter was called that after the cat ran away for a while, Mike getting Wilson in the interim, BUT Nemo returning, earning the name. Mike, you got it, My Man. I admire his courage and humor which gives us all hope that you just never give up as he can attest and confirm. Got my respect, Mike.
I normally try to work across the panels (i.e., start with P1) , but P3 was just full of leaving-themselves-wide-open chutzpah that I had to crucify that first.
But make no mistake, P1 and P2 are hanging high and dry as well. Why do we have to include a member of SPECTRE who is threatening to take over Milford??????? Is 007 in New Thayer chasing down those hoods? And I guess if you take over Milford with shrewd advertising and H-bombs (Y’know, the ones stored in a closet somewhere in Dr. No’s or Goldfinger’s cave) , you’ll take over the world. What strategy. Really, Hitler should have taken a detour to Mudlarkland before he reached Sudetenland. Would have saved him a lot of trouble plus the world would have been served on a platter for him. Napoleon? Why go through that enormous expanse called Russia when Milford was on the way? He might have avoided Waterloo.
So as this part of the plot unfolds (ready to hold my nose) , it should be interesting if Dr. No’s second cousin twice-removed is able to conquer the globe, separating the wheat from the chaff, champs from the chumps in the bargain. Gil, you are nothing but a stupid high school basketball coach whose luck has run out.
Oh brother, Dr. No, we’ve been onto that for 60 years. Tell us something we don’t know.
Day 9
Peaches narrowly avoids a zebra in estrus while she is foraging for mulberries which are reputedly in abundance on the Chisholm Trail which ran straight through the area before they made this Milford Nature Area. There are traces of cattle drives but Peaches is in no mood to chew on a longhorn skull in her birthday suit no matter how desperate she is for food. She can wait until the next mulberry bush. Spotting a baby giraffe, she may have hit paydirt. Since Giraffes are by nature herbivores, you won’t catch too many in the parking lot at Outback Steak House. She waits until the mini-speciman has had its fill, then retrieves her KFC Fill-Up Bucket and piles it in the container. It’s a shame that Milford Bakery Outlet is nowhere near or she could chow down on mulberry shortcake and whipped cream. Well, this is the outdoors, you understand.
Marty, meanwhile, is a little delirious, not surprising if you have confronted Mother Nature face-to-face for several days. He staggers along the woods, desperate for any hope.
And it’s 50 feet in front of him. An old house, perhaps owned by the man overtaken by Frogs(Is the record player still playing? I swear, that bullfrog CRUSHED that Petula Clark record he was spinning), Marty joyously walks up the stairs into the house.
He finds the living room. It’s dark but there’s a La-Z-Boy recliner with his name on it. He plops down, careful not to get his butt stains all over the serge fabric. Man, that stuff don’t come off in the wild. He lays down one of his Hanes towels. That 100% cotton’ll steer those butt marks clear over into the next Nature episode. He lies down and takes a much-needed cat-nap. After realizing that his dream of Gil at Golgotha was over, he gets up and heads to the kitchen. He manages to locate the refrigerator, surprisingly still functioning. Unless squirrels are storing acorns in the Fresh box or raccoons are using the tap water, Marty finds no condiments of any kind, freezer included. Then he notices a Post-it note on the fridge door as he shuts it.
“I killed Coach Shaw.”
Marty, a bit unnerved, heads to the other parts of the house. He notices a sculpture of a Mudlark in one of the bedrooms and is intrigued by the objet d’art. He notices a tag on it. Unable to read it, Marty gets out his flashlight and shines a light on the writing.
“This Milford Mudlark was created by the Blair Witch Project.”
In a moment, we’ll see if Marty goes the chickenshit route and runs out the service entrance of the Milford Nature Area or if he opts to stick around and watch the satanic cult sacrifice an oranguatang in the den while ESPN Sportscenter is on, both for the glory of Lucifer.
“Hi, this is Coach Gil Thorp. Boy, what a pickle Marty got into. I dunno, I was desperate but I wouldn’t want any members of the Blair Witches kicking for me, not even Sabrina’s witches, so I’d be running more than the 50-yard dash outta that place. But what’s scarier is when your sex life is on the rocks and you can’t get Samantha Stephens to wiggle her lips to get you erect. Why call Darrin Stephens and enlist the aid of his wife when Nirvana is simply a visit to the Milford Mall away? That’s right, there are no magic wands, no magic potion like the stepmother gave Cinderella, no antidote for the vapor lock on your significant other that Dr. Bombay could hope to prescribe. The Prince will not be at The Clinic to arouse Cinderella or anything else in the office.
What you WILL get is expert advice and top-notch medications designed to enhance your manliness including a 12-unit supply of pleasure shots, free and easy to use, just put that needle right on your pecker and it’s as if you are receiving oral, well, you men know what I’m taking about. And if you were a kid, you enjoyed the Balloon Man filling up those balloons at the carnival. Think of yourself as the Balloon Man, filling up your own balloons. Trust me, I am not waiting for my wife to kiss my significant other and wake it up after being dead a thousand years. She can be Prince Charming in bed, not at The Clinic.
Come to the Milford Men’s Clinic today and start your own fairy tale. Just because Endora changed your significant other into a celery stalk doesn’t mean The Milford Men’s Clinic doesn’t have magic of its own to enhance your sex life. Experience the pleasure today. And send the Wicked Witch of the West back to the slums of Oz.”
All right gang, it’s your turn. You got the floor and anything you say can and will be held against you in a Court of Law-
SHAREEF, HE DON’T LIKE IT
BOOM BAH DEE BOOM BOOM
ROCK THE CASBAH
ROCK THE CASBAH
“Kaz, dammit, did you open the cage again?????????”
“Well, you wanted me to feed him Ken’l Ration Healthy Choices for a Fine Coat. Did you want me to dump the can on top of the cage?????????”
“My name’s Bond. James Bond.”
“Look, shitface, we don’t care if your name is SpongeBob SquarePants, you’re a prick and we’re gonna kick your ass and egg your Aston Martin DB5. C’mon, dudes, let’s waste this asshole.”
BLAM!!!!!!!! BLAM!!!!!!!!!!!!! BLAMBLAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BLAMMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As the Duane Eddy guitar is playing, we hear a voice all over New Thayer
BOND IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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