The girls are having a post practice lunch. Nonsense. Nobody in teaching golf does that. They just met. The writer knows nothing about golf its obvious. Or football or basketball. Why fly to Arizona for 1 lesson and complain to someone about that. Talk about your golf game. This is a teaching pro not A MARRIAGE COUNSELOR.
This girl isnt David Leadbetter. Even so, Mimi cant afford his prices – $3,500 for 3 hours. Heh.
And Ericka, its Mimi. You were just calling her Mrs. Thorp 2 days ago. You dont just call her Emily.
I wrote much more but it got erased and I dont have the heart to do it all again.
Smash cut from the Milford gym (and Kaz’s not-quite-scripted departure) across the country, to an actual, real place. I’ve been to Phoenix a couple of times on business and the aerial view on final approach of the artificial oases of the golf clubs and manicured lawns of Scottsdale never failed to shock me. I don’t think I was as shocked as Mimi appears to be to learn that the woman carrying her clubs is not her caddy, however.
One of the mild surprises of nu-look Gil Thorp is how Barajas manages to work modern problems, if not modern solutions, into the stories without making them the central issue of the arc. The active shooter drill gave Keri a PTSD attack at the Linda Linda’s concert but, unless you count Keri getting off easy for clocking Dorothy after she made fun of Keri’s PTSD, we’ve heard nothing more about it since. Tabatha Gordon came back as Toby to nary a ripple – not even when he turned into a superstar athlete in both of the boys’ sports he went out for. Monday’s potential teen drinking and driving problem: no sweat! Unless you count the sweat poured out during Gil’s conditioning drills.
Here, we might be seeing a little bit of Mimi’s white privilege showing, in that she assumes this Black woman to her right is there just to carry her clubs and nothing more. This Ericka Carter may be a shout-out to a staff guardian at a Lutheran ministry, an ex-soldier turned diesel mechanic, or an attempted murderer but she is not here just to tote Mimi’s bag. Bigger picture is to connect the dots that took Mimi from Milford to Scottsdale – Meemaw’s death, budget cuts killing Mudlark girls’ hoops, Gil’s tacit support of Mimi’s attempted resurrection of a golf career? Let’s hope those dots get connected over the coming days.
Season’s greetings, gentle readers. I’m here from another hemisphere to take us into the transition out of football and into whatever comes next. Let’s check in with the Thorps to see what’s been going on off the field. I’m not gonna attempt to touch Festivus but I recommend that you check out the Mopped Up Thorp Festivus post; it’s awesome.
December 23, 2022
Oh my goodness this is getting sad fast. Meemaw appears to have left the nursing home to be in home hospice care. A detached-looking Gil stands in the doorway. I wonder if he ever knew how much Meemaw wanted Mimi to divorce him and try to revive a golf career we never knew she had. At least the Thorp kids are providing us the look at a Milford bonfire we didn’t get during football season.
KXCI is a community radio station in Tucson. It also streams online. There’s no reason to wonder, then, whether Milford has moved west of the Mississippi, or get into the matter of those stations east of the Mississippi beginning with K (e.g., KDKA in Pittsburgh, KYW in Philly) or those west of the Mississippi beginning with W (e.g., WHO in Des Moines).
In case you were wondering, The Both was a duo consisting of Aimee Mann and Ted Leo (but no Pharmacists). They’ve recorded a single , self-titled album to date, in 2014. The lyrics are from their song “Nothing Left To Do (Let’s Make This Christmas Blue).”
December 24, 2022
Now we get the triple-header Hanukkah/Christmas/Kwanzaa strip. I am not a member of the tribe so I did not know that ugly Hanukkah sweaters are a thing. I did, however, know that Hanukkah menorahs have nine candles, not seven as appear on Rachel’s sweater. I also did not know that Tobias and Mel were canonically Jewish. Kaz is looking a little distracted tbh. Probably thinking about his upcoming bris.
The Thorps manage to smile for their family photo save for Keri, who’s showing off her knuckle dusters and the reason Pedro Martinez has been hanging around. (meta: Moon Mullins points out Keri is flashing the universal symbol for eating at the Y, so not completely out of character.)
Finally we have… who? I honestly do not know and I feel guilty for not knowing. This isn’t the Brown-Hiatt family from a few years bock.* Is it one of Keri’s volleyball teammates? Help me out here, please.
It is now after midnight where I am and so, while you may have several hours to go, it is already Christmas Day here. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate and we’ll see you again on Boxing Day.
*This should read “a few years back,” but I’m leaving this typo in since that’s what I was drinking on Christmas Eve.
I know everyones dying for some football so I’m skipping over analysis of this strip to present a 22 minute highlight of the Sea of Hands game between the Raiders and Dolphins in 1974. The Raiders of course won on a miraculous catch in the end zone and went on to lose the AFC championship game to the Steelers. It ended the Dolphins run of success in the playoffs after appearing in 3 straight Super Bowls including the undefeated season of 1972.
The Raiders were involved in some other memorable playoff games in their franchise history, including the Immaculate Reception game 2 years earlier against the Steelers which they lost, the Ghost to the Post game against Bert Jones and the Colts in 1978 which they won in double overtime on a pass to Dave Casper, and the Tuck Rule game against Tom Brady and the Patriots in 2001 which they lost on an overtime field goal in horrible weather. John Madden and Kenny Stabler were the coach and QB for all except the Patriots game.
There was also the Holy Roller regular season game against San Diego in 1981 which inspired a rule change where only the fumbling player can advance the ball, and the Browns playoff game in 1980 where Mike Davis intercepted Brian Sipe in the end zone when Cleveland was in chip shot field goal range but elected to pass instead, and the play, Red Right 88, would go down in Browns history as another playoff defeat that has been added to through the years. The Raiders this time went on to their 2nd Super Bowl title.
I don’t have to talk about school shooting drills in the guise of community theater productions of Straw Dogs featuring senior circuit pro wrestling moves? That is a definite treat for me, and not just fun sized!.
The Thorps are trick or treating with Jami. Is Jami too old for tricker treating, stage whispers a very mature man in a full on Superman costume. I think if two parents get into full superhero outfits complete with full bodysuits, boots and capes, there’s an indication that they are into Halloween, or at least one of them is and the other one goes along because he knows what’s good for him. Gil’s going along with this because there’s a promise of some superhero fetish play in his future.
I’m not sure what Jami’s costume is. It’s a white robe with a boxy looking ghost mask. Is that some studio intellectual property that I don’t know or just a twist on the old, lazy I’m going to wear a sheet and be a ghost? His head is kinda kitty shaped. Is that a thing?
What is that lady giving out to trick or treaters, handfuls of jelly beans?
I lost my draft late last night so coming back to this on Sunday morning. Mea culpa.
So it was Shit on Gil Saturday in the shiny Milford Gym. Mimi’s back from the wild north to give Coachella a hand with the jayvee volleyball team – and she brought Meemaw, who made a funny (“fill in for Gil again [Gilligan]”)! Joke’s gonna be on her, though, when Gil gives her the Richard Widmark treatment.
Coachella feels compelled to damn Gil with faint praise, glossing over the part where “doing all right” includes giving her a membership in the Mile High Club. Joke’s gonna be on her, too, when Mimi gives her job to Meemaw. She can go back to school and play hoops again in the winter, though.
Meemaw’s gonna instill some discipline in these girls, starting with that girl in the brown tights her own grandperson, Keri. Keri’s happy to oblige her, but you gotta wonder how long before the effort to turn them against their dad backfires.
I debated last night on whether to label Meemaw’s dome with the Pantheon of Hair or Premature Baldness tag. Father of teenchy had a massive head of hair until he underwent chemo, so I’ll assume that’s true for Meemaw as well. You know what? Maybe I’m not the guy to play the cancer angle. I’m no Tom Batiuk and have no interest in milking that for laughs, maudlin sentiment, or anything. teenchy out.
Milford, having dropped its opener due to a Kaz spaz playcalling error, came into the Goshen game as rare underdogs (right? Hasn’t Goshen been historically a bottom dweller in the Valley?). The Mudlarks pulled off the upset win thanks to a play obvious to Marty in the press box but not to Goshen and the toe of new kicker Tobias Gordon. Now for a rare look into the stands post-game, pre-Bucket.
The entire Thorp family is in the stands in a rare show of support – but for whom? Apparently less so for Gil than for Toby and his mom, Mel. The current incarnation of Mel Gordon has been known for wearing t-shirts of metal bands, which makes her choice to wear the AC/DC shirt again bit less fraught with meaning. Keri’s choice – that of a vigilante anti-hero embraced by the military, the police and the far right – is a bit more confusing…
… but no more confusing than Keri flashing the love hands to Tobias. Is it her way of saying “I’ve been supporting you since I was a kid and you were a fetus“? We’ve already seen a bit of awkwardness on Keri’s part where Toby is concerned. Why encourage it, especially now that she’s been shown to be moist for Pedro Martinez?
Maybe we could ask Henry Barajas himself, as Whigham appears to have drawn him into the stands in front of Keri. When the snarkers suggested that Barajas should actually watch a couple of football games before he starts writing about them, I don’t think this is what they had in mind.
“G’mar chatima tova (גמר חתימ טובה)” is, of course, the traditional Hebrew greeting given on Yom Kippur, which began at sunset yesterday evening. It translates roughly as “a good final sealing,” as in the Book of Life, in which observant Jews are inscribed on Rosh Hashanah and sealed on Yom Kippur.
The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur is, among other things, a day of fasting. Before starting the fast at sunset, a meal called seudah hamafseket is served. Seudah hamafseket is considered festive and may include meat. So there, Keri.
We were getting set up for this for the past two days, what with the bagels for dinner and Kaz’s new SO being named Rachel. This strip has been serving up Christmas Day strips since forever, and the David Greene arc in fall 2001, hinging largely on Greene’s Jewish faith, woke up echoes of Hank Greenberg.
A strip involving Judaism, then, is in relative keeping with the history of Gil Thorp. I can’t think of any other strips that wove Judaism into its fabric beyond the departed Edge City, but I am welcome to have my memory jogged.
G’mar chatima tova to all you gentle readers who observe.
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This Week in Milford 