Sometimes a song parody is appropriate. Sometimes a song already has appropriate lyrics. This is one of those times.
The second verse is particularly fitting:
I’ve got a story, ain’t got no moral Let the bad guy win every once in a while I’ve got a story, ain’t got no moral Let the bad guy win every once in a while
Is this the first Gil Thorp story arc in which the bad guy – mustachioed, ill-tempered, clearly antagonistic toward a kid – does not receive his comeuppance? And he’s going to be allowed to continue his antagonism unabated? What fresh hell is this?
Everything’s just gonna be hunky-dory from now on. Zane will show up for dinner at the Britos once a week to eat heaping helpings of white food with a side of belly button fan service while listening to Abel rant about having the library provide any kind of service. He must not have heard about the Boo Radley Memorial Little Free Library; if he had he’d probably have run on a platform of closing the Milford Public Library and using it instead.
Today’s final panel has that freeze-frame, roll credits feel of an arc-ender. Let’s pray that it is. ¡Ay, Dios mio!
Gentle readers, I am no less flabbergasted by this strip since Saturday than you are. The time jumps, the unstated assumptions and the unprecedented presumptuousness on Mimi’s part are so mind-boggling that I barely know where to begin and what assumptions to make. That’s the main reason it’s taken me so long to get this post up today.
Going back to Saturday’s strip: Despite her protestations that she doesn’t want or doesn’t intend to go to college (BTW, her eyes were blue when she made that statement; they’re brown now so since then she’s become full of shit), Corina took the ACT. Taking the ACT costs anywhere from $60-80, so it’s not money easily blown by a family tight on money to begin with. How worried is she about her mother and her family finances then, really? Couldn’t she be mopping floors nightly like Zane Clark if she was really worried?
Now let’s try to figure out what kind of machinations Mimi went through to get us through today. Did she apply to the community college in Syracuse (and why Syracuse? Because all of the out-of-conference games for Milford this season were against Syracuse high schools?) and to Le Moyne (also in Syracuse) on Corina’s behalf? Forge her signature? Write her application essay? How do we know Corina’s community college grades will be good enough to allow her to transfer to Le Moyne? How do we know the Le Moyne players will still need a roommate more than a year from now, when the time comes to transfer? There’s just way too much assumed here for us to suspend disbelief.
In today’s last panel, Mimi’s got Jack Elam eyes. Please tell me Corina slapped her walleyed.
metapost: robmize isn’t the only one who can take off for Myrtle Beach on a whim. yhs isn’t spending any time on a golf course, however. Instead I’ve been hobnobbing with the mascot of Myrtle Beach’s minor league baseball team. (They’re a Cubs affiliate, BTW; rob, did you catch ’em while you were here?)
The world of comedy lost a pointed social critic last month with the passing of Paul Mooney at the age of 79. Younger TWIMers probably know Mooney from his roles on Chapelle’s Show, but the old heads will remember him for his collaborations with Richard Pryor. Pryor gave Mooney his first break in comedy by offering Mooney a job as a writer while Mooney was working as a circus ringmaster. Mooney would go on to write material for Pryor’s standup routines, much of which ended up on several of Pryor’s live albums that were big sellers during the ’70s.
During the 1975 television season, a new live sketch comedy show, Saturday Night, was flagging in the ratings and needed a boost. Producer Lorne Michaels thought Pryor was just the man to do it and approached him to guest-host an episode of the show. Pryor agreed but only if certain demands were met, including having Gil Scott-Heron as the musical guest and that he bring his own writer – Paul Mooney – to write his sketches. The story, possibly apocryphal, that Chevy Chase approached Mooney to write him into a sketch with Pryor who, also possibly apocryphal, didn’t care much for Chase, led to the infamous “Word Association” sketch that put SNL on the map and created the seven-second delay.
By all appearances the Milford Library Board panel interview has the look of sliding into a similar word association game. I leave it to you gentle readers to offer your own word associations, none of which I hope will be as controversial and potentially offensive as the one Paul Mooney wrote for Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase.
A couple of minor points of observation:
a. When would a high school student ever have the need to do a user survey?
2. Who said anything about a bookmobile? Is Abel looking for something else to fill his ample free time besides complain about the library budget?
iii. How is the goateed Library Board member holding his vape pen, exactly? His thumb doesn’t extend out far enough to support it from behind.
This links to the only clip I could find of Gil Scott-Heron from that SNL appearance. I used to be able to drop clips into posts, but apparently I now have to “upgrade [my] plan to use this premium block.” We here at TWIM will have to figure out if we can afford such luxury. It might even cost as much as a computer at a public library.
Late in the day so I know y’all have seen this so what more can I say? A repeat mea culpa from me for painting Katy as a sympathetic character when Zane was channeling Nixon’s head in a jar. I really bungled that one. Since Katy’s now all so down on supporting the disadvantaged, why hasn’t she been a complete snot to Corina Karenna yet?
Zane didn’t ask Katy to do jack squat, and repeatedly saying he asked her to doesn’t make it true. She knows the bad hand he’s been dealt, knows that keeping the library as it is currently is all that’s helping him keep up with school, knows that her old man wants to take that away from him and anyone else who might need it, knows that Zane’s only doing this to keep her old man from doing that, and somehow she feels the needs to take her old man’s side in all this? Surprised that Zane doesn’t actually say that to her, instead slipping into his Jefferson Smith soliloquy a few minutes early.
Looks like we’re getting set up to sit through a week of no sports action and a lot of lecturing before Papa Brito and Baby Brito get their comeuppance. Grab your popcornbenzodiazepines No-Doz and settle in for the duration.
Hey y’all, look! It’s the return of Herk the Mauler! No? Okay, it’s at least the return of Ed Asner, right? Huh? Oh, alright. It’s just another Milford Library Board member who could pass for Ed Asner. But hey, he’s got pie!
And what’s this? Marty Moon is there to cover the Library Board action? Say it ain’t so! Of course it ain’t so. The Library Board has its own goatee wearer and, besides, Marty’s presence would violate a sacred tenet of Gil Thorp: that there can be only one bad guy with facial hair per strip. (Or is that Mark Trail I’m thinking of?) Since Abel Brito Charlie Delta Echo has that spot covered, this can’t be Marty.
Looks like we’re gonna get that Mr. Smith Goes to Washington scenario I predicted on Saturday. Like most Milfordians, the Library Board is self-important, craves attention, and believes any publicity is good publicity. What better way to get even more fannies in the stacks then to put the two guys who’ve been sniping each other in print on public display? Mama Brito’s troubled head bobble is indication enough that Abel’s humiliation will be the family’s, as it plays out in slower motion than Boo Radley’s car crash.
Now all we have to anticipate is how Mimi ex machina will grease the skids for Corina to get into State U on a softball scholly.
Wherever you’re reading this, faithful TWIMers, I hope the weather is better than it is here. Forty-eight degrees and raining is not what I expect to wake up to on the last weekend in May. The better to remember that the true meaning of Memorial Day is not to hit the beaches or the mountains and fire up the grill. So what if we have to spend it out in the cold?
Speaking of out in the cold, that’s where Zane Clark is today. Nothing he says in today’s strip is factually wrong in context (and also serves to answer one of our nagging questions of how Milford Library Board members are chosen) and yet he now finds “that cute girl he makes out with in the history section” may be history to him. Katy knows Zane’s situation, knows her old man’s hard-on against the library, knows what might happen if her old man gets the job, yet still gets pissy when she finds out her boyfriend actively tries to prevent all that from happening? Better off without her, bruh, or at least that’s what Gonzo Aceves is hinting to him.
Can we talk? Can I digress for a moment? I just want to point out the sudden improvement in uniform accuracy on the part of the Chief. From all appearances it looks like Zane and Gonzo are throwing a bullpen session in practice and are actually dressed as if they’re practicing – that is unless Gil’s broken out gamers with shorts like the Bill Veeck-era White Sox. Nice to see a Milford team practicing in actual practice unis for once.
Back to the main plot arc: What are the odds the Milford Library Board selection hinges on oratory, and Zane gives one that puts Jefferson Smith to shame? Something’s gotta make Katy see the error of her ways, dunnit? By that time Zane will have moved on to that snoopy librarian or poor Landry Carlson, who’s always getting hit on this spring.
It’s gotten very quiet here; the rain’s finally stopped pounding against my roof. Time to contemplate the true meaning of Memorial Day once again. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, gentle readers, and we’ll see you back here next week.
It looks like Katy and Zane have finished their coffee and smooching in the library and have moved on to some light hand touching and studying. Who says the library doesn’t fulfill the needs of Milford’s citizenry?
Oh yeah, Abel Brito, that’s who. Abel is now contemplating a rise to power on the Library Board where he can address the wasteful spending and then move on to coffee and kissing related issues.
Mrs. Brito is contemplating how much more she’s going to hear her husband griping about the library. Abel can’t be talked out of this. It doesn’t look good for Mrs. Brito.
So we find out at dinner that Zanes family cant afford cable. I digress…
In the summer of 1983 I went off to college and discovered cable for the first time, in my dorm room. So cool to watch tv without worrying about the antenna being juuuust so to optimize the picture. Plus I saw all those games I couldnt see before. Then when I got home from college later in the fall, I saw this black box on top of the TV downstairs. We had bought cable. Just on 1 TV. So I figured out that the tv had to be left on Channel 3 all the time if you wanted a picture, and all others would produce static. We also purchased HBO and Showtime so we could watch some movies. Back then of course, cable consisted of about 25 channels, but it was still way more then before, and I loved it. Im pretty sure we had the same box for 14 years. We actually ran the antenna into my bedroom so I could get a better signal on my Tv, but it was only regular channels there. The monthly cost was around $35.
Of course when we moved 14 years later we bought Jones Intercable, which became Comcast, and as cable technology improved so did the number of channels, and the cost. There were so many channels to watch movies that we dropped HBO and Showtime (which now have their own tier of channels). Satellite came along and offered their own cheaper alternatives, and finally after 34 years I dropped cable and switched to satellite. At the end the monthly cable bill was around $180, which included internet service. My promo period has since ended, but Im happy with what I have.
It was never something we couldnt afford, as we made sure we werent paying for the largest packages that we didnt need. But there are plenty of people that have cut the cord lately, as several alternatives besides sattelite have come up, like Hulu, Youtube TV, etc. So Zane has plenty of company in that regard.
So the point of this strip today is the library is useful for some people, and Abel should respect that. As far as 3 kids sharing 1 outdated PC, hey kid, in my day we had Zero PC’s. And we managed. We used something called an encyclopedia.
I’m sure the next step will be for Abel to join the library board. More chaos will ensue as he votes to cut down the number of PC’s resulting in Zane not having one when he needs one down the road.
I love Mrs. Britos earrings but really, how come everyone has the same style? Huge black and round. She also has changed her hair color already, from yellow to brown. Obviously someone didnt tell Whigham they use color in GoComics now.
And my god Zane– comb your hair before you come to the table. He looks like he just rolled outa bed.
