CSotD: Friday Funnies — Hunter/Gatherer Edition
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Pearls Before Swine offers the best possible kickoff for Friday Funnies, and I couldn't be more pleased to not do politics today.
Even if I were in the mood, it's going to take me a little while to process the apparent fact that Bill Clinton is once again our president. Or something. Anyway, he's suddenly all over the news.
Also, since Eisenhower had an affair with his WAC driver during WWII, we're going to have to give Normandy back to the Germans.
Just kidding.
I think.
Anyway, we'll deal with Bill another day.
#CliveToo
But on the topic of gender politics, today's Alex got a good laugh.
British financial compliance gags don't always translate well over here, but Clive's divorce sure does. Even those who haven't been divorced themselves have been touched by it somehow, and it's always comforting to find someone whose situation is worse than your own.
What makes this work is that it's not just based on the usual "I hate my ex" stand-up gags but is as fully complicated as possible, with Clive's ex having left him for his boss.
Which led, in 2016, to one of the best reveals ever, compounded by the "always the last to know" element that had been running through the strip and, obviously, the fact that Clive is as easily played by his boss as he was by his S2BX.
The realism is further accentuated by the sort of behavior seen in today's strip, because, while Clive was initially a figure of pity, he manages to behave so badly that it's impossible not to wish he would just get his shit straight ferchrissake.
Which makes you feel guilty, but we all have our limits.
After all, it's like that old saying:
Laugh and the world laughs with you.
Weep, and the world laughs at you.
Juxtaposition of the Day
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(Speaking of being busted during working hours, I'm always a little amused by cartoons like these, because you guys are supposed to be feverishly arting away at your drawingboards, so how do you know what crap is advertised on daytime TV?
But I'm in the process of cutting the cord, which means I don't have to stretch cable all over but can rely on my wifi to bring television to the kitchen while I do dishes.
As a result, I've seen how, even if you only watch news channels, daytime TV bombards you with advertisements for getting rid of your stubborn bellyfat as well as getting rid of your structured settlement and the equity in your house and, in general, anything you have in your wallet or bank account.
The monotony of that being broken up by ambulance chasing and prescription drug pushing.
And, to keep to the gender politics thing, I find it only fair that the stubborn bellyfat removers are beginning to target men as well as women, with ads for diet programs geared to the male taste and digestive system.
Which reminds me of a joke about those frozen Weight Watchers meals, in which a stand-up praised them, and added "two or three make a pretty good lunch."
But the celebrity endorsement ads have me wondering if Alex Trebek, who endorses life insurance for which you cannot be turned down and the premiums for which will never increase, and Tom Selleck, who wants you to get a reverse mortgage because what could possibly go wrong?, are protecting themselves against the lawsuits that ensnared Ed McMahon and a whole lot of other celebrity endorsers of Daytime TV products and services and vague promises.
Not to suggest that any of the current ads are scams or that any of the endorsers of those fine products and services are placing themselves at any legal risk. Really.
I'm not just saying that to cover my ass.
I'm sure these current celebrity endorsers have looked into the offers carefully, with the best possible legal counsel advising them.
As seen in Pros & Cons.
Different kind of endorsement
This piece of nostalgia from Boing Boing — the rest is here — is fascinating and funny but kind of boggles the journalistic mind.
I'd heard of the guards at Disneyland who protected the Magic Kingdom from longhaired folks and other undesirables. I've also done freelance stories that were not intended to dig very deeply into their subjects.
But I'm appalled that anyone, even one of those crappy members' magazines like Diner's Club, would agree to let the subject approve the story up front.
When I was a biz writer, the big kahuna at the local industrial park kept an iron hand on information, and, because we would never give him prior approval, he would simply deny access to new businesses.
We learned to work around him, and then, when he retired and finally wanted us to come in for coffee, donuts and applause, I drove by the day before and took a photo that ran the morning of the event that we didn't show up for.
On accounta we weren't the freakin' Diners Club magazine, pal.
"Nolo Contendere" is the same as "Guilty"
One of my favorite elements of married life and gender politics in general is in today's Reply All, which is the assumption that everything that people do, they do on purpose, to deliberately thwart and take advantage of epicentric you.
It's not entirely gender-based. There are plenty of Felix Ungers who get the collywobbles if a cabinet door is left ajar or a pair of underpants fails to reach the laundry hamper.
But I think it's fair to say that gatherers care about this more than hunters, and that — regardless of sex — they have an unpleasant tendency to accuse the hunters of doing it deliberately.
Well, years after the last gatherer left my hunting grounds, the place invariably looks as if it had been searched by very angry police looking for a very small object.
And I'm okay with it.
Though I still shelter a tiny bit of pity for Clive.
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