Stuart Carlson prompts the question, “Is anybody still watching this crap?”
If they hadn’t given Trump so much free airtime for his nonsensical statements and outrageous stunts in 2016, he’d have lost the election (and maybe never been nominated).
Now they’re giving him an hour or two of free campaigning every night. Somebody call the FEC.
When the original “Five O’Clock Follies” were happening, the reporters had to attend, but there were no satellite hookups to force it down our throats.
If the press could summarize it then, I don’t know why this crew can’t do the same. They’re paid to watch the sausage being made, not us.
In the meantime, this was a particularly good week for Friday Funnies, so here are some that didn’t fit yesterday’s narrative:
And since I’m cheating anyway, I’ll start with this Stephen Collins piece that wasn’t actually available yesterday. My blog, my rules.
I have a particular hatred for conference calls, having worked at a paper in a chain that started out small/midsized and grew into a giant without abandoning the idea that we could all chat and it would be productive.
Not that it ever was, but, with greater numbers, it became less so.
Thank god we didn’t have video then, because at least on a telephone conference call, you could mute yourself and do something else and hope to god nobody asked you a direct question.
Though there was always someone who didn’t realize that, if you put it on hold, we’d all be assailed with your Musak.
Anyway, Collins makes me laugh with memories of how useless the calls were even in times when we were all at our desks in the office and visions of how much more useless they are now that people are scattered, and his playful rhyme scheme makes it even more fun.
To read.
Not to be part of, dear lord.
While we’re marking corporate horrors, the laughter inspired by this very timely Barney and Clyde is dark indeed.
It reminds me of watching “Diner” with a girlfriend who was far from amused by the misogynistic hijinx and walked out of the room. And the house.
I mansplained that it was a realistic picture of life in that era, to which she responded, “But why would I want to watch that?”
Helluva question.
And, if Barney and Clyde were an hour and 50 minutes long instead of four panels, I’d likely feel the same way.
Come to think of it, I shut off “Glengarry Glen Ross” after a little while on the same basis — Having lived it, I didn’t feel the need to relive it.
Still, in four-panel units, it tickles my dark side.
Asked and Answered
(Between Friends, March 31, 2020)
(Arlo and Janis, November 17, 2001)
Sandra Bell-Lundy is more philosophical than Jimmy Johnson, though, in my mind, I’m not sure whether I’d rather be considered a geezer or be definitely on the wrong side of scarce.
I was just on the cusp of turning 52 when this Arlo & Janis ran, and it amused me because I was just beginning to realize what lay ahead, mortality-wise.
Now I’m at an age where I see younger folks getting upset over the death of Bill Withers, and my response is “Well, he was 81,” and then I realize that 81 isn’t that far down the road.
Women are, I think, more philosophical about this whole thing than men, particularly those women who rock their gray hair instead of covering it up.
Of course, women can be philosophical.
They’re not the ones becoming scarce.
Juxtaposition of the Week
(Ben)
(Cornered)
Okay, this is another cheat, since the Ben is from today, but the topic is timely.
Having had four dogs at once years ago gave me a deep sense of dog responsibility, knowing that if anyone’s garbage can got knocked over, my dogs — who never left the yard — would get blamed anyway.
The other day, I changed our route and turned left, not right, at the top of the street, thus walking around the other block for a change.
And I saw how many people had evidently been failing to scoop over the winter, damn them.
And then I noticed that all the poops were exactly the same size. A beagle, maybe a small terrier.
If I were Lenny Briscoe, I’d find a security camera whose tapes would reveal the perp. Heck, if I were just the apartment manager across town, I could send in a DNA sample.
Being neither, I’ll simply turn right at the top of the block from now on.
My dog is large enough that nobody’s gonna blame him anyway.
Juxtaposition of the Week #2
A pair of ‘toons that landed the same day set me to overthinking things.
I don’t get throw pillows, either. But they are an excellent example of how men knuckle under to frilly decor and are content to be exiled to “man caves.”
Which I can laugh about because, post-divorce, it was me and two sons, and Wendy Liebman nailed it when she described men living alone as “bears with furniture.”
Better to live as a bear with furniture than with someone who can not only feel a single pea under a huge pile of mattresses but will complain about it the next morning.
That’s not “overthinking.” That’s “experience,” thank god mostly vicarious since princesses didn’t often give me the time of day.
As for Rapunzel, my response is definitely “overthinking” but particularly apt for this gag.
At a somewhat young age, it occurred to me that if she had any sense, she’d have tied her hair to the bedpost and shinnyed down to freedom herself.
Not, y’know, being an actual princess.
Not a princess
This is an hour and 23 minutes, longer than my usual but appropriate for our locked down need for something to stream.
When the kids are very, very far away, perhaps asleep.
It is also time spent with the most brilliantly intelligent, howlingly funny woman nobody outside of Canada has heard of.
Trust me.
Joe Martin addressed the throw pillow plague some months ago:
http://www.mrboffo.com/comicsweb/mrboffoweb/strips/20190829bfo_s_web.jpg
Geezers: In the 1970s, the BBC produced a TV and radio series called Dad’s Army, about the Home Guard in the UK during World War II. One of my favorite exchanges was between two men who were definitely too old for WWI, possibly the Crimea:
“I don’t like to wear glasses. They make me look old.”
“It doesn’t bother me. I am old.”
Dogs: We have two of them, and take them out for a walk every day unless I can somehow get out of it which hardly ever happens. One yard in our neighborhood is festooned with signs warning dogs (well, presumably their humans) to stay away–“I don’t pee in your yard, don’t pee in mine.” It occurred to me that if he *really* needed to pee in my yard, it wouldn’t bother me all that much. I don’t think I’ll tell him that, though.
Oh my word Mike. Thank you so much for introducing me to Sandra Shamas. My wife and I had a really good laugh. What a gift at this time …
My favorite video on throw pillows from BBC’s Coupling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp0-8Ibkczc