Comic for Tuesday, March 7th, 2006

Posted: 7:42 am, Tuesday, March 7th

Welcome back yet again. Readers of multiple webcomics may notice that I pinched junkslut from the (newly Mac-ified) boys over at Penny-Arcade. I love that word. Our society has become so densensitized to obscenity that the only way to draw notice to insults anymore, more often than not, is to just combine random words in order to keep the language evolving. Junkslut, for instance, just sounds obscene, despite the fact that neither of its elements on its own is inherently offensive (I guess slut actually is, but, whatever). My friends and I used to have to do this back in the day when trying to express exactly how much we hated each other - butt(noun) was how most of our new insults were formed, due to the popularity of the Wonder Years' Wayne at the time. I think we reached our apex at "buttloaf," which was unleashed at lunch and caused a befuddled silence to fall. No one knew where to go after that. Such is the current state of obscenity - I guess I've come full circle with cursing in just fifteen short years or so. Tired with cursing, I am left with calling people junksluts. I guess this is not unlike how people have figured out to boil down Sudafed into crystal meth. Except that I am capable of sleeping, and my mailbox has never turned into my orthodontist and tried to melt my flesh off. But aside from that, it's basically the same thing.

Wow, this post didn't take long to get away from me. It's worth noting that I'm writing this during the time that I normally draw strips - with my cousin visiting and me being in the middle of a few good books, I've yet to get to write the strip I need to draw next. Also, I've kind of got writer's block. And I didn't get to find many good links today because I evidently thought that if I read enough liveblogs of the Oscars, King Kong would have magically won for Best Picture.

As everything I've typed so far has been the blogging equivalent of a trainwreck, I'm going to talk about the books I'm reading, in hopes that that at least results in something worthwhile.

I finished Praying for Gil Hodges on the way home yesterday, after leaving it at the office over the weekend with ten pages to go. That was so irritating I almost went back to fetch it at one point. I've read more about the Brooklyn Dodgers than any team outside of ye Soxe, and this was probably the best book of the lot. Me mum was a Brooklyn fan in upstate when the Dodgers won in '55, and has always held a particular shine for Duke Snider. Snider doesn't command the spotlight for much of the book - that honor goes to Johnny Podres and the Goat Fucker pitcher of the day, Tommy Byrne. Oliphant spends about a third of the book on the Dodgers' gut-wrenching World Series history pre-1955, a third on New York City circa 1955 and his family life, and a third on Game Seven of the 1955 series. It's the best game retelling I've ever read. He interviewed Podres and Byrne both, and shifts from retelling the game from their perspectives to game tape (the game, astoundingly, is not preserved in its entirety), to his experience of watching it on television with his father. I'm not sure how much of my enjoyment of the book comes from living in Brooklyn and having read a lot about its history, and from having my Mom be my mom (I could probably name more players from the '55 Dodgers as a young kid than I could that year's edition of the Sox, frankly), and from identifying with the blue-collars of the world (no small deal is made in the book of the Dodgers being the working-class team in New York in the Fifties and the Yankees being the rich team even then)(surprisingly little ink is spent on the Giants). Anyway, the book's probably a big reason why I'm getting pysched up for the season, even this World Baseball Classic thingy. 2.0's rooting for the Dominicans. I'm rooting for them or the Cubans. (Quick aside before moving onto the next book - I was moving my car for alternate-side parking last night and caught half of my weekly ten minutes of sportstalk radio. Michael Kay, the biggest Goat Fucking lackey of all time, was yelling about Billy Wagner being a putz for not playing for the USA in the Classic thingy because he didn't think he was in good enough shape, and yet Wagner was throwing 96 in spring training on Sunday. I just checked the Classic site, it doesn't look like Mariano Rivera is on the Panamanian team. I'm sure I tuned in too late to hear Kay's rant about that. That must be it.)

I started New York Stories on the way to the Javits on Sunday to drop my little cousin's bag off for her. It's a collection of pieces from the City section of the paper. So far, so good - not nearly as enjoyable so far as Work and Other Sins, but not without some very good pieces in the first 80 pages or so. One of the stories so far was a reporter spending the entire day in a Starbucks on the Upper East Side, open to close. I like slice-of-life writings like that. Also excellent was an article on the streetball courts down by West 4th. Could've done without the Klosterman essay, but that's possibly because I had no idea who the other contributers were, and he's a name. It felt like someone showing up at a party and demanding to be the center of attention for some reason. There was a nice history of 18 W. 11th St, too, which was accidentally blown up by the Weathermen back in the 70s. By far my favorite piece - I skipped ahead for this one - was "The Ballad of Sonny Paine." Sonny Paine is the beloved panhandler on the F-train. Before the essay, I knew he was beloved by me, 2.0 and a few of our friends. Now I know it's most of the F-train straphangers that love the guy. Probably the only person more synonymous with today's Brooklyn is the ever-insane Marty Markowitz. (sound, SFW) Anyway, it was just exciting to read about someone I know in the paper. Sonny, by the way, has not only appeared in the strip, but also is the name of a McSweeney's lit mag for writers who happen to be in high school. If I've got any writeriffic high schoolers in the audience, send your .doc of fiction or non-fiction of 3000 words or less to this addy and maybe you'll get published. I have no idea what they're looking for, since all I've ever done is pick up a flier because it had Sonny Paine written in big-ass ol' letters at the top of it, but m'ise well give it a shot, no?

Anyway, for my next book, I'm thinking of something that doesn't take place within the five boroughs.

By the way, did you guys know there's an adult kickball association? It seems a bit more official than the Brooklyn League I've heard about. I'm actually having a really hard time envisioning an official kickball league. So I'm just going to throw it out to Al Crewell, this dude I went to school with who was the best kickball player in the Helderbergs, bar none. He always pitched, and he always put the thing over the fence. Never seen anything it before or since. (Which makes sense - before, I hadn't played kickball; since, I haven't played kickball.)

Alright, enough of this. I think I'm abandoning hope of drawing, but I better get some writing done so I can get down to business tomorrow.

bullfrog

could i recommend I, Wabenzi by Rafi Zabor?

i am only on page 40, but i really love it.

parts of it take place in brooklyn but eventually he goes to turkey.

My friend Jill is part of the kickball league, and her team was looking for players last week. If anyone's interested, I'm happy to hook you up.

WAKA is pretty big in the Nation's Capital. Actually, from what I can tell it is a little cultish.

I just finished In Cold Blood and really enjoyed it. However, I haven't seen Capote yet, so I don't know if it is worth reading the book after seeing the movie.

The movie, in terms of its use of In Cold Blood, really focuses on the relationship between Truman and murderers, not so much the story. I'd say the film uses the book as a vehicle to tell the larger story of Capote's conflicted personal history, and the underlying polarity that exists in the US. It's fantastic, everyone should see it.

...and that's my PSA on Truman Capote, whom I love.

Books I had a yen to read while killing time at Coliseum Friday night - no links, just titles and authors.

Snow, by Orhan Pamuk; End Zone, by Don DeLillo (or any of his other than Libra and White Noise); The End of Faith, Sam Harris; Contract With God, Will Eisner; Brookland, Emily Barton; Imperial Ambitions, Noam Chomsky; Assassination Vacation, Sarah Vowell; Out, Natsuo Kirino; the Watchmen, Alan Moore; the March, EL Doctorow; ... and other ones I can't think of right now.

And, and In Cold Blood, since I haven't actually read that one yet.

I now own In Cold Blood and Assassination Vacation, so if you return Guns, Germs & Steel and Angels & Demons, maybe we can talk ;-)

Ah, a baseball team we can agree on! I love reading about the Brooklyn Dodgers, too. But I never read "Praying for Gil Hodges" so I'll check it out. Thanks for the rec.

I think I loaned out your Angels & Demons, E. I needed to get it out of my house. But GG&S will be returned, sure. 15 - there any good prose about your Cards out there? Three Nights in August does not count, because I really don't savor the idea of spending three nights inside Tony LaRussa's head.

Hmm. I really liked October 1964, which is about the Cardinals vs. Yankees in the World Series. Partially because my all-time favorite cardinal, Bob Gibson, features heavily. But mostly it's about baseball in that era, and the end of the Yankee Dynasty, and the growing diversity in the league. A lot of fun.

Other than that? Not so much good stuff. I did like 3 Nights in August, but then I'm a bit biased.

Oh, and I'm with 2.0 - go Dominicans in the WBC!

Hmm. I really liked October 1964, which is about the Cardinals vs. Yankees in the World Series. Partially because my all-time favorite cardinal, Bob Gibson, features heavily. But mostly it's about baseball in that era, and the end of the Yankee Dynasty, and the growing diversity in the league. A lot of fun.

Other than that? Not so much good stuff. I did like 3 Nights in August, but then I'm a bit biased.

Oh, and I'm with 2.0 - go Dominicans in the WBC!

Waka waka waka...

http://muppets.go.com/main.html

I know it would require a time machine, but can you imagine a Bob Gibson-Josh Gibson battery? You wouldn't need the other seven guys.

But, hell, let's put Kirk Gibson in the field just for the hell of it. Now we need a name.. I'm thinking, "The Aristocrats."

Wait, what the hell is this? They don't have a little gamecast of the WBC? Man. At least Papi's starting his MVP season nicely.

Also, helluva ruckus at cnnsi.com - Bonds! Steroids! Cheating! Sexual dysfunction! Whoo!

Wait, found it. I'm an idiot. Alright, viva Dominica! (Which probably means nothing)

I don't care if he was kidding, I'd freak out if my dad said he would date me like The Donald did about Ivanka! http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/enterta inment/gossip/14040198.htm

If that horse's ass were my father, I'd be on heavy depressants.

good job w/papi today. usa too. have you thought of this as a purchase?:

I'll have to check that out.. The laptop bag Dell sold me with this thing is ergonomically designed to cripple whoever's wearing it. Stapling it to my shoulderblades would probably be an improvement from a comfort POV.