Tag: gazebo

The Be-tr-owe-thal

“It’s an I.O.U. for an engagement ring.” Y’know, Wally, lots of guys decide to pop the question even if they don’t have the scratch for a diamond ring. But a written I.O.U.? Weak, dude. A two bit ring from a Crackerback jox would’ve been preferable to that. No doubt a Niagara Falls honeymoon is in store…fifty years from now.

Spit Tune

Having Wally as a member of the Westview Submarine Band gives Batiuk license to recycle all those band jokes from Acts I and II. While I enjoy a good band joke as much as the next euphonium player, the gag’s gotta make sense, and this one really doesn’t. The “spit valve” (properly called the “water key”–a trombone has no “valves” of any kind) is at the very end of the outer slide, and at no point in today’s strip do we see it anywhere in the vicinity of Buddy’s paw.

Home Sweet Trombone

Even though Wally’s PTSD is kept in check thanks to Buddy, he’s still not immune to midlife doubt and regret. Today he muses about how life “should be” for him and Rachel (and presumably her little boy Robbie, wherever the hell he’s been since January 2011). Or given his absent-mindedness around Rachel (see Wednesday’s “chick magnet” strip), perhaps the “we” Wally’s speaking of is him, Becky, and their two children, stolen away from him by Dead Skunk Head John during his captivity in Iraquistan.

John Philip Snooze-a

I hope you’ve all enjoyed the stellar snark of Epicus Doomus these last two weeks as much as I have! A new mystery guest author sits in starting Monday, July 15! —TFH

Discuss: “Sousa marches sound best when they’re surrounded by a town square.” Well, for starters, it seems rather like the town square is surrounded by the music: it waves through the air like one of those advertising banners that gets towed by a small plane. And I’d wager that Sousa marches sound best when they’re played by, say, the United States Marine Band. When played by an ensemble small enough to fit in a gazebo that’s about the size of my bathroom, they sound, well, okay.

So in his retirement, “Harry seems to be working harder than ever”? Really? Harder then he did when he used to force his students to march in torrential rains? Harder than when he used to personally deliver band turkeys? Since he hung up his band director hat, all we’ve seen Harry doing is lurking around the high school and occasionally schmoozing with his fellow music educators.