Composer of Wacky Names Tom Batiuk is batting .500 with today’s strip. “Hershey Barr” is a little childish, sounds too much like “Mason Jarre,” and, as a rapper name, could almost be construed as racist (whatever else Batiuk is, he’s not racist). “Bubu Zayla,” after I took a moment to say it out loud and think about it in an “alt-Latina” context, actually made me chuckle, even if the whole vuvuzela thing dates back to the 2010 World Cup. Seems odd that a house with a multi-car garage would be laid out in a manner that requires you to exit the garage after parking in order to get into the house. I also wonder which of the previous owners saw fit to install a tampon vending machine next to the front door.
Tag: Hollywood
In Them High-Rollin’ Hills
School chums Cindy and Les arrive, not at the Jarre’s beach house, but at Mason’s new pied-à-terre in “the ‘Hills’.” I don’t know where TB cribbed his California architecture notes, but all those tubular steel railings and odd-sized windows do give the building a sort of Cali modern feel, even if the doors on their three-car garage suggest a public storage unit.
Les’ll Wrestle
“Wrestling out of my weight class“? Again with the sporto metaphors from 97-pound weakling Les. And again with the “Most Popular Girl in the School” crap. Does anyone who graduated high school before the 21st century recall who was the “most popular” girl in the school–not the class but the entire goddam school? The most popular. Whoever she is, I hope she’s holding up even half as well as Cindy here. And while dwelling upon one’s social status in high school may get old, one never outgrows a taste for flirtatious banter.
Passed Pass from the Past
Maybe she didn’t beat him up like Bull did, but during the twenty years they spent in high school together, Cindy generally treated Les like shit. She wouldn’t have him for a lab partner, let alone a boyfriend. Even when Les wound up keeping her company on that dateless New Year’s Eve, Cindy swore him to secrecy. And decades later she has the gall to break his chops for being a gentleman.
Top-Down Approach
After paying to fly Les 2,000 miles to LAX, you’d suppose Mason would at least spring for an Uber to bring him the rest of the way. Instead, the task falls to the eternally youthful and hot Cindy Summers Winkerbean Jarre to fetch Les. because what else are true friends for? Also, does Cindy still even have that job at Buddyblog? His arrival in sunny California has done nothing to snap Les out of his apathy; he even slouches in the passenger seat of Cindy’s sporty, battleship gray roadster. Batty’s gone to great lengths to depict Les’ complete lack of confidence. And you knew that TB was going to compose some kind of wry punchline around “pitch”… but when else have we seen Les “pitch” anything? His endless book signings attract fans who come prepared to buy his work (in multiple!). He sure doesn’t “pitch” an appreciation of language arts to the generation of students who’ve endured his class. He pitched himself in matrimony–twice–and somehow succeeded both times. You know who can pitch though? Mrs. Les Moore, aka Cayla. Come to think of it, Les is the last denizen of the Funkiverse who should be making sporto analogies.
Son of Stuck Funky 