Ha, ha ha! He’s screwing with the students’ educations and undermining his fellow faculty members! Just to suit his own needs! Isn’t that HILARIOUS? Comedy f*cking gold right there, folks! What a guy! No wonder eleven or twelve Ohioian band directors love Dinkle and tape these Dinkle strips to the side of their office filing cabinets! Haphazardly, too, no doubt. Then, after they inevitably retire, those same strips are scraped away with a razor knife and become more floor sweepings, quickly forgotten floor sweepings. It’s kind of sad, really.
I’d give just about anything if this arc would just abruptly stop and suddenly go into, I don’t know, a few strips where Funky works out or Holly uses the credit card or something. Anything. Dinkle being felled by a massive coronary would be good too, but then there’d be a flashback-packed funeral arc that’d drag on for weeks, and no one wants that. And as we all know, it wouldn’t necessarily mean he was really, permanently dead, as people return from the dead all the time in the Funkyverse. So really there’s just no practical way to get rid of him, ever. BatHam likes him and he’s going to feature him twelve weeks every year whether we like it or not.
Harry motherf*cking Dinkle…the one FW character who sends a shudder of total disgust through every SoSF guest host, each and every time he rears his ugly, cackling head. “Band director”…the two most demoralizing words in the Funkyverse. And he’s with that other band director, you know the one I mean, that guy who’s based on someone, I think. It’s gonna be a long week, people.
And what’s with Funky’s alcoholism coming up all the time lately? Isn’t he anything else? I mean, the guy quit drinking a long time ago, he’s Westview’s number one businessman and the head of the local chamber of commerce. Plus his step-son just got married. So why can’t he talk about anything else?
Yeah, I’ve used that title before, but so what? Another single paneler…this thing isn’t just running out of momentum, it’s actually rolling backwards now. As much as it pains me to admit this, Les’ barely-veiled disgust is probably the funniest moment of this arc so far. I’ve always wanted to see Dick Facey go in that direction and become a full-time, no-holds-barred asshole, all the time, instead of just occasionally. But alas, the bearded dick with ears can’t even do that right.
Two things really stand out here. First you have Summer, who’s becoming less and less recognizable by the day. Please, just ship her back to KSU and let her prepare for her triple junior year already. And then there’s Holly’s “muscatel memory” gag, which has to be one of the bottom ten all-time FW gags ever. I mean yikes, man, that’s just awful.
And what a shitty wedding. Awful, awful pop-culture gags, no one taking it seriously at all, Summer lurching around making wisecracks and a pile of shitty pizza…if I was a guest I’d seriously consider stealing my gift back.
Yup. Batiuk doesn’t even have the decency to end this on a Sunday Strip. And has instead given us six panels of pointless nonsense. It’s like ending a contentious divorce arbitration with a pie in the face.
So let’s ignore it, and move on down memory lane.
Just a reminder, as we continue the saga of Jefferson Jacks.
A baseball player younger than Crankshaft, mentored by Crankshaft.
A baseball player slightly older than Crankshaft, played with Crankshaft.
Cuban League professional baseball was definitely a thing. Up through the abolition of professional sports in Cuba in 1961. Since it was played in the winter, American players, black and white, often participated. It was one of the first baseball leagues to be completely integrated. There were usually four or five teams, including, Almendares Alacranes ‘Scorpions’, Petroleros de Cienfuegos ‘Oilers’, Habana Leones ‘Red Lions‘, Tigres de Marianao ‘Tigers‘, and the Havana Sugar Kings.
I wasn’t able to find any evidence that Fidel Castro and Che Guevara paid the Havana Reds to play against them in a sugar cane field in the early 50’s though. Maybe I was searching the wrong sources.
Following the Jefferson vs the communists story, we next see Jefferson Jacks in June 2010. Crankshaft and various other former Toledo Mud Hens are invited to play an exhibition game at a Mud Hens reunion.
Cute right? Or Schmaltzy? Depends on how jaded you’re feeling or how manipulative vs genuine you feel the writer’s intentions were. While it seems Jacks decided to help Bushka around the bases after seeing how frail his old tormenter had become, a few months later, in August 2010, we’re given a little more depth into their détente.
I’ll just re-repeat my comment from the last two threads: “Cayla’s whole presence in this arc seems to be adding up to, ‘Yeah kids, but whaddaya gonna do, right?’” (This time with better punctuation.)
Sourbelly
Cayla says, earlier this week, “Frankly, I don’t know how we’re going to change things.” She says this to two young kids who had baited a confrontation with a woman they didn’t know because they didn’t like how they were treated different for looking different.
And I just want to slap Cayla.
Because there are dozens of avenues to change. Some less contentious than others.
And one of those roads is the road of forgiveness. Not silent forgiveness, but an open hand presented. Offering a human connection to someone on ‘the other side’ and hoping that the relationship can be the key that releases them from their cage of prejudice.
It’s a more contentious road than you’d think. There are so many who see the weight of ignorance and hate as a burden that people deserve to be crushed by, because they willingly chose to carry that hate. They want to shut those spiteful people away in the dark prison of their own malice, and throw away the key. Because hateful people have not earned our efforts. Because they have not yet received back the pain they’ve inflicted.
And to withhold forgiveness is their right. No one should force the wronged to reach out.
But I feel that pure, healing change comes from batting away the fingers that pry into scars and want to hold open wounds. The past is prologue, but it is also a mirage we can’t visit, and revenge is an illusion because it destroys to pay for something already gone. What matters is now, and the future, and what will make things better there, whether it be punishment or mercy.
Sometimes change can’t be so kind. But when we can, isn’t better to convince people that the change we want makes things better for everyone? To convince people that the world you’d like to see has a place for them too?
And someone at their back to protect them, who will help push them home.
I apologize, but I cannot think of much to say about the lame weight gain gag in today’s strip other than that it’s staler than that Montoni’s pizza… Your mileage may vary.
Son of Stuck Funky 
