Tag: Montoni's

Your Mask Too Small To Band Box With God

Link To The Big Sunday Strip

See, he just explained how Funky got his special pizza-themed masks, but nothing can explain how, on the spur of the moment, he suddenly found or made a bunch of tiny masks for the stupid band box. I’m never discussing this arc again so, for the last-ever time, it’s just remarkable how much affection Funky has for his old nostalgia-steeped junk, like his stools, jukebox and (of course) that f*cking band box. The whereabouts of his old revolving beer sign are still unknown, as that plot thread has been dangling for like eight years now.

Coming next week: after briefly acknowledging Morton, Holly, Wally, Rachel, Adeela, Cory and Rocky’s untimely COVID-related deaths in passing, Funky seriously contemplates drinking himself to death after the green pitcher comes out of the dishwasher all faded and teal. His fellow AA members agree that it’s probably the best course of action given the gravity of the situation.

Sanitized For Your Objection

Link To Today’s Strip

“Reserved for a vaccine”??? Yes, I know what he meant, but LOL. He really should have maybe waited to see how things played out before he sent this batch of strips over to CK. But then again, it’s been a hundred years so why start now?

Correct me if I’m mis-remembering this but didn’t he just REMOVE THE F*CKING JUKEBOX THREE DAYS AGO? This isn’t just a typical lapse in continuity, it’s like a whole other universe where “continuity” isn’t even a word. And why is Adeela being forced to wipe down the virus-infested jukebox (minus gloves too by the way)? That’s no way to treat your pizzeria’s number one Muslim architect. Someone needs to hook that girl up with a LinkedIn or Indeed account, pronto. These FW characters just settle into these lackadaisical phases that drag on for YEARS at a time. She’s squandering her talents AND her youth on these pizza-shilling infidels, if she’s not careful she’ll become an overweight bulbous-nosed sad sack before she knows what hit her and…oh, right. Never mind.

And what’s that anon-o-dude grinning about? Getting to play one of Funky’s old Danny Kaye records? Or is he just excited about the jukebox being sanitized? “Oh man, she’s sanitizing that jukebox just for ME! There’s NO CHANCE I’ll contract COVID from this now!”. Sigh.

Social Disinteresting

Link To Today’s Drip

Once again I am baffled. I assume this is a social distancing-based gag (timely as ever) but the idea that he’s sharing this incredibly mundane anecdote at an AA meeting just boggles the mind. At least the other alcoholics appear bored and disgusted by Funky’s wordplay-based mutterings, which I gotta admit is pretty damn accurate.

The less said about the gag the better. That one had to have been rattling around in that delightfully sincere head of his for ages. In fact I’m stunned that he never used that one before. It just seems so obvious.

And You Can’t Fax Pepperoni Either

Link To The Strip

“While our takeouts from Montoni’s had been good”…nice sentence there, Pulitzer (nominee) Boy. That sentence is the literary equivalent of stubbing your pinkie toe on the bed frame on a 4AM bathroom trip. BatWrite’s insanely fractured syntax is definitely impossible to “replicate”, as it’s just impossible to force yourself to think that way, unless you’ve suffered a lot of head injuries or use a lot of LSD or something.

Of course the possibility exists that the “ambience” Funky is speaking of only exists in HIS head, given his deep lifelong ties to Montoni’s and all. I mean aside from the staff and Crazy Harry you almost NEVER see any other FW regulars hanging around in the background. It was never Westview’s answer to “Cheers”, where characters stream in and out all the time, exchanging wry smirks and wordplay-based banter as Funky and Company crank out the pies. Thus one could conclude that Westviewians don’t really give a shit about being inside Montoni’s, as so few of them are. They just want the pizza. Your coke dealer might have you drop by his stylish condo or he might meet you in the parking lot at the Sizzler but either way you’re just interested in getting the blow.

This arc could have been about how Funky missed his customers-slash-pals during the pandemic, which might have made sense. Or it could have been about how he found himself with all kinds of unwanted free time all of a sudden, which would have sort of tied in a little with the last one. But instead it’s about how the pandemic affected the actual building itself, which is certainly a “different” sort of take. And he’s the only one with nostalgic feelings for the place (even Tony is never there), so essentially this is just more childhood fetishization, a common FW theme (see: comic books).

But mostly it’s just stupid. Funky is usually one of the more sympathetic FW characters (by FW standards) but the urge to hit him with a cinder block is just overwhelming right now. Why is everyone just sitting there letting this idiot babble?

Mon-o-tonies

Link To The Thing

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So, (see what I did there?) is this the same AA monologue from before or is this a whole new one? Because Funky is really monopolizing these meetings. Running Montoni’s was hard, closing Montoni’s was hard, re-opening Montoni’s was hard…yeah, Funky really appeared to be struggling to make ends meet while he was reno-ing his luxury McMansion on the hill a few weeks back. I mean, it’s a pizzeria. You make pizzas, you sell pizzas and that’s pretty much it. It’s not like Westviewians have a lot of alternatives.

People got sick, people died, people lost their jobs, businesses cratered, yet there’s the Funkman, bitching because his stupid pizzeria isn’t exactly the same as before the pandemic came along. Cue the world’s smallest violin. Typical BatYam, he decides to “address” a “real-life issue”, then centers the whole thing around pizza. You’d think that given everything Funky has endured that maybe he’d have a bit of perspective, but nope. There he is, sitting in a room full of recovering alcoholics and making it all about himself. What a pitiful display.