The Era -- Day By Day

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Daily News...

Someone needs to take Mr. Joseph Napolitano aside and have a long and thorough talk with him about certain matters which he does not appear to fully comprehend. And the judge could use a few hours with a volume of Havelock Ellis himself.

"It is unnecessary to violate good taste by going into details." You'll never make Page Four with an attitude like that.

There's a new world coming.

On the other hand, if Mr. Gray is about to give us a storyline about corrupt corporate efficiency experts being expunged by Punjab and the Asp, then I for one am wholly on board.

"Absolutely, master, your excellency, sir. In fact, I'm so entirely in your power and ready to acknowledge the inevitability of my impending fate that you ought to take a few minutes here and tell me exactly where that port is, how many ships use it, and how the guards are laid out."

"Well, thank you very much grandma, now I'll NEVER get back to sleep!"

Boy, when Andy guns up he doesn't fool around. Are you expecting her to show up in a tank?

Yeah, well, you should be more worried that Wilmer can turn his head around a full 180 degrees like that.

"Sir Tummenden Broadbeam?" Well, now. If had to predict which of our strips would be the first to do a story about British war refugees, I wouldn't have expected it to be this one.

Ohhhhh, Lil. What you really need is a long talk with Aunt Pruny. There's a train leaving in an hour. If you value your soul, be on it.

 

[Harp]

Harold has his head stuck up his ass so far he cannot see daylight nor listen to rhyme or reason; either
from his own conscience, or anyone else offering advice. Cupid is blind, and Lana is too smitten to see clearly.

Terry, that kraut needs to be finished before he finishes you.
Torture takes effect almost immediately, despite movie versions of prolonged agony and heroic resistance.
Put a man on his back, a knee against his sternum, and wrist twist. Pain, unbelievable pain, can be administered
by an enemy quite convincingly.

 

[Fading Fast]

...Kings County Sheriff James V. Magnano says there is no financial reason why the city cannot replace the notorious Raymond Street Jail. The Sheriff has for years been agitating to replace the pestilential old structure, and after revealing that an inmate at the jail had tried to hang himself last night from a bedsheet in his cell, he declared that now that there is plenty of money available, "Mayor LaGuardia can advance no legitimate excuse for saddling Brooklyn with the Raymond Street Jail, that pesthole from which prisoners seek escape in suicide."...

Brooklyn's nearly completed new library sat unopened for, what was it, two years owing to lack of funds and the L is still standing, in part, for the same reason, but somehow there's a big pot of money just sitting around for a new jail?

...
(Oh what I would have given to have seen this production. When I mentioned Wright himself playing the role of Bigger Thomas I was thinking of the 1951 movie version, made in Argentina because America in 1951 couldn't deal with it. But no matter -- Canada Lee, who mainstream audiences know best as one of the survivors in Hitchcock's "Lifeboat," is a tremendous actor. And look down the cast list and stop at the actress playing the role of the racist Irish housekeeper Peggy: yes, that's fluttery lovable Aunt Bee herself. And there we have our third Postwar Television Icon turning up in a surprising role in 1941.)...

And somewhere in the great beyond, my grandmother, a frequently user of the "they come in threes" phrase, is smiling.

... (And here Boody Rogers breaks the comic-strip taboo against full-frontal male nudity, sort of.)...

"I'll do it, I'll do it!"

"Umm, Joy, we weren't asking for volunteers to do full frontal nudity."

"Oh, okay, well if you do need someone, I'm available."

"We know Joy, we know. Now go back to hanging on to that fuel tank."

... (On the one hand, poor Peggy is thirty-five years old and is long past the age when her mother should be controlling her life. On the other hand, Peggy's an idiot, and Jo is absolutely right. Helen Worth needs to show up here and straighten it all out.)...

As you've noted Lizzie, Jo has some world-class loathing of Oakdale. It does seem to have reached the point where it's not good for her, but she ain't letting go - we know that.

... (Tie up the dog? Uh-oh. But wait, Irwin's too dumb to tie anything but a granny knot, so no worries.)

Yesterday, wasn't Dan standing there in his underwear (with Lizzie examining the illustration just a second to two too long ) with several thugs with guns holding him captive? It would have been nice to see how he managed that escape.

... Someone needs to take Mr. Joseph Napolitano aside and have a long and thorough talk with him about certain matters which he does not appear to fully comprehend. And the judge could use a few hours with a volume of Havelock Ellis himself.....

Beside that very valid point, regardless of her dress, she threw him out of the bedroom, left the house and refuses to go home - what exactly does this judge think is left of this marriage (ignoring, for the moment, the obvious issue he's missing)?

I don't remember them by name, but we've met a few other wives on Page Four that Ms. Napolitano might want to meet.

Harold has his head stuck up his ass so far he cannot see daylight nor listen to rhyme or reason; either
from his own conscience, or anyone else offering advice. Cupid is blind, and Lana is too smitten to see clearly....

Thinking back to my 20-year-old self and my 20-year-old friends, while we did some stupid and immature things, no one was in Harold's class of insane stupidity. This has to stop. None of us would have gotten this far into the situation (nor could any of us have afforded two rings - or even one - back then).

 

[LizzieMaine]

What I get from both Harold and Lillums is the feeling of kids play-acting at being adults -- Harold thinks he's this big white-collar success because he bumbled into a job thru dumb luck, and Lil thinks she's some kind of haughty urban sophisticate because she spent two years in junior college with a subscription to "Madamoiselle." They're both severe cases of arrested adolescence. Lana, on the other hand, actually *is* a adult, at least more so than either of the other two, but not enough so that she can stand back and actually understand that Harold is in no way ready to cross the street by himself, let alone get married.

The war is going to hold out some unpleasant experiences for all of them, I fear.

Curious about Dorothy/Jimmy Napolitano, I did a bit of Googling and found that their name turns up in 1942 in a criminal trial relating to a numbers-running racket working out of a gas station -- not implicated in the case, but testifying as a witness, and still living as a man. The defense attorney tries to discredit the witness by bringing up the divorce/crossdressing story, but the judge doesn't seem to particularly care about such immaterial evidence.

I was puzzled by Dan being in that boat too, until I sussed out the Skull's Clever Plan -- that's one of his goons dressed up in Dan's clothes, which is enough to fool poor stupid Irwin, but would clearly not fool the FACE EATING DOG. I look forward to the outcome.

 

[Harp]

Thinking back to my 20-year-old self and my 20-year-old friends, while we did some stupid and immature things, no one was in Harold's class of insane stupidity. This has to stop. None of us would have gotten this far into the situation (nor could any of us have afforded two rings - or even one - back then).

After posting my corrective comment, I belatedly noticed that Lillums, daughter of Venus starring at her lovely
reflection in held mirror was topless or better. I now rescind my earlier remark and suggest Harold advantage the
situation while he can and give serious consideration to committing bigamy.

 

[Fading Fast]

...
I was puzzled by Dan being in that boat too, until I sussed out the Skull's Clever Plan -- that's one of his goons dressed up in Dan's clothes, which is enough to fool poor stupid Irwin, but would clearly not fool the FACE EATING DOG. I look forward to the outcome.

Now what if the FACE EATING DOG had, get ready for it, his own SECRET UNDERGROUND BASE?

I believe that would be a Lizzie daily double.

 

[ChiTownScion]

"The boys are between 18 and 34..."

I have to tell myself that this was 80 years ago and that it's a different world today.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"It's their country too."

Between this and the Napolitano story, it's like 1941 is standing on its toes and trying to peer somehow into a future that it isn't quite ready to understand. But the seeds, nonetheless, are planted.

 

[Harp]

the Napolitano story, it's like 1941 is standing on its toes and trying to peer somehow into a future that it isn't quite ready to understand. But the seeds, nonetheless, are planted.

A glance at Napolitano merits further consider for lack of consortium, alienation, possible fraudulence
committed by Dorothy; such constant variable found within the legal contractual obligation of marriage grants
standing to dissolve with recourse to cite judicial error as basis for appeal. Sartorial issues are odd but spousal
aberrance usually lead to more substantive reasons.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A bit more detail on the Napolitano case courtesy of "The American Weekly," the Hearst Sunday supplement -- a surprisingly even-handed discussion of the case, given that the Hearst publications are not known for their sophistication in such matters...

It would seem, although it's not explicitly stated here, that Mr. Napolitano, having known Dorothy/Jimmy in high school, would have to have had at least some idea of what he was getting into. Why the two of them ever thought marriage was a good idea, or could ever work at all, is notably absent from the piece, but I bet Helen Worth would have a field day trying to figure it out.

Meanwhile, give "Colonel Barker D. S. O." a cheesy little moustache, and he'd look disturbingly like J. Hartford Oakdale. Wouldn't Jo Bungle like that.

 

[Harp]

In my professional sphere several women have married, and one couple have had children through
artificial insemination, both couples are happy and I am happy for them. A recent announcement though
surprised, and I had absolutely no idea...but that is life and we should be supportive. The times are changing.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Efforts by the United States to aid Britain in the North Atlantic Ocean provoked the extension of the German blockade zone to include Iceland, according to statements from authoritative German quarters. "We have information," stated a well-informed German source, "that American ships have regularly been unloading their cargoes at Iceland for reshipment to England. Therefore we have decided to put an end to this kind of activity."

(Kiel? I thought you were in China.)

Striking CIO steelworkers in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania are meeting today to vote on whether to restore "by force if necessary" the picket lines around the Bethlehem Steel Company plant, after police on horseback armed with tear gas guns and acting under the direct orders of Governor Arthur H. James routed pickets yesterday. Leaders of the CIO Steel Workers Organizing Committee today ordered the rank and file to stay away from the plant pending a decision on how the union will exercise its Constitutional rights. Mounted police continue to patrol the factory grounds and surrounding neighborhood today, with the entire area within three blocks of the plant barred to all but approved employees.

Two stickup men pursued by a police in a wild mile-long chase across Park Slope escaped in a stolen car early this morning near Prospect Park. The car, registered to Wilbur Gerard of Huntingdon, was parked at 4th Avenue and 23rd Street when it was commandeered by the two robbers, and led police in a radio car on a 60 miles-per-hour chase until the robbers abandoned the vehicle and fled into the park where as of press time they have not been apprehended. Detective William F. O'Brien of the 5th Avenue precinct, widely known as "Two Gun O'Brien," fired several shots but did not strike the vehicle. The two are suspected in two separate armed robberies of women early this morning.

One of New York's best known policewomen was suspended from the force this morning after shooting up a bar in Jackson Heights last night. Detective First Grade Mary A. Shanley was out walking her pet bulldog last night when she turned into a bar at 40-08 74th Street for a drink. There she became involved in an argument with a fellow patron, John Huljes of 20 Granite Street, and when Mr. Huljes made a disparaging remark about the Irish, Detective Shanley drew her service revolver and fired a shot into the wall. She later stated that she thought that Mr. Huljes was reaching for a weapon of his own. Detective Shanley is renowned within the Department for her skill at apprehending pickpockets, having in recent years collared such well-known dips as Crying Tillie Dorf, Greenhorn Clara, and Chinatown Charlie.

City Councilman Anthony J. Digiovanna has endorsed a plan to finance construction of a new Brooklyn jail by an appropriation of sales tax revenue. The Councilman will recommend that the Council support the Beckinella Bill to take $5,000,000 out of the surplus sales tax payment pool to pay for a replacement for the obsolete and pest-ridden Raymond Street Jail. Meanwhile, Sheriff James V. Magnano will moderate a round-table discussion of the question "How Can The Antiquated Raymond Street Jail Be Quickly Replaced?," to be broadcast from his office over station WCNW in Flatbush next Friday night at 8:30 PM. Among those scheduled to participate in that discussion are Borough president John Cashmore, District Attorney William O'Dwyer, Jail Warden Henry Schleth, and all five Kings County Court judges.

The Government will take over full operation of all broadcasting stations in the event the United States enters the war. So predicted a representative of the General Electric Company in a speech last night before the Municipal Club of Brooklyn. G. E. representative C. H. Bell also predicted that the coming of commercial television in the United States is imminent, with the Federal Communications Commission having recently approved the technical standards proposed by the National Television Systems Committee, and added that the FCC is doing everything within its power to expedite the growth of FM broadcasting, with up to a hundred FM stations likely to have been licensed by this fall.

(It isn't Chaplin's greatest picture, but it's one of his pretty-damn-good pictures, and that's a very high standard indeed. It's also the last time he will ever appear in the costume of The Tramp, although he will toy with the idea of bringing back the character in the 1960s.)

(Eddie Anderson is the most popular Black performer in the country in 1941, but he never actually says "yum! yum!" in any role he has ever played or ever will play. He also doesn't say such things as "dat am" when he's in character as Rochester. My oh my indeed.)

G. M. G. writes in to Helen Worth to comment on S. P. S.'s recent letter complaning about these kids today with their Jitterbug slang. G. M. G. is herself an English teacher, and she has no trouble at all with kids speaking their own particular jargon, because it's just a way of having something for themselves that can confound their elders, and that's an important part of what being an adolescent is all about. Helen offers thanks for this comment, and suggests that those grownups who deplore jitterbugging ought to remember how silly *they* looked doing the Charleston or the Black Bunny.

(Theory: Helen and Mary Worth are sisters.)

(Ditch the onions, and I'd eat this right now.)

(Lashing political commentary aside, what is this guy doing in *my backyard????*)

The Dodgers wrapped up their Grapefruit League season yesterday by spanking the Yankees 2-1, in a game which projected Mr. Lee Grissom as a possible candidate for that number-five-starter spot that has bedeviled Leo Durocher over the course of the spring. Grissom was just another man on the roster up until yesterday but his performance yesterday, in which he gave up 2 hits in 5 innings, has Leo pondering the possibilities. Durocher soured on Grissom after the left-hander was slapped around badly by the Cleveland Indians in Havana, but his fast ball yesterday was really sizzling, boding well for his chances to make a place for himself on the 1941 staff.

The Flock's first string enplanes for Texas this afternoon to begin a Southwestern barnstorming tour, but clubhouse manager Babe Hamburger won't be making the trip due to a kidney problem. Babe's colleagues Senator John Griffin and Dan Comerford spent last night packing up the team's gear for the flight west.

The 1941 New York Rangers are the biggest hockey flops since the 1939 Chicago Black Hawks. The defending Stanley Cup champions were eliminated from the playoffs last night by resurgent Chicago, 2-1.

The Eagle will publish on Saturday a complete list of new frequency assignments for US radio stations, in keeping with the Treaty of Havana requirements going into effect March 29th. You'll be the envy of your neighborhood if you clip and save this list. Of New York stations, only WMCA, WEAF, and WOR will remain at the same spots on the dial as of this Saturday -- all other stations will be required to relocate up or down the dial. A broadcast over WEAF and WJZ by Chairman James L. Fly of the Federal Communications Commission Friday night at 7:15 pm will explain the reasons for the shift.

(No wonder Sam the Presser skipped the country.)

(Some live their lives behind a tissue of lies, but Oakdale has a whole Kleenex factory.)

(When we first met Ted, you will recall, he was a whey-faced playboy. Nothing's changed.)

(OWW! OWWW! And I know Joe Penner died recently, but that's no reason for the Skull to go around looking like him.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Daily News...

Actually, women can have hemophilia too -- it can be attached to chromosome defects, a topic very poorly understood in 1941.

(Dream on.)

Joe decides not to bring the News home with him today.

NEVER trust an "efficiency expert."

"No I WON"T come out juggling and riding a unicycle!"

At least let her put on a bathrobe first -- can't you see she's cold???

"Genial features?" I think you left out a letter there, Gus.

I bet Wumple would like to know how his company's being run.

Emmy's been married to the fathead for eight years and still calls him "Lord." Clearly there are deeper issues in this relationship.

I don't know what's going to happen with the kids, but if this story doesn't end with Lena's complete public humiliation, then I for one will be very disappointed.

 

[Harp]

Considering Terry and The Pirates is set in 1930s China and title namesake is a teenage protagonist
whom has somehow managed to avoid death and rape in addition to, by all available evidence, retained virginity
at the hands of a sadist NAZI, a beautiful Chinese pearl, and a St Louis courtesan, gotta say folks we're really
pushing the envelope here. And all this "do this and do that boy and bring the American here" stuff and nothing ever
happens it's becoming like Wagon Train. Nothin ever happens, they just keep wagon training.
This all bark and no bite jazz is gettin old. Real old.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Maybe it's about time for Terry to get some help from Detective Mary Shanley --

 

[Fading Fast]

...City Councilman Anthony J. Digiovanna has endorsed a plan to finance construction of a new Brooklyn jail by an appropriation of sales tax revenue. The Councilman will recommend that the Council support the Beckinella Bill to take $5,000,000 out of the surplus sales tax payment pool to pay for a replacement for the obsolete and pest-ridden Raymond Street Jail. Meanwhile, Sheriff James V. Magnano will moderate a round-table discussion of the question "How Can The Antiquated Raymond Street Jail Be Quickly Replaced?," to be broadcast from his office over station WCNW in Flatbush next Friday night at 8:30 PM. Among those scheduled to participate in that discussion are Borough president John Cashmore, District Attorney William O'Dwyer, Jail Warden Henry Schleth, and all five Kings County Court judges....

And just yesterday, Kings County Sheriff James V. Magnano told us the money was available.

...
(It isn't Chaplin's greatest picture, but it's one of his pretty-damn-good pictures, and that's a very high standard indeed. It's also the last time he will ever appear in the costume of The Tramp, although he will toy with the idea of bringing back the character in the 1960s.)...

"...At Popular Prices!" Somebody earned his or her marketing paycheck that week.

...
(Ditch the onions, and I'd eat this right now.)...

"Sauerkraut Juice -" really! Somebody wanted to drink that, ever?

"Cup custard with creamy sauce." What is "creamy sauce" in this context?

...
The Dodgers wrapped up their Grapefruit League season yesterday by spanking the Yankees 2-1,...

Is a 2-1 victory really a "spanking?"

... (When we first met Ted, you will recall, he was a whey-faced playboy. Nothing's changed.)...

The crazy thing about Pat's game is what is she getting out of it other than the meanness of stealing another woman's husband as what does she think will happen to her with Ted one day?

A few times in my younger dating days, a married woman or a woman with a serious boyfriend hit on me and I thought, beyond I don't play that game, why wouldn't you just do the same thing to me one day?

Even if Pat doesn't care about the morality of what she is doing, all she'll wind up with is an unreliable and dishonest man buried under alimony and child-support payments.

... Actually, women can have hemophilia too -- it can be attached to chromosome defects, a topic very poorly understood in 1941.....

I'd like to know a little bit more about the tailor getting $20,000 ($360,000 in 2021 dollars) in a compromise settlement with the Manhattan Coach Line, Inc.

...
Joe decides not to bring the News home with him today.....

Good move Joe.

... "No I WON"T come out juggling and riding a unicycle!"....

"If you don't, I will torture and then kill Burma."

"Dammit, give me the three balls and that stupid unicycle, but I won't wear the outfit."

"I wonder, which one of her fingers should I cut off first?"

"Gimme the outfit."

... "Genial features?" I think you left out a letter there, Gus.....

Now Lizzie.

 

[Harp]

Maybe it's about time for Terry to get some help from Detective Mary Shanley --

Vicarious comic ribaldry necessitates the services of Burma and Hu Shee; preferably agreeable menage a trois,
all night both included package deal, Vegas, Venetian four-day stay. Round trip air fare included.
Ribs and pizza to be delivered Venetian, and must be signed for front door. Sorry, but that's that with delivery orders.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A coup d'etat by Yugoslav army leaders today deposed the Regency and Cabinet that brought their nation into the German orbit, and elevated the boy King, Peter II, to the throne in his own right. General Richard Dusan-Simovich, a friend of Great Britain and commander of the Yugoslav Army Corps, was named Premier, with Memello Nincic, a Cabinet member during the last war who has long been deemed a friend of Britain and France, named to serve as Foreign Minister. Prince Paul, head of the Regency, is believed to have fled the country, while all members of the former Cabinet aligned with the Axis have been taken under arrest.

In London, Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared that Britain will give its full support to the Yugoslav coup, and promised in a midday speech to the British people that Britain and the United States will combine to "crush Nazism." "We shall continue to make sacrifices," declared Mr. Churchill, "and preserve national unity, until we have finally beaten Satan down under our feet."

Thirty-five hundred workers in two Brooklyn shipyards operated by the Bethlehem Steel Company are preparing to take a strike vote after demands for wage increases were rejected by the company. Strike meetings have been called for tomorrow afternoon at 5 PM for members of Local 13 of the Marine and Shipbuilders' Union of America, in conjunction with Local 15 of Hoboken. A request for information from local company officials was denied on the basis that all executives qualified to comment are at the company's headquarters in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where the CIO Steel Workers Organizing Committee is in the midst of a strike against the firm's main plant.

In Chicago, police with night sticks broke up a 700-man picket line at the McCormick Works of the International Harvester Company, to allow 700 strikebreakers to enter the plant. At least 20 pickets and policemen were injured.

A Grand Jury investigation of conditions at the Raymond Street Jail intended to end all further investigations of that antiquated pesthole was announced today by the holdover jury from December. George H. Trumpler, Grand Jury foreman, declared that officials ranging from members of the State Crime Commission, the State Legislature, and the Board of Estimate to Mayor LaGuardia himself will be subpoenaed to get to the bottom of why the filth-ridden Raymond Street lockup continues to exist.

The Principal of Erasmus Hall High School in Flatbush today repudiated the Rapp-Coudert Committee's suggestion that the school is under Communist influence. Principal John F. McNeill denied the Committee's claim that the American Student Union has a faction operating at the school, and maintained that efforts by "outside groups" to foment peace protests and other demonstrations at the school have always been met by strong opposition from the student body.

("Huh. He wasn'neah when I was," says Sally. "But we din' have no Reds when I wasseah, an' ya know why? Kilgallen woulda beat 'em up. She wassa mean one, she was. I ever tell you 'bouttat time she awmos' shove me downna flighta stairs?" "I t'ink I met a Red at New Utrick las' night," ignores Joe. "Ast me if I'd loan 'im a haffabuck. Jus' like t'at, din' know me f'm LaGuardia. Who but a Red would do t'at?")

(By an amazing coincidence, I am wearing a pair of Enna Jetticks right now, just like these, except they've got a low heel, a closed toe, and less elaborate stitching, they lace up the front, and they cost me more than $6.)

(Gawdawmighty.)

(You're working that mic way too close, kid -- your percussives and your sibilants are gonna drown out every word you say. Back off about a foot and tell us again about the radioactive beef.)

(Twitter Before Twitter.)

(I don't know who books the acts for the Flatbush, but whoever they are they've completely dropped the ball. They bring in some lame girlie show when they *could* be presenting the one, the only SENOR GONZALO. Tell me that wouldn't sell out every performance.)

("Do you carry 'one size fits all?'")

The First String Dodgers took their leave of Florida this morning aboard two Eastern Air Liners, and will make their first stop in New Orleans this afternoon before continuing on by rail to Texas. The boys are quite excited about what they will do during their four-hour layover in the Crescent City, but their excitement is tempered by the knowledge that Manager Durocher is very much present in person for the trip.

Meanwhile, Larry MacPhail remains in Los Angeles, where he haunts the Chicago Cubs training camp in his continuing attempts to pry Billy Herman from the Wrigley fold. It is understood that if he fails in this effort, he will wire Durocher an order that he is to start the season at second base, since Pete Coscarart, despite some fine recent performances, is still only batting around .150.

Meanwhile, the second-string Dodgers, under the command of Vice Marshal Charley Dressen, will play a couple of games against the Tigers before leaving Florida for a barnstorming tour of Georgia, which will end when they reunite with the rest of the club in Atlanta on April 8th, for the start of a seven-game tour up the East Coast against the Yankees that will end in Ebbets Field. Whit Wyatt, Kirby Higbe, and Dixie Walker are the most prominent Dodgers on Dressen's "Number Two" squad.

("You bald-headed etc. etc. etc.!" Well, son, you can forget about getting any work from Lichty.)

(There'll be no stopping her now.)

(Miss Mervyn, with her distinctive haircut, long face, and eyes too far apart, reminds me of some personality of the Era -- an actress, a glamour-girl, some kind of celebrity -- but I cannot for the very life of me think of who it is. And every time I see her it annoys me.)

(All right, I admit it -- if there was anyone I thought was going to FALL HEADLONG ITO THE RIVER it would Irwin. Well played, Mr. Marsh, well played.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Daily News...

"A combination of whiskey and thyroid pills." Somebody ought to make THAT into a cigarette.

WHY ISN'T THERE A MADE-FOR-STREAMING TV SERIES ABOUT MARY SHANLEY?

This is, believe it or not, the only wine, as an old grape-juice Methodist, that I have ever been able to stomach.

That fat guy in panel 3 in the zipper jacket looks a lot like John Tecum, if he survived the hurricane and then let himself, terribly, go. And now he's mixed up with -- an EFFICIENCY EXPERT! How the mighty hath fallen.

Top hat, evening suit, fur coat? They must be going to Loew's Met.

Anyone else picking up an "Elisha Cook Jr. In The Maltese Falcon" thing from Terry? And that picture hasn't even come out yet.

"Well, what is there to do?" whines Skeez. "Any ideas, Nina?"

That's a bit OCD, isn't it Grandma? Can't you just put up a "Quarantine" sign?

I know this is supposed to be a stereotype joke, but looking at my own bills, I can't help but sympathize with Mush. "Easy Payments" never are.

Well now THIS WAS A LONG TIME COMING!

 

[Fading Fast]

...("Huh. He wasn'neah when I was," says Sally. "But we din' have no Reds when I wasseah, an' ya know why? Kilgallen woulda beat 'em up. She wassa mean one, she was. I ever tell you 'bouttat time she awmos' shove me downna flighta stairs?" "I t'ink I met a Red at New Utrick las' night," ignores Joe. "Ast me if I'd loan 'im a haffabuck. Jus' like t'at, din' know me f'm LaGuardia. Who but a Red would do t'at?")...

I doubt there's an audience for it today and I have no idea if you have illustrating skills, but I'd love to see you build these two out into a '40s-style comic strip as you have created something special in them.

...
(By an amazing coincidence, I am wearing a pair of Enna Jetticks right now, just like these, except they've got a low heel, a closed toe, and less elaborate stitching, they lace up the front, and they cost me more than $6.)...

Enna Jetticks is a great name for a shoe.

...
(Gawdawmighty.)...

An early echo of all the vaping flavors.

..
(I don't know who books the acts for the Flatbush, but whoever they are they've completely dropped the ball. They bring in some lame girlie show when they *could* be presenting the one, the only SENOR GONZALO. Tell me that wouldn't sell out every performance.)...

If he'd open for Hellzapoppin', I'd be in line to buy tickets now.

... (Miss Mervyn, with her distinctive haircut, long face, and eyes too far apart, reminds me of some personality of the Era -- an actress, a glamour-girl, some kind of celebrity -- but I cannot for the very life of me think of who it is. And every time I see her it annoys me.)...

I'm sure it's not who you are thinking of, but I see an echo of Eve Arden in her and could see Eve Arden, with her sarcastic personality, playing the character on screen.

...
That fat guy in panel 3 in the zipper jacket looks a lot like John Tecum, if he survived the hurricane and then let himself, terribly, go. And now he's mixed up with -- an EFFICIENCY EXPERT! How the mighty hath fallen....

The "fat guy in panel 3" just called and said you hurt his feeling. He wanted me to tell you he just started on a therapy of whiskey and thyroid pills to reduce so you should give him some time before being so "judgey-judgey."* I have his number in case you want to call and apologize.

* Anachronistic language alert.

... Anyone else picking up an "Elisha Cook Jr. In The Maltese Falcon" thing from Terry? And that picture hasn't even come out yet....

One of the best part of "The Maltese Falcon" is how Bogey so completely owns both Cook Jr and Peter Lorre - he uses those guys as dish rags time and again. That's it, that's my TMF reference for the day.