07: You Can Be the President
... I'd Rather Be the Pope
Darling Reader,
Today begins a 3-part look at me and my boyfriend Nash the Slash, and the very start of my life-long deep love of “concert shirts” or band shirts or whatever. This letter also contains a tribute to Stratengers, my pub for the last 20 years, which has been closed permanently due to you-know-what. When this lockdown year ends, I will apparently still be staying at home, because where am I gonna go draw? Is there an emoji of a guy just standing on Queen East unable to figure out where to go? That’s me next year.
Also some Prince, and Mork from Ork.
A note: I have NEVER figured out how to draw my mother. Hell, I’m only beginning to understand the relationship. But she is not represented well by the drawing here. Hopefully she will become clear to me over time. (Or maybe I’ll just take a character from someone else’s strip to use, lol.)
Mork Calling Orson. Come in, Orson.
Television was not welcome in our home, although we nearly always had one (the pause between the B&W that broke and the colour TV above was the only time we didn’t - maybe a couple months). Our parents gladly ceded control of it to us on Saturday mornings so they could sleep in, but otherwise watching it was always regarded with suspicion. Many shows that would on reflection turn out to be more or less benign were banned in our house - Happy Days was out, Fantasy Island and Loveboat were forbidden.
While in the end I appreciate this and Mom’s banning of soda pop and junk food (I think they were both good impulses), nobody ever explained anything back then. Parents now - informed parents with time, anyway - would talk about nutrition and attention and media analysis while correcting behaviour, but for us, everything “bad” was JUST BAD. There wasn’t really a difference between evil and empty calories. It turns out there is a big one.
Mork and Mindy was allowed because Jim had argued successfully that it was morally educational. Every episode, he pointed out, ended with Mork discussing what he’s learned with his overlord. “It’s TEACHING US things!”
If you had freaky TV rules in your house, you should tell the whole world, right here in the comments:
You Can Be the King of Pop
Apparently Prince and Michael Jackson were rivals. Who cares, I know - but this song, which I’m posting because of the loose connection to the strip (it’s not even 80s Prince) was seemingly about that - a reaction to Jackson’s asking to be called “The King of Pop.”
I think it’s really weird that people DID call Michael Jackson “the King of Pop.” It was almost Trump-level low-class for his label to ask, but true #USAUSA lameness for them to DO it.
Says me.
The “You don’t understand!” sample at the top is apparently Bernie Mac.
RIP Strats.
