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Noble airhead cries single majestic tear

Apartment 3-G, 6/21/06

Oh, boo hoo, Lu Ann! It’s Alan’s big art opening, and he’s not paying any attention to the most important thing: you! Sob! Sob!

I guess she’s supposed to be upset because she’s caught some strumpet hanging off of her former man. But since the girl in question appears to be Alan’s twelve-year-old niece, Lu Ann either has nothing to worry about or a whole lot to worry about.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 6/21/06

Totally, 100 percent awesome things about today’s TDIET:

  • Use of the “beat up jeans are more fashionable than non-beat-up jeans” joke, roughly thirty-five years after it might have been amusing to anyone, anywhere.
  • Total failure to do even thirty seconds of Internet research to discover what a pair of high-priced distressed jeans might actually look like.
  • Use of the phrase “Hobo gathering”.
  • Use of the porn-influenced spelling “howcum” for “How come”.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 21, 2006 at 11:14 pm and is filed under Apartment 3-G, They'll Do It Every Time.

62 responses to “Noble airhead cries single majestic tear”

  1. Mic
    June 21st, 2006 at 11:18 pm [Reply]

    “Howcum” sounds vaguely Native American to me. Am I a horrible racist?

  2. Mic
    June 21st, 2006 at 11:19 pm [Reply]

    And you have that ’single majestic tear,’ as well.

  3. lilybdcsa
    June 21st, 2006 at 11:20 pm [Reply]

    And the worse thing is, I think that guy from Edmonds is my former brother-in-law. Oh..the shame!

  4. Bill Peschel
    June 21st, 2006 at 11:37 pm [Reply]

    I got some stuff from the end of the next post, so if Josh wouldn’t mind, I’d like to repeat this from Thursday’’s comics:

    RMMD: We’re confronted with THE FLAMING FACE OF DEATH!

    MW: Ian’s wife is getting drunk. “Good doctor friend?” Try saying that naturally without three glasses of the Charterstone plonk in you. And what’s going on in Jeff’s world that’s making him so happy? That Meddlin’ Mary is far away?

    MT: They’re partying like it’s 1959. Mark gets to go after bear penises, but the girl gets sent to “an outdoor clothing show.”

    FW: boom-chikka-wow-wow, indeed. She’s got the hot tub heated up and two terrycloth robes ready. Not that they’ll need them–

    Wait. What am I saying? This is Weiner Weinerbean we’re talking about.

  5. Uncle Lumpy
    June 21st, 2006 at 11:37 pm [Reply]

    Yeah, for cryin’ out loud, Alan – you two should get an elevator!

    And he seems awfully defensive about his indistinct, monochromatic, out-of-focus, schematic, background art. (Which we will never see close up, because the strip’s artists have no idea how to represent such a thing.)

    Lu Ann, I don’t think this guy is a catch. Not worth your nose-sized tears, girl. Move on.

  6. Ron
    June 21st, 2006 at 11:39 pm [Reply]

    Also, who the heck is going to be in a jeans department dressed like that unless he’s a salesman–in which case, his behavior in the first panel makes perfect sense, but in the second panel it’s just bizarre. (I know, he’s supposed to be the husband, but then, like I say, why the hell is he shopping for clothes with his wife in a double-breasted suit…or for that matter shopping for clothes with his wife at all?)

    (I will burn in hell for that last line, I’m sure…)

  7. YourArbiter
    June 21st, 2006 at 11:45 pm [Reply]

    To be fair, I doubt “hobo jeans what the kids buy” turned up too many results on the author’s cursory Google search.

  8. Marc
    June 21st, 2006 at 11:48 pm [Reply]

    I like how those “electric blue, no-buttons trousers with hems down the front” are all the rage in TDIET ville. Mary Worth is more modernized thant TDIET I dare say. I mean, a few weeks ago, we saw a man with a crooked hat..at least the 80s! And that ugly woman “Looka” sounds like her and the Snuffy Smith crowd would get along famously.

    MW: Okay, Jeff Cory is floating in a magical orb in the middle of Charterstone’s new visible-pool. And he’s coming over tonight! Tonight! BOW-CHICKA-WOW-WOW!

  9. Miserly
    June 22nd, 2006 at 12:11 am [Reply]

    More information on jeans is available on the internet.

  10. Doug Puthoff
    June 22nd, 2006 at 12:31 am [Reply]

    TDIET–whoopie do. At least it tries to be funny. “Real-Life Adventures doesn’t even do that. Its existence in my local paper offends me. I feel like dropping the paper because of it.

  11. mooselet
    June 22nd, 2006 at 1:46 am [Reply]

    What shop hangs jeans that way on the hanger? And in what shop can you go into to buy a pair of said jeans and have them sold to you by a guy who looks like he should be selling life insurance instead? What drugs are the people at TDIET smoking, and can I have some?

  12. Power of 1000 Lemons
    June 22nd, 2006 at 2:10 am [Reply]

    Clearly, what “they” will do every time is make a shitty comic strip.

  13. That Guy
    June 22nd, 2006 at 4:47 am [Reply]

    Did you just write “might of”?

  14. Woodrowfan
    June 22nd, 2006 at 6:46 am [Reply]

    `I am convinced that TDIET was written in the 1960s and falls through some hole in space/time into the present day. I wish whoever was sending thgem would send something valuable, like some Nolan Ryan rookie cards or something…

  15. Chet McCord, Wildlife Defender
    June 22nd, 2006 at 7:20 am [Reply]

    Narna Lamarr is right– she was much better as Marvella.

    Is she talking to her butler?

  16. Hogenmogen
    June 22nd, 2006 at 7:24 am [Reply]

    TDIET: To answer the question obviously burning on everyone’s mind since the introduction of this tiny conundrum, the jeans cost more because more work went into producing each unit. You have to start with one of those “really nice and neat-looking” pairs and then throw it in to a special washer with special stones and special chemicals that wreak havoc on the fabric. I don’t endorse purchasing distressed jeans from the rack, as I usually do my own distressing the natural plugger way. Who would buy such things? Those posers who think that pluggers are cool, and thus deserve to get ripped off by over paying for pants that look like they would be “perfect for a hobo gathering”, whatever the hell that may entail.

  17. Badly_Computer_Generated_Boy
    June 22nd, 2006 at 7:56 am [Reply]

    TDIET is a precious national treasure and needs to be preserved. Where else are you going to find arcane phrases like ‘howcum’ and ‘yowza’, not to mention ‘whaddyaknow’ and ’say, what’s the big idea?’ in their natural habitat?

  18. Josh
    June 22nd, 2006 at 8:14 am [Reply]

    #13 — Good lord, I did. It was really late and I was really tired, OK? And … sob.

    Anyway, I fixed it now.

    jf

  19. Treadwell
    June 22nd, 2006 at 8:32 am [Reply]

    I don’t think Lu Ann is leaving because of inattention. I think she sees an opportunity to ditch without him knowing she was there in the first place, enabling her to avoid sharing her opinion about his art.

  20. ez_E
    June 22nd, 2006 at 8:35 am [Reply]

    what’s the deal with the weird dialogue transcription? They guy says, “Yeah-Really Nice-And-Neat-Looking!” Is that robotic speech?
    And the woman says, “Looka how expensive..” Some kind of bizarre Italian accent?

  21. Ginger
    June 22nd, 2006 at 8:45 am [Reply]

    Sorry, but #7 YourArbiter is right. There’s no way that TDIET could have found any images with ordinary research.

    Oh yeah!

    Yowsa!

  22. LTC
    June 22nd, 2006 at 9:07 am [Reply]

    I thought all the hobos were killed by rich kids in 1997.

  23. ADFELLA
    June 22nd, 2006 at 9:34 am [Reply]

    JUST AS WITH THE ASSASSINATION OF JKF AND THE DAY THE CHALLENGER SPACE SHUTTLE WENT DOWN……

    I’ll always remember where I was and what I was doing when I learned that Lou and Kelly finally disappeared from Mary Worth in what had to be the most boring story line in comic strip history.

  24. Pozzo
    June 22nd, 2006 at 9:43 am [Reply]

    TDIET: Yeah, and how about those crazy dances the kids are doing these days. The “Mashed Potato”? Oh…yeah…

  25. Dick
    June 22nd, 2006 at 9:43 am [Reply]

    #20 – I think he needs to hit that paragraph-mark-toolbar-button in Word before he prints his strip.

  26. Hysterical Woman
    June 22nd, 2006 at 10:01 am [Reply]

    My dad and I were distressed to find that Target sells faded and beaten hats and the hats were all ripped in the same place. I think the question is not “why are they more expensive”, it’s “who is a big enough poser to wear this shit”?

  27. J Shiggity
    June 22nd, 2006 at 10:20 am [Reply]

    Howcum? Well I guess now we know what “they” are doing every time…

  28. Meg, Again
    June 22nd, 2006 at 11:08 am [Reply]

    More porn, AGAIN!!?!

  29. Pelagius
    June 22nd, 2006 at 11:13 am [Reply]

    MW: What is with the inset of Lou Stirling floating above Mary’s head? And why does he appear to be making the sort of gesture one might make if suddenly walked-in upon while gracing the porcelain throne? “Get outta here, lady! I’m takin’ a dump!”

  30. adb
    June 22nd, 2006 at 11:24 am [Reply]

    Wowzers, little miss Forth got old on us in that TDIET strip….

  31. mere cog in the machine
    June 22nd, 2006 at 11:37 am [Reply]

    I have posted about TDIET ad nauseum in the past, so let me just state that I find reading it akin to watching a very old, very obese man climbing a very long, steep set of stairs. It is acutely painful, vaguely embarrassing, and overfrigginwhelmingly pathetic.

  32. bootsybooks
    June 22nd, 2006 at 12:04 pm [Reply]

    More about hobo gatherings is available on the internet.

  33. Treadwell
    June 22nd, 2006 at 12:12 pm [Reply]

    Mary’s “good doctor friend” looks REAL busy at the clinic. If clinics are housed within golf carts outdoors.

  34. MrP
    June 22nd, 2006 at 1:00 pm [Reply]

    I’m still convinced that TDIET’s “humor” is actually based on a kind of double-irony, in which one’s supposed to laugh at the overreacting characters in the strip, as well as the narrator.

    The sad thing is, even then it’s not all that funny.

  35. DaveyK
    June 22nd, 2006 at 1:52 pm [Reply]

    Don’t ignore the completely gratuitous use of “looka” as some sort of weird contraction for “look at”, as if that were necessary, a word, or an onomotopoetically accurate reflection of how people speak…especially people who use words like “lovely”.

    Now maybe you’d hear a lot of “looka”s being tossed about at the hobo gathering…

    I’m also impressed that the salesman’s hair, ties, suit and expression reflect the state of the jeans in his hand. Is he some sort of chameleonic salesman who takes on the characteristics of the clothes he handles?

  36. Chet McCord, Wildlife Defender
    June 22nd, 2006 at 1:55 pm [Reply]

    Thanx and a “tippo,” fer the suggestion, bootsybooks. There is an annual hobo convention in Britt, IA:

    http://www.2camels.com/festival75.php3

    And Dr. Jeff is in his boat in the inset. Remember when he and Mary had a 2-week platitude slam on his cabin cruiser? I think this is Mary’s fond memory of that wonderful time.

  37. Junior Tracy
    June 22nd, 2006 at 2:10 pm [Reply]

    Josh-
    You forgot the following Totally 100% Awesome stuff about TDIET (although, in my view, nothing having to do with TDIET can be described as better that “Totally 100% Not Quite Mediocre”):

    Guy selling jeans is wearing a tie, a phenomenon last seen at the Major Store, Hinsdale, Illinois circa 1968;

    A customer using “lovely”, and “I’ll be”, words/phrases last used in Plymouth, Indiana, circa 1970;

    As you say, the phrase “hobo gathering”.

  38. googoodoll
    June 22nd, 2006 at 2:14 pm [Reply]

    The ghost people levitating above the wrack of hobo gathering jeans are a nice touch.

  39. Irina
    June 22nd, 2006 at 2:49 pm [Reply]

    So I got my shabby coat, bundled my possessions into a bandanna attached to a stick, and rolled a few stogies out of some old disgarded cigar butts.

    I arrive at the 78th Annual Annapolis Hobo Gathering, and all I found were Abercrombie and Fitch types staring curiously at me.

  40. Hogenmogen
    June 22nd, 2006 at 2:56 pm [Reply]

    I’m not quite sure what to make of the suited guy. I thought he was the woman’s husband, not a sales guy. Why would a guy in a suit be interested in distressed jeans, though? But, by the same token, why would any sales guy take a 30-40 year old lady wearing a suit to a rack of strategically ripped jeans? Especially after she thought the clean ones were pretty cool? Why would he be frowning while he tried to sell them? Of course, that could just be because he’s an especially bad salesman, or he wouldn’t be making just above minimum at some dinky store at the mall. Even the teenager at the cash register pities him.

  41. bupdaddy
    June 22nd, 2006 at 3:40 pm [Reply]

    I’m mildly surprised that googling “hobo gathering jeans” doesn’t bring up old TDIET strips…

  42. Joan
    June 22nd, 2006 at 4:22 pm [Reply]

    Can we have a contest to see which CC reader can get the most antiquated [1] or most modern [2] submission published in TDIET? Or has it been done?

    [1] That final crank that gets your Model T started … is the one where you scrape the jeebers out of your knuckles! Yowza!!

    [2] You finally get a stable wi-fi connection on your laptop at the coffee shop to catch up on some e-mail … and people won’t stop text messaging you on your mobile device! Oh yeah!

  43. monkeyhawk
    June 22nd, 2006 at 5:20 pm [Reply]

    #42 — My TDIET Entries:

    Category 1 –

    HOWCUMIZIT?

    You can’t get Junior to practice his piano….

    ….BUT, he presses those buttons on them newfangled telephones for hours on end, resulting in long-distance calls to China!?

    Category 2 –

    Everyone knows Murpha is a babbling old crazy lady….

    ….BUT now that she’s got a Blue Tooth, people think she’s actually talking to someone.

    (tip o’th’ hat to Joan)

  44. Gracie287
    June 22nd, 2006 at 5:45 pm [Reply]

    Here’s my TDIET entry:

    Cornell University is a respected Ivy-League college…
    …AND YET a Cornell student submitted today’s TDIET! Oh yeah!

  45. deeeeeeeeelightful
    June 22nd, 2006 at 6:10 pm [Reply]

    T-Diet Entrys:

    1. You’ve finally decided to get an answering machine to stay on the up and up in the technology era………

    “Maybe now I won’t miss those calls from the gals at the Beauty shop!”

    And now, nobodies even calling!

    *cue heartbroken, confused face*

    2. Now that you have indoor plumbing, you don’t have to worry about Junior not bathing when its cold out and the washbin is dirty……
    “There! now all we need is some of that good old tallow-on-a-rope, and we’ll be high-tech!”
    Problem is, Junior doesn’t want to wash anyway!
    *cue picture of a dirty, tuburculosis-stricken junior*

    3. The newspaper is now coming to your door daily…….
    “Oh boy! I just can’t wait to put TDIET with my grapefruit and prunes!”

    But saying “the paper comes daily to your roof”….Makes more sense! Oh yeaahhh!

    *Replace Paper with Milk and even more hilarity shall ensue. Ohhhhhh Yeeahhh!*

    And HoboGathering? Is he talking about a homeless shelter? Or just the random groups of people he throws rocks at on his way home from selling pants?

  46. treedweller
    June 22nd, 2006 at 6:12 pm [Reply]

    huh. you can’t find information on 78th Annual Annapolis Hobo Gathering on the Internet. I’m disappointed.

  47. Anonymous
    June 22nd, 2006 at 6:32 pm [Reply]

    WOODNJANOIT! As soon as you get the carbon paper aligned with the original and the copy and they’re loaded into the typewriter, “Shaky Stan” at the next desk bumps your arm and the sheet tears in half!

    (If I knew they would use this idea, I would be hoping that “Stan” is shaking because he’s been hiding a whisky bottle in his bottom drawer for years, but I’d settle for a “nervous Nelly” type.)

    Those Darn Kids! Howcum Little Tekkie can compile software like a pro when he needs a program to keep track of his “YU-Gi-OH” collection, but when you need help setting the VCR to watch “Matlock” reruns, he’s clueless about technologee? Oh, Yeah!

    (Well, that was futuristic for the real strip, but I guess it’s still pretty retro. I’ll try to do better.)

    Wuddletheythinkofnext?! Loretta thought she was fed up with sports when Leroy got Cable TV. Now that he has TIVO, he’s watching “sports” he never even heard of before! Wokka Wokka!

    (This would be in the occasionally used one-panel format, where all the background is colored a nice, uniform beige. Loretta would be fuming with an icepack on her head in the foreground while Leroy was watching “sports” in the background and the beige cat and the beige teenager would have dumbfounded looks on their faces.)

  48. treedweller
    June 22nd, 2006 at 6:46 pm [Reply]

    HOWCUM every time “treedweller” tries to post replies to his favorite “blog” twice in the same day in he forgets at least once to fill in his name and his post is attributed to “anonymous”? HOWCUM?

  49. velouria73
    June 22nd, 2006 at 6:51 pm [Reply]

    thanks to this site i’ve gotten pretty obsessed with FBorFW lately and i must admit i check out their official site…well, frequently. today i stumbled upon the “fun stuff” section and found an april paper doll. i’m pretty sure mama patterson would not approve of some of the skank-tastic dresses lynn created.

    http://www.fborfw.com/fun/aprildoll/

  50. Chance
    June 22nd, 2006 at 6:58 pm [Reply]

    Dear everyone who commented on this thread:

    You are all comedic geniuses. Seriously.

    Yowza!

  51. PaddyJ
    June 22nd, 2006 at 7:00 pm [Reply]

    TDIET:
    “Well I’ll be….”
    You’ll be what, generic mother character? A throwaway character in a shitty, instantly dated comic strip?

  52. mere cog in the machine
    June 22nd, 2006 at 7:04 pm [Reply]

    #49: I believe it was ‘Yellojkt’ who first posted a link to “a nearly nekkid April”. If I recall correctly he also mentioned afterword that he had not had that much action since he set up his site which is a disturbing commentary on the members of this forum, I must say. Not having visited it myself, I am afraid I am still ignorant as to its salaciousness. Ahem.

  53. Gracie287
    June 22nd, 2006 at 7:49 pm [Reply]

    Wow! I am not one to throw stones (big hypocrite that I am) but teenage April doll? Helloooo, thunder thighs! I guess in runs in the family though.

  54. Badly_Computer_Animated_Boy
    June 22nd, 2006 at 7:52 pm [Reply]

    TDIET [1] (First panel, man in suit walking down the street, looking nervously over his shoulder) “Whyzit Sid ‘Fraidy’ Katz is worried about his personal freedom being at risk…”
    (Second panel, pull back to see two Marines standing guard at the gate of an internment camp) “…when he knows good and well that we got the Yella Menace right where we wants ‘em? Ring-A-Ding Ding!” (one of the Marines comments ‘Wadda namby pamby!’) – Tip o’ the cap to Jingo McGivemhell

    TDIET [2] – (First panel, astronaut floating in zero gravity with a terrified look on his face) “Why does Dave insist on me opening the pod bay doors…”
    (Second panel, throbbing red light) “…when he knows that this mission is too important for me to allow him to jeopardize it? Affirmative” – A nod of the ol’ blast shield to Hal 9000

  55. Badly_Computer_Animated_Boy
    June 22nd, 2006 at 9:23 pm [Reply]

    Oh, and just so you know, The Noble Airheads will be opening for Pinball Swordfish next Saturday at the Ramada Inn – Airport so check it…dude, the manager totally said I could pass these flyers out here!

  56. 2fs
    June 22nd, 2006 at 11:15 pm [Reply]

    I was at a Target trying on a pair of (non-ripped) jeans once, and a pair of the ripped variety was hanging on a hook in the try-on room. I ripped it some more. Then I billed the store ten bucks.

  57. Mibbitmaker
    June 23rd, 2006 at 4:12 am [Reply]

    #54: Y’gotta go further back than that to capture the datedness of TDIET (not to be confused with “Th’ Diet”, the awful non-story in MW). Try this on for size:

    How’zit Always happen that, you start out the decade livin’ in peaceful splendor…

    Until those dirty Japs attack us an’ we gotta go wipe up the floor with ol’ Schickelgruber an’ Tojo… and even that organ-grinder’s monkey Musowhozits. Gosharootievootie, Jackson!

  58. Ginger
    June 23rd, 2006 at 8:18 am [Reply]

    J’ever notice?? When Mistress Goody Idletongue sees a Sabbath-breaker set in the stocks, she’s the first to throw rotten fruit at ‘im, claiming she’s doing Godly work by helping punish the transgressor!

    . . . But when Goody herself is set in the ducking-stool for being a scold, all of a sudden she believes in forgiveness and mercy! Who’d a think it??

  59. Grandpas Dead
    June 23rd, 2006 at 9:56 am [Reply]

    Dear Badly_Computer_Animated_Boy,

    Re: Your 2001 TDIET:
    I haven’t laughed that hard in ages. Thank you.

  60. Joshua
    June 25th, 2006 at 12:44 am [Reply]

    The thing about this TDIET panel is that the situation being depicted isn’t a problem for the woman. Since she wants the neat and clean jeans, why would it bother her that jeans in worse condition are available at a higher price?

  61. Colin
    June 29th, 2006 at 8:32 pm [Reply]

    The voice I have in mind for the person reading these always seems to sound like jimmy stewart. Seriously, if TDIET was an animated short, it would be narrated be him.

  62. Doug Atkinson
    September 27th, 2007 at 10:28 pm [Reply]

    I like the use of “now” in the first panel–you didn’t used to be able to buy jeans that weren’t pre-worn, but these days you can. Truly, We Live In An Age Of Wonders.

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