Post Content

Judge Parker, 2/3/05

So I’ve been following Judge Parker ever since I started reading the soap opera strips at the Houston Chronicle Web site, which has been, what, two months now? You’d think I could tell you something concrete about it by now, but it’s been grinding along even more interminably than the rest of the serials, making it difficult to follow. The plotlines seem pleasingly lurid, though: one involves a pair of college students anonymously sending half-naked toga party pictures of a bitchy acquaintance to said acquaintance’s mother, so said mother would force said bitchy acquaintance to leave the state college party school where she engaged in the aforementioned semi-nude chicanery; another involved a man who (off camera, alas) apparently was tossed from an airplane somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean. The current story revolves around a woman named Gloria, who is currently rotting in a Mexican jail, arrested by a (fat, hairy, and swarthy, of course) corrupt Mexican cop on a trumped-up gun charge; now Judge Parker has to fly down there and help her out. (We think the charges are phony, anyway. Stay tuned to find out the truth! Hopefully sometime this year!)

Anyway, I felt a need to comment on this one, because I laughed aloud at the warning that this Planet of the Apes refugee gives to the man who I’m reasonably sure is the title character. You may have a fancy law school education, Judge, but did you know that they speak Spanish in Mexico? Huh? You just thought you’d shout in English and get your way, didn’t you? That sort of thing may get you more margaritas at Chevy’s, but actual Mexico is totally different! Fortunately, he’ll have plenty of time to read the entire dictionary on the plane.