Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for July 26, 2011

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    BE THIS GUY  over 13 years ago

    Can’t talk; reading “Fern Hill”…

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    DylanThomas3.14159  over 13 years ago

    Grats, Leftwing Patriot, on being first. Now where’s Vista Bill?.Re today’s toon: Somebody predicted this. Grats, whoever you are! Jeff’s febrile imagination has scored two women, a blonde babe and a slightly-by-the-bend auburn. Notice that they’re drinking alcoholic beverages, whereas Sorkh has ordered “three cups of tea”. Faux pas. It will be interesting to see how GBT will “save” his wunderkind in tomorrow’s strip!

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    DylanThomas3.14159  over 13 years ago

    Wait, I just noticed something else. The auburn says Sorkh has “baby blues”, whereas he’s wearing what we used to call shades (sunglasses). Did GBT make a mistake? Or is he switching back-and-forth between “magic realism” and reality?

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    BE THIS GUY  over 13 years ago

    Do you really think Jeff went out in public in a turban? I might be wrong but I don’t think he did. Chat in the morning.

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    Ravenswing  over 13 years ago

    C’mon, Dylan … you think any of Jeff’s fever dreams approaches reality?

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    palos  over 13 years ago

    I have a different take. Jeff’s not looking for female companionship, he’s recruiting civilians for his new mission.

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    DylanThomas3.14159  over 13 years ago

    Just checked Jeff’s bio (badly in need of an update) on Slate’s Doonesbury, he’s 29 years old, old enough to legally consume alcoholic beverages in a public bar in any State. Here’s the source:

    .http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/cast/member/1.

    JEFF REDFERNThe son of social activist and former Justice Department lawyer Joanie Caucus and Washington Post journalist Rick Redfern, Jeff Redfern was born in December, 1982. He showed an early predeliction for prepositions such as “although”, “and”, “but” and “unless”. Despite difficult passage through the day care years — largely the result of his inability to speak the native language of his caregivers — Redfern was outed as a gifted child at four and sent to nerd school. Despite this training he was nonetheless able to nurture a gift of extreme hand-eye coordination to achieve a high level of mastery of Doom. By the time he reached puberty he was a veteran of Camp Cyberpines.

    Heavily recruited by Walden College as an academic ringer, he was awarded a full football scholarship and is a first string benchman for the Fighting Swooshes. When not playing videogames and helping plan the annual Walden Riot, Redfern has actually gotten serious about his studies. Along with roommate-teammate Zipper Harris, he co-founded myVulture.com and sold it to entrepreneur Mike Doonesbury. Recruited by the CIA as a summer intern, Redfern managed to accidentally launch a Hellfire missile from a Predator drone, taking out an Al-Qaeda ammo dump. He was subsequently assigned to study Arabic in Spook School and sent back to SW Asia for Gulf War II.

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    pcolli  over 13 years ago

    I don’t read this strip very often….is this a transvestite bar?

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    DylanThomas3.14159  over 13 years ago

    Look at the pictures in each panel carefully and read the conversations. There are several clues: it’s a straight bar.

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    Coyoty Premium Member over 13 years ago

    Cabeza Blanco.

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    avdald2  over 13 years ago

    Those two look like addicts on heat.

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    aarken  over 13 years ago

    DylanT3 – They DO look like men in drag…..anyway most transvestites are heterosexual.

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    DylanThomas3.14159  over 13 years ago

    Welcome, Vista Bill. Did you fly in from Hong Kong?

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    aarken  over 13 years ago

    DylanT3 – I’m not criticising. We have a “Tranny” in the family, married and a father – he calls it drag and often goes out with his wife, dressed up (tastefully thanks to her) to all sorts of places.He wouldn’t mind me saying this.

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    3hourtour Premium Member over 13 years ago

    ..they notice his baby blues how,now?!?..

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    Bosn_c_otter  over 13 years ago

    er…. just one question, the redhead says “look at those baby blues” How does she know that? Jeff is wearing sunglasses

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    David Wolfson Premium Member over 13 years ago

    Based on the last few days’ strips, I believe that the turban and sunglasses are in Jeff’s mind, and are only shown in panels that show Jeff’s point of view, much the way Hobbes was a real tiger only from Calvin’s POV. That’s how the girls can be commenting on Jeff’s baby blues.

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    Dragoncat  over 13 years ago

    Well, at least he doesn’t need to get them roaring drunk for them to notice him.

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    Alabama Al  over 13 years ago

    Either Jeff is sitting in front of his screen gone in total fantasy, or he’s in a bar gone in total fantasy AND totally bonkers.

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    Malcolm Hall  over 13 years ago

    No faux pas — the Red Rascal doesn’t drink alcohol.

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    sally222 Premium Member over 13 years ago

    “Three cups of tea” — ROFL! Dream on, Jeff!

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    DylanThomas3.14159  over 13 years ago

    I think the assumption that Jeff Redfern = Sorkh Razil = Red Rascal is a Muslim is mistaken. He doesn’t go to mosque. He doesn’t pray three times a day facing Mecca. He only wears his turban, etc., when he’s writing at home or out in a fugue state, as he is in today’s strip. For a real Muslim, it’s “all about Allah”. For Jeff, it’s “all about Jeff”. There’s a difference. Allah means, literally, “the God” (al = “the” and “Ah” = God). Thus the saying, “There is no God but Allah” means, in Arabic, “There is no God but God.” Jeff never says this. Therefore he’s no true Muslim. If not, then what is he? He’s an American young man who dreams of being a one-man CIA, infiltrating Islamic culture. That doesn’t mean he’s a virgin. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t drink alcohol. Doesn’t mean anything except highly imaginative dreams, approaching hallucinations.

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    DylanThomas3.14159  over 13 years ago

    A fugue state … is a rare psychiatric disorder characterized by reversible amnesia for personal identity, including the memories, personality and other identifying characteristics of individuality. The state is usually short-lived (hours to days), but can last months or longer. Dissociative fugue usually involves unplanned travel or wandering, and is sometimes accompanied by the establishment of a new identity. …. Fugues are usually precipitated by a stressful episode [Jeff’s relationship with his mother?], and upon recovery there may be amnesia for the original stressor ….".Source: Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue_state>

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    DylanThomas3.14159  over 13 years ago

    Thanx G.Martin, I enjoy your comments too.

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    fritzoid Premium Member over 13 years ago

    “Tranny” can refer to either a transvestite or a transsexual (pre- or post-op), so make sure you check under the hood before you drive one off the lot.

    The difference between “transvestism” and “drag” is likewise indistinct, but my understanding is that, traditionally, “drag” is transvestism done for entertainment purposes. Milton Berle performed in drag, but he wasn’t a “drag queen”, and he’d only be considered a “transvestite” in the most literal (i.e. non-diagnostic) sense.

    By the way, “drag” also has a broader (perhaps older) sense of simply wearing a distinctive and identifying costume/outfit. An man in “military drag” might be wearing a dress uniform, not necessarily a dress.

    It’s my belief that Jeff is REALLY wearing his “Sorkh Razil” outfit (his “Afghani drag”) in public, and that the women are actually responding to him. Trudeau is perfectly willing to suspend plausibility when it suits him (with some characters more than others).

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    Dtroutma  over 13 years ago

    While Jeff’s “mental image” turban would alarm many if public, should we now fear blond-“baby blue-eyed”-Norse- fundamentalist Christians? Reality bites. (and Dylan, it would be five times a day.)

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    DylanThomas3.14159  over 13 years ago

    I just remembered: In yesterday’s strip, Jeff left the house without his Arabic get-up. So how do we explain the fact that the auburn-hair woman noticed “the dude in the turban”? Was he wearing it in reality? Is Trudeau mixing Jeff’s fantasy with reality? What’s really going on?

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    annamargaret1866  over 13 years ago

    An article about the scandal plus a bit more: http://www.slate.com/id/2293127/

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    cdhaley  over 13 years ago

    For his Sorkh Razil arcs, GT often resorts to Cervantes’ brilliant discovery, 400 years ago, that a novelist can play with the reader’s perspective. One moment we get Don Quixote’s view: “Those are giants, Sancho, but I understand that your fear makes them look like windmills.” After charging them and being knocked senseless, Quixote insists that the windmills are actually transformed giants.

    GT alternates the perspective by drawing either Jeff or Sorkh Razil. But that only establishes the perspective for the last panel. The first three panels—with the androgynous females who falsely perceive blue eyes behind Sorkh/Jeff’s shades—may show our (the “real”) perspective; or GT could be playing here with a THIRD perspective.

    See wiwo’s comment above. And as BluJayRobin astutely remarks, the reference to “Three Cups of Tea” neatly ties Jeff’s perspective to another quixotic Afghanistan novel.

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    fritzoid Premium Member over 13 years ago

    I knew Rick Blaine. Rick Blaine was a friend of mine. Jeff Redfern is no Rick Blaine. (Rick NEVER drank with the customers…)

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    FriscoLou  over 13 years ago

    Hate to sound like an I told me so, but didn’t someone comment about the possibilities, “… within the constraints of the comic format”, yesterday?

    Speaking of yesterday and the Natalie Wood fantasies, I want to hear about a geezer that was conflicted between Jane Fonda and Bridget Bardot. Like, “I really dug Jane Fonda until she joined the Viet Cong.” or “Bridget Bardot really made me want to learn French, until I found out she was a Nazi.”

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    DylanThomas3.14159  over 13 years ago

    The idea that Bridget Bardot was a Nazi must be exaggerated. I Googled that combination, and the best I could come up with was this:.Last of the great playboys (…who married Bardot for a bet): As Gunther Sachs shoots himself (like his SS officer father), the story of the Sixties’ biggest womaniser.Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1385381/Gunther-Sachs-dies-Brigitte-Bardots-ex-husband-shoots-himself.html#ixzz1TG5fP2Eg

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    DylanThomas3.14159  over 13 years ago

    Pic (last one down) of Rick Blaine and lover Ilsa Lund at table in Rick’s Cafe American, Casablanca, Morocco:.http://users.datarealm.com/Lucius/Casablanca.index.html

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    Hunter7  over 13 years ago

    Is Jeff even in the same bar as those two girls?

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    Jean_1960  over 13 years ago

    This is getting weird.

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