Up Our Alley

Cidu Bill on Mar 6th 2008

Filed in Bill Bickel, Bizarro, CIDU, Dan Piraro, alcohol, bars, comic strips, comics, humor | 16 responses so far

16 Responses to “Up Our Alley”

  1. arik1969 Mar 6th 2008 at 12:49 am 1

    Dan woke up in a really, really odd situation, doesn’t know how he got there, and knows there must be a heck of a story behind it.

    It would have been easier to understand, perhaps if the caption had read “Dan stopped drinking adter he woke up in the seal enclosure wearing a clown suit,” just less subtle.

    Why is Dan in the alley? And why is half the bar there with him? That’s exactly what Dan wants to know.

    Back in my drinking days, I woke up every day wondering how and when I managed to make it into bed in the first place, then I would wonder what I might have done to piss my wife off before I made it to bed, figuring I probably had pissed her off at some point and just didn’t remember. I used to wake up to stuff still cooking on the stove, or stuff that I thought I’d cooked that was half eaten and still raw. It was not pretty. I know exactly where Dan is, and that’s why I don’t drink anymore.

  2. Patrick Mar 6th 2008 at 03:24 am 2

    Arik, I think your assessment is right on (and quite open and honest as well - actually pretty moving).

    But who is Dan? (the guy in the gag is named Kyle).

  3. Singapore Bill Mar 6th 2008 at 04:09 am 3

    My guess is that Kyle is a really obnoxious drunk. So much so that the owners of his regular watering hole (who were planning to do some remodelling anyway), had pard of their old bar installed in the alley behind their place. They then waited until Kyle had a few too many and lured him out to the alley with the piece of blueberry pie you see in the right corner. They then sad him down at the bar and continued to serve him and take his money, but without having him disrupt the place.

  4. arik1969 Mar 6th 2008 at 05:16 am 4

    Sorry, no idea why I called him Dan. Don’t even really know anybody named Dan. Not drinking, No tsmoking anything, funny or regular. Just normal, everyday losing my mind.

  5. Powers Mar 6th 2008 at 07:01 am 5

    Well the artist is named “Dan”.

    I think the joke here is that not only was Kyle waking up someplace different than where he passed out, the bar he passed out on came with him.

  6. Brian Leahy Mar 6th 2008 at 07:09 am 6

    My two cents - with a slightly different angle:

    Piraro likes to skewer cliches. The caption is actually kind of a cliche itself (I stopped drinking when I woke up in an alley…) if still all too true for some.

    The joke here is taking it a trifle too literally: Kyle literally stopped drinking THE VERY INSTANT that he woke up in an alley etc. For this to work, Kyle had to have the MEANS to continue drinking beyond that point, but opt not to. Hence, he has a piece of the bar there with him.

  7. Andrew Mar 6th 2008 at 08:10 am 7

    Intersting. My thoughts were that the cartoon was taking the idea of waking up in an alley and not remembering anything beyond drinking in the bar (such as getting up from the barstool), and having Kyle actually wake up in the alley without having got up from the barstool.

  8. Mulmor Mar 6th 2008 at 11:23 am 8

    Well, I’m mostly with no. 3 (Singapore Bill), though for me it looked like the barman couldn’t get rid of Kyle, thus he just ripped out the part of the bar he occupied and carried him out the back door, presumably with the help of other patrons.

    Why the barman would actually mutilate his own means to create income instead of just throwing Kyle out is left as an excercise to the reader.

  9. John Mar 6th 2008 at 12:37 pm 9

    Apparently the bar was about to be demolished, and Kyle was there on its last night of business. At least, I think that’s what the stick of dynamite in the window signifies. I dunno, maybe it’s a walkie-talkie. I suspect a real-life demolition would not involve random sticks of dynamite placed in windows and left. The bar also served food, although all of that was eaten except for one slice of pie that fell to the pavement.

    I think Arik’s is the real answer: Kyle blacked out at a bar and is now in a mysterious situation that he will never figure out, and it has scared him into sobriety.

  10. Patrick Mar 6th 2008 at 01:05 pm 10

    The stick of dynamite and slice of pie have nothing to do with the gag. They are Pirarro’s signature icons that appear in every panel he draws. He’s been doing that for years but, as demonstrated by some commenters here, I think they sometimes confuse readers who, naturally, try to figure out how these items figure into the joke. There used to be a dead bird icon too but I don’t see that one in this panel.

  11. Lola Mar 6th 2008 at 01:08 pm 11

    The pie slice always reminds me of a grinning aligator.

  12. Dan V Mar 6th 2008 at 02:21 pm 12

    And while we’re on the subject, he also has a bunny icon and an alien in a flying saucer that occasionally appear. The pie and dynamite are in nearly every panel. Looking for this stuff is kind of like trying to find Alfred Hitchcock’s cameo in his movies - a fun diversion that sometimes is more entertaining than the original work.

  13. brien Mar 6th 2008 at 03:16 pm 13

    I think Brian’s right about the cliche thing, but it’s skewered like this:

    The cliche is that someone stops drinking when they wake up in an alley, but it’s always with a bottle of cheap booze in a brown paper bag. (Also, they’re wearing a long ratty overcoat and haven’t shaved for no less than 3 days, but no more than 8 days.)

    But that’s not how Kyle drinks. He doesn’t do the cheap booze in a bag thing. He likes to sit at the bar.

    So, the only way for Kyle to have the cliche amnesiac drinking cliche to happen to him is if the bar ALSO winds up in the alley. But, the gag isn’t about how the bar got in the alley, it’s simply about the juxtaposition of the cliche objects (booze in bag, overcoat, stubble) with his situation (barstool, indoor clothing, beer on tap).

  14. Ein O Fyle Mar 7th 2008 at 02:00 am 14

    If I woke up in Kyle/Dan/unmaskedman’s situation, I’d START drinking heavily.

    (hey, no more could be added… time for subtration)

  15. Mark Jackson Mar 7th 2008 at 10:58 am 15

    Kyle may not be able to remember how he got there, but it looks like he suspects that the slice of pie was involved somehow.

  16. ImaginaryLover Jun 28th 2009 at 07:22 pm 16

    Piraro’s humor is always so off-kilter that it’s impossible (or tedious) to explain. One “gets it” or one does not. With explanations, it’s hard not to kill the joke. As one who has awoken in countless alleys (and beds, etc.) without remembering what city I was in, let alone what day it was, I got the humor immediately, albeit with my own particular slant. One does not have to be a drunk to get it.
    Bizarro is the first strip I turn to every day.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS

Leave a Reply