Margot has been working as a flair bartender, juggling glasses and such as she makes drinks, and that’s what we see in the first panel. In other strips with this storyline, she was practicing with her friends; I’m not sure whether this one shows her practicing or actually at work. In an example of comic strip physics, the glass inexplicably heads for the stratosphere. She is surprised, but tries to recover with a pun.
As I have been following the story too, I wondered whether “flair bartender” was a nonce term they were creating right there, or something already out there in the culture. (I do know that the practice is well-established, and has been seen at least in entertainment media, going back to what’s-his-name, Tom Cruz? But what about that specific term for it?) Usual John uses it with full confidence apparently, but his acquaintance with the term might also be owed to this strip.
I assume that the gag in the final panel is using “So Long Island” in place of “Long Island Ice Tea“.
P.S. @ Usual John (3) – Not only does Wikipedia explain “Flair bartending“, the article was originally created over 19 years ago, so the concept is anything but recent.
The punch line doesn’t make sense to me. I’m assuming that she’s making a “Long Island Iced Tea”, and the punch line is a combination of So Long and Long Island. But I lived on Long Island for 28 years, and I never once heard any drink referred to as a “Long Island”.
@ bobanero (5) – His biographies reveal that Luca Debus obtained degrees in Padua, Venice, and Heidelberg. His English is certainly very good, but not quite native. There are occasionally minor rough edges in his dialog that reveal his European background; the missing “ice tea” in this strip is one of those rare examples.
I used to confuse a Long Island Iced Tea with an Arnold Palmer (beverage). But really no connection – the Arnold is non-alcohol content while the Long Island is several kinds of booze and almost no mixer; the Arnold contains iced tea as a main ingredient, while the Long Island has none, despite its name.
Golfers all around the world admire Arnold Palmer’s putts
In the movie “Boss Baby“, the older brother buys what he thinks is an “iced tea”, but throws it away after taking just one sip, declaring that “People in Long Island do not know how to make iced tea.“
… at least, the ones who have shared a locker room with him ! :-D
Is it time for the urban legend about Mrs. Arnold Palmer’s appearance on the Tonight Show?
It’s always time, Brian.
Harry Caray on a couple kissing in the stands, on each pitch. “Folks, I think I figured it out. He kisses her on the strikes and she kisses him on the balls!”
@ Brian (11) – Snopes debunked the “kiss his balls” legend over 25 years ago, but the article also reports an earlier version attributed to Sam Snead (with Steve Allen rather than Johnny Carson), and attributes Mitch’s quote @13 to Dizzy Dean.
I hadn’t heard the earlier one. Somehow it just doesn’t seem right without Johnny as the host.
One of the funny things about TV urban legends was the one about the Newlywed Show and the “weirdest place you ever made whoopee.” That was roundly debunked — until someone turned up a video. And it was even worse than the legend.
@ Brian (15) – Snopes documented the “whoopee” incident, too, and even provides a clip of the original scene. In my opinion, the actual answer is not nearly as bad as the way the usually quoted form intensified it.
She looks like she’s been sampling her work.
I agree with Lola @17, those bubbles around Margot’s head in the final panel appear to be “boozles“:
… P.S. None of the characters in “Wannabe” has shown any alcoholic tendencies, so Margot’s bubbles may be “root boozles”.
And a classic locus for a mistake between a geographic location and a bodily one is this, from Chapter 18 of Ulysses:
I hate that confession when I used to go to Father Corrigan he touched me father and what harm if he did where and I said on the canal bank like a fool but whereabouts on your person my child on the leg behind high up was it yes rather high up was it where you sit down yes O Lord couldnt he say bottom right out and have done with it
I think the emanata around Margot’s head look more like “sweatles” (or “plewds” for the more classically inclined among us).
@ guero (20) – Speaking of “plewds”: as I was looking into a question that Grawlix (!) raised in yesterday’s “Oy” thread, I discovered that Mort Walker’s “Lexicon of Comicana” is available online from archive.org … I’ve heard lots about it over the years, but had never actually seen a copy; I was not all that surprised to discover that it definitely deserves its excellent reputation.
(Personal nostalgia) I have a geographically confused memory of sitting in my car in the parking lot of the mall side of the Ford City Mall in southwest Chicago, and tearing open the mailing wrappers of my copy of the Lexicon, and then reading some of it over some disappointing food at their food court.
Which doesn’t make much sense. Generally I would go to Ford City only to catch a movie at their multiplex, which is across a street from the mall of stores, and has a separate parking lot. Though I would sometimes stop in at the anchor department store in the mall part (I forget which one that was) and window shop in the mall, if say I had driven over right after work and was early for the movie. But if the book was special order from a bookstore, it would certainly not have been one at Ford City. But anyway I have the impression of Amazon cardboard packaging — but why was it with me in the car? Could Amazon have mailed it, as they sometimes did in those days, and I had gotten to my post office after work but driven down to Ford City instead of sticking close to home? And if I had been ruching to get to a movie on time, what was I doing in the north parking area by the mall of stores and not the south lot by the movie multiplex?
I was born on Long Island and have lived here all my life.
I have never had a Long Island iced tea and never will.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Margot has been working as a flair bartender, juggling glasses and such as she makes drinks, and that’s what we see in the first panel. In other strips with this storyline, she was practicing with her friends; I’m not sure whether this one shows her practicing or actually at work. In an example of comic strip physics, the glass inexplicably heads for the stratosphere. She is surprised, but tries to recover with a pun.
As I have been following the story too, I wondered whether “flair bartender” was a nonce term they were creating right there, or something already out there in the culture. (I do know that the practice is well-established, and has been seen at least in entertainment media, going back to what’s-his-name, Tom Cruz? But what about that specific term for it?) Usual John uses it with full confidence apparently, but his acquaintance with the term might also be owed to this strip.
It was a new term to me when Wannabe started using it, but Wikipedia does have an article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flair_bartending.
I assume that the gag in the final panel is using “So Long Island” in place of “Long Island Ice Tea“.
P.S. @ Usual John (3) – Not only does Wikipedia explain “Flair bartending“, the article was originally created over 19 years ago, so the concept is anything but recent.
The punch line doesn’t make sense to me. I’m assuming that she’s making a “Long Island Iced Tea”, and the punch line is a combination of So Long and Long Island. But I lived on Long Island for 28 years, and I never once heard any drink referred to as a “Long Island”.
@ bobanero (5) – His biographies reveal that Luca Debus obtained degrees in Padua, Venice, and Heidelberg. His English is certainly very good, but not quite native. There are occasionally minor rough edges in his dialog that reveal his European background; the missing “ice tea” in this strip is one of those rare examples.
I used to confuse a Long Island Iced Tea with an Arnold Palmer (beverage). But really no connection – the Arnold is non-alcohol content while the Long Island is several kinds of booze and almost no mixer; the Arnold contains iced tea as a main ingredient, while the Long Island has none, despite its name.
Golfers all around the world admire Arnold Palmer’s putts
In the movie “Boss Baby“, the older brother buys what he thinks is an “iced tea”, but throws it away after taking just one sip, declaring that “People in Long Island do not know how to make iced tea.“
… at least, the ones who have shared a locker room with him ! :-D
Is it time for the urban legend about Mrs. Arnold Palmer’s appearance on the Tonight Show?
It’s always time, Brian.
Harry Caray on a couple kissing in the stands, on each pitch. “Folks, I think I figured it out. He kisses her on the strikes and she kisses him on the balls!”
@ Brian (11) – Snopes debunked the “kiss his balls” legend over 25 years ago, but the article also reports an earlier version attributed to Sam Snead (with Steve Allen rather than Johnny Carson), and attributes Mitch’s quote @13 to Dizzy Dean.
I hadn’t heard the earlier one. Somehow it just doesn’t seem right without Johnny as the host.
One of the funny things about TV urban legends was the one about the Newlywed Show and the “weirdest place you ever made whoopee.” That was roundly debunked — until someone turned up a video. And it was even worse than the legend.
@ Brian (15) – Snopes documented the “whoopee” incident, too, and even provides a clip of the original scene. In my opinion, the actual answer is not nearly as bad as the way the usually quoted form intensified it.
She looks like she’s been sampling her work.
I agree with Lola @17, those bubbles around Margot’s head in the final panel appear to be “boozles“:
…
P.S. None of the characters in “Wannabe” has shown any alcoholic tendencies, so Margot’s bubbles may be “root boozles”.
And a classic locus for a mistake between a geographic location and a bodily one is this, from Chapter 18 of Ulysses:
I think the emanata around Margot’s head look more like “sweatles” (or “plewds” for the more classically inclined among us).
@ guero (20) – Speaking of “plewds”: as I was looking into a question that Grawlix (!) raised in yesterday’s “Oy” thread, I discovered that Mort Walker’s “Lexicon of Comicana” is available online from archive.org … I’ve heard lots about it over the years, but had never actually seen a copy; I was not all that surprised to discover that it definitely deserves its excellent reputation.
(Personal nostalgia) I have a geographically confused memory of sitting in my car in the parking lot of the mall side of the Ford City Mall in southwest Chicago, and tearing open the mailing wrappers of my copy of the Lexicon, and then reading some of it over some disappointing food at their food court.
Which doesn’t make much sense. Generally I would go to Ford City only to catch a movie at their multiplex, which is across a street from the mall of stores, and has a separate parking lot. Though I would sometimes stop in at the anchor department store in the mall part (I forget which one that was) and window shop in the mall, if say I had driven over right after work and was early for the movie. But if the book was special order from a bookstore, it would certainly not have been one at Ford City. But anyway I have the impression of Amazon cardboard packaging — but why was it with me in the car? Could Amazon have mailed it, as they sometimes did in those days, and I had gotten to my post office after work but driven down to Ford City instead of sticking close to home? And if I had been ruching to get to a movie on time, what was I doing in the north parking area by the mall of stores and not the south lot by the movie multiplex?
I was born on Long Island and have lived here all my life.
I have never had a Long Island iced tea and never will.