Cracked.com ran an Archie-friendly piece by Luke McKinney last month, How Archie’s Gay Friend Proved the Internet Can Do Good.

It says things which the Archie comics can’t really say for themselves about inclusion, challenging assumed social norms and responding to over-the-top agitations and accusations of anti-gay activists.

The piece incited its own debate about gay rights in its comments section, so that’s good.

Not so good are the frequent easy swipes at the Archie style and traditions. It’s too easy to make fun of something for maintaining family-friendly values for so many decades, tougher to respect how difficult it is to roll with so many societal changes over that time and still endure as essentially the same American teen character.

But Cracked.com is a contemporary humor site, and that’s what they do: mock things. Nice of them to mock Archie’s tormentors more strongly than Archie itself.

What I’ve come to respect most about the Kevin Keller phenomenon is how the character’s not just been incorporated so easily into the Archie universe as a progressive modern-day character, but how he’s also figured into the ongoing Archie nostalgia kick, where the company has dredged up dozens of characters from its distant past and framed new books in designs evoking classic Archie titles of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Truly, Everything’s Kevin.

Woke up in the middle of the night, parched and dried out. I’d only had four or five drinks, so it wasn’t that.

Downtown was a beacon for their big sports-event show at D’ollaire’s. a trainload of frat bands rented a spotlight. The big, calling-superheroes kind.

The idea was to shine a team symbol into the heavens, but that didn’t happen. Just diffuse light.

The beam was all the buzz a few blocks over at the Bullfinch, where certain scenesters were hiding out rather than get bullied by those musclebound collegiates.

We jested that the drunken oafs would probably try to climb the light beam as if it were a ‘phone pole. Next day, we discovered somebody actually had. They failed, of course, breaking part of the sensitive lighting equipment and setting higher education back to the dark ages.

The Bullfinch has Long Lasting Results, Pain Free and Facial & Body Hair. LLR and F&BH share a rhythm section, PF & F&BH share a vocalist, and all share the same three gloomy chords… May even set foot into Hamilton’s tonight for Live Ready, a mercenary suypergroup made up of musicians we like in their uncommercial (read: Bullfinch) projects. Two sets, no other bands; they’re really working this in-it-for-the-money thing… Large Emergency Kit and Left in the Dark at D’ollaire’s. Shouldn’t that have been the sports-night bill?…

My Daily Nutmeg preview of the Firehouse 12 spring concert series is here.

My Daily Nutmeg preview of the William Congdon exhibit at the Knights of Columbus Museum is here.

My Daily Nutmeg lists of things happening “This Week in New Haven” are here, here, here, and here, plus a St. Patrick’s Day special here.

My Daily Nutmeg coverage of the Seth Adam Band and friends at the Stella Blues Café is here.

My Daily Nutmeg story on Alternate Universe is here.

My Daily Nutmeg profile of Colleen O’Connor is here.

My Daily Nutmeg coverage of the Long Wharf Theatre renovations is here.

My Daily Nutmeg coverage of the Arts & Ideas 2012 announcement is here.

My Daily Nutmeg profile of local lighting designer Jamie Burnett is here.

My Daily Nutmeg essay on my successful run for ward co-chair in my neighborhood is here.

My Daily Nutmeg piece on the store windows of London Limited and Geraldine A Florist is here.

New Haven Theater Jerk (new postings daily) is here.

(based on what I had in the cupboard that day)

One onion and one clove of garlic, fried in a small amount of olive oil

One can red beans

One can cannellini beans

One can tomatoes

One small potato, grated

One carrot, grated

One dried red pepper, crumbled

One teaspoon chili powder

One-half cup vegetable broth.

Mix and put on low for at least five or six hours.

Serve with hot dogs, chips and guacamole.

From Archie’s Double Digest #162, August 2005—more quaint and intriguing rhyming or punning titles (usually reserved for the one-page joke features).

Pain Strain

Wish Dish

Beach Beseech

Jog Clog

Steer Jeer (Veronica: “Look, Daddy, Archie brought our boat right into the marina! How’s that for navigating?” Mr. Lodge: “Great! Only this isn’t our marina!”

Divine Canine

Flip Quiips

Laugh Gaff (I think they mean “gaffe,” as in faux pas, since a gaff is hook used by fishermen or butchers or telephone linemen. “Gaff” also means “a metal spur for a gamecock.”

Short Retort

Gag Bag

Kite Delight

Rare Pair

Shout Bout

Slip Quip

Beach Daze

Wealth of Ignorance

Talk Balk

The Groove Tube (about riding an inner tube at the beach)

When Rhinos Fly (about a rhino-shaped parade balloon)

Hoop Scoop (about basketball)

Forest Feast

Weighty Problems

Dance Chance

Take My Son!…Please!

Tennis Nut

…and Pain in the Neck (about Archie having a pain in his neck, from watching girls)

You’ve got to admire “Beach Beseech.” That’s one of the best of these things ever.

Fell asleep reading James Patterson. Something is wrong with me.

It used to be cool for bands to turn their backs on the audience and face the wall while playing. Then bands stood BEHIND walls. Occasionally, acts would project images on the stage and play behind the screen, or even in an another room. Some such reclusive musicians  sampled and remixed so incessantly that attendance wasn’t even necessary.

On Thursday at the Bullfinch, an nth degree was reached. A certain on-the-way down ensemble of wall-gazers did its signature turn-around thing—so 1989—two songs into the set. When they turned back around, the entire audience had fled. All of us.

Such a feat was accomplished because there were fewer than 20 of us in the “crowd,” and we easily convinced each other.

Eventually we all returned—we’d paid for the tickets, after all, and more importantly we wanted drinks. But we kept up the ruse, turning OUR backs to the band until it slunk away at the end of the night.

A couple people cheated, watching the show on pocket mirrors. They informed us that we hadn’t missed anything. We’d noticed.

At the Bullfinch: Sky Mall, Free Copy and We’ll Replace It, head-in-the-clouds indie… Cover bands at Hamilton’s include More Cool Stuff and Special Offer—why doesn’t THIS club have a band called Free Copy?! It’d be truth in advertising…. D’ollaire’s presents an evening with No! No! Hair!—all five songs of it…

My interview with Liza Minnelli (for the New Haven Advocate) is here.

My story on the Long Wharf Theatre renovations (for the New Haven Advocate) is here:

My feature story on the Connecticut-based literary humor journal Kugelmass (for the Fairfield County Weekly and the Hartford Advocate) is here

My review of Cotton Mather’s Kontiki CD reissue is here.

New Haven Theater Jerk is here.

Sorry not to have blogged here in weeks. The irony of journals is that when truly interesting things happen your life, you often don’t have time to write them down. I’ll try to catch up.

Some recent events have already impacted on this page. The New Haven Advocate, for whom I worked full-time for 17 years and for whom I’ve freelanced for nearly four, has asked me to post articles to the website on a regular basis. This means CD and book reviews and New Haven community commentary, all things I’ve relegated to this site lately.

The Daily Nutmeg remains a steady gig, and immensely rewarding. It reconnects me with the ins and outs of New Haven culture, and has found a loyal and encouraging readership. If you do not already subscribe to its free daily email, please do.

My New Haven Theater Jerk site will continue. It has a life of its own. I’ve justed posted a dozen or so reviews and such from the Humana Festival in Louisville, Kentucky.

I’ve also been meaning to take up the kind offers of a couple of other New Haven-centric sites to write for them.

I’ll try to provide links here to articles and reviews by me that end up elsewhere.

Elsewhere in my busy existence, I was elected Ward 2 co-chair of the New Haven Democratic Town Committee. I don’t consider myself an aggressively social person, but the campaign led me to meet literally hundreds of people. I now travel not only in New Haven arts and media circles but the political and Dwight-Edgewood neighborhood ones as well. I am wearing out shoes at a frantic pace.

Scribblers.us has been a great release for me (my tombstone is likely to say “Happiest When Writing”–after family, it’s my greatest spiritual fulfillment). I’m not giving it up. I’ll simply switch to discussing topics I don’t have a steady outlet for. That means Archie comics, silent movies, comic strips, ukuleles and cooking, for starters. I also want to keep doing Rock Gods and Diary of a College Chum until I get them right.

I prefer to blog on Scribblers in chunks of several disparate items at a time. That habit is one I choose not to break. I realize that in the new media, readers simply hone in on what they need and overlook the rest. Those of us who’ve spent lifetimes learning how to balance the contents of a periodical have no purpose anymore. Yet, personally, I dig the variety and the discipline of not posting until all my items are in a row. I’ll try to do it as often as possible, (re)starting today. See you at www.scribblers.us