Talk to the Tongue

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Highland Park Cloning Institute.

After yesterday's contentious religious post, this seems a good mindless followup cartoon. This could have been funnier if it had been in reference to the porn industry, but newspapers don't allow that sort of topic on the funny pages, so here we are. I still like the gag, though.

I was once hired to do some art for a California winery and part of that gig was hanging out for a weekend in Napa with serious wine fans (I feel like there's a name for them other than "gourmet"–"wino" doesn't seem quite right, "wine nerd" is too derrogatory), vintners, tasters, those sorts. I wasn't that into wine at the time, so it was an alternately interesting and boring weekend, but there were moments when I was tempted to burst out laughing inappropriately like a kid in church.

My fondest memory is of a large, stately room fashioned after a European castle, with a huge, carved oak table in the middle of the room, an enormous ornate mirror, big Renaissance-style paintings, probably a suit of armor. Our group of about 20 were seated around the table and given various glasses of wine to taste. Since it was midday and we weren't supposed to get drunk, we were also given spit glasses. As the tasting began, the room fell silent and all one could hear for the next 20 minutes was the sound of spitting. As I looked around the room and saw well-dressed white folks in such a pompous setting swishing and splurching, staying focused was challenging.

I wish I'd thought to bring a colossal prosthetic tongue with me. Might have lightened up the occasion, albeit in a Homer Simpson sort of way.