Greetings to all of you who found your way back here Monday morning. I don’t feel like I say it often enough, but I’m very happy to have the following that I have and appreciate that you take time out of your day to see what I’m up to.

I know the art is a little on the light side for today’s strip, but I figured since I went to some effort trying to figure out how to draw myself lunging through a projectionist booth window WHILE strangling a guy, I deserved a break.

Truth be told, Jared is not nearly as bad at Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon as I depict him in today’s strip. Quite the contrary, he is very good. We’ve played several rounds during boring car trips or just shooting the breeze over a beer or two.

Often we have to set some ground rules when playing Six Degrees. There are certain films in the Bacon body of work that have to be excluded due to the large ensemble casts of top tier celebrities.

For example, A Few Good Men is out because of it’s ties to Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, Kiefer Sutherland, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Demi Moore. If you were looking for a back door to Kevin Bacon, character actors J.T. Walsh and Kevin Pollak come in handy. Not only are they in this movie, but probably over another hundred films between them.

Although the cast list is less extensive, Apollo 13 is out for similar reasons as well as JFK. Actually, the cast of JFK is full of so many big names, you only need to study that one film for the key to winning any round of Six Degrees in one degree or less.

Lately, we’ve discovered that Sleepers is a handy gateway to many Six Degree wins. It features actors who have ties to old Hollywood as well as the next generation of up and coming actors. Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Bruno Kirby are part of the old guard while Billy Crudup, Ron Eldard, Minnie Driver, Jason Patric, Brad Pitt and Brad Renfro round out the new. Not many people know about the movie and playing that card shows you know a little more about cinema than you might let on.

If you want to know how seriously Jared and I take Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon in terms of a momentary distraction, be forewarned that Jared once took the time to illustrate a complicated diagram featuring several of the movies and actors Kevin Bacon has associated with. To my knowledge, he did it without the help of the Internet Movie Data Base. The kid’s got scary powers, I tell ya’.

On the personal front, I spent most of this weekend installing track lighting, so my arms and back are killing me. I did, however, get the opportunity to watch Back to the Future: Part III. I dunno, every time I watch any of those movies, my mind drifts and I wonder whatever happened to the actor who played Biff and all his relatives. I always thought he was really good. Spot on comedic and dramatic acting. You never see him in anything these days.

Thomas F. Wilson we hardly knew ye!