I’m barely getting through my days, but now suddenly there are five new things on my plate (and dozens of other postings I’ve failed to follow up on). I’ve picked the thing of most immediate interest, since it follows up on my posting yesterday “Yo soy Johnny Peso”, where I wrote about this cartoon:
(#1)
In the 8/22 Bizarro strip, Wayno presents us with Johnny Peso, an intricately constructed Mexican-Spanish and Mexican-culture counterpart to Johnny Paycheck as a performer on the Grand Ole Opry stage. If you don’t know about Johnny Paycheck and the Grand Ole Opry, you’re doomed; the cartoon will be incomprehensible. If you know who they are, you’ll get the joke; and the more you know about them, the more you’ll see in Wayno’s cartoon (I suspect there are still more things that I’ve missed). And then there’s a lot to say about the way Johnny Peso introduces himself [with the stiff and Englishy yo soy Johnny Peso].
Then came the objections. In a Facebook comment from David Preston and this blog comment from Geoff Nathan:
— GN: Are you sure it isn’t a reference to Johnny Cash?
— AZ > GN: A point also made on Facebook by David Preston. Yes, surely peso is a rough (metonymic) translation of cash, so Johnny Peso would be a Mexican Johnny Cash. But I made a case in this posting that Johnny Peso is a Mexican Johnny Paycheck. The answer is that in the world of cultural allusion, both things can be true. I’ll expand on this idea in a separate posting [the one you’re reading right now].
Shimmer is both a floor wax AND a dessert topping.
And then today on Facebook, an explanation for yo soy Johnny Peso, from David Preston:
— DP: I think the reason for the yo soy form is that Hello, I’m Johnny Cash is not only something of a catchphrase, it was the name of one of his albums.
(#2) Hello, I’m Johnny Cash is the 33rd album by American country singer Johnny Cash, released on Columbia Records in 1970. (Wikipedia entry)(Insert here, in passing, an argument that while Johnny Cash performed as a country musician, he was in fact a major figure in American folk music and that this album is a milestone of his mid career.)
— AZ > DP: Bingo! So Johnny Peso definitely is Johnny Cash (and yo soy Johnny Peso is just a word-for-word translation from English). But he’s also clearly Johnny Paycheck. He’s an artistic creation, so he can be both.
In appearance, the Johnny Peso in #1 barely resembles Johnny Cash, the Man in Black (who is hatless and mustacheless), but does resemble a Mexican counterpart of Johnny Paycheck, On the other hand, he talks just like a Mexican counterpart of Johnny Cash. That’s because he’s both. And we have to think that Wayno meant him to be both.
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