What’s Going On In Rex Morgan, M.D.? Is Rene Belluso gone now? November 2023 – February 2024

I can’t imagine that Rene Belluso is gone from Terry Beatty’s Rex Morgan, M.D.. While I sympathize with those who find the Wile E Coyote-like explosion of all his scams exhausting, I suspect that his is too good a bit of business to drop. At least not unless you have a more serious story to tell. And Beatty’s Glenwood is a gentle place. He may recede for a while, and I wouldn’t mind that as he’s had a lot of story lately. But I expect he’ll be back.

So this should catch you up to early February 2024 in Rex Morgan, M.D.. If you’re reading this after about May 2024, or news about the comic strip breaks, I’ll try to have something useful for you at this link. If I don’t, well, maybe I fell for one of Rene’s plots or I’m running late and need an extra day. We’ll see.

Rex Morgan, M.D..

12 November 2023 – 4 February 2024.

Rene Belluso, having tried his own “Mirakle Method” of personality fixing, had turned himself in to authorities as the first step in repairing his life. With the help of Mirakle Method Industries LLC chief promoter Buzzy Cameron, though, he got released from prison and joined Cameron and “Mud” Murphy’s tours on-stage. As Cameron points out, everyone loves a redemption story.

Terry Beatty’s Rex Morgan, M.D. for the 5th of December, 2023. “How bad are you at promotion that you couldn’t sell self-esteem in the 70s? Were you even trying? … no, no, look, you’re okay, I’m okay, it’s all for the est.”

Meanwhile in a chance encounter Rex Morgan, M.D., finds himself doing some doctor work. His patient Lyle Ollman knows more specific Mirakle Method stuff than a guy who never heard of the thing should. It transpires that Ollman created the Mirakle Method, back in the 70s, as the Ollman Technique. But it didn’t catch on so how does anyone know about it now? Morgan advises Ollman to get a lawyer fast. Here, you can have one of his, out of petit-jury.

A couple weeks later, Cameron gets word from his lawyers about all this. He and Mud Murphy try to find Belluso, who’s fled their hotel. Ollman gets together with Cameron and Murphy and somebody’s lawyer and everyone agrees, you know, why mess up the money machine? Just give Ollman credit and royalties and everything’s cool. It is, perhaps, another case of Terry Beatty setting up an interesting conflict and then punting. But how would you feel if someone was willing to give you a dump truck full of money and in exchange you just have to let them?

Terry Beatty’s Rex Morgan, M.D. for the 27th of December, 2023. I don’t know how realistic that is. So for a test, I’d like if someone could reveal they’d turned something or other that I scribbled out back in, say, 2007 and went and turned it into an Oprah’s Book Club-grade bestseller and oops now they had huge ongoing royalties to deliver to me. Just to see what my reaction would be. So we can judge for realism.

New year, new start. Cameron and Murphy get Rex Morgan into one of their Glenwood Mirakle Method seminars, in gratitude to him for letting them take over his comic strip. Rene Belluso is there too, in disguise, and vows revenge on Morgan for however it is the good doctor has ruined his life again. As the seminar breaks up the scheming Belluso steps out into traffic and gets hit very hard by a car. A bright red one, too, the most dangerous kind. Fortunately, there happens to be a doctor in the strip.

Belluso makes it through, but he’s in a full-body cast. And doesn’t know whether to be more horrified that he’s stuck in that cast for six to eight weeks minimum or that he has Rex Morgan to thank for doctoring. And if that’s not enough Mud Murphy’s come to visit! The onetime hellion now worries sincerely for the person who, even if he was pulling a scam, helped him and maybe even other people. And hey, Murphy’s brought a special guest, Lyle Ollman, let’s give a big hand for —

Terry Beatty’s Rex Morgan, M.D. for the 28th of January, 2024. For the sake of avoiding confusion I figure to keep calling him Rene Belluso, among other things because barring extraordinary reason you should call someone by the name they pick themselves. Also, I’m not sure whether he’s Jimmy Ollman or some other last name. I feel like if Ollman were Rene’s uncle on his father’s side, he would have said “after my brother died”. But that’s not an unshakable hook to hang the question of Rene’s birth name on.

Rene’s uncle? Because Ollman recognizes the man in the cast as Jimmy, his long-lost nephew. Rene protests, over and over, and finally just asks Uncle Lyle to leave him be. No such luck, and Ollman insists on giving Belluso unquestioning acceptance and welcoming. You understand his terror.

And that’s the standings as of early February. What’s next?

Next Week!

It’s adventures in Milford! I look at Henry Barajas and Rod Whigham’s Gil Thorp and see what’s up in that Gil-Mimi divorce and everything else going on. Catch you then, I’m hoping. Meanwhile, everyone, please be careful crossing the street. Those red cars are something else.

What’s Going On In Rex Morgan, M.D.? Rene Belluso didn’t really reform, did he? August – November 2023

Along the way to this week’s plot recap Rene Belluso, the old reliable miscreant of Terry Beatty’s Rex Morgan, M.D., had a big emotional outburst, inspired by his own “Mirakle Method” of self-improvement and actualization and such. Is this the event that’s caused him to re-evaluate his life and become a respectable and less interesting member of story comics society?

Too soon to say. I appreciate that Terry Beatty likes to write a gentle strip where mostly good things happen. But it seems very consistent for Belluso to be putting on a pose to take advantage of people, in this case, because he’s stumbled across a great money-making opportunity. However, the first step of this involves turning himself in for various past scams. So he’s taking the pain first and leaving the reward for later. Belluso is the human world’s equivalent to Slick Smitty, yes, but it’s not like he gets his scams exactly backward.

Still, everyone in the strip who knows him is skeptical. I am too. We’ll see, though. If around February 2024 it turns out I was wholly right, or wholly wrong, you’ll likely see a mention of it here. And if any news about the comic strip breaks I’ll try to post it there, too. Meanwhile, let’s recap the last three months of Glenwood life.

Rex Morgan, M.D..

20 August – 12 November 2023.

Fergus “Mud” Murphy, reformed by Rene Belluso’s Mirakle Method self-help seminars, took his apology tour to Glenwood. The results were mixed. Truck Tyler told him to get out of his face, although Truck’s girlfriend Wanda suggested, you know, give the guy a chance.

Murphy accepted with grace one of life’s hard lessons, that you can’t force someone to accept your apology, but you gotta apologize anyway. His evening in the motel’s interrupted by Rene Belluso, “Professor Augustus Mirakle” himself. Fergus listed Professor Mirakle, Belluso’s most recent scam, as co-writer for “Swingset on the Moon”, the cornerstone of Murphy’s new career as children’s singer. And now he wants his money.

Murphy says that his agent, Buzzy Cameron — more on that later — has been holding Belluso’s share. He can write Belluso a check anytime he wants. And how is Belluso supposed to cash a check when he’s a wanted man? Well, the Mirakle Method might just help Belluso straighten out his life and get in good with the authorities.

Terry Beatty’s Rex Morgan, M.D. for the 8th of September, 2023. Cameron mentions how he’s not sure how long he was in the trunk, which is an amusing way of acknowledging the loose relationship between reader and in-strip times. It then feeds into talking a lot about how bad Cameron’s shirt smells, which doesn’t get as many laughs from me as I think Beatty was hoping for.

Belluso sneers at this, because he knows: the Mirakle Method is just a heap of gibberish he put together to target self-help marks. Murphy’s insistence that the thing works doesn’t move him. What does move him is the prospect of money. What he hopes will move Murphy is doing something really stupid, like kidnapping agent Buzzy Cameron.

Cameron and Murphy agree to Belluso’s demand they withdraw, in cash, enough from Murphy’s accounts to cover his royalties. While waiting for the bank to open, the two nag Belluso into trying out his own Mirakle Method and see if he can’t get his head on straight. It takes a whole minute for Belluso to break down, sobbing, having discovered his Daddy Issues and mourning that he hit on a real, legitimate therapy but wasted it treating it like a scam.

So Cameron and Murphy offer a deal with, they somehow believe, the reformed Rene Belluso. If he’ll give permission to use the Mirakle Method they’ll sell it, and he can collect royalties, ready for him once he’s out of prison for whatever the heck it was he was wanted for exactly. Oh, trying to shove Hank Harwood Jr off a CRUISE SHIP. Right.

Terry Beatty’s Rex Morgan, M.D. for the 21st of September, 2023. He seems sincere.

Well, they make the deal, bonding over how they’ve all done prison time. Murphy for general rowdiness. Cameron for tax evasion, and I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the Approaching Plot Point klaxon. There, got it cleared. Belluso goes to jail in an event worthy of extended coverage on the local news. The Harwoods and the Morgans both react with wonder and doubt that this could ever be legit.

Still, the long night ended, Murphy and Cameron head out again and run into Rex Morgan, M.D., who’s startled by the apology he gets. And Truck Tyler, enjoying his 18th hour on that same cup of coffee, says Wanda’s talked him into doing something with Murphy’s cartoon thingy. Ah, but the cartoon thingy is on hold. Murphy and Cameron — who’d like to represent Tyler, if he’s willing, which he’s not — have an infomercial to make.

Some indefinite time later, after Mud Murphy’s run for mayor of Cavelton, the Morgans come across Murphy’s infomercial. It runs complete with Belluso confessing that he created the system as a scam but discovered it actually helped people. Despite it being an extremely long commercial, and having had enough of Rene Belluso, they watch the entirety. June, like everyone else, can’t believe this. Rex concedes that it’s probably not illegal, since they don’t seem to be selling anything besides feel-good speeches, and maybe it can do someone some good. He wouldn’t pay for a session, though it seems a lot of other people would.

And that’s where we stand in mid-November 2023.

Next Week!

My greatest narrative recap challenge: Henry Barajas and Rod Whigham’s Gil Thorp gets its innings, so I get to figure out how to explain three months’ worth of that. Watch me as I accidentally say I have to take an extra three days to write this all out!

Everything you need to know to understand me as a writer

Me, reading something snarky I wrote years ago: Oh. Oh, gosh, that’s unfortunate and not really pleasant at all. Ouch. I hope nobody’s still reading that.

Me, writing something snarky just today: But this will be great!

In Which I Continue My Journey Of Self-Discovery

So I learned that Garret Augustus Hobart, to date the only Rutgers alumnus to serve as Vice-President of the United States, grew up in the same part of Monmouth County, New Jersey, that I lived in as a teenager. Indeed, it’s quite plausible that he was tromping around on streets not one mile down the road from where I went to middle school, albeit a century earlier. And Hobart isn’t one of those mere footnote Vice-Presidents. He affected the course of history what with his bold decision to die in office in 1899, after all. I was all ready to call my dad and ask if he knew this exciting fact about one of the estimated forty 19th century United States vice-presidents to have died in office. And then I remembered, oh yeah, that’s why everyone treated me like that in middle school. Hm. Yeah. I hate to admit but they had a point.

Me: Self-Image Versus Reality

What I Think I’m Good At	What I Am Good At
Pop mathematics writing Listening to distressed friends without making their anxieties worse Nursing ill pet animals back to health Reducto-ad-absurdum chains of humorous reasoning Providing, when asked, historical context for minor oddities	Telling casual acquaintances on social media how to handle it if they’ve accidentally forgotten they were on call for jury duty this week and are kind of freaking out about this

Robert Benchley: Are You Between the Ages of 7 and 94 ?

[ If I haven’t burned you out on Robert Benchley’s Of All Things, please accept this offering. It is addressed to those who can say “yes” to the question, “Are You Between The Ages of 7 and 94?” ]

If so, what this eminent growth specialist says here applies directly to you and to your family

EVERY man, woman and child between the ages of 7 and 94 is going through a process of growth or metamorphosis, whether they know it or not. Are you making the most of this opportunity which is coming to you (if your age falls within the magic circle given above) every day of your life? Do you realize that, during this crucial period, you have it in your power to make what you will of yourself, provided only that you know how to go about it and make no false steps? As you grow from day to day, either mentally, morally or physically, you can say to yourself, on awakening in the morning:

“To-day I will develop. I will grow bigger, either mentally, morally or physically. Maybe, if it is a nice, warm day, I will grow in all three ways at once.”

And, sure enough, when evening finds you returning home from the work of the day, it will also find you in some way changed from the person you were in the morning, either through the shedding of the dry epidermis from the backs of your hands (which, according to one of Nature’s most wonderful processes, is replaced by new epidermis as soon as the old is gone), or through the addition of a fraction of an inch to your height or girth, or through some other of the inscrutable alchemies of Nature.

Think this over as you go to work, to-day, and see if it doesn’t tell you something about your problem.