Dot Your T’s and Cross Your A’s

In answer to the most popular question I’m asked these days, no, Thee Tourettes have not yet announced the dates of their next world megatour. When they do, you’ll know. It’ll be front page headlines in every major newspaper from the Daily Planet to the Daily Bugle. It’ll be plastered on the side of every bus from Metropolis to Mega-City One. It’ll be on the internet, the dark web, the white web, the spider web. It’ll be projected onto clouds, included in fortune cookies, direct-mailed to every household, tattooed on homeless folks, robocalled to all registered and unregistered phone numbers including that burner you use for drug deals and illicit sex, broadcast from speakers hanging from dirigibles in the middle of the night, REM-waved into your dreams through the chip Bill Gates secretly installed while vaccinating you against COVID.

Hello again, it’s me, Pinky Tourette, mad man 2022, picking up where Don Draper left off. Let’s move on to some other topics, shall we?

Harley Q of Gotham City asks: I’ve been reading DC comics all my life and I still don’t have the answer to one burning question. Did Batgirl have a Bat Mitzvah?

Apparently you missed the “Hannukah Horror” graphic novel (sometimes erroneously referred to as “Chanukah Chorror”), in which Gotham City is terrorized by dreaded villain The Mohel. Over eight nights The Mohel targets the city’s top administrators, taking “a little off the top” with his razor-sharp blades and leaving the city council members cowering in mortal fear. Batgirl is torn between her desire to end The Mohel’s reign of terror and the need to complete her rigorous bat mitzvah training – only to discover that her prayer teacher is none other than The Cantor, the now-retired master of the flying dreidel who disappeared mysteriously a decade ago after failing to solve the notorious Matzoh Murders. Encouraged by Batgirl, The Cantor retrieves his black garb from its dusty hiding place beneath the bimah and together they track down The Mohel, discovering him to be none other than the resurfaced Matzoh Murderer. During a wild climactic confrontation, The Mohel shears off the top of the Chrysler Building and is gruesomely impaled by the tumbling spire. Several years later, Frank Miller slipped a winking reference to The Mohel into his noir classic “Synagogue City.”

Marjorie Taylor-G of Alpharetta, GA asks: My rights have been fragrantly violated by the gazpacho police and I’m constantly tracked by Jewish space lasers. I feel like I’m living in a peach tree dish. Why does everyone mock me?

That’s easy, Marge. Because you’re dumb as a mouthful of hornets. The better question is why you surround yourself with people equally idiotic. Abraham Lincoln, who was a president of the United States in case you were unaware, famously surrounded himself with a “team of rivals” to keep him on his toes and ensure there was vigorous debate and consideration of all sides on major issues. You, on the other hand, clearly surround yourself with toadies equally incapable of proper spelling, grammar, pronunciation, or recognizing blazing idiocy when it tumbles from your slackjawed mouth-hole.

Elon M of Non-Union City asks: I tried to call Kenny G from zero G but couldn’t get 5G. So, like, how much would it cost me to buy Verizon?

They’re running a special right now: $35 a month for unlimited usage. If you play your cards right, Elon, you can get a free phone in the deal. As for Kenny G, you don’t need 5G to reach him. Verizon is currently bouncing all their southern California calls off his forehead.

Iris Minge of Lake Coppasquat, New Jersey asks: When does life begin?

Iris, you present us with a deep philosophical conundrum that has puzzled man since time immemorial, a question that has divided nations, pitted neighbors violently against one another, gutted and ransacked religions, and ruined many a perfectly good Thanksgiving dinner. Hardliners will tell you that life begins at conception, that the moment a sperm fuses with an egg to produce a zygote, it’s on; baby is made. More recently, Mark Sherwood, candidate for governor of the dustbowl state of Oklahoma, where they were prepped and eager to ban abortion the instant the Supreme Court allowed, has upped the ante by stating that life begins before conception, claiming that God pre-planned every life, including those resulting from rape. Since Sherwood himself (true story) is the result of rape, his explanation smacks of self-justification… not to mention the creepy supposition that God plotted his mom’s defilement. Yecch. One has to wonder: If Sherwood is elected, will he impose pre-intercourse pro-life restrictions? In other words, if a guy sidles up to a woman and hisses in her ear that he wants to boink, and she tells him to go fuck himself, can he have her arrested for pre-emptive murder? But I digress. Wiser minds than Sherwood – meaning just about every sentient critter on this ball of mud – recognize that life doesn’t begin at the moment of lust. Philosophy majors will tell you that life doesn’t begin at all; it began, eons ago, and is an ever-evolving thing, passed on from living creature to living creature. Our ancestors defined the moment of humanhood as the “quickening” – the first time a woman felt her baby kick. Nowadays, some say human life begins at gastrulation, when an embryo can no longer divide to form identical twins. Others say when brainwaves can be measured. Needless to say, all of these are way off the mark. The truth is, life begins at the hop.

Th-th-th-that’s all, folks. See you next whenever. Like clockwork.