08.22.01

• Why do we need the Rectal T-shirt now?

"I don't know who he is behind that mask of his. But I do know this: If ever we needed the Caped Crusader...we need him now," Commissioner Gordon grimly declared in times of desperation, i.e. every single time a nutcase in funny clothes set foot in Gotham City.

In this analogy, the HB is Gotham. And the malefactors are armed with weapons more deadly than rebuses and confetti. They're packin' tedium and torpor. And lots of it. The rudely appointed garment for all intents and purposes is, of course, Batman.

The annotative reference in question was not to the shirt in the concrete so much as the abstract of the notion behind it. The platform as object of focus, if you will. Unless I've been logging in at all the wrong times (or not, but in the wrong frame of mind), there has lately been something of a dearth of the kind of ideas possessing the splendidly quirky button-pushing appeal of RT's raunchy R-T.

To be sure, there are good ones aplenty which fall into the category clearly labeled "Twisted Genius". Most all from savvy 'bakers of the seasoned-professional stripe — gods bless 'em. But for every shiny new one of those, there are a half-dozen or more others that reek to heaven. Is this a dip from the norm? Or perhaps a return to the norm from a particularly high peak? Being relatively new to these parts myself, I can't say and don't know that, truth be told, the knowing really matters a whit in the final analysis. I believe strongly, however, that ideas which are at once humorous, clever, provocative and conducive to great amounts of thought sharing on any level are a commodity needed always. During a drought, even more so. Fortunately for all of a like mind, the archives are rich with them. In times of crisis, they should be mined with impunity to offset the disparity in relation to the swell of the other kind.

It's effectiveness as a remedy for Spork Rage is non-pariel.

— TM