Into 2024, we boldly go | MARK HUGHES COBB
Now that Hans Gruber is vending street pizza on the Nakatomi Plaza forecourt, yippie-ki-yay, welcome to the party pal, hohohomachinegun, roll on other 11 days (probably seven, by the time you see this) of Christmas.
Yes, the 12 long-night/growing-slightly-shorter days start at Christmas Day. Advent's your run-up. For the 12, the bean king whoops it up, though advised to not start any long books..
Proving once again there's no such thing as a free bird, the sum for the wonky 12 days conglomerate of "Please forgive me for last year's upright vacuum cleaner" gifts has risen to an all-time budget-cracker of $46,729.86, according to PNC’s 2023 Christmas Price Index.
More: A Christmasing-sing dream: Crooning a carol sans log-lust or slaughter | MARK HUGHES COBB
PNC has been doing the XPI for 40 years; its roots date back to 1845, meaning Bob Cratchit, ink-birthed two years prior, could have sailed to the new world and ratcheted up his subpar salary by counting in Pittsburgh.
You kinda wonder why Dickens didn't nickname his grimy, depressing, want-ridden London to Pitts-Burg, or, just spit-balling here, Gotham City.
Though I'm sure DC in its Elseworlds has done it already, Victorian Batman — steampunk activated ― matching wits with mastermind Scrooge, eventually beating the gruel out of him and tossing nightgown and all into Bedlam alongside Jester, the Great Auk, Bill Sikes, the Woman in White, Hyam Hyams, Dr. Cream, Miss Havisham (the original Catwoman), Jekyll-Hyde (the uber Two-Face) and Poison Irene Adler, sounds like a page-turner.
Maybe Scrooge wouldn't redeem, what with batarang concussions reaffirming his whiny sense of victimhood, but who cares, long as he coughs up so Small Timothy turns out tickety-boo?
Zap forward a century: Noir Batman undergoes a long day's journey into Old Man Potter's business, packing a carbine action 200-shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time.
"You ARE nothing more than a scurvy little spider. Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot, but stealing $8,000 from the jittering hands of this teacup-sized town's one stumbling drunk? In a BANK, with dozens of witnesses? In the whole vast configuration of things, thugs should at least be clever. You suck snowballs, Potter, even at being a nemesis," followed by the percussive zzzflapp of meat-tenderizing fists on Barrymore-ean flab.
Here we should note, solemnly, that violence may not solve everything — coughcoughstopsNazis ― but when done to the deserving, it's darn funny, not to mention cathartic. Just ask Tim Dorsey, RIP.
PNC tongue-cheeks the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index, showing not all bankers are Potters or Scrooges, that at heart we like to invest in a laugh, and that profits should be channeled into comedy writers.
Or all writers. Please.
As 2023's bird-demic rang up 2.7% higher than 2022, the obvious question: What are you compensating for with such gift-magnanimity? You're one of those dudes who videos the proposal and down-the-aisle dance, yet failed to take into account you should wash dishes and take out trash, aren't you?
Looking forward to y'all's gender-reveal strip-mall carnival blasting Boston Butts draped in blue/pink streamers out of a revamped nuke cooling tower, post-apocalypse. Congrats; it's a mutant! Cardboard Girl, smashing lucrative franchises with a single build-a-bridge-out-of-her outing!
Speaking of trite, predictable, yet semi-arcane, am I the only one who hears the fish-head guy in "Return of the Jedi" — another holiday flick, with rampant elves bestowing gifts of comic violence, father and son resolving conflicts the Festivus way, the awkwardness of discovering how you're related to that girl you kissed ― saying "It's a carp!" instead of "It's a trap!"?
During these 12 days, big-city women should beware returning to alluring hometowns, where brutish but handsome (under werewolf-like facial hair and roll-neck sweaters; the two are easily confused) Old-Spiced males lure them into quitting high-paying jobs, promising cozy bliss without pressure, or money. It's a population-growth scam sponsored by locally-owned diners, candle shops, ax-throwing venues and maternity wards, not necessarily in that order.
Fumes from massive fireplaces, blazing with rough-hewn logs chopped by apemen wearing strategically rolled-up flannel sleeves, overwhelm, as floppy dogs slobber love hormones; a multi-front stratagem.
It's a carp!
No, you should only return home wreathed in shame, as a last resort, due to the whole freaking capitalist/financial 21st-century world forgetting Potter wasn't the good guy.
Imagine who Future Batman would charge ahead to repeatedly administer a good kicking. We're nearly a century post-Potter, and already could name at least three multi-billionaires intent on becoming supervillains, damn the ghosts, heavenly overseers and avenging dark-knight angels. Need to wipe the board, except those clever few investing in Zefram Cochrane's experiments.
Dialogue for these tales would be streamlined, because in my mind, Bats, while still fuming with vengeance, has turned cranky, arthritis-ridden middle-aged pragmatist, throttled down to a lower gear, not wasting valuable breath monologuing at villains so much as Do Not Pass Go-ing to slap faces, metaphorically or otherwise.
By day, he's investing Wayne billions into free health care and improved education, substantial and affordable housing, job-training for STEAM and other fields, while lobbying Congress to suck it up and sign off on universal income, the better for all to luxuriate as robot/ape servants handle the dirty work ... until the inevitable uprising, which 22nd century Batman creates a clone army to overturn, much as 23rd century Bat-descendants will wipe out a zombie-alien-mutant infestation to ensure the birth of James T. Kirk.
Yes Virginia, we need optimism, else how could we trek, and hang wrath on great white (Christmas) whales?
"Kiiiiiiiirk / The Khan Noonien si-ingsFrom hell's heart / I stab at thee!Revenge is a dish / that's best served co-old!My hate for you / shall ne'er grow old.Brain worms lead to madness and de-athThis must leave Chekov be-reft.Exiled from Earth / to Ceti Alpha Fi-iveI leave you as me / Buried alive!Kiirrririririrk / the Khan Noonien singsFrom hell's heart I stab at thee."
Into 2024 we boldly go.
Mark Hughes Cobb is the editor of Tusk. Reach him at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Into 2024, we boldly go | MARK HUGHES COBB
