The Invitational Week 95: What's the Worst That Could Happen?
After the election, we mean. And be funny about it. Plus the winners of our Ask Backwards contest.
Hello.
We’re in the final days before the election. The polls are Gillette-close. The rhetoric has been heating up. The Fear Factor is running high. Conservatives are in a frenzied froth. Liberals are in a writhing perturbation. Dire predictions abound on both sides. D.C. has become Disinformation Central.
Our question today is: In the collective minds of each group, what are some of the worst, most extreme things that could happen if their candidate loses? And yes, we are looking for funny. (For you libs: “The worst? A dictatorship in which all civil rights disappear and oaths of fealty to the Führer will be required for voting and Jews will be …” might be a warranted concern, but it won’t see ink.)
What we are seeking is more like this:
On the left: After a Trump win, by law you can only order your steak either well done or "briquetted," a brand new term meaning you can snap it in half.
On the right: After a Harris win, in every big city there will be licensed dog, cat, hamster, and cockatoo restaurants run by swarthy immigrants.
Okay? Good.
For Invitational Week 95: Give us a comically dire prediction of what could happen if Harris loses or Trump loses, as in the examples above.
Formatting your entries this week: It’s just our regular request that you write each individual entry as a single line (i.e., don’t push Enter until the end of each entry).
Deadline is Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, at 9 p.m. ET. Yup, before the election. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Nov. 7. Yup, after the election. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form.
Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to tinyURL.com/inv-form-95.
The winner receives this handsome “I Don’t Give a Shitake” plush mushroom, given by Undeniable Shitake-Giver Dave Prevar.
Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in one of eight nifty designs. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for a personal email from the E, plus the Fir Stink for First Ink for First Offenders.
Meanwhile, send us questions or observations, which Gene hopes to deal with in real time today. You do this, as always, by sending them to this here button:
Déjà Q: Ink from Ask Backwards XLIII
As we had on forty-two previous occasions, in Invitational Week 93 we presented a list of “answers” and asked for the questions, Jeopardy! style. Of the suggested answers, “A children’s book by RFK Jr.” tickled the most Losers’ fancies, accounting for almost 100 of the contest’s 700 entries; submitted too often: “The Very Hungry Brainworm,” And for the answer “Not a peep out of him,” there was much talk of constipation after eating too much Easter candy.
Third runner-up:
A. A White Sox Burger.
Q. What’s it called when your pitcher tosses a big meatball across the middle of the plate?
(Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)
Second runner-up:
A. A children’s book by RFK Jr.
Q. What is “And to Think That I Sawed It on Mulberry Street”?
(Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)
First runner-up:
A. Grip it by the seams.
Q. What did Frankenstein’s monster tell his Bride on their honeymoon?
(Jeff Hazle, San Antonio)
And the winner of the skeleton socks:
A. A children’s book by RFK Jr.
What is “Eat the Bunny”?
(Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)
As always, if you think the best among today’s inking entries were unjustly buried in the honorable mentions, shout out your favorites in the comments.
Waste Ask-Its: Honorable mentions
A children’s book by RFK Jr.:
What is “Hop on Pop’s Legacy”? (Rob Huffman, Fredericksburg, Va.)
What is “See Spot Run Over by a Car, Then Eat Him” (Gregory Koch, Falls Church, Va.)
What is “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Vaccine?” (Karen Lambert, Chevy Chase, Md.)
AI Sauce:
What condiment gets all twelve of your fingers sticky? (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.; Jesse Frankovich)
A White Sox Burger:
What ballpark meal will never give you the runs? (Stephen Dudzik, Olney, Md.; Gary Crockett)
Bond. Percival Bond.:
Who orders his lemon-drop cosmo “shaken, not stirred, and be sure to put powdered sugar on the rim with just a hint of cinnamon”? (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)
Who starred in Octoprissy? (Diana Oertel, San Francisco)
Camelot Harris:
Which knight defeated Sir Rantsalot? (Neal Starkman, Seattle)
Who smacked down Sir Vance a lot? (Frank Osen)
Chewing gumption:
What did it take to be the first person ever to eat a snail? (Jeff Hazle)
What personality characteristic often coincides with biting sarcasm? (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)
What precedes swallowing pride? (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)
Grip it by the seams:
What’s the best thing to do with yo mama’s dress if you have fallen out of an airplane? (Mark Raffman)
How does Trump keep his hair on in a hurricane? (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)
What’s the best way to get a soccer ball out of your mouth? (Frank Osen)
Muhammad Alley:
At which bowling center have the pins been knocked down only four times ever? (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)
What is the next street over from JesusIsThe Way? (Stephen Dudzik)
Take it for a spin:
What’s an anagram of “It’s a freakin’ top”? (Jesse Frankovich)
What does the fan do with the shit that hits it? (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)
What’s the first thing an actor does after mastering a Linda Blair impression? (Frank Osen)
The question you’d have asked at another debate:
What is “Mr. President, as you’re the father of IVF, please explain the relative merits of frozen-embryo transfer, elective single-embryo transfer, and intracytoplasmic sperm injection”? (Duncan Stevens)
The Topic of Capricorn:
What would you rather have to discuss with your doctor than the Topic of Cancer? (Jesse Frankovich; Frank Osen; Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)
E Pluribus Um Um:
What is the motto on the planned Trump commemorative $3 bill? (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore; Duncan Stevens)
Washington, CD:
What investment option never matures? (Mike Gips, Bethesda, Md.; Bill Smith, Boqueron, Puerto Rico)
What is the capital of Dyslexia? (Stephen Dudzik)
Not a peep out of him:
How did the woman know her “friendly” neighbor Tom was out of town? (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)
43 Ask Backwards contests:
What, along with Pete Davidson, have been around since 1993 and are questionably funny? (Jesse Frankovich)
The headline “Déjà Q” is by Kevin Dopart; Chris Doyle wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.
Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, Oct. 26: our Week 94 contest for jokes that require specialized or esoteric knowledge to get. Click on the link below.
We now enter the coveted Real-Time Segment of The Gene Pool, where Gene responds to your questions and observations, which were made in Real Time. Today’s Q’s and O’s (so far) deal with a wildly disparate range of subjects, from music to wedding gift registries, to Arnold Palmer’s schlong, to antiques, to lie detectors, to the madness of King Donald.
PLEASE send your Observations and Questions right here. They will be dealt with with alacrity and gusto, a promise employing an amazing sentence that uses the expression “with with.”
Also please note that we are going to be live blogging on election night, starting at 8 p.m. To be able to root around in the Comments section, and post Comments of your own, you will have to buy one month’s worth of Gene Pool, for the exorbitant fee of $5. We hope you’d stay in beyond that, but it’s not necessary. Cancellation is a simple process.
Please consider this. We’d like you there on November 5.
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Q: I just got angry about a Billy Joel lyric (well, I was just reminded why I got angry at a Billy Joel lyric 30 years ago) and this is the only place I can come to. Thank God I pay $4.15 a month. In his otherwise great song “Captain Jack,” he sings: “Well, you're twenty-one and still your mother makes your bed, and that's too long…” The first clause is good writing. The second is very, very bad writing. It is a great dig, but then he destroys it by tediously explaining his point. The greatest lines in literature are the ones that are implied but unstated. They have to happen in the minds of the reader / listener.
A: Yes!!
Billy Joel is an anomaly as a songwriter: Many of his individual songs have both brilliant lines and dreadful lines. The final line of “Piano Man” is absolute poetry: “They sit at the bar, and put bread in my jar, and say ‘Man, what are you doing here?’ ” And this same song has this dreadful line: “They’re sharing a drink they call loneliness…”
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Q: Okay, so you are given a rare metaphysical observation to watch a live concert by any dead people. Who are your top five candidates? For the sake of simplicity, limit it to people who performed after 1950.
A: Hm. Buddy Holly, Steve Goodman, Big Mama Thornton, Janis Joplin, Phil Ochs. But I can be convinced otherwise.
Nominations?
TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this on an email: Just click on the headline in the email and it will deliver you to the full column online. Keep refreshing the screen to see the new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post.
Here we go.
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Q: Tracy T. here. I don’t think I would have turned in the tax cheat either, the disliked family member who gleefully told her family that she had serially cheated on taxes. But I definitely would have leveraged the hell out of this disclosure, to wit: “Do you realize, Earlene, that you must henceforth be very, very, VERY nice to all of us, since anyone here no has the means to drop the dime on you at any time? I am looking forward to my Christmas gift from Tiffany’s this year.”
A: Too direct and too specific, Tracy. It would be better to be oblique and work on her anxieties: “Boy, Earlene, it’s lucky everyone in this family loves you and cherishes your company, because in other families, someone might just drop a dime on you.
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Q: Nomination: Sinatra in his prime.
A: A worthy choice.
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Q: Okay, I’ll bite. Why is “man, what are doing here?” so poetic? And what’s wrong with “the drink they call loneliness”?
A: Glad you asked. In the first case, because of the overpowering weight of the unstated line. The entire song has been about a gathering of lonely, miserable people who are failing at being alive. The ironic intent of the last line is: Billy is there because he belongs there. He is one of them. It is brilliant songwriting, particularly making it the last line. It turns the song into a poem.
In the second case, there are two reasons: the banal reason is that “they,” the drinkers, are not calling the drink loneliness. The very point is they don’t know they are anesthetizing themselves to their misery. But in a bigger sense, a drink called loneliness is an icky, obvious observation that should be implied, not stated.
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Q: A recently discovered aptonym for you: Recently started seeing a dermatologist for some potentially cancerous areas on my face, about which I was very concerned. One of the doctors in the practice, though sadly not mine, is named Dr. Angst.
A: Thank you.
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Q: The Philistine who disliked Jazz and poetry is absolutely justified and 90% correct, for one simple reason: Sturgeon's Law ("90% of EVERYTHING is crap"). See the definition here.
A: Nice. I’d never heard of it.
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Q: The Seniors on the PGA Champions Tour are more informal, and the crowds allow them to be. I was right next to Arnold Palmer walking through during the Montclair NJ NFL Classic one year and I was just like him, his height, chest, arms, hands, just sayin’.
A: Be glad you never saw him in the shower, then. This way, you can remain proud.
Colbert made a really good point: Does Trump actually think that guys on the PGA tour shower together?
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Q: I was watching a music video by The Traveling Wilburys recently, and I began to wonder if facial hair provides some kind of protection in the world of rock and roll. Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Tom Petty -- all clean-shaven, all gone. But then there's hairy-faced Bob Dylan and Jeff Lynne, both still with us.
A: Far out, man. Yeah, Janis didn’t have facial hair either. Or Winehouse.
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Q: I've been thinking about ear worms, songs that get needlessly stuck in our head, sometimes for inane reasons. How long should the internal replay loop last? Do we contact our doctor after four hours? I might end up replaying a song or lyric or snippet for hours or days, off and on. Should we be proactive and intentionally listen to superseding music clips? Or should we collectively feel assured that the fixation will wear off in due time (whatever that might be)? - From Andy Schotz, Hagerstown, Md.
A: I tried to research this, but ran into a snag. If you google “how to prevent earworms” the first hits you get result in some variation of “ Use an eyedropper or squirt bottle to apply a few drops of canola, olive, or mineral oil to the ear tips as soon as the silks appear. The oil suffocates the worms and prevents others from entering. “ It seems that “earworm” is something that afflicts ears of corn.
Finally, I connected. It turns out that the human brain is evolutionarily hard-wired to recognize recurring patterns, as a way, for example, of detecting predators. We were wired to recognize rhythms of behavior, and we’re now left with the reflex of recognizing rhythms of rhythms.
There doesn’t seem to be any coherent, agreed-upon strategy for fighting them. The advice out there is all kinda tepid, such as “listen to songs all the way through, so your mind doesn’t lock on the idea of finding a way to complete them.” Or “try listening to many different songs.” Lame. My advice is to close your eyes and enjoy them as best you can. I know someone who doesn’t hate to puke because sometimes it lets you re-enjoy pleasant tasting food. Think of it that way.
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Q: Johnny Cash.
A: I’ll see you and raise you John Prine.
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Q: I always took the last line of Piano Man to be snobbish: He was better than the audience he was performing for, and he knew it. I just learned from Wikipedia that it was based on a stint he did in an LA lounge to make some money while fighting with his recording studio AFTER the release of his first album. He even performed under an alternative name (Bill Martin; Martin is his middle name). So from his perspective, he was the equivalent of a major leaguer anonymously spending some time in the minors, but knowing he would return to greater things.
A: No.
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Q: I saw that his orangeness has told that Palmer story at least one other time, but differently. In a book by Maggie Haberman published a couple years ago, orangeman said that he saw Palmer naked in a clubhouse and noted the shaft in question. But he doesn’t repeat that now. I guess he has decided he doesn’t want people to think he stared at other men's golf equipment.
A: I guess he simply believes whatever lie he has just told.
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Q: Years ago this month the Red Sox broke the Curse of the Bambino and won their first World Series since the sale of Babe Ruth to the dreaded Yankees. Also at that time, someone created this excellent parody, and it's well worth revisiting. Enjoy!
A: This is superior! Hadn’t seen it before.
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Q: Here is a lie detector story told to me by the person who claimed to have administered the test to a well-known person. I was in a barber chair, and the older man in the chair next to me was trying to converse with the lady cutting his chair. Her English was very poor, and I foolishly joined the conversation. He switched to telling me his experience administering lie detector tests during his employ by the FBI, but he piqued my interest by saying he was the person who administered the test to Jack Ruby (the person who shot Lee Oswald). He stated that Ruby was declared truthful in all of his responses except one: Jack answered “yes” when asked “Are you named Jack Ruby”. He said that he had not known that Jack had legally changed his name to Ruby from Rubenstein. I was uncertain if the tester seemed reliable, but I eventually looked Ruby up on Wikipedia and indeed he had changed his name.
A: An excellent story! Yes, Jack Ruby was born Jacob Rubenstein. He was embarrassed by how Jewish it sounded. He was a strip-joint operator, a pimp, and a Mafia-connected sleazeball. He didn’t want to sound like some Jew.
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Q: Undecided voters who say "I need to do more research" usually don't have clue one about how to do research. I work with (or, as they view it, FOR) 50+ people with PhDs. They ask me questions any freshman with an iPhone could find in ten seconds. I spend much of my day asking "Have you tried to Google this?" These people have 12+ years of research experience, and they don't know how to find a place in the building that supplies plastic forks (try the cafeteria on the first floor - without even using Google, I came up with that one) or where the mail room is located (Google it - or just walk about the building until you see a room that says "mail room" on the door). My point is, if actual researchers can't find a plastic fork and have no idea where to even start looking, I doubt Average Joe Undecided is doing any actual research in the sense that Average isn't visiting academic sites like JSTOR or Sage or Pew, but going to Facebook and Tik Tok and watching soundbites of internet-famous people telling him how to vote. God help us.
A: Indeed.
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Q: One of the best treatments of the double entendre for balls:
A: This might be the longest single-joke SNL skit in history. It’s longer than Colonel Angus. Or maybe it just feels that way.
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Q: Luciano Pavarotti
A: If you say so. Oh, wait. Whoa. One of my first five should have been Townes Van Zandt.
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Q: Okay Gene, as much as you try to ignore it (after no doubt weeping for joy when your boys of summer finally made it into the Fall Classic again), the opening odds has the LA Otanis taking the Series. Los Angeles (-125) has an implied probability of 55.56 percent to take it, while the Yankees (+105) have an implied probability of 48.78 percent.
A: I’ll accept the odds. They’re roughly Harris’s odds against Trump, and she’s gonna win.
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Q: On the subject of wedding gifts, when we got married in 1988, we just asked people to bring a covered dish - we couldn't afford a caterer and my husband's aunts made some of the best food you could ever imagine, plus my parents were friends with the catering manager at Giant Food, so we figured she'd bring a platter of wings or a few pounds of cole slaw, and it would be a pretty nice affair. My husband asked his aunts to make his childhood favorites, knowing that the old family recipe he loved so much would make the wedding perfect.
Relatives on my husband's side were furious at me - this must have been all my idea - and they said they NEEDED a list in order to pick the proper wedding gift. When confronted by a group of his cousins for my selfishness in not registering anywhere, I told them we didn't need or want anything - we both brought household items with us into this relationship, so anything we registered for would be something that would just take up space (we lived in the basement at a friends' townhouse). One of my husband's cousins said I was showing everyone how uncultured I was for 'making everyone jump through hoops' having them guess what gift to give us. I said "We could use a snow shovel, a new battery for the car, and some ivy plants to put on the tables at the wedding" which none of them brought with them (and we really could have used that snow shovel). The thing is, all they had to do was bring a case of sodas, a bag of chips, or a bucket of chicken to share with the other guests and we would have been overjoyed by the thoughtful gift. Everyone who gifted us with a bottle of wine was thanked as we opened the wine and poured it for the guests to enjoy - neither of us drink, but the guests seemed to love the wine options and the people who brought the wine seemed proud to have made the day special.
We had made a large turkey and large ham, and we went to Costco for a few bags of rolls, hoping everyone would be happy with a sandwich, figuring my sister in law would do the easiest thing (bag of chips and a jar of salsa) but she brought nothing at all, and spent the whole wedding complaining about the food. My husband's family still brought useless gifts we didn't want or need - we kept telling them we just wanted people to bring food and would suggest something they could bring - "We'd love to have someone bring fruit salad," "If you brought some of those fantastic cookies (you bought at Costco but passed off as homemade) you brought to that picnic, that would be great," and "What I really love is your Jell-o salad." If they were coming from far away, I would give them directions to the store down the street from the wedding venue where they could buy a bag of apples or pears - I brought plenty of empty platters and serving bowls, hoping people would bring fresh fruit to fill them (some people did - it was great to have fresh fruit to eat since I was a vegetarian).
For years after, my husband's family would needle me about my 'low-brow, redneck church social wedding' and some of them would give me homemade cookies for Christmas (which I loved) because I had asked them to bring cookies to the wedding. Years went by and one of his cousins' daughters was getting married. NOW the idea of a covered dish made sense, but they were too afraid to go that route after all the years of insulting me about it. At one family event, one of the aunts commented "You know, cousin whose daughter is getting married, you don't have to go into debt to have a nice wedding. Look at LD's wedding - it was nice and we all pitched in to make sure it was." That's when they stopped ribbing me about the low-brow wedding. The cousin paid a fortune for their daughter's wedding, and she divorced within two years - what a great investment that $100 a plate dinner at the $5000 venue THAT turned out to be.
My husband's aunts, my parents' friend, and the other guests had pitched in so well at our wedding that we had enough leftover food to throw a block party the next day AND send leftovers home with everyone who attended. It was the perfect wedding for us.
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Q: This is a good place to end.
You remind me of a fabulous story by Caitlin Gibson and Rachel Manteuffel, in which they planned and carried out The Perfect Wedding. It was an Anti-Wedding.
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This is Gene. I call us down. PLEASE KEEP SENDING IN Q’s AND O’s here.
A few personal faves: Tom Witte's "What precedes swallowing pride?", Stephen Dudzik's "What is the next street over from JesusIsThe Way?", Duncan's debate question, and Jeff Hazle's "grip it by the seams" RU.
Hop on Pop's legacy wins for me.