Chat #6 -- The First Polls!
Greetings. Below begins the internationally renowned interactive part of today’s chat! The introduction can be found here. Send questions for this part here, and I will answer as many as I can. This chat will be updated as we go; you may have to refresh the screen to see new Q’s and A’s.
And lastly, yes, you can also “comment” and talk amongst yourselves at will. Those comments will stack at the bottom. I will butt in where and when I can.
Q: DanC asking: What is the best movie version of a book written by a living author? And what is the worst?
A: Well, I just saw “White Noise,” closely adapted from the Don DeLillo novel, so that is up there in my mind. I really liked the book AND the movie. “Schindler’s List” by Thomas Keneally. “The Shawshank Redemption,” by Stephen King. “Goodfellas” by Nicholas Pileggi. I have to go with Goodfellas, but that’s some mighty good competition.
The worst? I’d mention “Fifty Shades of Grey,” but as bad as it was, I gather it was marginally better than the adenoidal onanistic orgiastic mess the book was. I don’t watch enough bad movies to be authoritative here. Nominees?
Q: There are many smarty-pants techies who play the SI, how will you know when the AI thingy, ChatGBT, is winning?
A: This is a very good question. It concerns me, but not unduly, for two reasons. Reason one: I wouldn’t mind if a machine wins a contest. More outraged and/or philosophical Gene Pool material for me. But more important, I don’t think it will happen. I have seen some remarkable results in ChatGBT, but their offerings tend to be wishy-washy when asked for opinions — some say this, others say that, etc. Good humor cannot be wishy washy. And humor is a pretty sophisticated balance of timing, irony, strategic brevity, puncture of expectations, inversion, and esoteric knowledge of popular culture. I think that is a lot to ask from a computer.
Q: Does "Deadline is midnight Friday" mean "by 11:59 pm Thursday" or "by 11:59 pm Friday"?
A: Now I know you think you are being a very clever smart aleck, but so are people who ask smugly: Which came first, the chicken or the egg, as though the question is a paradox. It isn’t. Scientifically, obviously, the egg came first. Same thing here; the Oxford English dictionary, as well as most others, define “midnight” as “12 o’clock at night.” So, it’s the last minute of Friday, in this case.
Q: I back in to angled parking spaces, but only if no one is behind me waiting while I back in. Is that okay? If not, why?
A: It is okay, but you better have judged the situation correctly because the potential sin is a grave one. If you delay and discommode even one driver for even one second, you are evil and selfish. If you are inept at backing up, and require three or four moves, the chances are someone who wasn’t there before will show up and be delayed by you. So you have to have good traffic judgment AND skill in reverse. Then, sure. Don’t screw up.
Q: Not a question, but your A Dog's Life article was beautiful and heartbreaking. I read it while my rescue dog was snoring on the couch nearby. The owners of the "rescue" we got her from were later charged with 61 counts of animal abuse. People are the worst.
A: If you guys haven’t read it and want to, please wait till the end of the chat, because it will take you away for a while. It is the only story I’ve ever written where many friends and neighbors told me apologetically that they started it but could not continue when they realized where it was going. And most of these people had safely navigated my story about babies dying in hot cars.
A Dog’s Life also gives a full account of the deeply troubling way we got Lexi.
Q: Gene, you always talk about the weird things you eat. This raises two questions. 1. What is the one thing you eat that the rest of us would find the most disgusting of the things you eat? 2. What is one thing so disgusting even you won't eat it. Or is there no such thing?
A: I love talking about food because it has the capacity to either disgust or infuriate.
I will try anything that people, somewhere, consider cuisine. Not too long ago, when the cicadas descended, I caught some and cooked ‘em up and ate ‘em, as chronicled in this column: I had ‘em with Dom Perignon. Once, for a column on dieting, I ate only dog kibble for a week.
But these were anomalies, obviously. Probably the thing I regularly eat that would make some people uneasy is raw shrimp, as sashimi. Also, raw scallops. Also, raw sea urchin, called uni. The edible part of the sea urchin is mostly genitalia. Oh, and when I eat a lobster, I always eat the green goo (tomally) and the reddish, waxy egg cluster. They are my favorite parts.
As far as what I won’t try — I cannot think of anything, so long as it is someone’s cuisine. Well, not Jeffrey Dahmer’s cuisine.
Oh, wait. Once, doing a story in the Amazon rain forest and living among the indigenous residents, I tried some soup they made that included a little of their own fermented spit.
Oh, also thank you for writing “this raises two questions” and not “this begs two questions,” which just drives me nuts as a misused phrase.
Q: Hi Gene! Glad to see you’re back. I’m eight days in to a 15 day cruise celebrating my partner’s birthday. Our room got flooded. My partner got very seasick. I got COVID and I can’t leave our room for at least six days, so I’ll miss all of our ports of call. Oh and one of my teeth fell out. I’m ready to jump overboard and swim home. My question is breaststroke or backstroke?
A: I hope this helps, at least a little: Your ass looks great in those jeans.
Q: I may not be smart enough to qualify for this group because I still have not found the winning entries to contest #1. Any hints you could give, especially in the currency of a direct URL link would be most appreciated. Mahalo from Maui. Not the whole island, just me.
A: It’s the bottom 3/4 of last Thursday’s Gene Pool, right here. In general you can find anything at geneweingarten.substack.com, and nosing around.
Q: Priest said at church last week at end of Mass announcements: “You are welcome to take the red poinsettias, but if you take the white ones, you’ll be shot.” Clearly he was joking, but…really?? Your thoughts— poor taste, or worse?
A: This is inexcusable. Priest committed a venial sin, and should be ostracized. The problem is that he had an opportunity to be even funnier, and blew it, which is an insult to the laws of God and Man. He should have said “… you’ll be taken out back and shot.” Any resulting confusion among the youths would have created a learning opportunity for them with their parents, about the subversive nature of humor.
This is a true story: When I was in fifth grade, the NYC public schools had their gym teachers administer color-blindness tests to the kids. As our gym teacher, Mr. Gluck, was explaining the procedure to us, a kid raised his hand and timidly asked, “What if we ARE color blind?” And Mr. Gluck responded, deadpan, “we take you out back and shoot you.” Half the boys, including me, laughed. The other half looked concerned and constipated. I believe that was a very early and probably accurate life-test of who had senses of humor and who did not.
Q: Who should be on the Jewish Mount Rushmore? I really have no idea who’s a Jew or not. But certainly I’d put President Volodomyr Zelensky on it, after we all learned he’s a russian speaking Jew whom Russia accuses of being a nazi. I suspect the way he’s leading his mid size country to take down the evil Russian empire will be the main topic of history books covering the first half of the 21st century.
A: I’d add Jonas Salk, Anne Frank, Stephen Sondheim, and Anthony Fauci. I know Fauci isn’t Jewish, but if he’s up there, people will think he is, and that’s fine with me.
Also, in Googling Jews, I learned for the first time (I’m bad at the lives of celebs) that Liz Taylor was Jewish. Converted in 1959.
Q: Have you heard the reports of cops being incapacitated by “exposure” to fentanyl, despite best medical evidence that contact with skin is safe? Are the cops play-acting to scare us, just panicking, or what? Is there an answer that doesn’t make them look bad?
A: This is the definitive monograph on the subject, by a credible scientific source. It is a garbage claim, and it did indeed begin with a police warning tinged with hysteria. Why the police feared this is unclear, but it appeared to be related to general anxiety about everything police face, which is understandable. I choose to be non-judgmental. But it is waaay wrong.
Q: Coincidence? David Crosby's last album is titled For Free. The title song is about an apocryphal incident that echoes The Fiddler in the Subway. Here are some of the lyrics:
Me I play for fortunes / And these velvet curtain calls /I got a black limousine and the finest ladies /Escorting me to these halls /And I'll play if you have some money Or if you're a friend to me /But that one-man band by the quick lunch stand / He was just playin' rеal good for free. /And nobody, nobody stopped to hear him /Though he playеd so sweet and so high /They knew he had never been on the TV screen /So they passed his music by.
A: That’s really, really good. David took the role of Joshua Bell.
Q: Ironic Aptonym: The LAPD spokesman who briefed the media on the Monterey Park shootings has the last name Luna.
A: A grisly aptonym, but one cannot judge it for that. The people were celebrating Lunar New Year, so, yeah, reluctantly, it is a valid aptonym.
Q: Do you have a particular subject to think about when you’re trying to fall asleep? I think about arranging furniture. Works like a champ for me. Identify me as ‘Anonymous.’
A: This will sound very nerdy, mostly because it is. I often imagine myself in conversation with some awful public person — Trump or some other politician — giving him/her an elaborate lecture on all the reasons they suck. I start off angry and wind up bored and sleepy. In these fantasies, they are somehow not permitted to rebut. They just have to take it.
Q: Gene --- I'm sure you would like to note the 367th anniversary of the first use of the word euphemism with the appropriate moue of distaste. Turns out the Greeks were fond of using them innominate long before a guy in the mid 17th c. decided to call them something Greek. Some folks with too much time on their hands more recently determined the most "confusing" substitutions in DMV were: "backed up" (DC), "indisposed" (MD) and "put to sleep" (VA). Any euphemisms, in particular, which cause you to regularly moue ? Dale of Green Gables
A: I like your words. Yes, the one that bugs me the most is “passed” to mean died. It suggests “passed into another realm” or some other such goo. Died is a fine word.
Q: Why are the Republicans so hot to end IRS? After all, it is older than 100 years now. And it may be that they do not want any extra revenue to save us from the debit limit problems. But if we have all the enforcement that the December funding can buy, revenue may well increase to a significant level. Or not. Stay tuned. (I know. Taxes are dull.)
A: I am an idiot on the subject of money and finance, but isn’t the answer as simple as this: The Republicans have always been knee-jerk vocally anti-tax. Always. Because they know there’s political gold in them thar hills. They’ll never lose their base if they maintain that position, however irresponsible it is.
Q: In my last two jobs I’ve been struck by how many mediocre men remain employed - and even celebrated! - despite doing little demonstrable work. They have SO. MANY. IDEAS! but zero skills to actually implement them, and so all they do is take up air space in meetings and then have nothing to show for all that “effort.” I’m at the point in my career where I have enough capital to just refuse to do their work for them, but do you have any thoughts about why this keeps happening and what to do? Ideas of malicious compliance or sabotage also welcome.
A: I bow to no one in the depth of my feeling that women are more worthy than men, in general, across many criteria. But I must also protest that your questions seems loaded with misandry. Very broad-brush condemnation. I doubt if it holds up. May we hear from others?
Q:You follow country music? It has always been fashionable to dismiss it or “type” it. But I liked a lot of artists, and the dancing is great in west coast or Vegas settings. It has kind of reverted to the moaning one-noted Tim McGraw types and crackly-crow voiced Monday night football, and Joe Dirt nothing at all of distinction types. You? -Never Simple
A: I do not follow country music, though I have prejudices. My prejudices go back a ways, when country music was tears and twang. I have always divided country music into two parts: Country music, and good music. I refused to define the good half as “country.”
Q: You want proof that there is life after death?? Here it is!! Unfortunately, I’m not the original author, and I don’t know who is. I remember that it was a winning entry in a Style Invitational-esque contest in “Games” magazine back in the mid-1980’s, seeking great examples of chop-logic. Somehow, it’s still stuck in my memory 40 years later.
Proof that there is life after death: 1) After a death, there is a mourning. 2) After every morning comes a night. 3) In chess, just past a knight is a bishop. 4) In the Catholic Church, past a bishop is the Pope. 5) The Pope has serious convictions. 6) After a serious conviction, you get life.
It doesn’t get much more definitive than that!!
A: Thank you.
Q: I'm so glad this chat is back. I was unexpectedly moved by your chat reply saying what you'd want on your tombstone (something like "a funny man who loved dogs"). There is just so much to love about dogs. I think my favorite specific dog feature is the fact that they inherently LOVE all the stinkiest parts of the human body - crotch, mouth, armpit, feet - that we are often embarrassed about within our own species. The morning after my closest grandparent died, I stayed in bed all morning in a grief-stricken funk, and the dog eventually leapt into bed with her tail wagging, burrowed her snout all the way into my (very unshowered) armpit, and happily fell asleep there. It still moves me to think about this.
A: I’ve always been amazed by how dogs sleep. This animal with one of the most powerful sniffers on Earth chooses to sleep with its nose in its ass.
Q: Is it me, or does the recently released news of Mike Pence also having classified documents somehow feel like that lame kid who keeps trying to sit at the grown-up table? "I can break rules too, guys! You could vote for me to stick it to the man!"
A: Yes, he just put them there. They are probably forgeries.
Q: I think that its funny that each of my favorite ex-columnists from the Post have Insanely opposite opinions about Binghamton, NY.
A: Third worst place in the USA. Who is the other, seriously misled columnist?
Q: This is Gene. Almost nobody is commenting. Have you all decided “questions” is where you want to live? Okay with me, but comments are always welcome.
Q: It's time for you to explain to us why our poll choices were idiotic.
A: I am stunned. They aren’t very idiotic at all! You guys are doing well, but that’s mostly because all of them are pretty good, so most choices are valid. Your biggest flaw is failing to recognize the value in these two: D: “I’ve decided to sell my Hoover… well, it was just collecting dust.” and // E: “If you get pregnant in the Amazon, it’s next-day delivery.”
You were correct in recognizing that this is formulaic, and thus not very good: D: “I can’t even be bothered to be apathetic these days.”
Q: Gene --- Ricky Gervais says nothing should be off-limits when it comes to comedy. As a professional perpetrator yourself of perhaps a higher form of it, what say you ? Put another way --- does the intent to be amusing excuse everything (except expressing a personal opinion about Indian food, of course)
A: It doesn’t excuse everything but it is, to me, a powerful mitigating factor. It’s like the mitigating things judges use when sentencing. To me, if there was a genuine (not bullshit) effort to entertain, that’s powerful.
Q: "Good humor cannot be wishy washy." Yes, indeed, which is how we know the Gene Pool isn't written by ChatGBT. Besides, AI can't make the pool water warm.
A: True, and true.
Q: I have been informed that ChatGPT recently took, and passed, the medical licensing examination. I have also heard that students have successfully used it to write essays for school. Given this information, I instructed it to PRETEND to be a human being, so I could give it a Turing Test. It essentially refused. It advised me that, fundamentally, it was incapable of lying. I propose that chatGPT is incomparably more moral than George Santos. Should we be worried or delighted?
A: Ah, but they are capable of lying. They don’t know they are lying. Do you think they understand satire? What would they think of “A Modest Proposal”? I think they would conclude that some people feel it is okay to eat Irish babies, and some do not.
Q: A pet peeve of mine. I hate how TV weathermen always act like warm weather = good, and warmer weather = better. Set aside the fact that a lot of people don't enjoy 80-plus weather, there is something sick and wrong about pretending that a 60-degree day in January in NYC is good news. We're in a gol-danged climate change crisis, but TV weathermen (weatherpeople, I guess, although I haven't noticed this specific behavior amongst weatherwomen) are still grinning like donkeys and talking about how beautiful it is to watch the world end in real time. Is there anything that we mere mortals can do to fight this phenomenon? (by which I mean weird TV weathermen, not climate change, although I guess that's also important to fight)
A: A very political observation! I never thought about this, but it makes sense. In general, I pity weathermen/women. Their plight is awful, like restaurant reviewers. They are always forced to say the same damn things and looking for new ways to say it.
I do think the weather people are playing to the crowd. We WANT to be warm in the winter without thinking about it too much.
Q: The Davinci Code. The book was atrocious. The movie was somehow worse. - Marc from the Military
A: This is a good point. Did you ever read Dave Barry’s parody of the DaVinci Code. A terrific column. I am not finding it anywhere on the Web that is not behind a paywall, but if you can, do.
Q: Okay, this is Gene. I am declaring this Gene Pool down. Terrific response. The comments can keep coming and coming. Thank you all. See you on Thursday with the next Invitational.
To clarify: "For Free," the song David Crosby was mentioned above as singing, is by his onetime girlfriend Joni Mitchell.
Re: Q: Does "Deadline is midnight Friday" mean "by 11:59 pm Thursday" or "by 11:59 pm Friday"?
I actually have "one moment before midnight on Friday" in the entry form -- "moment" meaning the shortest possible unit of time. BUT (between you and me; i.e., between y'all and us), I'm not compiling the entry forms till late Saturday morning anyway -- so if something brilliant occurs to you in a dream Friday night, hurry up and send it over.