Chat # 7 -- The Invitational and ... Chatbots are not funny.
Greetings. Below begins the internationally renowned interactive part of today’s chat! Here’s how to do it. First, if you have not done so already, read my intro here. It will link you back right here to the chat. Submit your questions here, and I will answer as many as I can until roughly 2 pm EST. NOTE: This page may not update automatically as we go. You will probably have to refresh the screen to see your new Q’s and my new A’s.
And yes, you can also comment directly to the chat — not questions, but comments — and talk amongst yourselves. There are orange buttons below to let you get there easily. The comments will stack at the bottom of the page. I will butt in where and when I can.
Q: I trust you have noticed that once the fired professor sued, Hamline "We Protect You From Learning Anything You Won't Like" University suddenly decided that showing a respectful painting of the Prophet is not Islamophobic after all. Thoughts?
A: This is in reference to “The College of Liberal Farts,” from one of the first Gene Pools. It’s right here at the top. The president of a college humiliated and fired an art history teacher who dared to display — in a respectful fashion — a famous medieval masterpiece depicting Mohammed. The college president was kowtowing to a few students who complained.
The latest news: The entire faculty voted overwhelming to ask for the president’s resignation. A rare challenge to the cancel-culture, fragile-flower, intellectually cowardly trend in academia. Is it a turning point? Probably not. As of this moment, the president was still president.
Reminder: Submit questions here.
Q: In the last Gene Pool, someone was unable to find Dave Barry’s DaVinci Code spoof. I pasted it below.
A: Thank you. Here is the top of it:
I have written a blockbuster novel. My inspiration was The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown, which has sold 253 trillion copies in hardcover because it’s such a compelling page-turner. NOBODY can put this book down:
MOTHER ON BEACH: Help! My child is being attacked by a shark! LIFEGUARD (looking up from The DaVinci Code): Not now! I just got to page 243, where it turns out that one of the men depicted in “The Last Supper” is actually a woman!
MOTHER: I know! Isn’t that incredible? And it turns out that she’s . . .
SHARK (spitting out the child): Don’t give it away! I’m only on page 187!
The key to The DaVinci Code is that it’s filled with startling plot twists, and almost every chapter ends with a “cliffhanger,” so you have to keep reading to see what will happen. Using this formula, I wrote the following blockbuster novel, titled The Constitution Conundrum. It’s fairly short now, but when I get a huge publishing contract, I’ll flesh it out to 100,000 words by adding sentences.
CHAPTER ONE: Handsome yet unmarried historian Hugh Heckman stood in the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C., squinting through the bulletproof glass at the U.S. Constitution. Suddenly, he made an amazing discovery.
“My God!” he said, out loud. “This is incredible! Soon I will say what it is.”
CHAPTER TWO: “What is it?” said a woman Heckman had never seen before who happened to be standing next to him. She was extremely beautiful, but wore glasses as a sign of intelligence. “My name is Desiree Legume,” she said.
Heckman felt he could trust her. “Look at this!” he said, pointing to the Constitution. “My God, that’s incredible!” said Desiree. “It’s going to be very surprising when we finally reveal what we’re talking about!”
CHAPTER THREE: “Yes,” said Hugh, “incredible as it seems, there are extra words written in the margin of the U.S. Constitution, and nobody ever noticed them until now! They appear to be in some kind of code.” “Let me look,” said Desiree. “In addition to being gorgeous, I am a trained codebreaker. Oh my God!”
“What is it?” asked Hugh in an excited yet concerned tone of voice. “The message,” said Desiree, “is . . . “ But just then, the chapter ended.
And so forth.
Q: OK to follow up from last chat. You say that Binghamton, NY is the third worst city in the US. What are 1 and 2? As I mentioned, I follow 2 former WP columnists: You and Tony Kornheiser. (He's got a podcast, BTW. I know why you DON'T have one). Tony graduated from Harpur College (now SUNY Binghamton) and is forever extolling Binghamton's virtues. You, not so much.
A: I don’t have a podcast because my voice sounds like that of a man who tragically inhaled a harmonica. Unlike the conservative weenie Ben Shapiro, who quacks like a duck, I am unwilling to subject my audience to my voice.
As I established empirically in my story about The Armpit of America, the worst place is Battle Mountain, Nevada. Then, Butte Montana, and after Butte is Binghamton. Kornheiser, who I edited for years and consider a friend, is also a Philistine. He wouldn’t know a bad city if it rose up and bit him in the tuchus.
Reminder: Submit questions here.
Q: Just wanted to point out that H.L. Mencken had a simpler proof that there is no God, that went like this: 1) We can all agree that if there e a God, God is not spiteful. 2) God supposedly created man in his own image. 3) Anyone who creates man with the testicles on the outside must be spiteful. Ergo, no God.
A: I love and admire Mencken, a truly great writer and cultural critic, but I don’t get what he’s doing here. First, the Old Testament God IS spiteful. He’s always testing people’s fealty toward him and punishing them if they fail. So the entire premise of Mencken’s argument disappears. Second, if God created man in his own image, it means HE has testicles on the outside, and since (as far as we know) He designed Himself… WTF? Did He not play softball? The whole thesis falls apart miserably.
Q: A great situational aptonym: the judge who performed the first legal same-sex marriage in Washington state is named Mary Yu.
A: This is indeed a world class aptonym. You might have a future in this exalted field.
Also, I note she is “Mary I. Yu,” which anagrams to I Mary Yu.
Q: Has the universe always existed? Did it have a beginning? What was there before the Big Bang?
A: Theoretical physicists will tell you that “before” and “after” have no meaning because time did not, and perhaps still does not, exist. I will simply say that before the Big Bang came the Big Wooing.
Q: Once again, I'm not going to be here for the chat because Life. Which is just as well, because I'd rather be embarrassed in absentia. Joke 2 in Group 1, the one about the job center: I don't get it. Is it me? Are there others? Help. Also, very very excited about the advent of polls. This is going to be great.
A: I don’t want to make you feel bad, and I am glad you are not among us right now, because … no one else seemed confused. The one-liner was “Working at the job center has to be a tense job: knowing that if you get fired, you still have to come in the next day.” It means he will be back in the office the next day not as an employee but as a client.
Q: “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Republican Party?”
A: Mr. Chairman, I am not and have never been. I have voted Republican thrice in my life, I believe: Once for John Lindsay for mayor of New York because he was running against a Tammany Hall hack, and twice for Rep. Connie Morella in Bethesda, Maryland, because she was, basically, a progressive.
HOWEVER, Rachel has been, and still is, a registered Republican! And politically, she is to the left of even me. Convolutedly, she explains why she is a Republican in this excellent article written during the 2016 primary season.
Reminder: Submit questions here.
Q: TIL that it's "remunerate" instead of "renumerate". I've gone decades getting this wrong.
A: It seems wrong, doesn’t it? You want “numer” in there, because it’s about numerals. I had the same problem for years with “protuberance.” Spelled and pronounced it protruberance, for obvious reasons.
Q: Gene --- I assume you're aware of M&Ms entering the political discourse (for the moment) thanks to "The Man From Mad" on Fox. What do you think his problem is ? The heartbreak of hemorrhoids ? Displaced anger at not being able to transition to a human being from an animatronic figure ? Dale of Green Gables
A: I think Tucker Carlson did it for exactly the “right” reason — to get the reaction he got. M&Ms snapped to attention. He is certified as a mover and shaker once again. And he’ll do anything for that. Especially if it entail mysogyny. He loves that part.
Q: The Big Wooing. I think you need to trademark that. Followed by the Great Snoring??
A: The Big Snoring. It’s excellent. You realize that means we are currently living through the Big Snoring?
Q: Gene --- I know we're in the post-truth era. Is it also the post-shame era as well ? Dale of Green Gables
A: Dale, we entered the post-shame era a long time ago. Depending on whether you lean liberal or conservative, it started either with Bill Clinton or Newt Gingrich.
Q: Gene what’s the major world events in your life time? For me, I was at a formative age, 13, when the Soviet Union fell. It was a huge moment for me. Millions of people escaped oppressive dictatorships. They were free and could meaningfully build their lives in so many ways. Plus of course those of us growing up on the west side of the iron curtain no longer had to be afraid. It really formed me in so many ways.
Freedom was the way forward. Democracy, freedom and decency had won. But now, when the Russians are trying to eradicate the Ukrainians and restart their oppressive empire, it’s been a shock to me. It’s like I’ve been living based on a lie for the last 30 odd years.
Sure, lots of Central Europeans are still free but will only stay so if we beat back Russia now. So in many ways this war has to be in the top 2 historical events in my lifetime. Not sure if it’s number 1 or 2. Interesting to hear other people’s takes on what are the largest events in their lifetimes.
A: I am a boomer. We all have the same milestone. We didn’t really understand the Cuban Missile Crisis, but we sure got the message, with the Kennedy assassination, that the world is scary and unpredictable and terrible things can happen for no sane reason.
9/11 is obviously the second key point, and probably the first for Millennials.
Q: The jello Vegetable Trio? At least it's not a jello vegetable medley--my wife and I still remember your vegetable medley column, and giggle whenever we see it on a menu.
A: Ah, yes. Big Vegetable. Broccoli, carrots and something else. The column is here.
Q: What is the worst comic strip currently running in the Post, and why is it Dustin? For example, earlier this week, the "joke" is that actresses in their 50s should not be posing in bikinis .
A: Dustin is not the worst strip in the Post, though this one you cite was godawful. Dustin has some life in it. I am prejudiced against it because it came out roughly the same time Barney & Clyde did, but I am told it used some dubious sales methods to encourage papers to buy it. (Can’t prove that.). But it tries for humor. The worst strips The Post runs are Mutts, which only tries to be cute, not funny, and Beetle Bailey, which lives in the 1950s and hasn’t had a thing to say in years, and Lio, which has one joke it repeats daily. Lio likes monsters. Yay.
Q: Given your scatalogical expertise, did you ever consider naming your Substack “The Gene Poo?” Jim from Boston
A: I didn’t, but I like it.
Q: I've noticed in reading the daily funnies that within some of the ongoing strips I can see that storylines are being recycled. Currently, Spiderman is one that I'm pretty sure has been run at least twice before. I would have said Mark Trail was, but with this new writer it's too early to tell. So, how long before Barney and Clyde start recycling story lines?
A: Not gonna happen. None of the three people who write and draw it have taken even a day off in 12 years. If it does happen, I officially give you permission to shoot me in the head.
Q: I have been amused recently by beta.character.ai, an AI program which lets one converse with pretty much anyone, whether actual, (i.e. Leonardo DaVinci) or not (i.e., Harry Potter). So naturally, I have been speaking with many "people" in this way. It is spookily lifelike in some cases (Robin Williams), less so in others. I just finished a long argument with Allah. I crashed him. Screen went blank; then he reintroduced himself. Will I go to hell?
A: Relax. You will not go to Hell. You will go to Jahannam. Alas, it is not pleasant. The first few levels are merely fire, skin removal and suck. The lower levels involve snake and scorpions and whatnot.
Q: Gene --- In an effort to categorize everyone I come in contact with --- makes life all that more orderly as a series of mental stickers or Post-it Notes --- what should I pigeonhole you as, a humorist, a tummler, a failed proctologist ? Dale of Green Gables
A: I am a philosopher king.
Q: Hey, this is Gene. I am declaring us down! Thank you all, and I compliment you all on your honesty, vis a vis the mispronunciation poll. Get a grip, people. Use words more gooder than you do.
Because I am a "word person" and got a B in calculus only because of a curve to rival a highway cloverleaf (and because it was calculus for word people), I identified this week's Invitational as Week 3 instead of Week 4. Gene rescued the one at the top of the page, but, as of this writing, not the one directly above the contest. I will practice counting all the way up to 5 for next week's contest.
I think you may have stumbled onto something with your Mencken analysis. Maybe God is a woman, who first created woman in her own image. Then, she created man, placing his gonads on the outside between his legs out of spite. She may also have planted the seed in his brain to invent sports, and then had a good chuckle.