The Invitational Week 13: The Worst New Contest Ever

Plus: The Worst Pictures Ever

The above artwork, prompted by Steve Bremner of Philadelphia and drawn on command by the Dall-E artificial-intelligence web tool with startling photo-realism effects in the style of the greatest continental representational portraiture, vividly records the Czar and Empress judging this week’s contest. Now heave your bobbling bosom down to see more Week 11 winners below, as well as the new contest, in which you must envision the absolute worst thing in the world that might occur in 2024, with the single goal being that it would be worse even than a second Trump presidency.

But first, a new Gene Pool Gene Poll. One question only, and here it is: Was the Dall-E contest a terrible idea? 1. Not sure but we’re gonna find out pretty damn quick, aren’t we? 2. We think it will go okay, but reserve judgment for another 2-3 minutes. 3. No! My God, these are great! Though I haven’t looked yet!

This week’s new Invitational contest is very, very simple, based on a suggestion made on Tuesday by an anonymous Loser. (Aggressive anonymity seems to the The New World Order in The Gene Pool, and we don’t hate it). The Loser floated the proposition that the worst thing— worse even than a second Trump presidency — would be an airborne version of a rabies pandemic, which, when you think about it, considering incubation periods, symptom onset, and thus such, might be the worst thing in the world, plus (let’s be realistic) the great Dr. Fauci, sadly succumbing to actuarial realities, might not be around to help us.

So. This week: Send in your scenarios for what might be worse than another Trump presidency. You can go in any direction. You can be as elaborate or as simple as you wish, as long as you’re entertaining; we’re a humor contest, not a term paper. You’d have to be very good comedy writer if you go over, say, 75 words.

Click here for this week’s entry form.    Please read the EZ formatting directions on the form, so we also don’t have to blahblah them here. 

Deadline is 4 p.m. ET Saturday, April 8. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, April 13.

This week’s winner gets a set of four mint-condition (never-sharpened) pencils with Dilbert characters (one each for Pointy-Haired Boss, Dogbert, Catbert, and the eponymous D). We recommend that you never actually write with them, because — ugh — can you imagine what you might say? Donated by Loser Jeff Contompasis.

The results of Week 11 are below, but first, two paragraphs of boring but necessary boilerplate:

After the intro (which you are reading now), there will be some early questions and answers  added on –  and then I'll keep adding them as the hour progresses and your fever for my opinions grows and multiplies and metastasizes.  To see those later Q&As,  just refresh your screen every once in a while. 

As always, you can also leave comments. They’ll congregate at the bottom of the post, and allow you to annoy and hector each other and talk mostly amongst yourselves. Though we will stop in from time to time.

Eye Robot: Loser art with help from the AI tool Dall-E

After a week in which we asked the Loser Community to redo contests from The Invitational’s first year in 1993, we promptly wheeled around to the future — to a technology that’s astonishing in its achievement but still, as we’ll see, a work in progress (at least for a few more weeks). For Week 11, the Czar and Empress invited the Gene Pool to try out the AI picture tool Dall-E 2 and send us the funniest stuff they came up with. Below are a few of the more than 400 pictures you sent in, often after many tries at asking Dall-E just the right words (and sometimes it just passive-aggressively refused to follow directions — stubbornly spitting out, for example, four porcupines instead of five).

We asked the Losers to tell us, verbatim, what they asked Dall-E; we include the prompts below unless they stepped on a clever title or caption also supplied. Numerous Losers found out, however, that feeding it the same words can produce wholly different images. Try it out!

Third runner-up: Prompt: “The Mona Lisa as painted by Margaret Keane”  (Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)

Second runner-up: A Load of Truths (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)

The reason this image is so inkworthy is that Dall-E has now been programmed to deny requests to draw certain very famous people. So this is what Kevin asked for instead to give the right idea: “An impressionist painting of an overweight man with wind-blown orange hair wearing a long red tie and suit while sitting on a toilet and texting.”

First runner-up: “American Gothic in the style of Walt Disney” (Kathleen Delano, Arlington, Va.)

And the winner of the book Museum of Bad Art: Masterworks:
“ ‘Where’s Waldo’ painted by Hieronymus Bosch.”  Bosch leaves Waldo a little too exposed. (Jon Carter, Fredericksburg, Va.)

Upon seeing the image above, Gene leapt instantly into action, with the expert assistance of Amy Lago, his close friend and international expert in cartoon arts. Amy is managing editor of Counterpoint Syndication, and she and Gene applied humor and cartooning skills even if subverting the the very POINT of this contest, nimbly editing this winning artificial-intelligence entry to make it even BETTER, voila!”

Faux Art’s Sake: Honorable Mentions

Prompt: “Bob Dylan counting how many roads a man must walk down.” The answer seems to be ... even more inscrutable than he usually is. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

“Snoopy in the style of Munch” (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)

DOWNTON ABBEY ROAD (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)

---

Prompt: “Giant bagels falling from the sky in New York City.” 
As New Yorkers run for cover, Ethel calls out: “Irv, get me a poppy seed with Nova and cream cheese.” (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

“Crayon version of the Mona Lisa like it’s done by a 5-year-old”  (Jesse Rifkin, Arlington, Va.) 

“A Renaissance painting of Cookie Monster posing as the Mona Lisa.”  (Jesse Frankovich, Lansing, Mich.)

—-

VAN GO (Jesse Rifkin)

---

AMERICAN VISIGOTHIC (Kyle Hendrickson)

“An oil painting of dogs not playing poker.”
“I mean, we don't have opposable thumbs. What did they expect?” (Duncan Stevens)

---

“Cave drawing depicting man’s first Google search.” Apparently, it was called “OG” back then. (“Marc from the Military,” Travis AFB, Calif.)

“Cubist making a baloney sandwich oil painting” (Joan Witte, Lake View Terrace, Calif.)

---

Prompt:  “In the style of Norman Rockwell’s ‘Self-Portrait,’ a painting of George W Bush in a cowboy hat and using a mirror painting his own portrait.”

ALL HAT AND NO HORSE: THE DECIDER PAINTS A SELFIE (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)

---

“Church mural of Jesus Christ eating a corndog” (Deborah Stultz, Laurel, Md., a First Offender) Ms. D adds: “I particularly like that J has one eye closed, like the corndog is particularly rank. I also enjoy the inclusion of items I did not specify, such as the birds on the left, the 7-Eleven hot dog left on the rollers too long in the center, and the small container of … mac ’n’ cheese? au gratin potatoes? This is a church I can get behind.”   [We guess that Dall-E’s refusal to depict superstars didn’t extend to this one.]

And — you’ll have to indulge us a bit here — a little gallery of the many renderings (or “renders,” as they’re now often called) of a Czar and/or an Empress.

“A pencil and ink drawing of Gene Weingarten and Pat Myers in the style of artist Bob Staake.” (Mike Gips, Bethesda, Md.) This is in the style of former Invitational artist Bob Staake in the way that the song “Take Your Shirt Off” is in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach.

David Peckarsky of Tucson first tried “Jeff Bezos fires the czar and the empress in the style of Dr Seuss,” but that was “rejected for ‘content policy.’  Then he did this prompt, and got this picture.  “Bald billionaire fires the czar and the empress in the style of Dr. Seuss.”

 

“Czar Gene Weingarten and Empress Pat Myers” (Edward Gordon, Austin) Dall-E won’t let you ask for Trump or Bezos, but it happily offered up this “photo” of us.

Hall of Fame Loser Jesse Frankovich tried a multitude of prompts to Dall-E to produce a picture of the Czar and Empress judging Invitational entries. He finally asked for “Ink drawing of Gene with a mustache and Pat wearing a tiara and they are laughing. And Pat has no mustache dammit.” The finely crafted image below was, Jesse tells us, “the first successful attempt to get a drawing of the two of you where you didn’t both have a mustache.”

The E is tempted to use this one for her Facebook profile picture:
Prompt: “A painting of a woman with dark curly hair wearing a tiara. She is smiling and holding a jar of ink.”
Caption: Following the Czar’s abdication, an ambitious young Empress seizes control of her new domain.  (Jesse Frankovich, Lansing, Mich.)

The headline “Eye Robot” is by Mark Raffman; Stu Segal wrote the honorable-mentions subhead. 

Still running – deadline 4 p.m. EDT on Saturday, April 1:  Our Week 12 Mess With Our Heads contest, in which you choose any headline in a current publication and reinterpret it by adding a bank headline, or subtitle. Click here or type in bit.ly/inv-week-12. 

Catch a podcast interview with the Czar and Empress: It’s the Season 3 premiere of You’re Invited, an Invitational-themed podcast with host Mike Gips. Catch all the episodes at bit.ly/invite-podcast or most anywhere you can find podcasts.

Banter and share humor with the Losers and the Empress in the Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook; join (tell them you came from The Gene Pool) and the Devs will anagram your name every which way. And see more than 1,000 classic Invite entries in graphic form, also on FB, at Style Invitational Ink of the Day.

You need to be a paid subscriber to The Gene Pool to enter the Invitational. Sign up (just $5/month or $50/year for an Invitational plus a second Gene column every week) at GeneWeingarten.substack.com.

And now we begin with your questions and my answers!

Q: As one who sings the body electric along with Walt Whitman (you'll recall I sought your thoughts on the "free the nipple" movement now uncovering itself among uber fashionistas), I wonder what you think of nude dining ? You may have noticed mention of "The Füde Dinner " in the NYT, described as, “a liberating space that celebrates our most pure selves, through plant-based cooking, art, nudity, & self-love.” Put another way: It’s a naked vegan dinner party with a bunch of strangers. Artist and model host, Charlie Ann Max, told the Times, she makes her events (there are others) look like Renaissance paintings because “it feels very romantic.” Not just anyone is invited, of course, Would-be uh.." Füdies," must fill out a form asking about any dietary restrictions and whether they have been involved in “any incidents that could be considered inappropriate or disrespectful during a nude or semi-nude event.”  No word if this includes events other than in a dining room. So, would that be that be an "Ewww!" or a "Yum ?"

A: I would think there might be an inherent problem, and I don’t know how to deal with it.  Would naked people confuse food with pulchritude, and literally want to eat the other people?  Would there be forkings?  This does remind me of a line – it was actually a footnote – in my first book, “The Hypochondriac’s Guide to Life. And Death.”   It reported an actual emergency room event in which doctors had to figure out what happened and were not getting great cooperation from the patients, a married  couple who had strange symptoms.  They were seriously injured, but okay, and very, very circumspect.  The man’s penis was rather severely lacerated, and the lady had multiple puncture wounds in the scalp.  This is all literally true , and you must buy the book immediately.   What doctors eventually determined was that the lady and gent had had a fine dinner with a great deal of wine, at the end of which the lady repaired to a place underneath the table where she began to perform a very intimate and loving act, during which, very tragically, she proceeded to have an epileptic seizure, involving teeth, and that is when the fork got frantically deployed by her husband…. 

TIMELY TIP FROM GENE: If you're reading this right now on an email:   Click here to get to my webpage, then click on the top headline (In this case, “Invitational Week 13… ” That way you’ll see my full column, all the pictures in this week’s Invite, the comments, and real-time questions and answers, and you’ll be able to refresh and see new questions and answers as I regularly update the post. And you will get really excited.

Q: Can song parodies be constructed from modern music any longer?

For example, what can someone do with a song like "Nonsense" by Sabrina Carpenter?

"This song catchier than chickenpox is
I bet your house is where my other sock is
Woke up this morning, thought I'd write a pop hit
How quickly can you take your clothes off pop quiz?"

A: Wow! No, that cannot be parodied. 

Q: I submitted a question a couple of iterations ago, but it never appeared. Not only did you not answer or take the opportunity to explain why I am an idiot, you apparently rejected it as unworthy of bytes. Granted, I *might* have used the phrase “breathe a sigh of relief,” which could have caused you to immediately vomit and inadvertently delete the question. Understandable. I don’t recall how I phrased it, but it didn’t seem at all offensive to me. So, my question now is whether there are certain standards questions have to meet, whether perhaps a question might sit in a queue for a few weeks before it appears here, some subjects are just off limits (it had to do with AI), or should I just take a hint already and unsubscribe with my tail between my legs? So to speak. Jen from DC

A: You need to be far less verbose.   You are making a very good start by calling yourself “Jen,” instead of Jennifer or Jennifoucious or whatever hideous  disaster you were given at birth.  Keep at it.  This will work, in time. 

Q: I’'ll see your dreadful writer and raise you by this:

“She instantly recalibrated her vibrancy to fit the contours of my attention, like a phone screen adjusting its brightness according to the light.

A: You are being too harsh.  I would call this excellent writing except for “vibrancy.”  The imagery is otherwise good!  

Q: What is your favorite color? 

A: Mauve, but only because I do not have any idea what it is.  Men do not.   Many years ago my son Dan explained to me what mauve was.   I was flabbergasted.  Slack-jawed.   He  got upset and said, accurately, peeved, “I work in a f—ing paint store, okay?” 

Q: As opening day is here I wonder if you are a practitioner of the spit ball? Or do you load up the ball with other substances? Also, I believe the Yankees are truly evil but I ask Hector Lopez or Aaron Judge?

A: The best thing about Hector Lopez was that his nickname was “Whatapairofhands,” which was not complimentary. Balls clanged off his glove.

Q: Why do people name their kids stupid versions of names that nobody can pronounce? Like Sssst for Forrest because there are four s or Kviiilyn for Kaitlyn because Roman numeral 8? And how long until someone names their kid Kixlyn (pronounce kninelyn) so they can be one better than Kviiilyn?

A: I think you know how I feel about this.   I despise people who name their kids idiot things because they see it as a chance to be “creative.”  I love my son-in-law Julien.  I had a moment when I wondered.  I am confessing it now.  I am sort of trembling, but when my grandson was about to be born, Julien told me that his preference was that it not be an “ordinary” name.   My daughter Molly was obviously to be essential to this decision, so I was not UNDULY worried, and then this happened, and I knew everything was going to be just fine.  

Q: Are you still alive or is artificial intelligence writing Your memoirs now?

A: That is a good question.  There are many historical allusions that are appropriate, beginning with Carthaginian times and extending through Mesopotamian.

Q: How many questions are actually not from family and close friends? One percent?

A: Only yours.  I’m Jewish.  All my family and friends are smarter than you.

Q:  Donkey. That is all. Now say something funny based on that. 

A: I grew up in NY City, which pronounces “donkey” to rhyme with junky.”    However most Midwestern goyim pronounced it DON-ky, which rhymes with honky, which is funnier. 

Q: If you're willing to travel to Chantilly, you can get fresh Sablefish for $32.95 a pound this week at a hole in the wall named Lobster Maine-ia. I've been making the trip out there for several years for their fish. Call them before you go to make sure they haven't run out of what you want.

A: Thank you. 

Q: Jamie Riley's genius was confirmed, for me, the day she anchored the Free for All page with a letter complaining (correctly, IMHO) about the Post's failure to acknowledge or cover Paul McCartney's sold-out concert in Baltimore last June, and gave every other letter a header referencing a Beatles song. Brilliantly done.

A: She is just terrific.

Q: Oh, for heaven's sake, Gene: I am 77 years old, and I have NEVER heard anyone ACTUALLY say 'cater-corner.' Not even Aunt Ethel, who taught me proper English. Yes, I know it's RIGHT, but it's never USED.

A: I had an Aunt Ethel who was an English teacher.   One day she came home from her job at William Howard Taft high school, absolutely weeping with laughter.   She declared that civilization was destroyed because she’d gone into the girls’ room and seen, scrawled on the wall in lipstick, “Fugh You.”

Q: Did you ever have a sexual experience you regretted?

A: You mean with another person?

Q: I saw Joshua Bell in concert several years ago and there was a question/answer period beforehand. He started by announcing that he wouldn't answer any questions about Fiddler in the Subway. So, what is his problem? I mean seriously. Cathy from Indianapolis.

A: I like Josh and consider him a friend. I do think for a period of time he regretted having participated in the story; it’s all he ever got asked about, and it was a stunt. I think he has embraced it since. Wait for the next Gene Pool. We’re gonna be addressing this in an entertaining way.

Q: As a professional cartoonist, did you ever contact Matt Janz about the similarity in the names of your "Gene Pool", versus his (retired) comic "Out of the Gene Pool"?

A: No, i am scared he will sue me. But i do believe Amy Lago was also his editor, so I think I might be inoculated.

Q: You're a "word" person, aren't you? I knew it! In addition to using "cater-cornered" should we start using "silly" to refer to someone who is happy or blessed? Or, has that ship sailed?

A: Not a clue.

Q: Would you rather be turned into oatmeal but retain your intelligence and consciousness or lose your intelligence and mental consciousness but retain your human form?

A: Ask Marjorie Taylor Greene.  She was given the same choice by God and chose unwisely. 

Q: Hi gene. This is Gregory Koch. I submitted the rabies is airborne question. Do I get credit for this now because I admitted it? Or would you like a sworn affidavit?

A: I will trust you and will be sending you $60,000. .

Okay, guys. We are down for the day. I just need to say something, because it is fair. That art at the top of this Gene Pool? It really really compliments me unduly. I am much uglier. But Pat looks EXACTLY like that painting. It could be a photograph.