Speaking of Gettysburg addresses, save the date -- Sunday, Oct. 19 -- for the annual Loser brunch and battlefield tour in G'burg, hosted by resident and 137-time Loser Roger Dalrymple. We've gone several times and it's fascinating and fun, especially since we moved it from the authentic heat of summer. Everyone is welcome, and carpools might be arranged from the D.C. area.
For more details -- as well as a tentative calendar of Loser events for the rest of the year -- See the "Our Social Engorgements" page at the Losers' website, NRARS.org.
Coming up on Sunday, July 26: Brunch at Busboys & Poets in Hyattsville, Md. RSVP on the same page. We'd love to meet some new Invite fans!
No! No! No! October 19 also is the date of this year's Washington Folk Festival at Glen Echo Park! (Not to be confused with the Washington Folklife Festival, which is a Smithsonian thing that happens on the National Mall on the week preceding July 4th, which is right now). We will feature many excellent musical acts, wonderful dance performance and participatory dances, and splendid storytelling.
There are NPS issues and issues with the Glen Echo Parks management that forced a move to one day in October. No telling when it might be next year. We had to make the decision about two months ago, but the advertising has not yet begun.
Do tell. What is fascinating and moreover fun, about visiting Gettysburg more than once? Or twice? Granted there are losers buried there but still, a strange and profoundly sad (IMO) venue for a celebration of Losing, if you do mind me saying.
We have a enjoyable brunch at a local pub, we tour the sites of the battles while our friend Roger, an experienced tour guide, explains the course of the three days, and then we often stop for some ice cream and visit the museum. Once we also stopped at the Monocacy battlefield. And we enjoy the company of fellow Invitational fans in a beautiful setting. So sorry you won't be there.
I have been and yes, it is beautiful and picturesque but surely there is just as beautiful a setting elsewhere to annually celebrate the fellowship of game playing other than a place where 7,000 died in battle. I'd also give the idyllic rural landscape and scenic beauty of Antietam a miss.
It's fun to drive up to the country and see what it's like in such a sparsely populated area. Lunch is around 11:30 so if you leave early you can explore the area on your own or after. There is an apple museum about 7 miles away, lots of historic inns and old fashioned restaurants, cute shopping.
The humor in your this week was not gut-busting, but amusing enough that I ruptured my semi-colon. This is the way the world ends, not with an interobang but a snark mark ~
Interesting that portrait of a 22-year-old Janis Joplin. It was taken in September 1965 shortly before she began her music career in earnest --- too-soon ended only five years later from a heroin overdose. First, it is colorized and probably airbrushed. It was originally b&w (https://panews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/Janis-Joplin-1965.jpg) and is on loan to the Smithsonian from the Museum of the Gulf Coast for a pending (although much would appear to be now eternally pending there) display in the National Portrait Gallery sometime next year. Too-soon gone, but never forgotten. The first song she wrote and recorded, from '62, "What Good Can Drinkin' Do." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fyQ1k94boE
Gluttons for punishment most Losers obviously are, I assume you will watch with um...relish...Joey Chestnut's return to the table at Nathan's for the annual July 4 spectacle of excess and vicarious nausea known as Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. Since sportsbooks will now apparently take bets on anything (including no doubt, how many times poop and roo-roo are likely to show up in these here parts), those thinking of having a flutter on the outcome (anyone?) should know that the odds are Chestnut at -2500 and the over/under (with total dogs consumed at... Urp! 71.5) is OVER a -125 favorite against the UNDER at -105. Sadly "Joey Jaws" (now ranked number one by Major League Eating) missed last year's Nathan's gorge-a-thon because he apparently had signed up to stuff his bun hole for another company and a (gasp!) plant-based hot dog outfit to boot. Probably should have been banned altogether from competitive eating for that alone. And since you asked, yes, there are competitive vegetable eating competitions guaranteed to gladden the hearts of mothers everywhere. Not surprisingly, there's even one for kale: Kale Yeah! in which contestants have eight minutes to down as much of the leafy green as they can bear. And if gorging on raw kale just doesn't quite present the challenge you're looking for, may I recommend the World Nettle Eating Championship held in Dorset, England for those for whom consuming 60 feet of stinging nettles is a mere snack. The hard bitten competition for this year was held a couple of weeks ago with the stinging victory in the men's category at 74 feet and the women's, just behind at 68 feet. A stinging endorsement if there ever was one.
In the World Nettle Eating Championship the winners in each category are judged by the number of two foot long nettle stalks they can strip of leaves by eating the stinging leaves raw. The stripped inedible stalks are then measured and the winners proclaimed. But then the Brits also engage in the ancient sport of shin-kicking (that's "shin" with an "n") in which competitors grab each other's shoulders and attempt to kick their opponent's shins until one falls. It's a featured event of the Cotswold Olimpick Games (originally Robert Drover's Games) held annually since 1612. Those Brits sure know how to have fun eh wot?
Not many participants lately for stuffing ferrets in your pants. Even harder to find spectators I would imagine. I have to assume the record of five hours and 30 minutes still stands
I suggest you and Pat are very much on the same humor wavelength. Both examples are double entendres. The difference is for you, only poo will do. Pat is far more sophisticated in her appreciation of bodily functions. My guess is you have always been a man of contradictions: simple jokes almost invariably dealing with bowel movements, yet your body of work shows you can also get your mind out of the toilet and deal with the other more transcendent of life's passages and processes. Like roo-roo.
Speaking of Gettysburg addresses, save the date -- Sunday, Oct. 19 -- for the annual Loser brunch and battlefield tour in G'burg, hosted by resident and 137-time Loser Roger Dalrymple. We've gone several times and it's fascinating and fun, especially since we moved it from the authentic heat of summer. Everyone is welcome, and carpools might be arranged from the D.C. area.
For more details -- as well as a tentative calendar of Loser events for the rest of the year -- See the "Our Social Engorgements" page at the Losers' website, NRARS.org.
Coming up on Sunday, July 26: Brunch at Busboys & Poets in Hyattsville, Md. RSVP on the same page. We'd love to meet some new Invite fans!
No! No! No! October 19 also is the date of this year's Washington Folk Festival at Glen Echo Park! (Not to be confused with the Washington Folklife Festival, which is a Smithsonian thing that happens on the National Mall on the week preceding July 4th, which is right now). We will feature many excellent musical acts, wonderful dance performance and participatory dances, and splendid storytelling.
When did they move it from June?
There are NPS issues and issues with the Glen Echo Parks management that forced a move to one day in October. No telling when it might be next year. We had to make the decision about two months ago, but the advertising has not yet begun.
Do tell. What is fascinating and moreover fun, about visiting Gettysburg more than once? Or twice? Granted there are losers buried there but still, a strange and profoundly sad (IMO) venue for a celebration of Losing, if you do mind me saying.
We have a enjoyable brunch at a local pub, we tour the sites of the battles while our friend Roger, an experienced tour guide, explains the course of the three days, and then we often stop for some ice cream and visit the museum. Once we also stopped at the Monocacy battlefield. And we enjoy the company of fellow Invitational fans in a beautiful setting. So sorry you won't be there.
I have been and yes, it is beautiful and picturesque but surely there is just as beautiful a setting elsewhere to annually celebrate the fellowship of game playing other than a place where 7,000 died in battle. I'd also give the idyllic rural landscape and scenic beauty of Antietam a miss.
It's fun to drive up to the country and see what it's like in such a sparsely populated area. Lunch is around 11:30 so if you leave early you can explore the area on your own or after. There is an apple museum about 7 miles away, lots of historic inns and old fashioned restaurants, cute shopping.
OMG these Trump entries are the best. Scary how well people nailed it (him). Nicely done, peoples.
💯
Jeffrey Cs “bravely fought to defend their property “ shoulda won. It’s viciously and truly funny.
It's a bit subtle! My hunch is that some people read over this one and it didn't sink in.
Possibly.
Interrobang: When you ask your partner after sex, "Was it good for you?"
If you have to ask the question, you probably have an idea of what the answer will be. And you won't like it.
Janis Joplin.
Joplin is correct!!!!
I got this immediately without looking at any comments. Why? Because it looks just like her.
I guessed Grace Slick.
Me too
I guessed Michelle Phillips.
That was my first guess too!
The humor in your this week was not gut-busting, but amusing enough that I ruptured my semi-colon. This is the way the world ends, not with an interobang but a snark mark ~
Interesting that portrait of a 22-year-old Janis Joplin. It was taken in September 1965 shortly before she began her music career in earnest --- too-soon ended only five years later from a heroin overdose. First, it is colorized and probably airbrushed. It was originally b&w (https://panews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/Janis-Joplin-1965.jpg) and is on loan to the Smithsonian from the Museum of the Gulf Coast for a pending (although much would appear to be now eternally pending there) display in the National Portrait Gallery sometime next year. Too-soon gone, but never forgotten. The first song she wrote and recorded, from '62, "What Good Can Drinkin' Do." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fyQ1k94boE
For one thing, drinkin' can't buy you a Mercedes Benz.
Who is the singer in the photo?
I guess Dionne Warwick.
I knew it was Janis Joplin before I read the answer.
As did I.
Grace Slick?
Nope.
I also guessed Grace Slick.
I liked Rob Cohen's because it's so true about Trump buying people as demonstrated yesterday by our boughten Congress.
I think the photo of the young woman is a youthful Janis Joplin. Is it?
Why were class portraits taken in 3/4 profile? What were the instructions— look dreamily off into a distant corner?
I remember having to do some weird-ass contortion looking over my shoulder.
Gluttons for punishment most Losers obviously are, I assume you will watch with um...relish...Joey Chestnut's return to the table at Nathan's for the annual July 4 spectacle of excess and vicarious nausea known as Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. Since sportsbooks will now apparently take bets on anything (including no doubt, how many times poop and roo-roo are likely to show up in these here parts), those thinking of having a flutter on the outcome (anyone?) should know that the odds are Chestnut at -2500 and the over/under (with total dogs consumed at... Urp! 71.5) is OVER a -125 favorite against the UNDER at -105. Sadly "Joey Jaws" (now ranked number one by Major League Eating) missed last year's Nathan's gorge-a-thon because he apparently had signed up to stuff his bun hole for another company and a (gasp!) plant-based hot dog outfit to boot. Probably should have been banned altogether from competitive eating for that alone. And since you asked, yes, there are competitive vegetable eating competitions guaranteed to gladden the hearts of mothers everywhere. Not surprisingly, there's even one for kale: Kale Yeah! in which contestants have eight minutes to down as much of the leafy green as they can bear. And if gorging on raw kale just doesn't quite present the challenge you're looking for, may I recommend the World Nettle Eating Championship held in Dorset, England for those for whom consuming 60 feet of stinging nettles is a mere snack. The hard bitten competition for this year was held a couple of weeks ago with the stinging victory in the men's category at 74 feet and the women's, just behind at 68 feet. A stinging endorsement if there ever was one.
Who eats their vegetables by length?
In the World Nettle Eating Championship the winners in each category are judged by the number of two foot long nettle stalks they can strip of leaves by eating the stinging leaves raw. The stripped inedible stalks are then measured and the winners proclaimed. But then the Brits also engage in the ancient sport of shin-kicking (that's "shin" with an "n") in which competitors grab each other's shoulders and attempt to kick their opponent's shins until one falls. It's a featured event of the Cotswold Olimpick Games (originally Robert Drover's Games) held annually since 1612. Those Brits sure know how to have fun eh wot?
I understand some of them do ferret-legging as well
Not many participants lately for stuffing ferrets in your pants. Even harder to find spectators I would imagine. I have to assume the record of five hours and 30 minutes still stands
Was that picture of Janis in Buried Alive? I thought that I had seen it before.
I suggest you and Pat are very much on the same humor wavelength. Both examples are double entendres. The difference is for you, only poo will do. Pat is far more sophisticated in her appreciation of bodily functions. My guess is you have always been a man of contradictions: simple jokes almost invariably dealing with bowel movements, yet your body of work shows you can also get your mind out of the toilet and deal with the other more transcendent of life's passages and processes. Like roo-roo.