The Invitational Week 22: Picture This

It's caption contest time, with eight motley pictures to choose from. Plus zingy 4-line poems.

The first of the pictures in The Invitational’s caption contest this week.

Hello. This week we bring you the second caption contest of the Gene Pool Era, with another set of motley photos, centuries-old art … and a cartoon drawn especially for this contest by comic strip artist David Clark, inventor of the art for “Barney & Clyde,” a comic strip about a friendship between a billionaire and a homeless man. But first, we bash Republicans for being horrible human beings while we are supposed to pretend this isn’t happening and everything is fine and we are engaged in normal political discourse.

Gene will hereby now do this regrettable but necessary task in one paragraph:

Modern-day Republicans want us all to carry bazookas and shoot each other in the head because of the Second Amendment. They think trans people are a subordinate clause to humanity. They think health care has to make a profit for shareholders. They think children should work in meatpacking plants until 10 p.m. They count among their respected leaders utter maniacs like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who sees a conspiracy of Jewish “gazpacho police” wielding space lasers. They think it is okay to overturn an election by shouting. They want history to be defined, by federal law, as an inexorable march of White People Doing the Right Thing. They think women have abortions for fun. They think that parents who accidentally kill their children by leaving them in hot cars should be executed. Why have we normalized this? If he were alive today, William McKinley never would have approved of any of this and he was a Republican.

Anyway, that is all that is to be said on this matter except that if, tomorrow, Lauren Boebert declared that, say, Minneapolis needed to be assassinated, everyone in the Republican Party would deal with it as just another opinion worthy of robust debate.

However, it is is time to do some caption writing. So.

For Week 22:  Write a caption — as many as 25 total — for any of the pictures below or the one above. Begin each caption only with the letter on the picture — as in   A. [your caption]  — so that the Empress can sort the captions by picture.  (Losers, you’ve become so much better following the directions lately!) If you’re new to The Invitational, take a look at the results of Week 6 to see what we like in a caption.

Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to bit.ly/inv-form-22. As usual, you can submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same entry form. See more formatting directions on the form.

Deadline is Saturday, June 10, at 4 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, June 15. You need to be a paying subscriber to The Gene Pool to enter; to sign up, click on the “subscribe” or “upgrade” button above (just $5 for a month or $50/year).

This week’s winner, apropos of our fine-art theme, gets a sheet of Bob Ross temporary tattoos depicting photos or drawings of the artist’s whitefroed head, with such messages as “Have a happy little hair day” and “Trees are friends.” Donated by Loser Jeff Contompasis. Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in a variety of designs that we’re still coming up with. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for the Fir Stink for First Ink air “freshener” and a sweet email from the Empress.

Before the results of Week 20, 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 Gene will keep adding them as the hour progresses and your fever for his opinions grows and multiplies and metastasizes.  To see those later Q&As, refresh your screen occasionally. 

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.

Fourplay: Clerihews and Poeds from Week 20

In Week 20 we asked for either of two forms of four-line poems: clerihews, which start with a person’s name, have at least one rhyme, and comically lose any sense of meter; and the more challenging poeds, whose lines consist of (1) six one-syllable words; (2) three two-syllables; (3) two threes; and (4) one long, possibly ridiculous six-syllable word. We’re running only one of the many clerihews that rhyme “Ron DeSantis” with “praying mantis.”

Third runner-up (clerihew):
Senator Chuck Grassley
Wouldn’t dream of suggesting crassly
That his colleague Dianne Feinstein resign,
Because he’s also eighty-nine. (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.) 

Second runner-up (clerihew):
Dylan Mulvaney
Has made a lot of drinkers suddenly abstainy,
As Bud Light is featuring her even though she’s declared she’s trans, in no uncertain terms;
This has opened up cans of both beer and worms. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.) 

First runner-up (clerihew):
Elon Musk
Paid too much for Twitter, tried to back out, fired over half the staff, then decreed that the remaining employees should work from dawn past dusk.
Hopefully this will end his reputation as a genius
And expose him as just one more rich guy with a tiny penius. (Michael Stein, Arlington, Va.) 

And the winner of the Cat in the Hat socks (poed):
Is our speech too coarse now?
Vulgar, tasteless drivel,
Routinely uncivil? 
Absofuckinglutely. (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.)

We Are Not a Muse: Honorable Mentions

CLERIHEWS

Clarence Thomas
Said, “I’m not corrupt, pinky promise!
Why should I exhibit any shred of decency, shame or contrition?
I mean, who among us doesn't have such good friends that they foot the bill for your kid’s private school tuition?” (Karen Lambert, Chevy Chase, Md.)

J.K. Rowling
Might have started out just trolling.
But now you can't hop on Twitter for even the briefest surf
Without seeing her thrashing around trying to defend her TERF. (David Smith, Pleasanton, Calif.) 

E. Jean Carroll
Has managed to get Trump over a barrel.
Content with her original court victory until
He still wouldn’t shut up, repeating the same crap that cost him the first 5, so now she's going for another 10 mil. (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.) 

Daniel Snyder –
Perpetual despair provider –
Finds it satisfyingly amusing
That there’s such good money in losing. (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.) 

Dan Snyder
Is packing his belongings into a truck rented from Ryder.
Will fans go wish him a fond adieu?
You’re more likely to hear a hearty bieu. (Duncan Stevens)

Patti LuPone
Has earned her place on Broadway’s throne.
And while she has repeatedly stated that she’s quitting the the-ayter,
She keeps postponing said departure until later. (Seth Christenfeld, Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.) 

LeBron James 
Hints he might play no more games.
I’ll take odds he won’t be happy when the ballyhoo has shrunken
And donuts are all he’s dunkin’. (Pam Shermeyer)

Something about Senator Josh Hawley
Reminds me of a spider, slug, or other creepy-crawly – 
That self-appointed arbiter of manhood
Who on January 6 showed off his fierce got-up-and-ranhood. (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)  

Saffie, Joseph Jr.,
Trains horses in methods maybe loonier
Than normal, given that just before the Kentucky Derby, equestrians
Rode two of his horses that made them pedestrians. (Dave Prevar, Annapolis, Md.)

Covington (Todd):
Nurse and firefighter turned ballpark god.
His quick-thinking Heimlich manuever
Caused a choking fan’s wedged snack food to unhoover. (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)

Ron DeSantis:
His presidential campaign’s chant is
“Make America Florida!”
What could be horrida? (Frank Osen) 

Ron DeSantis
Has all the charm and warmth of a dining praying mantis.
He’s found it rewarding to beat up on immigrants, women, gay and trans folks, African Americans, librarians, doctors, professors, and others, but surely he’s foolish to take on Disney...
Isney?  (David Smith)

Matt Gaetz:
A guy Kevin McCarthy hates
But, sad to say,
Must obey. (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.) 

Rodgers, Aaron,
A different green you'll be wearin’.
Playing for the Packers made you upset?
Oh, you ain't seen nothin’, Jet. (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)

Poor Chris Christie!
Such a masochist, he
Hasn’t got enough of being dissed — he wants more
In 2024. (Mark Raffman)

POEDS

A fount of crap and lies,
Bigmouth Donald supplies
Round-the-clock poppycock:
Mar-a-Logorrhea. (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.) 

Trump’s back for one more run.
Meaner, ruder, lewder,
Oranger, chubbier,
Beelzebubbier. (Jon Carter, Fredericksburg, Va.) 

Wives at times hide blue pills,
Dodging husbands’ nightly
Remaining uprightly.
Viagraphobia. (Chris Doyle) 

Why do some men not like
Martha Stewart’s cover?
Possibly, semi-nude
Gerontopulchritude?  (Mark Raffman) 

And last:
Gene and Pat said oy vey
Reading poems manqué:
Doggerel displaying
Clerihewmorlessness. (Chris Doyle) 

The headline “Fourplay” is by Tom Witte; Jon Gearhart wrote the honorable-mentions subhead. 

Still running — deadline 4 p.m. ET Saturday, June 3: Our Week 21 contest to describe a comically more realistic plot point in a given movie, TV show, or work of literature. Click here or type in bit.ly/inv-week-21. 

See more about The Invitational, including our 2,600-member Facebook group, the Losers’ website, and our podcast.

Okay, now for your questions and Gene’s answers.

Q: What is the best poem you ever wrote?  

A: I was 13 or 14. It was in class. We were learning about haiku. I wrote: “As death draws nearer / like an eagle hunting prey / life becomes dearer.”  I got a C because haiku, according to the teacher, cannot rhyme.  I broke a rule. I have been breaking rules, joyfully, ever since.

Q: What is your greatest achievement? 

A: I have failed at many things and been handsomely rewarded for things I did not deserve.  I think it is possible that the best thing I have ever done is the Invitational, because of its longevity, the sense of community it created, and finding Pat Myers. Also, I once bowled a 235. 

TIMELY TIP: 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, “The Invitational … “) for my full column, and comments, and real-time questions and answers. And you can refresh and see new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post from about noon to 1 ET.

Q: Leonard Cohen said that men are handsome, then invisible, then hideous, then cute. And that was where he was.

A: I do not know what this question is about; however, Garry Trudeau once told me, despairingly, that after a certain age, men begin to “melt.”   Which I thought was brilliant.  He also once drew a genius Sunday strip in which a young checkout girl in a grocery is talking to no one, ringing up products.  You see there is someone there – two people – but they are invisible, just asterisks.  She is doing her job, eyes down at the products. Competent.  Then the two asterisks leave.  And we see they are BD and Mike, and they just say, “Yeah, it’s been going on for a few years now. “ 

Q: Do you really hate Republicans?  

A: Hate is an ugly word.   I disrespect modern Republicans, and  I do not understand how anyone decent can NOT disrespect them.  They are in the thrall of an evil idiot, having sacrificed their honor and character to political expediency. I don’t think you need to be a Democrat or liberal to understand this. I don’t think you need to be philosophically opposed to conservatism.  I think William F. Buckley would despise modern Republicans.  I’m not sure we’ve ever seen anything like this.  It’s why I wrote that overheated intro.  It’s only slightly exaggerated!  We are normalizing stupidity, bigotry and lack of compassion.   

Q: Funniest thing that ever happened with a car. My car was towed out of the mud by an elephant.

A: Okay, this made me laugh out loud.   Is it true?  Details, please.

A: Also, why do we never hear about quicksand anymore?  Is there such a thing?  Was it just from 1950s westerns?   

A: Also, and this is off-point a little bit, but has it ever occurred to you that we don’t actually sit on a “toilet seat?”  We sit on those three or four little rubber nubs UNDER the toilet seat.  They elevate the seat.  

Q: What is the most recent movie you watched? 

A: Depends on what you mean by “recent.”  Last night I watched “Compulsion,” the 1959 movie about the Leopold-Loeb case.  Genius performances by Bradford Dillman,  Dean Stockwell, and Orson Welles.  Unless you intend to watch the whole thing, watch this final 10 minutes: Welles plays Darrow, after pleading his clients guilty so he doesn’t need to go to a jury, but can appeal directly to one man, the judge. 

FUNNY CAR STORY:

It was late 1988, and my husband had just returned home to the D.C. area from a year-long deployment in Korea. We would need a second car. Hubby decided that he was going to do something fun, and treat himself to an older classic - some 1960s or early-'70s-era high-performance kind of vehicle. He was home now, meaning he had access to the checkbook and credit card statements detailing my spending over the past year. So naturally, I said, "Sure honey, whatever you want!" Being pre-internet days, he took to circling used-car ads in the paper. 

He was particularly interested in checking out a big old Buick Wildcat that some guy was selling down in Fredericksburg, Virginia. We set off to see it late one evening. It seemed great (in the dark), had lots of car stuff under the hood, the engine sounded engine-y. The seller explained it had belonged to his later mother, a widow down in Florida who only drove it back and forth to church on Sundays. We figured that had to be true; if he were making it up, he would have come up with something less cliched. Handshakes and money were exchanged. We drive home to Alexandria, my husband in his new toy, and I followed behind.

All the way up I-95 on the 50-ish mile drive home, I kept wondering why he was driving so darn slowly. Luckily, there were very few cars on the road, or they’d all be flying by us. You'd think he'd want to let that powerful V-8 engine rip. We arrived home and he LEAPED out of the car with a cheshire cat grin and ran over to me. "Did you see how that baby flew?! How'd you keep up? I had her up to 80 and she's so powerful it felt like we were barely moving!" "Yeah, funny thing about that, sweetie," I said. "You WERE barely moving. You never broke 50 miles an hour." The crestfallen look on that man's face made me want to reach out and hold him before he started to cry. I hesitated though, because if I got that close, he would hear how I was struggling to squelch the guffaws. The sympathetic wife demeanor I exhibited that night remains my best performance in 38 years of marriage. 

Okay, he reasoned, a broken speedometer isn't the end of the world. It's still a sweet ride. Winter was setting in, and a few days later, he found himself needing to turn on the heat on his way to work. Oddly enough, he couldn't get it to work. Great, he thought, something else I'll need to get repaired. Oh, but good news awaited him: there would be no need to fix the heater. Because there was no heater. It had been removed. Little old ladies living in tropical Florida evidently have no need for car heaters on their short jaunts to church once a week. 

Recognizing this as the sign it was meant to be, we sold the Wildcat within a few weeks. Realizing he probably just wasn't a muscle car kind of guy, my sensible husband came home with a boring little 4-cylinder Hyundai sedan a few days later. 

Hildy Zampella

A: Thank you for the story, Hildy.   I like your name because it reminds me of Hildy Johnson, the fictional journalist who was both male and female.  https://jheroes.com/2011/02/10/hildy-johnson/

But also because your story reminded me of Rachel (female, I am informed) who inherited a car from her grandma Libby, who died in her 90s.  (I promise the story gets funnier.)  Grandma Libby’s car was a 2001 Honda Accord with 10,000 miles on it, which is unremarkable except for the fact that Rachel inherited it in, roughly, 2013.   Yes, it had literally been a car driven only to church on Sundays by a little old lady.  It now has 60,000 miles on it and is somewhat dented.  It looks like a Raisinet. Rachel loved her grandma, and her grandma loved her, and both women would be proud of the fine wear and tear this car has absorbed. 

Grandma Libby was a tough cookie. No nonsense.  A nurse.  Just the facts, ma’am.   Rachel was born alarmingly prematurely, on June 8, 1984, and one of her most cherished possessions is a page from Grandma’s June 1984 calendar. We have it framed on the wall.   

At the time, it was not entirely clear the baby would survive. This is the entirety of Grandma Libby’s entries for June. June : “Rachel born. 3:10 am, 5 lb 5 oz.” Seven days later: “Margaret (Rachel’s ma) home from hospital.”  Eight days later: “Rachel home.”  That’s it.  Just the facts.  I know that Libby would be proud of the indomitable state of her car.  It will last forever.  

Q: I saw an error message on a computer that said "A minidump has been created" and was way too amused. Is this the best error ever?  

A: One of my favorite expressions is “void where prohibited.” 

Q: I know you are Jewish, but do you FEEL Jewish? 

A: Only when I am consumed by guilt.  

Q: Have you ever made up a question for The Gene Pool? 

A: Only this one. 

Q: Contest idea: If dogs (or cats, hamsters, iguanas, goats, sheep, chickens, etc) could talk, what would they say about the strange things people do? — Jon Gearhart, Des Moines, IA

A Hey, Jon.   I am a lover of animals.  My daughter is a veterinarian.  But I fear the only honest answer is “Duh.”

Hi. This is Gene. I am responding to a previous question that I have lost track of, but it involved a car trip. Trust me on this: Here we go. True story.

This reminds me of something that happened to me when I was a young dad.  Wife and two young kids were vacationing in the Yucatan.  We had rented an ancient VW Beetle.  Driving on a highway.   Plenty of gas.  Until realized it had been a looong time since the needle on the gas gauge had moved.   So I flicked it, and suddenly it showed I had virtually no gas.  

No problem, I thought.  There was a sign for a gas station about ten miles away.   Then we passed it.  I was closed.   Then I realized the next gas station was about 40 miles away.  Then I got really panicky because I had just read a story about people who run out of gas in the Yucatan getting their heads cut off by machetes wielded by highway robbers, often involving rape.  I do not know if this was true but the point is I believed it. 

It was a horrifying 20 miles, during which I tried to project insouciance to my family because I did not wish to acknowledge to myself, let alone them, how recklessly stupid I had been.  And then… there was a sign for the airport.  I exited, went to the airport, pulled up to a gas pump intended for airport vehicles, and refused to leave.  I used my paltry Spanish to indicate that I was willing to pay an enormous amount of money, American, for a gallon of gas.  $25 in 1978 currency, cash.  Cash speaks.  A deal was cut.  No heads were severed. 

Q: When I was 16 years old, I finally talked a girl I really liked into going on a date with me. I was so excited for the date that I started getting ready like 2 hours before the time I was supposed to pick her up, even though she lived about 10 minutes away and — as a teenaged boy — I would have been hard-pressed to even IMAGINE acts of grooming and dressing for myself that could possibly take longer than an hour. But despite being way too early, and knowing that I was way too early, the combination of eagerness and the relentless machinery of the getting-ready process left me ready to go a solid 45 minutes before the appointed time. 

With literally nothing else to do, I got in my car and started off towards her place. Maybe this would be the day it takes an extra half an hour to drive over there, I thought. But Newtonian physics being what they are, proceeding along my path at normal velocity resulted in me approaching her place half an hour early. 

Being a dummy, I panicked. I’ll go get some gas first, I thought, and drove past her house. Then another five minutes down the road I panicked again and thought I might end up being late, which assuredly would be worse than being early. I resolved to turn around in the nearest driveway and go back.

My headlights shined on a mailbox in the dark, and I quickly turned into the nearby gravel driveway, which immediately pitched downwards at a sharp decline. This was all farm country, and long driveways with unusual geography were not unfamiliar. But my heavy rear-wheel drive car was not able to back out from the sharp downhill position. I resolved to drive down a little further to where the ground was flat and turn around there. So I proceeded to do so. And immediately got stuck.

You see, this wasn’t just farmland, this was *freshly-tilled* farmland. The soft earth consumed my tires like a hearty breakfast. I jumped out, surveyed the situation, panicked for a third time, and immediately got down on my hands and knees in the mud to try to dig out my tires.

At some point during this process, the people who lived there came home, causing me to panic an unprecedented fourth time that evening. The dad got out, surveyed what I was doing, asked me some questions (the first one being “have you been drinking?”),  then sighed and walked up his driveway to get his tractor to pull me out. 

The entire process of getting the tractor, driving over in it, hooking up my car, and pulling it out of the muck took about an hour. I was now extremely late and covered head to toe in dirt, but — young love and hope springing eternal and whatnot — once my car was free I drove straight over to her place. 

I told her what happened, and all things considered she took it very well. It only stung a little when she said she’d been ready for hours and it wouldn’t have been a problem if I was early.

There was no second date.

A: Very well writ. Did I use this before? I feel I might have, but if so, it bears repeating.

Q: have a 2000 Toyota Echo. It’s black and Vintage. I was coming out of my local grocery chain one day, and I couldn’t remember where I parked, as happens a lot. Oh! There it is. I put the key in the trunk to open it and put my groceries in (because my car doesn’t have an automatic door opener) . What do I see? It’s not my car! Totally unfamiliar things in the trunk. I snapped it closed….looked around to see if anyone saw and went off to look for my, old, vintage Echo….evidently the second one owned in my town!

A: One of the best columns I ever edited was by Dave Barry, about his ma. She is where he got this sense of humor. She had parked in a mall parking lot and totally forgotten where she had parked. Not a clue. A kindly mall security guy drove her around the entire lot for 25 minutes, looking for her white Toyota van. Nothing. Then she realized she had taken the other family car, a red Honda Civic. I do not recall the exact makes and models, but you get the idea.

Q: Gene, has anyone ever tried to explain to you your obsession with excretory functions? Like a psychologist or someone? I’m not really interested in the reason, but I think someone trying to explain it maybe hilarious.

A: Your problem is that you have not given this enough thought. Excretory functions are the very basis of sophisticated humor. They define the irony of life; we like to think of ourselves as the highest life form, and yet we have to do this ridiculous thing. It completely exposes our lie. The very first joke was a fart. The second joke was from ancient Sumeria, I believe, noting that there has never been a bride who has not farted in her husband’s lap.

Hey, I started early so am going to call this off a little early. Please send in more questions and comments and I will corral them for Tuesday.