The Invitational Week 50: Nextra! Nextra!
Tell us the funny news events of 2024. Plus bad news spun winningly into humor.
Hello. The Invitational is coming up, right after you take a Gene Pool Gene Poll, voting for the best of five jokes told at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival:
A. I have an unconscious bias. I’m biased firmly towards being unconscious.
B. Cats are like strippers – they sit on your lap and make you think they love you.
C. Everyone says your 20s are all about finding yourself. If that’s true, your 30s are about wishing you’d found somebody else.
D. What does Kylie Minogue sing while counting sheep? “I can’t get ewe out of my head.”
E. Last year, I had a great joke about inflation. But it’s hardly worth it now.
The Seers’ Catalog: Our annual Next Year in Review contest
March 28, 2024: On Opening Day, Shohei Ohtani immediately justifies his unprecedented $700 million contract by pitching a shutout for the L.A. Dodgers while also hitting three home runs, nailing a pitch-perfect “Star-Spangled Banner,” and selling a record 243 hot dogs between innings in Section 115.
February: After President Biden slips on a banana peel while walking to the podium for a speech in Portsmouth, N.H., supermarket security footage from that morning surfaces of a woman resembling Vice President Harris furtively purchasing two bunches of Chiquitas.
Not gonna lie — we’re a bit worried about what could happen in 2024. A bit worried as in seriously considering not getting out of bed ever again beginning on the evening of next November 4. But for now, we might as well get the laughs in for The Invitational’s annual Year in Preview chronicle.
This week for Invitational Week 50: Tell us as many as twenty-five humorous events that “happen” in 2024 — as in the examples above by 97-time Loser Malcolm Fleschner, who’s been writing his own Year in Preview calendar each year in his column Culture Schlock, and who inspired the Empress to steal his idea. Write them in present tense.
So how did The Invitational’s 2023 predictions fare? Here’s a sampling from Week 2 (complete results here):
May 6: Harry and Meghan are allowed to attend King Charles III’s coronation, on the condition that they walk behind the royal carriage with brooms and buckets. (Pam Shermeyer) [Only Harry went, sans bucket but shunted to the sidelines]
A new study reveals that 45 percent of the nation’s shirkers are now teleshirking. (Jesse Frankovich)
George Santos tearfully reveals he’s the secret love child of Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa. (Leif Picoult)
And this got it partially right: Tucker Carlson is fired from Fox as being too “woke” when it is revealed that his testicle-tanning machine is solar-powered, using absolutely no fossil fuels. (John Hutchins)
Click here for this week’s entry form. Or go to bit.ly/inv-form-50. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form. No special formatting directions except our standard plea that you keep each entry on its own line: i.e., don’t push Enter anywhere within a single entry.
Deadline is Saturday, Dec. 23, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Dec. 28.
The winner gets, as this annus horribilus horribles its way to its end, this Loserly wooden ornament, which we’ll sign if you like and won’t if you don’t.
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 personal email from the Empress.
Meanwhile, we need questions / observations / reactions. Send them to this tasteful orange button:
Varnishing Acts: The positive spins of Week 48
In Week 48 we asked you to choose any downbeat sentence or headline from that week’s news, and rewrite it to make it sound like good news.
Third runner-up:
Original: 2 Stabbings in 2 Days at New York City Schools
Spun version: Students Learn to Settle Arguments Without Guns (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)
Second runner-up:
O: Shopping carts are known to be contaminated with bacteria and viruses.
S: You can boost your immune system while selecting your groceries! (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)
First runner-up:
O: Body of Male Juvenile Recovered at Pond in Waukee
S: Middle-Aged Police Officer Has the Body of a Teenager (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)
And the winner of the deceptively complimentary tape measure (see description in the Week 48 announcement):
O: Candy company Mars uses cocoa harvested by kids as young as 5 in Ghana
S: Mars Inc. recognized for its work with children (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)
Glossed Under: Honorable mentions
Original: Shark Sends Swimmers Fleeing in Fear at Popular Australian Surf Spot
Spin: 27 Aussie Swimmers Set New Personal Bests in One Day (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)
O: Car crashes through wall of Summerlin bank
S: Summerlin bank now open 24 hours (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)
O: Police ramp up citations to reduce interstate traffic problems
S: As holidays approach, police are in a giving mood (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)
O: Patriots’ dismal performance reaches historic lows not seen since the 1930s
S: Pats’ season is one for the record books (Frank Osen)
O: People increasingly think it’s over [for DeSantis]. It’s a dumpster fire.
S: DeSantis gives off a lot of warmth on the campaign trail. (Sarah Walsh, Rockville, Md.)
O: 60 students fall sick due to suspected food poisoning after eating in school mess
S: Here’s one way to avoid gaining that ‘freshman 15’ (Frank Osen)
O: Cheney notes that when she first saw the photo of McCarthy meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 28, 2021 … she thought the photograph was a fake, believing “not even Kevin McCarthy could be this craven.”
S: Cheney says McCarthy truly exceeded her expectations. (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)
O: Southeast Texas and Houston face risk of severe storms, tornadoes
S: Texas line-hung laundry to be washed and dried for free (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)
O: If convicted, Patel may be required to forfeit property “in the amount of at least $22,221,454.40, which represents the proceeds of the offense”
S: Amit Patel did not steal $23 million, his defense attorney says. (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)
O (New York Post): Loud fart sound erupts during John Kerry’s speech at climate panel
S: Methane emissions are front and center at Dubai conference (Frank Osen)
O: Musk told advertisers who have fled his social media platform X over antisemitic content to “Go fuck yourself.”
S: Musk said he hopes his onetime advertisers can find satisfaction elsewhere. (Leif Picoult; Paul Styrene, Olney, Md.; Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)
O: Teacher loses it and throws chair after being “disrespected” by students
S: Educator takes novel approach to demonstrating Newton’s First Law (Stu Segal, Southeast U.S.)
O: LAPD patrol car crashes into building, hits pedestrian
S: Police are establishing close contact with the community (Frank Osen)
O: Why Are Nonprofit Hospitals Focused More on Dollars Than Patients?
S: Nonprofit Hospitals Go Green (Leif Picoult)
O: Climate change is pushing Earth toward these 5 disastrous scenarios
S; Climate change debate is close to being resolved (Jon Gearhart)
O: Florida is one of the states now reporting “high” levels of respiratory illnesses.
S: Many find Florida in the winter truly breathtaking. (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)
O: More people are dying in Puerto Rico as its health-care system crumbles
S: Business climate improves for San Juan funeral homes (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)
O: Man attacks woman for not paying for his drink
S: Man boldly challenges traditional gender roles in dating (Jonathan Jensen)
O: Buying guns for criminals: Easy, illegal and ‘extremely difficult’ to stop
S: Gift shopping for that difficult relative? Now it’s a snap (Duncan Stevens)
O: Federal failure could lower financial aid for college students
S: Hiring prospects look bright for McDonald’s near campus (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)
O: Playing in a cold and steady downpour in front of a half-empty stadium, the Patriots continued their joyless decline.
S: Playing in a cold and steady downpour in front of a half-full stadium, the Patriots continued their joyless decline. (Jesse Frankovich)
The headline “Varnishing Acts” is by Kevin Dopart; Kevin also wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.
Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, Dec. 16: Our Week 49 contest for captions to various cartoons, paintings, and photos.
Last, if you are a free subscriber and can afford a paid subscription, please consider supporting The Gene Pool. Our paying subscribers let us continue to expand and experiment while keeping most of this newsletter free and open to all. It’s $50 a year or $5 a month.
We will see you at the famous Weekend Gene Pool, and then on Tuesday. Please send your observations here:
Here comes the real-time segment. If you are in real time, please keep refreshing your screen so you can see your observations and Gene’s responses. Many of your observation are about your experiences with crime, as solicited in the Weekend Gene Pool.
Q: Okay, you told two Cold War jokes. Here’s a third.
In 1974, Leonid Brezhnev, who was then general secretary of the Soviet Communist party, was planning a state visit to Warsaw. He wanted to bring a suitable gift for the Polish prime minister, and had the idea of commissioning a painting with the theme of “Lenin in Poland”. What could be more suitable to commemorate his own state visit, he thought, than with a painting of a similar visit by the first leader of the Soviet Union.
The problem was that Lenin had never made a state visit to Poland, and all the Soviet realist artists were having a hard time coming up with an idea for a painting of an event that had never actually occurred. Finally, they were desperate; it was three weeks until the trip and nothing had been done. So Brezhnev had the KGB visit the home of a dissident Jewish artist. They said to him, “Look, we know you’ve had your differences with the State. But you do this painting and you’ll get a fine apartment, shopping privileges, yadda, yadda.” The artist said, “OK, I’ll do it.”
Three weeks later, the day before the trip; the painting was ready. The artist brought the painting, covered with a dropcloth, to Brezhnev’s office and set it on an easel. All the members of the Politburo are there. Brezhnev snaps, “Show us the painting.” The artist removes the dropcloth; there are gasps throughout the room. The painting is of a man and woman in bed together.
Somebody shouts, “Who is that man?” The artist says, “That’s Trotsky”. More gasps.
“And who is that woman?” “Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife.”
Brezhnev thunders, “And where is Lenin?”
“Lenin’s in Poland.”
A: Excellent.
—
Q: It was 2010 and my husband and I were crossing the border between Kenya and Tanzania on a public bus. It was either before or after we had climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. I was 51 and my husband was 73. The driver warned his passengers to walk quickly to the customs office to avoid being accosted by pickpockets. I guess I didn’t walk fast enough because I was immediately surrounded by a gang of teenagers. A few nanoseconds later, a teenager yells at me and is holding my wallet. He made himself out to be the hero, claiming to have retrieved my wallet from the thieves.
Not surprisingly, it was emptied of about $200 in cash, but happily it still had all credit cards and my driver’s license. I reported what had happened to the bus driver. He feigned outrage and told me to follow him. “Somehow” he knew exactly where to take me, behind some shanties, where we came upon a group of youths. The driver launched into a heated back and forth discussion with the group in a language I couldn’t understand. The conversation ended with someone in the group handing back about half the amount that was stolen from me. I presume the entire ordeal was orchestrated, scripted and choreographed, and repeated several times a day.
A: A classic scam. Reminds me of this scene from The Sting.
Q; Not sure if it's funny or ironic, but in 2005, my wife Karen became a semi-national story when she stopped a local burglary wave by shopping on EBay. We came home one spring afternoon to find that our sliding glass backdoor had been smashed in with a patio stone and our house ransacked and burglarized. Among the things stolen were a computer or two and an Ipod which had been a gift from my wife to me and contained an inscription of a lyric from a John Hiatt song on the back.
About a week later, Karen was looking on eBay for a possible replacement Ipod when she saw that very same inscription, clear as day, on an IPod up for sale. She notified the police working on our case, who visited the Card/Comic/Collectible shop that was selling the Ipod, and the store managers identified the source of the item from police photos. The culprit was subsequently arrested.
Since it was such a glorious win for our local police, they asked if they could share the story with the media. The Washington Post sent a reporter and photographer to our house and did a story that appeared on the front of the Metro section. Immediately after that, all of the local TV stations, sent reporters to cover it and even CNN did a feature on it. Karen ended up appearing on the CNN morning show for a live interview. The Post feature also got picked up by wire services and we even found an item (by googling ourselves)
In a New Zealand newspaper Karen was identified as a "crime fighting mum". I sometimes still refer to her as that. Here's the link to the Post article:
— Dan Todd
A: You are married to a kickass. Treat her right or beware.
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, Week 50…”) for the 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.
Q: In January 1970, I was pregnant with my first child, and my then husband was in New Orleans to see the Super Bowl. I got into our 1967 Chevy Super Sport to drive to work and turned it on, or tried to, but not much happened. I got out and opened the hood, thinking maybe I would see something obviously wrong. I saw nothing on fire or leaking, and so got back in and tried again. Then I called AAA. When they arrived and opened the hood, they said , your carburetor is missing! They explained to me what one would look like if it were there. I figured I should know for next time.
A: When I was reporting my story on streetgangs in the gritty South Bronx, I was leaning against a car, talking to a gang member when a guy drove up in his car and asked us, politely, if we would mind getting away from the car we were leaning on. Then we watched as he popped the hood with an instrument, removed the battery and replaced it with the battery of his car, and drove away.
Q: Not sure if this counts as an experience with crime, but sometime back in 1977, in New York City, I was once pulled off a subway car and detained briefly by the police on suspicion of being Son of Sam.
It was during those days when SOS was terrorizing New York, and there had just been an incident not far from where they found me. Apparently I fit some vague description which someone had given them, and in fact, when Berkowitz was caught, apart from the fact that he was fatter than i was, there was indeed some resemblance. It is notable, I suppose, that I did not resemble the preeminent photo being published in the papers at the time, but I did look a bit like a slender version of David Berkowitz.
They took down all sorts of info, decided nah, I probably couldn't be legally detained, and let me go. Very exciting.
– Don Weingarten
A: You DID look a bit like Son of Sam. I do recall your being somewhat obsessed with the case at the time, as many New Yorkers were, justifiably. But you went overboard. At one point you looked in the Bronx phone book and discovered there was a listing for a “Sam Samson.” You wanted to call the cops with your big tip.” I talked you down.
Q: On a hot summer day several years ago, I had taken our Subaru hatchback to a gas station near my office to have a tire from my other car repaired. I picked the car up at lunch with said tire placed, fully exposed, in the back of the car. When I got in my car after work, I was surprised to see that the interior rear-view mirror was detached and laying on the passenger seat. I then turned toward the rear and saw several pieces of interior trim had been ripped off and strewn about the back seat. Then, inspecting the tire, I saw it had been slashed.
I thought it was strange that someone would randomly vandalize the car, midafternoon, in full view of office windows, steal nothing, yet take the effort to slash a tire for no particular reason, but hey, vandals aren’t the most logical of humankind. I immediately stopped at the nearby police station and filed a report.
It was a few days later when I started to think: It was a hot 90-degree afternoon. The tire was fully exposed to the sun in a closed hatchback, and was newly inflated—possibly over inflated. Then, KABOOM! I looked on-line to see if a tire in such a situation could explode. It could. And probably did, taking out the mirror and trim in the process. Crime solved, but no, I never withdrew my report—just in case.
A: Well, this is an unusual crime story.
Q: Sock Sock Shoe Shoe: Fair warning, you’re on the same side of this issue as Archie Bunker!
I developed the Sock Shoe method in junior high and high school PE. I didn’t want my dry socks hitting the wet towel and/or locker room floor after showering. It persisted off and on over the years probably as a result of habit and shifting of rote function to basal ganglia, or whatever it is that also let’s you drive the last few miles home and not remember how exactly you experienced it. It was also around the same age I started wearing contact lenses (yay) after 5+ years of wearing glasses (ugh). I always put the left lens in (and took it out) first so I’d not lose track of which was which, and no they were never quite the same correction, and with rare exceptions I managed to keep their order correct. This was decades before new lenses meant 200 pairs, so it mattered.
A: In a stage play Rachel was in (“To Fall In Love,”) She played a woman who had invented a song to use as she put on her lenses. This was it: “This is my right contact / I can not go wrong / If I put it in my right eye / and sing this song.”
I just re-watched that All In The Family clip, and it does occur to me that that show, and not Seinfeld, was the original show about nothing. Except when it wasn’t.
Q: Having been a mail carrier in another life, yes you can use the old stamps at their face value. Just be careful not to use an upside down Jenny.
Tom Logan - Sterling, VA
A: Thank you. Also don’t let your kids play in the backyard with a baseball signed by Babe Ruth.
Q: Not all old stamps are valid for postage. Specifically, "All postage stamps issued by the United States since 1860 are valid for postage from any point in the United States or from any other place where U.S. Mail service operates." Don't know about you, but I'm sure I have some 1842 stamps at the bottom of my junk drawer, under those expired coupons and orphan keys.
A: Noted.
Q:I know why the emails about renewing subscriptions are necessary, but going forward please include a button that says something to the effect of "I'm obviously going to renew, you dink. You're great. Now for the love of Indian food please leave me alone."
A:Done.
Q: I live in a very safe suburban suburb. One night, we went to bed and left the back door unlocked, because we usually forgot, plus we had two dogs to deter burglars. You guessed it, the burglars walked into our house while we were sleeping, grabbing a laptop, my son's electric guitar, and a bottle of prescription cholesterol medication from the kitchen sink. Our large main dog was asleep in our nicely air-conditioned bedroom with the door closed. Our smaller auxiliary dog was downstairs and barked, but we ignored her. The cop sadly shook his head at our stupidity. My friend, however, told me to call the local music stores and report the missing guitar to them. Lo and behold, the idiot criminal did in fact walk into the guitar store and attempt to sell it. The clever clerk asked him to wait while he "checked with his manager" and dialed 911. The idiot criminal was quite surprised when two police cars blocked him in and handcuffed him on the spot. My son got back his guitar, but the laptop and cholesterol medicine were never to be found. The criminal and his accomplice spent quite a bit of time in jail as the cops found a whole apartment-ful of stolen loot. I never again ignored my small barking dog. – Guin
A: Thank you.
Q: My family went on vacation when I was young and our house was broken into through a window in my room. The thief ripped open my toy safe and stole my coin collection. It was a foreign coin collection comprising leftover loose change from other travels. He got about $8 worth of random currencies if he could find a place to exchange them.
People in the neighborhood suspected this dumb punk who lived nearby, but no one could prove it. Several years later, he was working as a CPA (Car Parking Attendant) at Boston restaurant. A metallic blue town car pulled up and an old man got out accompanied by two other men. They handed the punk the keys and walked into the restaurant. Of course, this guy couldn’t resist taking the luxury car for a joyride before parking it. Upon his return, he was greeted by the old man and his associates. Turns out the patron wasn’t very hungry and had passed on dinner. The old man stood by as one of his men restrained the punk while the other fetched a tire iron from the trunk and proceeded to break both arms and legs of the attendant. Perhaps, the joyrider should have recognized Gennaro Angiulo, underboss New England’s Patriarca crime family.
A: I could not find this event online, but Angiulo was indeed a Patriarca underboss and you seem well aware of these facts. I am choosing to believe you.
Q: Are you really earning $237,098.03 a year from the Gene Pool?
A: What? Ha, no. I showed the actual hard numbers, and then wildly over-extrapolated, confessing I was bad in math. The Gene Pool makes a modest income for me and Pat.
Q: Our time living in Italy was limited, but we wanted to experience as much as we could while there. A trip to Rome to show the kids was mandatory. How to get there was the question. Why don’t we take the overnight train, I asked my wife. It will be fun and different.
So we pack onto the train, get settled, wash up and bunk in for the night. We tuck the kids in the top bunks and the wife and I settle on the bottom. Just before turning out the light, my wife takes her purse off her shoulder and leans it up against the door to the compartment, near her head. I say “you’re just asking for trouble that way.” She agrees and stashes the purse behind luggage further in the room, closer to her feet. She checks the lock on the door one last time before lying back down.
After an uneventful night of sleep, I hear a knock at the door. I note the early morning light and the time, a little before six am. Our expected arrival time is 630 or so. Assuming the knock is the conductor waking us for arrival, I open the door.
“Did you lose this in the bathroom?” It’s a man, speaking accented English, holding my wife’s purse. The cards are still present but the cash is gone. I accept the purse, thank the man and he disappears.
The biggest mystery in the whole affair: we have no idea how the purse was taken from our locked room. Both adults discussed the purse before falling asleep. It wasn’t, as was claimed, left in the bathroom.
-Marc from the Military.
A: A locked room mystery, but probably not an over-complicated one. Remember Sherlock’s advice: When you have eliminated all the possibles, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. They guy was probably associated with the railroad, had a passkey, came into your room when everyone was asleep.
Q: I sometimes do pro bono employment discrimination cases. One of my clients was a guy who got fired for dealing drugs at work. He said that that story was totally false and was just a pretext for the real reason he was fired, which was racial discrimination.. Then one day while we were talking in my office, he got a call on his cell, answered it, and proceeded to negotiate a drug deal over the phone.
A: Thank you. Did you still represent him and get him off? Are you a GOOD lawyer?
This is Gene. I am calling us down, a little early, but having answered more questions than usual. Please keep sending in questions /observations to the tasteful orange button.
To clarify about the "$237,098.03 a year" asked about above: Gene had also mentioned that we have 700-something paying subscribers, including people who might have paid just $5 for a single month. Do the math.
Lots of great ones, but Jon's runner-up and Jesse's "and last" made me laugh out loud.