The Invitational Week 57: The Ughscars and the Phewlitzers

Give us an idea for a bad book or movie. Plus some STUD-ly winning neologisms.

Do we have the perfect roles for Tilda and Woody! See this week’s Invitational contest below. (Swinton by Manfred Werner (Tsui); Allen via Getty)

Hello. This is The Invitational, in which we perform magnificently and with humor, thanks to the participation and genius of many dozens of funny people, for whose work we shamelessly take full credit. You are most welcome. We will get to the new contest in a moment, but first, a very argumentative Gene Pool Gene Poll.

This week’s Invitational: Highly Unrecommended

Book: Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, reinterpreted for modern readers in Chaucerian Middle English.

Movie: Barbie, starring Tilda Swinton and, as Ken, Woody Allen.

For Invitational Week 57: Tell us a comically bad idea for a book or movie, as in the examples above. It can involve the plot, the casting, the setting, the format, whatever, as long as it’s funny. 

Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to bit.ly/inv-form-57. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form. See the entry form for formatting instructions. 

Deadline is Saturday, Feb. 10, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Feb. 15.

The winner gets Horrible Meeting Bingo, a nifty fifty-sheet notepad with ten varied grids featuring such checkoffs as “Awkward silence,” “Let’s circle back,” and “Discussion monopolizer strikes again.” If only Jeffrey Toobin had had this diversion at that fateful Zoom session.

Not recommended for in-person meetings, but be our guest: This week’s prize. (TinyHooray.com)

Hey, we’d like your questions and observations, many of which we will respond to today in real time. Send them to this grotesque orange button:

The STUD Farm: DUSTy neologisms from Week 55

In Invitational Week 55, one of our annual Tour de Fours neologism contests, we honored new 1,000-inkster Duncan Stevens by asking you for new words and phrases that included the letter block DUST, in any permutation — DSTU, STUD, etc. — but with no other letters between them.

Third runner-up: WOODSTUCK:  Still living in the 1960s. “Coachella, big whoop. Now when I was 23, we were in the mud for three days and it’s still under my fingernails.”  (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)  

Second runner-up: JUST DON’T IT:  La-Z-Boy’s new slogan. (Karen Lambert, Chevy Chase, Md.)

First runner-up: ANTACIDS, TURPENTINE: Alabama’s next execution protocol experiment. (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)

And the winner of the Dial-an-Excuse Wheel:
GET YOUR DUST IN A ROW: Make your house look slightly neater. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)

The DUST Bin: Honorable mentions

PRE-INDUSTRIOUS STAGE: The indefinite period preceding the last thirty minutes of a work deadline. (Steve Smith, Potomac, Md.)

ASDUTE: Not astute.  (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)

MAST DURATION: Hang time.
“I can’t get no vast elation
’Cause I’ve got low mast duration
Though I try and I try
My ED makes me cry ...” (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines) .   

DT’S UTI:  Karma. (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)    

ASH TEST DUMMIES: What morticians practice cremation on. (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)

JUSTDEFY: Trump legal strategy: “In matters of compliance, he always asks his counsel to justdefy the law.” (Steve Smith; Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

STDU: College where the top fraternity is Phi Beta Clappa. (Jesse Frankovich)

GREASY SKID STUFF:  A most unwelcome discovery in one’s undies. (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)

BEST DUDE:  The groom’s bro.  (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)

BICOASTDULL: “So, while we’re regrouting our guest bathroom in L.A., we’re having some duct work done at our house in the Hamptons...” (Judy Freed)   

COITUS DISGUSTUS: “Ugh, it looked like like a mushroom.” (Jesse Frankovich)   

CRUD ST.: Chicago’s Magnificent Mile before the rebrand. (Leif Picoult)   

CRUDSTORM: The results of counterproductive crowdsourcing. “We asked people what they’d like to do with your new umbrellas, and, um . . .” (Frank Osen)

CRUDSTUFF: Warning sign that should be required at garage sales. (Frank Osen)

DISSERVICE INDUSTRY: Telemarketers, cable companies, Burger King, etc. (Jesse Frankovich)  

DONALD SUTRA: “When you’re a star, they let you do it.” (Neil Kurland, Elkridge, Md.)

DUD ST.: Leads right to the Blvd. of Broken Dreams. (Terri Berg Smith, Rockville, Md.)

DUST BOWEL: A region that’s subject to shitstorms. (Frank Osen)

DUSTBASTER: Handheld vacuum that unexpectedly ejects its contents all over your kitchen. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

EXALTED TUSH: J.Lo’s back! (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)

GHOSTDUSTERS:  Cremation service that scatters ashes by plane. “Want your wife’s cremains to be gone for good, who ya gonna call?” (Jon Gearhart)

GUTSDUMP:  Colonoscopy prep.  “All right, Mr. Jones, we’re all set — now be sure to do your gutsdump twelve hours before your appointment.” (Judy Freed)    

JUST D’OH! IT: The tagline for Nike’s partnership with the Washington Commanders. (Steve Smith)

REDUSTRIBUTION: “I did clean my room, Mom — don’t you remember how dirty that other side of the desk was?” (Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)

ST. DUDE: Apostle who was Jesus’s favorite wingman. (Jon Ketzner)

STDU: An acronym for what I shout every time that damn Aflac commercial comes on. (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)   

STDU: Trump aides’ frantic text messages when the boss is rambling about, say, injecting bleach. (Duncan Stevens)  

TD SUPER SCORING THING: For  legal reasons, this is how we must refer to the big football game that’s coming up. (Gregory Koch, Falls Church, Va.)

And Last: FIRST DUNCE:  The almost-good-enough Invitational honorable mention that’s placed right under the top four. (Richard Franklin, Alexandria, Va.)

The headline “The STUD Farm” is by Jeff Contompasis; Jesse Frankovich, Tom Witte, and Neil Kurland all submitted the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, Feb. 3: Our Week 56 contest for “dad jokes” turned into less wholesome “grandpa jokes.” Click on the link below.

The Invitational Week 56: Oh, Grandpa, Stop!

Here comes the real-time segment. If you are reading this in real time, please keep refreshing your screen so you can see your observations and Gene’s responses. Many of the observations today are about our Weekend Gene Pool Question seeking people from history even worse than Donald Trump.

Also please take all of your clothes off. I am just putting this in here to be annoying and offensive. I cannot actually see you, as far as you know.

You can at this point, decide to financially support The Gene Pool. Or you can decline! It is entirely up to you, but if you decline you are doomed to roasting in hell.

Q: The worst person in the world was Genghis Khan, who ravaged cities and created twenty-foot high minarets of corpse skulls of his enemies.

A: Yes, but was he worse than Trump?

Q: Worse than Trump was Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre, the “statesman” who supervised the beheading of hundreds of people during the French Revolution. He drank their blood from their severed stumps. I made up that last part, but you can’t libel the terrible dead.

A: Made me laff. “Can’t libel the dead” is a very important credo for journalists. We rely on it.

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Q: Okay, even worse than Trump was his dad, who gave Trump all the money to do all his dirty.

A: Arguably right. He also was a horrible racist Ku Klux Klanner who didn’t sell real estate to Black people.

Q: Worse than Trump: The mosquito: The deadliest animals in the world, killing an estimated 750,000 to 1 million humans yearly. With up to 110 trillion mosquitoes on the planet, the insects can carry lethal diseases like malaria, dengue fever, West Nile virus and Zika virus. (from Wiki)

A: I think we have a winner.

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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 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: From the aptonym files: Askew, a dentist - now into the third generation, per their site:

A: Thank you.

Q: Gene: Pray tell, are there further developments in the saga of Diamond the Dog? You got us all aflutter with concern. Did you ever get into meaningful contact with the custodian?

A: Alas, there are not. I may have come on too strong. No answer, and I don’t expect any anymore.

Q: Here’s a bad idea for a book: “One Day,” a meticulous reconstruction of an ordinary day, detail by detail.

A: Touche.

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Q: The worst person in history is Donald Hitler.

A: Thank you. I wish I had submitted that, because it is pretty funny.

Q: This is Gene. Okay I will step on that joke. The worst person in the world is Adolf Trump.

Q: This happened a number of years ago, when I lived and worked in Rockville, MD. I was walking through the parking lot at my employer's office building, which was separated from the adjoining businesses by a roughly six-feet-high cyclone fence. I heard a soft cry for help and looked to see a young woman, probably in her twenties, standing on my side of the fence. She had on a long, loose-fitting skirt and the hem of the skirt was snagged on the top of the fence, thus exposing her underwear and bare legs. She looked at me pleadingly, and I went over and unhooked the skirt. She thanked me, blushing, and scurried away. Apparently she'd climbed the fence and ALMOST made it. I remember the color of her panties, but out of respect for her privacy, I won't divulge that.

A: I hate the word “panties.” I think it is diminutizing of women. I formally request that it never again appear in print, and should be “underpants.” Thank you for understanding.

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This is Gene. I am calling us down b/c I am falling asleep. Please keep sending stuff in, here:

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