The Invitational Week 63: SOTU-Speak

Use words from Biden's State of the Union speech to write some lines for another oration. Plus winning photo captions.

“That one behind me on my left? Don’t you think he would absolutely like to be back home right now with a Snickers — even a lead-smothered one?” This week, combine words from the SOTU into something new and different. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

—

Hello. Welcome to the Gene Pool, another Invitational Thursday. We like to think that we have singlehandedly made Thursday the funniest day of the week, which would be an amazing accomplishment because it is objectively not that. Thursday is widely considered a dreary, humorless day whose only claim to fame is transitional, derivative and backhanded: It is Friday Eve.

Alas, we have not made Thursday the funniest day, and ever will be able to, however much we may have up-humored it. Those boasting rights will always remain with Saturday, because it has “turd” in it.

On to today’s business.

For Invitational Week 63: Using only words that President Biden used during his State of the Union address last week, write either a fake passage from a SOTU or a similar speech or … well, anything else: a “quote,” an observation, a joke, a dialogue, a poem, anything. For consistency, please use this special White House transcript, which includes not just Biden’s prepared remarks, but also his off-the-script comments, and even when he misspeaks (“The threat to democracy must be defended [defeated].”)

We have some game rules this week, about how many times you can use a word; whether you can use a different form of the word (if “lies” are in there, can you use “lie”?); the deal on hyphens, capitalization, punctuation, etc. etc. etc. We face the FAQs — and also, thanks to the generous help of Loser Gary Crockett, provide a list of every word Biden said along with the number of times it occurs — at this link right here.

For guidance ’n’ inspiration, see the boffo inking entries from our 2021 Inaugural Address contest.

Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to tinyURL.com/inv-form-63. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form. Also as usual, please submit each individual entry as one single paragraph; i.e., don’t push Enter until you’re starting the next entry.

Deadline is Saturday, March 23, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, March 28.

The winner gets a pair of very tiny earrings that look as if an astonished black cat has burst through each of your earlobes.

They probably won’t yowl or bite: This week’s prize earrings. (Temu.com)

Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in one of eight nifty designs. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for a personal email from the E, plus the Fir Stink for First Ink for First Offenders.

Meanwhile, send us questions or suggestions, which we hope to deal with in real time. You do this, as always, by sending them to this here button:

Presenting Our Snideshow: The photo captions of Week 61

In Invitational Week 61 we asked for captions for any or all of the six photos below. Picture A prompted many of you to conjure up your fond memories of being on hold with tech support, waiting for Windows to update, etc.

Second runner-up: Sadly, the Wuhan lab was also sloppy with computer viruses. (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)

“Jim, your camera is turned off. Are you still with us?  We’re just about through line item 1410.23.” (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

Forensic experts quickly concluded the victim was 67 years old, judging from the width and pattern of that tie. (Steve Smith, Potomac, Md.)

For some people, Ozempic works extremely fast. (Lee Graham, Reston, Va.)

____

First runner-up: Bobo didn’t get the memo that Friday was Dress Like a Human Day. (Eric Nelkin, Silver Spring, Md.)

Third runner-up: After the rounds of interviews and a grueling morning of skill assessments, Warren felt he had a good shot at the job — until Dave asked, “What’s with the gorilla suit?” (Richard Franklin, Alexandria, Va.)

Diane finally figured out how to keep her male colleagues from leering at her. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

Now streaming on Netflix, “The Planning of the Apes.” (Kevin Dopart)  

“C’mon, that’s obviously just a chimponzi scheme.” (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)

Bongo was having that dream again where he showed up naked to work and everyone was staring. (Eric Nelkin)

“Let’s throw some poo against the wall to see what sticks.” (Michael Stein, Arlington, Va.)

The Allstate Ape is a pretty feeble ripoff of the Geico Gecko. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)

Bobo raised his fat fingers in dismay, suddenly horrified to get the joke about his wide nostrils. (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)

It turned out that not every Employee of the Month at Acme Costumes considered it an honor to wear the gorilla suit. (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)

_____

The giant two-headed flesh-eating worm was fond of partaking of lunch and dinner simultaneously. (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)

Two long-tongued gay men seek privacy. (Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)

Inspired by “Get Smart,” CIA scientists developed the Colon of Silence. (Neil Kurland, Elkridge, Md.; Tim Livengood, Columbia, Md.)

Smith and Jones duct out for lunch. (Kevin Dopart)

A low-budget take on “The Human Centipede” dispenses with the more controversial anus scenes. (Stephen Dudzik, Olney, Md.)

As U.S. negotiators worked to extract themselves from Xi Jinping’s “head trap” gag, China completed its takeover of Taiwan. (Steve Smith)

Both men thought Nordstrom’s recruiter had said the jobs were in men’s hosiery. (Perry Beider, Silver Spring, Md.)

“Look, one of us has to go into the worm costume feet first.” (Michael Stein)

Craig and Todd heard they could expand their influence by becoming U-Tubers. (Jesse Frankovich)

____

And the winner of the dopamine-molecule plushie key chain: It was the best of toms, it was the worst of toms ... — A Tale of Two Kitties (Jesse Frankovich)

“He’s gonna eat it!  I pooped in the dog’s dish, and he’s really gonna eat it!” (Mark Raffman)

You can tell whether a cat has been neutered by showing it “kitty porn.” (Mark Raffman)

____

“What do you think it says about our parenting skills that we have to YouTube ‘How to do “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” ’?” (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.)

“Five fingers on each hand! At least we know we’re not an AI hallucination.” (David Sarokin, Washington, D.C.)

“Yeah, I’d upsize it. You want to catch their eye with your Grindr photo.” (Stu Segal, Southeast U.S.)  

As Alice showed how she used a TikTok video to conjure up the devil, Kevin stepped in to explain how she should have done it. (Richard Franklin)

John didn’t feel it was inappropriate to hit on his coworkers, as long as his wedding ring was on his middle finger. (Richard Franklin)  

Cosmetics tip: Flat-screen monitor radiation is perfect for drying your nail polish. (Kevin Dopart)

____

Ghislaine Maxwell conducts job interviews. (William Kennard, Arlington, Va.)

After a hefty meal of beans and broccoli, the Tooting Rombowski Sisters were ready for their audition. (Sam Mertens)

It was the ’70s and we had fresh new ideas about how to break the glass ceiling. (Patrick Huss, New Britain, Pa., a First Offender)

“‘Sesame Street’ is brought to you today by the letter W.” (Eric Nelkin)

It was fun and games at the beginning of the secretarial pool strike, but the scab in the back would get a kick in the face soon enough. (Mark Raffman)

And thus began the firm’s bottom-up reorg. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)

At the Literalist Society of America, workers get their asses in gear. (Steve Smith)

Even in the face of severe supply chain disruptions, Peloton continued to offer online classes. (Kevin Dopart)

“Well, what did you expect when you applied for a job at Schwinn?” (Lee Graham; Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)  

“Dryland Synchronized Swimming Club of Manhattan. How may I direct your call?”  (Steve Smith)

The headline “Presenting Our Snideshow” is by Tom Witte.

—

Okay, today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll will be a little tricky, but we’ll give it a shot. Which of the four top entries do you think was the best? The candidates are —

A) The winner: “It was the best of toms, it was the worst of toms ... — A Tale of Two Kitties”

B) First Runner- Up: “Bobo didn’t get the memo that Friday was Dress Like a Human Day.”

C) Second Runner-Up: “Sadly, the Wuhan lab was also sloppy with computer viruses.”

D) Third Runner-Up: “After the rounds of interviews and a grueling morning of skill assessments, Warren felt he had a good shot at the job — until Dave asked, ‘What’s with the gorilla suit?’ ”

If you think the best entry is none of those, but instead lurks among the Honorable Mentions, tell us which and why in the Comments.

—

Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, March 16: Our Week 62 contest for novel ways to stress yourself out. Click on the link below.

The Invitational Week 62: Hi, Anxiety!

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 are related to our call for careers you once considered but didn’t take, for better or worse.

Q: When I was about 18 I wanted to be a high-end call girl. Yes, I knew what was involved, and understood the moral and ethical complexities, but I also knew it would not fill me with self-hatred as long as I was in control of my life and not beholden to someone else. I felt I could then retire at 35 with a fine future of creativity ahead of me.  I wanted to write fiction without fear of going broke.  

Then I met someone who told me, when inebriated, that she had done just that.  She was about 45, the single mother of an acquaintance of mine. She looked older than she was, and had financial problems, emotional problems, and pill problems.  I became a grade-school teacher, and then an IT specialist.  

A: Excellently told. You would have made been a good novelist. 

—

Speaking of life choices, here is one delivering a clear choice. You can 1) Support The Gene Pool and get full access to its goodies for the price of $5 a month, or upgrade from “paid” to “founding” member, or 2) endorse Donald Trump and everything he stands for by denying us support but reading us and then informing on us to your handlers at The Evil Trump Machine. The choice is yours. This is a free country, at least for the moment.

So:

I support The Gene Pool:

Or, alternatively, I support Donald Trump and all he stands for:

—

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this on an email: Go back to the top of this post and click on "View in browser" to see the full column live and online, and to read and make comments.  If you are doing it in real time, keep refreshing the screen to see the new questions and answers that appear as Gene regularly updates the post.

—

Q: Regarding your choice of existentially important president elections. I would add two: The election of 1980, which created the modern Republican Party, put us on the road to everything we have today (except pro-Russian Republicans). It might have been more important than today’s.  Also 1876, which destroyed the so-called radical Republicans, giving Jim Crow his long-term triumph.  

A: Not sure the Reagan election qualifies.  You are right about Tilden-Hayes in 1876.  election was one of the most dishonest ever, with calamitous results.  After being substantially defeated by Tilden in the popular vote and the electoral vote, but with 20 southern-state votes contested – just enough to decide the election in Congress and give it to  the Republican Hayes , Hayes sold out to the southern Democrats in a corrupt deal in which Hayes pledged to end Reconstruction. It also was the beginning of the great switcheroo, in which Democratic ideals started to represent Lincolnian Republican ideals, and vice versa.  Hayes was a nonentity.  Tilden was a good man who had defeated the corrupt Tweed Ring in as governor of New York.  Tilden had had the election stolen from him, clearly, but for the good of the country, he declined to contest it.   His finest hour was in death, when he directed this epitaph on his monument:  “I still trust the people. “ 

—

Q: Are you happy with how The Gene Pool is panning out?  You’ve told us about the joys.  What are your biggest disappointments so far?

A: I don’t have many, and I don’t have any “big” one.  I have a small number of mostly insignificant  ones.  

Mostly, I wish there were more of what I call instant churn – spirited real-time discussion of items on the table, back-and-forths on subjects developing in that very chat, with give and take among readers.  You know, fights.  Outrage over what is being said. I often post things that I hoped would get us there – lately, that not-so-subtly hostile  NYT piece on a sitting president’s dictatorial powers over nuclear war, the SNL host’s controversial monologue about Down Syndrome – but neither happened.  

People are asking good questions and making fine, spirited observations and generously sharing personal stories, even those that don’t make them look great  – that has all gone well – but I am missing real-time, on-subject forensic debate. 

I believe it’s not happening because, for better or worse,  the Substack model does not encourage real-time participation the same way the Washington Post chat did.  The numbers show that readers prefer to read it when they want, not when we tell them to.  I have no problem with that.  I’ve traded that away happily in exchange for unyoking myself from the Washington Post’s occasionally prissy, priggish, proper, politically cringing oversight.   We get to be naughtier and more truthful, all of us.  We get to be unruly, unfettered, unfair.  

Have you noticed I have lately favored pointless alliteration?

Q: I would like to complain about crappy media coverage: Flogging the age issue/horse race BS because they need A Narrative, when Impending Fascist Takeover is a pretty compelling one. Hack writers for decades used Nazis when they needed baddies, and here they are, running around like shooting-gallery ducks. Schmucks.

A: I used to think people who made this charge didn’t get how the media works.  But I now agree with you – the horse-race thing in particular.  Mainstream news media are politically biased less than you’d think – with some notable exceptions (Home page headline today: “Trump’s Big Chance to Put This Election Away Right Now.” – but the MSM does lean quite unabashedly toward … stories.  Things that are exciting or provocative and show change, danger, conflict, etc.  They care less about whether the stories might give unwarranted attention to some likelihood, for example.   So.  We get horse-race stories which turn out to be an ostrich against a thoroughbred. 

Q: Here's a German news report about "Trad(itional) Wives" which makes the new 1950s look even scarier than they were back then:

I doubt you can read it, so let Google translate it for you.

A: This is terrifying.

Q: Regarding your poll question about whether – in light of the pending existential crisis for America – whether the media should be more aggressive, and less evenhanded, in its coverage of the presidential campaign.    I say we need media to be unbiased, and willing to aggressively pick on everybody equally. There needs to be less favoritism and more openness to embrace & expose everybody's faults. And another thing how is one poor devil's sins suddenly expunged when it is decided another poor devil has sinned worse? That limits us to half the material we could be writing about. We're always being told equality is what we are striving for, right? 

A: I’m sure this is not what you intend, but what you are proposing sounds to me like a bete noir of mine, and a serious flaw in the modern media: creating false equivalencies in the myopic pursuit of “balance.”  It results in frantic searches for “but on the other hand” subjects that are not remotely parallel.  It resulted in Hillary’s emails, in Biden’s age, Benghazi, Biden’s documents case v. Trump’s  

Here is Senator Ted Lieu, being absolutely and appropriately no-shit, no balance serious in delivering a withering cannonade of questions to Robert Hur.    And they they spanked him for having said, in transcripts, that the semi-senile old man he had described in his report, seemed to have a “photographic” memory.   And  that Biden certainly did know the date of Beau Biden’s death, contrary to what Hur had written.  Gloves are off, and, I hoped, buried in the backyard, soaking in  lime.

See next post. It just came in.

—

It seems that the Democrats missed an opportunity to further impugn Robert Hur's report in yesterday's hearing. See this clip from Hur's testimony, time code 4:53-5:38.

Rep Eric Swalwell did a good job getting Hur to admit that he did not include in his report a comment about Biden having a photographic memory about the design and construction of his house. But I think that Swalwell missed another opportunity. Listen to the interchange when Swalwell tried to get Hur to admit that he said that Biden had a photographic memory. Hur repeatedly dodged the question by saying words to the effect, "That's what the transcript reads." Swalwell could have asked Hur whether he thought that the transcript is accurate. If Hur demurred and continued saying "That's what the transcript says," Swalwell could have asked, "Why can't you say that you agree with the transcript? The transcript is prepared by a Notary who affirms the accuracy of the transcript. Why can't you simply state, 'Yes, that's what I said.'?" If Hur continued in his refusal to agree with the transcript, Swalwell could have responded with this question: "Could it be that you are hesitant to affirm the accuracy of the transcript because you can't recall whether you said those words?"

A: I thought this questioning went very well. Not for Hur, but very well. Gloves. Off.

—

Q: Given the past love/hate relationship with your prank calls to customer service representatives, I’m wondering if you’ve heard from readers about your re-introduction of the trope on Tuesday, and if so, what was the reaction?

A: You will be shocked to learn it was … love/hate.   The following two observations came within seconds of each other: 

Q: I've liked and laughed at your writing for many years. The only thing that made me cringe was you reporting on harassing phone calls to ever-suffering customer support people. Aren't their jobs miserable enough without you pranking them? That always seems punching WAY down, and you can and do better.

And, 

Q: Back in the column days I was thinking you might have wrung the customer service rep thing dry—but I take it all back. This guy makes me want to know who else is out there.

—

Q: Did Sam the customer service rep know you were a journalist?

A: No, by special dispensation, the Post gave me permission not to, and I have chosen to import that rule to the Gene Pool, out of veneration of the Post and its decisionmaking. The fact is, I could not do these calls if I had to identify myself; I’d be instantly directed to some flack, who would be as entertaining as an aneurysm. The fact is, the representative is never the butt of the joke — I am. In doing this for 20 years, I have never gotten a single complaint from one of the reps. They tend to enjoy this. My calls give them a break of levity in an otherwise stultifying day. I don’t think I am “punching down.”

I will say I have killed some of the conversations — even if it had been good — if the conversation depended for its humor on something they said that could possibly get them fired.

—

Q: Regarding your fond memories of Olinsky’s in the Bronx When I was very, very small, we lived in the Bronx. We hated going to Olinsky's, probably because the ole ladies would pinch our cheeks. So, my mother used taking us to Olinsky's as a threat if we didn't behave.

For the record, we moved out of the Bronx when I was 4. Do I remember correctly there was sawdust on the floor?

A: I don’t recall sawdust, but you might be right.  Olinsky’s does deliver to me a single memory.   When I was wee – five, I believe — my ma sometimes parked me outside Olinsky’s to oversee the carriage containing my baby cousin, Jane, who would have been about one.  My ma was not going into Olinsky’s, but to a store next door where baby buggies were not allowed.  My mother – I believe as a tactic – told me to be extra vigilant, because there was some woman out there who stole babies.  My ma was a good, loving mother; this was an aberration.  But I spent that hour (it was probably five minutes) standing there, outside Olinksy’s, in abject terror. 

To my brother Don – are you out there right now?  Do you remember this (presumably) tall tale told by our mother?

—

Q: As a young girl, I would go with my grandmother to her bank in Galveston.  To my eyes, it was a big, beautiful building where the women dressed up nicely for work and - AND!!! - got to give out the little lollipops. I wanted to be a bank teller.  I thought it was so fancy! And I loved the pneumatic tubes if one went through the drive-through (sometimes suckers appeared there too!!). I grew up to become a lawyer at a regulatory agency. I still love order and rules (what I perceived at the bank). I aimed higher but no banking for me. I do dress up, even post-pandemic, and I do keep candy in my office. Those dreams were realized. 

A:1960s-70s newsrooms used to have pneumatic tubes, with moving cylinders, to deliver rolls of copy, and I loved them.  I’d install one in my house, delivering notes from kitchen to bedroom.  But I doubt if anyone makes them anymore, or they’d cost $700,000.  

There was an interesting anonymity to them.  Once, at the Miami Herald, there was a copy editor who was a struggling alcoholic and found himself dry and in trouble working late one Sunday night, when all liquor stores were closed.  He was evidently suffering in silence enough so that people noticed.   Suddenly, his vacuum portal barked, and a carrier tube rattled in.   It contained no paper, no note, no story, just an airline-sized bottle of Rye.   He never knew who sent it, but he felt it almost saved his life.  He told me that. He later got clean, and died of a stroke while attending an AA meeting. 

A lot of interesting stuff happens in newsrooms.  Used to happened. 

—

Q: Regarding infidelity and betrayal:  As a woman who has had a friend that was the cheater, my knowing what was going on ended up ultimately ruining our friendship. I distrusted her and with good reason. Not only was she lying to her spouse but in backing up lies to her spouse, she would also lie to me too. This didn't seem like a big issue at first because they were inconsequential lies to me but they got bigger and eventually hurtful and ultimately ended our friendship because I just didn't feel like she was trustworthy anymore and I no longer felt like my feelings were valued in the friendship because her entire motivation was hiding the illicit relationship in which she was involved regardless of how she hurt others to protect it. I probably should have felt more guilty for not outing her to her spouse but I was only friends with him through her. He wasn't someone I'd hang out with if she wasn't around. He did find out, they divorced and she married her paramour. Everyone seems happy now but our friendship never recovered fully and that's okay. Sometimes people are friends for a season of our lives and we move on. I don't harbor any judge\ment or hatred and I've long forgiven her for the hurt she caused, I just grew in a different direction.

–

First, I want to point out that you have a 75-word sentence.    This is not good unless you are trying to get into the Guinness Book, as did Jack McClintock, a fine freelance writer, in a story I published in 1985 in Tropic, headlined The Sentence.   We ran it as a solid block of type – no paragraphs. It was 2,184 words.  You are well on your way to fame, if you keep it up.  

This was the START of Jack’s story:  

When I first realized, browsing through the new Guinness Book of World Records in the library, that I stood a very good chance of being the holder of a world record, I wasn't very impressed, for it seemed absurd that someone had even bothered to take note of such a record, let alone strive for it; still, when I read that "the longest sentence recorded to have got past the editor of a major newspaper is one of 1,286 words in The New York Times by Herbert Stein in the issue of Feb. 13, 1981," I remembered that a long time ago, perhaps 15 years, when I was working for a newspaper called The St. Petersburg Times, which I consider to be a major newspaper -- I know its editors do, too -- I was assigned to write a feature story about a single downtown city block that was scheduled to be bulldozed for high- rise public housing, and so I went and interviewed everyone who lived or had a business on that block -- this included a closed-down elementary school, a church, 40 houses, and the Georgia Market where Jim Dandy pig tails sold four pounds for a dollar -- and then I came back to the office and wrote a story I called THE BLOCK, a story that took the admittedly strange and undoubtedly pretentious form of a single long sentence -- a sentence being defined as a group of words beginning with a capital letter, ending with a period or some other terminal punctuation, containing at least one subject and one verb and a single idea -- and I suggested to the copy editor and the layout person that they set the type in the form of (you guessed it) a block, a great square block of dull and unappealing gray type that I suppose we all knew no one could possibly bring himself to read, but which had the virtue of drawing a moment or two of attention to our cleverness (this being all we really cared about, though we wouldn't have said so then), a giant block of type that contained God-knows-how many words, for the truth is I had never actually re-read it, let alone counted them up, but I knew it had to be a lot to be as dull as I remembered it, and it suddenly occurred to me that maybe that sentence I wrote as a smart-ass experiment 15 years ago, and persuaded two fools to connive in publishing, was now a world-record, though right then, anyway, I didn't do anything about it because being a world record holder is not something I ever dared aspire to be … 

It ended at 2,184 words, more than enough.  

But Jack and I digress.  As to your thesis, it is valid.  Your friend made you, in a sense, an accomplice to her deceit.  Not good. 

A similar, shorter, sentiment, follows: 

Q: Here’s one more addition to your growing body of evidence against intervening when you learn of an infidelity in the life of a friend – or perhaps it is the opposite::  It is true that shooting the messenger is a fairly common reaction.  However from a single personal experience in that realm , and with my having the moxie to ASK our shared friends why those who knew they did not divulge the truth - to me – I learned something not obvious. By not doing so - their decision to remain silent made me feel duped by a crowd - and not  just one man.. For me , it made for a worse reality, a bigger betrayal .

Their answer - still nearly brings tears “ We were hoping he would come to his senses. “ 

A:  Very interesting, and deep.  Thank you for talking about this.

—

This is Gene. I forgot to mention something vitally important about the goodness of Mr. Samuel Tilden. Had he been elected, he would have broken the monstrous succession of harrumphing bearded presidents. But no.

So, instead of this guy we got Hayes, Garfield and Arthur, who had the most ridiculous facial hair of all.

Then Cleveland and Harrison. It took McKinley to bring us back to sanity.

—

Q: This is your brother Don. Yep, I'm here. And I do believe I have a vague memory about mom telling that story. It has always amazed me that she would cop to having left a five year old in such circumstances.

A: I know, right?

Okay, I’m calling us down. Thank you all. Please continouue to send in questions and comments. You know where to send them.

Also, please do not make this a farewell to alms.

Also, see you on The Weekend.