The Invitational Week 65: A Thousand Words

Write a funny poem about the artwork of your choice. Plus winning rewrites of the State of the Union.

Why we’re so fond-a
Ms. Gioconda:

Why is this lady smiling?
And why is it so darn beguiling?
Here’s a theory (just one):
The painter’s fly was undone.

Hello. This week’s contest idea is stolen from The Spectator, a British magazine that has been running its humor contest so long that it is is actually older than The Invitational, which is itself older than dirt scraped from Socrates’ sandal.

For Invitational Week 65: Write a humorous poem about the work of visual art of your choice; include a link to the picture if it’s not, you know, as trite as the Mona Lisa. It can be a painting, a sculpture, or anything else reasonably well known that you define as “art.” We are very lenient. Yes, “Dogs Playing Poker” would qualify. Your poem must contain at least one rhyme. The joke in the verse above was, appropriately, stolen by us from Chris Doyle, who made it many years ago in The Style Invitational, which was itself stolen from the New York Magazine Competition.

Good, then.

Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to tinyURL.com/inv-form-65. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form. Format them as you’d like to see them published.

Deadline is Saturday, April 6, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, April 11.

The winner, apropos of our High Art focus this week, gets a Edvard Munch “Scream” character finger puppet. We are angstful to Dave Prevar for the donation. 

Seems to fit best on the middle one: This week’s prize.

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:

The New Word Order: The SOTU rewrites of Week 63

In Week 63 we showed you a transcript of President Biden’s State of the Union address and invited you to pluck words from it and rearrange them into some funny statement — either from an alternate SOTU (as most entries did) or something else. The hundreds and hundreds of results were incredibly clever and funny; the Czar wanted to choose twelve finalists instead of four, until the Empress declared that this would violate some basic rule of God and The Natural Order of the Universe and they fought about it with Biblical ferocity and she won.

Thanks heaps to Loser Gary Crockett, who designed a computer program to check that each entry contained only words that Biden said (we allowed for changes in punctuation and capitalization).

Third runner-up:
What if I put a million soldiers on the border and build a 100-foot wall from Texas to the Pacific? Will any of you Republicans vote for me? No? How about I cut taxes on the wealthy to zero — would that work? No again? What if I also put an end to  Obamacare? What do you say? Still no? Well, I’ll be darned! Are you guys all brain-dead or do you just hate me that much? Let’s get the hell out of here — Jill, it’s time for us to leave. I’ll see you at the car. (Chris Doyle, Denton Tex.)

Second runner-up:
Did you hear about the Jewish mother whose oldest child wanted to become President?  She said: “Good for you. I support whatever you choose to do.  And I don’t want to burden you.  But though I’ve been managing my health without your help, my eyes, face, foot, back, and arms don’t feel right, I’m at risk for diabetes and advanced arthritis, and I’ve been blocked up for three weeks.  Having a doctor in the family would not be so bad either.  Just saying.” (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

First runner-up:
The next president could give free fentanyl to every baby, equip the military with water guns, and put marijuana farms in every kindergarten class — and he would still be better than my predecessor. (Gregory Koch, Falls Church, Va.)

And the winner of the earrings that look as if your lobes are being impaled by a cat:
You say I am ancient, but not so! I am certain that Franklin Roosevelt was dead before I was elected to the Senate, and I never even met President Lincoln! I also did not go across the Delaware with that other fellow! I also was not there for the crossing of the Red Sea! I just want to be clear about this. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.) 

Today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:

As always, if you disagree with all of our choices, and find that the best entry is not one of the above, but one of the honorable mentions (below), tell us in the Comments.

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Groandiloquence: Honorable mentions

I have a dream. In it, I’m elected president again and, like my best friend Putin, can have guys who are in my way dropped from a grand 58-story building — one that’s named after me. — Donald Trump (Chris Doyle) 

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The story that the talk show folks all tell:
They say that I was born and live in hell.
I should be jailed for crimes so dark and bad
That learning of them could send most folks mad.
I’ve led the the Justice group toward one mad goal:
The persecution of a good, kind soul
Who’s absolutely very innocent—
So down the pipes this once-great country went.
BUT!
I’m also ancient, though—so sick and old
My brain is gone! I cannot even hold
A thought! By now it’s not at all clear whether
I’ve got the sense to put three words together.
One story or the other they should choose?
Don’t have to when you talk for cable news. (Duncan Stevens) 

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Before voting for any Republican who’s endorsed the predecessor, I would choose Snickers bars taken from my behind. — Democratic voter  (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.) 

The Republicans are saying that I’m so old, my first girl-friend was Bettie Rubble, when the truth is, it was Franklin Roosevelt’s sister. (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.) 

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I can’t remember if I put my supporter on tonight. That hands-job woman might crack me in my junk. (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)  

Every voter must remember the words of my predecessor, who said (and this is an exact quote): “We are a nation that just heard that Saudi Arabia and Russia will we-be-do-a.” (Frank Osen)  

“Bragging, it’s what I do. I have the best brain, the best chaos, the best bowing. My businesses all do great, not counting most or all of my businesses.” (Leif Picoult) 

As we look around today, we see war, poverty, crime, disease, climate change, and Republicans. People often ask me: “Mr. President, how are you able to remain optimistic in these times?” I tell them, “Thank God for marijuana!” (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore) 

I know a lot about inflation stopping, thanks to having a very old member. (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.) 

Is there an over/under on how many times I’ll say “my predecessor” tonight?  No?  Well, there must be some way I can make money from this.  Wait, I know!  Products! What if I dropped a Snickers line in there?  Can I get away with saying “Nationwide is on your side,” or is that too obvious? (Eric Nelkin, Silver Spring, Md.)

My wife told me our love life could use something new. So I said, “How about a three-way?” She said, “Great idea! You choose the two guys and then you can watch.” (Chris Doyle)

I fear for my predecessor. Right now he is very close to Putin, but that may not last long. He might know too much. I’m just saying that, if he goes to Moscow, he should not stand around in a high place with nothing to protect him from falling, if you know what I mean. (Duncan Stevens)

Why would you vote for my predecessor? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? (Gregory Koch) 

So you've heard that my predecessor needs money. Half a billion dollars, give or take a few more convictions. So give what you can and let's show how much we love and respect him! (Everyone snickers and goes back to looking at their phones.) (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)    

Folks, the other fellow has it tough right now, and I feel bad for him. What say all 500 people here give him 500,000 dollars each? He really needs the bucks. That would pay almost half of his court penalties, you know, and he will not have to mortgage his house. I hope everyone chips in. (Duncan Stevens)

Private companies are investing billions to build new chip factories in America, but you know what? Even they will probably put fewer chips in the same size bag.  (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)  

We are the party of freedom and God,
Of billionaires, guns and the fetus.
So patriots, rise — with our money and lies
We’ll make sure that the Left cannot beat us.  (Jonathan Jensen) 

As a mother, I fear for our young ones. You should too. This is what can now be found in kindergarten books: “A little to the right ... Some more to the left ... Oh yes ... Yeah ... baby ... Right there ... Oh ... God ... Just like that.” Save our innocent children!  Keep books banned! —  President, Women’s Coalition of Conservatives Standing Against Women Even Though We ARE Women (Judy Freed)

My wife Jill has had it tough, you know. She once went up to a high place with her friend Jackie to bring back some water, and the fellow had a serious accident! His brain got extremely broken! Jill fell down as well but lived to tell the story. You might have heard about this before. (Duncan Stevens)

Good evening, America. I have something important to share with you tonight. Up to now I've always been called “he” and “him.” Over the years there's been a change in the way I see myself. From now on I would like everyone to use the words “they” and “them” when talking about me. Jill … is something the matter? (Jonathan Jensen)

I have spoken to Russian President Gorbachev …what is that, Madam Vice President? …oh, President Putin …about the war in Iran… I mean Ukraine… (Jon Ketzner) 

My predecessor is the greatest president this country has ever seen. Wait, am I reading that right? I ask your forgiveness. My eyes aren’t what they used to be. (Eric Nelkin)

Once, I had this dream where I was being beaten with a scourge in Pier 1, while making love to three nurses from Sweden, one of whom was wrenching a triple-A battery in and out of my behind. I tell you this freely because the other guy’s sexual dreams are always about Putin and Hitler. (Frank Osen)

I hate to say this, but the other fellow is not very smart. He is not the sharpest of tools in the small building where you keep things like that. There are brighter electric units on the big cut plant you put in your living room before January. The battery operates, but nobody is home. His card collection has been found to miss a few. You know what I mean. (Duncan Stevens)  

What do I plan for my next term? Things that are way from the beaten path. We will put all of our college students in kindergarten again. We will shrink the Capitol to, say, one foot high, and have everyone plant jasmine in their cars. We will give each NATO member fifteen hundred Snickers bars. I am not sure why we will do these things, but it will be great. (Duncan Stevens) 

And Last: Are you a derailed Loser, hungry for ideas for your competition?  Let me help you — just read my State of the Union address, removing choice words and manufacturing something new and different!   Conservatives do this to me all the time!  (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)

The headline “The New Word Order” is by Jeff Contompasis; Tom Witte wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, March 30: Our Week 64 name-chain contest. Click on the link below.

Invitational Week 64: You're Workin' on a Chain, Gang

Here comes the real-time segment, featuring your questions and observations. Send them here, to this Grotesque Orange Button.

If you are reading this in real time, please keep refreshing your screen so you can see Gene’s responses. Many of the observations are related to this weekend’s call for variations on the old childhood party game of “Never Have I Ever…'“

Also please send us money because you love America, and I promise to invest 10 cents for every $100 you send, for the single noble purpose of defeating Donald Trump and pantsing him in public. His penis is apparently shaped like a Pleurotus ostreaan, an Asian oyster mushroom, so it should be funny.

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: Never have I ever told a woman that if she took off her bra, I would call the cops.

A: I see what you did there. This was my first Googlenope column, back in 2007. There will be others. It began this way:

It’s pretty hard to find a phrase or expression that is not out there somewhere on the Web. I know. I've tried. No matter how unlikely it may seem that anyone has ever put certain words together, someone, somewhere, probably has. When I Googled the exact phrase “Santa Claus nude,” I got 278 hits.

It’s tricky. For example, I tried Googling “unintelligent Jew,” which not only denies a ubiquitous cultural stereotype but uses an unusual adjective to do so. I figured I was safe, but this is what came right up: “I have yet to meet an unintelligent Jew.”

More failures followed. After a while, I got mad and decided to do something about it.

Want a phrase that doesn't appear on Google? Try searching for the Magritte-inspired, epistemologically impossible sentence “This phrase doesn’t appear on Google.” You should find only one hit, and that hit is from the very paragraph you are reading. When I wrote this, before it was archived, that sentence was nowhere on the Web.

Voila. The assault begins.

When a phrase cannot be found on Google, I call it a Googlenope. Once a Googlenope is discovered and written about, it is no longer a Googlenope.

Every single exact phrase that follows could not be found on the Web before today:

Googlenope.

Queen Elizabeth’s buttocks.

Varsity pinochle.

Caviar ’n’ taters.

Much to Paris Hilton’s embarrassment . . .

Next, boil the toast . . .

If you take off your bra, I’m calling the cops.

And so forth.

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This is Gene. I am willing to accept more Googlenope suggestions, always. Do not put them in Comments, because then they won’t be googlenopes and will be forever disqualified. Send them here.

Never have I ever pleasured myself with foodstuff Never have I ever voted for someone over the age of 60 for president Never have I ever desired to own a Corvette or Harley-Davidson Never have I ever pretended to have bone spurs Never have I ever fantasized about Princess Anne Never have I ever met a dog I didn’t like ala Will Rogers Never have I ever played Dutch Oven while sharing a bed Never have I ever enjoyed playing 3 rounds of golf in the same week Never have I ever blamed my parents for anything Never have I ever genuinely enjoyed an expensive restaurant meal that I paid for Never have I ever caught a fish or gone hunting.  – Jon Ketzner.  

A: I just can’t get past the princess Anne one.  WTF, Jon? How old are you?  

I have admitted that when I was seven or eight I was hot for Annie Oakley on TV.   I can’t really explain it but in an extreme primitive way I liked how she looked riding a horse.  

Princess Anne?  

Okay, I admit I like how her name had that E at the end, but it is because that it was my Ma’s middle name, spelled that way, and we are going on to the next question, now because this is totally creeping me out.   

Q: Never have I ever paid for sex.   

A: I have, sort of!  

And why is this Gene Pool suddenly all about sex?

I have twice visited houses of prostitution, each time for a story.  The first time was in 1976, when I was writing a feature story for a newspaper in Albany, NY, called The Knickerbocker News.  (Correct, when you had to identify your employer, on the phone or in an interview you instantly lost all dignity and respectability. ) 

I was attending the 1976 Democratic National Convention in Madison Square Garden in New York.   I was there on an assignment of my own invention.  I should point out here, with all modesty, that I was at the time one of the few  reporters at this paper with any energy or talent.  I was 25.   I had grown up in New York, was living in Albany, and proposed the following story: Let me return to New York as a total rube – like most of the delegates from places like Iowa – I actually had obtained, via bribery, a delegate badge that said (As I recall) “Kiss me, I’m from Iowa.” i will walk the streets and do stupid, naive things no New Yorker would do, trying to get fleeced.  Idiot things. 

Yes, it actually was a great idea.    My editors said, ‘sure.”   

One of the things I did was to go to a whorehouse about two blocks from Madison Square Garden.  I said I was a delegate from Iowa, and was wondering if there were ladies there.  The proprietor assured me there were.  Then I asked him if I could “check” my suitcase at the front desk.  My bag had money in it, and an expensive tape recorder.  He said sure. He’d take good care of it.  

So then I was in a room with a lady, a very pretty young woman, who asked me if I wanted “a blow job, a hand job or a fuck?”   (I am sorry, but this is Substack, not The Washington Post, and it is the first time I am telling this story without constraint.  )

She had clearly never heard anything like what I said next.   “I would just like to talk to you.”

So to be specific, sex was purchased, but not delivered. 

I paid her $100, including tip..   The “Knickerbocker News” picked up the cost, duly noted on an expense account reading “Whorehouse”.  Nothing was stolen from my backpack.  New York simply did not fleece me, there or anywhere else. It became a great story, which got me my first big-time newspaper job, and the Detroit Free Press.  

The second time I visited a house of prostitution was for The Post.  And here is the story.  Also, paying for sex, no sex.  One of my favorite columns ever.   Also expense accounted.  

Q: In both of those sex stories, were you not … tempted? 

A: No.  The best way to explain this is that the very central principle of journalism is to tell the truth.  Had I succumbed, as it were, I would have had to reveal it in the story or I would be writing a lie.  So no. Tom The Butcher knew this, and never doubted my integrity, but his final instruction to me before I left for the Whorehouse next to the House where Lincoln Died, was “You may NOT remove your pants  Is that clear?”  It was clear. 

Q: WHAT DID THE LADY SAY TO YOU WHEN YOU BOUGHT 15 MINUTES OF HER CONVERSATION?

I didn’t put it in the story.  My editors were very nervous about it, and the anecdote was truncated to the minimal.    In retrospect, I should have.  I couldn’t think of anything to ask her – I was very naive and nervous, except to ask if she had to service unattractive men, and she said yes, of course, all the time.  Then there was a pause and she said “That is what I do.”   There was a deep and giant story in that, and I missed it.  She’d be about my age now.   

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Q:  Never have I ever eaten feces even though, apparently, it is in  all our food.  

A: I am not publishing this because of the widespread revulsion it will cause.  PAT DO NOT SNEAK THIS IN BEHIND MY BACK.  I APOLOGIZE FOR OUR FIGHT OVER THIS WEEK’s WINNERS AND TAKE BACK EVERYTHING I SAID. .

Q: I've never used an ATM, though they're ubiquitous and apparently most people have. I'm not averse to the idea, just never need them: dining with friends or in groups, I often collect people's cash for their meals and charge the check. They're happy, restaurant is happy to deal with one check, and I get cash back or points or airline miles.

A: I think you might be a constipated asshole, but am reserving judgment.

Q: Never have I ever gone skiing, or tried contact lenses. To me, they are one and the same: Enterprises recommend with religious fervor by those who partake, using phrases like "life changing," and "but you must..." Yet all I see with my own eyes are aches and pains, squinting and limps, and a lot of money out the window. Scott Ableman

A: Hey, Scott. I used contacts for years. They were AWFUL. I still have nightmares about not taking them out of my eyes for … months.

This is Gene. I am calling us down. I don’t say this very often. But do you realize how brilliant are the people who are writing for you here? I am so proud of them. They are terrific humor writers.