The Invitational Week 99: Mess With Our Heads

This week's contest: Look at a headline and see a funnier meaning. Also, a contest to get paid subscriptions to The Gene Pool for free.

Hello! This will be an unusual Invitational Thursday, because we have a new contest to introduce, but no old-contest results on account of vacationing. This explains the extraneous but adorable photo above. We took it yesterday right off the highway on a trip south. It’s in Warrenton, Va., next to the the Clark Brothers Gun Shop and shooting gallery. We feel this photo needs no explanation or elaboration. The area is prime rural Trump country, of course.

The new contest follows. But first, we have an announcement.

Do you remember John Beresford Tipton? That is the pseudonym we gave to a mysterious, diabolical person who has decided to become a secret, generous occasional benefactor to people who enter The Invitational. The pseudonym was taken from the cheesy but transfixing 1950s TV show “The Millionaire,’ where every week, a billionaire named John Beresford Tipton gave away a million dollars to a stranger, because he was a generous but manipulative asshole and wanted to experiment and see whether sudden riches helped or destroyed people’s lives.

Below is a still photo from the show, where his emissary is delivering a check for a million dollars to some clueless rube who, for all we know, may well have lived in Warrenton, Va. The emissary, Michael Anthony, is played by Marvin Miller, a man also well known for his voice-acting in the cartoon film “Gerald McBoing Boing,” about a child who can only say “boing boing.” The script was written by a very young Dr. Seuss.

That is all just inessential background, though.

As we approach the glorious Week 100 of the new Invitational, our John Beresford Tipton — not an asshole, but definitely manipulative — is offering as gifts four more free one-year paid subscriptions to the Gene Pool (worth $50 apiece) to worthy people. Will it make their lives complete, or destroy their souls? We’ll find out.

Do you want one? It entitles you to enter “Comments” and also enter The Invitational, as well as access to the occasional special edition. Also, you become my employer, which allows you to abuse me without guilt.

We will give the four subscriptions to the best entrants to this contest:

Tell us your greatest hope for the future of America. Try to make it funny. If you are already a paid subscriber, you can submit an entry on behalf of someone else — friend, relative, colleague, whatever — but not for yourself.

URGENT CAPITALIZED AND BOLDFACED PARAGRAPH: YOU MUST INCLUDE YOUR NAME AND EMAIL IN THE BODY OF YOUR ENTRY — WE WON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE IF YOU DON’T. WE DO NOT AUTOMATICALLY GET YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS, EVEN IF THE TECHNOLOGY LOOKS LIKE WE SHOULD KNOW IT. WE WILL NOT PUBLISH YOUR EMAIL OR NAME WITHOUT YOU BUT WE HAVE TO HAVE A WAY TO REACH YOU.

Send your stuff here, under the label “Hope for America.” Say “hope for America” in your email. You have a week to respond.

Good.

Okay, the new contest:

Real headline: No Interest for 12 Months (bathroom remodeling ad)
Local teen completes full year of nonstop eye-rolling, yawning

Real headline: Prosecutors wrap in Le Pen fraud case
In dramatic courtroom scene, French attorneys display how plain pencil was disguised as antique Mont Blanc

Real headline: Terrapins Miss Their Shot to Earn Marquee Victory
Joke bank head: U. Maryland team wins grand prize for Worst Aim

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For Invitational Week 99: Reinterpret some actual headline (or a major part of it) by adding a bank head, or subtitle, as in the examples above. The headlines may be from any publication, print or online, dated Nov. 21-30, 2024. Include the source and date of the headline so we can verify it; for online stories, please paste that page’s URL after your entry.

Quick FAQs:

What counts as a headline? It’s any text placed above the text of an article or ad and used as a title.

Can I drop words off the beginning or end? Yes, if it doesn’t totally change the meaning. Don’t change “Teacher Passes Out Report Cards” to “Teacher Passes Out.”

Will you show us last year’s winners, for guidance, inspiration, and laffs? We sure will. (Scroll down past the week’s new contest.)

How do we format it? We’ll just make it simple and tell you to make it clear enough for us to read. First the real headline, then your bank head, along with a URL or some other way to show us where you saw it. It doesn’t have to all be on one line.

Deadline is Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Dec. 5. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form. 

Click here for this week’s entry form,  or go to tinyURL.com/inv-form-99. See (the lack of) formatting instructions above.

The winner receives this fine calendar.

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.

Since Pat is on vacation this week, we don’t have any Invitational results, so we can launch right into the coveted Real-Time Segment of The Gene Pool, where Gene responds to your questions and observations, which are made in Real Time. Today’s Q’s and O’s (so far) deal with his call, last weekend, for “worst job appointments you’ve ever witnessed?”

PLEASE send your Observations and Questions right here. They will be dealt with with alacrity and gusto, a promise employing an amazing sentence that uses the expression “with with.”

Oh, wait. First you get to see this picture.

Also, you get to take this Gene Pool Gene Poll:

The media, in general, have decided to describe the odd connection between RFK Jr. and reporter Olivia Nuzzi as an ”affair,” even though it apparently consisted entirely of sexting. By all accounts, they met each other in person only once, and there was no sexual contact at that time. I think we can all agree that this was professionally inappropriate… but was it an “affair” ?

Okay, good. As always, midway through the chat, I will tell all of you how the answers by men and women differed. Otherwise, alas, the substack poll system only lets you see the results from your own group.

Here come the real-time Questions and Answers.

Q: Speaking of RFK Jr., and Matt Gaetz, etc. have you personally ever committed sexual misconduct?  I think you are obliged to answer.  

A: Well, technically … maybe?  Several times I had sex with a 17-year old girl.    But I was also 17 and she was my girlfriend and it was consensual so I am not sure that counts.  

Other than that, no.   I have had only six sexual partners in my life.   I never had a one-night stand.  I never took advantage of a severely drunk woman, including a spouse or significant other.  And because I am 73 years old, I think that bridge is probably crossed successfully. 

I did twice pay prostitutes, but they were for newspaper stories. No sex ensued. 

You know, I’ve often thought that this would be a good question to ask a guy accused of sexual assault: “Have you ever had a consensual romantic encounter with someone where the circumstances were such that it occurred to you afterwards that you might be tragically, unfairly accused of assault?”    If the answer is yes, that would be … interesting.  

Hm.  This could  be a future Gene Poll.   It might be revealing because it is anonymous. 

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I am not sure how long the real-time Q’s and A’s will last today. Let’s see. I am beat, and so, apparently, are most of you.

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this on an email: Just click on the headline in the email and it will deliver you to the full column online. Keep refreshing the screen to see the new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post.

Also, if you have the wherewithal, please upgrade your subscription to ‘paid.’ It’s only $4.15 a month. To paraphrase Woody Guthrie’s sign on his guitar, this machine fights fascists.

Q: Regarding bad hires: About the reader who mentioned another individual who did not have the qualifications to be a reporter but a month later was hired on as managing editor. You know what lawyers who graduated in the lower half of their law school classes are called? … Your honor.

A: This made me laugh. It’s sort of a ripoff of the classic joke about what do you call a woman who uses “the rhythm method”? Mommy.

Also, there is a journalism parallel involving failed reporters and writers. They become editors. It is, sadly, very often deeply true.

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Q: Regarding your poll about millennials not answering the phone, I'm an elder millennial (42, have had a cell phone since I was 17) and only answer my phone if I'm expecting a call or one of my parents calls me. 90 percent of the calls I receive are unknown numbers delivering spam calls. That said, I hate phone calls and almost always have. The outgoing message on my cell: "Hi, this is Seth. Leave a message. Better yet, don't. Just email or text me." - Seth Christenfeld

A: Okay, understood. But how about the results of not answering a call in which the caller — say, your cousin Milton — is to say '“Seth, I’m having a heart attack. I only think I’ll be conscious for a few more seconds. Please call 911.” ??

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Q: Many years ago, I was a student in an advanced mathematics class at a well-known university. I had naively assumed that the university would assign a qualified teacher to every class. Not so. The university regularly assigned PhD students with no teaching experience to teach undergraduate classes.  Sometimes it worked out well. For us, not so much.

Our class was taught by a guy we called, "Marvelous Marvin."  His lectures were audible Ambien. One day, Marvin noticed a student who had succumbed to the inevitable, and was fast asleep. Believing, most likely incorrectly, that the student would learn more from the lecture were he awake, Marvin asked the student sitting next to the sleeper to wake him up. To which, the neighbor replied, "You put him to sleep - You wake him up."

- Paul Frantz

A: Very nice.

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Q: My company once hired a guy to be an administrator of HR, in charge of sexual harassment. He was fired for harassing nine different women WITHIN A YEAR.

A: This is the winner.

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This is Gene. I’m kinda exhausted. Ending it here. I hope to file again tomorrow.

Usually I am totally wrong in my predictions and expectations of poll results, but this one has confirmed my guesses. Most women so far have called the RFK-Nuzzi relationship an affair. Most men have not.

I guess this because I did a test case thing, before the poll: I think it was not an affair. Rachel thinks it was.

Please keep sending in Q’s and O’s. You can send it all here — general questions, or bids for free subscriptions: