I spend a lot of time, sometimes desperately, scrolling up and down the Loser Community’s own Master Contest List of Style Invitational contests — soon to be 1,513 of them — searching through the descriptions for anything I can use again. Would the contest make sense in 2022; was it too specific to its time? Might all the good jokes have been used up the first time around (or the second or third)? Have our tastes changed?
Somehow, though, until Loser Duncan Stevens suggested it recently, I skipped Week 509 in 2003, the last year of my predecessor the Czar. It’s a contest for greeting-card-style rhymes for occasions that Hallmark wouldn’t be honoring. We’re giving it another go, in the same way, for Week 1513.
The Czar introduced the 2003 contest with two sample rhymes, written either by him or by Anthony “Bird” Waring, who’d suggested the contest. (Bird just won last week’s Clowning Achievement with his neologism “splendooferous,” meaning magnificently stupid, as in the Washington Commanders mug with Washington state pictured on it).
In the bank of truth You've made a deposit. Congrats on coming Out of the closet. Excessive kids make a guy Look like heck to me -- Please accept my best wishes On getting your vasectomy.
When it came time for the results four weeks later, the Czar presented a typically wide-ranging collection of “occasions,” everything from congratulations on a boob job all the way to the week’s winner, a pretty scorching “apology” by the Justice Department for someone (at Guantánamo?) who’d been imprisoned for more than a year without charges. The winning entry was by Joe Cackler, a high school student; I hope he noted his ink on his successful application to Stanford.
So for your Guidance ’n’ Inspiration™:
Report from Week 509, in which you were asked to write Hallmark Card rhymes for non-Hallmark occasions.
Fourth Runner-Up: We feel your loss, it’s surely no fun, Worse than fire, or flood, or a gash when you’re shaving, But what’s done is done, and cannot be undone -- You Ctrl-Alt-Deleted without saving. (Elden Carnahan, Laurel) Third Runner-Up: Sorry the rats you bought, Stanley and Iris, Gave you and your family the monkeypox virus. I regret that unfortunate fever and rash, But returns are for store credit only, no cash. (Brendan Beary, Great Mills, Md.) Second Runner-Up: You wanted no truck so You got something dumber, You parked like a schmuck so We booted your Hummer. (Sugar Strawn and Jack Welsch, Alexandria) First Runner-Up: Snip, tuck, sew, tie, hips, butt, nose, eye. Congratulations on your surgery. Your face may be a small white lie, But your body’s flagrant perjury. (Josh Tucker, Kensington) And the winner of the thong panties and T-shirt with the likeness of the former Iraqi minister of information: Although you were never charged with a crime We want to thank you for serving your time For weeks, for months, for over a year How could your freedom compete with our fear? How could we doubt the Department of Justice Saying “no need for evidence, you’ll just have to trust us.” Until finally you walked out the door, And though we’ve done nothing to apologize for Please accept from us, a grateful nation, Our thanks for your incarceration. (Joe Cackler, Falls Church) Honorable Mentions: It’s bad your misdeeds all precede you, You’re both jackass and hyena -- I’ve chased you round, all over town Congrats on this subpoena. (David Whitten, Annandale) Although your crime Was shocking and venal, Here’s hoping your sentence Isn’t too . . . penal. (Dave Scott, Broadway, Va.) All my best for accepting Jesus as your savior. Perhaps when He returns You’ll be out on good behavior. (Michael Gips, Bethesda) Life seldom is fair, It sticks in our gizzards To hear of your trade To the Washington Wizards. (Edward C. Nykwest, Reston) Son, we’re proud of you As we kin be That you done passed Your GED. (Russell Beland, Springfield) Two hundred seventy-seven days Plus fifty-four years Would seem an odd age to praise (But I am bold.) Mankind can define its periods In whatever way we wish You’ve just reached two myriads (Twenty thousand days old!) (Kenneth S. Gallant, Little Rock) Though your copied copy Made your editor sick, We hope you will survive And get real, quick. (Bill Moulden, Frederick) You won’t miss a minute Of the playoff. There’s always a bright side . . . Happy layoff. (Tara Kennedy, Silver Spring) When I spew exclamations like “Sweet Holy Lord!” You will have to excuse my vernacular. What I’m trying to say in my own special way Is “Congrats! The new boobs are spectacular!” (Scott Campisi, Wake Village, Tex.) A miracle like this Bespeaks some real endurance: I’m thrilled to hear you saved Fifteen percent or more on car insurance. (Ezra Deutsch-Feldman, Bethesda) I had my doubts -- You aren’t able. But congrats on assembling Your Ikea table. (Jean Sorensen, Herndon) I try to be subtle and gentle But my subtlety always gets trumped By the fact that you’re totally mental, So consider yourself gently dumped. (Scott Campisi, Wake Village, Tex.) No more mortgage, toil or strife, No more trying to get ahead. You’ve earned your respite from this life: Congrats on finally being dead. (Keith Thorne, Alexandria) We ex-employees have taken to drinkin’ And it’s only ‘bout you that we (burp) talk. So it’s only of you we’ll be sittin’ round thinkin’ As we toast your upcoming perp walk. (Jason R. Meyers, Charlottesville) Of penis enlargement news You’ll soon be a fount. Best wishes on the occasion Of your new Hotmail account. (Steve Denyszyn, Toronto) Good news from the good Dr. Tweak, gynecology, Your pap smear reveals a quite normal cytology. But, oops, more results here, and lest we forget it: It appears that you’re pregnant, obese and herpetic. (Jan Verrey, Alexandria) We just got cussed out by the hospital doc, And we think that on us you’re too hard: Who knew that a flare-up of insulin shock Could be caused by a real Hallmark card? (Elden Carnahan, Laurel) A thousand thank-yous can’t convey My gratitude and great surprise I’m flattered that you would select My article to plagiarize. (Brendan Beary, Great Mills) Your paranoia’s cured! You must feel brand new! Please accept my best wishes. Sincerely . . . guess who? (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)
Obviously, feel free to make your own rhyme 2022-topical. And in the tradition of greeting cards — which also happens to be the tradition of the Invite — “perfect rhyme” and crisp meter are highly valued for verses like these.
I did do a greeting card contest myself, in 2006 — not necessarily for the poems, but the whole idea of the card: the line on the front followed by the joke on the inside, sometimes a description of the artwork. I was inspired by reading an Associated Press article about Hallmark’s new, bolder Shoebox line, and how the writers had a “Funny, but No” bulletin board with great ideas that didn’t pass muster with management.
Below are the full results. As I read over the results of that contest last night, I was struck by two entries in particular, ones that I’d never run today, and think I was wrong by running then. I note them below.
Report From Week 658, in which we asked for greeting card ideas that the Hallmark people might put on their “Funny but No” wall:
Fourth place: A child, crushed under the wheel of a bus, cries out: “Don’t worry, Ma! I’m wearing clean ones!” Happy Mother’s Day (Ira Allen, Bethesda)
Third place: Hope You Get Well Soon! I mean, you’re just grossing me out, how disgusting you look and smell right now. (Judith Cottrill, New York)
Second place: Picture of Sigmund Freud: “I’d wish you a happy Father’s Day …
[inside] … if only I didn’t want to kill you and sleep with Mom.” (David Kleinbard, Jersey City)
The Winner of the Inker (Randy Lee’s idea is illustrated by Bob Staake at the top of this page)
Our Condolences to …: Honorable mentions
[Cover] We Are Saddened by Your Loss/ [Inside] Whatever It Was (Chris Doyle, Forsyth, Mo.)
With Appreciation on Secretaries’ Day/ In gratitude for your lovely attitude and excellent work, I’ve enclosed this gift card — it’s so much more fun than stupid old benefits. (Jay Shuck, Minneapolis)
[Cover] Sometimes you can’t undo what’s been done … all you can do is admit the hurt you’ve caused and say, “I’m sorry.” / [Inside] So get off your high horse and apologize already. (Brendan Beary, Great Mills)
[Cover] Congratulations, Graduate! As you enter the workforce, you should know that all jobs fall into four categories: 1. Stimulating, but not financially rewarding; 2. Secure, but soul-destroyingly dull; 3. Financially rewarding, but very stressful without being stimulating; and … [Inside] 4. Somebody else’s. (Douglas Frank, Crosby, Tex.)
Happy Passover! [Drawing of door with blood smeared around it] Hope the Angel of Death skips your house! (Judith Cottrill)
A kid looking at a centerfold: “To the Hottest Mom a Boy Could Wish For.” (Art Grinath, Takoma Park)
Congratulations, College Graduate! /You are so gonna be THE king of Italian Renaissance poetry among all the baggers at Safeway! (Brendan Beary)
[Picture of Abu Ghraib with holiday decorations:] Season’s Beatings! (Kevin Dopart, Washington) [I truly cannot believe I ran this. It’s certainly effective as sick humor, but this may be THE most tasteless thing I’ve ever run. I really am ashamed, even though it was just in text without a link to the picture. The pictures of U.S. torture of prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison came to light in 2004 and continue to be viscerally horrifying today. All I can think of is that I had rejected the idea of actually drawing the card, and putting the entry farther down the list, and somehow thought that would be enough of a concession to taste. I hold nothing against Kevin Dopart: The Invitational has always tested boundaries, and the point of the sick-humor genre is to comically smash them with something obviously offensive. He delivered superbly on that. It’s MY job to say no.]
Congratulations on Your Same-Sex Union/ Take comfort that while your souls burn forever in the fires of eternal damnation, they’ll be together. (Russell Beland, Springfield)
Since I met you . . . I’m euphoric I’m relaxed I laugh easily I feel tingly I am free to just be me [Inside] Of course, I’ve also been sniffing paint . . . (Molly Norton, San Francisco)
Front: Picture of a frustrated guy reloading a gun. / Inside: I keep missing you. (Erik Agard, Gaithersburg) [I wouldn’t run this one now either. Incidentally, Erik Agard was a high school student at the time; he was also a crossword prodigy and went on to become one of the nation’s premier crossword constructors working today.]
We’d Make a Great Team! / I’ve got loose shoes and a warm bathroom … You can bring the rest. (Kevin Dopart)
Congratulations on Your Retirement! / Like a salmon that has swum upstream to its destination, your work is done … Now, all that’s left is to go belly up and die. (Wilson Varga, Alexandria)
Congratulations on Your Promotion! / You’re an inspiration to shameless brown-nosers everywhere. (Rob Kloak, Springfield)
M is for the many times you bailed me
Out of jail, and rustled up some meds,
T is for the therapy that failed me,
H, the hours fending off the feds,
E is for the energy you wasted,
Running ragged while I lounged in bed;
Put them all together, they spell “suckehhhh . . .
Mother,”
My safety net you’ll always be.
(Elden Carnahan, Laurel)
[Cover] A Belated Birthday Wish/ [Inside] From Your Conjoined Twin (Chris Doyle)
For this week, though, just give me verses.
A note on the formatting (also noted on this week’s entry form): In most contests, I ask you not to put any line endings (i.e., to type Enter) within a single entry, so I can electronically shuffle all the entries and have no idea that the same person wrote any two of them. But poems and song lyrics obviously need to be broken up into several lines.
So as with all contests involving verse, just write your entry like a regular poem, and break the lines as you like; do capitalize each line. (Don’t bother with boldface, italics, etc.; they won’t transmit on the form. Stay tuned for possible improvements on this front; we’re going to a totally different form system next month.) I’ll just copy the poems out onto my shortlist as I read through the submissions. I don’t see the entrants’ names until the end anyway — and even when I do it this way, I try to paste the selected poems in random order on the shortlist. So still, by the time I do my final picks, I’ve totally forgotten whether a certain poem is one of five that I’ve chosen from Entrant No. 33, or the only one.
Another difference with poetry/song entries: One thing this form has been doing is dropping the space between poems/songs! So since I won’t be shuffling up all the entries, feel free to put a line of hyphens, asterisks, poop emoji, etc., between your poems if you’re sending more than one.
Superbad twins*: The mashed movie titles of Week 1509
*Non-inking headline by Jeff Rackow
Hmm, I was thinking after slog-scrolling through perhaps 25 consecutive combinations of one-word movie titles and their descriptions — and not finding one that was clever or funny: I could always fill space with a bigger picture of those cute toilet paper earrings.
But yes, regular readers of this column know this happens to me all the time when I judge the Invitational. Week 1509 had brought in a whopping 2,228 entries from more than 250 readers, and so even with one good entry for every 24 bad ones, I’d end up with a list of 89 good jokes — far more than I could even use.
Sure enough, when I finally threshed out my shortlist from the chaff, using the same Word operation that I use to mix up the entries in the first place, the entries I’d selected ran to seven pages of printout — and it was hard to cut 20 or 30 of those finalists to reach the 61 movies that ran online (about 45 in print). I think we ended up with a good mix of approaches: highbrow, lowbrow, topical, political, daily-life, beans, generously salted with wordplay.
I had mentioned up front that the combined movie didn’t necessarily have to relate to either of the actual film plots, but I’d expected that most of the inking entries would. Instead, out of the week’s top four winners — all by women this week! Is that a first? — only Hildy Zampella’s Gaslight Harvey references the originals (both of them): People try to convince a giant rabbit that he’s crazy when he insists that Jimmy Stewart is following him around.
The three others in the Losers’ Circle use the one-word titles for unrelated humor. Terri Berg Smith wins her second Clowning Achievement with a play on a different kind of movie entirely: Parasite Boyhood: “In Pixar’s latest, Tommy Tapeworm and his buddies search for the perfect hosts — and end up finding themselves.” Days before the Pennsylvania election, Karen Lambert plays off Senate candidate Mehmet Oz’s questionable links to his “home state”: Philadelphia Alien: “Dr. Oz goes to a Flyers game wearing a Devils jersey.” And Hannah Seidel touches on this city’s sky-high housing costs with Madagascar Rent, the ever more distant search for D.C. workers to find something affordable.
Almost all the inking entries use names of two well-known movies; when it came to whittling the shortlist, I cut one entry that used some title that showed up on IMDB and almost nowhere else. The contest is to combine movies; if the reader’s never heard of those movies, the point is gone.
What didn’t work: To start, a lot of people missed the direction that the description was to be of a third movie; they just wrote a definition. Here are a couple of good ones but not the contest:
8½ Holes: “Our innovative, abridged golf course allows you to walk away before that last, pressure-packed putt near the clubhouse.”
_ARGO FARGO: The people that gave us Wordle introduce a “Cities of America” version of their popular game.
Screediness: My word for writing in which bitterness or anguish or anger overpowers the wit. e.g.: Senseless War: What happens when a corrupt former superpower attacks a prepared and determined nation with an army gutted by decades of graft. Or Clueless Pilgrim: European settlers facing starvation because they have no idea how to grow crops are rescued by Native Americans. The rescued interlopers thank their saviors by stealing their land and killing them.
Ha!
Unprintability. But you knew that. Some Funny But No entries:
Shaft Endurance: When he finds his friend unresponsive, a New York City detective investigates the distribution of little blue pills. (Jon Carter)
Dick Dolittle: The story of a man who chooses to remain celibate. (Tom Witte)
Inside JFK: The story of what happened in Dallas, from the point of view of the bullet. (Don Norum)
Snatch Eraser: Kewpie and Barbie star in this unrevealing tale of the era of anatomical incorrectness. (Dudley Thompson)
What Pleased Ponch: Ace Copy Editor Ponch Garcia went to the “honorables” for this week’s faves: Karen Lambert’s Booksmart Rocky: “Greetings and Salutations, Adrian!”; Don Norum’s Spartacus? Nope!: “One Thracian rebel missed the memo, and lived happily ever after”; Steve Shapiro’s Suddenly Clueless: “A dad discovers what it’s like when his child becomes a teenager” (I believe that Ponch has made this discovery); Jeff Contompasis’s and Barbara Turner’s similar enough Frankenstein Footloose entries: “The rampaging monster must slow to a limp in search of an ankle bolt”; Mark Raffman’s Superbad Reds: “Wines of the World, Part 23: Chernobyl”; and Sarah Walsh’s Thor Loser: “A playground bully’s taunts become less threatening when his baby teeth start to fall out.” (I received a number of “Thor Loser” entries, but Sarah’s noted the “th.”)
Amy’s Hitts: Deputy features editor Amy Hitt told me she thought all the entries were funny — we like that in a deputy features editor — and that her faves were this week’s winner, Terri Berg Smith’s Parasite Boyhood, the inspirational Pixar tale; as well as Sarah’s Thor Loser and Jeff Shirley’s Pi Cheerleader, complete with the MIT pep squad exhorting, “3 point 1-4-1-5-9! Look at the scoreboard — who’s behind?”
Meanwhile, we’re sorry to hear that it’s the last day at The Post for Annabeth Carlson, who’s done the “slotting,” or second read, of the Invite lately. Annabeth — who’s just back from her honeymoon — recently moved to Richmond, and now that newsroom employees are supposed to return downtown three days a week, a 108-mile commute each way isn’t quite worth it, even to read poop jokes once a week.
Not the contest, as he knew, but fun: Stephen Gold sent this:
And just messing around, the trajectory of Donald Trump’s career in one-word movie titles: Big, Blonde, Hustle, Chance, Election, Triumph, Chaos, Misery, Loser, Denial, Liar, Obsessed, Violence, Fraud, Suspicion, Target, Twilight, Downfall, Yesterday.
Last call for brunch and/or TopGolf!
(Reprinted from the Week 1511 Conversational; I can’t make this one, but I’m sure it’ll be fun)
Next Loser sighting: Brunch and TopGolf in Germantown, Md., Nov. 13
There’s a new activity on the Loser calendar: brunch at Senor Tequila’s in Germantown, Md. on Sunday, Nov. 13, at noon, followed by an afternoon at the nearby TopGolf center. TopGolf is to golf what playing carnival games is to riflery; I’ve never been, but it looks like a hoot — instead of aiming at one little hole, you can swing your driver toward any number of point-scoring maws from the comfort of your party’s designated section. Here’s an article that conveys the idea and the atmosphere. Kids are welcome. RSVP to brunch coordinator Kyle “Loserfest Pope” Hendrickson at BrunchOfLosers@gmail.com. And check out the rest of “Our Social Engorgements” at the Losers’ website, NRARS.org.
