“I had a hunch the Losers would really take to this contest,” said Bob Staake, who’d suggested his zany hybrid slogan/map-route idea to me a month ago after it had come to him in a dream. Earlier this week I showed The Style Invitational’s longtime artist/so-much-more my shortlist of entries for Week 1507; for once, he was eager to weigh in on them, something he declines to do for the captions to his cartoons. “There are a lot of really inventive ones here — which is very vindicating,” Bob told me. I hope Bob feels sufficiently vindicated to suggest some more contests (and deal with it when I say no to most of them), since this week’s results turned out to be fun to read as well as, according to several Losers, especially fun to do.
But I realized that to get to fun-to-readness (and not lose huge amounts of space on the print page), I had to drop the lists of states denoting the map routes — an essential part of the contest: You had to write a slogan for a U.S. state, and each successive word of the slogan had to begin with the first letter of the next state on your route. (This is a contest that was a lot easier to demonstrate than explain; this week’s “air quotes” contest is another.)
But who wants to read lists of up to 29 (thanks, Jon Gearhart!) state abbreviations? Many of them were even longer than the strings in our recent “sister cities” contest — which occasionally tripped up the debut of the audio version of the Invite, with the auto-voice pleasantly reading “N.C., Pa., La., N.D., Hawaii” as “N, C, pa, la, N, D, Hawaii.” (The otherwise impressive audio is now available every week for the Invite and Conversational; click on the “Listen” icon just under the top picture. I got all flustered as soon as I heard Ms. Bot start to read some words I’d written.)
I also had run the Week 1507 list past my predecessor the Czar, who liked the entries but warned me: “I fear you must list the state sequences in all. Otherwise I do not believe it. They could be bulls[p]it.”
So, for those who are from Missouri, or just otherwise interested, a list of this week’s honorable mentions complete with the state routes appears at the bottom of this column.
The wording of some of the inking slogans might sound a bit contrived — if you weren’t constrained by the route-states, you might have come up with better phrasing — but they’re close enough that their irregularities are part of the fun, the reminder that it’s a stunt. It was fun to mix up the comically long “slogans,” such as Jon Gearhart’s 29-state word-tsunami about seeing movie stars in California, with, says, Tom Witte’s about the same state: “Necesitamos Agua!”
While stereotypes are unavoidable in contests like this one, I avoided misleading ones that implied that Mormons are polygamous, or that West Virginia wants you to marry your cousin (in fact, first-cousin marriage is banned there — while it’s legal in both Maryland and Virginia).
It’s the fourth Clowning Achievement trophy — and the 17th win in all — for Hall of Famer Beverley Sharp, who found something to tout about her home state of Alabama. (True story: I mailed a prize to Beverley Sharp in Montgomery, and the post office there sent it back to me: Sharp isn’t her husband’s last name, and it was confused.)
Pete Morelewicz, who left urban D.C. years ago for bucolic Fredericksburg, Va., popped up this week with multiple inks, including the runner-up “Kiss My Aspens,” a slogan that I could see Colorado (or at least Coloradans) adopting. Definitely worthy of a second-prize Whoopee Cushion. Leif Picoult also mopped up several blots, leading with the always winning combination of North Dakota and snot; and First Offender Jon Carter will bypass the Loser Stats’ One-Hit Wonders list, since he scored two inks today: the lengthy runner-up about California, and a Staake favorite, the one about microbrews and Sasquatch in Oregon.
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Late-breaking late-afternoon update:
While the print version of the Invitational goes to press early Thursday evening for the Sunday paper, I’ve been publishing the online Invite on Thursday morning; it’s especially useful because the Losers have several hours to let me know of any mistakes I can fix for the print version, which of course can’t be updated.
The downside of this practice is that the editorial process isn’t totally finished by Thursday morning; the column is read by a copy editor Wednesday afternoon, and I’ll address that person’s concerns that evening. BUT the section also gets another read by a supervisory copy editor, or “slot” (this is the job I used to have back in the day), on Thursday afternoon.
Today, the slot, who’s not the usual one who reads the Invite, evidently had problems with a number of the inking entries this week, for taste and fairness. He then flagged them to other editors, including the brand-new editor of all the features sections, Ben Williams. Ben read them and decided to cut these flagged entries (he let others stay; I don’t know which ones those were). They’re all from the honorable mentions:
IDAHO: Our Country Needs Unruly White Militias! (Mark Raffman)
IOWA: So Darn White It Makes North Dakota Seem Diverse (So Darn White Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)
ALABAMA: Find God And Try Meth (Daniel Galef)
LOUISIANA: The Anus of the Lower Mississippi (Scott Richards)
MISSISSIPPI: Literacy Ain’t Our Top Objective (Kevin Dopart)
NORTH CAROLINA: Visitors Welcome. “Made-up” Pronouns Not. (Pete Morelewicz)
VIRGINIA: Non-Conforming Gender? Think Maryland! (Steve Smith)
In addition, I had already agreed the night before to cut this one, which I considered excellent political satire but two editors thought was in bad taste because it made light of police brutality in a sensitive case:
MINNESOTA: Seriously Nice Cops! Unless …. (Mark Raffman)
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Obviously, the “Anus of the Lower Mississippi” joke was crude; I shouldn’t have put it in the print paper. But I found it an especially clever put-down because of the parallel between the delta of a river and the yucky body part.
The others? Well, I was surprised; I just didn’t consider their sentiments all that edgy. It’s true, though, that the premise for whole contest rested on stereotyping whole states.
After being told about this, I was able to talk on some length on the phone with our new features editor, Ben Williams, and he assured me that he’s not out to turn the Invitational into Reader’s Digest, and does believe that it can be a place for satirical political humor. We had a civil and respectful discussion that did much to reassure me.
I’m going to continue to edit the entries as I always have, every week for the past 19 years, and hopefully we’ll continue to run edgy humor. I specifically asked Ben if the contestants would have to dramatically revise their humor, and he said no.
As for ink: You guys who were published this morning and then pulled, you get a point in the stats. We did this one other time that a bunch of entries were pulled after they were published online, some years ago.
Three sets of faves this week!
Bob Staake singled out Karen Lambert’s kooky Californians; Jon Carter’s runner-up as well as his one about Oregon; Jon Ketzner’s “God’s Senior Center” for Florida; Jon Gearhart’s “So Darn White” about his own state; Brian Cohen’s joke about the St. Louis Arch (Bob used to live in St. Louis before moving to Cape Cod); and Pam Shermeyer’s West Virginia joke about the Paté Of Possum.
Gene Weingarten, the aforementioned Czar, liked a long list of them, especially Jon Carter’s California runner-up, Jon Gearhart’s long California one, Ward Kay’s “We Inhale” for Colorado, Jon (so many Jons!) Ketzner’s “God’s Senior Center”; Daniel Galef’s now-pulled meth joke; the anus joke; and Leif Picoult’s snot-icicles runner-up.
And our ol’ Ponch Garcia, our regular Wednesday copy editor, favored Rob Cohen’s “Most ‘Last’ Titles” for Mississippi; Jeff Contompasis’s about the Iowa caucuses; Beverley’s winner; Steve Smith’s now-pulled “Non-Conforming Gender" and, yes, Jon Ketzner’s “God’s Senior Center.”
Mr. Ketzner gets an extra virtual magnet this week (he’s opted to just get email “prizes”).
C‘lose r’eading*: This week’s ‘air quotes’ contest
*Inking headline by Chris Doyle from the 2019 contest
As I said earlier, the best way to understand the concept of our “air quotes” contest is to see the ones — the many, many ones — we’ve done. Here are links to the results of earlier contests; some links go to that week’s new column, so in those cases just scroll down to the results.
Another late-breaker — this one much happier!
This afternoon, Loser Jeff Contompasis sent me a list of words that have been used in past air quote contests! I don’t know if it’s complete, but it’s a heck of a start. It’s just the words, not the descriptions. Hopefully you can see it through this link to a Google Doc.
Results of Week 336, spread over two weeks:
You’re not absolutely forbidden to use the same air-quotes word, but your definition would have to be very different.
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. (If you missed last week’s Gettysburg visit and tour, you can catch another one in April.)
The state routes behind this week’s inking state slogans
ARIZONA: Nutty Conspiracies, Unbearable Warmth and a Canyon! (Karen Lambert, Chevy Chase, Md.) (N.M., Colo., Utah, Wyo., Colo.)
ARKANSAS: Two Letters More Than Kansas! (Mike Caslin, Round Hill, Va.) (Tex., La., Miss., Tenn., Ky.)
CALIFORNIA: Attention New Tourists: Our Citizens Understand With Movie Stars It’s Not Wise Calling Out Their Names And Clapping Unless Cameras Are Nearby and They Are On a Crimson Walkway Smiling and Waving (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)(Ariz., N.M., Tex., Okla., Colo., Utah, Wyo., Mont., S.D., Iowa, Neb., Wyo., Colo., Okla., Tex., N.M., Ariz., Colo., Utah, Colo., Ariz., N.M., Tex., Ark., Okla., Colo., Wyo., S.D., Wyo.)
CALIFORNIA: Necesitamos Agua! (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.) (Nev., Ariz.)
CALIFORNIA: No, All Californians Are Not Completely Wacko, Crazy Kooks! (Only Most Of Them.) (Karen Lambert) (Nev., Ariz., Calif., Ariz., N.M., Colo., Wyo., Colo., Kan., Okla., Mo., Okla., Tex.)
COLORADO: We Inhale (Ward Kay, Vienna, Va.) (Wyo., Idaho)
FLORIDA: God’s Senior Center (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.) (Ga., S. C.)
FLORIDA: A Map Appendage That Looks Awfully Like A Misshapen And Flaccid Gherkin (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.) (Ala., Miss., Ark., Tex., La., Ark., La., Ark., Miss., Ala., Fla., Ga.)
FLORIDA: All Migrants Leaving Texas, Onboard Now! (Dave Ferry, Purvis, Miss.) (Ala., Miss., La., Tex., Okla., N.M.)
FLORIDA: Fanatic Governor, Alligators, Terrible Mosquitoes, Irma, Ian. Oh, Please, Now, Y’all Visit! (Rob Cohen, Potomac, Md.) (Flo., Ga., Ala., Tenn., Mo., Ill., Ind., Ohio, Pa., N. Y., Vt.)
GEORGIA: Find Any Missing Trump Votes? Nope! (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.) (Fla., Ala., Miss., Tenn., Va., N.C.)
IDAHO: No Californians Need Arrive (Karen Lambert) (Nev., Calif., Nev., Ariz.)
IOWA: We Matter Solely When Caucuses Occur (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.) (Wis., Minn., S.D., Wyo., Colo., Okla.)
KANSAS: Our Tornadoes Are Legendary! Away To Oz, Toto! (Mark Raffman) (Okla., Tex., Ark., La., Ark., Tex., Okla., Tex.)
LOUISIANA: Love Them Ol’ Confederate Wavy Symbols! (Carol Lasky, Boston) (La., Tex., Okla., Colo., Wyo., S.D.)
MAINE: No Hotels! Mosquitoes! C-c-cold! Nobody’s Young! = Must Visit! (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.) (N.H., Mass., Conn., N.Y., Mass., Vt.)
MICHIGAN: We Make Our Politicians Maintain Valid Kidnapping Insurance (Kevin Dopart, Washington) (Wis., Mich. Ohio, Pa., Md., Va., Ky., Ind.)
MISSISSIPPI: The Most “Last” Titles (Rob Cohen) (Tenn., Miss., La., Tex.)
MISSOURI: Our Most Acclaimed Landmark Makes Americans Think Of McDonald’s (Brian Cohen, Winston-Salem, N.C.) (Okla., Mo., Ark., La., Miss., Ark., Tex., Okla., Mo.)
NORTH DAKOTA: Making Icicles With Snot (Leif Picoult) (Mont., Iowa, Wyo., S.D.)
NORTH DAKOTA: Snow Definitely Will Melt In May (Eric Nelkin, Silver Spring, Md.) (S. D., Wyo., Mont., Idaho, Mont.)
OHIO: It’s Kinda Mayo And That’s Okay-o (Lee Graham, Reston) (Ind., Ky., Mo., Ark., Texas, Okla.)
OREGON: Come And Unwind In a Microbrewery With Sasquatch (Jon Carter) (Calif., Ariz., Utah, Idaho, Mont., Wyo., S.D.)
TEXAS: Liberty and Autonomy! (Only Applies To Men) (Marty Gold, Arlington, Va.) (La., Ark., Okla., Ark., Tenn., Miss.)
TEXAS: Objects Appear Larger Than Normal (Drew Bennett, Rogers, Ark.) (Okla., Ark., La., Tex., N.M.)
TEXAS: Teachers, Lock And Load! (Emma Daley) (Tex., La., Ark., La.)
TEXAS: Where Cowboys, Oil, Armadillos, Longhorns And, Oh, Maybe Two Million Armed Grannies Are Found (Chris Doyle, also found in Texas) (Wyo., Colo., Okla., Ark., La., Ark., Okla., Mo., Tenn., Miss., Ala., Ga., Ala., Fla.)
UTAH: We Come Knocking (Leif Picoult) (Wyo., Colo., Kan.)
WEST VIRGINIA: Welcome! Our Paté Of Possum Never Disappoints! (Pam Shermeyer) (W.Va., Ohio, Pa., Ohio, Pa., N.J., Del.)
WEST VIRGINIA: What, Me Vaccinate? (Bob Kruger, Rockville, Md.) (W.Va., Md., Va.)
WYOMING: We Shun Democrats (and a Noted Congresswoman Who Isn’t) (Neil Kurland, Elkridge, Md.) (Wyo., S. D., Neb., Colo., Wyo., Idaho)
D.C.: a Memorable Place Where Philadelphians Watch the Phillies Win (Steve Smith) (Md., Pa., W.Va., Pa., W.Va., Pa., W.Va.)
D.C.: Man Who Owns Washington Post Needs Proclamation Of It In Multitude Of Articles (Jesse Frankovich, Lansing, Mich.) (Md., W.Va., Ohio, W.Va., Pa., N.J., Pa., Ohio, Ind., Ill., Mo., Okla., Ark.)
