Style Conversational Week 1138: The zung remains the same Bill Gates, screen star, in 1995; NBC’s Robert Wright is at left, announcing that new joint venture MSNBC. (Marty Lederhandler/AP) By Pat Myers Pat Myers Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003 Email // Bio // Follow // August 27, 2015 Hi, everyone. This is the last you’ll hear from me for at least two weeks and maybe three: Royal Scion No. 1 will be doing the nuptial thing overseas, so I’ll be gone all next week and won’t get back until late on Sept. 8. That means I’ll already be a day past deadline for that week’s Style Invitational (the Week 1136 limerick results, which I’ll judge during the trip), and once I get that out of the way, I’ll probably then finally open my suitcase and get some sleep (yes, I am a cat). But I’m hoping desperately confident that the Invites for both weeks will go up as usual on the next two Thursday afternoons. (Ink-earners will have to be more patient than usual to get their little strips of slightly warped metal.) This week’s contest, Week 1138, is one that, until now, evaded my approximately 600 previous jaunts through the Invitational archives as I looked for successful, timeless contests to repeat. Perhaps it’s because it’s awfully wide-ranging; essentially the challenge is just to say something clever about anyone. And of course, clever observations and epigrams about specific people have found their way into virtually every previous Invite contest. But the Invitational /had/ been going strong for close to five years when the Czar posted Week 240, and he didn’t seem to have any problem finding good results. See for yourself. (I’ve added links to a few people and events that haven’t been in the headlines too much since the 1990s.) (After going back and forth, I’ve decided that it’s better to give the subject’s name first, before the zinger, rather than how the 1997 results were presented; the first runner-up below, I think, especially suffered from the format. If a certain joke would work significantly better if the name is listed last, I won’t insist on consistency.) *Report from Week 240, in which you were asked to write elegant insults of famous people.* /Fourth Runner-Up: /He has something John D. Rockefeller and Howard Hughes never had — the ability to be the richest man in the world and boring at the same time. (Russ Beland, Springfield, on Bill Gates) /Third Runner-Up:/ Guys like them put the “goober” in gubernatorial. (Sandra Hull, Arlington, on Fife Symington and Jim Guy Tucker ) /Second Runner-Up:/ His strong suit appears to be a polyester blend. (Jean Sorensen, Herndon, on Bill Gates) /First Runner-Up:/ He doesn’t have to worry about that anymore. (Barry Blyveis, Columbia, on Woody Allen’s comment that he wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have him as a member.) /And the Winner of the plastic Popeil doughnut maker:/ His influence doesn’t spread, it metastasizes. (Phil Frankenfeld, Washington, on Rush Limbaugh) /Honorable Mentions:/ He is statuesque. (Jerry Pannullo, Kensington, on Al Gore) The camera used to love her. Now she’s suing for alienation of affection. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge, on Elizabeth Taylor) He displays all the insouciance of a mortician doing the macarena. (Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y., on Al Gore) She makes up for being fat by being mean. (Jeffrey Fenster, Bethesda, on Roseanne) He never met a blond, blue-eyed, non-Jewish, non-Catholic, non-handicapped heterosexual German he didn’t like. (Suzanne Fregly, Fort Washington, on Adolf Hitler) (Um, sure he did.) She is an entertainment legend who needs no introduction, but who will insist. (David Genser, Arlington, on Diana Ross) He is Howard Stern without the subtlety. (David Genser, Arlington, on the Greaseman ) I am so glad we have her to tell us what is good literature. Now I don’t have to depend on Reader’s Digest anymore. (Art Grinath, Takoma Park, on Oprah Winfrey) Oh, the perennial search for self! (Patrice Kyger, Free Union, Va., on O.J. Simpson’s quest to find the real killer) And he didn’t even have to grow up! (Bob Dalton, Beaumont, Tex., on Bill Clinton’s growing up to be president) The depth of his character was perfectly captured by Mobius. (Bob Dalton, Beaumont, Tex., on Prince Charles) As empty asCapone’s vault . (Bob Dalton, Beaumont, Tex., on Geraldo Rivera) How unfortunate that he did not have the opportunity to make Mother Teresa’s funeral as entertaining. (Bob Dalton, Beaumont, Tex., on Elton John) The ears have been unkind to him. (Paul J. Crystal, Arlington, onRoss Perot ) Pants down, he has been the greatest president of the late 1990s. (Russ Horner, Arlington, on Bill Clinton) How comforting it is to know that each of us, in his deepest, darkest hour of trial, can call for help by speaking a single name. Travolta. (Brian Broadus, Charlottesville, on John Travolta) As an actor, he towers over Herve Villechaize . (Elden Carnahan, Laurel, on Steve Guttenberg) He is such a magician, only he could turn two gold-digging bimbos into cultural icons. (Chuck Snowdon, Arlington, on Donald Trump) He still rocks, but mostly in his chair. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg, on Keith Richards) History will record his mastery of two kinds of timing: good and two. (Philip Vitale, Arlington, on Bill Clinton) He is an inspiration for us all to consider early retirement. (Jean Sorensen, Herndon, on Mick Jagger) ----------- Snide one-liners about famous people are one reason that Twitter Inc. is valued at more than $11 billion. You won’t exactly be the only people out there coming up with zingers about Miley Cyrus or Josh Duggar. Please commune with your favorite search engine. (By “one-liners,” I’m not restricting entries strictly to single sentences. But they should have a certain snappy energy; don’t write a paragraph.) *Ahem, we do not have all day here? * *Okay, okay, here’s a very little about Week 1135. * Here’s one we won’t be repeating. We ended up with some funny ideas for time limits amid a slew of unfunny ones, many of those mining lodes of irked-person humor that have pretty much been strip-mined and then fracked for good measure. As I noted above about Week 1138, I was fine with departing from the standard format for the sake of humor, as for Mark Raffman’s entries about the impatient mother-to-be and formerly corporeal person. It’s the first Inkin’ Memorial — but a highly impressive third blot “above the fold” out of only 10 inks in all — for Larry Carnahan of the Virginia suburbs. Larry is not, as I’d assumed, related to Uberloser Elden Carnahan, of the 544 blots of ink, the Losers website, the Loser brunches, the Flushies, etc. Larry’s runners-up: Week 1091: Good idea: Use power tools to keep your car functioning properly. Bad idea: Use power tools to keep your ear functioning properly. And for the Week 987 “Mess With Our Heads” bank-head contest: Head: Rookie Morris gives ground game just what it needs Bank: New Redskins chef makes perfectly seasoned squirrelburgers The runners-up this week are Mike Gips, Mark Raffman and Frank Osen. If you’ve read this far, you’ve read their names too many times to count. Oops, I hit my time limit. See you in September.