Style Conversational Week 1201: So can we laugh at him anymore?
Now that he’s elected, do the rules change? And is anything funny?
(Yeah, here’s some funny.)
(Tweet by Ricky Montgomery)
By Pat Myers
Pat Myers
Editor and judge of The Style Invitational since December 2003
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November 10, 2016
Okay, the sun did come up, the markets didn’t collapse, tanks didn’t
roll down the street, a climate change denier is only being /talked
about / as the next head of the EPA. But let’s say that Style
Invitational entrants were lucky that I didn’t have to judge their jokes
on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. I couldn’t bring myself to even
crack a grim smile. (Yeah, I know I shouldn’t be revealing my political
preferences, but for this election I gave up on objectivity long ago.)
But Lord knows we’re going to need to tap into our senses of humor, and
within 24 hours or so, I was finding at least a few jokes to smile
about. Here’s a sampling, in addition to the tweet pictured above:
A tweet that I saw shared on Facebook last night was the first to make
me laugh:
*“A brief moment of levity from my wife: ‘At this point if a clown
invited me into the woods, I’d just go.’ ”* — fromNels Anderson,
@Nelsormensch
This one byBrian Pedaci
was being shared
everywhere:
*BRITAIN: Brexit is the stupidest, most self-destructive act a country
could undertake.
USA: Hold my beer.*
And I liked this one from a Canadian who goes by just Neil (@_enanem
):
*Ok, don’t panic… If we hold the North and South Pole down
simultaneously for eight seconds, it’ll automatically restore to factory
settings.*
And live on TV by a clearly stunned Stephen Colbert during his election
night broadcast: *“We all feel the way Rudy Giuliani looks.” *
Of course, the Onion couldn’t take off from work.This one
was
from Thursday morning:
ITHACA, NY— In the hours since the Republican nominee’s stunning
election to the nation’s highest office Tuesday night, reports have
confirmed that, regardless of circumstance, it is not even remotely
close to okay to act like Donald Trump. .. In fact, acting like Mr.
Trump does for even a moment will result in a wide range of negative
social—and in some cases, criminal—consequences for you personally. ...
At press time, the reports’ findings were being summarily dismissed out
of hand by roughly 45 percent of the nation’s population in a manner
identical to that of Donald Trump.”
The Onion also posted a list of tips
on
explaining the election results to your children: Such as “Put their
mind at ease by confirming that the results of this election aren’t the
end of the world in any strictly literal sense”; “Don’t be afraid to
openly share your wine with them”; and “Reassure them that no matter
what, the adults in their life will always feel obligated to tell them
everything’s going to be all right.”
And the Tumblr blog Asses of Parnassus republished this tersest of
verses by Style Invitational Loser Robert Schechter:
*Nostalgia*
What’s best today
is yesterday.
And of course, here /we / are. The deadline was Oct. 24 for the Week
1197 cartoon captions that ran in today’s
Style Invitational, and I had chosen the winners before the nation chose
a new president. But I’d let in one entry whose premise was that Donald
Trump would lose the election — and so I cut Elden Carnahan’s caption on
the cartoon of the downward-pointing rocket on the launchpad: “The RNC
arranged for Reince Priebus to take a nice long vacation after the
election.”
On the other hand, I didn’t think it made sense to have a contest this
week like “What do we do now?” Jokes about highly exaggerated things the
new president might say and do in the White House would be a lot funnier
as a fantasy, not as something that either will or won’t happen. I do
welcome ideas, however; email me at pat.myers@washpost.com.
What kind of humor toward a President Trump is no longer within the
bounds of humor toward Candidate Trump? Is he due more politeness by
virtue of the office? (Certainly not because Trump has threatened The
Post and its owner with everything from banning its reporters to perhaps
going after Amazon
on
antitrust grounds.) I don’t think so.
For all its crudeness, the Invite has always had some taste
considerations on its jokes about specific people: We don’t run jokes
about killing or torturing them, or saying that they’re going to Hell
(confirmed mass-murdering villains, say Osama bin Laden, get the
exceptions). We don’t make jokes whose premises are false or seriously
unfair — that Hillary Clinton is a man, for example. (Okay, we did refer
to Trump as having small hands, but man, did he bring that on himself.)
But while I recently offered a second prize of an electronic toilet
paper roller than plays recordings of Trump’s, voice, I would never
offer — and never would have offered — the pair of white briefs with a
blurry, brownish photo of Trump positioned as a disgusting stain (I’m
not even giving you a link to that one. Google it if you want.)
---
So instead, we pivot away from the election, at least somewhat, to
return to our annual Tour de Fours neologism contest.
While of course the four-letter block is different every year. the
inking entries consistently play on existing words or phrases. Here’s
the “above the fold” ink from last year’s D-I-C-E results (the whole set
is here
):
Fourth place: Ride and preju*dice*: It is a truth universally
acknowledged that a cabbie in need of a fare still won’t pick up a black
man after dark. (Lawrence McGuire, Waldorf, Md.)
3rd place:: Patton m*edic*ine: A bracing slap in the face. (Chris Doyle,
Ponder, Tex.)
2nd place: *Deci*rculation: The one number that’s way up in the
newspaper industry. (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)
And the winner of the Inkin’ Memorial: Tea *iced*: What Rep. Kevin
McCarthy was last month. (Todd DeLap, Fairfax, Va.) [for those with
short memories: he lost his bid to be House speaker]
To see the results of the previous dozen Tour de Fours contests: Check
out Loser Elden Carnahan’s Master Contest List
on
the Losers’ website, NRARS.org, then search on “fours.” You’ll land on
the week when the contest was announced, say Week 571, but just look on
the right edge of the chart a few lines down, then click to the link of
the results of Week 571. (The winner of that first Tour de Fours, for
THES: Transv*esth*eight: The distance between the jockstrap and the bra.
By Frank Mullen III.)
*OUTRAGEOUS FOUR TOONS: THE CARTOON CAPTIONS OF WEEK 1197*
As always, there were lots of entries for captions for one or more Bob
Staake cartoons, and because there were only four cartoons, we had more
room on this week’s page for entries — 43 of them — letting me show the
wide variety of approaches to a single drawing.
Still, in many cases, I chose a single entry from as many as 20 with the
similar joke or wordplay.
That wasn’t the case with our Inkin’ Memorial winner this week, which
was by far my favorite entry of the contest — and while it of course
wasn’t expected to be, it’s a heck of an introduction to The Style
Invitational should the president-elect pick up a copy of this week’s
Style & Arts section.
It’s just the sixth blot of ink for Steven Steele Cawman of New York’s
Hudson Valley, and his first Inkin’ Memorial, though he’s also been a
runner-up. “Grab them by the uvula” was just a brilliant way to allude
to an, uh, unpresidential term that we can’t even use in the Invite.
The rest of the Losers’ Circle also comprises relatively new blood:
Larry Gray, who started about five years ago in Week 923 (a baby among
the big-deal Losers), gets his 92nd blot of Invite ink, but Hildy
Zampella got her 27 blots only since Week 1140, and it’s the 17th for
Jerry Birchmore.
And finally — each cartoon appears online above its captions! No more of
that tedious scrolling back and forth or toggling between windows.
Thanks to the always super-helpful Kurt Gardner of The Post’s newsroom
IT squad.
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So let’s continue to find the humor in the situation. It’s there — it’s
just up to us to make it funny and not just nasty.