Style Invitational Week 1107: Bill us now — our biennial ‘joint
legislation’ contest


Plus the winning matchups of TV shows with ‘appropriate’ songs



It’s Joint Legislation time! (Bob Staake for The Washington Post)
By Pat Myers January 15 feedback for 'Style Invitational Week 1107: Bill us now — our biennial
‘joint legislation’ contest'>

(Click here to skip down <#report> to the results of our contest to
match up TV shows with humorously “appropriate” songs)

*The Beyer-Tillis-Love Act to encourage Valentine’s Day jewelry purchases*

*The Kirk-Takai Resolution to Boldly Go*

** *The Manchin-Newhouse bill to keep 500 people from sending this
combination unless there’s an amazingly clever description*


This week’s second prize: The Joint Subcommittee on Shell Corporations.
(Two members were off doing research on a Caribbean beach.) (Pat
Myers/The Washington Post)

Every two years, even when when the electorate doesn’t much agree with
her own political preferences, the Empress gets excited whenever there’s
a large turnover in Congress. (And not just at the Apple Pastry
Appreciation Day press conference.) It’s because there will be more
freshmen’s names to cobble together for the Invite’s “joint legislation”
contest, a game we’ve been playing since 1993. Actually, despite the big
GOP gains in November, there are only 64 new people in the House and
Senate for this 114th Congress (if you count people who’ve moved from
one to the other) — which is a dozen or so fewer than in the 113th. So
we’re padding out the list by adding veteran senators whose names
haven’t been used in any previous Invite results. After all, the new
legislators had better learn to work with their seniors.

So: *Combine two or more names from the list of members of Congress (the
list is at the bottom of this page) to “cosponsor” a bill based on their
combined last names, and state its purpose, * as in the examples above.
Sometimes people will string together six or eight names to create
something that sounds like real words only in the deluded mind of the
writer; one year, someone sent in “Yoho-Vela-Williams” to mean
“Jehovah’s Witnesses,” which prompted a whole lot of imperial
tiara-scratching. You may translate your effort for the Empress, but do
it on a separate line so she can try it without a hint first.

Winner gets the Inkin’ Memorial
,
the Lincoln statue bobblehead that is the official Style Invitational
trophy. Second place receives the fine sculpture
pictured
at left; donated by Cheryl Davis, who brought it up from Myrtle Beach
just for us.

*Other runners-up* win their choice of a yearned-for Loser Mug
or the ardently
desired “Whole Fools” Grossery Bag.
Honorable
mentions get a lusted-after Loser magnet designed by Bob Staake: either
“The Wit Hit the Fan”
or
“Hardly Har-Har.”
First
Offenders receive a smelly tree-shaped air “freshener” (FirStink

for their first ink). E-mail entries to /losers@washpost.com
/ or, if you were born in the 19th century,
fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, Jan. 26; results published Feb.
15 (online Feb. 12). You may submit up to 25 entries per contest.
Include “Week 1107” in your e-mail subject line or it might be ignored
as spam. Include your real name, postal address and phone number with
your entry. See contest rules and guidelines at wapo.st/InvRules
. The headline for this week’s results is by
Chris Doyle; the honorable-mentions subhead was submitted by both Howard
Walderman and Mark Raffman. Join the lively Style Invitational Devotees
group on Facebook at /on.fb.me/invdev ./ “Like”
Style Invitational Ink of the Day on Facebook at /bit.ly/inkofday. /

*The Style Conversational: *The Empress’s weekly online column discusses
each new contest and set of results. Especially if you plan to enter,
check it out at wapo.st/styleconv
.

And from The Style Invitational four weeks ago . . .

PUN-CHAINED MELODIES: THE RESULTS OF WEEK 1103: For Week 1103, we asked you to pair a TV show with a humorously “appropriate” song.

Many entries fell (with a thud)
into the Duh category: “We Are the Champions” with the Olympics, for
instance. But others found the zing.

4th place:

“Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” for “Dexter” (Christopher Lamora, Los
Angeles)

3rd place:

“I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” for “The Cosby Show” (Nancy Schwalb,
Washington; Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

2nd place and the Pee-Pee Poo-Poo hand sanitizer:

“Tears of a Clown” for “The Glenn Beck Program” (Frank Osen, Pasadena,
Calif.)

And the winner of the Inkin’ Memorial:

“Three Times a Lady” for “The Biggest Loser” (Larry Gray, Union Bridge,
Md.)

Unthemely: honorable mentions

/For “19 Kids and Counting”:/ “Oops! . . . I Did It Again (Brian Cohen,
Norfolk, Va.)
“Stop! In the Name of Love” (Carole Franks, Lewes, Del., a First
Offender; Doug Frank, Crosby, Tex.)
“Baby One More Time” (Frank Osen)

“Dancing on the Ceiling” for “Flip This House” (Todd DeLap, Fairfax, Va.)

“One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” for “How I Met Your Mother” (Rob
Huffman, Fredericksburg, Va.)

/For “Sex Sent Me to the ER”: /“Don’t Do Me Like That” (William Kennard,
Arlington, Va.)
“Bang a Gong (Get It On)” (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)

For “WWE Smackdown”: “Try a Little Tenderness” (Thomas Salander,
Arlington, Va., a First Offender)

For “Six Feet Under”: “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” (John Shea,
Philadelphia)

“Amazing Grace” for “The Amazing Race” (Lee Mayer and Paul Laporte,
Washington)

For “The Bachelor”: “What’s Love Got to Do With It” (Christopher Lamora;
Gordon Cobb, Marietta, Ga.)

“Turn! Turn! Turn!” for NASCAR sprint racing (Jeff Shirley, Richmond, Va.)

“When Doves Cry” for “The Rachel Maddow Show” (Kathleen DeBold,
Burtonsville, Md.)

“Sunday Bloody Sunday” for “Game of Thrones” (Ward Kay, Vienna, Va.)

For “CSI”: “It Had to Be You” (Christopher Lamora)

“The Long and Winding Road” for Katie Couric’s televised colonoscopy
(Jeff Shirley)

“Pick Up the Pieces” for “Miami Vice” (Larry Gray)

“Put on a Happy Face” for “Nip/Tuck” (Pie Snelson, Silver Spring, Md.)

“Great Balls of Fire” for “The Apprentice” (Kathy Hardis Fraeman, Olney,
Md.)

/For “The Cosby Show”: / “How Long Has This Been Going On?” (Philip
Justus, Potomac, Md.)
“Don’t Drink the Water” (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)
“Papa Don’t Preach” (Roy Ashley, Washington)

/For “The View”: / “Pickalittle (Talk-a-Little)”
(Charles Mann, Falls
Church; Kathleen DeBold)
“Whole Lotta Rosie” (Jonathan Hardis, Gaithersburg, Md.)

For “Saturday Night Live”: “I Don’t Care Anymore” (Barbara Turner,
Takoma Park, Md.)

/For “Hoarders”: / “Let It Go” (Brian Cohen)
“Never Gonna Give You Up” (Ninamarie Maragioglio, Burke, Va., a First
Offender; Kristen Rahman, Silver Spring, Md.)

“Bang Bang Bang” for “Jersey Shore” (John Folse, Bryans Road, Md.)

“Blank Space” for “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” (Brian Cohen; Lori
Petterson, College Park, Md.)

“Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” for the Tournament of Roses Parade
(Pie Snelson)

*Still running — deadline Jan. 20: Our contest for New Year’s
resolutions for 2115: See bit.ly/invite1106 .*

THE CONGRESSIONAL FRESHMEN(PLUS SOME VETERAN SENATORS)

Below are the names of the new members of the 114th Congress, along with
many incumbent senators. Combine two or more of their names to produce
“joint legislation” that reflects their names, and describe its purpose.
See the contest rules at the top of this page.

Abraham
Aguilar (pronounced AG-u-lar)
Allen
Ashford
Babin (“babbin”)
Baldwin
Barrasso (rhymes with “lasso”)
Bennet
Beyer (“buyer”)
Bishop
Blum
Blumenthal
Booker
Bost (rhymes with “cost”)
Boyle
Buck
Capito (CAP-i-toe)
Carter
Cassidy
Comstock
Coons
Costello
Cotton
Cruz
Curbelo (cur-BEL-lo)
Daines
DeSaulnier (de-SO-nyey)
Dingell (“dingle”)
Dold
Emmer
Ernst
Feinstein
Fischer
Gallego (guy-AY-go)
Gardner
Graham
Graves
Grothman
Guinta (“ginta” with a hard G)
Hardy
Heinrich (HYNE-rick)
Heitkamp
Hice
Hill
Hoeven (rhymes with “rovin’ “)
Hurd
Jenkins
Kaine
Katko
Kirk
Klobuchar (KLO-ba-shar)
Knight
Lankford
Lawrence
Lieu (“lyoo” but “loo” is close enough)
Loudermilk (as opposed to quieter milk)
Love
MacArthur
Manchin (rhymes with “ranchin’ ”
McCain
McConnell
McSally
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Moolenaar
Mooney
Moulton
Murkowski
Nelson
Newhouse
Palmer
Perdue
Peters
Plaskett (rhymes with “basket”)
Poliquin (polla-kwin)
Radewagen (RAD-e-wa-jen)
Ratcliffe
Rice
Rounds
Rouzer (rhymes with “trouser”)
Rubio
Russell
Sasse (“sass”)
Schatz
Schumer
Sessions
Shaheen
Stefanik (ste-FAHN-ick)
Sullivan
Takai (ta-KYE)
Tillis
Torres
Trott
Walker
Walters
Watson Coleman (she uses both names)
Westerman
Wicker
Young
Zeldin
Zinke (“zinky”)