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Funny? You Should Ask
Hosted by Gene Weingarten
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2001; Noon EST
Gene Weingarten's controversial humor column, Below the Beltway, appears every Sunday in the Washington Post Magazine, generating more mail than Santa gets at Christmas. Not all of it is wildly condemnatory. Some of
it is only mildly annoyed. Weingarten came to the Post in 1990 after being chased out of Miami at midnight by farmers with pitchforks and burning torches. He is also reputed to be close to persons thought to be familiar with individuals claiming to be authoritative spokesmen for the mysterious and reclusive Czar of The Style Invitational.
He was online, at any rate, Tuesday, Nov. 27 at Noon EST, to take your
questions, and abuse. And he'll be back every other Tuesday, so stay tuned.
He'll chat about anything.
The transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control
over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Gene Weingarten: Good afternoon. This is the first of my regularly scheduled biweekly chats, in which
I hope to foster an an open, frank and mutually respectful relationship with my readers,
featuring honest exchanges of ideas and opinions. Let's begin with a brief
autobiography. I am a Roman Catholic priest and a former Olympic decathlon silver
medalist. Chicks dig me for my hard abs. Also, I never wrote any columns about The
Redskins finishing the season 0-16. That was someone else.
Questions?
Herndon, Va.:
Mr. W: There are farmers with pitchforks in Miami? Kosher pitchforks, I hope. On the serious side, do you feel you're having to censor yourself more since Sept. 11th -- perhaps thinking "I can't write about 'this' now?"
Gene Weingarten: Miami is no longer Jewish. Miami is Cuban. Cuban farmers use pitchforks to spear
those strange, wonderful Latin American vegetables you can buy in all Miami bodegas and
nowhere else. They have unpronouncable and untranslatable names like chachiluenjegues
or rrrespetejolleghas and each looks like a cross between two wildly disparate things,
such as a cantaloupe and a turkey. I love Miami.
As to September 11, I honestly believe what I wrote five days after the planes hit:
When people are filled with grief, they need to cry; when they are filled with fear,
they need to laugh. I won't really be worried about our future until we stop finding
things to laugh at.
Arlington, VA:
Several months ago, "Below the Beltway" announced a contest to identify the worst city and/or place to live in these United States but never published the results. Was the contest a victim of recent events? If so, doesn't this mean the ombudsman has won? washingtonpost.com:
Gene will be talking about this very subject Live Online Monday, Dec. 3 at 1 p.m. EST.
Gene Weingarten: Axiom: Never let bad taste get in the way of a good story. Yep, we found the armpit, no sweat.
Fairfax, Va.:
Gene,
Luv the Style Invitational. Please extend my warm feelings to the Czar. What's up with Michael Getler taking a swipe at SI in his Ombudsman column a couple weeks back when he was busy castigating Lloyd Grove? Is there some sordid triangle that ties together the Czar, Lloyd Grove, and Barbara Martinez that's being hushed up by Executive Editor Len Downie? And when will he (Getler) be the star in his own very special Style Invitational contest?
Gene Weingarten: I am tired of people taking whacks at the poor Ombudsman. He can't help the fact that his name is an anagram for "Dumb son, Ma.
Actually, I like the Ombudsman. He is a toughie. A gunslinger. A street fighter. Just like the Style Invitational. Await further developments.
College Park, Md.:
How do you come up with column ideas week after week? Please provide a fictional, impromptu witty response to this question. And don't use more than three vowels in your answer.
Gene Weingarten: On the pot.
Washington, D.C.:
I have to tell you that the letter writer in last Sunday's Washington Post Magazine criticizing your article for (tongue in cheek) condemning digital watches was totally out of bounds. When I read his letter, I was thinking that this guy needs to get a life and find a sense of humor! He obviously takes things way too seriously!
Gene Weingarten: I know what you mean, but I have to say that was my favorite kind of letter. The ones that haven't a clue that you were trying to be funny. This last weekend, the Style Invitational got a letter from someone who pointed out that we were idiots for defining "Moronto" as the city in which Prime Minister "Jean Cretin" lives. Everyone knows, said the letter writer, than the prime minister lives in Ottawa.
Chalmette, La.:
What is your relationship with Dave Barry?
Gene Weingarten: Dave is my grandson.
Washington, D.C.:
Do you have any love in your heart for any public relations professsionals?
Gene Weingarten: The great comic Bill Hicks used to start some of his routines by gazing out in the audience and asking all marketing and PR people to raise their hands. Then he would tell them to drop dead. He would wait for the laughter to fall off, an then he would say, "No, really." Then he would explain how the marketing and PR folks were not really offended, because they were sitting their calculating that Bill was really smart to go for the "anti-PR and marketing audience niche." Then he would tell them to drop dead again.
Washington, D.C.:
I'm looking for a gift for someone -- my Secret Santa at the office, who turns out is also my boss -- whose interests include marathon running, writing fiction, and the "Three Stooges,+ and who has a wicked sense of humor. The price cap is $15.00. What would you suggest?
Gene Weingarten: He is a guy, right? Forget the other stuff. Get him plastic vomit. Guys love plastic vomit.
Washington, D.C.:
F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "The exclamation point is the writer laughing at his own joke." Given the propensity of explantion points in your columns, you must have yourself in stiches. Certainly you don't have anyone else laughing. Sad.
Gene Weingarten: That's funny!!!!
I think F. Scott also wrote: "Flzzit farbzot." He was a drunk, you know.
Reston, Va.:
Has Joel Achenbach become a complete prima donna after his appearance in National Geographic? Or only a partial one? Why won't he talk to us? washingtonpost.com:
Joel. Tomorrow. Here. 1 p.m. EST.
Gene Weingarten: Joel does not actually exist. He is a composite of several persons. I am one of them and Carolyn Hax is another.
Ahryu, Okla.:
Why isn't there a "U" in the word forty?
Gene Weingarten: Now this is really bedeviling me, you bastard. Anyone have any ideas?
Rockville, Md.:
Hi Gene,
I enjoy your column. However, my comment relates to a serious article you had written discussing why people may have jumped out of the burning WTC. Your article stated:
"Years ago, Frederick says, a colleague of his set up an experiment where he subjected laboratory animals to excruciating pain. They could go into another chamber to escape the pain, but if they did they would get their heads chopped off. Other lab animals were allowed to observe this, so they knew what would happen. They they, too, were placed in the pain chamber. They leaped out of it, into the killing one."
I cannot imagine what purpose was served by this cruel experiment. I am not against animal testing when necessary but I don't think the value of this study's conclusion exceeded the pain caused to these animals. You don't have to be a genius to know that some people, when confronted by a painful, burning death may choose a relatively instantaneous one.
Perhaps you can write an article about the stupid things that academics do.
Gene Weingarten: Several people have mentioned this. I don't go a week without hearing about this paragraph, still. I don't quite know how to say this, but it sort of thrills me that we still have room to worry about animals. Really.
And yes, academics are a hoot, in general.
Washington, D.C.:
Are you really a priest?
Gene Weingarten: Of course I am not really a priest. I do have rock hard abs though.
Burke, Va.:
Forget about forty's muissing U. Why don't we don't say "twoty" and "threety"?
Gene Weingarten: Sigh.
Miami, Fla.:
Dave Barry's new book "Hitting Below the Beltway" is just really great and everyone should buy a copy, shouldn't they?
Also, where do you think he got such a great name for the book?
Gene Weingarten: Dave called me up to apologize when he realized that his publisher put the same name on the book as the name of my column. I had to explain that I stole the idea from something else. There are no new ideas. Everything has been written. This very paragraph was probably written twice before by James Thurber.
Beaumont, Tex.:
We had a guy down here who used to get regular ink in the Style Invitational. Then he moved back to Washington and all but disappeared from the contest results. Do you think working in D.C. makes people boring, or just stupid?
Gene Weingarten: I know the guy you mean. He was an idiot from the get-go, he just was lucky for a while.
Washington, D.C.:
Gene, my husband hates my family (part of the reason is they didn't initially like him when we started dating). It is such a heartbreaker for me because I'm really close to my family. He has nothing nice to say about them (even my siblings very young kids). He always calls them nasty names (specially the kids), he calls them brats, idiots, stupid -- you name it, he's called them that. He is always accusing me of always defending them (true), and putting them before him and my son (NOT true). I am really getting sick of it but we've gotten into many fights about this and it doesn't change. I don't know what to do at this point. I know I can't make him love them but I want him to at least leave the kids out of it (he was saying nasty things about my 1 1/2-year-old niece because she had a cold that my son contracted when they visited). He never calls my niece by name, he calls her an ugly creature. This is really hard on me, I just want to yell out and just punch him. Thanks for letting me vent out!
Gene Weingarten: I'd suggest you kill him. (How come none of these advice columnists specialize in Very Bad Advice. There's a market for that.)
Burke, Va.:
Have any of the Losers whose anti-Osama poems were printed a week ago come down with chest colds?
Gene Weingarten: Hey, talk about this for a close call: A few weeks ago I wrote a column making fun of Osama for wearing a digital watch. Initially I had planned on asking people to destroy their digitals in as colorful a way as possible, and mail them to me, so I could create a piece of art out of them. Well, a Post lawyer persuaded me that it was unwise to 1) ridicule Osama and then 2) call for strangers to mail in boxes addressed to me. So I skipped the last part. Two days later, the first anthrax case surfaced.
Laurel, Md.:
Have you ever met any of the Style Invitational's regular contributors?
Gene Weingarten: The Czar, to my knowledge, has met a few, but he tries to limit this. He already is constantly accused of showing favoritism, receipt of bribes, etc. The losers have a monthly lunch; he has never attended.
Arlington, Va.:
What time should I come over to your house and what should I bring?
Gene Weingarten: Anytime. The usual gratuity.
Silver Spring, Md.:
Are you a smoker? If so, why? If not, what is your opinion about butts thrown out of car windows?
Gene Weingarten: Butts thrown out of car windows? I think it is funny. Don't moon a cop, though.
Alexandria, Va.:
What do you think of the Harry Potter phenomenon?
Gene Weingarten: I pretty much agree with Hank Stuever. We are being turned into a nation of dweebs and weenies. Through our children.
Alexandria, Va.:
How was the peanut-butter and jelly graham cracker "meat" snack? Do kids really eat that stuff?
Gene Weingarten: This is a reference to a column in which I rated the DC public schools' lunches. I had meatballs and pizza and french toast and "cheesy grits" and some other stuff, and there is no question that the PBJ snack was the only truly edible thing.
Looking for Bad Advice:
I want people to start calling me "Sparky." How do I do that?
Gene Weingarten: Burn down an orphanage. Yes, this bad advice idea could definitely catch on.
Planet of the Guys:
So when will Gina be a guest on your chat?
Gene Weingarten: Probably never. I'm scared of Gina.
MoTown, Mich.:
OK, you griped about the music on the Post's phone system. If you had to listen to one song, over and over, while on hold what would it be?
Gene Weingarten: "You're Havin' My Baby," by Paul Anka.
San Francisco, Calif.:
Gene: you are actually a pretty funny guy. So is Dave Barry. Barry says that you used to be his editor down South. Moreover, the two of you do tend to use similar set-ups and punchlines.
So -- and I know you will be completely unbiased about this -- is he stealing your material or are you stealing his?
Gene Weingarten: I would like to quote here from the acknowledgment page of my first and only book: "And finally, I thank my friend Dave Barry, who gave me no assistance whatsoever except in the sense of providing me a flawless template for timing, setup, structure, syntax, voice, emphasis, cadence, and word selection, not to mention providing a specific prototype for virtually every joke contained in these pages. I hereby forgive Dave for shamelessly imitating my style all these many years."
Alexandria, Va.:
How do we know you're not just submitting all of these questions yourself?
Gene Weingarten: We could ask Liz, the chat screening lady. Liz?
Fairfax County:
Which is worse: People who think they're funny but aren't (such as you and Joel Achenbach), or people who think they're serious but are being laughed at (such as Bob Levey and Richard Cohen)?
Gene Weingarten: I refuse to dignify this excellent question with an answer.
Loose End, Wyo.:
Does Gina really exist? I mean, I'm sure she exists, but can other people see her, or is it only you?
Gene Weingarten: True answer, make of it what you will: I have never seen Gina.
washingtonpost.com:
I suppose Gene could be that fast, but I doubt it.
Charm City:
So, are you still on that insane diet wherein you can eat anything you want, but for only five minutes a day? How's that working out for you?
On another note, I wanted to remind you that YOU RULE (and so does the Czar), even if people are sometimes offended by your sense of humor. When humor does not offend anybody, you end up with "Patch Adams." Vomitorious!!
Gene Weingarten: I have backslid a little, but am still down 15 pounds. No, when you have humor that offends no one, you get "Family Circus," which is actually so bad it's good. I love Family Circus.
washingtonpost.com:
How would Gina feel about you calling me "the chat screening lady?"
Gene Weingarten: She would claw my eyes out.
Gene Weingarten: Okay, Liz, Mistress of Chat.
washingtonpost.com:
Now that I like.
Washington, D.C.:
Is the drawing of you above your article an accurate likeness?
Gene Weingarten: I'm afraid so. It is practically a photograph. Recently, Richard Thompson came into the office and saw me and realized he was drawing my nose a little too small and undeformed-looking. Now he's got it right; it's like a scoop of potato salad. Basically, I am a homunculus.
Myohmy, Ohio:
If you could swap with any other columnist in the Post, which would it be? Columns, I mean. Not spouses.
Gene Weingarten: I covet Sidney Omarr's Horoscope column. I could REALLY mess with people's heads.
Gaithersburg, Md.:
Hey Gene,
Another anagram of ombudsman is Spam on Bum.
Gene Weingarten: Thank you.
Gene Weingarten: Hey, I see we are out of time. This was excellent. Thank you all. I'll be back two weeks from today.
washingtonpost.com:
That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the
discussion.
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