Chatological Humor* (Updated 3.31.06)

aka Tuesdays With Moron

* Formerly known as "Funny? You Should Ask ."

DAILY UPDATES: 3.29.06 | 3.30.06 | 3.31.06

Gene Weingarten's controversial humor column, Below the Beltway , appears every Sunday in the Washington Post Magazine. He aspires to someday become a National Treasure, but is currently more of a National Gag Novelty Item, like rubber dog poo.

He is online, at any rate, each Tuesday, to take your questions and abuse.

He'll chat about anything...

This Week's Poll

Weingarten is the author of "The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. And Death" and co-author of "I'm with Stupid," with feminist scholar Gina Barreca. "Below the Beltway" is now syndicated nationally by The Washington Post Writers Group .

New to Chatological Humor? Read the FAQ .

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Gene Weingarten: About two dozen posters have asked me to comment on the meteoric rise and fall of Ben Domenech, the (very) short-lived Red State neo-conservative blogger on the Post Web site. Ben was hired, and fired, last week after being exposed as a serial plagiarizer, offenses going back to his college-paper days. (This was not going back many years into a youthful indiscretion. Ben is 24. His whole life -- as are all of ours at that age -- has been one big youthful indiscretion.)

I defended Ben here last week from lefties like me who were just disgusted by his shtick -- I suggested that there was room for all sorts of blather on the Web, and that if it offends you, just don't read it. This was before it became apparent that Ben was a burglar.

To those who contend this is somehow "typical" behavior of neocons: Nonsense. Stop ranting.

But I want to speak personally now to a larger issue: The hatred and venom that this exposes between the left and the right, a war that began some six years ago. Neither side expected for this war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.

What I'm saying, in language I am particularly proud of, is: Let's remember we are more alike than we are different. We need to do all we can to achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves.

Okay, now! On Saturday I was at the Davis Library in Bethesda, and noticed two flags above the entrance. The first I recognized as the American flag. The second was one of the more hideous things I have ever seen. HERE it is. It turns out this is ... the Maryland state flag! What kind of thinking do you suppose goes into the production of such a flag? Lessee, let's knit together a flag from Indy and a tablecloth from a really lousy Italian restaurant

Can anyone find an uglier flag, anywhere? Send em in.

Okay, please take today's poll . I am going to explain it pretty early in the chat, both because I expect some flame reactions, and because I spent four hours on it. I do wish I had included an age-break in the poll, because I am finding some of your answers nearly incomprehensible. The ignorance and callowness of youth can be the only explanation.

So, today's Comic Pick of the Week is the very first paired entry. It goes to Pearls Before Swine and Baby Blues. Congratulations, gentlemen. Pearls wins it for its laugh-out-loud, incredibly noir and mean-spirited series on the Baby Blues characters: March 22 | March 23 | March 24 | March 25 | March 27 . Kirkman and Scott win it for their Monday strip , which deftly and hilariously acknowledges the homage. This was one of the neatest things I've seen on the comics pages in a long time.

Runners-up: Saturday's Zits , Saturday's Speed Bump , Friday's Pickles , Friday's Non Sequitur , Monday's Speed Bump, Monday's Curtis . Very good week.

Can anyone tell me:

1) Why Monday's Baldo is awful, and

2) What Saturday's Red and Rover is about?

Okay, let's go.

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Alexandria, Va.: Thank you for this week's column. I've been hating Verizon's automated 411 for some time. I remember calling them to find the telephone number for Fortune Restaurant in Seven Corners. I never got anything CLOSE to that. I finally yelled enough that a real person came on, and when they started to say "here's your number" and give me the computer again, I said -- DON'T, PLEASE, And she stayed on with me until we got a number. But the number turned out not to work. Then I went on the Internet and found it. Someone needs to legislate Verizon out of existence. They have the worst customer service. They broke up AT&T, and the successors kept all the worst parts of the old bureaucracy, and none of the good parts.

washingtonpost.com: Below the Beltway: Directory Persistence , ( Post Magazine, March 26 )

Gene Weingarten: Honestly, I think we as a nation have collectively lost our ability to be outraged. This is one small example.

Voice recognition software is nowhere near as accurate as it should be, to foist upon us. But it is foisted. "Foist, we foist," is their motto. The reason is economic -- it lets them fire an actual human, and save on benefits.

Other things we should be outraged at: Waiting an hour on the phone for tech support. Utilities that require you to stay home an entire day to wait for a repair person, because they won't commit to a reasonable window. Uh, the war in Iraq and an insensate president.

Anything else?

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Me, ME: Gene,

Am I funny? Be honest, I can handle whatever you say.

Gene Weingarten: You used to be funnier.

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West Wing, undisclosed location: When it comes to the Card, you have to know when to fold him.

Gene Weingarten: Yeah, the White House is playing with even LESS of a full deck, now.

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Abstra, ct: Gene:

We've now seen a picture of Molly; we've all probably got a pretty good idea of what you look like. Anyone with even a passing grasp of genetics has GOT to wondering. How did you get a Miss America look-alike to marry you? (To say nothing of procreating with you.)

Gene Weingarten: Dan is also good looking. I'm a little worried about the milkman.

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Mr. Jones is ....: Well, I think Larry King fits the bill perfectly. A man who cannot ask the right questions or recognize subcontext or see anything beyond the glaringly obvious. The ultimate doofus with a platform.

Alas, I don't think King was as well known in the mid-60s. But still apropos.

Gene Weingarten: HE'S A VERY GOOD NOMINEE. Except I don't think he pretends to much erudition. He kind of KNOWS he's a whore. Just listen to the ads he does.

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Birmingham, Ala.: I'm 50. Is that why I have no idea what song was part of today's poll?

Gene Weingarten: Um, no, dude. Quite the opposite.

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St. Louis, Mo.: I'll take you up on the rich vein of pathos and drama of missed opportunities and regretted choices.

Several years ago I had a European History test, for which I had to write a page in a bluebook for 10 out of 15 possible terms (my choice). Late in the test, I picked "Louis Blanc" to identify, writing that at the top of the page -- and my brain froze. I couldn't even BS a decent answer. So I decided to move on to the next page -- but then I had the sudden inspiration: Write at the bottom in small letters "This page intentionally left Blanc."

And I didn't. Because I was running out of time and I knew that my last couple answers would be rushed, and I didn't want the grader to think that I was wasting time goofing off instead of taking the test seriously. And I still regret it. Because while the test didn't affect my life in any way (nor would it have with a different grader bias), I'll never have that setup again. I lost an opportunity, in exchange for something that didn't matter at all. Because of this realization I've found myself behaving differently- seizing the opportunity, making the jokes, reevaluating risks and rewards.

Of course, the ironic thing is that about three months ago I had an identification exam, and I wanted to put at the end of my identification of "Ides of March" that it was Fabio's birthday. And, despite my early experience, I didn't. Because I was running out of time and I knew that my last couple answers would be rushed, and I didn't want the grader to think that I was wasting time goofing off instead of taking the test seriously. I rationalized it afterwards as being fundamentally different humorwise; this was just a bit of trivia and there would be other opportunities for trivia, whereas the Louis Blanc was a unique clever wordplay. However, the funny thing is that I later found out that my grade in the class was close enough for it to be reevaluated from a B+ to an A-... and deep down I don't believe that would have happened so had I made that joke on the final. So now I'm not sure where I stand. Would that my GPA went up a few points every time one of my core philosophies paradigmatically changed.

All this probably seems incomparable to missing Elvis Costello, but arguably that is incomparable to using heroin.

I still have no idea who Louis Blanc is.

Gene Weingarten: He was a 19th century utopian socialist whose works supported the rise of Jacobin.

Speaking of Blanc, one of my greatest regrets (after Elvis Costello) was not running a certain story by Marc Fisher in Tropic, the Miami Herald's Sunday magazine.

I was Tropic's editor at the time, and Marc proposed writing a 20 inch essay for me. It would have begun, "I hereby spare the readers of the Miami Herald from having to read my ruminations on attending my twentieth high school reunion."

The rest of the story was going to be blanc. It would jump from its front page, and the jump space would have been blank, too, except for Marc's ID tagline at the end.

I got talked out of it. I regret it to this day. The story would have served as an elegant condemnation of phony memoir-style essay journalism.

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washingtonpost.com: Another first-runner up to the CPOW that I forgot to add in for Gene: Sunday's Doonesbury

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Arlington, Va.: Darby does not understand the word "no."

I hate her. I have hated her since I first encountered her.

The people who invented that technology should be shot.

And now Citibank is running commercials saying they are better than their competitors because they allow you to speak with an actual person.

The world is coming to an end.

Gene Weingarten: You know, if that company had allowed me to talk to Darby, they would have gotten a much more positive column. This way, it HAD to be about how dysfunctional their system is.

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Fairfax, Va.: This past Sunday, for the first time ever, my three year-old son deliberately and maliciously struck my 16-month-old daughter in the face. I was absolutely horrified, and he was given a very stern talking to about respecting and loving his little sister. However, I wondered where he would learn such a thing since we limit his access to anything violent. Like most parents, I strongly believe in blaming others for the actions of my own children, so I had to find the culprit. I suddenly realized -- he was reading Sunday's "Peanuts" over my shoulder at the breakfast table, and saw Lucy punch Linus in the face. That had to be it. My question, then, is can I sue? And if so, who? Should I start a class-action suit with all the other parents whose children happened to hit each other on Sunday?

Gene Weingarten: THIS IS GREAT. Send a letter to the editor, demanding that we remove Peanuts from the paper BECAUSE IT IS TOO VIOLENT.

Maybe that will work. Nothing else has.

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Harrisburg, Pa.: Baldo took a good joke and killed it by making it nonsensical. The first girl asks about a tree falling "and no one being around", which was not necessary to state. The punch line about chainsaws requires people to be around. Thus, the author ruined the joke by providing unnecessary information that actually took away from the punchline.

Gene Weingarten: Absolutely correct. Perfect analysis.

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Re: Ugly Flags: The list begins and ends with the Confederate flag.

Gene Weingarten: The Confederate flag? Nah, nothing ugly about it, visually. Sorta like the Union Jack. The swastika is not ugly, visually, either.

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Purple State: Thanks for your words of wisdom regarding left and right venom. It's a good reminder. Besides, so few people are completely in line with either party that it is good to remember that there is a middle ground.

Gene Weingarten: Ummmm.....

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Falls Church: What's it like as you prepare for noon on Tuesday?

Do you feel like an actor backstage, filled with nervous anticipation? Like a giddy schoolboy, about to call his girlfriend? Or is it like preparing yourself for an examination or a tedious office meeting?

Also, what are you wearing?

washingtonpost.com: I feel like the handmaiden of some kind of Restoration-era opera primadonna who asks for several costume changes, a 12-course meal and a footrub all in the last minute.

Oh, you were asking Gene.

Gene Weingarten: Today, Lizzie and I had a particularly exciting last few minutes. She dared to get some food. See next post.

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Lancaster, Pa.: Wondering if Liz got to produce the Noam Chomsky chat last week? That would really be something, producing the chat of someone considered to be one of the true intellectual giants of our time, and I have read some suggest one of the smartest people ever. And then a couple days later having to work with Chomsky? That would be a real letdown.

washingtonpost.com: Har har.

I was out all day Friday, as Gene -- who noticed -- could tell you.

Gene Weingarten: It really bothers me when Liz is not at my beck and call at all hours. I monitor her bathroom time. But when she is gone for AN ENTIRE DAY it really frosts my shorts, and I let her know it. I'm like that guy with the insanely dominant marriage contract, which was in the chat update last week, something Lizzie probably doesn't know about BECAUSE SHE WAS ABSENT THAT DAY WITHOUT PERMISSION.

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Blues: So what was up with the Baby Blues/Pearls thing? Any insight for us mere readers? It WAS hilarious, start to finish.

Gene Weingarten: Pastis and Scott are good friends.

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MARYLAND FLAG: The Maryland flag contains the family crest of the Calvert and Crossland families. Maryland was founded as an English colony in 1634 by Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore. The black and Gold designs belong to the Calvert family. The red and white design belongs to the Crossland family. Flag adopted 1904.

Gene Weingarten: SOMEONE should have said this was a baaaaad idea, designwise.

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Bakersfield, Calif.: The tributes and obits in memory of Buck Owens somehow overlooked his contribution to the single-conceit/extended-metaphor genre of popular songs. Perhaps his best (one also covered in concert by the Grateful Dead) used a horse-racing theme:

"Now the race is on and here comes pride up the backstretch

Heartache is going to the inside

My tears are holding back/they're tryin' not to fall

My heart's out of the running/true love scratched for another's sake

The race is on and it looks like heartaches

And the winner loses all"

Riffing on telephones or railroads or dance steps, this form has also been well used in Rock, R&B and Blues (often sexually-descriptive or -instructive: "squeeze my lemon"). My vote for the worst is the insidious proto-disco hit Rock the Boat: "Our love is like a ship on the ocean/we are sailing with a cargo full of love and devotion."

Gene Weingarten: Yes, "Rock the Boat" is astoundingly horrible. Unlistenable, and not just because of that lyric.

How about this one for pure crap:

Did you ever know that you're my hero?

You're everything I wish I could be.

I could fly higher than an eagle,

For you are the wind beneath my wings.

Did I ever tell you you're my hero?

You're everything, everything I wish I could be.

Oh, and i, I could fly higher than an eagle,

For you are the wind beneath my wings,

'cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

Oh, the wind beneath my wings.

You, you, you, you are the wind beneath my wings.

Fly, fly, fly away. you let me fly so high.

Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.

Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.

Fly, fly, fly high against the sky,

So high I almost touch the sky.

Thank you, thank you,

Thank God for you, the wind beneath my wings.

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Red and Rove DER: Add a "B" to the word in the last panel. She is a female dog after all. Totally out of the norm for this strip.

Gene Weingarten: 1) But why is she, like, six feet long?

2) So, is the big dumb dog thinking "bitch," and that makes him itch?

3) Huh?

I have reason to believe you are right, and that IS the interpretation, but I still dont get it.

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Maryland's awful flag: Gene,

I'm frankly shocked it took you this long to happen upon that horror that Maryland calls a flag.

They compound it by sticking that foul design on everything. License plates, the Ravens uniforms, police cars, road banners.

I give it three thumbs down. That flag is the sole reason I live in Virginia, where the flag features a dead guy and an exposed breast.

Gene Weingarten: Oooh, really? Liz, can you link to this?

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Naivete: Gene, or perhaps a chatter, please help me understand this bumpersticker I've seen on a pickup truck at the Vienna Metro (north garage). It says "Don't groom Mary Jane. - God" There are no other stickers on the truck to give me a clue.

Now, I understand what 'Mary Jane' probably refers (reefers?) to, but I am puzzled by the choice of the verb "groom" and why God would be saying it. Any ideas?

Much obliged.

Gene Weingarten: Well, to "groom" marijuana is to remove the seeds, but I still didn't get it, so I Googled it.

Turns out this refers to a Mary Jane run at some Colorado ski resort or park. The groundskeepers keeps grooming it, but it is more fun ungroomed, with natural moguls and such. It's part of a revolt among skiers. Believe it or not.

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It's a Briliant Song, All Right: It's brilliant, 'cuz Dylan makes you think he's really profound so you buy the album...his forty-year scam reminds me of those artists whose best, most creative work comes on the grant application.

Try listening to any Dylan album without the benefit of mind-altering substances. Betcha can't make it all the way through.

Gene Weingarten: Possibly you will wish to vacate this chat prior to the poll explanation, Mr. Jones.

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washingtonpost.com: Virginia State Flag

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Gene Weingarten: Okay, the poll

First off, those 25 percent of you who thought Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" was a bad song, or an ordinary, dull song, or a song without meaning, please go out and shoot yourselves in the head. It will be less painful than reading the rest of this explanation.

"Ballad of a Thin Man" is possibly the greatest song written in the second half of the 20th Century, and probably the most profound. Marshall McLuhan believed that. Me, too. There is not a false note, a wasted lyric, an insignificant syllable. This song has been covered by more than a dozen reputable bands, and has had other songs written ABOUT it, most notably by Counting Crows (in a rather good piece where the singer imagines himself cluelessly walking around with Mr. Jones, misunderstanding everything. Sadly, at least a few young posters cluelessly wondered if Thin Man was some sort of homage to the Crows.)

To the best of my knowledge, Dylan has never publicly explained this song. The closest he came was in an interview with Nora Ephron in 1966. She asked him who Mr. Jones was. He deadpanned that Mr. Jones was a real person he once met, and that the story was literally true: He was a man who put his eyeballs in his pocket and his nose on the ground. Nora just went on to the next prepared question! Dylan was mocking her, mocking the question, mocking the interview, mocking (in a sense) all interviews. Which means, in a way, that Dylan was giving a dead-on answer to the question about who Mr. Jones is.

There are many wacko interpretations of Thin Man out there, by the way, and they are a hoot to read. Dylan must be proud. (One is an elaborate homoerotic explanation, earnest but completely insane, which begins with the explanation that the "thin man" is CLEARLY referring to a penis and plunges on from there. The "sword swallower" is well, you get it.) Huey P. Newton famously thought it was about race relations.

So I am going to explain the song now, because I am certain I understand it; all journalists should intuitively understand it, because it is, first and foremost, in the most literal sense, about them - and it goes to the central terror of their lives. In a larger sense, it is about all of us, though. And a central terror of our lives. And also, about the lamentable state of communication and comprehension in the world.

Who is Mr. Jones? My serious answer is that Mr. Jones is everyone who doesn't understand the song.

There is a rather elegant poem somewhere on the Web (I found it yesterday and lost it - apologies to the author) that concludes that Mr. Jones is the person who doesn't understand he is Mr. Jones. This is another worthy explanation, especially because of line 4. Mr. Jones is actually seeing himself naked, and not knowing who he is.

Literally, Mr. Jones is thought to be a man named Jeffrey Jones, a writer for Rolling Stone (and/or Newsweek) who apparently had the misfortune to interview an angry and arrogant young Dylan, under difficult circumstances, in 1965. Supposedly, it was a short, hurried, tense interview in which Mr. Jones blurted stupid, obvious, superficial questions to a guy who was merely in the process of completely reinventing popular music by imbuing it with an intellect. Mr. Jones paid. Oh, man, he paid dearly.

And thus we begin with a man walking into a room, with a pencil in his hand. What follows is as vicious an evisceration of a person - and a type of person - that you will ever see. (And yeah, by the way, "the lumberjacks" are newspaper writers. Dull, mindless killers of trees. Suppliers of facts, not truth. No other explanation - and there are many -- makes sense, in context.) Those of you who know this song (I advise all of you to get it - it is on "Highway 61 Revisited," which may be the best pop album ever recorded ) know it is sung with a sneer. You can hear it and feel it.

Mr. Jones is a professional observer who pretends to understand everything, but understands nothing, and it terrifies him to the existential center of his being. ("My God, am I here all alone?" is pretty much as scared and naked as a human being can be, confronting the central terror of ALL our lives, no?) Mr. Jones has facts at his disposal, but no imagination. So facts become his public face, and the instrument of his denial. On the surface, he is an erudite man, a pillar of the community (though primly practical and self-serving; he gives to tax-deductible charity organizations.)

What Dylan is talking about, in a larger sense, is a failure of imagination - the straitjacket of linear thinking that strangles one's ability to understand subtle, creative and intuitive things. He is talking about the type of people who see brilliant impressionism and conclude that their kids could do it. He is talking about the type of thinking he saw all around him. It is with us still, you know.

Is this really debatable? Take a look at that second stanza. At first, it seems like gibberish nonsequiturs, right? It certainly seems that way to Mr. Jones, who cries out in fear. But try transposing lines 14 and 16. Mr. Jones is actually getting a direct answer to his question, but cannot see it because it has not occurred linearly.

Lines 49 and 50 are spectacularly funny - they remind me of a line from Dylan's second greatest song, "Like a Rolling Stone":

"You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns

When they all come down and did tricks for you.

You never understood that it ain't no good

You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you."

I think, in Thin Man, he is saying we are inextricable from the pornography of our entertainments. We share the guilt. Mr. Jones doesn't see this, either. He doesn't see anything important.

McLuhan saw transcendant meaning in the final stanza - he felt that Dylan was literally being predictive of the digital age, when linear thinking would collapse under the weight of a cacophony of images and ideas. I'm not sure I go that far. I think Dylan was actually being prescriptive: All the Mr. Joneses of the world need to LISTEN. They need to be force-fed the truth, if need be. Made to wear earphones. (Note, he doesn't say ear plugs. He wants Mr. Jones hearing HIM.)

In a way, Mr. Jones is not contemptible. He is just a normal person, not fully understanding life, and scared. There is a little Mr. Jones in all of us. I have no doubt that if Dylan were lurking in this chat, he would inform me that I have become Mr. Jones by trying to analyze the song. Guilty.

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John, Charlotte, N.C.: Now can you please remind everyone -- How exactly are you funny? I have never found anything you've written to be particularly humorous or even slightly entertaining.

Gene Weingarten: I hide filthy innuendo in everything I write. That's pretty much it, assface.

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Washington, D.C.: My biggest regret as a newspaper editor (college) ... putting the kibosh on a house ad written by our photo editor: "Kelly Patrick Egan Invites You To Join the Campus Times Photo Department. No Irish Need Apply." But yours is funnier.

Gene Weingarten: That's pretty good, though you would have gotten in trouble for it, on account of 1) the humorless and 2) the perpetually offended.

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Practical Joker: Gene, I thought you'd appreciate this. I'm dogsitting for a friend, and my dog has been playing a practical joke on the visiting pooch, "George."

I've got a dog door for my girl. She runs in and out pretty much whenever she wants, as long as I'm home. So, George watches her go out the door, watches her come in the door, and he doesn't get it. I've held the doggie flap up, and tried to push him through, and he doesn't get it. He looks at it like, "Hmm. There's a big hole in the door. That's not natural. You might want to fix that." and then completely ignores it.

My dog has started going outside, and then standing on the back porch facing in, and barking. Last night I figured out she was barking at George, who was standing in the kitchen.

My dog is essentially standing outside the door, saying, "Neener. Neener. Neener. You can't get me," because she knows that George can't figure out the doggie door.

Gene Weingarten: I'm laughing here.

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In defense of voice recognition: How you gonna convince people to take that job for a minimum wage, Gene? Spending eight hours a day with the doofiest of the public -- the ones who can't be bothered to open a phone book, or look at the receipt, or keep a little black book of important numbers?

Gene Weingarten: Operators work for minimum wage? No way. I think lots of people would take jobs as operators.

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Speed Bump: Okay, so, I totally love the idea that the Grim Reaper is just this guy with a job to do. It was hilarious when Terry Pratchett wrote about it. And Neil Gaiman. And then Christopher Moore...and now there's a Nickolodeon cartoon about it. Is it just me, or is it getting less funny?

Gene Weingarten: Yeah, agreed. I overvalued it.

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Mr. and Mrs. Jones: I always thought that was Dylan's "answer" to "Me and Mrs. Jones"--kinda like "Judy's turn to cry" was the answer to "It's my party"--but I have no idea why i've thought this...

Gene Weingarten: Uh, Dylan doesn't answer anybody. Dylan questions.

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Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welco, ME: Is this the scariest video you've ever seen?

Gene Weingarten: I just don't know what to say about this. It's too disturbing to be funny.

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Is it cold?: This one is right up your street. What happened to the weather information that used to be at the top of the front page of post.com? It's gone and I have to get up walk to the elevator, go down seven floors and step outside before I know whether (ha) or not I have to go back for my coat at lunchtime. Taken over the metropolitan area this productivity slump could cause a localized recession.

washingtonpost.com: It's only on the local version of the homepage now... you might have to change your registration to reflect a local zip code to get it back.

Gene Weingarten: Public Service Announcement.

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Bob Dylan: Wrongo. It was the penis thing.

Gene Weingarten: Hahahahahahahahaha. The "wrongo" was great.

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Why the poll can't work: The tune can actually change the rhythm and meter of the lyrics turning crappy poetry into a decent, or even great, song. Without that context we can't tell if this is a "great" song.

Go listen to Lionel Richie's "Still" and try not to weep.

Then, go read the lyrics and try not to fall asleep.

Gene Weingarten: I don't deny this, and the music in this song -- featuring incredible organ work by Garth Hudson -- is haunting. But the lyrics alone should tell you where to go on this one, IMHO.

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Takoma, Md.: I say "an hemerrhoid."

Gene Weingarten: I say a hemOrrhoid.

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Addictive: There goes your chat... Red Square

washingtonpost.com: 11 seconds here.

Gene Weingarten: I got to 11, but I am on a laptop, which is a disadvantage. On my desktop I hit 18 something.

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Between the middle of nowhere and there: Why don't you offer speaking engagements like Mark Twain used to?

Gene Weingarten: Actually, I have one in Denver next month, with Gina. But I don't do speaking gigs, much. I'm an okay public speaker, but I get too stressed out beforehand.

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Hatred & Venom: Conservatives are reaping what they sowed during the Clinton administration. And as long as Karl Rove is in the White House, it won't go away.

Gene Weingarten: Did no one notice anything unusual about the tone and texture of my intro?

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Mr. Jones: I am always quick to point out when you've carried the arrogance schtick too far - because it can get annoying and you need to taken down a peg or two occasionally.

But you have absolutely nailed the analysis of Thin Man.

Thank you

Gene Weingarten: Thank YOU.

One can be arrogant and right.

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Alexandria, Va.: You must be stoned. The Maryland flag is one of the ONLY state flags to have any aesthetic appeal. It is quite simply beautiful, rivaled perhaps only by New Mexico's.

washingtonpost.com: New Mexico state flag

Gene Weingarten: Hahahaha. Man, that is one lame flag.

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Anonymous: Gene - this is what's wrong with America. Over-analysis. Ballad of a Thin Man is meaningless drivel. Dylan is overrated. Even he admits it. Why can't you?

Gene Weingarten: I am doubting you mean this, now.

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Your explanation: I stand by my initial reaction: -yawn-.

Gene Weingarten: Okay, I invite this person to tell me a more meaningful song. A better set of lyrics. I'd just like to know your taste.

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Cincinnati, Ohio: Ok, I know I'm going to get a verbal smackdown from you, but in regards to the Dylan song:

I am in my early 20s. While I was growing up I was never exposed to much music from the '60s. I have probably only heard about three Dylan songs in their entirety in my life. From this perspective, not knowing anything about the background, not hearing HOW he is singing the words, not knowing the title or the era, it just seemed completely nonsensical. I would like to point out that you cannot possibly view that song (being so intimately familiar with it) from my point of view, and that it would be pretty hard for someone in my position to think those lyrics are anything but babbling.

Gene Weingarten: But aren't they obviously poetry, which requires no soundtrack?

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Buzzard Point, Washington, D.C.: Your intro -- it was cribbed from Lincoln's Second Inaugural...

Gene Weingarten: THANK YOU. Yes.

Jeez, people.

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Bad Flag Stater: I assume nobody commented on the fact that your intro about plagiarism was laregly plagiarized because it was so obvious, even though I can ID only one selection (Lincoln's 2nd inaugural).

Every word of this post has ben plagiarized from the dictionary.

Gene Weingarten: Good point, about the dictionary!

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Li, ZA:

Two things:

1. Liza Minnelli WAS hott once upon a time.

2. I'm a 36-year-old guy. Is there any way at all that Liza Minnelli is relevant to me I can't think of any way whatsoever...

Gene Weingarten: Liza also seemed to have a functioning brain at one point, too.

If you want to see why Liza is important, watch "Cabaret." Rent it and watch it. A great movie, a stunning performance.

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Apt name for a Paraleg, AL: There is a new paralegal in the litigation section of the Red Cross legal department. His name is Tim Osumi.

Gene Weingarten: Not remotely as good as the lawyer I wrote about a few years ago: Susan You. (Yes, she goes by Sue.)

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Arlington, Va.: I don't know, John Denver has some pretty poetic songs, also with a social conscience. Let's analyze some JD next week.

Gene Weingarten: Oh. My. Effing. God.

Do we have a generational dispute here, or an intellectual one? I really need to know.

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Frederick, Md.: Gene,

How did you get your start?

Gene Weingarten: My mother and father had sex.

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Re-New Mexico Flag: That flag was the result of a "create a flag" contest conducted around 1500 BC.

Gene Weingarten: Hahaha.

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Bob Dylan: The thing about Bob Dylan that amazes me is that he's still writing incredible songs. The poll is apropos for me today since I'n jamming out to the Dixie Chick's version of Mississippi, written in 1997. What an incredible songwriter to be writing 40 years and still have a pulse on our lives.

Mississippi

Every step of the way we walk the line

Your days are numbered, so are mine

Time is pilin' up, we struggle and we scrape

We're all boxed in, nowhere to escape

City's just a jungle, more games to play

Trapped in the heart of it, trying to get away

I was raised in the country, I been workin' in the town

I been in trouble ever since I set my suitcase down

Got nothing for you, I had nothing before

Don't even have anything for myself anymore

Sky full of fire, pain pourin' down

Nothing you can sell me, I'll see you around

All my powers of expression and thoughts so sublime

Could never do you justice in reason or rhyme

Only one thing I did wrong

Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Well, the devil's in the alley, mule's in the stall

Say anything you wanna, I have heard it all

I was thinkin' about the things that Rosie said

I was dreaming I was sleeping in Rosie's bed

Walking through the leaves, falling from the trees

Feeling like a stranger nobody sees

So many things that we never will undo

I know you're sorry, I'm sorry too

Some people will offer you their hand and some won't

Last night I knew you, tonight I don't

I need somethin' strong to distract my mind

I'm gonna look at you 'til my eyes go blind

Well I got here following the southern star

I crossed that river just to be where you are

Only one thing I did wrong

Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Well my ship's been split to splinters and it's sinking fast

I'm drownin' in the poison, got no future, got no past

But my heart is not weary, it's light and it's free

I've got nothin' but affection for all those who've sailed with me

Everybody movin' if they ain't already there

Everybody got to move somewhere

Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow

Things should start to get interesting right about now

My clothes are wet, tight on my skin

Not as tight as the corner that I painted myself in

I know that fortune is waitin' to be kind

So give me your hand and say you'll be mine

Well, the emptiness is endless, cold as the clay

You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way

Only one thing I did wrong

Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Gene Weingarten: Whoa.

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McLean, Va.: Did you seek any input from Tim Page in your analysis of this song, like you did with "Piano Man"? Speaking of which, have you ever asked him to weigh in on "Sloop John B" versus "Hang on Sloopy"?

Gene Weingarten: I believe Tim agreed with me on the two sloops.

I need no counsel on Thin Man. I get Thin Man.

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Oliv, VA: Great actors come and go, Gene, but your Arena Stage performance broadcast Saturday night on C-Span was one for the ages. It was so passionate,so witty, so heart-rending, so multi-layered, that when it was over, I found myself asking: What kind of life do I have that I'm watching C-Span on a Saturday night?

Gene Weingarten: They BROADCAST that thing? My God. Have they no shame?

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Arlington, Va.: I took the day off today, and my toilet is clogged. I don't have a plunger. Just enough water is seeping through so that the toilet doesn't overflow when I try to flush it. I keep hoping that enough of the blockage will disintegrate so that the dam will eventually breach and the toilet will flush normally.

Question: Does this ever work, or should I just get a stupid plunger?

This matter became of greater and greater concern to me as I soon developed a pressing need for it to be resolved, if you catch my meaning. (I had had my morning coffee.) Fortunately my apartment building has a fitness center with accompanying bathroom, of which I took full advantage. I felt gooood, Gene.

Question: Not only did I feel good and relieved, I felt, dare I say it, accomplished. More so than after anything I've done at work in the past year. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do I need to quit?

Final question: Which is the worst part of this whole ordeal--that I don't have a plunger, that I took the day off and all I've done is poop, that pooping provides more satisfaction than my job, or that my GIRLFRIEND is the one who clogged the toilet in the first place?

Gene Weingarten: Get a plunger. Also, could you tell us all your girlfriend's name. I just think she'd be so pleased.

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Raleigh, N.C.: I'm sorry, that Dylan song seems to me to fall into that category of '60s songs that are really, really profound, if you're really, really, high. Yes, the answer is indeed blowing in the wind, yes, it makes perfect sense...

I am not a child of the '60s, of course. I do like Dylan o.k., but even more I like covers of Dylan, 'cause he can't freakin sing.

Gene Weingarten: You know what also roasts my camel? People who think Dylan can't sing!

You probably think that Van Gogh couldn't "draw," too.

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D of C: You are as wrong about the New Mexico state flag as you are right about Ballad of a Thin Man. Mayhap your acknowledged weakness in spatial perception translates to a bias for and brilliance in the use of language at the expense of an inability to recognize simple, elegant visual design. (I'll grant you that the Maryland flag is indeed ugly, though I can't imagine how you've managed to avoid encountering it all these years.)

P.S. The intro is Lincoln -- but I'm not sure where you're going with that. So who are you mocking?

Gene Weingarten: I was mocking plagiarism, the subject of the intro.

The Newmex flag would be interesting if it didn't seem so machinelike, no?

I admit I am not sure about this. Do we LIKE the New Mexico flag?

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Better song, my son: Norwegian Wood, the Beatles. A gentle introduction to sexually agressive woman. What could be more important?

Gene Weingarten: I see. You are arguing that Norwegian Wood is a better song than Ballad of a Thin Man. I see. Good, then!

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Denver?: John Denver was born in -- get this -- Roswell, New Mexico. Spooky, no?

Gene Weingarten: AND there is the whole bit about the New Mexico flag. I think we are onto something! Also, that eye on the top of the pyramid figures in.

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Piano Man:

I saw Billy Joel earlier this month. His encore, as always, ended with "Piano Man." As he sang "as the smile ran away from his face..." I leaned over to my sister and said "You know, that's the very worst line in this song." She just sort of stared at me.

This just proves you could create an army of Gene-thinking minions. It would put the Yahoo group to shame.

Gene Weingarten: Of course she looked at you funny. It is NOT the worst line. The worst line is "sharing a drink they call loneliness."

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Pittsburgh, Pa.: I didn't recognize Sunday's Doonesbury at first, although I knew I had read it. Then it dawned on me that my local paper deleted the first two panels on Sunday. I wonder what kind of statement the paper was making?

Gene Weingarten: None. Those two panels are considered expendable. Many papers delete them, for reasons of space.

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Anonymous: Gene - I truly think this is a generational difference. Let's look at Kurt Cobain for a moment. For me, Kurt was a god of lyrics but my parents never got them. I think you could apply the same logic to Dylan.

Gene Weingarten: B-but aren't ideas always ... ideas?

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Re: Maryland State Flag: I happen to really like my state flag. Most other state flags are just a blank field with a circular seal, featuring random Latin scrawl and some grain or livestock. Maryland's flag looks like you'd see it fluttering over a Medieval castle. It has character.

washingtonpost.com: See it fits perfectly with the whole Renn Fest and Medieval Times theme.

Gene Weingarten: Indeed.

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Washington, D.C.: Is the past-tense WEBCASTED or WEBCAST? Someone tried to tell me it was WEBCASTED.

Gene Weingarten: For sake of clarity, I would vote webcasted. Pthep?

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Red Square: 41 seconds, suckas. Easy as pie. Too bad this won't get me a high-paying job... or maybe it's just that I'm not thinking creatively enough.

Gene Weingarten: Yeah, apparently the movement of the blocks never changes, so you can keep getting better.

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State Flags: I submit to condemnation any state flag that sees a need to put the entire name of the state on the flag in large block letters.

I'm talking to you, Arkansas.

washingtonpost.com: Arkansas state flag

Gene Weingarten: Wow. This made me laugh!

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All of NJ: You know what else is inexcusably ugly? The logo for the New Jersey turnpike .

WTF?

Gene Weingarten: That looks like something from a noir graphic novel, doesn't it?

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Would you baby boomers just shut up and retire already?: Yeah, ok, Dylan changed the world. And Woodstock was the most important musical event of all time. And the baby boomers can do no wrong.Would you please retire and just yell at us grumpily to get off your lawn?

Seen through your prism of past experience, it's meaningful. Seen through mine, it's drivel. Poetry and music, just like humor, are SUBJECTIVE.

Gene Weingarten: Sigh. These ideas are timeless, dude.

Um, I really like Shakespeare. I really like Salinger. They were of my parents' era, and a little before.

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Pat the Perfect, ME: I am not surprised that Gene forgot to mention in his flag anecdote, "Even though I was a resident of the state of Maryland FOR AT LEAST TEN YEARS" ...

However, I am surprised that he did not note the spelling "capiche" in his paean to "Pearls." Because he knows that one.

Gene Weingarten: Ooooh, I did miss that.

I am also going to reveal something. Because she is inviting me to. I personally corrected pthep years ago on the spelling of capisce. It was one of the greatest achievements of my life.

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Washington, D.C.: I am 30. The best moment I've ever had with my dad was when I was home for winter break during my first year of college, and my dad got in my car and heard that I was listening to Highway 61 Revisited. Conversation went like this:

Dad: This your CD?

Me: Yeah.

Dad: Cool.

I think it was the moment my dad realized he did an okay job raising me.

Gene Weingarten: I am smiling. I have had similar moments, with my kids. For a while, Molly refused to let me know that she liked Dylan. Didn't want to give me the satisfaction.

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Crawford, Tex.: Bush once said that when he looked into Putin's eyes he saw into his soul and could tell he was an honest man. In light of revelations that the Russians passed on U.S. military plans to the Iraqis, what do you think Putin saw when he looked into Bush's eyes?

Gene Weingarten: I think he probably saw EXACTLY what Frank Caliendo was seeing here. Liz, can you grab that clip from last Wednesday's update?

washingtonpost.com: Caliendo Clip

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Dylan and Van Gogh: That is a PERFECT refutation of the claim that Dylan can't sing! I couldn't agree more. In fact in my opinion the only musician who sings better than Dylan is Tom Waits. I don't just want to FEEL what a vocalist sings, I want to FEEL HIM FEELING it, if you know what I mean.

Gene Weingarten: Well, sort of. But that covers a lot of people. Dylan may be the best there ever was at singing with an attitude. When he's sneering, you know it. You could not understand a word of English, and know it.

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McLean, Va.: It drives me nuts when TV news people use poor grammar or there are typos in news headers. Last night, the local CBS affiliate (Channel 9) had a huge headline at the top of the newscast: GRIZZLY GOAL. I thought the story was going to be about killer bears or bearhunting, but it was about the Moussaoui testimony in the terror trial. I was confused for a moment until I realized they meant to say GRISLY GOAL. Very sad--and it's still a lousy headline.

Gene Weingarten: The Post has made this error a few times.

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Missoula, Mont.: Gene, With 10 minutes to go I didn't think I was gonna get a laugh out of this weeks chat. Then I saw the state flag of Arkansas. Hahaha.

Gene Weingarten: You want another laugh, look at that video clip. It's great.

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Webcast gramm, AR: I webcasted it. It was webcast.

compare to

I broadcasted it, it was broadcast.

Gene Weingarten: Yeah, except I think it might be "I broadcast it." Still waiting for pthep.

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State Flag Survey: Gene, The North American Vexillological Association (crazy flag lovers) conducted a survey a couple of years ago on the U.S. state and Canadian provincial flags. New Mexico came in first, Maryland came in fourth, D.C. came in eighth.

They're conducting a city flag survey now and D.C.'s flag is in first place.

Gene Weingarten: HOLY COW.

Sorry, I refuse to accept that the Maryland flag is nice.

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Pat the Perfect, ME: webcast vs. webcasted: Since it's what your wordies call a "back-formation," seems logical it should match the form of "broadcast." In Webster's New World, which The Post uses, the first past tense given is "broadcast." So I think we'd go with "webcast" as well.

Gene Weingarten: That is definitive.

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Springfield, USA: So I was watching "Bride Kidnapping of Kyrgyzstan" on the Discovery Times cable channel this morning around 4 a.m. (Synopsis: "An ancient tradition lets men kidnap their future brides and bring them to their family homes.") Basically, it appeared to be a real-life version of "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers", only with one son, complicit parents, and absolutely no dandy musical numbers.

The program began by documenting the attempts of a country family to kidnap a particular city girl as their son's unwitting bride. The son had never met the girl; he simply spotted her on the street one day and liked her. About ten minutes into the show, the targeted girl was nowhere to be found, despite attempts to gain her address from another girl who worked at a vodka stand. At this point, the documentarians indicated that Plan B was afoot: the vodka stand girl would have to do instead.

I couldn't stomach it. Turned off the telly. (Fortunately, the show re-airs later today, and may be more palatable at a saner hour.)

So my question is this. In terms of epic struggles for personal rights, which is the bigger battle royal: the struggle for women's rights among disparate societies throughout the world, or your perpetual fight to prevent your real picture from being used on The Washington Post website? (It briefly appeared again this morning.)

Gene Weingarten: I would not demean the importance or dignity of either struggle by trying to compare them.

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Dave B. in Miami: Gene: To establish your credentials as an expert judge of music, perhaps you should tell everyone about how you discovered the great Miami blues musician Edgar Allan Poe VIII (or whatever number he was).

Gene Weingarten: Thanks, Dave.

This is a reference to a somewhat erronious judgment of mine several years back. You know how some people simply cannot let something lie?

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Sterling, Va.: I am sending this to you early so you can watch at your leisure.

Juggler

Gene Weingarten: I leave you with this. It's simply beautiful.

Gene Weingarten: Next week. Same time, same place.

Do click on this thing. It's amazing. You need sound.

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UPDATED 3.29.06

Gene Weingarten: Several posters demanded I rethink several of my positions taken yesterday. In order.

The New Mexico Flag: Okay, I take it back. Simple and elegant and appropriate. A good flag, not a bad flag. My bad.

The Maryland Flag: I heard from many dozens of Maryland flag defenders, pointing out that it is one of the few flags that are instantly recognizable and distinctive, and that it is much more inventive than the typical state flag, which is a state seal on a blank field. True enough. But I still contend it is appalling design, an ugly, discordant juxtaposition of uninteresting images, cut and pasted into an unappealing whole. Give a six year old a pair of scissors, some glue, and some gift-wrapping paper, and he could do as well.

On the transcendence of "Ballad Of a Thin Man" -- Uh uh. I stand behind my analysis and accept no amendments

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Gene Weingarten: That juggler I left you with? It turns out there is a raging debate among "competitive jugglers" about whether that guy, Chris Bliss, is any good at all! Really! Jugglers in the know criticize him for using only three balls, and contend his movements are inartistic. Message boards are full of jealousy and contempt for him, because of how rich and famous he is, largely because of that video clip.

Now, here is the interesting part. Another juggler named Jason Garfield did a contemptuous parody of the Bliss routine, in which he juggles FIVE balls to the same music.

Here it is.

It's a fascinating comparison. It's a fabulous putdown, but... while Garfield's act is more athletic and technically difficult, he doesn't really nail the choreography the way Bliss did. It's less artistic, I think. The balls don't dance to the music the way Bliss's did.

(It's also not live, and I think it was edited. But it's a great comparison.)

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Post Baby Boomer: I think we have a generational dispute on our hands. It's a failing of Baby Boomers not to realize that everything they did growing up, someone before them has done and someone has done since. Your music is great, but every generation thinks the music they grew up with was great (or they're contrarians who insist that either something old or something obscure is "real" music and what everyone else likes is just trash).

for the record, I think The Graduate is a dumb movie. care for me to denigrate anything else your generation dumped on pop culture?

Gene Weingarten: I recently saw "The Graduate." Didn't hold up. Really bothered me.

You raise an interesting point. "The Graduate," "Dr. Strangelove." Movies that were anthemic to my generation, but DONE by people from my father's generation. Mike Nichols, who directed The Grad, is 75 years old. (This is not so in music, where the perps are usually contemporaries of the listeners.)

My generation produced great movies. I think many, many will hold up. I cite simply the entire oeuvre of brothers Coen. Spielberg. Scorsese.

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Oyecomo, Va.: You think the flag's odd? Maryland's state song is deeply weird:

Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
... Remember Carroll's sacred trust,
Remember Howard's warlike thrust...
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!
She breathes! she burns! she'll come! she'll come!
Maryland! My Maryland!

Of course, what makes it even more surreal is that it's set to the same tune as "O Tannenbaum," so when you're walking across the campus of U.Md. and hear the chapel bells toll the hour, you might find yourself singing "O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree" to yourself--in August.

Gene Weingarten: I had forgotten this. Frankly, I like it. We need more frothing, spit-flying lunacy in our state songs.

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Somewhere in Maryland: Salinger = pedophile. My daughter found this out when she just read "Catcher in the Rye" for her English class.

Gene Weingarten: Whoa. Too strong.

If you read Catcher in the Rye, and then read "For Esme, With Love and Squalor," and then read "Perfect Day for a Bananafish," you will come away thinking:

1. Salinger is one hell of a great writer, and

2. Salinger is FASCINATED by little girls, to a degree that is perhaps a little uncomfortable.

Then you will remember his most famous romance, which occurred shortly after he read a cover story in the New York Times Magazine by Joyce Maynard, then a pretty, 18 year old waiflike college student. Salinger was 53. Using his beguiling fame and epistolary charm, he summoned her to his quaint New England home and they began an affair that lasted only a short while.

So, in a very literary way, continuing your use of the second person present tense for maximum literary effect, you wonder.

Pedophile? Too strong. And unfair. And unliterary. You just ... wonder.

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Arlington, Va.: So is it just me, or is it the NAMES of so many of today's comics that leave me clueless? For all too many strips today, the actual name of the strip rings no bell for me: nothing -- not characters, creator, art style -- nuthin'.

I'm drawing a total blank on the following: Close to Home, The 5th Wave, Non Sequiter, Out of the Gene Pool, Speed Bump, Stone Soup. Maybe I'm just not catching on. After all, many memorable strips of the past had pretty obscure names as well: Far Side comes to mind, although the inanity of the name was more-than-counterbalanced by the brilliance of Larson.

Are the titles of the new strips just less memorable? Or is the lack of recognition tied to a lack of memorability in the art/writing/funnieness of the strips themselves?

Gene Weingarten: There is a general tendency in comic strippery to seek names that promise the strip will be a little edgy or offbeat. Something unusual. It's become a little tiresome, actually. "Rhymes With Orange," ie, something that does not exist. Same with "Non Sequitur." "Pearls Before Swine" -- ie, something too good for you Philistines. "Out of the Gene Pool" -- whoa, of an entirely different SPECIES of strip, man.

"Stone Soup" is a reference to a parable about making something from nothing, as described here in Wikipedia:

According to the story, some travellers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty pot. Upon their arrival the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the hungry travellers. The travellers fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire in the village square. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travellers answer that they are making "stone soup", which tastes wonderful, although it still needs a little bit of garnish to improve the flavor, which they are missing. The villager doesn't mind parting with just a little bit to help them out, so it gets added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the travellers again mention their stone soup which hasn't reached its full potential yet. The villager hands them a little bit of seasoning to help them out. More and more villagers walk by, all adding another ingredient. Finally, a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all.

Of all the strip names, I find "Speed Bump" most puzzling, since it refers to something annoying, that slows us down. I shall ask Coverly what it is all about, and report back.

The comic strip I am writing with my son doesn't have a name like those.

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Seattle, Wash.: Am I a hypochondriac? I found a mole, my doctor is removing it next week. It's on my forehead and since its discovery, I've suffered headaches and have decided I must have a brain tumor.

Gene Weingarten: This is classic hypochondriacal behavior, yeah. It's very easy to worry yourself into a simple symptom like a headache.

I want to offer you some solace. If the mole is a melanoma (which it probably isn't, as you know) you almost certainly do not have a brain tumor. Only ten percent of malignant melanomas metastasize to the brain, and when they do, headaches are seldom the presenting symptom. So, don't worry! It's MUCH more likely that you will have metastatic lymphatic cancer, or liver cancer.

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UPDATED 3.30.06

Gene Weingarten: As you may remember, I tend to have boring, cinema noir dreams (Dreamworks This Ain't, Post Magazine, March 20, 2005).

Last night's was also noir, but a little more interesting. I was going into a strip club, to interview someone (I swear.). And I found myself walking down a long corridor, to get into the place, and when I got to the end of the corridor, I was... on stage! There were guys at the bar, hooting and whistling and telling me to get the hell outta there.

I think this was prompted by Tuesday's discussion of "Ballad of a Thin Man," and the point that we share the pornography of our entertainments.

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Gene Weingarten: Well, I heard from Dave Coverly about why his comic is called "Speed Bump." Here it is, verbatim:

I actually didn't pick it for any specific reason -- I liked the fact that it was an established noun and so it would be easy to remember.

I also liked that speed bumps literally stand out -- they make you slow down when you're sailing mindlessly along. To be honest, it was one of a dozen I submitted to Creators before syndication began, because when they picked up my panel, it was untitled. My first choice, personally, was "Wide World of Stretch Pants" but they wouldn't go for that. And besides, it wouldn't fit over the top of a single panel anyway.

In Sweden they call them Bulan. In the U.K. they're called Sleeping Policemen.

Can I go back to work now?

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Juggler: That dude was on a cruise my family went on. He started off with about half an hour of jokes. They were horrible, so my family walked out, and missed the actual skill.

Gene Weingarten: Yeah, as many of the angry, jealous, competitive jugglers have noted with vitriol, Bliss considers himself primarily a comedian, and he is apparently somewhat tiresome at that.

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Washington, D.C.: I would hope that great music transcends generations -- I was born 16 years after that song came out (I'm 24) and the first thing I did after taking the poll was listen to it on my iPod because it was inextricably stuck in my head. And then I had to listen to the rest of the album.

But I always thought it was Al Kooper that played the organ on that song -- I don't think the Band (and Garth Hudson) started officially recording on his albums until Blonde on Blonde.

Gene Weingarten: Correct, correct. I was wrong. That was Al Kooper on Highway 61. Hudson played the organ on the live version of Thin Man, recorded (I think) in 1967.

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RE: timeless ideas: Yes, Gene, ideas are just ideas, so in theory what was brilliant in the 60s is still brilliant today. But what you're failing to appreciate is that ideas never stand alone: what separates the brilliant from the banal is largely the context in which the idea arrives. What Dylan sang resonated strongly with you (and many others of your generation) because it was a bold questioning of the existing order. However, to hear (or read) it for the first time today, having grown up in a different generation -- and a completely different "existing order" -- it just doesn't resonate as strongly. When you explain the song, it makes sense, and I can appreciate it, but I'm probably never going to think it's brilliant in the same way I thought Naomi Wolf's "No Logo" was brilliant when I read it at 20. (I'd read a lot of books, but before that I had never read one that made me spontaneously grab a pencil and underline almost every page, because she wrote so clearly about things I'd experienced but never been able to express.)

Or, to use a more obvious example, for me to stand up today and say that every person, regardless of parentage or class, is inherently deserving of the same rights--true, but not particularly brilliant. The exact same idea expressed 200 years ago in the Bill of Rights --groundbreaking and brilliant. It's all about the context.

Gene Weingarten: I think your second argument makes sense, but I would suggest that the foibles of human nature are an eternal thing. Aristophanes was making some of the same observations as Chaucer as Shakespeare as Eliot as Dylan. There is nothing in "Thin Man" that particularly sets it in time or place, is there? Don't we still feel these things? Aren't there still people like that?

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Too disturbing: to be funny, also.

Gene Weingarten: Yes. This truly calls for commentary by Leonard Pinth-Garnell. But an even better sendup was delivered by Stewie in Family Guy. Liz, can we link to that, too?

washingtonpost.com: Stewie's version. And these both just made my day.

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San Francisco, Calif.: Was there any doubt that this school would be the one leading the charge?

Gene Weingarten: No doubt whatsoever.

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UDPATED 3.31.06

Re: Dylan: "But aren't they obviously poetry, which requires no soundtrack?"

Hey Gene, weren't you the one who said poetry has to rhyme? I dare you to find a rhyme sequence in that song.

Gene Weingarten: Are you daft? The song is full of rhymes, and good ones. He even makes a rhyme out of "tax-deductable charity organizations."

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Harrisonburg, Va.: I saw an ad some years ago for Planters peanuts in a decorative "limited edition" jar. The big print in the ad stated "STILL GOOD EVEN AFTER THE NUTS ARE GONE." It was a full page ad immediately opposite a full page article on testicular cancer. I've always found it funny and I've always been ashamed that I do. Am I normal?

Gene Weingarten: Yes.

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Washington, D.C.: As I was helping my boyfriend move this weekend, on approximately my 800th drive past the Eden Center in Falls Church, I noticed this.

Would it have been more amusing if it had been a restaurant, as I originally thought? I still laughed for about an hour.

Gene Weingarten: Absolutely not. Much better as a beauty clinic. This is one of the funniest business names I have ever seen.

Wow.

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Your Daughter: When did we see a picture of Molly?!?! I am 26 and always assumed that Molly was a beauty, but didn't dare ask you to show us.

I think I probably thought she was beautiful because the only other Mollys I have known have been beautiful also. Isn't it interesting how we can associate names with good looks based on a few examples in our lives? I remember I used to think of the name Olga as only for elderly Russian women, until I met two beautiful Olgas!

Gene Weingarten: It's not the most flattering of photos, but remarkably pertinent, considering the last post.

Liz, please link to it.

washingtonpost.com: Molly.

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Take Us Out to the Ball Game: The Weingartenchatters are planning to attend the Nationals-Phillies game on June 11, and would like to extend the invitation to the chat participants (lurkers and posters). The group is trying to get 25 people to get a group rate. If people are interested they should go to the weingartenchatters yahoo group and post a message expressing interest. We would be honored if you would join us too, Gene -- don't worry, you won't jinx it. Maybe the Great Zucchini can come too!

Gene Weingarten: Noted.

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