Every Tuesday, Gene publishes weekly updates to his chats.
Gene's most recent chat:
May 31
On one Tuesday each month, Gene is online to take your questions and abuse. This month, that day will be Tuesday, June 28 at Noon ET. He will chat about anything. Although this chat is sometimes updated between live shows, it is not and never will be a "blog," even though many persons keep making that mistake. One reason for the confusion is the Underpants Paradox: Blogs, like underpants, contain "threads," whereas this chat contains no "threads" but, like underpants, does sometimes get funky and inexcusable.
Important, secret note to readers: The management of The Washington Post apparently does not know this chat exists, or it would have been shut down long ago. Please do not tell them. Thank you.
Weingarten is also the author of "The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. And Death," co-author of "I'm with Stupid," with feminist scholar Gina Barreca and "Old Dogs: Are the Best Dogs," with photographer Michael S. Williamson.
New to Chatological Humor? Read the FAQ.
Ed's Note: If composing your questions in Microsoft Word please turn off the Smart Quotes functionality or use WordPad. I haven't the time to edit them.
In a particularly merciless bit of timing, the entire Weinergate affair broke just hours after the conclusion of our last full chat. I had to watch helplessly as dozens (if not hundreds) of opportunities for infantile humor passed by. The anguish continues: I was horrified this morning to learn from Google that I would not be the first person in the United States to call Mr. Weiner a "Dongressman."
Fortunately, there is one area -- one theater of human endeavor -- at which Chatological Humor excels so heroically that the mere passage of time does not matter. It is in the creation of sophomoric doggerel.
All the poems below were written between 6 and 9 a.m. today, and together they constitute today's chat update.
Weinergate, in Double Dactyl:
Higgledy piggledy
Anthony Weiner twote
Explicit pictures and
Everyone laughed.
Geopolitically
I'm un-astonished, since
Congressmen always give
People the shaft.
Weinergate, in quatrain
To everyone's amusement, ('cept perhaps the gal he married)
Tony Weiner mailed a picture that was just a bit too bone-y.
Then he claimed that he'd been pranked (although he looked a bit too harried)
And his explanation, like his tweet, turned out to be bologna.
Weinergate, in Japanese haiku
Nothing is new here
A politician loses
In an erection
Weinergate, in impromptu ballad
Today I mull an issue that's on all the Jewish tongues,
And deal with it forthrightly through my words in this here poy-im.
We're all shouting out our question at the top of all our lungs:
Is Tony Weiner, congressman, a shanda for the goyim?
As readers of this chat by now are perfectly aware,
A shanda for the goyim is a Jew who is a rat --
And whose sins confirm a calumny that isn’t true or fair,
But is fuel for carping gentiles: “See? All Jews are just like that! "
Now, Anthony’s flirtations clearly prove that he’s no prince,
His boorish, crass behavior surely does not make us proud.
But the guy is not a shanda (though the reason makes me wince)--
For a Jewish boy, the Congressman is pretty well endowed.
Weinergate as a second quatrain.
Congressman Weiner's career is in doubt.
Some say he's intact; others say he's now rubble.
His advisers contend he should just stick it out --
Says Weiner: "But that is what got me in trouble!"
