The Invitational Week 192: Your Parton Shot
Pair a line of Dolly’s with your own to make a rhyming couplet. Plus winning Secret Service code names.
Pat Myers and gene weingarten
Sep 03, 2026
Check out the Bezoses’ matching Secret Service names in this week’s Invitational results below.
Dolly Parton, married only once and for 59 years, was No Party Doll, which is an anagram of her name. That is a dumb thing to observe, but it beats some of the treacly hagiographies we’ve heard in the last week. Ms. Parton was never full of herself. We honor her below, in a way we think she’d approve of. But first, some names to be whispered into sleeves by people in dark suits and shades.
Quipping & Handling: Winning code names from Week 190
In Invitational Week 190 we asked for funny ideas for one-word Secret Service code names, or handles, for the living celebrity of your choice.
Third runner-up:
Donald Trump: Goldemort (Gregory Koch, Falls Church, Va.)
Second runner-up: |
Mitch McConnell: Schrödinger (Michael Stein, Arlington, Va.)
First runner-up:
Mohammed bin Salman: Piecemaker (Kevin Dopart, Naxos, Greece)
And the winner of the zombie birthday candles:
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez Bezos: Silicon and Silicone (Jeff Hazle, San Antonio)
And it’s the Invitational Gene Pool Gene Poll:
POLL
Which of the four winners above is your favorite?
3rd Runner-Up: Goldemort
17%
2nd RU: Schrödinger
27%
1st RU: Piecemaker
8%
The winner: Silicon and Silicone
48%
870 VOTES · POLL CLOSED
As usual, if you think one or more of the honorable mentions below are better than these, shout out your favorites in the Comments.)
Leave a comment
Terrible With Names: Honorable mentions
Mehmet Oz: Humbug (Michael Stein)
Jeanine Pirro: Scheisster (William Kennard, Arlington, Va.)
JD Vance: Seconderriere (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)
Shaquille O’Neal: Sunblock (Lee Graham, Columbia, S.C.)
JD Vance: Dorkquemada (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.; Steve Smith, Beverley, Mass.)
RFK Jr.: Mort (Dave Prevar, Annapolis, Md.)
Pete Hegseth: Cuddlecakes (Leif Picoult, Rockville,Md.)
Ken Jennings: Smartask (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)
Donald Trump: Chowșescu (Leif Picoult)
Donald Trump: MAJUSCULE (Ben Aronin, Washington, D.C.)
Anthony Fauci: Batman (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)
Mitch McConnell: Bernie (Randy Lee, Burke, Va.; Steve Smith)
Vlodymyr Zelensky: Disputin (William Kennard)
Carly Rae Jepsen: Maybe (Jesse Frankovich)
Susan Collins: Furrow (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)
Donald Trump Jr.: Brozo (Leif Picoult)
Eric Trump: Fredo (Duncan Stevens)
Natalie Harp: Orangeaide (Rick Haynes, Boynton Beach, Fla.; Neal Starkman, Seattle; Leif Picoult)
Natalie Harp: Barnacle (Lee Graham)
Melania Trump: NOTalie (Leif Picoult)
Jeff Bezos: Postapocalypse (Beverley Sharp)
RFK Jr.: Reaper (Neil Kurland, Elkridge, Md.)
RFK Jr.: Lysenko (Steve Smith)
Sam Alito: Pregulator (Mark Raffman)
Steven Cheung: Odderjob (Leif Picoult)
Kash Patel: Kneecap (Frank S., Falls Church, Va.)
Bill Belichick: Smiley (Jesse Rifkin, Arlington, Va.)
Stormy Daniels: Fungicide (Duncan Stevens)
The headline “Quipping & Handling” is by Jesse Frankovich; Kevin Dopart wrote the honorable-mentions subhead. The Loser Community’s website with all the Invitational stats and stuff is now NRARS.net; the Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook is here.
New contest for Week 192: Dolly Parton tailgaters
Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumpin’ (from “9 to 5”)
My hangover’s cured, and ain’t that sumpin’ ?
I’m beggin’ of you, please don’t take my man: (from “Jolene”)
My career’s in the toilet — he’s my only fan.
It was actually months ago when 121-time Loser Randy Lee suggested a contest involving Dolly Parton songs. We doubted that many of us here would be intimately familiar with the hundreds of songs she wrote — even in the dozens of on-air memorial tributes we heard over the past week, the clips mostly featured the same two or three hits. But for this tailgater contest, it doesn’t really matter anyway, just as it didn’t with our Taylor Swift tailgaters back in Week 82. And it’s a good way to discover her oeuvre — a word you’d never have caught the straight-talkin’ Dolly using. (Why are they called tailgaters? It’s hard to pin down, but probably because your own line bumps right up next to the original, like a car tailgating behind you.)
For Invitational Week 192:
1. Choose any line from any of the songs written or co-written by Dolly Parton that you can find on this lyrics site. (Her songwriting credit appears just below the title.) UPDATE! Soon after the Invite was published on Thursday morning, an eagle-eyed reader noticed some instances in which the actual songwriter is NOT credited! (“Deportee,” for one, is by Woody Guthrie, not Parton.) So we’re going to have to ask you to Google your choice: Just type in, “Who wrote the Dolly Parton song “[title of song]”? Hopefully, there will still be lots and lots of Dolly originals to choose from.
2. Then add a rhyming line to it — either atop it or after it — for comedic effect, as in our examples above. Even if Dolly didn’t use “perfect rhyme” in her own song, you must for this couplet contest. Your lines don’t have to be singable to the original tune, though.
Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to tinyURL.com/inv-form-192. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form.
Important formatting thing! Please write each couplet as a single line divided with a slash, rather than on two separate lines; we’ll restore them to proper couplet-hood on this end. And don’t forget to tell us the title of the song you used!
Just like this:
You’re messin’ up my mind and fillin’ up my senses — (“Here You Come Again”) / Your horrid voice and smell have got me runnin’ for the fences.
Deadline is Saturday, Sept. 12, at 9 p.m. ET. (We promise not to tsk-tsk if you admit that you’d penned your entries during Rosh Hashanah services that morning.) Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Sept. 17.
This week’s winner gets — in honor of our mini-music contest — these two adorable li’l things: a two-inch-long music box that tinkles “If I Only Had a Brain,” plus a “Mini Chopin Liszt” lined Post-it pad that couldn’t even hold the Minute Waltz. Both donated by Dave Prevar.
Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in one of eight nifty designs. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for a personal email from the E, plus the Fir Stink for First Ink for First Offenders.
Still running — deadline Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026, at 9 p.m. ET: It’s our contest for creative answers to questions that a young child might ask. Click on “read full story” below for details.
InvisibleInk!
Idea: ()
Examples: ()
Judging: ()
Title: (Jesse Frankovich)
Subhead: (Kevin Dopart)
Prize: (Dave Prevar)
Add:H:1588: ()
VisibleInk!