CZAR: For simplicity's sake, I am partial to an entry submitted (as I recall) by John Kammer, creating a caption for a cartoon showing a woman holding an envelope from which something appeared to be dripping. The captions was: "Honey, the mail came."

TWW: Ok, what's the best one you could print?

CZAR: This will sound like a copout, but I have no idea. There are some I remember vividly, but I can't honestly call them the best. I remember really admiring the complexity of one by Connaghan. He said "a good joke is to its explanation as sex is to trying to have a baby. Get it? It takes all the fun out!" I thought that really clever. I also recall Fred Dawson coming up with a bad question for the presidential debates: "Would you rather be assassinated by a disgruntled office seeker, a middle-east terrorist, or a schizophrenic loner?" or something like that.

TWW: In weeks where you get thousands of entries, do you actually read, or at least glance at, all of them. How long does it take you to do a first cut? What's the process?

CZAR: I always read all the entries. Always. I always judge it at home, always on Sunday. The first-cut process takes between two hours and twelve hours, depending on the week. On weeks with either very low turnout or very poor entries, every entry gets read very carefully, because I am desperate. On weeks with tens of thousands of entries, I am much quicker and tend to lose patience and skim a little. Here is a sure fire way to make sure a good entry is overlooked: Send in 40 entries, don't edit yourself at all, and place your best entry at number 38.

TWW: What else do you do (for the Post)? Is the Invitational a career enhancing assignment?

CZAR: I write a weekly column in the magazine. I do the invitational. I do occasional stories. That's my job. Doing the Invitational is the opposite of career-enhancing. Seriously. It makes everyone above me nervous and I believe the only reason I am permitted to continue is that the Post is a smart newspaper and realizes the Invitational has a very loyal readership.

TWW: What does your family think of your, what, activities with the contest?

CZAR: My family is unaware that I am the Czar.

TWW: Do you have any particular hobbies, like bike riding, setting fire to tropical fish, skiing, chewing rubber bands, could you tell us about them?

CZAR: You appear to be well read. Well, I repair antique clocks. I also collect underpants sent to me by female readers. I discard the men's underpants.

TWW: How's your social life?

CZAR: Much of it involves the underpants.

TWW: Turning to the other people who actually contribute to the contest for a living, the Czar has had a bunch of flunkies over the years, what do they do (other than mail out crap)? Is Zanko a good flunky?

CZAR: They mail out crap. They order more crap. They make bad mistakes. Pretty much those three things are their job. Zanko is good.

TWW: What's Bob Staake really like?

CZAR: Alan Greenspan.

[The Weak Week offered Bob Staake a chance to reply to this characterization. His response: "He's right. I'm his Alan Greenspan, he's my Andrea Mitchell. It's always been that way, always will be." Neither Alan Greenspan nor Andrea Mitchell has responded to Weak Week inquires regarding their views of the relationship.]

TWW: Does the Post get serious complaints about the contest?

CZAR: There are many fewer complaints than there used to be. I think the only people who read the invitational now are those who are not offended by it. I believe the readership is huge, but have no empirical facts to back that up.

TWW: The Post's web site claims "Thousands of people enter the Style Invitational each week" but we assume that's a bit of an Al Gore. About 300 individuals have been printed so far this year, how many people really send in stuff?

CZAR: Thousands of people is an exaggeration that should be corrected. Thousands of entries is true. On the weakest of weeks, about 120 people submit about 350 entries. On the hugest weeks, about 1,500 people submit 30,000 entries. Average would be, say, 300 people submitting 1,000 entries.

TWW: You have printed around 1,000 entries this year, but fully forty percent of those have come from the top ten individuals, most of whom were in the top ten last year. Just the top two (Hart and Beland) account for about an eighth of the total ink. Is this good, bad, unimportant?

CZAR: I am constantly fighting with my bosses about this. I contend that the thing that keeps the Invitational good is that the only criterion I use is my judgment about what is funny. I print the funniest stuff, period. I do not care who writes it. I REALLY do not care who writes it. It is my only Principle. My bosses contend this creates a feeling of elitism, and say, fine. The Style Invitational can survive grumpy people who feel it is rigged. It cannot survive being less funny than it is. Both I and the Post would be happier if there were a greater churn of names, but that is incompatible with my Mission.

TWW: You pulled the plug on The Ear, the And Lasts, and the Rookie of the Week. Will the Uncle's Pick survive?

CZAR: The Rookie of the Week was designed by my boss and it made my skin crawl on account of it was 1) patronizing and 2) lame. The Ear was great, but arguably ran its course. We will see about the Uncle's Pick.

TWW: What's the deal with Joe Romm and the Uncle anyway?

CZAR: Romm is one of the few people who TRIES for the Uncle's Pick.

TWW: Have you ever tried to syndicate the Invite, or otherwise make something out of it?

CZAR: I have, but am too busy and disorganized to pursue it.

TWW: When was the last time you danced with a woman?

CZAR: This is true: I have NEVER danced with a woman. I did not dance at my own wedding.