CARTOON CAPTION/ANTI-CAPTION CONTESTS CONTINUE! Talk about feeding the flames of East Coast-West Coast rivalry: There's yet another California winner in The New Yorker contest this week...but all three new nominees come from the opposite side of the continent: one from New Hampshire and a whopping two from New York (including one from NYC)!

The winner of New Yorker Caption Contest #39 (naked guy drinking on passenger plane) is

"They give me free drinks if I keep my tray table down."

by Jay Cassidy of Los Angeles. Hooray for Jay!

For Caption Contest #41 (couple entering a church/bar where two down-and-out guys are drinking), my submission was

"Last year Father Dooley hosted 'Tony n' Tina's Wedding.' This year it's 'The Iceman Cometh.'"

I thought that was very New Yorker-ish, but I guess I was very wrong. Anyway, I do like this nominee from Hayley Buckridge of Malverne, New York (on the south shore of Long Island):

"Just don't order a Bloody Mary."

Not bad for an editor of the St. John's Journal of Legal Commentary!

In Anti-Caption Contest #42 (man at desk seated in electric chair), my nine submissions enabled me to lose as many times as cats are supposed to be able to die!

“I'm about to be electrocuted...and yet I've got a desk and a blotter and I'm wearing a shirt and tie and talking with a New Yorker editor on a phone that's askew. No doubt about it: This is yet another senseless execution. Argggggh!”

“Okay, okay. I’ve finished writing ‘I will never again publish a cartoon of Muhammad’ 100 times. Thank you so much for giving me this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“Okay, okay. You’ve persuaded me to sign the confessions. Now will you let me leave Syria and return to my wife and children in Canada? It’s been a whole year.”

“Go ahead, Nick. Just find a way to finish the damn thing and move on. You'll be fine. And if any problems come up, I'll take care of you.”

“I wonder if someday this cartoon will be embraced by death row inmates around the world.”

“If you can't deliver that pizza in seventeen minutes, consider my order cancelled.”

“Rebbe, is there really such a thing as a 2000-volt metal yarmulke?”

"You know the Sword of Damocles? Well, it's like that."

“Yes, I’m wearing a diaper. Funny you should ask.”

The winner was Owen with

"Human Resources? Yes, I think you accidently gave me Tookie's chair."

Caption Contest #43 is here; Anti-Caption Contest #43 is here.

Image by David Marc Fischer using Samsung cameraphone