Validation, bitches.
Validation.
I’ve heard you talking around the newsroom. “He’d written how many stories before starting as sports editor?” “He picked the ’76ers to win the NFC championship game?” Now who’s talking? I’m Pixbox Champion!
This has been a hell of a semester for me. I got my first real byline in the sports section, and I wrote a column with an actual argument! After slaving away on such stories as the one about gambling, and... um, the one about gambling, I’m going to savor my victory over the also-rans...
In last place, my fellow senior Kevin Lotery. All I hear from Kevin these days is my daily 6:30 p.m. “yo you wanna cook food” IM from HamburgerSteak15, so I don’t really know how he did so poorly. This is actually Kev’s second consecutive last-place finish—I don’t know who let an art history major onto the sports staff, but let this be an example for future generations.
Jake Olson was one of three columnists tying for one game ahead of worst. Perhaps he was distracted by all the charity work he does for disadvantaged children in the area. Or maybe it was the release of the Miami Vice season one DVDs.
Either way, Jake, I never thanked you for omitting “Get well soon!” from my shoutout in week one, which made a thoughtful note to my dad look like I was making fun of cancer. Way to go, buddy. I will now say the single most hurtful thing I can think of, which is: You are not Sonny Crockett.
(P.S. Happy birthday. The fact that your age now ends in a 0 almost devalues the entire concept of decades for me.)
Just as dismal was Anand Krishnamurthy, fashion plate. Krish, I’m kind of tired of you giving Theo guff about his big frame when you’re no Calista Flockhart yourself. To even the scales, I hereby give you the nickname The Hefty Righty.
Lauren Clark joined Jake and The Hefty Righty as just barely better than Kevin. Jealousy is a powerful thing, Clark, and I’ve hated you ever since you came away from the Republican National Convention with a life-size cardboard cutout of Dennis Kucinich and I didn’t. I’m sorry Grandpa Dan Rather had to retire yesterday—you must be as low as a frog on a four-lane highway.
Theo Orsher was nowhere near his old Pixbox-winning glory days, with a mediocre .500 record this season. You know how you can add “in bed” to the end of every fortune cookie fortune? Theo is like that with everything he says; just add instead “... when you’re living in a van down by the river!”
Carolyn Braff and Ben Mills tied for fourth place. Just like her hometown Eagles, Carolyn won enough to get close to the prize but wasn’t nearly good enough to take it home. As a Redskins fan, I’m savoring this.
Ben, you’re a band geek.
Frustratingly close to the top spot was Tom Boorstein, who actually knows what he’s talking about when it comes to college basketball. Tom spent all season courtside, actually reporting on Ivy League basketball teams, whereas I was in the stands, reporting on a flask of Southern Comfort. I hope all the kids at home are paying attention to the moral here.
Finally, the runner-up: Kwame Spearman, the bane of my existence between 2:10 and 4 p.m. on Tuesdays. Kwame’s favorite thing to do in our 14th Amendment seminar is borrow my notebook and scribble bitchy comments about what other people are wearing. I borrowed his book once; this is a 100 percent true quote from his notes, scrawled on the title page: “Police powers! No commerce STUPID Issue! Kwame!” Now you know what I have to deal with, Prof. Rosenberg. If you ask me what fabric my shirt is made out of one more time, Spearman, I’m going to slap you in moot court.
That’s it for me. I’m retiring as Pixbox Champ. In the end, the joke’s on me, I suppose: the season I finally win is the first season there’s no money at stake.
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