Loser Lexicon
It is now at least three years out of date -- you will see no reference to "Granola Smears," for example. In the interest of getting more artifacts up on the site before March 3, Grace is not going to update this now, but will in the near future. |
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Loser Lexicon |
~ A ~ Acting DORK aka Director of Record Keeping. Presides over brunches in the absense of Dave Zarrow and Elden Carnahan. Acting DORK is currently Jerry Pannullo. See Blizzard of 96.
Almost Do It! See T-Shirts
America's Funniest Office Products Dealer aka A.F.O.P.D. Herndon resident Dave Zarrow. We would add more about Mr. Zarrow here, but the Dueling Losers Band definition went over the 75-word limit and we had to make cuts somewhere. Sorry, Dave.
And Last The final printed entry on F2, often containing a self-referential joke. Disappeared sometime before The Hiatus.
Angel of Doom Former Depravda Layout Girl April Carnahan. Sez Daddy Elden, "Some years back my daughter April was drafted to act as an angel in a Christmas play, mostly to corral the little kids who had all the other parts. 'You, an Angel?' I laughed. 'Angel of Death, maybe. Give me a minute while I work up a flaming sword for you in my workshop.' Then we changed it to Angel of Doom because that's funnier."
Ask Backwards Repeating contest featuring 12 or 16 Jeopardy!-style answers culled from current events or SI in-jokes for which contestants must provide questions. Weeks 24, 38, 60, 91, 111, 125, 141, 193, 214, 237, 264, 284, 305, 327, VII, XXXVIII
~ B ~ Ballad of Jeanie and Kevin, The Jeanie DiLisi and Kevin Cuddihy submitted the same Country & Western song contest idea for Week 98. The Czar opined that this meant that the two were carrying on an illicit romance, prompting Kevin to hotly deny the rumor. Citing this as irrefutable proof of their torrid love affair, the Czar announced a fine print contest to write lyrics for The Ballad of Jeanie and Kevin. The winner, printed in Week 110, was submitted by David Smith.
Read it! (Opens in new window)Three contests to date have involved simply having contestants beg for the prize: leftover Year 1 T-Shirts in Week 48 (Snivel War), the Mongoose in Week 93, and The Pig in Week 205 (Some Pig).
Blind T-Shirt Award Prestigious award bestowed on those submitting entries too vile to print yet that merit T-Shirts. To date, only a grimy handful of Losers have earned this signal honor: Cole Arendt (Week 84), John Kammer (Week 150), David Kleinbard (Week 169) and Niels Hoven (Week 246). A record snowfall blanketed the Washington area on the morning of January 6, 1996, keeping all Losers except Jerry Pannullo from attending that day's scheduled brunch at Papa's Café in Rockville, thus earning Jerry the title of Acting DORK . Jerry was kept company by imaginary busboy Osvaldo Ramirez. Jennifer Hart narrowly missed out on the Acting DORK title when she arrived at the restaurant after an interminible Metro ride only to find that Pannullo had already left.
Book of Weeks aka B/W. Archive of all SI contests, compiled and maintained by Elden Carnahan.
Brunch aka Loser Breakfast, Brekkie. Monthly gathering of Losers at area restaurants and on occasion at the homes of very brave Losers; held on the first Sunday of the month. Location alternates between DC, MD, and VA.
Buckwheat Farrakhan See Paul Styrene Awarded for Honorable Mentions beginning with Week 47 and ending (without fanfare) sometime in Year I; the Czar quite pointedly refused to send them out retroactively. Contests to design bumper stickers held in Weeks 41, 129 and 248.
Week 41 Winning designs:
Stephen Dudzik, Silver Spring
Elden Carnahan, Laurel
Week 129 Winning designs:
Chuck Smith, Woodbridge and Tom Witte, Gaithersburg
Joseph Romm, Washington
Stephen Dudzik, Silver Spring
Cindi Rae Caron, Lenoir NC
Week 248 Winning designs:
Brian Broadus, Charlottesville
Phil Frankenfeld, Washington
Harold Mantle, Darnestown
Patricia Stansbury, Richmond
Stephen Dudzik, Silver SpringThe first Losers to win bumper stickers were Bruce Alter (2), Elden Carnahan (2), Mary Olson and Robin Grove.
~ C ~
Carnahan, Elden Keeper of Loser statistics, former Depravda editor, founding father of N.R.A.R.S.. Second Loser to score 200 career points. Prime suspect in the Grace Fuller disappearance. A form of overly sweet haiku-like poetry, consisting of 5 lines of 2, 4, 6, 8, and 2 syllables respectively; written by Adelaide Crapsey in the early 1900s. Inspiration for Week 167 (Crapsey), suggested by Jean Sorensen.
Cockney Rhyming Slang Week 179 (A Clockwork, um, um...er). Possibly the most disastrous contest ever, even worse than What Does God Look Like? Entries were so bad that the Czar jettisoned the lot and ran the results from two fine print contests instead. Roy Ashley, the Week 179 winner, received scant mention at the end of the column.
Commissar See Loser Rotisserie League
Congressional Names Repeating contest in which names of Congresshumans are combined to name bills they might co-sponsor, such as the "Trafficant-DeLay-Akaka Roadside Port-A-Potty Bill". Week 5 (There Ought to Be a Law) allowed use of names of all members of Congress and generated enough response that the Czar ran the results over two weeks, thereby lengthening the lag time between a contest's announcement and its Report from two weeks to the three weeks we are all familiar with now. Weeks 90 (Bill Us Now) and 192 (Hill's Bills) were limited to names of freshmen Congresspersons only.
Czar, The Originator and sole judge of the Style Invitational. From the Report from Week 53:
"The Czar's identity, known only to himself and Bob Woodward, is stored on microfiche at the Copenhagen headquarters of the Trilateral Commission. Washington Post editors communicate with the Czar via "drop", involving chalk marks made on the base of a public toilet somewhere in greater Washington. The Czar was appointed for a three-year term by God himself."
Presumably he has been re-appointed - and outed as well - since more than 3 years have passed and Gene Weingarten is still the Czar and, in the words of Jennifer Hart, "the bane of our collective existence".
Czar Mitzvah The Czar's co-workers threw a surprise party for him to mark the second anniversary of SI in 1995. While Chuck Smith was the only Loser invited to actually attend this shindig, several other Losers were asked to provide captions for a photo of a young Czar at his Bar Mitzvah, which were incorporated into a mock SI contest page and presented to him at the party. Copies were sent to participating Losers. View PDF version (2 pages - 507k - opens in new window) aka "The Temporary Czar". In the Report from Week 122 the Czar announced that a stand-in would run the next few contests while he was on vacation. This temporary Czar appears to have put together the Reports from Weeks 123-125, and therefore presumably the set-up for Weeks 126-128. The Czar Pro Tem never revealed her true name but readily identified herself as a woman and disparaged the Czar in print, thus endearing herself to countless millions.
Czarina, The Married to the Czar. Her prodigious shopping skills led to procurement of many items offered as prizes in the early Years.
~ D ~ Depravda Official Mail Organ of the N.R.A.R.S. Begun as a one-pager circulated by Elden Carnahan and mainly devoted to stats. (d)Evolved into the multi-paged publication we all have come to know and loathe in mid-1995, with Grace Fuller at the helm. Publication and editorial duties were taken over by Dave Zarrow and John Kammer in the wake of the Grace Fuller disappearance beginning with the November 1996 issue. These novices endearingly mis-titled their first issue Deparvda. In 1999 Dave Ferry took over as Editor, re-tooling the publication as an electronic newsletter dubbed E-pravda
Doggie Dentist Jennifer Hart provides this eyewitness account:
"There was a contest for "worst Xmas toys for kids", (Week 89) and Ken (Krattenmaker) had way too many entries. He didn't think his "Doggie Dentist for Kids" was funny, but sent it in anyway. Of course, it DID get printed. From then on, whenever we had something we thought was stupid, we would say, "Doggie Dentist", and send it in anyway."Advice columnist to Losers, as seen in the Depravda feature "The Whine Garden". Most frequently-given advice: "Take a gram of Melatonin."
Drool See Gopher Drool We would have dearly loved to have rock critic/historian Dave Marsh chronicle the band's history for this volume, but we could only afford the services of rock climber/office products dealer Dave Swamp. He writes:
"The Dueling Losers Band was the brainchild of Greg Arnold, Herndon. Prior to Loserfest I, Greg made the fatal mistake of contacting Dave Zarrow and asked if he would like to perform some music at Loserfest. Zarrow promptly abducted the brainchild and started to use his idiot-savant song parodying skills to disastrous effect. He continued to allow Greg to be in the band because, frankly, Greg can actually play and NOT sing at the same time. Since Dave can sing and only play at playing at the same time, it seemed like a perfect match."Tom Witte played one blues solo on keyboard at Loserfest I. He played AGAINST the Dueling Losers Band at the famous Christmas brunch of 1995. Dave "He's Pretty Big So We'd Better Let Him Play If He Wants" Ferry joined the band in time for the May 1996 appearance at Jennifer Hart's. Since then Dave Ferry has gone on to write songs, sing songs, and play guitar and banjo. Sure, but he stinks at kazoo. Other Losers have contributed to the madness by "performing" vocally and/or instrumentally with the band or "writing" "songs". The Czar's spoken words were beset to music in the famous WAMU broadcast of December, 1996. The band's first CD is not forthcoming."
Leaf through the Dueling Loser Band Songbook
Dwarf of the Fine Print Debuted in Week 225 as replacement for the Faerie of the Fine Print, who had apparently been stricken with Tourette's Syndrome judging by attacks on Losers in Weeks 224 and 225.
~ E ~ Ear See Ear No One Reads, The 1) One of Stephen Dudzik's many aliases 2) Award given to the Loser with the most published Ears in a Year. The award no one wants. The one award all dignified Losers attempt to foist on someone else. aka Ear. Feature found in Sunday Style, from about mid-Year 1 to sometime in Year 6. It initally appeared on the upper-right hand corner of page F1 -- in the white space known to journalists as the "ear". The advent of the fabulous new presses at the Post spelled the end of the original Ear No One Reads. For a short time in Year 6, Ear-like items appeared in various spots in the Sunday Style section before the whole concept followed the Faerie of the Fine Print into oblivion. The first Loser-contributed Ear, by Stephen Dudzik, appeared in Week 116.
E-pravda See Depravda
~ F ~ F2 Page on which the Style Invitational nearly always appears. Exceptions: Week 38 and Week 193.
F2 2U2 Winning Week 129 bumper sticker cobbled together by the Czar from separate entries submitted by Chuck Smith and Tom Witte. Many unenlightened readers wrote to say that they did not get the joke.
F4 Style Invitational-related items have appeared on this page twice. Week 38 appeared on F4 as did the true identities of the ringers from Week 193. Full name: The Faerie of the Fine Print and The Ear No One Reads. A denizen of the fine print found between the announcement of the current Week's contest and the Report from a previous contest. First appeared in Week 35. In response to numerous inquiries, the Czar identified the Faerie of the Fine Print in Week 53 as a "trained ferret named Francine".
Farquhar, Michael See Flunky Extra-curricular contests found in the teeny-tiny print. Results are usually printed when the Czar needs filler for Reports from the suckier Weeks. First fine print contest was in Week 35, a call for really, really bad middle names. aka Lackey. Post employee in charge of mailing prizes to Losers. This important position was held by Michael Farquhar for the first two Years then by David Jackson in August and September of 1995. Mike Hammer offers an explanation for this brief tenure: "I actually got the impression that Jackson enjoyed the SI and was amused by our group and Depravda". Unacceptable flunky behavior, indeed! The current flunky is Peter Hayes. Honors bestowed on top-performing Losers. Named after a toilet piggy bank given to Chuck Smith as Loser of the Year by Russell Beland, Father of the Flushies, in April 1996. Prizes ranging from actual honest-to-goodness engraved trophies to toilet brushes are awarded to Loser of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Most Imporved Loser, Ear Boy, the winning Loser Rotisserie team, and Losers having accrued points in multiples of 50.
~ G ~ Gearty, Tom An early contender for the All-Time Loser title, winning four times in Year 1 to Chuck Smith's three, but he utterly vanished when Week 64 did. It is not known what Gearty got stuck to the back of. See Hit Crappy prize awarded to the first-place winner. Term originated in Week 41 when the Czar announced a contest to design bumper stickers to be awarded for honorable mentions, remarking, "Some of you have complained that week after week, the Style Invitational winner gets a nifty prize, like a bowl of gopher drool..." When The Web Dominatrix asked the Losers for suggestions for a domain name for the NRARS web site, Jonathan Paul suggested www.gopherdrool.com, a sure winner. Publisher of Depravda from its inception through the October 1996 issue. Whereabouts and fate currently unknown, although we suspect that Elden Carnahan knows more than he's letting on.
~ H ~ Hart, Jennifer aka Ma Hart. Top-ranking female Loser to date. Rememberer of Loser birthdays, knower of Krattenmaker, lunch-haver with the Czar. Year 4 Loser of the Year. Subject of the song Girl by Dave Ferry (set to the Beatles tune of the same name), performed at the April 1997 Flushie Awards Brunch. The subject of a song set to the tune of Purple Haze, performed by The Dueling Losers Band at the June 1997 brunch. See also Flunky. aka Ink, Getting Ink. Having your name printed in SI, whether for an entry, an Ear, donating a prize, or receiving abuse from the Czar. Each hit is worth one point in the career stats list and a varying number of points in Loser Rotisserie League scoring.
Hit for Cycle When you have won a contest outright, been a runner-up, had an honorable mention and submitted a contest idea that was subsequently used, you have "hit for cycle". The term was first used by the Czar in Week 112 in reference to Jessica Steinhice.
Honus Thuermer After repeatedly identifying Kitty Thuermer as an international dealer in condoms, the Czar came up with a new epithet for her in the Report from Week 130 when he attributed Kitty's SI success to her infrequent, brief, and clearly written entries. Quoth the Czar: "In terms of batting average, Kitty is Honus Wagner." Quoth Dave Zarrow: "It was a ploy to get people to stop sending in tons of crap." The second runner-up in Week 136 was attributed to "Honus Thuermer".
Hyphen the Terrible Repeating contest suggested by Fred Dawson, who only received credit for it the first time it ran. Contestants are asked to take the first part of a hyphenated word in any story in that day's Post, pair it with the second part of another hyphenated word in the same story and provide a definition for the resulting word. Weeks 157 and 206.
~ I ~ Imporved See T-Shirts
Imus, Don Radio "personality" who once called SI and its contestants "lame", spawning a fine print contest in Week 113 to come up with nice things to say about Imus. Results were printed in Week 117, following which Imus banned all Style Invitational contestants from ever appearing on the Imus in the Morning show. Losers everywhere failed to give a hoot.
Ink See Hit
Internet Location of endlessly circulating copies of SI contests, sometimes properly attributed, more often not. Most frequently spammed contests: Do Not Inhale This Page (Week 110, absurd warning labels), Bad Analogies (Week 120), Capitol Mistakes (Week 161, bad advice for tourists visiting DC), Deep Throats (Week 178, Jack Handey-like ponderances; often appears as a list attributed to "children ages 4-15") and The Marthian Chronicles (Week 195, items from Martha Stewart's calendar).
~ J ~ Jackson, David See Flunky
Joko Ono See Dueling Losers Band
Joseph Romm's Underpants Sent to the Czar by Joseph Romm in response to the following, from the Report from Week 108:
"Note: Mr. Romm has now won first prize for two consecutive weeks (...) If Mr. Romm wins next week, we shall be forced to publish photographs of him in his underpants."
Joseph Romm's Underpants was an answer in Ask Backwards V and pairs were awarded as prizes for contest suggestions in Week 114 to Scott Mackenzie of Manassas ("exactly the right place for an underpants-winner to be from", according to Elden Carnahan) and in Week 178 to Joseph Romm.
~ K ~ King of Analogies Mike Connaghan, winner of the Week 133 Analogies contest (not the infamous Bad Analogies one). Admiring Losers spared no expense in procuring for Connaghan a crown of the finest materials emblazoned with his title, and on the occasion of the first brunch following his victory presented it to him anonymously (they left it on his chair while he went "to get my plate" he says, "to take a leak" we suspect). King Connaghan doesn't wear his priceless crown anymore because the elastic band broke. aka "Widowmaker". Loser from Landover Hills who shot upward in the standings for about a year, then vanished without a trace.
~ L ~ Lackey See Flunky
Less Taste! Great Filling! See T-Shirts
Levey, Bob Folksy Post columnist often reviled by Losers, although interestingly enough Loser names are sometimes spotted in his column.
Loser Person who get his/her name printed in the Style Invitational, so called because the goal is NOT to win the first-place crappy prize, but to lose and get a coveted T-Shirt or mildly sought-after bumper sticker. The most sought-after award in all of Loserdom. Loser of the Year is the individual whose name appears in SI the most times in the Year. Years 1-3: Chuck Smith, Year 4: Jennifer Hart. Kinda like rotisserie baseball, only more pathetic. Overlooked, er... overseen by the Commissar. A Rotisserie season is shorter than an O.J. Simpson trial, although it sure doesn't seem like it. The Year 5 Commissar was Dave Ferry. The Commissar in the Year 4 Rotisserie was Ben Lea, Year 4 winning team, Paul Kondis' Psychotic Petunias.
See Year 5 Rotisserie Rules (opens in new window)aka Loserpalooza. Annual gathering of Losers, usually an overnight trip to some location outside the Beltway. The first Loserfest was held in July 1995 in Martinsburg WVa to commemorate the first anniversary of the founding of N.R.A.R.S. Loserfest '96 was held in Baltimore, Loserfest '97 in Harper's Ferry WVa.
Losernet Electronic linkage of Losers. Heaviest traffic occurs on Tuesdays, when Losers flaunt their entries for the previous Week's contest once the Monday deadline has passed. This volley is nearly always started off by Dave "You Read It Here Last" Zarrow.
Loserpalooza See Loserfest. It's only two entries up, for pete's!
~ M ~ Ma Hart Nickname bestowed on Jennifer Hart by Mike Connaghan by way of a failed entry to the Palindrome contest. We faithlessly reproduce the palindrome here in full technicolor (where available):
A delivery guy comes up to a Loser and says, "Yo, old lady, I'm Ned, Office Supplies Knight. I got a delivery for some crazy momma who needs to make copies of her Style Invitational entries. You know who I give this to? Whoa, you've got a big butt!"
So angry she can barely keep from stuttering, she replies: "Ned, I am Miss "Ma" Hart, Xerox..."
"...or extra hams..."
"...S.I. M-maiden."
Marv Me Expression inspired in the spring of 1997 by the antics of disgraced sportscaster Marv Albert and submitted by many for the Week 219 "verb some nouns" contest. Enjoyed a few fleeting weeks of popular usage among Losers until it was rendered archaic in June of the same year by Mike Tyson.
Mike the Tout Mike Hammer. See What Kind of Foal Am I?
Missing Week See Week 64 A taxidermized mongoose engaged in a battle to the death with a taxidermized cobra was offered as the prize in Week 93. Because of the unusually high caliber of this prize, the Czar felt that contestants should merely beg for it. The winner was Judith Daniel, who really only wanted a T-shirt but being a woman had to pretend to want something else instead to get what she really wanted. Unfortunately for Judy, she faked an orgasm in print a little too convincingly and won the mongoose. Award going to the Loser showing the highest gross increase in points over the past 2 Years. To be considered for this award, a Loser must have competed for 2 entire Years. Year 3: Jennifer Hart, Year 4: Stephen Dudzik.
~ N ~ Neologisms Bob Levey's monthly "invent a word" contest, considered lame, but occasionally entered by Losers, four of whom, Jennifer Hart, Sandra Hull, Robin Grove, and Tom Witte, are former Neologism champs. This dubious honor earned each a lunch date with Levey.
New and Imporved T-Shirt See T-Shirts
New York Magazine Competition aka NY Mag. Venerable humor contest that was the inspiration for SI, although according to the Czar, SI is "less literary, a lot more rude." Several Losers have had entries printed in NY Mag. Not Ready for the Algonquin Roundtable Society, bka Losers. Founded in July of 1994, most likely as a desperation move to escape endless media coverage of the O.J. Simpson case. The first meeting took place on the evening of Saturday July 2, when Losers and co-workers Elden Carnahan and Arthur Adams met Sarah Worcester and Chuck Smith at a performance of one of Chuck's plays in Reston. A fifth Loser, Paul Alter, was unable to attend, thus setting a precedent for the chronic absenteeism that is rampant today among Losers. Carnahan and Alter met the next morning for breakfast, thus setting a precedent for the chronic brunching that is rampant today among Losers. Adams came up with the original name for the group, "Not Ready for the Algonquin Roundtable Chowder and Marching Society", which was Bobbited by Carnahan to the present name.
~ O ~ Old-Style Scoring See Points and get your mind out of the gutter.
Osvaldo Ramirez See Blizzard of '96
~ P ~ Paul Styrene Pseudonym used by , the only Loser allowed to regularly submit entries under a nom de humor by dint of outsmarting the Czar. In retaliation, the Czar lifted a photo of "Styrene" from an issue of Depravda and published it in Week 138, opining that Styrene's real name must be really awful for him to have to hide it behind a pseudonym. Thus was born a fine print contest to come up with Paul Styrene's real name. Winner: "Buckwheat Farrakhan", submitted by Tom Witte.
Pen A fabulous rosewood pen engraved with the word "Loser", awarded for first runner-up beginning in the Report for Week 205, thus giving new meaning to the term getting ink. The first pen was awarded to, who else, Chuck Smith, although he was not a first runner-up per se that week. Jonathan Paul was the first Loser to score a third pen; Dave Ferry and Sarah Worcester and Jerry Pannullo have scored 2 apiece. A dancing, overall-wearing mechanical pig with a broken arm that was discovered in a dumpster in Miami Springs, Florida by Glenn Terry, who sent it to Dave Barry of Miami, who estimated its value at $15 million and donated it to the Style Invitational. The pig was offered in Week 205 (Some Pig) as a beg for it prize. It was won by Jon Williams, who traded a clucking guitar-playing chicken alarm clock for it.
Poed A Cinquain-type of poem, invented by Ed Hopkins of Davidsonville and subject of Week 172 (Poedtry). Poeds consist of 4 lines, the first having 6 one-syllable words, the second having 3 two-syllable words, the third having 2 three-syllable words, and the fourth having 1 six-syllable word. If that weren't hard enough, at least two lines must rhyme. Scoring units attributed for hits. Weighted differently for career stats list and Loser Rotisserie. Under the old-style scoring system used in Years 1-4, partial points were awarded for shared entries in career stats. Due to popular demand (and an inordinate amount of whining) the present system of one whole point per person per hit was instituted in Year 5.
Pseudonyms See Week 193
Pull a Krattenmaker Disappear off the face of the earth. See Krattenmaker, Ken.
~ Q ~
~ R ~ Report Results from the contest announced 3 weeks earlier, published in the lower section of SI. Some readers unfamiliar with SI do not understand that the Report has no connection to the contest announcement right above it and are understandably confused. These readers generally do not become Losers. Not with a capital "L", anyway.
Rohrschach of the Crowd Repeating contest wherein contestants are invited to interpret several Rohrshach-type ink blots. Weeks 30, 77, 148. Award going to the Loser who totals the most points of all Losers debuting in the same Year. Year 2: Joseph Romm, Year 3: Tommy Litz, Year 4: David Genser.
Rosenthal, Marc Original SI cartoonist. Bowed out in Week 61. Replaced by Bob Staake.
~ S ~ Smith, Chuck Woodbridge resident, playwright, Homicide stiff. Top-ranking Loser of all time. Specialist in colostomy humor. Profiled in an article on F1 on February 12, 1995 to commemorate Week 100. First Loser to score 200 career points; scored 300 points before anyone else scored 200. Of the St. Louis, Mo. Staakes. SI cartoonist and sometime suggester of contests from Week 62 to present.
Stephen D. Geekstein New name for Stephen Dudzik proposed by the Faerie of the Fine Print in Week 225.
Stephen Von Loser New name for Stephen Dudzik proposed by the Faerie of the Fine Print in Week 225.
Style Invitational Like, duh...! aka SI, "the Invitational" or simply "the contest". Debuted Sunday March 7, 1993 with a call for a new, more politically correct name for the Washington Redskins.
Style Invitational Tree House The Czar's office.
~ T ~
Temporary Czar, The See Czar Pro Tempore, The
Top Five List Daily humor contest on the Internet whose contributors must audition for the privilege. Hmmmph. Not too snooty... SI still has way cooler prizes. Losers who are also Top Five contributors include: Chuck Smith, Jennifer Hart, Sandra Hull, Bruce W. Alter, Sue Lin Chong, Martin Bredeck, and J.J. Gertler. Not only that, but Smith, Hart and Hull all managed to sneak into the Top Five Hall of Fame. Offered as a prize for runners-up. These Hanes Beefy-Ts always feature a cartoon and the word "LOSER" on the front and a contestant-provided slogan or cartoon on the back. Week 11 design winner:
Almost Do It!
- Mary Pat Jones/black and blue shirts
Week 74 design winner:
New and Imporved T-Shirt with cartoon of suicide attempt by sticking head in electric oven
- Cindi Rae Caron/red shirt
Week 132 design winner:
Cartoon of failed suicide-by-toaster attempt
- George C. Montgomery/yellow shirtWeek 211 design winner:
Less Taste! Great Filling!
- Craig Ulander/red and white graphic on black shirt
Unknown contest/date:
Leaky, geeky pocket protector / Under New Mismanagement
- Sarah W. Gaymon
Twenhafel A stuck-up snob, modeled on prototype David Twenhafel, a financial planner from Silver Spring who inspired the contest for Week 197 (Dave's World) by disparaging the low-brow fare usually found in SI. Contestants were challenged to come up with high-falutin' mots to make David Twenhafel laugh. First prize: a cat sculpture made from cow poop.
~ U ~
~ V ~
~ W ~ Yet another medium was invaded by Losers when N.R.A.R.S. was featured in a segment of "Metro Connection" on public radio station WAMU on Saturday December 14, 1996. A transcript of the broadcast was published in the February 1997 Depravda.
Read it! (Opens in new window)
Weaselbrau The following statement was submitted by a Weaselbrau representative on the condition that he remain anonymous, although his name is actually John Kammer:
"Weaselbrau Breweries is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kammertron Industries. The company motto is 'We will overtake those corporate beer conglomerates one bottle at a time.' Unfortunately in the time it takes us to make one bottle of Weaselbrau the boys at Budweiser have cranked out several pallets of beer. This is a good example of unfair competition and corporate giants trying to keep the little guy down. Weaselbrau: Don't bother asking -- you ain't getting none anyhow."
Week 1) Interval of the Style Invitational; 2) Sort of synonymous with "contest". Ask Backwards II, the only SI contest to appear on page F4. The "missing week". Week 63 was followed the next Sunday by Week 65, prompting a fine print contest to determine what became of Week 64. Winning answers: "It got stuck to the back of Week 63" and "It was disowned from the Week 60 Family because it married Week 8, its common denominator." To counter allegations of favoritism, the Czar stipulated that anyone who had ever won or been a runner-up at least 3 times enter Week 193 (Ask Backwards VIII) under a plausible pseudonym then submit proof of real identity after the winners were announced. The identities of the pseudonym-users were published on page F4 on January 5, 1997. Out of 38 printed entries, 21 were from ringers. The winner turned out to be Chuck Smith entering as John O'Brien.
West Virginia Like Elvis, Dr. Kevorkian and O.J., West Virginia has been reduced to perennial SI fodder thanks to Week 87 in which contestants were invited to come up with something nice to say about the Mountaineer State. The winning entry, West Virginia Almost Haiti , submitted by Dave Zarrow, precipitated a firestorm of controversy, which in turn precipitated even more West Virginia jokes. First Loserfest was held in Martinsburg; Loserfest 97 was held in Harper s Ferry.
WETA A group of 14 Losers showed their philanthropic side by volunteering to take viewer pledges on the air at PBS television station WETA on the afternoon of Sunday March 16, 1997. Turned out that this was the only side they were able to show, since the station had recently adopted a policy of training cameras only on the talking heads doing the pledge pitches. Alert viewers who didn't blink too much were able to catch fleeting glimpses of Losers in bright yellow shirts in the background. Annually repeating contest suggested by Michael "Mike the Tout" Hammer. Contestants are provided with a list of some 300 horses eligible for that year's Triple Crown and must name the foal that would result from mating any two of them, regardless of the putative parents' gender. Weeks 113, 163 and 216, 268, 320, XI.
Whine Garden, The See Dr. Style
Widowmaker See Krattenmaker, Ken
Wit Happens Feature in Depravda to which Losers can submit SI entries that "got away, missed the deadline, or curry got on them, or something."
~ X ~
~ Y ~
Year 52 Weeks, give or take. Year 1 comprises Weeks 1-52; Year 2 Weeks 53-103, Year 3 Weeks 104-155, Year 4 Weeks 156-207, Year 5 Weeks 208-259, Year 6 Weeks 260-present.
~ Z ~ Zane, Bob The other guy from Woodbridge. Did very well hitwise until he was eclipsed by Chuck Smith and ultimately disappeared from F2. Although silent for four years he remained on the Top 50 Lifetime Losers List until well into Year 5.
