proudly resents ...

 

The Week in Loserdom:

The TWW is proud to present its interview with James Pierce, the most successful new Loser to emerge in the PR era. Here is a little of what he had to say: "After ...waking...to find...John Rocker...I immediately wondered what he likes of mine, I have ... complex...ideas. I was ... spewing racism and homophobia. I was ... regular...only because of my mother. It's hard to get started. I think David Genser was... freakingly fantastic...I have stooped in order to...have him choose...me. I tried...but he ... doesn't ... call or e-mail anymore,... so part of the thrill is gone, at least a little. I'm living a cool life. I'm happy to be able to say that... I've never read a...book. I was a celebrity."

Results of Week LVII^* (Don't Know Squat About Fords)

Summary: Several new comers got ink this week, some with curious names, others from distant places that make their identities hard to check. "Czar spotting" remains the Losers' favorite hobby. The Neo-czars stuck to their promise/threat and avoided poop and sex entries to a far greater extent than TWW imagined. We notice, however, that they also largely avoided fart and vomit jokes, topics not originally banned. As usual, legal action is expected.

F2.1 (The AC's Comments): The eternally fretful Auxiliary Czar was worried that a contest with just one picture to choose from wouldn't produce enough variety. Wasn't a problem: Although (as noted) there was a lot of repetition, there were so many entries that we ended up with a ton of different approaches anyway. Besides the common themes mentioned in today's paper, there were also lots of good entries about the XFL, skiers, acrobats, "Crouching Fords, Hidden Nixon," invisible backpacks, invisible furniture, and invisible tug-of-war ropes.

A few entrants -- perhaps misled by some craven soul eager to dash their chances of victory? -- persisted in sending in potty and sex jokes despite the Uberczar's ban. Those entries were turned into gerbil bedding.

Preview of Week LVIII (headlines): Y'all outdid yourselves. Many, many, many fabulous entries.

The Siberian Express: Getting her one-way ticket to oblivion punched is none other than Jennifer Hart for her "cone girdle." Pooh deserved a shirt for that one.

Score Losers: Witte jumps from 5th place to 3rd in TRPs (now at 97) by passing Doyle and Genser. His four points for the week also put him in a tie for 2nd place in the 2001 standings (at 17) with Hart, who finally scores her first points of the pseudo-reign. Smith scores for the fifth straight week, making him the only Loser to appear every week since the Czar's departure. Katharine Butterfield may have joined Grace Fuller in the Loser Void as her alter ego's great winning entry breaks a long dry spell for the twins. Frequent Loser Grove also breaks a dry spell, with HM number three for the year (15 points for the restoration).

Week LXI (The Good, the Blurb, and the Ugly):

The Weak Week Prediction: TWW doesn't know what to make of Week LXI. Put simply, we don't know what the contest is. At first we thought it was a near repeat of Week 277 (OS) "in which you were asked to offer new, exciting blurbs that would help sell classic works of film or literature to modern audiences" but that didn't seem to be quite it. The directions looked clear, write a blurb that has the opposite of the intended effect. Neither the example, nor the Staake, really fits those guidelines, however. They are, instead, blurbs that try to make something mundane appear interesting.

The Weak Week Word to the Wise (WWWW) : You're kidding right? We don't even understand the contest and you want our advice?

Russ to Judgment: On a one-seventeen scale, sixteen being best, Week LXI gets a:

On its own, LXI would get a rating of one, but we assume the Losers will rally and invent their own contests that are at least tangentially related to the Unberczar's guidelines.

How Cool the Drool: On a one-five scale (where five is a stuffed mongoose) this week's "happy face" throw rug (used) gets a:

Last week something broken, this week something used, what is it next week, something borrowed?

The Week Link: Week 61 (Old Style)

The original Week 61 featured three significant events. First, the Czar announced that Bob Staake would replace Marc Rosenthal as the SI's illustrator. Week 61 was the last of the Rosenthal era contests. In it, Losers had to supply captions for any of four final Rosenthal drawings. Staake debuted the next week with his lighter, more caricature-like, drawings that have since become a Style trademark.

Second, Week 61 (OS) marked the debut of Joe Romm, who had the first runner-up in the results of Week 58 (in which he outlined a script for Casa Blanca II). No one knew it at the time, but Romm's appearance marked a major shift in the contest. Romm was the first new comer, the first successful rookie in a field of veterans. Romm was, arguably, the first Loser to make a big splash since Mike Thring's debut way back in Week 23. After a few weeks of sporadic appearances, Romm started to shoot through the standings. In Week 91 he reached the top-5 for career ink, by Week 97 he was third, behind only Smith and Carnahan. A few other Losers eventually matched his meteoric rise (Krattenmaker, Litz, Genser) but Romm was the first.

Third, the results of Week 61, printed three weeks later, cemented Chuck Smith's standing as first among equals. Not that he really needed the added credentials, Smith had the winner, three of the four runners-up, and two of the seven honorable mentions, for a total of six of the twelve appearances in the final Rosenthal contest.

Out there: Headlining This Week
Way out there: Toon Town
Way, way out there: Poetic License to Kill

Read more Weak Weeks

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