JP: After three weeks of waking up in the dark for the Sunday Post and NOT finding my entries in print, I was elated to find: c"loser"--John Rocker [as] a runner up. I immediately wondered if the Czar put the runners up in order of quality, since mine was toward the end. Since I have no idea what he likes of mine, I have a complex about my entries. Seems my ideas of winning entries and the Czar's are polar.

Back to the entry, though. I was so full of myself that I almost e-mailed the Czar to complain that he fiddled with it. I used the quote from an interview in S.I. (the first S.I.--Sports Illustrated) that has Rocker spewing racism and homophobia. It was about twenty-five words long. [In later weeks, I have focused on brevity] I ended up showing my original, then the printed copy to my wife, and being content with that.

TWW: When did you start entering?

JP: I was around for the "pick your favorite judge for the contest" junk. I have entered most of the contests this year. By the way, did anyone vote for the other judges? Is one of them now ruling the roost while the regular is away?

TWW: Were you following the contest for long before that?

JP: I knew of it, only because of my mother's routine cracking-up on Sundays when I was home from college. I peeked at it every once in a while then, but never gave any thought to entering. Sometimes in my first couple years living in Charlottesville, I'd pick up a Sunday Post, but never felt a need to enter. It's hard to get started, I think.

The reason I started entering is that I was published in the 100 lives bit that Weingarten did for January 1, 2000. I think David Genser was, too. Anyway, so were a few of my students, and I just had a really good feeling about the Post at the time. Also, it was freakingly fantastic to see my name and my words in print, which I am now addicted to. I wouldn't like to get into the depths to which I have stooped in order to pacify myself to that end. The "enter under an assumed name" contest about made me drill a hole in my head because I had to wait a few weeks to reveal myself, though I was flattered to be one of the ones that had to do it.

TWW: Was getting ink in your early weeks harder or easier than it is now?

JP: The Czar usually picks one of the entries I think is not as worthy of print, so I never know what I'm doing right. Partially, that's why I like this: to have him choose something that I didn't really think was my best stuff. It keeps me making lots of different types of entries. I tried to do the doo-doo circuit for a while (Johnson & Johnson jokes, etc.), but it wasn't me, so I try to stick to the clever and the ironic. I think he's hilarious, but sometimes the Czar doesn't print what I consider my best. NOT COMPLAINING, by the way.

Usually my friends don't call or e-mail anymore when I get ink, so part of the thrill is gone, at least a little. Getting in there is not any harder or easier than it was in the beginning.

TWW: There seems to be a pattern among lots of the Losers. They start out with only a few submissions a week, maybe they don't even enter most weeks. Then, if they have some success, they get real involved and start sending in a bunch. Eventually, they settle down and declare themselves semi-retired. Where are you in that process?

JP: In the beginning, I wrote the Czar a note to ask if I could submit multiple entries. His reply was gentle, but I noted a hint of "holy cow, man, some people must spend their entire weekends doing this stuff" in it. Since then, I have, ocassionally, spent my whole weekend doing this stuff. It was a problem for a while, but I admitted it, and now I'm okay. The most I sent was probably around forty, and that was because I spent a lot of time in the passenger seat of a car during the week. I was really into it in the middle of the year, and when I started accumulating points, I couldn't stop thinking about it. After a while, I started looking around at the energy I was spending on it, and not other things. I'm glad I never got into drugs, because I suppose I'm pretty fertile ground for addictions like that. A few weeks ago, I didn't enter a contest that I thought was lame (Ginger) and that did me a lot of good. Now I'm averaging around four or five GOOD entries, instead of twenty SEMI-LAME/SEMI-GOOD entries (depending on the contest, of course). I've learned to edit myself. I don't get offended anymore when what I consider my best entry doesn't make the list. Around Monday of each week, I consider myself semi-retired. If I get some spare time and have already cooked dinner or something, I come out again, though.

TWW: OK, from your Style entries and your Life is Short feature (F-1, Nov. 26, 2000) we know that you are a school teacher in Charlottesville, married (at least at one time) to Erika. Care to flesh that out any for us?

JP: Nah. I'm living a cool life, I think. I'm happy to be able to say that. No, I've never read a self-help book, nor have I written one.

TWW: Based on the photo the Post ran of you and Erika, you appear to be either a relatively young white guy with short hair and an attractive wife, or an exceptionally effeminate guy with a really butch looking wife. Is that about it?

JP: Yep.

TWW: What do your students make of your, what, hobby? Do any of them enter?

JP: Some are curious to know about the prizes. I showed a few of them my favorite bumper sticker: "sses we got new pre". A few of them have come in with messages of either respect or contempt from their parents. I have been known to announce a contest or two, when I think it's appropriate, to a few of them. None have inked in the S.I., but a couple are doing the "Life is Short" bit. If it's a teenager from Charlottesville, it's probably a student of mine. I feel like it's a little weird to use their names here.

TWW: So, what do you teach?

JP: English. Kids. Not English kids, but English to kids.

TWW: So, what's your wife think (of the contest)?

JP: One of the HMs I got a few weeks ago was really her idea. She didn't appreciate just her name on it, so I put mine on it, too. Actually, she didn't want [her's] on there AT ALL. That's what she thinks of it. She's funnier than I am. Smarter, and, as you noted, better lookin'.

TWW: You had your second Uncle's Pick a few weeks back, is that the highlight of your Invitational success so far?

JP: YThat entry was the one I got the most feedback from. I think my favorite moment was when the "invent a punctuation mark" contest (I suggested) ran, and an English Education professor at the university nearby told my student teacher, and her whole class, that I was a celebrity. Made me feel good. I tried to make it a class assignment for some of my classes, but, like me at that age, they're not into stupid newspaper stuff. Some of them are, a little. Actually, I didn't even submit that one as a contest suggestion. It was part of a list of questions I submitted to the Czar when he solicited them. I seem to remember a certain upset loser writing to the Czar about what a lame contest that was...

[TWW Historical Auxiliary notes that one curmudgeonly Loser was, in fact, driven by Mr. Pierce's contest idea to liken some of the contests to the stuff hospital orderlys mop off the floor after a baby is born, but it wishes to stress that, at no time, was the new punctuation contest declared "lame."]

TWW: You're still fairly new to the NRARS. What was your initial impression of us? How long does it take to learn to speak Loser?

JP: I learned all I could within about the first two weeks of finding the gopherdrool page. After that, I just sat back and watched all the weirdness unfold around me on losernet. I had to take myself off the list, because I was spending too much time reading and thinking about giant Band-Aids, What the hell was wrong in Florida, and all that stuff. I'm not one to jump in and say "Whaaasssssssuuuuuuuuuuup!" or the kind to suggest new topics of conversation, so I'm content with my present position here.