You Guys Suck

After receiving countless complaints about our flawlessly brilliant "Stupid, Stupid" column series (including "Stupid, Stupid Baby," "Stupid, Stupid Kitten," and "Stupid, Stupid Crouton"), we issued our readers a challenge: Come up with a column worth a rat's ass and we'll run it -- and pay you $25. Eagerly we awaited our gifted readers' pearls of wit and wisdom, but as the responses poured in, we were forced to concede that you guys suck.

A few words on the "New Column!" criteria: Any entry that did not include the exclamation point after the words "New Column" was automatically disqualified; if you do'nt have respect for punctuation, you got no place at The Stranger. Same goes for all entries employing the phrase "Stupid, Stupid" anything -- if we wanted more of those, we would've written them ourselves. Lastly, any entry involving poetry and/or the inherent hilarity of adding the words "in bed!" to the phrase found inside a fortune cookie was instantly ground to dust.

You'd think that out of nearly 200 responses we'd find at least one winner, but even the "best" of readers' pitches made our worst ideas ("Hairy, Hairy Ass Crack," "Sexy, Sexy Five-Year-Old") look like masterpieces of sass and style. And while Stranger staffers are traditionally a self-hating lot, after reading the crap you guys sent in, we're all strutting around like a bunch of Pulitzer Prize-winning swells. Thanks for the strokes!

In closing, we'd like to acknowledge that although we found no workable columns, we did find a small handful of near-misses, including Leah Weathersby's insightful "Freddie Prinze Is No Kirk Cameron," Johnny B's poignant "Dead," Matthew Pidgeon's creepy photos of embalmed baby animals, and Scott Lamb's passionate celebration of fire, "Christ! That Fucking Burns!" Our congratulations to these promising young upstarts, who will be splitting the $25 cash prize.