Bob Fenster - The Duh Awards: In This Stupid World, We Take the Prize

CHAPTER 1 Boss of the Year and Other Slave
Driver Awards

CHAPTER 2 Twenty-Four-Karat Gold Medals:
The Rich Go for the Gold

CHAPTER 3 The Know-a-Little, Talk-a-Lot Society
Presents the Anti-Expert Awards

CHAPTER 4 Winning Mind Games: All-Star Shockers,
Psych-Outs, and Gross Champs

CHAPTER 5 Missing It Entirely: Prize Ironies and
Great Last Laughs

CHAPTER 6 The Occasional Crime Stoppers
of America Awards

CHAPTER 8 The Worlds Greatest Lovers and Other
Winners in the Battle of the Sexes

CHAPTER 10 The Everyday Awards: Creating the
Extraordinary Out of the Ordinary

CHAPTER 11 The Spin Awards: Fooling Most of the
People Enough of the Time

CHAPTER 15 The Un-Oscars: Prince Cheeseburger
and Other Award-Winning Fakes

CHAPTER 17 The Foodie Cups: Worm Soda and
Other Award-Winning Recipes

CHAPTER 18 Winners of the Dont Miss America
Beauty Con Test

CHAPTER 19 The So-So Housekeeping Awards: For
Families of Winners

CHAPTER 20 The Second Voice of God and Other
Prize-Winning Things We Believe

CHAPTER 21 The Going Out in Style Awards:
Innovations in Death

CHAPTER 23 Champion Scoffers, Scorners, Insulters,
and Other All-Star Wise Guys

CHAPTER 24 The Bug Behind the Throne and
Other Hi-Q Honors

CHAPTER 25 The List Makers Support League
Presents: The Top Lists of the Year

CHAPTER 26 The Nobel Realistic Peace Prize
and Other New Old Awards

CHAPTER 27 The Society to Make Sure We Havent
Forgotten About Anything Presents:
Odd Acceptance Speeches from
Even Odder Award Shows

T he Russian writer Tolstoy once called upon an aristocrat to demonstrate humility by traveling second class on a train. The nobleman agreed. The next time he took a train, he rented an entire second-class car for himself.

Thats a winner, I thought. Or would be if anyone gave prizes for all the crazy, stupid moments that make up so much of our lives from day to day. But they dont.

Do we really need more prizes for the rich, the bright, the beautiful? Theyre already winners.

And if the supply of awards for the top people runs low, they simply make up some new ones and give them to themselves.

Won again? What a surprise!

Youre doing a superb job, they tell each other. Here, have a raise and another of these cute, little trophies.

But arent most big shots secretly like movie producer Joseph Levine, who explained the key to success: You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough.

What about the stupid, the strange, the losers? Who rewards them for their efforts to make our world the Absurdity Capital of the mid-galaxy area?

Dustin Hoffman may win the Oscar for Rain Man. But what about comedy writer Larry Gelbart, who had to work with Hoffman when writing Tootsie? Doesnt Gelbart deserve an Anti-Oscar for Best Performance in a Snit when he points out, My experience with Hoffman taught me one lesson of immense value: Never work with an Oscar winner who is shorter than the statue.

Barry Bonds may win the Most Valuable Unliked Player Award, but what about Edward Bennett Williams? Doesnt he deserve the Most Valuable Did He Really Say That Award?

Williams was a lawyer who once owned the Washington Redskins football team and the Baltimore Orioles baseball teamso he knew what he was talking about when he said, The only thing dumber than a dumb football owner is a smart baseball owner.

And the only thing dumber than lifes losers are lifes winners. Thats what this book is all aboutthe long-awaited awards for the weird winners, the dumb losers, and the rest of us.

PART ONE

A lexander the Great was leading his army across the desert, but they were running out of water, about to die of thirst. One of his soldiers offered Alexander the last of the water. The general took that water and poured it into the sand.

If my men dont drink, he said, I dont drink.

And thats why they called him Alexander the Great, not Alexander the So-So.

Have you ever had a boss like that? Me neither.

The bosses Ive worked for would have stayed on the safe side of the desert and sent their people across, saying, Guys, if you make it to the other side, send word. Oh, and youd better leave those canteens with me. Theyd only weigh you down.

Which brings us around to the winners of the Boss of the Year Awards.

Third Place: The Word Boss

James Gordon Bennett, Jr., a fussy newspaper publisher and editor of the New York Herald, insisted that all his reporters use the word night in their stories instead of evening.

Night, he explained, is a more exact term.

Bennett was finally shown the error of his minor tyranny when a reporter filed a story about a society woman who looked ravishing in a pink silk night gown.

Runner-up: