The Envelope, Please

Awards ceremonies are essentially empty and meaningless, and watching the Acadamey awards we were reminded of the bittersweet pain the presenter must endure. Actors hand awards to other actors lauding them for stellar performances. Basically, the subtext is "Here, you are much better at my job than I am," and we think that's got to cause some sort of long term psychic pain. In the spirit of mental health and self reference, we announce the 1998 Smug Masturbatory Awards. No One Is Sexier than You and no one makes a magazine thant understands that like Us. We're even going to spare you the footage of all of us sitting around in evening wear weeping, all the lengthy acceptance speeches and show you only the winners.So now, the envelopes, please....

Best Story Lead
Carl Steadman, Suicide Note: "I wrote a suicide note, but it wasn't very good."

Best use of the word Fuck
Jack Smith, Rocking in Your Dockers: ... or when you first wrote "FUCK" in paint thinner on someone's lawn. (Not that I've ever done anything like that, mind you.)

Best Life Lesson
Sherman T. Biswick, Ask The Biswick: "...heed my words when I tell you that the solution to your rowdy neighbors is bees."

Best Description of the Afterlife
Joe Procopio, Love is Hell: "We're going antiquing this weekend."

Best Ass Kiss
Leslie, for the salacious letters she writes to get mysterydates for you. She does it all for you, specifically, you know.

Most Interesting Entry in Search Log
Anonymous, "teen enema handbag" we don't know how they got here, but they apparently had a good time.

Best Meta Reference
Todd Levin, Premature Ejaculation: "I troubled and toiled, trying to meet my deadline before Leslie resorted to the leather gauntlet (and not the new, stiff leather gauntlet that I like so much; the old, malodorous one she uses on Jack)"

Most Contempt For Jane's Addiction
Matt Sager, So What? " I took my love, and my memories and walked the hell out."

Most Disturbing Image
Emily Way, In Search of Some Decent Porn: "The costars are mostly slack-jawed, scrawny, dorky-looking guys with big dicks and all the sex appeal of the assistant manager at KMart, and they don't even bother to take off their baseball caps or gym socks."

Most Inventive Lubricant
Todd Levin, SEXUS, PLEXUS, NEXXUS HUMECTRESS

Best Use of an Action Painter as a Verb
Jack Smith, Rocking in Your Dockers: "...what do you want to have on your car stereo right before you Jackson Pollock that Civic into a curley maple, Esquivel or "Flirtin' With Disaster?" http://www.smug.com/3/candy.html

Most Disturbing Trend Spotted
Brian Thomas, Dysfunctional Family Values

Best Sentence Fragment Out of Context
Mark Amerika, Lettre, Lettre on the Wall "...another potential environmental crisis forming in my pants"

Best Investigative Journalism
Todd Levin, Life is Salty/Sweet: I discovered that the "salt.com" domain was not available for registering. Worse yet, the name was already registered by the Indiana Sugar Company, a clear competitive front in the "snacking urge" marketing game.

Best Line from Reader Mail
to Matt Sager from someone we can't name or we'll get sued: "Everyone at my record company has a big dick and a bag of weed."

staff@smug.com

in the junk drawer: