The following is the winning entry in the tip contest for The Football Fan’s Manifesto (here’s an interview I did about the book for The New York Times’ Fifth Down Blog). The winner has been sent a list of my Steelers gear (crusty underwear being possibly too flammable has been left off), from which he will choose something for me to destroy and I will post the video of that on the blog closer toward the time of the release of the book, you bloodthirsty jackal bastards. Anyway, here’s the winner Thalas’ entry.

“So, a million (seven or eight) years ago, I used to work for an agency (Solid Gold Entertainment in Burlington, VT) that provided entertainment for gentlemen on their bachelor parties, birthdays, etc. I would make lame jokes into the mic and engage the audience (to whatever degree it was necessary, often less was more) while young ladies would seek to pique the partygoers interests using only their feminine wiles. I was also responsible for driving the talent to party sites.

I’m at a mechanic’s garage in Poultny, Vt with four girls and the owner of the business as an extra set of hands. At this point, I was the extra set of hands. This was for a bachelor party. For whatever reason, there were a few people there who know the groom from college (Houston, it looks like) who played sports and had a modicum of time in the national consciousness. Among them was a gentleman who was a multiple-time pro-bowl offensive player back in the day. (Shh…Kimble Anders. I should state that as a life-long Bills fan, I really couldn’t give a fig about Kimble Anders one way or another before I met him the afternoon in question) This man was very drunk before we showed up, and continued to stay sloshed throughout the evening. I don’t mean to give the impression that he wasn’t watching the girls or anything, but he spent hours trying to engage me in conversation. At this point, I was still relatively new to the business and somewhat unsure of myself, so I was trying to be polite and funny to him without neglecting my duties in front of my boss. The other people at the party clearly liked him and they took turns trying to engage him and shut him up, but he kept working his way over to me (at the time, I used to wear Hawaiian shirts a lot — maybe that was it).

The offensive player in question started out by trying to appeal to my intelligence. He kept talking about this friend of his who invented the sentence, or at least that’s how it sounded. He was actually just telling me about a Noam Chomsky book he was working his way through. Then, he kept trying to tell me about some teammate of his that was gay (I think the guy I talked to played for the same team his entire career), but I couldn’t tell you who it was now even if you told me the name (some friends say I said Bracy Walker at the time, but that doesn’t seem right to me now, and it wouldn’t really matter to me unless you’ve already heard stories and can confirm this for me). Finally, He begins to tell me of this player’s ritual his team had. I’m very sorry to report that this involved a passing around a picture of a dog (an English Bulldog he kept saying) and his teammates (not him, of course, so says he) would take turns placing parts of their anatomy in holes cut out in the picture to get “screwing the pooch out of their system”. I think he said this was something that happened in training camp each year, but things were not clear to me (maybe this never happened, but I thoroughly am convinced that at the time, he believed it was true). According to him, a Hall-of-Famer and (at least one) potential future HOFer were involved in this. What of this is true, I cannot say, but it has certainly colored my perception about a whole team and potentially all players in general.”

Because you didn’t homoerotic misadventures went on in every locker room? Interesting. Anyway, a fine winning entry and please be merciful when deciding which priceless piece of merch I must destroy to please the readers.

Also, congrats to commenter Pip and reader Lance for each getting a free copy of the book for their winning (but not quite grand prize winning entries). Here are a couple ‘Shops Lance did.

HarperCollins asked me to come up with a video to help promote my football-themed compendium of lazy dick jokery, so I came up with an idea that would best entertain me. Then someone suggested one that might actually be fun to watch and the results are above. If the potential use of a book as a humiliating projectile translates to sales, I’m in for mega tycoon wash for weeks and weeks.

UPDATE: Now with correct spelling!

Thanks to Candice and Paul for helping me put this together and TheStarterWife for help with the concept. And apologies to KSK readers Jonathan and Adrian, who showed up on the first day of shooting and got books chucked at their faces, yet did not appear in the final version of the video due to general ineptitude on my part. So free books for them. And if it’s any consolation, I got a bookkake in the face as well.

Just a few more days to get in on the Photoshop/funny video/tip contest for the book. Entries go here.

While we’re dishing out reminders, the “Get Christmas Ape to Burn His Steelers Stuff-slash-Win Free Copies of His Book” contest is going on through the end of July. So continue sending on funny Photoshops, videos, tips, anecdotes, stories, nude picture of attractive female friends. I’ll announce the winners the first week of August. We’ve had some decent entries thus far, but I’m confident in saying the contest is still wide open (it’s like your mom in that respect).

That there is the front and back cover of my upcoming book, “The Football Fan’s Manifesto”, a clarion call to return fandom to its debauched roots that doubles as an all-encompassing guide to being a sufficiently deranged NFL fan. Drew said HarperCollins gave me the Clive Cussler treatment, but I’d argue that they went as far as to break out the Transformers font for me. Either way, I think it looks pretty badass.

As we did with Men With Balls, we’re holding a tip contest for our readers to win copies of the book. Winning entries can be scoops, funny Photoshops, hilarious user created videos, amusing anecdotes of your experience rooting for your team or going to the game, really anything we arbitrarily deem to be worthwhile. Two runners-up will receive a free copy of the book. The winner, of course, will also win a free copy. Plus a special grand prize.

Because everyone knows I’m an obnoxious rank homer (I even got another Steelers fan to do the illustrations for the book) I’m going to give you the chance to exact some revenge.

That’s right. The winner of the contest gets to choose any one piece of Steelers merch that I own for me to burn to cinders, which I will record myself doing and post on the site. It could be a Terrible Towel. It could be the Hines Ward jersey from the photo that got me fired from The Post (and the one I’ve worn during the last two Steelers Super Bowl wins). Entirely your call. Should a Steelers fan win (I hope, I hope, I hope), we’ll work something else out. But all the members of KSK will be judging the contest, which will prevent me from rigging it (remember, Ufford and Punter hate the Stillers, so that more than cancels me out).

So get on it and send your entries here.

And, again, you can pre-order the book here.