I can't believe I look like this

I got to cover the county fair this weekend for The Newspaper - which employs me - and it was a joyous time for all. "All" being me, since I was there by myself. But let's not concentrate on the intricacies, reader.

I've always enjoyed fairs of any sort, mainly because it's the one chance non-trailer people like myself have to associate with carnies - or circus folk, as some call them - without fear of being beaten to death for the five dollars in our wallet. "Our" being my wallet, since I'm not sure how much money you have in . . . you know, let's just forget that. What I'm trying to say is the difference between trailer people and myself is when I take a crap, I won't need to have it emptied out later from a bin underneath the toilet. It just flushes right down in my apartment. Wait, wasn't I talking about carnies? How did I get talking about trailer people? You know, let's just drop it and move on.

Anyway, they had a caricature booth at the fair, and I decided to fork over $12 (a full week's pay) to have myself drawn. I was hoping to use the caricature somewhere on this website, possibly to replace some of the regular photos of me. But when I saw the artist's work, I was rather disappointed (click the picture for a larger version).

I'm a humor columnist, and if there's one thing I know, it's how to make fun of people, especially for their physical features. If you're going to make fun of my physical features, the first thing you need to look at is my big fat Irish head.

In college, a girl I attempted to date (this is how pathetic I am; I don't even have ex-girlfriends to complain about, so I have to resort to complaining about girls I "attempted" to date) told me I had a "gigantic head, like a basketball". While the remark was a bit mean-spirited, I'd have to agree with her. I have a huge friggin' head. Sadly, my gigantic head is almost completely ignored in the caricature.

The artist also chose to give me small ears, when it's obvious I have enormous ears, similar in size to those of a monkey. My ears in the caricature are also noticeably misaligned, with the ear on the right situated much lower than the ear on the left. This, combined with the creepy Kathie Lee Gifford smile the artist added, makes me look like Sloth, the retarded guy from the movie, "The Goonies".

My hair in the caricature is also incredibly wrong. I understand it's probably difficult to recreate the spiky front of my hairstyle, but why is the top of my hair so lumpy? And where are my sideburns? The large forehead is fairly accurate, but the hair is just unacceptable. If you look at the front of the hairstyle long enough, the caricature kind of looks like a short-haired Winona Rider in need of an eyebrow trimming. Seriously. You have to look at it for a while before you'll see the resemblance. It's like one of those magic eye paintings: stare at the spiky part of my hair for 10 seconds, and then slowly move your eyes back to focusing on the whole picture. You'll see it, and it will scare the dickens out of you.

Getting back to the quality of the caricature, at least the artist got my chest hair right. The bastard.

But I am slightly unsure why there is a $500 reward for me. Perhaps it ties in with the Winona Rider look. Either way, I guess we know why my name has quote marks around it in the upper-left corner of the caricature. The damn thing doesn't look anything like me.

I think there are a lot of people out there who could do a much better job of caricaturizing me. In fact, I'll bet any of you readers could do a better job. I'm so sure of this, I'm going to give you the opportunity to do a better job, reader. I'll make it into a contest. Draw a caricature of me, and I'll pay $12 - the price of the crappy caricature - to the person who draws the best one. I'll even let my readers decide the winner.

You have two weeks to submit an entry, until Sept. 1. On Tuesday, Sept. 2, I'll let my readers decide which is best. Don't be afraid to enter. You don't have to be good at drawing to get the $12 from me. The lousy hack who drew the original caricature is proof of that. You can use any tool necessary to draw me - including computer programs like Adobe Illustrator - and the only real rules are that it has to be of me, and it can't involve real pictures.

You can either upload the drawing to me, or send it to me by snail mail. Just make sure to leave enough time so I get it before the Sept. 1 deadline. Here's the address:

Enter early and often, reader! It's Monday. What the hell else do you have to do on a Monday?

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