It was every Hollywood jerk’s worst nightmare: not getting to stand on stage and be handed a statue. Food poisoning had laid me low, and I was going to miss getting my Spike TV Video Game Award. Or was I? Hell no. Boot and rally, as people I hated in college used to say.
I unsteadily made my way to the Video Game Awards, armed with two ginger ales. Every ginger ale-y burp, a kiss from an angel. As a legion of delightful publicity yentas guided my shaky frame to the red carpet, I saw a familiar all-American-looking guy. Who was this dude?
Then I saw the annoyed expression on his wife’s face and I knew — it was King of Kong star Steve Wiebe. I asked Steve if his hot sauce-distributing nemesis Billy Mitchell was going to be there. He didn’t think so. I’m not sure who holds the Donkey Kong record these days, but as Tony Hawk high-fived Steve’s kids, there’s little doubt who the real winner is.
We were planted at Table Fourteen, in perfect award-accepting range of the stage, next to nerd comedy Hall-of-Famers Brian Posehn and Patton Oswalt. But my stomach would have none of it. Renewed waves of nausea surged through me as the start time to the show ticked down. Not wanting to hurl on 50 percent of the Comedians of Comedy, I bolted for the bathroom and unloaded a torrent of used ginger ale so unyielding the toilet auto-flushed three times.
Warm with the heroin-like high of the freshly-purged, I headed back in just as the show was starting… but security blocked my path. Through ginger ale-barf breath I tried to explain that I was winning the first award of the night. Not nominated. WINNING. Security didn’t care; the entrance I was trying to get through was about to become part of the show’s parkour kick-off. I was going to miss my award and parkour?
I felt as low as Brian Kuh watching Steve Wiebe get a Donkey Kong kill screen.
To be concluded…
