Monday, September 20, 2004
 last night i got to see an old comrade on the tv, our pal jason ross.
jason was the editor in cheif of the daily nexus the year that i graduated from ucsb. which means that as he was cutting his teeth he worked along side such luminaries as welch, whalen, max, solomon, collins, hornberger, lalum, and yours truly.
now he's one of the best writers of fake news in america.
last night he got his second consecutive emmy for The Daily Show.
one of my fondest memories of jason was the night that we had our CIPA awards in sacramento. CIPA is the california intercollegiate press awards. all the big time cali colleges get together and figure out who put out the best paper that year.
all the sections are awarded, and that spring night in the early 90s your pal tony had one of the greatest nights ever. i was awarded Best Arts & Entertainment editor, a nod that the venerable Daily Nexus had never won in its storied history.
the best part about it was that i had to fight even to get my section in the competition as our editor-in-cheif, still sore that i had run against him 7 months previous, had excluded me from being judged. after some help from pat whalen, my section got in, and won.
i was also falling in love with the beautiful and talented jeanine natale.
i was also wearing a dress, which was traditional for we nexus men on awards night.
so there i was with my plaque, my new girl, and i was confronted by a drunken, drugged, giddy, thrilled, jazzed, very tall jason ross offerring me a handful of "little white crosstops", the legal speed pills that truckers take when they feel themselves nodding off at the wheel.
never one to really delve into the dark underworld of amphetimines, i declined, but you should have seen the daily nexus that night in the beverly garland in sacramento thanks to jason ross and his bottomless bag of speed.
my boys were singing and dancing and whooo-ing and making all kinds of noise and mayhem all through the night.
a song was even written right there on the spot by either Os or Charlie or even Jason himself proclaiming the benefits of the little white crosstops.
jason went on to become the campus news editor and a year later the editor in cheif of the paper.
last year he invited me to a pre pre emmy party since he was in town but i was in the arms of an nba cheerleader who asked not to be involved in the retelling of Another daily nexus story, nor did she wish to learn about the inner workings of the modern day Spy/National Lampoon stylings of The Daily Show, a program that deserves all the awards that are heaped their way.
so last night when Jon Stewart turned to thank his writers and asked the industry not to poach them away he pointed directly behind him to the still quite tall and red cheeked Jason Ross who had those wild eyes that i remember so well.
congratulations big man, you're doing the nexus fine.
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