Holy shit, are these guys gay. Apparently, this photo was taken just before the oil bath. Anyway, here’s a round of roast tributes to Leitch from everyone at KSK, a site that never would have existed without this one. I can think of no more damning indictment of Will Leitch. Let’s go.

MATT UFFORD

Hey, thanks for having me. Sorry I’m late. I had trouble finding someone to fill in for me at work. You have no idea how hard it is to find a ninth-grader to write different variations of the same three jokes on your blog. One who isn’t union, anyway.

I’d like to thank Drew for inviting me. What an honor. As the only alumnus of the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy in the sports blogosphere, Drew is a tremendous disappointment to Phillips Exeter Academy. I can’t imagine his embarassment at class reunions. Why, all of Drew’s racism is merely of the published word! He doesn’t even have the employment status to refuse minorities’ job applications! How marvelously bohemian!

Oh, and good to see the Deadspin commenters could make it. I heard traffic from the inside of your rotting giraffe carcass was a real bitch. No, no – you guys are great. I can’t wait to read all three variations of the same joke later in this thread. Heck, I got my start as a Deadspin commenter, and I could never keep up with all of you now. As Will leaves, I see the humorous side of the site in your hands, and it makes me feel… What’s the opposite of shame? Less shame? Yeah, that’s it.

As for Will, I could never publicly malign someone who has offered me such support and friendship over the last couple years. Well, at least not on his own Website. However, I have agreed to read this message from some friends of mine. It reads as such:

Mr. Leitch, We applaud you on your restraint during the recent incident on HBO when Buzz Bissinger so cruelly disparaged you and your work. Your noble silence let the world know that you are dedicated to keeping your pride intact. Way to sit there and take it! Sincerely, Native Americans and German Jews

UNSILENT MAJORITY

[swills vodka]

Aw shit, that's good.

Hey everybody, it's great to be here! This is my first roast, and I gotta say I'm having a hell of a time. The open bar has bottle service, and the Belvedere is flowing like Big Brown's piss. Plus they've got me sitting next to Jeffrey Ross, and that asshole taught me something about good roast jokes. He's actually entertaining, unlike this midwestern corn shucking motherfucker over here. Will Leitch, the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, Illinois.

I like Will, because he's a nice guy and he's probably the biggest gentile I'll ever know. If But you know what? Fuck Jesus. And hell, fuck Illinois too. As far I can tell from its representatives in the blogosphere all it takes to get into that school is a 1200 on the SAT, a decent essay, and the haircut of a pederast. Oh, and speaking of Illinois, fuck Chief Illiniwek's rotting corpse. But most of all, fuck you Will, and you're genteel Mattoon upbringing. Home of the antithesis of Judaism itself, the world's worst bagel. I wouldn't fuck a fresh baked Lender's abomination with Nick Denton's dick.

So does this New York website need a weekend editor, or what?

security enters stage left]

Oh come on Nick, it was a fucking joke!

[/vodka]

MICHAEL “CHRISTMAS APE” TUNISON

[Offices of New York Magazine]

Editor-in-Chief Adam Moss: What do we have for the September issue? C'mon, let's hear it.

Culture Editor Jared Hohlt: Cover of the Jonas Brothers. Breakout headline: Are They The New Strokes?

Articles Editor Laura Kern: Secondary feature: The Strokes: The old Jonas Brothers?

Photography Director Jody Quon: Pictorial of gay Republicans!

Design Editor Chris Dixon: Pictorial of gay clergy members!

Senior Editor Jesse Oxfeld: Pictorial of gay clergy members married to gay Hillary supporters who plan on voting for McCain.

Moss: Any chance they could be Ron Paul supporters?

News Editor Carl Swanson: [Inhales sharply] Oooh, maybe.

All: Tendentious!

Hohlt: And, uhh...uhh... profile of random wealthy Manhattanite?

Moss: Okay. Not bad. Any way we can work in the war?

Swanson: No.

Oxfeld: No.

Hohlt: No.

Dixon: Yes.

No. I mean, no.

Moss: Don't know if I'm sold on that. Could use something else.

[Door flies open]

Will Leitch: Ya betta, that is to say, youcouldmaybeifyouweresoinclined ask - not in the invasive way we're put off by because really who needs to be that preemptory? - someone ... ask them something that sort of drives at what we feel is in the milieu and not what the cognoscenti thinks is the milieu and man do you guys like Kurt Cobain?

Moss: Everyone, this is Will, coming to us from the sports blog Deadspin. Some of you may be familiar with his reviews of The Office for the Vulture blog. He's joining the magazine as an at-large editor. Any ideas for the upcoming issue, Will.

Leitch: See, there's this Woody Allen movie coming out this summer - did we ever tell you we're really a movie guy? Sports, though we sure liked them a bunch, were never our on true burning passion. We're almost like Kornheiser in that way. He even said that in a podcast, but I don't expect you to listen to those. Who really has the time to listen to all these podcasts? Every once in a while someone e-mails us to tell us something Bill Simmons said in his and we wonder about these people.

[Meeting ends, editors file out]

Leitch: So, anyway, the movie - but I suppose in his case they always take on the lofty title of film but that's kind of silly isn't it? - is called Vicky Cristina Barcelona and the big fuss is that it has a threesome - tres outre, but no, really, we don't use Gallicisms in Mattoon - with Scarlett Johannsen, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. I was thinking, in one of those flights of whimsy to which I'm sometimes given, what if andthisisonlyanif, I could rewrite that scene, featuring Woody with, uh, get this: Rick Ankiel and the reanimated corpse of Kurt Cobain. I think it would speak to our, uh, my, uh, your place in the universe while humanizing the human condition. So whaddaya think?

Fellas?

MONDAY MORNING PUNTER

I'm glad to be here at the latest Blogfrica Circle Jerk. Seriously, if we spent any more time discussing ourselves, we'd get a cease-and-desist from Mark Cuban.

But seriously, I'm very happy to be part of the festivities today, and I'm sure Rick Chandler will be happy to roast Will two weeks from now.

I think Will's already had quite a career, but he'd be running the New York Times by now if he was Jewish.

Even without Deadspin, Will's quite an accomplished writer. Not only did he pen God Save The Fan, but he's also written Catch, Life As A Loser, and Come As You Are.There should be a lot of interest in his fourth novel, Having A Small Penis Is Okay.

Good to see Dan Shanoff here today, or as I like to call him, Michael David Smith on HGH.

Spencer Hall is with us today. I don't want to say that Spencer's a fag but he's about a wrist muscle away from being a Caucasian George Takei. I heard his favorite foods are Caesar salad and Cream of White Guy Soup.

Will once said that Tony Dungy wasn't very black, which was a little insensitive. But at least Will never used the N-word to describe Dungy. Besides, it's not like he could find a second source on that.

Ever notice how we've never seen Will's emo bangs and Daulerio's mustache at the same time?

Will really has been unlucky with love, but it's not like he has much to work with. If his dick was any smaller, the bacteria in his pants would be stealing its lunch money.

But yeah, he broke up with his fiancée right before that Win Ben Stein's Money. He had another serious relationship fall through a couple years ago. That's terrible, Will. You couldn't nail down a piece of pussy if you had Bob Vila's dick.

Just kidding, Will. Thanks for everything, and good luck at Metrosexual Weekly.

I met Will Leitch when he responded to my Roommate Wanted ad on craigslist. He showed up carrying a briefcase, curtsied, and called me ma’am. When considering all the possible candidates, my roommate and I decided to go with Will for one reason. He wasn’t hot like the other dude who wanted the room, so we knew we wouldn’t fight over him. We asked him to move in with us a few days before September 11, 2001.

After we offered him the room we found out that he was currently sharing an apartment with a known pornographer on the Upper East Side. He didn’t have a bedroom, but rather, a curtained-off section of the guy’s living room. This set off our pervert radar, but we decided to let it slide. What really creeped us out was that on move-in day he had the following items: a box of CDs, a box of books, one suitcase, a litter box, and his cat. (Ed. Note: He owned a cat? Jesus.) He had no furniture whatsoever, not even a bed. When we questioned him about it, he said that he didn’t need a bed. He was just a humble, unassuming Midwesterner who didn’t need fancy things like a mattress, or, say, a pillow. He was perfectly content sleeping on the hardwood floor with nothing more than a blanket and his cat. Suffice it to say, we FREAKED.

Over the course of our living together, Will got a bed and eventually we became friends. But one thing always grossed me out. For whatever horrendous reason, Will decided that it would least inconvenience everyone if he kept the cat’s litter box right at the foot of his bed. Due to the fact that he has no sense of smell thanks to some mysterious childhood illness, he would regularly fail to clean it for days on end. Not only did it smell downright atrocious, but his blanket would regularly hang off the bed into the litter box. I always wondered how he convinced girls to sleep in that bed, and I attribute the fact that he did so to his being Famous Blogger Will Leitch. For some reason (that I still don’t understand) that provided him with the magical ability to convince women to sleep in a bed that was literally dipped in shit. Go figure.

Anyway, when eventually we all decided to move out, I left a week before Will did. When I came back to the apartment one afternoon to pick up some mail and other odds and ends I had left behind, I used the bathroom. There, sitting next to the toilet, was my Victoria’s Secret catalog, crumpled and well-used. And you know what was even more disturbing than the revelation that my humble, unassuming Midwestern roommate had been masturbating with my Victoria’s Secret catalog in my absence? It was the fact that it wasn’t open to any of the pages of push up bras or skimpy lingerie, but rather, to the one-piece swimsuits in the back. The moral of this story? Girls, now you know: if you want to get into that shit-dipped bed of Will’s, forget the lacy bras and panties. The secret to Will’s heart is none other than a trashy one-piece bathing suit. Thank me later, ladies.

Great job, Will. Done Mattoon proud. Done Illinoise proud. Gonna head butt a coke machine for you.

BICEP CURLS!!!! (headbutts coke machine.)

Not often someone gets better and better like this. Makes mistakes, but that's correctable. Posts nude pics of Santonio Holmes. That's a five star blue-chip baby batter blunderbuss if I've ever seen it. Not appropriate, but it wins. Gotta win. Gotta compete. I see improvement all over the place. We should go waterskiing some day. Maybe make love on a boat like rich people do. We'll barefoot a little.

FLEXING FOR CAMERA IN MY BENTLEY GOLF CART!!! (Blows twenty point fourth quarter lead on the road.)

Gotta text some recruits. Gotta sleep three hours and then text some more recruits. Gotta slip into Juice Williams' bedroom at three in the morning, shoot him with a taser in his bed to teach him that being a college quarterback means being prepared for anything. Will, that's what I'm telling you: there's lessons everywhere, and a good way to find one is to taser the fucking shit out of someone when they least expect it.

Things are happening. We're winning games. You're joining a magazine I've never heard of. Both are things that happened. I like it when things happen. Means things are happening, which is better than when things aren't happening.

SHOVING FRESH HOT COFFEE GROUNDS IN RECTUM TO BE SOOOOOOOOO ENERGETIC!!! (Hang cleans an offensive line recruit.)

Likin' it, Will. Not gonna read the magazine because reading is for people with time and the gays and Matt Ufford. That ain't the Zooker. Back door, front door, whatever. It's like recruiting. I just want in as many times as I can get within the rules. I'll just give you this to remember me by:

POINTING AND LOOKING CONFIDENTLY SHIRTLESS AT WILL!!!! (Pisses entire cup of coffee, adds powdered creamer, drinks.)

Now go be the third rate Gay Talese we know you can be. Let Daulerio get Deadspin "better and better." That means "run it into the fucking ground." I see improvement already. Likin' it.

Signed,

X

(translation: Ron Zook)

We continue today's roasting festivities with this utterly brilliant video from the one and only JE SKEETS, who today was granted a rare work release from his Yahoo! prison.

DAVID HIRSHEY

Will Leitch has had the pleasure of editing me for two years, which may be the longest relationship he's had in his life. I wish I could tell you it was a joy to edit him but he was the most high-maintenance, prima-donnish, whiny bitch I've ever come across in my long and glorious publishing career and that includes Shannon Doherty, Jenna Jameson, and Skip Bayless.

That whole aw-shucks-I'm-just-a-simple-country-girl-from-Mattoon pose is total bullshit. The guy wakes up (at about noon in his mother's basement) and thinks, "Whose life can I ruin today? Do I have any more pictures of Daulerio jerking off Matt Leinart that I took the night before? Can I crawl up Albert Pujols' ass any deeper?"

But by far the biggest dick move I've ever seen the guy make was backstage before Bob Costas' HBO show. You all saw what happened on the air but I'm here to tell you what went down (and on whom) before the cameras started rolling. There we were in the Green Room and Leitch walks up to Bissinger— he comes up to his waist , barely— and says "Oh Mr. Bissinger, sir, I'm such a fan. Is there anything I can do before the show to take the edge off?"

He then proceeded to mime the thing he was talking about with his mouth so skillfully that I can only assume it wasn't the first time he had done it. That day.

Needless to say, Bissinger looked at him quizzically and said "Son, you don't have to do that. You're a talented blogger and I'm about to go out there and tell the world you're your generation's W.C. Heinz."

Leitch snapped back at him. "Fuck you, Buzz. You want the blowjob or not? This is what I do every day for Ankiel and this is what I'm offering you. Take it or leave it. Now or never."

Knowing I was Leitch's editor, Bissinger turned to me and said " Your author has some issues." Just as I was about to respond, Leitch uppercuts Bissinger—in the balls—and the PA tells them that they're on in ten seconds.

I don't have to tell you what happened after that but let's just say you might have appeared a little testy on camera yourself if some closeted little blogger from Mattoon took a swing at your swingers.

Suffice it to say, this method of ingratiating himself to his elders must be how he got his new lame gigs at New York and Sporting News. If only he were better at this particular activity maybe he wouldn't have to slum it in the MSM. Either way, it sucks that he's leaving Deadspin.

WHITNEY PASTOREK

Dearest Will: Welcome to the other side, sellout.

xo

w

Aileen Gallagher
My long, personal nightmare is over.
After three years of enduring the massive ego trip called "Will Leitch, editor of Deadspin," I won't have to feign interest in this incomprehensible website, its sycophantic readers, or its misaligned (but blinding) sun, William Franklin Leitch.
No more will I be forced to attend commenter events that exist only as an opportunity for poor, deluded readers to learn the hard way about Will's social limitations. (Until Will's career reaches its likely conclusion, in which case I'll meet you by the merch table at SpinCon. I hear it's at the Valley Forge Convention Center next year. Right near A.J.!)
I relish Will's future, filled with editors who gleefully cut the 250 throat-clearing words he insists on inserting in every post. His prose will be fished from a sea of indecipherable italics. His interviews will focus more on the As, not line after line of Qs, lest we forget how smart he is.
Welcome, Will. You're in my house now.

BRIAN POWELL

WHERE THE FUCK WAS SI'S HOT CLICKS FROM 2006-2007?!?! It's gives you about 10x the hits from Deadspin, it's easier to read, commenters don't pick apart your posts (and call you a "fucktard") and you don't have to deal with post after tiresome post about the fucking Cardinals!

Thank you for all that you've done for me, my site and every single asshole that just wanted to share an opinion on Sports. It's not easy to be the figurehead and scapegoat for ever single thing that a group does and like I said after the "Bissinger Incident" (and still feel today).....I've never been prouder to call myself a "Sports Blogger". If they can't take a joke....fuck 'em. Godspeed and good luck my overly caffeinated friend.

EAMONN BRENNAN

Like so many other of you internet creepshows, I've never met Will, and I've only interacted with him via legendary burrito threads and soccer live blogs. I bet you think that makes him your friend. Well guess what: it does. Feels good, right?

Anyway, Deadspin-era Will will leave many legacies, but the most important of those is not the rise of the intelligent fan, or the slow legitimization of sports blogs. No, the one thing I'll take away is how Deadspin made me functionally retarded. Thanks to Deadspin's "sheesh"- and "gosh"-littered 100-word skittishness, I discovered sports blogs, and then other blogs, and then Google Reader, and then Netvibes, and then Twitter, and with all this quick information my attention span is so shredded I can't make it halfway through an episode of Robot Chicken. While high.

So thanks a lot, Will. You really fucked me over here.

GOURMET SPUD

It's tough roasting a guy when:

1) You've never roasted anyone before,

2) You've never met him in person, and

3) He could take away your audience in a heartbeat,

But that didn't stop Al Roker from roasting Matt Lauer, so let's give it a whirl.

You had to have been paying attention, but long-time readers of Deadspin may have heard Will mention once or twice, in passing, that he is from a town called Mattoon, Illinois.

Not that Mattoon isn't a great place to grow up, if a bit segregated. Recent census results list it as 97% white, which makes it only slightly less white than the Deadspin commentariat. Will's signature black t-shirt isn't just a minimalist fashion statement. It's a subconcious manifestation of guilt.

If Mattoon has any sense, they will one day build a statue honouring Will. He is, after all, their most famous son. And as an added benefit, it would be a nice change of pace to see him being shit on while not on the set of Costas Now.

I would be remiss not to mention the Buzz Bissinger incident. Even my mom has seen that video, and she thinks Deadspin is a Jewish high holiday. That was Will's most awkward exchange with a Pulitzer Prize winner since he angrily wrote Toni Morrision to tell her she ruined Rocky V.

In absolute seriousness, anyone who writes a sports blog owes Will a massive debt of gratitude. Not just for opening so many doors, but for his tireless efforts to bring credibility to the blogosphere. Though laudable, these efforts were hardly surprising, as Leitch has always been a bit of an activist. In 2001, he successfully lobbied to have the movie "Jeepers Creepers" given an "R" rating. Not for excessive violence, but because he found the title offensive.

In closing, thanks to Will for starting his own little revolution. A revolution of the pale, over-educated and sexless, but a revolution nonetheless. I'm speaking for myself when I say that the only reason my tiny little site has a tiny little readership is because of his (and KSK's) links, and I can never thank him enough for all the hours he has helped me kill at work. Best of luck at New York Magazine, Will, you will (pun intended) be missed.

Oh, and I wouldn't fuck Will Leitch with Robert Weintraub's dick.

BETHLEHEM SHOALS

We all know Will is as amicable and polite as they come. But how can someone be this nice? What's really going on here? Last time I saw Will in person, he was rocking the Obama tee, and anyone with the Internet knows that Barry is the Anti-Christ. . . is it possible that Will's whole m.o. is, in fact, totally sinister, a way of lulling us all into calm and submission before he seizes the five states of Zordar and brings about the Apocalypse? Would that make him Obama's running mate? '

Like for instance, one time, Will was in my home city of Seattle on some official Deadspin business. I couldn't make it to said official business, but I suggested we meet up for a drink that night. It turned out that my friend was having a birthday party at a totally really exotic non-Western karaoke spot that night–half the choices were 15-minute long Vietnamese medleys, and there was some well-connected older guys in suits who just sat in the balcony ordering food on a never-ending tab and smoking cigars all night (Leitch's real interest in showing up?). So anyway, Will was out with two of his oldest friends in the world, and yet refused to definitely say to me "no, I can't make it to your friend's stupid party."

The mere possibility of his appearance got around, and worked several male attendants into a frenzy, and they hung on every drunken update I got. Finally, communications broke down, and the party was never the same after that. Now, I'd always seen that as pure charity on Leitch's part. But looking back, how manipulative was that? He got a bunch of strangers on the edge of their booths, thinking they were this close. Then he let them down graciously, breaking their hearts while only strengthening his hold on them. I mean, is that Machiavellian or what? That's how you build an empire of the mind without lifting a finger. This is where interactive branding meets fascism.

So who is Will Leitch? Angel? Devil? Ingenue? The Phil Jackson of web publishing? If we truly knew, if the answer were simple, he wouldn't be where he is today. Congratulations, friend, foe, brother, and supernatural force.

DAN STEINBERG

Since most of my first-person stories of non-electronic interactions with Will involve him talking very passionately and very quickly and me not understanding anything he's saying, I guess I'll just say that one of my blogging dreams is that Will would one day be asked to create a brief yet critical review for Gizmodo, and would submit the following:

We wee on Wii, oui?

Wouldn't sound too terribly different from many Deadspin posts, near as I can tell.

/Waiting to see how many other of your contributors focus their remarks on the first-person plural.

/Yeah, seriously, that's all I've got.

DJ GALLO

I am probably not alone on this, but I always felt that you were writing specifically about ME and to ME. It must be because you are a great writer. Or, perhaps it was due to your gratuitous use of "we."

HENRY ABBOTT

Will Leitch is way too polite a guy to really roast.

I mean, I'm 33, and we both live in the New York area. Yet he calls me "sir!" Unless you're Buzz Bissinger, how can you possibly yell at a guy like that?

Plus, I couldn't possibly roast a guy who, after that January NPR interview with Scott Simon, comes already self-roasted. Listen at about the 3:40 mark. He was ambushed — and I don't buy for a second that he's racist — but if you diagram the sentence of Will's response, I think you'll find about fourteen digressions and thirteen ums, followed by the sound of a soul melting.

Stay tuned. More roasters on the way. All day long, we encourage you to add your own Leitch jokes and tributes in the comments.