Here's What We Almost Put on Our First Cover

Picking a cover photo is hard. Sometimes everything in the shot is right: the lighting, the terrain, the trick and the composition, except the skier has a plumber crack overseen by a tramp stamp they found at the bottom of a bottle of tequila. And so we trundle through photo after photo, sorting the plumber cracks and tramp stamps from the pots of gold. At the end of the rainbow, we emerge with two photos. One makes it to the cover, one makes it to the gutter—or The Almost. So here we have Frankie Wienerschnitzel, our first almost cover star. When we told him he lost out to Sean Pettit for our very first cover, he was pretty pissed. He said something about him and his friends pizza and french fries fucking up our insides. It was pretty frightening, but then we remembered that Frankie is just a dumb hot dog, and as tasty as they are, hot dogs fuck up your insides no matter what, so we aren't worried.

Read on below for our exclusive interview with Frankie. —The Editors

Let’s start at the beginning. How did hot dog become the marketable term for a bunch of weird, shitty meat stuffed into a tube shape?
First, let’s dial back those fighting words. The nerds at the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council tell me my German ancestors claim to have been born in the Frankfurt area circa 1487—the Frankfurter—like a minute before Chris Columbus got in the boat. Then some butcher in the late 1600s created the “dachshund” or “little dog” sausage. I like to think Shakespeare eated them little dogs and that’s why he was so poetic. I ain’t know about North America off the top of my head. Y’all must have been on some hamburger program until me and the squad blew up on the East Coast of America in the late 1800s. Apparently all them baseball fans started gobblin’ us up, which is we so big in the MLB. Shout outs to Doc Ellis. 

So when did you take up skiing?
Me and the gang only hang out with pizza and french fries sometimes, but we tried skiing for the first time after we saw Glen Plake’s mohawk. We're like chameleons though. We can get down with anything: tailgate parties, bowling allies, 7-Elevens, trailer park weddings, ski slopes, whatever—you name it, we out there with Edward Fortyhands and making yo’ mamma jokes.

Have you ever considered starting a ski club called Hot Doggers Hot Doggin’?
A ski club? Do we looks like some patch wearing boy scouts to you? Next question.

Alrighty then. Moving on. So when we first told you that you Sean Pettit was going to be on our first cover and not you, you were pretty pissed. Have you since unknotted your knickers?
Ay again, first things first, I don’t wear underwear. And I’m good now. I know I told y’all I’d fuck you up on the insides, but I take back it back. I can be a bit hot-headed sometimes. Although the World Health Organization says I might give you cancer now, so you know, look both ways before you cross the street. I was pretty choked about not getting the cover at first because those pecker masks Pettit and his gang wear in his movie freak me out, like that big yellow prick, Big Bird. But at the end of the day, it’s all love. You know, how did he get up that tree?

Do you want a consolation ribbon?
I want a consolation ribbon like I want to be BBQ’d. I'm out of here. 

Thanks for your time, Frankie.