A guy named Bradley turns 30 years old while he sits in his mostly dark living room watching YouTube on his small laptop. In his hand he has a coffee mug half full of Evan Williams, Coke Zero, and ice. He’s deciding whether or not he’s going to put $400 on North Texas to cover next week against Louisiana Tech. It would be nearly all of his savings. He gets a YouTube notification that Dave Portnoy has released another pizza review.
Having lived in Jackson, Tennessee his whole life, there’s no chance that Bradley and Dave Portnoy have tried any of the same pizza places. It also has dawned on Bradley before that there is no real reason to trust the CEO of Barstool Sports to have the definitive opinion on what makes a great pizza. In fact, Bradley doesn’t even care that much about pizza—he usually just orders from Little Caesars.
Despite all of that, the pizza reviews by Dave Portnoy are Bradley’s favorite videos on YouTube. He’s seen every single one. There’s something about Dave Portnoy eating pizza that just commands Bradley’s attention, and nearly every night he finds himself waiting to see if some random pizza shop owner in Connecticut or wherever is going to suddenly double their sales based on what Portnoy says about their pizza. He likes the idea of someone’s life changing in an instant.
Bradley takes a long sip of his Coke Zero bourbon as the video loads up.
The Italian-inspired intro music cues, and this time Portnoy is standing in an empty room with a long white table and green plastic chairs. The floors are dusty beige tile. It looks like a place where a church youth group would throw a celebration. Something looks off about Portnoy, especially in the cheeks and eyes.
“Today’s going to be a little different,” Portnoy says. “I’m going to be reviewing a pizza that I ate in my dream last night.”
Bradley realizes, from Portnoy having way too many fingers, that the video is AI. He’s looking at a new, Digital Dave Portnoy, holding a digital pizza box that says “PIZA.”
“I know some people are gonna be all riled up about me using AI,” Portnoy says. “But you tell me, how the fuck else are you supposed to review a pizza from the dreamworld? Do you think some graphic designer just lost his job because I made an AI pizza review? Give me a break.”
Bradley finds himself nodding in agreement.
He takes another swig of his spiked Coke Zero. The pizza review switches point of view so that it’s almost like the viewer is Portnoy himself now. All that can be seen are his two hairy arms and the giant pizza slice he’s holding. The two hairy arms pull the pizza in closer, and now there are loud chewing sounds.
“I mean,” Portnoy’s unimpressed voice can be heard saying, “it’s a cake.”
Bradley scratches his chin, inquisitively.
Portnoy takes another bite. “Yeah, this is definitely just a cake. I don’t know what to tell you, I just tell it like it is.”
Portnoy, still in first-person POV, slides his thumb between the cheese and the crust and starts to pull it apart, revealing a layer of crust that is covered in white flour. Then he folds the pizza over a couple of times, stretches it out, and jerks the back of the crust off entirely. He slaps it down on the long white table, and as he pats it with his hands, it begins to look like a rectangular, white frosted cake. There’s blue lettering on the cake that reads: Hapy Biirday June.
The video returns to third-person POV. Dave Portnoy is standing in front of the cake, shrugging.
“I don’t really know how to rate it, because I ate it as a pizza but now it’s a fucking cake,” Portnoy says. “Anyway, happy birthday to June! I love you.” As he starts to walk away from the camera, Dave adds: “I don’t even know June. This is just what it was like in my dream.”
For a while after the video is over, Bradley sits in his dark living room, his face looking like a ghost against the LED light of his laptop. His mug is empty but he’s not sure he can handle another. He starts thinking about his ex-girlfriend from college. That’s no good so he turns on some highlights for last week’s football game between North Texas and UTSA. He begins to feel like he’s sinking in his chair. It’s hard to focus on the highlights, but he needs to focus on them. $400 is serious business. He remembers turning eleven at his grandma’s house. She made him chicken parmesan and let him drink two grape sodas. He hears Portnoy’s voice again as he drifts off to sleep. Happy birthday, June. Happy birthday, June.
