At the advice of a colleague, I’m starting a new feature on Monday called “People I Admire.” I’m not so sure that this will be a long feature, as there aren’t a lot of people who I admire, but I’ll try to keep it going for as long as I can without including people like David Draiman or Kevin Sorbo.

For this week, I will talk about why I admire Tony Kornheiser.

Tony Kornheiser, or Mr. Tony as we will refer to him, first crept into my conscious in the late 1990’s on ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters.” However, it wasn’t until October 22, 2001 that he really became an important figure in my life as the host of “Pardon the Interruption.”

“PTI” combined all of the things that I love the most in life: sports and banter pertaining to sport. Along with his co-host and longtime friend Michael Wilbon, Mr. Tony helped change the face of sports on TV. Period. Before “PTI” there were no sports talk shows. Now, that’s all there is. Two jerks talking about sports. And it always seems scripted. On “Pardon the Interruption,” that has never been the case.

Imagine my joy when I moved to Washington and discovered that Mr. Tony had a daily local radio show. Not a sports-talk show. Just a show where a crotchety old man complained about things that made him angry. Kind of like that newspaper story from “The Simpsons” where Grandpa shakes his fist at a cloud. If I loved Mr. Tony on “PTI” talking about sports, you can imagine how much I loved Mr. Tony on the radio where he just got to rant about things.

Truth be told, there wasn’t much for me to do when I was jobless for 5 months. I blogged (as you likely know) and I listened to the replay of Mr. Tony’s show from 2-4 (because, really, did I need to be awake at 8 a.m. when it was live?). And life was good.

The Mr. Tony radio show consisted of 2 hours of talk about “American Idol,” begging for free things from people and sponsors, and life advice, like, “If you’re out on your bike tonight, do wear white.”

So the obvious question becomes, “ Jason, why do you admire this man?”

The reason why I admire Tony Kornheiser is because he’s not afraid to be brutally honest and hurtful towards people for no good reason. Statements like, “__________(person x) should have a Metrobus backed over their skull,” and “This person should be thrown in jail,” are used without hesitation for situations that would not normally require a punishment of death or prison. And I like that.

I fully understand the frustration that Mr. Tony so clearly feels towards people who are not himself or at least kind of like him. And I really respect him for his ability to be fully honest with people, even if it is hurtful.

One of the things that annoys me (and who knows, someday I might list all of them as one glorious blog post) is privilege and the idea that some people “deserve” to be treated differently from others because of their status. So it would probably be considered hypocrisy that I appreciate and admire a person who once begged on air for a free Cadillac and who has created a concept known as “The Mr. Tony Experience,” whereby Mr. Tony gets free things because he is Mr. Tony.

The reason why I let Mr. Tony slide when it comes to privilege is simply because he so openly embraces that aspect of his “ness.” My screenwriting professor in college once told me that he liked how I set-up a really cliché scene with the characters openly acknowledging how cliché it was. It was an easy tactic, and frankly, something I did just to get out of a scene I was not interested enough in to be creative with. However, I’m glad I did it that way because his words have always stuck with me. It’s simple really: embrace your own negativity. Don’t put on a show and pretend like you’re different. If you own up to your negative side and are honest with people about it, you’re alright in my book. Just like Mr. Tony.

Next week, perhaps I’ll profile why I admire Manuel Noriega.