[eDebate] DCA Debater #10- Michael Burshteyn

[Aaron Kall]

Michael received 21 total votes.

The Michael Burshteyn Experience

The High School Years
By Jaipaul Rekhi

	After a long freshman year of whoopin (among other things) some freshman 
ass, Burshteyn was a star from the beginning. At the end of his freshman 
year, he made his goal clear: he would be on the top team as a sophomore 
from here on out. So he won some tournaments, took some names, and made some 
moves. After 50 College Prep sophomores cleared at the TOC that year, the 
only lesson we learned at the DDI that summer (thanks Horowitz) was, “Go 
home and quit now. The CPS sophomores are going to win the TOC.” Yeah so he 
won, whatever, he’s still pretty much retarded.
	For instance, the first time I met him was at the Glenbrooks tournament our 
junior year. The night before the tournament, Rosecrans and Jake had picked 
me up from the airport and on our way to the hotel, Bootshteyn calls them. 
The four of us meet up with Ballshteyn in his room and as we walk in he 
asks, “Wait! Are any of you debating at the tournament??” I’m like yeah for 
sure and Bluntshteyn turns to the slaves who really cut all his cards and 
gives them the stare… the “if Muhammad Jihad here sees my new politics link 
wall you die” look. So we convince this kid to leave his slave room and go 
outside and get some “fresh air” and aBortshteyn sees that hella big water 
fountain in the middle of the Hyatt Deerfield lobby. Having never seen such 
an abnormal and out of this world construction, Betardshteyn had convinced 
himself that the water fountain was… the internet. “Man it’s like the 
internet man, can’t you see all that information like flowing out man.” Ok 
maybe that sounded more like Garen but whatever, that’s probably close to 
what Buttshteyn said.
	So junior year went by and Backdoorshteyn won hella shit because he was 
being a little Bitchshteyn. The new and improved Bakedshteyn was born the 
summer before our senior year of high school when we were fellows at the 
most prestigious, safe, sober, helpful, and intellectually packed KNDI. It 
is here that we learned that Bagtagshteyn was born in a suitcase in Soviet 
Russia. Calum quickly changed Bunkshteyn’s name to Chimodan, which means 
suitcase in Russian. We all sat in circles and listened to his stories of 
mother Russia. “In Russia, the TV watches you!” and Russian debaters are 
hella tight because apparently in Russia, the cards cut you. It was hard 
life at fellows, not only for Adam Stern who had to share a room with 
Bukakeshteyn while he sang along to The Final Countdown every morning, but 
for everyone who could hear his crackly pre-pubescent ass trying to sing 
from across the hallway. Or even better, when during a fellows debate 
against the Fruntal Kuntal and Sterno the Inferno, who were defending the 
ban whaling Aff, Bongshteyn went for the “gotta eat the whales” DA and sang 
Elton John’s “The Circle of Life” while Jake Ziering handed out whale meat 
recipes. Most importantly, Brotherchampionshteyn made the transition to the 
Babblegabbingshteyn he is today at Kentucky fellows.	But soon after, God 
damned me to four more weeks with BuFushteyn at the Dartmouth Debate 
Institute. Hotboxedshteyn and I, in hopes of finding a chill spot, found 
ourselves frequenting Tom Sawyer’s tomb in the graveyard by the dining hall. 
By far the best part of that summer was when Ken Strange turned to 
Bowlshteyn and announced during lab, “Some of us take 10 minute breaks 
during our 10 minute breaks. Others take 20 minute breaks during our 10 
minute breaks. Those others should find a closer place to do whatever they 
are doing so that they can be back after the 10 minutes elapse.”
	Senior year begins and Baggienutshteyn is on a mission. Brokebackshteyn 
wants to win. So much that he brought a tub with him to his Hawaii 
vacation…it’s probably the Shalmonesque hunger. But good ol’ GBN reminded 
Bronchitishteyn of JWP’s favorite words, “Berrrnstein, you can’t always get 
what you want” (example: GBN female bioweapon + Burshteyn = MBA). In 
response to such allegations, Beavershteyn said, “but I beat Stern and 
Nadell,” to which we promptly replied, “so did Williamson.” So Bubonicshteyn 
was like 0-30 against GBN RZ. And then there’s the finals of the TOC that 
year… GBN RZ vs CPS AB. CPS wins the flip. Bageljobshteyn (urban dictionary 
this one if nothing else) flips aff, after losing every aff round against 
them and never going neg. GBN RZ wins on like a 4-1, cause some dude felt 
charitable. Well done Bagpiper...Shteyn. It’s cool though man, it was just 
high school…
	A couple months later, Berrrrnstein and I found ourselves working at the 
Kentucky National Debate Institute. This was… uhh… not a disaster? Well, 
Babemagnetshteyn became Bathroomshteyn, and that’s hella legit. Blowshteyn 
may or may not have gotten fired once a day. But then again who didn’t? JWP 
made at least 3 dollars auctioning off Boobshteyn-autographed T-Shirts. 
Klinger, Jonah, and Rusty Hub took Buzzkillshteyn to his first strip club 
where he almost got kneed in the face and he got his new nickname, “hands.” 
And we could still hear Reid Shannon yelling, “DRINK YOUR BEER BEERSTEIN!” 
all the way from Berkeley.

You my boy blue. Now Craig’s turn-
P.S. All “shteyn” prefixes can be found on www.urbandictionary.com


The College Years- by Craig Wickersham

After being a badass in high school, Burshteyn was brought back down to 
earth (or should I say far from it) as he moved to college at Berkeley.  His 
freshman year was filled with complete and utter dominance of the freshman 
breakout tournaments, a couple walkovers by some other Berkeley teams, and a 
lot of late nights supplying Berkeley NW with evidence they were too lazy to 
cut before the tournament on elim day.

Burshteyn’s freshman year, like many years of his life, forced him to face 
several serious illnesses. In fact, I’ve heard more than one person describe 
Burshteyn as “being constantly on the brink of death.” I mean, I’ve seen 
some sickly people as a debater at Cal, but Mike makes Shalmon look like 
Lance Armstrong.  I luckily have only had to take him to the hospital once, 
but he’s been to the hospital more times than Repko has voted against 
Berkeley.  For instance, as many of you know, at the Pepperdine tournament 
his freshman year, Burshteyn contracted a terrible case of Jeep disease.  
Burshteyn managed to fight through his illness to an undefeated record at 
the tournament, but his brush with this deadly illness changed his life 
profoundly.  Mike has since devoted much of his free time and energy to 
raising awareness about the disease that he claims will strike one-third of 
Americans in their lifetime (seriously, ask him about it—he’s committed to 
the project).  In fact he’s even founded a fund—feel free to send cash or 
check to:
The Michael Burshteyn Foundation for the Prevention of Jeep Disease
2 Red Round Rd., Apt. #2
Aspen, CA 12345

While adjusting to the college…ehm…lifestyle in his first year Burstheyn 
didn’t have the level of success he wanted, so he began to hit the library 
in a way much different from how he used it in his high school days….

Thanks to his devotion to cutting cards and his deep obsession with the PRC 
the summer after his freshman year, Arnett decided it would be best to give 
Burshteyn a shot at being on Berkeley’s top team as a sophomore, and this 
year I think speaks to how well that worked out. After getting pummeled at 
the Kentucky Round Robin and being driven insane by listening to “You Can’t 
Always Get What you Want” followed by “Berkeley Lose, (insert almost any 
team at the round robin) Win” Mike suddenly flipped on a switch and went on 
a tear, getting a top 5 speaker award at the Kentucky tournament, and 
managing to carry his aging debate partner to victory at the Henry Clay.

However, Burshteyn’s crowning achievement of the year came at the Harvard 
Debate tournament, where his hard work paid off, as he succeeded in what he 
called his singular goal of his trip to Boston—victory at the Halloween 
costume contest.  Burshteyn spent an entire day searching for the perfect 
costume, and came up with dressing up as a tissue box with “blow me” written 
on the front.  Despite looking like this: 
http://students.berkeley.edu/images/osl/Debate/burshteyn_kleenex.jpg , 
Burshteyn managed to get his highest speaker award of the year, 2nd place. I 
think that speaker award was clinched round 8 of that tournament, where we 
were debating Wake CH.  Burshteyn was being cross-xed by Jamie Carroll after 
the 2NC, and apparently didn’t like something Jamie asked him.  All I know 
is that a dude looking like a giant foam tissue box paused for about 10 
seconds, looked at Jamie and asked him, “Are you retarded?”  If you have the 
balls to say that in that costume, I guess you have to get a 29.5. Classic 
Burshteyn cross-x moments such as this/throwing cards at people during the 
1AC/swearing at people during speeches/swearing at people while they give 
their order, certainly seem to get points, so you young debaters out there 
take note (although I think Burshteyn’s not winning a Best of Forensics 
award any time soon).

A lot of Burshteyn’s success this year can be attributed to his hard work. 
Perhaps Berkeley BW’s drop off after Harvard can be attributed to Burshteyn 
failing to follow his own advice: 
http://www.ndtceda.com/archives/200510/0291.html
Regardless, Burshteyn really likes debate, I mean REALLY likes it.  For 
instance this week he planned  to see a book signing by Andrew Ross, who 
many of you (read: not K debaters) know writes some cards about China, and 
is planning on taking his relations accordion to get it signed.  Or take 
this IM conversation between Arnett and Burshteyn:

Caldebate:  you know you can stay for five years now right?
meshtdagn: well I was thinking about living in Australia for a year, but I 
thought about it and couldn’t…I wish I knew how to quit you…like Tejinder…or 
Gaurav…or Reid….

What many of you may not know is that Burshteyn has many other interests 
outside of debate.  For one he’s an aspiring DJ, and has already produced 
Shower Mix numbers 1-6, which he will gladly sing along to while 
showering….for an hour…at all times of day.  Stay tuned for his Dump mixes, 
which he promises will be available to the public shortly, although his room 
mates have all had a sneak preview.  In addition to his musical talents 
Burshteyn has come up with a number of interesting schemes over the period 
of time I’ve known him.  Here’s just a taste of some of Burshteyn’s ideas:

-buying a car but deciding not to obtain a parking spot (this actually 
happened)
-planning to cut every Baudrillard book summer before the China topic
-a plan to road trip across the US and to Mexico while lacking gas 
money/while his classes are currently in session
- a plan to only listen to one Eminem album per year, starting with the 
Marshall Mathers LP
- a plan to wake up every day at 7am to jog, and be cutting cards by 10 
(this lasted approximately zero days)
- a plan to call a dude he bought a rap album from on the street in Berkeley 
to give him tips on his music
-a plan to con alumni into funding a horticultural project under the 
pretense of helping the debate team
-Or this plan from an IM conversation:
meshtdagn: im naming my kid Mississippi
meshtdagn: or Cosmopolitan
censored: you want a porn star kid?
censored: or a B-movie actor?
meshtdagn: Cosmo is NOT a porn star name
meshtdagn: and Mississippi happens to be a MAJOR river in american history

In all seriousness, Burshteyn’s devotion to debate, success at this 
activity, and sweetness as a person are all admirable.  If you haven’t met 
Mike you should, because even though he’s a great debater he’s one of the 
nicest people you can meet (so long as you don’t cross-x him).  Burshteyn is 
THE hardest working debater in the country, and in an activity with so many 
great researchers, that’s an accomplishment. He’s the youngest person on 
this countdown, and I’m glad that those who voted recognized that despite 
his youth Mike is one of the best debaters in the nation.  In fact, I’m 
banking on it, given that I’ve apparently already bet upwards of thousands 
of dollars on his success next year…so DON’T SCREW UP MIKE.  
Congratulations, B-stein from all of us here at Cal.