Cru Jones Society

Last night Obama made history. Good for him. Now that that’s all over with, let’s have some fun. Fun that I’m sure would offend The Cos. So put down that New Coke, and load some Kodak film and let’s get to it! Continue Reading »

Today is August 28. It’s the 45 year anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington. Today Barack Obama will become the first black person ever nominated for president by a major political party. Today is also the birthday of Jack Black, Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, Daniel Stern, Jason Priestley, and Olympic swimmer Janet Evans. It also happens to be my birthday.

I’m 27 today, and I have the distinction of sharing the day of a hero’s most important speech. The “I Have a Dream” speech is one of the finest pieces of oratory ever constructed in this country, and I find it amazing that it shares the same calendar date as my birthday.

I also find it amazing that I share the same birthday as the brilliant actor that played off-kilter Cubs pitching coach Phil Brickma in Rookie of the Year.

Okay, that’s not amazing, but since it’s my birthday, I got to thinking about who I share the day with. That led me to consider everyone I had ever idolized growing up, the people I used to emulate, and the people I aspired to mirror in my growth. Unfortunately for me, aside from my parents, this list does not contain many “great people” like Martin Luther King. Fortunately for you, there’s plenty of obscure cultural icons to laugh at as I die a little bit inside pondering my superficiality. Let’s journey through a scrapbook of E Dagger’s heroes, shall we? Continue Reading »

My jump back into non-Olympic normal life started with a night filled with drinks and punk rock, and it was great. My Saturday was more boozed filled, just as fun, but a little harsher. It was just the Saturday that I needed before this crazy DNC week. What? The week has been relatively calm? Oh, well, what’s done is done so read on. Continue Reading »

The Dems are coming! The Dems are coming!

The Dems are here!

Abortions for any mother that wants one (or at least the choice to want one)! Gay marriage for all! They come bearing windmills, photovoltaic solar panels, and subsidies for corn based ethanol! Middle class tax cuts and an end to global warming for everyone! Come and see!

They’ve brought protestors! Some want to create the past while others just want to go camping. Ron Kovic! Cindy Sheehan! All the anti-war all stars are here! They’ll invade your city, screw up your traffic, and throw lavish parties all over town. There’s Spike Lee! Isn’t that Sean Penn? Bruce Springsteen just walked by!

Our city is finally interesting! There’s cops everywhere and that helicopter makes passes overhead every hour. Cow town no more. Center of democracy, baby! Progressive thinkers all the way. We’re going to give health care to everyone by day, and drink Obamatinis by night! It’ll be the best week of your life, I tell ya’! Because no one throws a party like gay folks (and you know there’s plenty in town this week…)! Sure, we may boondoggle your commute, but this is one week you’ll never forget! DNC 2008, bay-bee!!!

Does this sound like the Democratic National Convention you know? Me neither. Continue Reading »

As was stated on Friday the Olympics have come to an end. The closing ceremonies were as massive, spectacular, and as bright as the opening ceremonies. Now there are two years until our lives are distracted by sports that usually warrant a quick change of the channel. And two years of CJS post that don’t revolve around world-class athletes from throughout the globe. Records were broken and good times were had, but now we can return to our lives. I used this weekend to take that first step towards my normal life. Maybe it was more of a leap than a step. You decide. Continue Reading »

Sadly, the Olympics come to an end this weekend which not only means the end of late nights cheering on America and watching sports on the weekend you normally couldn’t care less about, it sadly means Hart and I will regrettably have to end our daily suckling at the teat of easy content due to an infrequent sports phenomenon that captivates everyone’s attention for two weeks. We must return to the normal torturous process of generating fresh ideas each day for your daily waste of 5-20 minutes at work. Pity us.

Or just enjoy this fresh batch of links I’ve cooked up and delivered fresh to your computer for easy Friday consumption! Either way… Continue Reading »

Time seems to pass by like one of these Olympic athletes. The Athens games were 4 years ago, but it seems like it 9.69 seconds. These games have had me thinking about the past 4 years and how my life has transformed in that time. What follows after the jump are some of the major changes I have experienced since the 2004 games. Continue Reading »

When you watch the Olympics, the focus is understandably on the athletes. Everyone is interested in Michael Phelps breaking the record for most gold medals all-time; no one gives a crap about the guy (or more likely team of guys) that makes sure the water temperature is optimal for swimming. When you’re fixated on Misty May and Kerri Walsh’s barely there bathing suits, you may notice during timeouts, the group of gentlemen who come out, rake the sand, smooth out the court, and straighten the boundary lines. Then again, if they’re playing anyone from Poland, you might not.

This post is dedicated to five obscure jobs I’ve grown to appreciate over the course of this year’s Olympics.  Continue Reading »

I personally hate to run.  I the way I feel about running is the way Jerry Seinfeld feels about dancing.

“I can’t believe we’re going dancing?”
“Why? You don’t go that often?”
“No. Because it’s so stupid.”

Just replace dancing with running and that’s me. The last time I ran was 5 or 6 years ago, and I was trying to catch a bus. My distaste for running will not stop me from watching other people run - especially if it is during the Olympics. Continue Reading »

I had the pleasure of indulging several more events not ready for primetime this weekend, and I’m here on this glorious Monday, which came way too fucking fast this week, to share my thoughts with you. On deck is rowing, weightlifting, team handball, and much much more. Please join me, won’t you? Continue Reading »

We got a lot of fun links for you this week. Some Olympic related, some not. I won’t waste any more time here, and neither should you. Continue Reading »

A mea culpa from E Dagger, an excerpt from the article that was, and a link that is neither here nor there, but funny as hell. I’ll explain after the jump. Continue Reading »

Although I am taking a brief detour from our Olympic coverage, I will still be talking about sports, sort of. There’s a very good chance that this particular sport may never be an Olympic event, though I would much rather watch it than any equestrian event. On a side note, are the horse riders put through the same drug testing policies as the other athletes? What about the horses? What kind of enhancing drugs would the riders take? Are there horse socks? Well before my mind wondered I was getting to the wonderful sport known as putt-putt, or miniature golf. Why, during a time of incredible athletes breaking world records, would I bring up putt-putt? Well after the jump you’ll find out. Continue Reading »

You know swimming. You’re waiting for track & field. Gymnastics dominates prime time programming. Everyone watches these sports. I spent a good chunk of my weekend watching some of the other Olympic offerings. Below are three events for which I have some thoughts. I promise not to mention any of the people you’re nearing your saturation point with (see Phelps, Michael. Johnson, Shawn. And Ming, Yao.). I’m willing to bet you haven’t heard anyone talk about men’s team volleyball though, have you? Continue Reading »

The summer games of the XXIX Olympiad began on Friday. As was mentioned by Dagger in Happy Friday #9: Amanda Beard Edition we here at CJS planned on doing an Olympic preview. Well, what better time for a preview than after they have already started? The Olympics are just how we left it, with the U.S.A. in charge! Ok not completely, as I write this they’re tied in the medal race with China at 8 apiece. China’s synchronized divers just won another gold. I should move on before this becomes three pages of medal updates. So what follow is a few of my thoughts on this opening weekend of the Olympics. Continue Reading »

Be prepared to forget whatever the hell it was you were doing before because not only is it Friday, the Olympics begin tonight. I know when the Olympics come on every two years, it’s easily the least productive part of my biennial and I find myself inconceivably compelled by stuff I normally wouldn’t piss on were it on fire. Hart and I had planned on doing up a big Olympic preview, but considering we both have our heads planted squarely up our asses, we never got around to it.

Besides, I went through and read at least a half dozen Olympic previews from actual respected news outlets, and they all say essentially the same thing. Here’s what you need to know: Dana Torres is old, Michael Phelps might break a record, baseball and softball are going away this year because the rest of the world hates America, the pollution in Beijing is stifling, USA Basketball needs to redeem themselves (and everyone still hates Coach K) Tyson Gay has a hilarious name, Tibet is still oppressed, and somehow equestrian is still an Olympic sport.  There. Consider your Olympics previewed.

You can look for a bunch of Olympic coverage from Hart and myself in the next two weeks. No, you don’t need to know exactly what we’re doing, thank you. You’ll know it when you see it. And until that time comes, here are your links for the 8th of August, 2008. (P.S. Amanda Beard is hot.) Continue Reading »

Zebrahead released a new album, entitled “Phoenix”, on Tuesday and I haven’t been so excited for new release since Rancid’s “Indestructible” five years ago. I planned to have “Phoenix” in my disc player before the day was through. Little did I realize that this seemingly simple scheme was going to prove more difficult than previously predicted. Continue Reading »

You know when you look through your CDs and you’re profoundly dissatisfied with every disc in your collection? You look at your tired collection of music and wonder how you’re ever going to fill all the slots in your 6-disc changer. You’ve listened to everything in your collection at least a dozen times and can’t fathom listening to any of them a 13^th.

When this happens to me I try to remember where I was when I bought the CD. I think about the circumstances that surround my understanding of that disc - memories, events, drunken good times, whatever. This usually propels me to pick up something I haven’t listened to in a while, or at least haven’t thought about in a different way.

Recently I took my Fenix TX self-titled album out of its dusty sleeve and popped it into my changer not thinking too much about it. As soon as the first notes of “Flight 601 (All I’ve Got Is Time)” crept into my ears and filled the air of my little car, I was no longer my 26 year-old self creeping along Speer Blvd. to get to work. I was back in my Volkswagen Jetta with its new after-market CD deck flashing it’s electric blue lights at me while I sat in the parking lot of Ulysses ball fields smoking a clove with my good friend Carson.

I was 18 again. The heat outside told me it was summer. I wasn’t driving to work to face another day of answering emails and trudging through endless meetings; I was an 18 year-old kid getting ready to ship off to college. I had just graduated high school. I was living large. I had a manual labor job at the baseball fields and got an astonishingly high $9/hr. Those first dulcet guitar notes paving the way to pop punk sweetness completely encapsulated my summer of 2000 and in the 3:28 of listening to “Flight 601,” I re-lived the entire thing. Does this ever happen to you? Here’s what happened to me… Continue Reading »

Most of my afternoon is spent with very little interaction with other people. Since my afternoon tasks involving nothing more than basic motor skills, my mind has time to wander, and a-wandering it goes. For some reason my mind always seeks out my internal jukebox and puts one or two songs on repeat. It picks some of the most random songs too - never anything I’ve recently listened to either, just pieces of songs that exist in my brain in that void between hockey stats and movie quotes. What follows is a list of the top songs that get stuck in my head at work. Continue Reading »

I thought about the site this weekend, as I often do, and considered the post constructions we use “Things We Love” and “Things We Hate.” Considering I’ve written most of them, I stand steadfast behind all of our choices. However, with this post I wanted to choose something I really, truly, and profoundly love. So here you go: Tombstone Pizza. Continue Reading »