Cru Jones Society

Welcome back to Happy Friday. Lots of good stuff awaits a click away, so don’t be shy. And nevermind Gordon Gekko there. He’s just enjoying one last smoke before the villagers come with pitchforks and torches to burn him and the rest of the assholes putting us on the hook for billions of dollars to bail out private industry down. He won’t bother you. Although his white collar and cuff on a colored shirt look seems to be coming back into vogue, which is possibly even worse. If you have the urge to buy a shirt like this, just watch Office Space, and see why you shouldn’t.

Mmm kay? I’m gonna have to go ahead and ask you to click that link to the right.

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Let’s get the unpleasantness out of the way first. Mark Cuban writes a blog that you can find here. Generally he’s prattling on about video delivery services and why YouTube sucks and all sorts of other dorky tech babble no one in the real world gives one rat’s ass about.

However, he recently wrote an incredibly illuminating piece about why the stock market cyclically melts down and who’s to blame. The answer: the decoupling of risk and reward for Fortune 500 CEOs. No matter how poorly these assholes run their companies, as long as they have their golden parachute of $40 million, what the fuck do they care if the company and all its workers go in the toilet? They’re secure and then can spend the rest of their days lighting cigars off $100 bills while throwing dirt at the gardener in Aruba for all the difference a failed company and resultant shitty economy makes to them.

I’d make a joke about this, but it makes me too fucking angry. In fact, it was after reading this surreal piece that I wrote three angry pages of bitter vitriol about the entire situation here in the now Socialist Republic of America on Wednesday that is so unpleasant, it’ll never see the light of day (especially here on this light-hearted comedy website).

Instead, here’s a different piece examining why the next President should have a modicum of tech savvy. Digital terrorism replacing ground troops? Interesting.

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Speaking of tech stuff… I love at work when we have to sit down and get a lecture during the weekly staff meeting from the tech guy about how our cluttered inboxes are slowing down the server and how we need to delete our attachments. Yeah, whatever nerd. Climb back behind your computer and I’ll call you when my RSS Reader breaks again.

Anyway, so I was humoring the guy and going through my inbox and came across this gem again. I realize this is old and many of you probably heard it eons ago, but listening again to this excited guy leave the best voice message in the history of the telephone to his buddy is well worth re-visiting. If this doesn’t put a smile on your face, nothing will. Just hang yourself now and call it a life.

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Part of my Happy Friday routine that I have yet to share with you happens at 411Mania.com.  Every Friday a guy named Al Norton writes the outstanding “Two Tivos to Paradise” column that covers all the television news you could ever hope for. He’s a Boston guy, so don’t hold that against him, Gutter.

He watches basically every show on network television, most of the original series on cable, as well as late night talk shows, a bunch of stuff on Travel Channel and Food Network, and what appears to be VH-1′s entire programming block. And he has interesting opinions on all of it. Here’s last week’s column to give you a taste and now this week’s so you stay up to date on all your favorite shows.

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Since I brought up CJS Reader Gutter, here’s one he passed along to me. Jib Jab, the group responsible for this nifty little ditty, rose to national prominence in 2004 with their video parody of George W. Bush and John Kerry singing “This Land is Your Land.” The video I linked to above, titled “Time for Some Campaingin’” is just as good as its 2004 counterpart, if not better.

I saw this on the Today Show a couple of months ago, then promptly forgot about it. Big ups to Gutter for sending it my way this week. And now, for those of you that also haven’t seen it, let’s be sure and thank Mr. Gutter for his contribution to your Friday laziness.

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Ha ha! Suck it Houston Assclowns! Big Z, you my boy! You my boy, Z! I had such a painfully boring week at work, this was definitely the high point. All you anti-Cub fans out there (I’m looking at you, Flickerbock) can choke on it. Big Z will eat your soul and then crush a homerun from both sides of the plate.

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Two takes on Ed Hochuli screwing the pooch on the Jay Cutler fumble/incomplete pass play that hilariously cost the Chargers the game last Sunday consequently handing the Broncos the win on an incredibly ballsy call from Mike Shanahan to go for two once the score was tied.

1) Feel free to get mad about it, Chargers fans. Except… you live in one of most of the pleasant places on earth unlike the snowbound, depressing, rust belt sad sacks that live in Cleveland or Pittsburgh and have no choice but to live and die by their teams. No matter what happens to your football team, you win. So feel free to hate Ed Hochuli all you want, then go ahead and enjoy a fresh fish taco and stroll along the beach at sunset, you bastards. God, I love KissingSuzyKolber.com

2) Maybe it’s time to get over it considering Ed Hochuli is answering every single piece of hate mail himself. Yeah, the dude screwed up, but he’s owning up to it and taking his medicine like a man unlike some of our corporate Wall Street friends this week. You have to respect that. Plus, it IS only football, you know.

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With that in mind… Live, dammit! Live! Live each day to the fullest! Just like this guy. 

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Writing about Cocoon reminded me of this:

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T-shirts are often funny. In fact, I had one in college that said “How Swede it is!” which is funny because I’m Swedish. Get it? Ehhhh.

Anyhoo, Maxim returns to Happy Friday to count down the 9 funniest t-shirts in movie history. You’ll notice that most of these shirts are from 80s movies. You’ll also notice that when you surf the Internet you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a banner ad for a website that does nothing but sell witty t-shirts based on our generation’s endless fascination with lame 80s nostalgia and our desire to convey ironic detachment, laid back wit, and knowledge of semi-obscure pop culture with our clothing. Not familiar with what I’m talking about? Check out this site. 

Or this one.

Or this one.

Or this one.

Or this one.

Or any of the almost 24 MILLION WEBSITES that are returned upon entering “funny t-shirts” into the Google search bar! Christ!

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You can count Mitch Hedberg as one of the many influences of the Cru Jones Society. His bizarre observations and ability to connect what appeared to be extraordinarily disparate concepts into hilarious social commentary remains among our primary aspirations – that, and the fact that he could make you crack a rib with material no more complicated than Life Savers, Smokey the Bear, and shaving your face. Damn the analysis, he’s a funny motherfucker.

So it was with great surprise that I found this new CD at Best Buy last weekend and picked it up. According to Mitch’s sister, “Recorded two months prior to his death, ‘Do You Believe In Gosh?’ contains nearly 40 minutes of previously unreleased stand-up material. The CD captures most of the material Mitch was working on, for what would have been his next full-length album, in a free-form show with a large amount of audience interaction.”

Hell yeah. I’ll take new Mitch Hedberg material any way I can get it. I’ve listened to it once, and it definitely lives up to the standard of excellence set forth by Mitch’s previous CDs. Highest recommendation.

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Hey, speaking of people releasing shit from beyond the grave… someone evidently unearthed a previously unknown piece of work composed by Mozart.  Y’know, I was never all that impressed when new Tupac albums seemed to come out every other month after he “died,” but considering it’s been 217 years since Mozart kicked the bucket, I find this amazing. Not nearly as amazing as this guy though, who seems one more newly discovered concierto away from defiling his knickers. Easy, governor.

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And speaking of Governor, it’s time to close up. How did Sarah Palin earn the Vice Presidential nomination anyway?

Happy Friday. See you next week.

edagger@crujonessociety.com