Cru Jones Society

 

E Dagger here to close out your week. We’re only two full weeks deep into 2009, and it’s already shaping up to be one of the weirdest fucking years on record. Soon to be ex-President Bush gives one of the most surreal press conferences this side of Terrell Owens. Obama’s choices for cabinet positions have skeletons popping out of their closets like a cheap haunted house. And the Broncos fire Mike Shanahan who appeared poised to lead the team until he looked like the Cryptkeeper.

One thing is for certain: Happy Friday is here to stay and provide with all you need to slack off as you count the seconds until you can get home and dig into that “Antiques Roadshow” marathon you Tivo’d this week with a nice cup of tapioca pudding. What? Not your weekend? Well, fine then, maybe the links inside about beer pong, Bromance, Taco Bell and more are more your speed. Come on inside, and let’s see!

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The responses we received in our first Question of the Week about curing a hangover were certainly diverse, and we look forward to our next mid-day Gatorade and McDonald’s feast to ward off the proverbial alcohol ickies. We will not, however, partake in Dettorre’s preparation of menudo, nor will we make like Arnold Schwarzenegger in a hackneyed comedy and get knocked up like CassieB suggests. You guys are fucking goofy.

Which reminds us… don’t forget to send in your responses by the end of tomorrow for this week’s question. Which, for those of you with tsetse fly-like attention spans, was: What is the worst movie you’ve ever sat all the way through, and why did you have to sit through it? Send your stories to staff@crujonessociety.com about your movie-going misery, and we’ll put ‘em in Monday’s article.

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Speaking of misery, “American Idol” started back up this week with it’s oh-so-hilarious audition shows featuring the likes of bikini girl, and, uhhh, other people who were not featured as the top story on Yahoo’s front page. Anyway, the misery of “American Idol” is not our own because we choose not to watch. Why? We don’t give a shit. This show has never interested us on any level and despite adding a fourth judge and promising major revamps, continues not to.

No, the misery we refer to belongs to pre-teen girls everywhere who end up broken hearted after their favorite performer gets eliminated by the heartless, soulless, big ol’ meanie-headed American public. Watch this video in amazement as these pre-teen girls manufacture some of the most impressive tortured anguish and overwrought melodrama ever seen over David Archuleta’s defeat in the finals to David Cook. Some appear to be genuinely heartbroken while others put on their saddest faces in order not to tumble awkwardly down the social strata. It’s quite the sociological snapshot of group dynamics among adolescent females.

Or… it’s just another reminder of how happy we are that we have no immediate plans to have children.

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You’ve probably heard about this young girl who sent 14,528 text messages in a single month resulting in a statement that ran more than 400 pages. That works out to 484 text messages a day, or one every two minutes for each waking hour. That’s fucking insane, and doesn’t leave time to do much else. When you send that many text messages, what do you talk about? You presumably spend all your time texting, so what is the substance of the conversation? Is there any? Is it a recital of mundane daily activities? Is it a text message re-enactment of Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple?” Is this as close to a real life example of Peter Griffin narrating his own life as we’ll get? Can anyone stop this barrage of rhetorical questions we’re asking before we hurt ourselves?

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WARNING: For all the women who constantly complain about how much we talk about baseball in Happy Friday, the next two posts deal exclusively with the greatest game and are heavy on statistics, retired players, and other various and sundry nerd-dom. Skip down from this iconic picture of Rickey Henderson to that charming picture of Brody Jenner if none of this crap interests you.

 

Rickey Henderson was inducted into the Hall of Fame this week on his first try, and deservedly so. Rickey was one of those once-in-a-generation players that re-defined the role of leadoff hitter while transcending it, much like Beck does in music with each successive album he makes. That’s why it’s absolutely dumbfounding that 28 Hall of Fame voters didn’t see the all-time stolen base leader, all-time runs leader, and 2^nd all-time walks leader fit to go into the Hall. If they didn’t think his on-field antics were worthy enough, they should have at least voted for what should prove to be the most perversely entertaining Hall of Fame induction speech ever given.

Rickey’s Hall of Fame speech will likely re-define comedy as we know it. July 26 can’t come fast enough for Rickey to unleash on the world an incredibly self-aggrandizing-yet-endearing homily delivered entirely in the 3rd person. The world waits with baited breath. In the meantime, Jim Caple takes a shot at what this will sound like and gets pretty damn close in our estimation.

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We know that a couple of years ago everyone was pulling for Ryan Howard of the Phillies to break Barry Bonds’ single season homerun record because, well, Ryan Howard seems like a nice guy and Barry Bonds is a complete turd. Now it seems Howard isn’t all that different from Bonds given his ridiculous arbitration demands. Last year he won a record $10,000,000 against the Phillies, the largest amount ever received by a player with less than 3 years experience.

This year he’s looking for something in the $15 – 17 million range and has assured the Phillies they have no chance to sign him outside of arbitration because brotha’ gotta get paid! In his father’s words, Howard is an “unprecedented player who should collect unprecedented paychecks.” The only thing unprecedented about Ryan Howard is the level of arrogance coming from a guy who hit .251 last year. True, he led the league in homeruns and in RBIs, but he managed 19 errors for a fielding percentage below .990 (shitty for a 1st baseman), an OBP of less than .350 and struck out 199 times (2nd most all time tied with himself from 2007!).

This strikes us as resembling a 2006 or 2007 Adam Dunn who gets on base less rather than “unprecedented player.” True, he had way more RBIs than Dunn, but we suspect Dunn would have had a shitload more in his seasons if he’d had the likes of Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino, Pat Burrell and other members of the World Champions in front of him as opposed to Edwin Encarnacion, Felipe Lopez, Brandon Phillips and washed-up Ken Griffey, Jr. RBIs are a product of the guys who get on in front of you, nothing more.

The point here is Ryan Howard thinks very highly of himself. And despite the numbers suggesting he’s not the second coming of baseball Jesus as his dad would have you believe, but rather another lunk who can hit the ball over the fence and not much else like the miserable Adam Dunn and the shockingly one-dimensional Jack Cust, Howard thinks he should earn a king’s ransom nevertheless. We think he’s an arrogant prick and hope he loses his arbitration case on the way to breaking the single season strikeout record while losing his power Bobby Abreu post-HR derby style.

“Unprecedented…” God, go fuck yourself, Ryan Howard.

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We’d rather repeatedly shove a sharp stick in our eye than ever watch a show called “Bromance” about “men” who aspire to be some vapid douche bag’s best friend by competing in a series of vaguely homoerotic challenges with other “men.” But that doesn’t mean we can’t laugh at clips of the show provided by some other masochist who’s actually watched these morons embarrassing their gender in ways never thought possible. Join me in the mockery of absurdly self-involved young people aspiring to embarrassing mediocrity!

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What’s that you say? More mockery? You want to make fun of more people? Well, alright then! We got you covered! How’s about we take a look at a couple who got married at Taco Bell. Since we don’t live in the world created by the feature film Demolition Man, we’re not sure why anyone would be compelled to marry at Taco Bell. True, the food would be guaranteed mad delicious, but aside from that, nothing about this makes any sense. The real kicker is that these folks got married in Normal, IL. We wanted to make a joke about how it’s only fitting that such an irregular wedding happened in a town called “Normal” but couldn’t given the way the country seems to tend trashier each day. Whatever. Here’s hoping everyone who attended this gala affair at least stole a shitload of Fire Sauce packets because they don’t sell that shit in stores, yo. And Fire Sauce is what turns a homemade quesadilla from “Hey, not bad” to “Holy shit, let’s go fuck!”

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Say there, Cru Jones Society reader… Are you interested in keeping warm while looking like a Sith Lord at the same time? Who isn’t?! Thankfully Snuggies have your personal coldness/evil Jedi needs covered in one ridiculous looking garment! It’s only $19.95 and you’re guaranteed to be able to choke a bitch from across the room within 2 months of wearing it!

*Ability to choke a bitch not guaranteed by Snuggies.com.

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This week’s CJS Required Reading comes from the man that ESPN: The Magazine called “smarmy and punchable.” Ken Jennings absolutely obliterated every Jeopardy! record there was and became the man (outside of Mike Krzyzewski) everyone wanted to see lose while he went on his obscene winning streak racking up over $2 million.

Ken has turned out to be a pretty decent guy, and although this posting on his blog is 10 months old, it’s still one of the most fascinating things I have ever read. If you’re a fan of Jeopardy! on any level, you’ll love his interview with a former clue writer about how clues are selected, how games get constructed, and what it’s like to work with Alex Trebek. Jeopardy! is one of the great unknowns in this world of constant coverage, so getting to peek inside is like getting to watch The Vatican pick a new pope. Absolutely mesmerizing stuff here.

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From the erudite to the idiotic… the FCC is at it again, this time doing their best to shield us from the unrelenting horror of Darren Aronofsky’s middle finger. Apparently 18 people wrote to the FCC complaining about Aronofsky sardonically flipping off Mickey Rourke at the Golden Globes while Rourke made his acceptance speech for Best Actor. The FCC is thinking of fining NBC for Aronofsky’s behavior. As “The Hater” says (the section in the AV Club we linked to), we’re glad 18 uptight people can set decency standards for the whole country. We think that shows we’re headed in the right direction. Definitely.

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This is what the Army is, right? It’s like playing video games where we shoot a bunch of polygons in a strip mall, isn’t it?

Well yeah, sort of. That, except it’s real guns, the terrorists don’t give a fuck, and you’ll be so bored you’ll find creative places to take a shit to amuse yourself during the down times before you come back and we cut your benefits. But yeah, basically the same.

Oh, awesome. Sign me up!

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Ahh yes, the World Series of Beer Pong [sic]. Hart and I had tentative plans to participate in the 2^nd Annual Tournament held in Mesquite, NV in 2007, but I ended up with a real job that I hated while Hart was still relatively broke working screwy hours in retail. Back then things were much more low-key as the tournament was held in a shithole warehouse with shitty no-name beer in a miserable skidmark of a Nevada town.

Now it’s grown to host more than 400 teams, has a $50,000 grand prize, takes place at the Flamingo, has Pabst Blue Ribbon as its beer sponsor, and is earning coverage from USA Today and ESPN. Rick Reilly puts on his best bemused old guy detachment face to cover this tournament and does a semi-charming job of doing so.  Thanks to Hart, Lady E, and CJS Regular Gutter for sending this my way.

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No good at Beirut (or beer pong if you’re a Neanderthal)? Well, there are other, and most certainly better, ways to make money. Take a look at this list of sports team owners and see for yourself. Just think, if you invent the next Amway or engineer staffing firm like you’ve been planning, you too could own your very own sports team!

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The Cru Jones Society loves the history of comedy. In fact, and here’s the answer to a future trivia question, CJS was founded after a semi-drunken phone call between Hart and Dagger after watching the same SNL retrospective and an hour of discussing comedy theory, technique, and history. The decision was then made to found a humor website with fellow comedy nerd Limon after he had recently moved to the desert. Several months later, Cru Jones Society was born.

That’s why the ongoing special “Make ‘Em Laugh” on PBS is so fantastic, and so important to us. Our list of comedy heroes is long and includes everyone from Burns & Allen to Andy Kaufman to Patton Oswalt to many more too numerous to count. We love the art of comedy, and anyone who offers a thoughtful retrospective of it is cool in our book.

You can’t encapsulate the history of comedy in seven and a half minutes, but Richard Zoglin of Time.com certainly does his damnedest. Listen to his audio re-telling of the history of stand-up accompanied by a beautiful slide show, and I guarantee you’ll leave with a smile on your face. Ken Jennings is this week’s required reading, but this presentation is this week’s required listening.

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And finally, your lesson for the week is provided by CJS Regular CassieB. Take these words to heart, everyone. This is good advice.

Have an awesome weekend, awesome bitches.

edagger@crujonessociety.com