Cru Jones Society

 

I don’t care if Monday’s blue. Tuesday’s grey and Wednesday too. Thursday I don’t care about you. It’s Friday, I’m in love. Another week done, another Friday upon us. And what’s not to love? Here comes the weekend, and we’ve got a collection of goodness to bid your work week adieu in proper fashion. So come on in, and wash away the pre-Friday blues with our fine-cured Internet refreshment.

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Our Monday Confessional question this week is fairly straight ahead. If a spaceship landed on earth offering you eternal life and the opportunity to explore the vast universe, but you have to forsake Earth and all its pleasures presumably forever, would you get on and why? We suspect a few of you are a bit leery of us predicating this question upon the final scene from a movie which features geriatric copulation and Wilford Brimley in short shorts, but don’t hesitate. We want to hear from you!

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Hey, speaking of both 80s movies and Cru Jones-related news, I recently recorded a podcast over at Natsukashi where we discuss the 1985 gender-bending classic Just One of the Guys. It was Rob, the host of each podcast, Stu Charno who played Howard “Reptile” Sherpico, and yours truly re-visiting the movie and having a great time with it. Stu’s a bit of an offbeat character, so he played us some songs, read us some haiku, and told some funny stories about the flick. The podcasts are always enormously entertaining and Rob tells me this one will be no different. This week it’s Vision Quest, next week E Dagger’s there. If you love movies, and Natsukashi isn’t in your bookmarks already, you clearly have a learning disability. Get your ass to a Sylvan Learning Center pronto.  

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Also, get ya ass to Mars. Get ya ass to Mars. Get ya ass to Mars.

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UFC 97 was last weekend, and we’re certainly happy we didn’t waste our time with it. As if watching washed-up Chuck Liddell get knocked out by an over-the-hill Shogun Rua in the first round wasn’t bad enough, those in attendance were privileged enough to see Anderson Silva put on another diarrhea-tastic performance against another god awful opponent. This time Thales Leites flopped around for five rounds trying not to get hit by a powerful Silva. But Silva’s not entirely without blame as it’s on him to press the action, and this is the second fight where he’s complacently pranced around the ring waiting to counterpunch against a clearly inferior opponent.

Neither Dana White nor Kevin Iole take it easy on Silva, and once again I feel privileged that one of my favorite sports is covered by such an absolute pro. Great column as always from Iole.

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One of our favorite spots for comedy is the always-reliable Cracked.com. This was a particularly strong week in Cracked content, but we’ve chosen two that we believe stand head and shoulders above the rest. First, if you’ve ever longed to take over the world as a supervillain, you’ll obviously need a cool flop house for when you’re done holding the world hostage and just want to kick it with a bong, a bag of Funyuns, and an Aqua Teen DVD (terrorizing humanity is exhausting, afterall). Luckily for you, there are at least 6 real world supervillain lairs already in existence.

But how does one become a supervillain, pray tell? Why, maybe you should read this article on 5 scientific ways to make water do magic, and go from there. So whether you’re Mr. Wizard, Aquaman, whatever the hell Kevin Costner’s character was named in Waterworld, or Moses, you’ve now got a few more water tricks up your sleeve as you carve a path toward world domination. Or early death. Whatever.

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Another great source for Internet comedy, CollegeHumor.com has been bringing the goods since, well, we were in college. And even though their TV show blew a dead bear, they still churn out some good web videos. The latest gem is “We Didn’t Start the Flame War” set to that dumbass Billy Joel tune. This is exquisitely constructed, structurally brilliant, and entertaining as hell.

Also, Senor Limon crawled in from the desert and wanted you all to know he’s in love with the dancing t-shirt model chick. He sent her a pair of his boxers and we have yet to receive word on the status of that transaction or any resulting action. Stay tuned to CJS for further updates.

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Good satire is comedy that speaks truth to power. Although it’s a tiny, sad ass, pathetic corner of the world that Internet trolls have power, a very vocal minority can destroy an online community like super-virus Motaba ripping through Cedar Creek, CA. That’s what makes the video above so good, and it’s the reason Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are so popular.

In an era where politicians and others in power are groomed, prepped, and taught to “stay on message” until they’re essentially programmed like a 2^nd rate robot from that crappy Stepford Wives remake, and our media is reduced to strident bombast like Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann, where do we turn to speak truth to power? Like many of us, Mark Moe turns to Comedy Central. This is a well-written essay, and while I don’t always agree with Colbert or Stewart, I’m happy they’re there because I know those two motherfuckers are fearless and will say anything to anyone. We need more people like that.

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And if you’re wondering why traditional newspapers can’t fulfill this role, I offer this example from the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. It’s about steam engines and contains the following passage: “Once Mac took his 3-year-old grandson for a ride on one of the big steam engines. He let the little boy touch the throttle lever. The little boy, now over 30, tells people that he drove a steam engine.” This author isn’t the oldest person on earth, but if accused of being so in a court of law, I’d submit the article linked above as my Exhibit A. Only someone roughly 130 years old could write that with a straight face. I read this article in amazement not because I find steam engines at all interesting, but because I had just read 600 words about fucking steam engines in a semi-major daily newspaper in the year 2009. Unreal.

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Hey, are you a Canadian who expatriated to a place that ain’t so fucking cold and riddled with people who speak French? Did you gain citizenship in a country with an inferior national anthem? Guess what, once a Canadian, always a Canadian apparently! Reading this article was funny because while the country directly north of us is desperate to hang on to its citizens, the country directly south of us can’t wait for their people to flee to the United States in order to send money back home to keep the economy afloat. America is the meat in the fucked up North American sandwich.

Because Happy Friday wouldn’t be the same without some awesome drinking stories (be they here or out on a patio somewhere), we’ll go ahead and cover that for you right now. Although chances are excellent your stories are no match for the awesome magnitude of the tales contained within. But keep practicing. With enough booze, enough time, and the right people around you, maybe you too can be immortalized on the intertubes forever for your drunken accomplishments. Or you’ll be dead from cirrhosis and immortalized on the obituary page of your local newspaper next to the Sudoku. Either way, it’s worth a shot.

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So let’s say you do get immortalized on the interweb, and you’re Googling yourself for the 12^th time that day. All of the sudden your computer craps the bed and you’re left there wondering if anyone else wrote on your Facebook wall. You need to know who else LOL’d at your hilarious picture. So you call up tech support, and if you’re blessed enough not to be re-routed to India where the guy who answers the phone claims his name is “Steve,” you’re talking to someone who sounds about as interested as in your problem as your cat is about the US trade deficit and you end up on the phone for 45 agonizing minutes trying to explain to the monkey on the other end that you already re-booted the modem and that your power switch is on. You’ve entered your own Pissface Mode, and even though you previously thought it unfathomable, based on this call alone, you’re considering taking up smoking.

Ever wonder why this process sucks so bad? Wonder no longer as Ian Fortey gives you a behind-the-scenes tour of what it’s like to work on the other end of tech support hell. And after reading it, being the customer doesn’t seem so bad.

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Two of our favorite people are Adam Carolla and Dicky Barrett (lead singer of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones). So you know when they’re talking together, we’re all over it. Carolla has a tendency to get sidetracked (which you already know if you’ve ever listened to him), but Dicky’s story of climbing the music ranks is fascinating nevertheless. These guys are obviously friends, so the hour or so this interview lasts breezes right by.

This is also a good time to mention that the Adam Carolla podcast is the best recipe for curing boredom at work. He does one every day, it’s totally free, and he always has interesting people on. Check it out at http://www.adamcarolla.com/.

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Lady E and I sent out the Save the Date magnets for our wedding a few weeks ago, and everyone seems to like it. And why not? It’s unobtrusive, it’s fairly elegant, and it goes right up on the refrigerator holding those upcoming concert tickets or Bed Bath & Beyond coupons like the helpful little helper it is. A job well done by all accounts.

I just wish I were as twistedly brilliant as these folks. CJS Regular Ferris sent me this, and I’m jealous as all hell that I didn’t think of this first, or at the very least, didn’t see this until after we’d done ours and sent them out. I’ve always wanted a video like this featuring myself, and these guys created their own brilliantly. I gotta get my brain in gear.

Hey, remember “Quack quack, seat back?” Yeah, your pet doesn’t.

It doesn’t know shotgun, dibs, or “get the fuck away from my lunchmeat” either. So remember that as you go into the weekend.

Happy Friday, friends.

See you in the Confessional…

edagger@crujonessociety.com