Happy Friday #52: Billie Jean Edition

As you have probably heard by now, The King of Pop, Michael Jackson has passed away. The latter part of his life was marred with allegations, intense plastic surgery and less than ideal parenting and social norms. But Cru Jones Society will always remember him for providing a fantastic soundtrack to many of our Beirut nights. Every time I hear a song from Thriller I am taken back and all I can think about is the way all those great songs blared through my parent’s old hi-fi as we tossed a ball into beer. Michael Jackson’s music will always be associated with fun times to CJS. Tim Armstrong said, “Through music, we can live for ever,” so as long as we keep the records and videos playing, we will always have Michael Jackson around.

Ok, enough of this sad bastard crap. It’s Friday and we come with lots of links to brighten the day and prepare you to moonwalk all over this weekend. So sit back, crank some Jackson 5, and enjoy a little thing we call Happy Friday.

Our most forwarded news bit this week comes from the movie industry. By most forwarded we mean both Dagger and Hart submitted links about this. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science are expanding the Best Picture Oscar category from 5 films to 10 films. While this may increase the odds that you will have seen more of the nominees, really it will only increase the number of nominees you haven’t seen.

We are all pretty sure that even with the field expanding to 10 pictures, Transformers: Rise of The Fallen will not be nominated. The 2 and a half hour commercial for GM/Hasbro opened this week and while it raked in the dough, it didn’t win over many film critics. One of our favorite reviews comes from Roger Ebert, naturally. He rips the movie a new one and it is both funny and eloquent, as one might expect. Unfortunately not everyone reads Ebert, nor do they have sense enough to realize crap, and this movie will continue to earn more money than it deserves.

South Cack-a-lackey governor, Mark Sanford taught us this week how to be a hypocrite. Sanford admitted this week to having an extramarital affair, i.e. banging an Argentinean broad. Damn near a decade ago, Mr. Sanford blasted President Clinton for his extramarital affairs, i.e. receiving a blow job. People don’t forget Mr. Sanford, people don’t forget. Enjoy the rest of your career.

Quiz time. The interesting thing about this quiz is seeing what shows were popular over time. For instance, fifteen years ago the number four top rated show was Grace Under Fire. Do you remember that show? It was about a single mom trying to raise her children while having a southern accent. While it may not have been a good show, at least it wasn’t the reality crap that has been dominating. It really is fascinating to review this list and look at what is and was popular.

Boxing is trying to find a way to become popular again. They may be onto something here.

Yes we actually linked to icanhascheezburger.com. We realize this is a little gay, but hey we are all a little gay. Which brings us to our Monday Confessional Question. This will wrap up our Guilty Pleasure series, and with Pridefest coming up next weekend, there’s no better time to pose this question. So, in the spirit of tolerance, curiosity, and embarrassing yourself in front of an ever-growing internet audience. Here’s our Priderrific question: Who would you go gay for and why? Simple as that. Send your answers to staff@crujonessociety.com. Hart and Dagger may or may not have had this conversation in college with both guys choosing a celebrity named Jason. Weird times. With that hold up again? We’ll see next week.

In sports news we only slightly care about, USA beat Spain in soccer. We are not fans of soccer, but we are fans of USA Teams. This is also kind of a big deal because Spain hasn’t lost a game in three years. For this we will happily fire up the Duggan chant.

Golf is another sport we couldn’t care less about. But we do enjoy the writings of Rick Reilly, and once again he doesn’t disappoint, except for the whole covering golf thing.

In sports news we’re tired of hearing about, we found this piece that sums up how we have begun to feel about all the steroids talk in baseball. Sosa is the latest to be singled out as taking PEDs. Jim Caple isn’t surprised, and neither are we. Not only for the reason Caple mentions, but also because there was the corked bat incident a few years ago. Now apparently Sosa will pull no punches in order to win, except actually learn to be a good player, after all how many World Series has he won?

The ideas behind these lame giveaways sound like they were written by some hack stand-up comic from 1992. Hey-oh, let’s give the first 500 ladies a pink pot holder! What a gasser! Men should get a roadmap because they never ask for directions! Bazinga! Ugh… They find the worst fucking people to run minor league baseball.

When we see Wilford Brimley hocking diabeetus testing kits we are often saddened that he only fills our lives for such a brief moment. We often wish there was more of him. Lucky for us mentalfloss.com compiled this compilation of some of his finest work. What a talented, talented man.

Chris Hardwick hosts Web Soup, one of three new shows devoted to showing online videos on television. Since his show is by far the best of the three, CJS follows him on Twitter. So when he posted a link to this video, naturally we had to check it out. And now we are prepared as chemical engineers.

We’ll be the first to admit there is a lot of art we don’t “get.” We’re ok with that. As long as people are making art we’re thrilled. But every so often an artist like Erika Iris Simmons, aka Iri5, comes along and does something we can get on board with. Iri5’s artwork is below, and to get a sense of how awesome it is, here is the photo the work is emulating.

To paraphrase a song by Fear, “We love livin’ in the city,” in particular we love living in the city of Denver. And as such we love when the city receives an honor. Denver was recently named one of the most creative cities in the world. As a group embracing creativity, we are especially proud of this honor.

It is often easy to find lessons in coming of age movies or love stories, but how many lessons can we learn from action movies? According to this link, 10. Try to keep them in mind, and spot them all summer long during the blockbusters. And never doubt anyone who says John McClane, John Rambo, or Jason Bourne is there idol.

Remember in Friends when Ross complains about his first bachelor party being in the basement of a Pizza Hut and Chandler replies with, “I’m Ross. I’m too good for the Hut?” Apparently the writers of Friends were light years ahead as Pizza Hut is now dropping the “Pizza” from their title, and will be know exclusively as The Hut. Don’t worry; soon you can go to The Bell for tacos. But it won’t get awkward until Dairy Queen drops their food qualifier.

We will end this week with a happy ending.

In our mission to find a sure fire way into hell, we give you this week’s Demotivational Poster.