Cru Jones Society

 

With Thanksgiving, and more importantly Food Sex or Cars returning, next week, we have a lot to cover in our last feature article before the shenanigans commence. So, in this edition we’ve got video goodness featuring Zach Galifianakis, some hilariously bad singing, more about Shit My Dad Says, and sports sports sports! Gobble, gobble, bitches! It’s Friday!

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First things first, Food Sex or Cars, baby! In place of our regular posts, next week the Cru Jones Society returns last year’s popular game of deciding which disgusting appetite you want to indulge most (or which is the least worst) for the sake of fabulous prizes and good time banter on your favorite time wasting website. Check out yesterday’s explanation for the fundamentals of the game, the rules, and the prizes. We hope everyone participates because last year was so much fun, and this year there are better prizes at stake. Happy Thanksgiving!

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Food Sex or Cars does not mean, however, that you’re off the hook for the Monday Confessional, so better to answer now before we all forget. This won’t run on Monday the 23^rd, but will show up when we return on November 30^th. This week we want to know: What is the most played CD in your collection and your most watched DVD? These aren’t necessarily the best ones you own, or even your favorites, but the ones that seem to navigate the path between the shelf and your player most frequently. This isn’t my answer, but for whatever reason I can watch Just One of the Guys time after time after time and not get bored of it. I think it’s Billy Jacoby’s hilarious portrayal of a horny teenager that keeps me coming back again and again. What’s yours? Send ‘em to staff@crujonessociety.com

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The Denver Tweetup was last night and for those of you who didn’t go, you missed out, man. Cru Jones Society was one of the co-sponsors of the event and we met a lot of cool people. The Redhead was just as lovely in person as she’s been on the Interwebs, the Rackhouse is a cool place to hang out, and our new friend @Dustinvan won the first ever CJS t-shirt given away. Congratulations, Dustin! Enjoy the iTunes gift card and the shirt. Hope it fits.

Also, thanks to the Westword for linking to us in their Tweetup article yesterday. We appreciate the love, guys! And on a quasi-related note, a belated thanks for keeping us up to date on all the punk rock shows while we were in high school. In the 1990s we didn’t so much have the Internet, so the Westword was the f*cking bible to find out when your favorite band was coming to town and where. And although it still kicks copious amounts of ass and we read it regularly, nothing compares to the love we have for the Westword from high school. Thanks and thanks!

We also played trivia, and while we gave it the old college try… geez, man! We’re rusty as hell. Rusty Griswold level rusty. Rusty the farting horse from “Seinfeld” rusty. Rusty Trombone rusty. And that’s just plain gross. Out of 28 teams, we ultimately ended up 4th (just out of the prizes – gar!), although we hovered around 8th for most of the night. With a little fine tuning, we could have given the (admittedly very tough) winning team a run for their money. Alas, there’s always next time.

We hope to meet/see more of you at the next Denver Tweetup, so follow us on Twitter and stay up to date on all the happenings. Thanks to The Redhead, Toywithme.com (NSFW), Rackhouse Pub, Geeks Who Drink, and Stranahan’s Whiskey for all their fine work putting on this soiree last night.

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Not to give too much away about future CJS features, but everyone seems to be doing “Best of the Decade” lists. One of CJS’s favorite sites is The Onion offshoot, The AV Club where pretentious pomposity only occasionally gets in the way of enjoying well-written cultural and media criticism. Their “Best Television of the Decade” feature last week was enjoyable, but we continue not to understand everyone needing to ravenously fellate Joss Whedon for making a string of low-rated and ultimately cancelled shows. His fanbase reminds us of Kevin Smith’s fanbase in that no matter how mediocre something he makes truly is, there’s an extremely vocal minority out there to defend it to the death. That’s annoying, but it’s got nothing on music snobs.

We have a special ball of hate deep in the pit of our colon reserved for music snobs. Of all the conversations you could ever have with any type of person, here are the three most unpleasant: 3) Talking to IRS agent about how you’re getting audited for the last 5 years; 2) Listening to some shrimpy dickhead pontificate about why a band you like actually sucks, and how there are 7 quasi-similar underground bands you should be listening to instead; 1) Lying on a table covered in shrink wrap shortly before Dexter starts chopping you up. Those are the three. So needless to say, we weren’t too excited about The AV Club’s music countdown.

But, they did offer their thoughts on the best comedy albums of the decade. Considering we unabashedly love at least 13 out of the 22 comedians they feature in this piece and own (or owned at one point in our lives - damn drunken college and losing sh*t all the time) nine of these albums, needless to say we loved this piece. If you’re making a long drive anytime in the near future, here’s a good list to reference as you build a playlist to pass the time in states where the dominant features are corn, wind, and an occasional “Porn destroys lives” billboard. Thank us later.

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To the shock of absolutely no one, one of the comedians listed above was Zach Galifianakis. If you’ve seen The Hangover, you know that he steals the whole goddamn movie. Well, now thanks to CJS Regular Twodogszk, he can steal your whole goddamn afternoon too.

Exclusive on Funny or Die is his interview series “Between Two Ferns.” I watched this in my office and laughed so hard at his interviews with Bradley Cooper, Jon Hamm, and Charlize Theron, I made the cardinal mistake of drawing too much attention to myself. I drew the interest of the next office over, and then I had to justify why I hadn’t edited his proposal yet. No good. So, before you dive into these, dig out that ball gag from your second drawer, pop it in place, and prepare to laugh to your ass off. These are funny!

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As most of you know, at least those of you not reading us from some remote outpost like Siberia or Mars or rural Baptist Kansas, Twilight: New Moon opens today. I’d make fun of this movie and the phenomenon described here of women in their 30s and 40s getting all geeked out over this and swooning over a fictional character who looks 17, but is well over 100 and wants nothing more than to murder you, but my wife went to a midnight screening with a bunch of other chicks from her work who are also in the neighborhood of 30 and happily married last night.

I don’t pretend to understand this Twilight madness, but then I didn’t understand the need to interject yourself into the Michael Jackson circle jerk of sorrow, the boy band lunacy of 10 years ago, or the appeal of Facebook either. People love to obsess over weird stuff, and this dead-eyed porcelain limey is just the latest flavor of the week. Life is short (Not if you’re a vampire (Shut up!) You shut up!), so I say, enjoy the living hell out of this Twilight craze. Although, the only way I’d be interested in watching any of these Twilight movies is if it ended like this.

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Speaking of things we don’t understand – CJS Regular Flickerbock.

Nah, we’re just kidding. But for the want of a segue, he’ll do just fine. He sent us a link this week that he thought should be passed on, and he’s absolutely right. In an email titled “This will make your brain hurt” he enclosed a link for Not Very Talented where hapless aspiring musicians get skewered for your amusement on the Interwebs.

The first rule in starting a band is, “Don’t suck.” When so many people ignore what should be the most basic premise at the beginning of any endeavor, ridicule is not only warranted, but in the age of democratized distribution, entirely necessary to keep society from collapsing upon itself. So do good work, and mock these poor saps with everything you’ve got. We hate Flickerbock a little for sending us this because we can’t get that god-awful rendition of ridiculous song “Final Countdown” out of our damn heads. God damn you.

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As if you needed any more reason to jump on Twitter besides following us, now apparently this is how America will determine television.

A few weeks ago, we linked to hilarious Twitter account Shitmydadsays where out-of-work Maxim editor Justin Halpern publishes the musings of his curmudgeonly old father. The account is so popular, and the Tweets so uniquely and crudely amusing, Mr. Halpern has parlayed this into a book deal and a television development deal with CBS. As aspiring writers ourselves, we wish Justin all the luck in the world and hope this takes off for him. The Cru Jones Society appreciates his perspective on the opportunity:

“I’m the luckiest motherf*cker in the world … I often think if it wasn’t me in this situation, I would probably hate me. ‘What, they gave this asshole a TV show from 70 tweets?’ The best I can hope for is to write a really good show so people don’t feel this opportunity was wasted on some dipsh*t.”

Well said, sir. Good luck!

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In other “some dipsh*t” news, take a gander at this video where some bouncy codpiece jumps, flips, and goes deliciously shirtless all over the place while occasionally throwing silly-looking kicks in the air. Be careful, this dude is so fluid, and the techno music in the background so intoxicating, you’ll zone out for its three and a half minutes and be susceptible to pickpockets or teenaged hooligans or whatever criminal element hangs out in your office. How does someone have hops like that?

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Colorado Rockies Manager Jim Tracy was awarded National League Manager of the Year on Wednesday in a landslide. Coincidentally, that sentence wins the award for most capitalized words in a single sentence that actually makes sense on the Cru Jones Society. Congratulations on both counts!

CJS is pleased that Tracy won as he made our formerly wretched team not only bearable to watch, but damned fun as well. So we were even more pleased when the Rockies awarded him a new 3-year contract extension. We enjoyed watching Clint Hurdle deal with the media, but it’s clear the players had tuned him out. Tracy’s deft touch was exactly what the team needed, and here’s hoping he leads them all the way to the promised land next year. Baseball!

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Out of sheer schadenfraude, after hearing Jay Cutler threw 5 interceptions last weekend in a dismal 10-6 Bears loss to the 49ers, I wanted to see what the Chicago sportswriters were saying about our old pal Jay.

“The Bears have five losses. In three of them, against the Packers, Falcons and 49ers, Cutler’s decision-making in the clutch has been the biggest factor.”

“But like so many who play the position, Cutler’s biggest strength also can be his biggest weakness. He sees no window too tiny to squeeze the ball through, no defensive back quick enough to break on one of his spirals in time to pick it off. Too often Cutler’s head writes checks his arm can’t cash.”

“Is Cutler’s real confidence problem that he has too much?”

“‘I couldn’t believe he was going to throw the ball because I was in prime position to make the play,’ Roman said. A telling comment, even if anything an opponent says of Cutler will go in one earhole and out the other. You wonder if the same thing goes for offensive coordinator Ron Turner and quarterbacks coach Pep Hamilton.”

“Can Cutler be coached the way a quarterback leading the NFL in interceptions needs to be coached?”

Congratulations on inking this twit to a multi-year extension, Chicago. Enjoy hating football for the next five years.

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While gleefully dwelling in the misery of the Chicago sports fan that is no longer my own (save for the perpetual plight of the godforsaken Cubs), I came across this article about a potential Manny Pacquiao VS Floyd Mayweather superfight that may or may not happen because outside of lawyers and possibly Korean grocers, boxers are the greediest parasites on the planet.

Thankfully, reigning deity of combat sports journalism Kevin Iole has a rosier take on the situation and remains optimistic that this fight will happen. We certainly hope so, and we’d even order a fight between those two guys. The last fight we ever saw live on PPV was Holyfield/Lewis I in ’99 that ended in a buttreaming draw. Sitting through 12 rounds of two big black guys hugging each other only to have the fight end in a draw is a giant kick in the nuts and will sour you real good on ordering another fight. But Pacquiao/Mayweather is way too intriguing to pass up. We hope it happens!

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Shifting gears entirely, here are five things you probably didn’t know about Bob Ross. Even reading about the man has a calming influence. He’s like a living Quaalude.

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A while back, Hart wrote about our Field Trip to the Boulder breweries as part of his and Keithage’s quest to hit all of Colorado’s 118 microbreweries and brewpubs. Ever wonder how Colorado became the state with the second most brewpubs in the nation (California has 333 – lousy avocado eaters!)? Here’s a brief history of beer in Colorado written by the Denver Post’s Tom Noel. Sidenote to this article: Do you think name Adolph will ever make a comeback or is it just ruined for good?

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With interesting beer-soaked knowledge in your back pocket, dreams of Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather mixing it up before we all die, and your phat new interviewing style fresh in your head thanks to “Between Two Ferns” you’re ready for Thanksgiving. Here’s one final push to get you there:

Eh, or maybe not. Enjoy the holiday. We’ll see you for Food Sex or Cars!

edagger@crujonessociety.com