Cru Jones Society

Keep Austin Weird.

This is written in roughly 9 zillion places throughout the city of Austin. You see it graffiti’d on walls in alleys, on band flyers (which are everywhere), and on about every fourth t-shirt available for purchase in basically every store in the city.

And Austin is weird. Lady E and I landed on Friday afternoon, and there was a goddamn live band playing in one of the airport restaurants. And this was past security which means this is the airport’s house band and plays regularly, otherwise they wouldn’t be allowed on the concourse. What other airport has a house band  with a decent sized group of people attentively watching them? Austin (and maybe Portland, OR) is the only city where this type of behavior is possible. Weird.

Also, weird? That Lady E and I traveled 1,000 miles by plane to play in the country’s largest pub quiz and, SPOILER ALERT didn’t even have the decency to win $8,000 for our efforts. Just like we did last year, we bring you the story of Geek Bowl VI. Continue Reading »

I love being married. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. But I would never insult you by droning on for 2,000 schmaltzy words about new levels of real emotional intimacy and being part of something greater than yourself or anything like that even though all that shit’s true.

That’s not what you came here for. Ostensibly, you came here for amusement and/or to laugh. So, instead of reheating every crappy relationship article you’ve ever read and nauseating you with esoteric personal details about my life with Lady E, I’m going to share with you 5 Surprising Ways Marriage Improves Your Life. If you’re like 99% of guys everywhere, these are actual real things that happen after the big “I do.” And they shocked the hell out of me.

So here we go… Continue Reading »

Since Hart took his turn looking at his 2011 Predictions, I felt compelled to do the same in CJS BONUS WEEKEND CONTENT! Inside are my predictions, which you can also find right here, and a little roundup of how we did.

Let’s get to it! Continue Reading »

More than 4,500 nice words (or not, if you’re Gaddhafi, Bin Laden, or Al Davis) for 41 different entries await you in this year’s CJS Cavalcade of Death. Once again, not one of the people any of our Regulars or staff picked last year bit it, so we’re cancelling this year’s Ghoul Pool mostly because we all suck at it, but also because it makes us feel icky picking dead celebrities in public.

So, we’ll honor the dead the way we always do around here – by having Dagger write barely coherent thoughts about how he obliquely has some obscure memory about each of these fucking people. Strap in kids, we got a lot of dead folks to wade through. Continue Reading »

According to last week’s episode of “Modern Family,” Christmas occurs on December 16^th to accommodate everyone’s travel schedule. If this is true, not only is shopping season happening earlier and earlier, but Christmas itself continues to encroach upon the calendar too.

So far be it from me to deny the inevitability of the season. It’s important that I put my Christmas list out there for all the CJS Regulars to see. But you won’t find any Kindle Fires, Xbox 360s or copies of Rad on DVD on this list. This is E Dagger’s Impossible Christmas List. This is where I put all the stuff that no one could ever hope to obtain. If you find it, you’re my new best friend and possibly my new lover (Lady E says: Hands off, fuckers!). So, what’s on this list? You’re but a click away.

Happy holidays, bitch! Continue Reading »

The Thanksgiving Week Tradition of Foodin’ Sexin’ and, errrr, Carrin’ returns next week, and we are as pumped as ever for it. The scenarios are as brain bending as ever and the prizes are out of sight.

But that’s next week. Never ones to make you wait too long, we’ve got our regular Thursday feature to tide you over.

And what better way to prepare for your annual Thanksgiving food coma than talking about television? And this year when you hunker down for a nice post-gorge veg session, here’s some food for your thoughts. We’ve got three half-cooked television theories that have been rolling around in our heads for the past few weeks. So when you’re watching these shows in the coming weeks, maybe consider… Continue Reading »

Despite the calendar only showing the first two days of November with tick marks through them, Denver might as well already be in the throes of winter. Yippee.

This week saw our second snow storm and cold temperatures promise to remain. I’m clearly on the record as being a summer guy (crisp refreshing beers, patios, baseball), so whenever winter finally shoves it’s big ugly cold finger up everyone’s butt, I predictably turn into a big pile of blecchhh.

I’ll admit winter has its upsides: skiing, whiskey tastes better, a broad assortment of delicious soups to choose from (not to mention the return of chili season!), outdoor hot tubbing as the snow falls, sleeping better under the blankets, fewer people outside to bother you on your way to work, and more. But still, fuck cold weather, fuck winter, and fuck you if you like it.

Here are six reasons why winter blows a dead bear. Continue Reading »

The view from my office looks right at the State Capitol, so for the last couple of weeks I have gazed upon the vagrant tent city comprising “Occupy Denver.” I find the spirit of this movement somewhat ingratiating and their execution haphazard and mediocre at best. The night the police told them to disperse, I awoke the next morning amused and annoyed by the news report of the evening’s events.

White dudes with dreadlocks stood there yelling at police about how they have a constitutional right to protest their government and the police’s orders to disband were tantamount to tyranny. While it is legal and constitutionally protected to protest the government, it remains illegal to camp overnight in Denver city parks, which is what they were doing. The city has the right to enforce the law, and exercised that right. No one said they couldn’t protest, they just can’t break municipal ordinances. Yet, there was Dreadlocks McGee shouting at the police all blustery about tyranny.

Considering how many members of my generation participate in the “Occupy Wall Street/Denver/Kirk Herbsreit” movement, I’m reminded of how idealistic and driven we can be, but how that drive and determination can turn us into myopic jackasses. Continue Reading »

Every Wednesday between now and the end of baseball season (of 2009) the Cru Jones Society brings you a new baseball movie examined for both overall entertainment value and treatment of our favorite game. This is a special edition of that series. To suggest a film, email us at staff [at] crujonessociety.com. Otherwise, pour yourself an $8 beer, crack some shells, and let’s play ball.

 Date Released: September 23, 2011
Box Office Total (as of 10/2/2011): $38,469,000
Team Featured: Oakland Athletics

“It’s unbelievable what you don’t know about a game you play every day.”– Mickey Mantle, the opening quote in Moneyball.

It’s said that being creative is seeing the same thing as everybody else but thinking of something different. Inventors do this, business leaders do this, comedians do this, and in 2002, Billy Beane did this with baseball player evaluation. Moneyball tells the story of creativity in a classically stubborn and traditionalist sport. It’s less a story about baseball, and more a story of the challenge of innovation and reward of determination. Continue Reading »

London, Paris, Munich.

Lady E said to me several weeks back, “Thank God we’re going to Europe so we can hang out together,” after what’s been a particularly brutal summer at work filled with trips to Houston, Casper (Wyoming, bitch! Jealous?), and a bounty of after work events all about town. This was a much needed break, and the trip was so awesome it’d melt your face if I told you the whole tale.

That’s why you only get a handful of random musings about it, lest you suffer the face melting. So here we go. Continue Reading »

“What is ‘real’? How do you define ‘real’?” – Morpheus, The Matrix

No mainstream film of the last decade and a half dealt with the question of how to define reality better, or more extensively, than The Matrix. It took what we saw as fundamental truths about the world and created a universe that turned every last one of them upside down. It subjugated the world as we know it to a world of fantasy, created to nourish the human mind so that our future robot overlords (Who I, for one, welcome!), could continue to harvest us and lord over the world or whatever the fuck (this was the one part of the movie I was unclear on).

While the question of what is real is a fundamental question to humankind and one that has been wrestled with since the dawn of civilization, it’s not one that figures into day to day life for most of us. I probably think about it more than most because I work in a trade where perception is reality, but most of my engineer, geologist, and finance compatriots function in spaces where reality is generally drawn with clearer borders. That’s why it was with great interest (and a note of muted glee) that I was so happy to watch my professional world thrown into minor upheaval, and why I realized the documentary is simultaneously the most powerful and most dangerous form of entertainment today. Continue Reading »

It’s the music craze that sweeps the nation every August – Songs to Close Out Your Summer! Order it now for 3 easy installments of $19.95! You’ll get five discs of the “best” music from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and today! Order now, and we’ll throw in this handsome pancake flipper, which will be perfect for that one time a year when you get a bug up your ass to eat pancakes! Operators are standing by!

Or you can just start to bid adieu to patio time with these good jams that E Dagger compiles for his birthday every year. This year I turn 30, and everyone asks me if I’m dreading it like we live inside a sitcom or something. No, I don’t dread it, and why would I?

There’s nothing I can do about it, and more importantly, I’ll finally establish some additional instant professional credibility without having to do anything. That happened when I got married – I’m pretty sure the thinking is “If he was at least smart enough to convince some lady to commit to him, he’s not a total assweasel.” – and it’ll happen again when I turn 30. Being in your 20s and trying to advance in a professional environment is a lot like trying to get laid while having a visible cold sore on your lip; you can do it, but it’s going to take a shitload of legwork.

Anyway, let’s check out this year’s playlist. For reference, here are the playlists from 2009 and 2010 . Enjoy the warm weather while it lasts because winter is right around the corner. What’s hot, DJ Roomba?  Continue Reading »

This weekend my friends will make a movie. They don’t know what movie they will make, but they know they will start it Friday night at 7:00 pm, and they will turn it in by Sunday night at 7:00 pm. They can’t tell you what it will be about, where it will take place, or even what the main character’s name is. They can’t tell you about the film’s exciting moments or quippy one-liners. They can’t tell you what kind of movie it is.

My friends are not being coy or difficult. They can’t tell you about their movie because they don’t know anything about it either.

This is the 48 Hour Film Project. And while I will not be joining my friends in their quest for two day cinematic glory this year, I can tell you what it was like last year. Here is the Nebulus Visions / Cru Jones Society story of the 2010 48 Hour Film Project. Continue Reading »

As I watched the All-Star Game this year – way to go National League! – I found myself thinking about Casey Anthony. It’s not that Casey Anthony was a can’t-miss power hitting 3^rd baseman or anything (that would have been awesome), it’s because Tim McCarver and Joe Buck, who are both awful, kept talking about Derek Jeter.

McCarver thought Jeter “owed it to the fans” to show up, tip his cap, and make the celebration of his 3,000^th hit a national thing, not just a local one. That’s horseshit. And for several reasons. 1. We all have cable and/or the internet, so anyone who wanted to see it could already watch it in perpetuity over and over again. This is 2010, not 1962 when there were 3 channels and racism was still sort of okay. 2. When have ever had to do that before? I don’t remember having to drop what I was doing to continue to applaud Craig Biggio or Tony Gwynn. 3,000 hits is nice, and quite an accomplishment, but several SportsCenters in a row dissecting it is enough. 3. That means Jeter would have had to fly across the country, continue to get hounded by media, then fly back, and play Thursday. That’s not rest, that’s unnecessary PR hassle.

That didn’t stop McCarver from bitching about it, which led me to think about all the noise about Casey Anthony. People who shouldn’t even have an opinion about it were going on and on, and the dialogue was becoming less and less cogent.

In today’s feature, let’s look at three pressing issues (two national, one personal) and try to figure out what the fuck is going on. We’re squawking, but do we even know why? Maybe, maybe not. Continue Reading »

It’s Wednesday night as I write this and I have just returned home from a trip to Milwaukee and Chicago. I have been home for about two hours and I am happy to be here. Buttfor and Bumhug are pleased to see us. I am relaxing on my own couch after staying in two generally marginal hotel rooms. I am not subtly (or not so subtly, depending on the temperature) sweating on account of the semi-oppressive summer Midwestern humidity. When a vacation ends, I am almost universally happy when it does. The only thing better than going on vacation is coming home from one.

With that said, one thing I will miss greatly from this trip is the uncanny politeness of Midwesterners. For as friendly as Westerners are (and they are), they’ve got nothing on the generosity, pleasant demeanor, and goofy charm of our Scandinavian friends to the east and north. That’s why they’ll always be a CJS Thing We Love. Continue Reading »

That Charlie Sheen thing didn’t last long, did it?

From approximately early January (I can’t be certain of the exact begin date considering a search of the AV Club’s archives turns up 164 answers to the query “Charlie Sheen”) when the country learned of Charlie’s crazy substance abuse superpowers, his desire to create a porn family, the tiger blood, winning (duh!), and all the other seemingly unbelievable (read: Holy shit, this is actually happening in reality?!?) until about – what, May at some point? – when CBS announced Ashton Kutcher as Sheen’s replacement on “Two and a Half Men” we were all fully within the crazy Charlie Sheen vortex.

Think about the elements of this story for a moment. You’ve got the star of the #1 sitcom in the United States, hookers, cocaine, Twitter, the president of the #1 network in the United States, something called “vanity cards,” porn stars, an eager public, and professional publicity exploiter Dr. Drew all involved. It’s a huge fucking story, but lasts only 4 months.

Why? Our culture churns and burns this stuff at a clip thought previously unimaginable and turns the page like a meth addict reading a manual on how to smoke meth more efficiently. The Charlie Sheen thing left with barely a whisper about Ashton Kutcher as the new star of the nation’s #1 sitcom, and was promptly shown the door by the revelation that the most recent former Governor of California, not to mention star of no less than 7 movies that grossed over $100 million, banged his house maid, fathered her child that is the same age as one of his children whom he had with his wife, and is currently trying to make some sort of Terminator reboot. This event, it bears mentioning, is greeted with a mere shrug among the people I know despite it being abstractly the biggest political/celebrity scandal in over 10 years.

What’s the point of all this? Weirdness is dead. I am simultaneously shocked all the time, and yet surprised by nothing. Our culture has reached satiation point and there is nowhere left to go. Good luck. Continue Reading »

“I don’t know what it is about your face, (holds up fist), but I just wanna deliver one of these right to your suckhole.” – Rob Riggle as “Randy” in Step Brothers.

Watching the NBA Finals this year, and this is exactly how I feel about Chris Bosh. Something about his stupid face makes me just want to put my fist square in his grill and knock that obnoxious, manicured, boy band beard off his big ugly head. I don’t think there’s anything he can do to change my mind either. I will probably always want to punch Chris Bosh in the face.

I suppose he can take solace in knowing he’s not alone. So in honor of the day we all get to point and laugh at Lebron, Wade (looking like the only one with any sack of these three assholes) and Bosh choke away the Finals after turning the entire country against them, let’s take a look at E Dagger’s 5 Most Punchable Faces. Continue Reading »

“It isn’t enough for Bridesmaids to be a great comedy; it has to be a comedy that transcends the lady-movie ghetto, thereby becoming the thing to which all lady movies aspire. We don’t have the vocabulary to talk about what it is, so we elevate it into something it isn’t: a paradigm shift, a game-changer, whatever.” – Genevieve Koski , “Why Bridesmaids won’t save the ‘chick flick’ and shouldn’t have to,” AVClub.com

Lady E and I saw Bridesmaids this weekend and both laughed our asses off. Like most of Judd Apatow’s oeuvre, the movie has a laugh out loud quotient higher than almost anything else out there thanks to spirited and inventive profanity, humor driven from fully realized characters, and gross out gags that don’t hold back. Also like the rest of his work, the movie underlines a very sad protagonist that balances the comedy with understated poignancy. Real problems don’t have easy solutions, and the troubles faced by the characters in Bridesmaids don’t resolve easily either.

For as interesting a piece as Bridesmaids is, what I found more interesting was the dialogue Lady E and I had after the movie over giant mason jars of beer. I made the crack that we both should have been wearing our “This is what a feminist looks like” t-shirts while we chatted, but ultimately I came to realize something similar to what Ms. Koski argues above. I have very little distinction between male and female comedy anymore. Funny is funny. And that’s a good thing. Continue Reading »

When I was a kid, Randy’s Mother (aka Macho Mom) would always make sure that Randy would put aside tickets for when the WWF or WCW would come to Chicago. During a show in 1992 or 1993, me and my brother were actually granted the opportunity to go backstage. For the 6-year-old me, this was the most awesomest thing possible.

I don’t remember what happened during the show, but I do have a vague memory of what happened when I was able to go backstage. I’m not sure of what my expectations were of going backstage, but at that point in my life I was sure of 3 things: Wrestling was 100% real, there were Good Guys who were super heroes, and there were Bad Guys that were super villains.

We were met backstage by some WWF people who were leading us into the locker room area, and we were brought to Randy to say hello. There were a bunch of other wrestlers around, which was really cool but there was one problem: the good guys were hanging out and being cordial to the bad guys! Seeing good guys like Brett Hart sharing laughs with bad guys like Jake “The Snake” Roberts was almost traumatic to see; like seeing your Dad french kiss your aunt. It simply wasn’t supposed to happen.

I was sad, scared and confused. I gathered up the courage to ask why the Good Guys were friends with the Bad Guys. Randy said, “We’re not. We’re just tricking them. You’ll see.”

After this, a WWF rep was showing us some other areas of the backstage. I don’t remember what we saw, but I know when we circled back to the area where Randy was, all of the wrestlers I had seen before were back in character. Bad guys were yelling at Good Guys about how they were going to kick their butt and Good Guys were holding each other back from attacking the bad guys.

This. Was. Awesome. It IS real! Of course it is!

Randy didn’t know me too well, but he cared enough about a young fan and professional wrestling to keep the illusion and innocence alive.

While, as I said earlier, I cannot claim that we were particularly close, I do send my condolences to those in our family who were. He made a lot of people happy.

The above is not my story, but it’s my favorite tribute to “Macho Man” Randy Savage I’ve read over the last four days. It belongs to a gentleman named Adam, who was Randy Savage’s second cousin, and it was sent to Drew Magary of Deadspin who included it in his latest edition of the Funbag. 

“Macho Man” Randy Savage died Friday of a car crash in Tampa, Florida. This is my tribute to him. Continue Reading »

The genesis of this article came last Monday night. Lady E worked late. I breathed easily after a local news piece on my company that could have gone either way turned out largely positive. The Rockies sat 12-3 with the best record in all of baseball, and the buttfucking World Series Champion San Francisco Giants rolled into town for a little old school baseball bloodmatch. The team that had it against the hot team that wanted it. Fuck yeah! Baseball time!

Then Esmil Rogers promptly exploded and spotted five runs in the first inning to Tim Lincecum, giving up a 3-run homer to goddamn Pat Burrell who was hitting .190 at that point and one epic shot immediately thereafter to Nate Schierholtz who, despite being someone I have never fucking heard of, became the first one to put it in the right field upper deck this season. Christ…

This reminded me of just how much I hate the fucking Giants. Granted, I don’t hate them enough to beat one of their fans into a coma, but then I’m not a Los Angeles psychopath. I sporthate the Giants an appropriate amount. This led me to think about who else is at the peak of my sporthate. Continue Reading »