Friday Random 11 Punchlines

Too busy to ramble about tunes today, but I can't let the Clint Eastwood speech go unused like an 80-year-old's Viagra prescription, so I present:

Top 11 Things Clint Eastwood Said at the Republican National Convention

11) Does this empty chair make my ass look fat?

10) They were originally going to have me talk to a hard stool, but I already do that every morning in my bathroom. 

9) I'm here today to show you just how wrong you are about the stereotypical image of the Republican Party. 

7) When I told an ape to make a right turn thirty years ago, little did I know Republicans everywhere would listen. 

6) I was also a pioneer in the conservative treatment of women.

5) I like Mitt Romney because he reminds me of myself: a rich actor who is terrible at ad libbing. 

4) Plus, if anyone knows what to look for in a leader, it's a guy like me whose whole career revolved around playing psychotic outsiders with a violent disregard for authority. 

3)  In closing, I once asked a punk if he felt lucky while I pointed a .44 Magnum in his face. That is precisely the message the GOP wants to deliver to everyone thinking about voting for Obama. 

2) Finally, don't forget to check out my latest picture, Every Which Way But Lucid.

1) You know, chair, you're a much better actor than Sondra Locke. 

Top Ten Tuesdays: What are we learning about the real Mitt Romney?

Special extended "guy you would have a glass of Chateau Margaux 1787 with" edition!

15) New and improved empathy circuits now allow him to sense economic pain among the top 5% of all earners.

14) Became a Mormon for the tax-benefits of having multiple wives, only to find out bigamy was outlawed. Boy, was he steamed, but he eventually grew to love Ann.

13)  Is so committed to cutting spending that he will make every member of his administration run with scissors.

12) While governor of Massachusetts, showcased his sense of humor by beating Bill Belichick in a joke-telling contest. 

11) Is a huge fan of rap music outside of the lyrical content. 

10) Had his penis monogrammed. 

9) Relaxes by heading to the Caribbean, cracking open a Corona, and basking in the glow of his offshore accounts. 

8) When he says he buys American, he buys actual Americans.

7) Loves to call New Jersey Governor Chris Christie “Chris Crisco” while twisting his man-boobs until the governor says his name. 

6) Once nearly died after a three-day Ameritrade bender.

5)  Offered to give gay Republican delegates free haircuts.

4) His flatulence makes the sound of a cash register.

3) Can recite the ticker symbol of any company on the Dow Jones.

2) Provides a little "stimulus" in the bedroom by playing a game called “Just the 1%.”

1) Lost a $1 bet with John McCain after he didn't believe John McCain could turn a foreign-born, Middle-Eastern-dictator-named, coke-snorting, jump-shooting, Islamic-schooled, terrorist-fist-bumping Negro into the president of the United States.

Friday Random 11

It’s one more random than 10!

There are times when I just have to bow down to someone else’s genius, and that’s the case with this incredible takedown of Stars Earn Stripes by Steven Colbert.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
"Stars Earn Stripes" Reality Series
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

In five minutes, he takes down military propaganda, military action, celebrity culture, reality TV, and our indifference to all of the above.

Seriously, if we ever shook hands, I would have a serious Marcia Brady-Davy Jones moment.

Tunes:

1) “Eyes of a Stranger,” Queensryche. My cousin Youngblood went to see Coldplay last week. Voluntarily. In fact, after the concert, he posted a pic of the show with the update, “Time stopped for two hours.” I wanted to ask if that was because it felt like those two hours would last a hellish eternity while Satan put Viva la Vida on repeat. But I felt so embarrassed for him that I refrained from what could have been an ANWAR of undrilled comedy on Facebook (although I will definitely be using the team name Coldplay Is Magic in our fantasy football league). Yet my enjoyment of Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime album is pretty much the heavy metal version of Coldplay man love. Any time I try to explain why this is a great, underrated heavy metal album, I immediately feel like I would be more manly walking down the street in hot pants and gold body glitter to the tune of "Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall."

2) “Here Comes,” INXS. Speaking of underrated, I was way more into INXS when I was a teenager than I should have been. Not that they were not a good band, but I had talked myself into putting The Swing on a pedestal that seems a bit silly now (sample dialog: Kick is pretty good and all, but The Swing is way better. Note: I was not a convincing critic at the time). Songs like these two make me wish I had been blogging when I was a kid, because I would love to read kinds of pompous delusional proclamations I used to make, as opposed to the pompous dick-joke-infused proclamations I make now. SUPER BONUS: Video is from a performance at Magic Freaking Mountain in 1983. I love YouTube so much I think we should scrap the BC/AD thing in favor of a MEH/YT designation.

3) “Stand Up and Shout,” Dio. I love the concept of Dio much more than the execution. There’s a great clip of RJD discussing how hair bands ruined metal—which has merit—but there is no reference to say, excessive references to dragons and sorcery ruining metal. Because I would play anything by E’Nuff Z’Nuff long before I would play “Mystery.”

4) “You’re All That I Have,” Snow Patrol. So I bash Coldplay, yet this is one of those songs like The Goo Goo Dolls “Name” that I know is reheated MOR Cinnabon sauce, yet I find it irresistible. It’s times like these that make me question whether I actually have any taste in music, or if it’s just a random series of binary code that makes no distinction between great and schlock and makes me think things like, “Let's see what Ratt albums are on eMusic.”

5) “How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel,” Morrissey. The funniest song title in Morrissey’s catalog because he’s been telling us the answer in excruciating detail for 30 years. I can’t imagine he plays poker, because he would be the worst bluffer in the world.

Morrissey: Why did you fold your hand?

Me: Because you were singing a song called “The Boy With The Straight Flush In His Hand”

6) “In the Morning,” Built to Spill. I am failing as a parent in getting my child to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, in no small part because I refuse to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. Last night I conked out at 11:57 and thought it remarkable I was going to sleep early. Both of my ass cheeks can be dragging ten feet behind me at 10:30, and as soon as the reasonable suggestion maybe I should drag these glutes to bed, I find something to keep me up (Ooh, look, a Hard Knocks marathon!). Libs does the same thing, dragging out milk drinking, story reading, teeth brushing, potty pottying, to the point where getting her into bed early just means we’re going to have extended grabass. She’s doing what I’m doing, thinking there’s got to be something better than closing your eyes and seeing a whole lot of nothin’. The difference is that she bounds into our room at 7:15 like she’s just snorted a mirror full of pixie sticks, whereas I wonder if there is enough coffee in the universe to get my other eye open.

7) “Let It Be,” The Beatles. I feel like I am cheating on TLB with iTunes right now. Don’t get me wrong, I love my wife, but she doesn’t give up the Macca like you do.

8) “We Can’t Have Nice Things,” Kelly Hogan. This year’s album to have a contemplative glass of wine to. She has a great, soothing voice that wraps up catchy nuggets of sadness and regret in velvet.

9) “Don’t Do Me Like That,” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Last weekend was my main fantasy football draft—The League of my leagues, the one that is as serious and competitive as it is full of vulgarity and childishness. I was sitting near the liquor cabinet, so I was the designated shot pourer for the evening. After a manly opening of whiskey and cognac, the crew wanted to switch to Rumchata, which is sort of like a rum version of Bailey’s—creamy, sweet, and white. I started pouring a shot and, never one to miss a chance to score a cheap, crotch-level laugh, moved the bottom of the bottle over my crotch and used my hips to dispense the liquor, so to speak. This elicited a great round of laughs, which is like heroin to my sense of humor. I banged out a round of Rumchata shots, culminating in an extended “pour” that nearly reached the brim of my brother Tickle’s glass. “Look at that fucking shot,” he said. “Hey,” I replied, “Let an infertile guy dream.”

10) “Us vs Them,” LCD Soundsystem. I’m curious to see what the voter turnout is going to be this fall, because the gap between the rhetoric and the apathy feels enormous. You know it’s bad when the media has to play up the excitement of The Paul Ryan Experience, which is somewhere between an Objectivist book club and a plain cheese sandwich on the excitement meter. The only political sign on my block is a lone Romney sign that looks like it was stuck out after an embarrassing late-night chocolate milk binge. Thank God for Todd Akin livening things up.

11) “Rumour Has It,” Adele. Currently Libby’s favorite song. What’s not to love about a four-year old singing along with a fuck-you-and-the-skank-you-rode-in-on song? Looking forward to parent-teacher conferences when she really gets the verses down.

Have a good weekend, and a hearty "party on, Zombie" this weekend.

Congressional Officials Agree That Representative Todd Akin ‘Was Asking for It.’

Claims about misspeaking deemed incredulous in light of ‘flaunting naked conservativsm.’

WASHINGTON – Days after getting repeatedly pounded in public for stating that women could not get pregnant in cases of “legitimate rape,” Congressman Todd Akin (R-PE) claims he ‘misspoke’ with ‘poor phrasing,’ and that he was only trying to discuss anti-abortion laws, not paint women who become pregnant after sexual assaults as wanting it. However, in a rare show of bipartisan support, his Congressional colleagues are not only dismissing his defense, but saying Akin was “asking for it.”

“As a woman, I have excellent WHORDAR,” said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-UH). “You don’t go on television, whip out a pair of words like ‘legitimate rape,’ and then say, ‘Ooh, I was just trying to have a platonic pro-life dialog, I wasn’t trying to get everyone all hot and bothered.’ He was being a family values whore.”

Her colleague, Congressman Ed Perlmutter (D-‘CHA) of Denver, was more vociferous in condemning Akin’s behavior and intentions. “He was practically begging for us to give it to him,” the Congressman said, his eyes ablaze with excitement as he licked his lips. “You could give me 100 hours of audio from a closed CPAC session on erotic Ann Coulter fan fiction, with Jonah Goldberg as a moderator, and I wouldn’t find anything as politically provocative as this.” He wiped his brow and added, “Is it me or is it hot in here?”

Democrats were not the only ones saying Akin was on the prowl for a scandal. Perlmutter’s Republican opponent, beer magnate Joe Coors (R-DUI) concurred. “You can’t just guzzle down anti-abortion propaganda and expose your conservative bona fides on camera . You have to maintain control and attack  women’s rights responsibly.”

Republican Vice Presidential Candidate and noted budget rapist Paul Ryan also condemned Akin for his behavior by noting how he changed his own ways. “You know, Todd and I, we were pretty wild back in the day about sticking it to abortion advocates,” Ryan said. “We’d knock back a few cases of Beast, put ‘Testify’ on my boom box, and spend all night slipping ‘forcible rape’ into abortion legislation. But I called him and said, ‘Todd, bro, what were you thinking? You don’t say shit like that until after the election.’”

Media pundits were quick to pounce on Akin’s provocative comments as well. NBC’s David Gregory didn’t believe Akin’s defense of an innocently poor choice of words, commenting, “Akin knew exactly what he was doing. His mouth’s saying one thing while his policies say another. Your goddamned right he wanted to meet the press.”

Fox News host Sean Hannity went one step further. “Not only is Todd Akin not a victim, he’s the perpetrator. He’s the one who just screwed the Republican party without its consent.”

It’s unclear whether Akin will heed calls to withdraw from the election for the sake of the Republican party, but one former political candidate with extensive experience in blowing elections offered this advice. “Congressman Akin, I know how hard it is to admit defeat and accept the inevitable,” said former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. “But just lie back and think of Washington.”

Top Ten Tuesdays: How did we misspeak?

10) Referred to “those people” when we were discussing those people.

9) Didn't mean to label female orgasm as “the whore’s reward.”

8) When we referred to ourselves as “proponents of a theory that allows us to be immature, self-centered, uncaring asshats,” we meant to say ,“We’re big fans of Ayn Rand.”

7) Regretted adding, “Money money money! Cha-ching! I’m rich, bee-yoch!” when calling for the permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts.

6) Accidentally said, “We will turn the elderly into a delicious, nutritious paste” instead of “We need to find cost-effective ways to deal with Medicare and childhood obesity.”

5) Should have said we were “sticking up for the job creators” instead of “sticking it to the job seekers.”

4) Our comment about banks, “they’re going to put y’all back in chains,” neglected to mention that customers will be charged 5% or $50 per month for chain-wearing privileges unless maintaining a minimum balance of $5000 in checking.

3) Due to a find and replace error, our speech referred to “fisting” instead of “austerity.”

2) We forgot to preface our remarks, “Obama ordered the shootings in Aurora as a way to enact gun control,” with “Here’s how you can make Lars Ulrich seem likeable by comparison.”

1) When we said, “We, the American Taliban, value the right of splooge violently forced into your hoo-hah to create a living reminder of your hellish sexual brutalization more than your right to take a pill or have a doctor remove a clump of cells from your uterus, because if you really didn’t want to get pregnant, you wouldn’t be out walking around without a husband or with a job, you selfish, murderous, equality-loving slut,” we meant to say, “We’re the party of pro-life.”

Friday Random 11

Special Thunderstruck Edition!

I am back from a whirlwind of work and vacation and trying to settle back into ordinary life. I have that feeling where you stop running but still feel like you’re being tugged by leash. It’s been three days and I’m just starting to feel myself slip back to normality.

Vacation was fantastic, as it always is. We took our annual beach trip with The Lovely Becky’s family, and we had all the ingredients for a successful trip: beer, Canadians, sea, sand, fried food, grilled meat, and an older child who was delighted to herd the younger ones so that we only occasionally had to put down our drinks and act like parents. The men even grilled during a thunderstorm where we put up a tent over the grill to keep the coals dry, while holding the metal poles to keep it from blowing away as lightning flashed all around us. Put that in a fucking commercial, Budweiser.

I snapped a few photos that reminded me of the illustrious thunderpants, although not the same level of quality he delivers. The house we rent is on the ocean row, so we have easy access to the beach as well as a great view.

1) “Begin the Begin,” R.E.M. Before we got to this magical time of not working, there was much work to be done. My company sponsors a pretty big conference each year—we had 1500 attendees this time—and it just so happened that it was in Chicago right before I left for vacation. Now, there are worse things than spending a few days in The Loop, but as it’s our event, the conference is very exhausting because you are constantly on. For instance, let’s say (hypothetically) that you are in an elevator and feeling some ill effects from drinking too many beers the night before and especially the gas generating effects of said hops, malt, and yeast. You are alone in the elevator and you simply cannot wait, so you do what you have to do, figuring at least you’re only punishing yourself. Except right after the fog horn sounds, the elevator stops, and four attendees enter, see your name badge, and then narrow their eyes as they wrinkle their noses. You didn’t just commit a faux pas, you just lost a sale! Alec Baldwin definitely won't give you the good leads after something like that. 

2) “With a Little Help From My Friends,” Joe Cocker. Of course, I would not be employed by a company that was all work and no play, and my company knows how to let loose. In fact, I was asked by our events manager if I wanted to manage “the suite.” Due to the size of the event, we usually sell out our host hotel, so they throw in their presidential suites. We use these as our sanctuary where we can hang out, drink, and be our real selves, potential elevator consequences be damned. The downside is that whoever stays in the suite has company well into the night, but as our manager pointed out, “You’re usually one of the last ones there, so I figured you wouldn't care.” That logic was water-tight, so I gladly accepted this most important of responsibilities.

The suite was amazing. It was as big as the main floor of my house and had a view of Navy Pier—from the Jacuzzi tub! What has two thumbs and was going to enjoy that view while sucking down a few cans of Fat Tire? This guy! The first night wasn’t even too bad. People were still trickling in to the conference, so we had a modest group, had a few drinks, and everyone was out by 11. I let out a Sir Robin, “That’s easy!” and retired to bed with plans to enjoy my big soak the next night.

3) “I Can’t Quit You Baby,” Led Zeppelin. The second verse was not the same as the first. The first full day of the conference was very, very busy, which meant I was feeling even more in the mood for liquid refreshment than usual. I also wound up going out and having preliminary drinks with some friends who happened to be in town, so I showed up back at my palatial abode with my wheels already greased. I had given my key to someone earlier so he could unlock the suite, and as I rounded the corner of the hall, I could hear the unwinding quite clearly. The suite was full, many bottles were empty, and quite a few more fell to the wayside until the other side of midnight. No soaking for me and not a lot of sleep, but what’s a little fatigue to hang out with friends.

I forgot, however, that the night before the last day of the conference is always the FINAL night, because most people leave after the final session (myself included). So night number three carried on into the wee hours past 1:00 am…and I was scheduled to man our exhibit booth at 7:00 am. We also spent the evening taking pictures of people in my tub (clothed, sadly or gladly, depending on your point of view), and as the final guest departed, I decided against a late night Jacuzi blast because I was worried I would fall asleep beneath the bubbles. So for all the luxurious frippery of what will probably be the nicest room I will ever stay in, my use of the room extended to getting not enough sleep in the bed and cleaning up beer bottles at the end of the night. Yeah, I know, it’s white people problems, but I was genuinely bummed about the tub. I also volunteered to do it again next year.

4) “Skyway,” The Replacements. The best part of the week was being in downtown Chicago. I have made it abundantly clear how glad I am to be out of Frosty Beaver, Michigan, and back into a land full of traffic, corruption, and random crime. But I live in the burbs and have only had the occasional afternoon or evening jaunt into the city. Being able to stay downtown for a few days really let me soak the city in. Just walking around to and from dinner was so invigorating. I really hope civilization doesn't collapse in my lifetime because I quite dig it.

5) “Two of Us,” The Beatles. TLB is a notorious Beatles agnostic—not a hater exactly, but she doesn't believe in them. I love her despite this, the way she loves me for enjoying screeched-out prog-rock missives about trees unionizing in a forest. We had this conversation recently.

TLB: I heard “Let It Be” today, and I think I figured out why I don’t like the Beatles. It’s because they don’t do enough of anything for me. They’re not rocking enough, not folk enough, not arty enough…they try all those things but don’t take them as far enough to be interesting to me.

ME: (pause) It’s amazing, but my ears completely closed up after “…I don’t like The Beatles.” You had this reaction after hearing "Let It Be?" Like, one of the greatest, most moving songs in recorded history?

TLB: Yes. (shrungs)

ME: Let's not speak of this again.

6) “Turk,” High on Fire. METAL! The cover of this album features a guy who is either a skeleton or wearing a skeleton mask and also carrying a bag of skulls. The guy next to him is wielding a glaive, which I recognize because I learned about medieval polearms from playing D&D. It is easily my favorite album cover of the last 10 years. Yes, I am 41 and not a virgin.

7) “Burn After Writing,” The Menzingers. TLB and Libby flew out for vacation a little early this year, which I couldn't do because of work. Instead, I drove out to meet them after I was done. I had two days by myself in the car, and I don’t think I have ever driven that far by myself before. It was also two days with my iPod and no demands from my daughter to play all “girl singers” or hearing “I HATE RUSH” from both of the ladies in my life. So I enjoyed this bit of punk pop that has a splash of emo at high volume without hearing complaints from the booster seat or someone psychoanalyzing my enjoyment of high school pop punk as a symptom of Peter Pan complex. I’M CRYING BECAUSE SHE LEFT HIM BEFORE THE PROM! THAT’S SO SAD! Seriously, though, I really like this.

8) “When I Was a Young Girl,” Feist. Libby had a blast on vacation. Two of her cousins who accompany us are six and five, so the three of them enjoy playing together. At the end of the week, however, she got very upset when she found out we were leaving. We told her we had to go home and another family was coming to rent the house. “I don’t want them here, I want to stay!” she said. I think she thought we had moved. We talked about how she would go back to school and see her friends, and she gave us a look that said they were all dead to her. The real irony is that TLB and I were discussing whether to move Libs to a more affordable daycare. We ultimately decided no, in part because my itinerant, Navy-brat existence has made me want to provide my daughter with as much social stability as possible. Yet here she was, ready to ditch kids she’s known for two years for ocean-front property.

9) “Call the Doctor,” Sleater-Kinney. A few weeks ago, I went to see my doctor because I had a chest sensation. It was this odd feeling that lasted a couple of days. As soon as I felt it I was immediately on WebMD looking up heart attack symptoms, and I realized that WebMD should require you to present RN or MD credentials, because that fucking site can talk you into anything. Oh my God, I have fatigue, I must have West Nile! Anyway, as I have high blood pressure (gee, I wonder why?) I went in to my doctor. I felt like a tool in a Hertz commercial when he asked his questions: Does it hurt? Not exactly. Do you have any pain? Not exactly. Are you a giant dingleberry whose imagination and high-speed Internet connection turn you into a panicky idiot? Exactly! Just to be safe (translation: avoid a lawsuit when I dropped dead of Ebola), he sent me in for a cardio test. They put you on a treadmill for a while with electrodes everywhere and find out how much of a fatty your heart is. I was fine, of course, but the bonus (translation: punishment) was that I got to have my chest shaved with a DRY RAZOR do they could attach the electrodes. So I went to the beach with swaths of chest hair mowed down like a Brazilian rainforest. Would it have been too much to tell me ahead of time so I could have manscaped properly? Afterward, TLB said it wasn’t that noticeable, but that’s what they say about Ebola until it’s too late! So I spent all week in a swim shirt.

10) “Bring Me Back,” Seeker, Lover, Keeper. Here’s what I hate about buying music digitally: I have no real connection to the buying process. I can look through my CDs and kind of remember mostly what I was doing, where I was, or how drunk I was when purchasing those albums (hello, Lita Ford’s Greatest Hits). Now I probably buy more than half of my albums digitally, and I wind up with stuff like this—perfectly lovely female folk, but I can’t remember what possessed me to buy it. Had I been driving my Subaru a lot? Wearing Becky’s underwear? Trying to find something to calm me down why reading symptoms of leprosy online? Yet I can remember exactly the time I marched into the local shithole record store and bought Danzig II: Lucifuge on cassette. (I think a Lucifuge is a centrifuge that turns holy water into a fallen angel.)

11) “On the Way,” Dinosaur Jr. Only a week from my fantasy football draft and I am like Rainman waiting for Wopner. One of the running backs I was hoping to draft broke his clavicle last night, and I spent at least 20 minutes laying in bed mentally debating the merits of taking two wide receivers with my first two picks. This is why TLB’s Beatles animosity doesn’t bother me, because she puts up with a hogshead of retardary from me while she has a shot glass of things that mildly annoy me. On the plus side, my heart felt great.

Enjoy the weekend!

Friday no fun day

I am squarely stuck in the third part of this classic 80s song and will be for the next week:



Thankfully I am sneaking in "vacation" before my demise, at which time I will be sitting on a beach, playing with my daughter, and reading this. Oh, and drinking.

Also, for those of you not on The FB (not to be confused with The OC), I was shopping with Libby this week. I picked up a box of cinnamon almonds, a snack Libby likes so much she shouted, "I LOVE YOUR NUTS, DADDY!"

There was of course a male employee standing three feet from us.

Enjoy the weekend. I hope to post a picture of my work accommodations next week. They will resemble a certain blogger's travels, only these will not make me want to kill myself.

Top Ten Tuesdays: What are we checking out at the state fair?

Special extended acid washing edition!

11) I Can’t Believe It’s Not Michelangelo’s David!

10) The biggest set of cans you’ll ever see.

9) Cotton candy hair extensions. 

8) Heart stents made out of deep-fried bacon.

7) The Tilt-O-Hurl.

6) Ron Paul supporters working their day jobs. 

5) A lot of parties in the back, not as much business in the front.

4) Foot-long meth dogs.

3) Guess the OSHA violations to win a prize.

2) Sisters Christian, the all-female, all-sibling, all-gospel Night Ranger cover band extravaganza!

1) As always, hog balls.

Friday Random 11

It’s one more random than 10!

When I left the Wisconsin Sno-Cone that is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I made a vow to myself that I would never, ever complain about the heat again. I believe that vow came to me during our second winter there when we had more than 200 inches of snow, which seems like some kind of typo. I was probably outside snowblowing, the snow I was blowing being blown back into my face by the howling belch of Old Man Winter. The summer after that winter, I had to go to San Antonio in July, which is very much like going to your oven in the middle of cooking a turkey. I stepped out onto the Riverwalk into 99-degree heat and I thanked Flip-Flops-and-Swim-Trunks Jesus that I was sweating my balls off.

Skip the memory DVR forward two years and then back a couple days because we went into the first thirty seconds of the show: I thought I was going to melt on July 4. I was standing—STANDING STILL—and my pores were doing an imitation of a new Kohler showerhead that simulates an overweight Slavic guy sweating like he just ran down the block for more kielbasa (it’s not a very popular model). Then I started moving because Libby was riding her bike in a parade and I learned what real sweating was. 

Did I complain? No, I did not. Nor did I during the next two 100-degree days. Nor will I. Because you don’t have to shovel heat, no amount of heat will feel worse than having snow that’s been through a gasoline-powered engine being spit back in your face.

Tunes…

1) “Magazines,” The Hold Steady. I read three magazines regularly: The New Yorker, Esquire, and Entertainment Weekly. I read The New Yorker because it makes me feel smarter. It doesn’t actually make me smarter, but given that even the cartoons are challenging, it’s the brain equivalent of eating Brussels Sprouts—look, the talking dog is making a reference to Proust! It’s not funny, but I’m being so intellectually healthy! Then I cool off with Esquire, aka CosBropolitan. I occasionally read the longer articles, which are quite good, but usually I am reading things like what kind of tie knot matches my shirt collar or sex survey results that show as men get older, they are more open to getting a finger in the cornhole during sexy time. Neither of these types of info is helpful as I work in shorts and a T-shirt and I get enough of the backdoor “you’re number 1!” maneuver during my annual physical. Yet I like to envision myself as a man who dresses in $3000 suits when it’s time to work and is open to new experiences when it’s time to play, were I to have the money and ability to unclench. As for Entertainment Weekly, it’s my pop culture booty call. A couple of sloppy, uninspired tussles per week and I’m fully caught up on what Channing Tatum is doing or which five superheroes should be next to come out of the closet. You don’t get that with The Economist.

2) “Hi-Definition,” Lupe Fiasco (featuring Snoop Dogg and Pooh Bear). I cannot think of a time when “featuring Snoop Dogg” did not make something more entertaining.

3) Neko Case, “I’m An Animal.” I started using Twitter and following Neko Case. I've learned that Neko Case really, really loves animals, to the point where I’m not sure I could hang with Neko Case. She’s great and all, as are animals, but we’d have that awkward moment where she’d invite me to sit on a couch that’s clearly covered in dog hair and I’d be like, I just bought this suit after I saw it in Esquire. She’d say, You’re not really with the U.S. Census Bureau, are you? And I would say no, because the number of parakeets was giving me a case of Hitchcockian dread that was overwhelming my desire to have a conversation with Neko Case, even if it was about the number of dependents in her house.

4) “Girls & Boys,” Blur. There’s a quick way to decide where one sits on the social conservatism fence: Whether the phrase Same-sex marriage will turn America into a big gay orgy seems like the Apocalypse or a way to spice up our country after a couple hundred years of dull, Puritan independence. I say pass the amendment and hand me a bathrobe.

5) “Rio,” Duran Duran. They will be playing a mere mile from my house next month, close enough that I will be able to hear this song and the screams of 40-something women enjoying it. I would be attending, but tickets sold faster than John Taylor snorting a line of coke off a coffee table book of Nagel paintings. Why-yi-yi-yi did I wait so long to try-yi-yi-yi to get tickets? Now I will just to pretend my driveway is the Rio Grande.

6) “The Guns of Brixton,” The Clash. Instantly fired up. There are songs that make me want to run through a brick wall. This is a song that makes me want to tie a red hankie around my face, don a beret, and foment revolution. Unfortunately, when it ends, my bourgeoisie returns with the rhythm of the tide. It is an exhilarating three minutes, however (that’s what TLB said!), and it also does not end in bloodshed or an icepick to the temple.

7) “Soul Shoes,” Graham Parker. Can you order those from Zappos?

8) “Cary On/Questions,” Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. I’m not a big CSN fan because they always seemed hippies for me. I’m not against hippies per se, but hippiedom never appealed that much to me, as I am way too big of a fan of showers and steak. But this is a glorious song. The harmonies, the little bit of rock thrown in, and then the transition to “Questions” that drops a magic mushroom in each year.

9) “Jo Jo’s Jacket,” Stephen Malkmus. The #1 track among rock songs about Yul Brenner. I really miss this version of Stephen Malkmus.

10) “Don’t Speak,” No Doubt. I have always disliked Gwen Stefani’s annunciation. There’s something overly dramatic and also buzzing about it, like an emo kid singing through a kazoo. Yet I like a lot of No Doubt’s faster songs. Maybe I just don’t like kazoo ballads?  Also, MOAR SLOMO CONCERT FOOTAGE!

11) “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” The Band. We celebrated the Fourth of July at my sister-in-law’s house. She has a pool. Libby is just learning to swim, and I watched her spend the afternoon overcoming her fear of water. She started out the day using a noodle to float, but halfway through the barbecue, she ditched any support mechanisms and just jumped in, paddled to the pool ladder, got out, and did it again. The sheer joy on that child's face was a revelation. I have a tendency sometimes to think of life like a car ride where the gas gauge is running down, I'm out of money, and I'm hoping I have enough in the tank to get where I want to go. But watching my four-year old daughter go carpe fucking diem on that pool really stuck with me. Here I was, being WARM, drinking and eating, and spending the day with loved ones. What more do I need? And isn't this the point of everything, the feeling we work so hard to get to that we often don't stop to enjoy it? Sometimes I just need a kick in the ass to realize that, and this week, it came from a four-year old.

Have a great weekend.

Top Ten Tuesdays: How are we celebrating the Fourth of July?

10) Getting “Don’t tread on me” tattooed on penis.

9) Wearing our best American flag muumuu.

8) Visiting the burn ward after sparklers ignited the chicken grease on our fingers.

7) Using up the expired dip in our fridges because we’ve got health care, bitches!

6) Playing “America the Beautiful” while piloting a drone attack against a villag…er, terrorist stronghold.

5) Listening to our uncle who went to the local state school on the G.I. Bill, worked at Lockheed Martin, and uses his Social Security to buy E85 for his FlexFuel Chrysler complain about government handouts.

4) Remembering the heroic sacrifices and bravery of the colonists by shoving 50 hot dogs in our pie hole while a crowd cheers.

3) Taking a patriotic step toward next year’s pivotal Supreme Court case: First Amendment v. Pants.

2) Heading to the nearest red state where the fireworks-stand-to-Planned-Parenthood ratio is higher than the maximum altitude of a Mongolian Sky Fucker bottle rocket.

1) Downing 13 beers and belching the Declaration of Independence.

Supreme Court Decision on Health Care Triggers Epidemic of Spontaneous Head Explosions Among Conservatives

CDC says the “batshit crazy” and those participating in anonymous, unprotected “tea parties” most at risk

FREEDOMVILLE – Across the United States, computer screens, smartphones, televisions, and tinfoil hats are awash with blood as the Supreme Court upheld President Obama’s health care mandate as constitutional.

Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, one of the fiercest opponents to “Obamacare,” was also one of its highest profile victims. After months of crowing that the Supreme Court would “overturn the greatest threat to liberty since Will & Grace,” Ms. Malkin was eagerly live-blogging the decision. “Get ready for a slice of humble pie, traitors,” she typed. Moments later, she wrote, “Wait, what? UGGGGHHH!!!!” Many of her followers became suspicious because that line was much more literate than her usual postings, and they alerted authorities.

Police arrived to find a grisly scene. Ms. Malkin’s body was found at her blood-spattered computer, head gone, her hands still on the “Shift” and “1” keys. Police found no evidence of foul play but were baffled at what happened.

Similar scenes appeared at Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, conservative think tanks, country clubs, prep schools, and basements housing most conservative blog offices. Police again noticed no evidence of break in, violence, or insertion of air pumps into ear canals, which had explained an earlier rash of cranial fractures at the conservative Web site Townhall.

However, things came more clearly into focus when police were called to the offices of The National Review. After fielding numerous calls about popping sounds and a horrid stench, authorities walked into a nightmare crime scene. Nearly every staffer lay headless, their computers or phones open to the decision, some in the middle of tweets. Only one person remained alive, writer Jonah Goldberg, who had not yet read about the decision as he in the midst of his morning ritual of masturbating to hentai. After climaxing, Mr. Goldberg walked into the middle of the offices and saw the carnage, collapsing into a fetal heap. An examination of the seat of his pants also revealed him to be the source of the smell.

One veteran police officer noted a striking similarity to an incident that occurred at The National Review after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. He alerted the Center for Disease Control.

Dr. Richard Scanner, a forensic psychologist assigned by the CDC to examine the evidence, noted that the explosions were the result of a perfect storm of hubris, ignorance, and cognitive dissonance. “What happened is that you had a large number of people who were 100 percent confident this law would be overturned, creating high levels of arrogance, and that arrogance reached explosive levels after being amplified in the right-wing echo chamber. But then the actually ruling came, sending a shockwave through that same echo chamber, and pewwww, it’s like the front row at a Gallagher show.”

Some high-profile conservatives were able to avoid this spontaneous decapitation. Taking a precaution recommended by former head of homeland security Tom Ridge, Fox News host Sean Hannity preemptively wrapped his head in duck tape, which kept his head together, but also led to suffocation. Washington Post columnist and noted golem Charles Krauthammer avoided explosion due to his head being made of stone, although he reported some minor fracturing and a “bit of a migraine.” And former vice-presidential candidate and spokeswoman for the conservative spank-bank industry Sarah Palin appeared to be functioning normally, sending her incomprehensible tweets as normal. Dr. Scanner postulated that Ms. Palin may have been spared due to her brain being “mostly inert gas.”

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney did not escape so easily, however. Responding to the decision at a press conference, Mr. Romney was only able to say, “1-00-1-00-1,” before there was a loud clicking in his head and his face changed to a Blue Screen of Death. His IT staff are reportedly working on a patch.

There is no word yet whether the health care law will cover spontaneous decapitation.

Top Ten Tuesdays: What else is Facebook changing without our permission?

10) Autotagging all of our nip slips.

9) Showing every status update we crosspost to Twitter as, “Cum see my new & improved Facebook pics bit.nip/@reol@s”

8) Making us fans of the U.S. Border Patrol if we set the new required immigration status field to “it’s complicated.”

7) Logging in automatically fires off a message to Tom from MySpace asking why he hasn’t killed himself already.

6) Listing status as “stalking” when checking pictures of our exes.

5) Uploading our personal info to Siri so she can whisper important messages from Facebook’s preferred marketing partners to us while we sleep.

4) Defaulting our Spotify playlist updates to “All Bieber, All The Time.”

3) Changing all Farmville notifications to ask our friends, “Why not purchase a bushel of bountiful Facebook stock?”

2) Autocorrecting any mention of “privacy” to “Zuckerbergaliciousness.”

1) Pretty much every fucking thing every fucking day.

Friday Random 11

It’s one more random than 10!

After four-and-a-half years of being Branimaled (Branimauled?), my original Rock Band drums finally broke. One of the pads cracked, and that prompted this discussion between The Lovely Becky and myself:

Me: My Rock Band drums broke.

TLB: (Laughing) You just bought a new drum pedal.

Me: I know, but now the kit actually cracked. Here, look.

TLB: (Notices significant crack) You must really pound the crap out of those drums.

Me: Yeah, but I’ve pounded them for more than four years. I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner.

TLB: Well, my vagina’s been pounded for longer and that hasn’t broken.

Me: Actually, if you added up the amount of Rock Band minutes versus the actual amount of time we’ve engaged in intercourse, Rock Band might come out on top. Like the other night when you and Libby were gone, I played for two hours.

TLB: (sighs longingly) Two hours….

Yes, being married to me is the gift that keeps on giving. Tunes….

1) “The Once Over Twice,” X. That’s what she said! No, really, that’s what she said in the chorus.

2) “Go-Go Boots,” Drive-By Truckers. I wasn’t sure if anyone under 30 would know what the hell a go-go was, let alone that there were boots specifically for visiting one, but Wikipedia tells me (insert grain of salt) that there is a retro revival of go-go music. Who knew? Unrelated: no matter how many times I read Wikipedia, I will never, ever answer one of their appeals for money. I feel like I should say I’m going to give them $100, and then mail them $100 from the Monopoly bank. That would reflect the value of Wikipedia’s facts.

3) “Stove by a Whale,” Ted Leo & Pharmacists. I loves me some Ted Leo, but much like Moby Dick, this needs more stoving and less whaling (wailing?). I got a fever, and the only cure, is more Ahab!

4) “Old Man (Live),” Neil Young. This is from Live at Massey Hall and features a double-whammy of an intro: Neil Young saying “this is a new song” (imagine being their when a classic song is still in its infancy), and Neil Young actually cracking jokes. I’m sure Neil Young cracks jokes all the time, but I never picture him actually cracking jokes. It’s like Eddie Vedder speaking clearly—yeah, maybe it happens when he tells a waiter he’ll have the fish or when he has to say “Yes” into the phone when he says he wants to speak to a customer-service representative, but it’s hard to imagine.

5) “Highway 61 Revisited,” Bob Dylan. “I don’t always use a whistle in my songs, but when I do, I prefer the silliest whistle in rock history. Stay rocking, my friends.” Of course, I can't find the studio version on YT, but seriously, it is a very silly whistle.

6) “Art of Almost,” Wilco. The Lovely Becky and I are going to see them at a minor league baseball stadium next month. It’s general admission, and the last time I went to a GA stadium show, it was to see Soundgarden/Faith No More/Queensryche/Metallica. As you have probably inferred, that was not recently. That was a show where my buddy Moe and I tried to get close to the stage during the slow part of Faith No More’s “Zombie Eaters,” only to get caught in the mosh when the fast part kicked in. We looked up and saw this huge guy with blood running down his face, as if he had been bitten in the forehead by a zombie eater. We high-tailed it out of there in the most unrock-and-roll fashion possible, although I managed to contain my high-pitched screech of fear that I would be mentioned in an article, “Dashing college student trampled to death during concert and consumed by ravenous crowd” to my inner monologue. Anyway, I suspect the Wilco show will be more tame, although we will be in Chicago’s notoriously suburban western suburbs.

7) “Punch Me Harder,” Superchunk. The conclusion of the NBA season last night means that I got to remove my nut-punch of a Facebook profile picture. I actually had my account open as the seconds ticked down and swapped it out for a picture of this beer bottle. Because after you’ve been pictured wearing a pink-and-white NBA jersey that’s 13 sizes too small for a month, you might be tempted to overcompensate slightly when you replace that photo.

8) “Headknocker,” Foreigner. My brother Tickle informed me that Foreigner—which is now just Mick Jones and a bunch of musical Hessians—will be playing the casino near his house in central Iowa. That’s a show where you will see every kind of denim except skinny jeans.

9) “Cassandra Gemini II,” The Mars Volta. I have no idea what the fuck is going on here. The singer and the guitarist start out shouting at me like Stephen A. Smith trying to tell me something about LeBron James. JESUS H. CHRIST, STOP YELLING, I’M JUST WATCHING THE SCORE TICKER. Then the whole back end of this song turns into some time of laserium seizure that thankfully gets a spoon shoved in its mouth. For as much as I love Rush and especially the fruitiest parts of Rush, I actually don’t like that much progressive music. I tend to have the same reaction I do to Christmas fruitcake: this would be great if it wasn’t for all the goddamned fruit.

10) “To Be Over,” Yes. Oh holy hell. I love the The Yes Album-Fragile-Close to the Edge stretch. Three incredible fucking albums, and I will use my pan flute as a shiv to fight anyone who argues with me. But this…ay carumba. There’s the synth that sounds like a guy rubbing the lips of glasses filled with water (this being 1974, maybe it actually was a guy rubbing the lips of glasses filled with water). Then the singing starts and I feel like I’m riding in the world’s longest elevator to go have a cigar with someone, right after he’s done meeting with Pink Floyd. Something resembling rock guitar shows up briefly, realizes this is not at all his scene, and starts to exit, only to run into and proceed to have an awkward exchange with a pipe organ and an inebriated guy rubbing glasses of water. And then ten minutes later…my goodness, is that the time? I really must be going, I’ve got a meeting with Trevor Rabin at 90:125.

11) “Do You Wanna Hit It?” The Donnas. Some girls finally crash the helmet party, although they have bigger balls than some of the other dudes here (and maybe the Rock Band-loving nerdlinger typing this). I’m also not sure if the question about hitting it is rhetorical, but I’m going to answer no just in case, what with my blood pressure and commitment to monogamy.

Bonus: “I’m Sorry I Love You,” The Magnetic Fields. I know that TLB is not sorry she loves me. However, during the past four years, when she would walk into a room filled with the furious clacka-clacka-clacka of a rhythm-challenged grown man hitting four plastic pads with a set of drum sticks, trying desperately to reach the end of a Who song he’d been trying to beat for two months before the fictional crowd boos him off the stage, just as said man does reach the end successfully and lets out a completely unironic fist pump and war cry of “KEITH FREAKING MOON, BABY!”, I have felt sorry for her that she loves me so much. Although she would just chuckle and let me move on (futilely) to “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Thanks, baby!

Have a great weekend.

Top Ten Wednesdays: What word got us banned from the House floor by Republican lawmakers?

10) Michicunts

9) Chingamnesty

8) Hot-and-Biebered

7) RomKnee'd

6) Homoverdue

5) Scrotonymous

4) Bushleague

3) Ashcrofted

2) DicKeynesian

1) Kochsuckers

Friday Random 11

It’s one more random than 10!

It’s Rush week. No, not the week where a bunch of college bros engage in lobotomized hazing rituals that involve alcohol poisoning and various levels of butt play. A week where three Canadians descend from whatever passes for Mount Olympus in Canadian mythology and deliver a new disc of Songs from the Holy Trinity.

The album, Clockwork Angels, was released Tuesday, and I marched off to an actual store to buy a compact disc and went home to play it in a stereo system. That combination of things made me feel even older than getting a newspaper delivered to my driveway every day (the way God intended us to get the news).

It just so happened that The Lovely Becky and Libby were gone on Tuesday. Now, I love my wife and my daughter, but they hate Rush. If you ask Libby if she likes Rush, she says, “I HATE RUSH.” That it’s said in an adorable four-year-old voice doesn’t make it any less painful, and my wife, who I love dearly, cackles every time she hears that, knowing her Bathory-esque murder of Rush appreciation in our daughter has been successful. So, normally, I would be relegated to listening to this new album in the basement on my computer. But a night of abdication by the queen and princess meant I had control of the stereo upstairs. I threw on the CD, sat back, and listened.

I had a flashback to being in the eighth grade and buying Grace Under Pressure on cassette. It was the first album I ever bought on a release day, and I retreated to my room, threw it into my boom box, threw on my headphones that looked like two halves of an old McDonald’s Styrofoam Big Mac container strapped to my ears, and just listened. Over and over again. Side one, flip, side two, flip, repeat until dinner time, then again until bed time.

I got through the album twice. It won’t make my daughter say, “I LOVE RUSH,” but as someone who has been a Rush fan for 30 years, it’s a great album. With Rush pushing 60, it also makes me wonder if there will be another new Rush album. That makes me a little sad, but also glad that I got to savor it on release day.

Okay, Rush crush over, time for tunes.

1) “My Generation (Live),” The Who. Why not start the weekend with a 15-minute extended jam of the most rock and roll song ever recorded? In fact, if I could only take one album with me to a desert island, I might have to take Live at Leeds. Partly because it’s the greatest recorded rock performance of all time. Seriously, if you were to ask, “How much more rock and roll could this performance get?” the answer would be, “None.” Also, I would have a really hard time picking one Rush album.

2) “Summer Babe (Winter Vision),” Pavement. A fantastic song that I have played hundreds of times, and yet I have absolutely no idea what the lyrics mean. I wonder if Stephen Malkmus even knows.

3) “Go Ahead,” Rilo Kiley. I like them more plugged in than unplugged like they are here. This almost feels like it would be used in a Jetta commercial. I don’t even mean that disparagingly, because I discovered Nick Drake because of Volkswagen advertising. And, whoah, it was used in a VW ad in France!

4) “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” Led Zeppelin. My brother Tickle was in town last weekend, which resulted in drunken poker with some of the Vegas gang. We wanted some music and were not happy with the satellite radio selections we were getting, so I tried to pick an album everyone would dig. You can almost never go wrong playing the first Zeppelin album with a group of white guys, especially white ones between the ages of 30-41. It’s not overplayed like IV, it’s doesn’t have some random piece of bongwater like “The Crunge” that splashes you in the face, and it can get quiet and soft without slipping into ballad territory, which would just be odd to play with a group of guys. I couldn’t imagine saying, “Let me find something to play during the poker game,” and then having Extreme’s “More Than Words” start. Although that would be funny as hell, so I probably will use that during our fantasy football draft this year.

5) “Porchlight,” Neko Case. It’s funny to hear how much twang she injects into her early solo stuff. She almost sounds like Lurleen Lumpkin. It makes me wonder if that’s her real Virginia accent and she’s worked hard at sounding more Vancouverish with The New Pornographers, or if she’s acting the way I do when I add a little Superfan accent whenever I talk about Da Bears.

6) “Fast and Loose,” Motorhead. Along with the new Rush, I’ve been playing Japandroids Celebration Rock a lot. I still have a teenager’s interest in learning about bands I really get into, so after I picked up the new Japandroids, I was reading articles and watching videos about them. There was one interview of them from SXSW 2010, and they were asked which bands they were excited to see. Their lead singer not only answered, “Motorhead,” but that he saw them two nights in a row. He sang the praises of how Lemmy outrocked kids a third of his age, and this after Lemmy has spent a lifetime taking crank and other drugs you’ve never seen anyone take because you don’t hang out with bikers. That's what indie rock needs: more Motorhead appreciation.

7) “Someday I Will Treat You Good,” Sparklehorse. I got this from a friend years ago yet have never really listened to it. Damn, this is really good. I love when I get an iTunes surprise.

8) “Spiral Shadow,” Kylessa. They use two drummers, which is what most bands would need to do the work of one Neil Peart. I do really like this band, and the two drummers add a lot of percussive depth and/or womp. However, they aren’t quite in the same league as the best two-drummer attack of all time: Animal and Buddy Rich.

9) “Sunday Bloody Sunday (Live),” U2. Seeing a concert at Red Rocks is on my bucket list. Ideally, I would be able to take my Mr. Fusion-powered DeLorean back in time to see this concert, with a flag-waving Bono making sincerity and even mullets seem cool. I don’t even think Jesus could make those two things seem cool now.

10) “Humming,” Portishead. My friend and source of my current Facebook shame Tom called me yesterday. He was suffering from a very embarrassing dilemma. Not erectile dysfunction (or, at least, he didn’t mention that). Not an existential crisis. No, he found himself reluctantly, inexplicably, uncontrollably, just a little bit…rooting for LeBron James. “Why am I doing this?” he asked me. “I need your help in figuring this out.” 

This was a real problem. In fact, I wondered if we could still be friends. Why would someone who is not from Miami, a rapper, a member of LeBron’s entourage, or over the age of nine root for LeBron? It was the sports equivalent of rooting for Germany during the invasion of Poland. We talked some more, and we figured out that his wife—who watches almost no NBA games—hates LeBron James. Now, there is nothing wrong with hating LeBron James as a sports fan, because as a sports figure, LeBron is terrible. But he’s not a terrible person like, say, Tiger Woods. In fact, he’s probably less of a dick than Michael Jordan was, it’s just that Jordan was a master at hiding his dirty laundry. Really it was a case of him getting annoyed that his wife had this unvested hatred of LeBron, so his brain decided to take a contrary position, both as a counterbalance and also because it is fun to have opinions that annoy your spouse. After all, you have to keep things interesting if you’re going to stay married, and conflict is the basis of all interesting narratives.

Of course, this doesn’t excuse his rooting for LeBron. I commented that it was funny that he was having this argument at home as his wedding anniversary approached, and then remarked that it was also the anniversary of the O.J. Bronco chase, which happened the night before he got married. “Hey, I never asked you this,” I said, “but how happy were you when O.J. got off?” Because making your friends wear a girl’s NBA jerseys or asking them if they also root for despised wife-murderers who escape justice is how guys keep their friendships interesting.

11) “Danny Boy,” Johnny Cash. Amazing but way too fucking depressing to end this. In the spirit of the U.S. Open, I’ll take a mulligan.

11) Some audio atrocity from Dream Theater. Goddamn, I really need to delete this shit sandwich from my collection. Okay, I’ll take a drop next to the water.

11) “Drive Somewhere,” The Vulgar Boatmen. There we go. These guys are a great overlooked band from the late 80s who wrote that kind of jangle pop that conveyed a sliver of sun peeking through the window of a dark corner bar where you were already on your third double of bourbon at 2:30 in the afternoon, with no stop sign in sight because you had made a wrong turn onto a lonely road. Sure, it’s depressing, but at least it’s sunny.

Have a great weekend.

Top Ten Wednesdays: How did we celebrate the release of the new Rush album?

Special Spirit of Streaming Radio Edition! 

XII. Remixed the track order using rolls from our 12-sided die.

XI. Discovered that the new album synchronizes perfectly with the movie Strange Brew.

X. Wrote fan fiction about the actual fiction that accompanies the album.

IX. Slappa’d sum bass.

VIII. Waxed our handlebar mustache, slipped into our most comfortable kimono, and lubed our ears.

VI. Composed a concept album about a young man looking for a woman who’s really into concept albums.

V. Answered every question anyone asked us by screeching, “YEAH, OH YEAH!”

IV. Filled a five-gallon drum full of Tim Horton’s and put on an adult diaper before playing all 20 studio albums in a row.

III. Tried converting our MP3 to 8-track.

II. Noted the irony that the current economy allowed us to recreate the conditions of listening to Rush when we were teenagers: being unemployed and living with our parents.

I. Spent the day with the album on repeat and an extended drum solo in our pants.

Top Ten Tuesdays: What new videogames are we unveiling at E3?

Special extra lives edition!

15) Kinect Karma Sutra (lotion sold separately)

14) Call of Duty: Drone Ops 

13)  SuperPAC-Man (requires 10,000,000 Microsoft Points to play) 

12) Tomb Raider: Girl Gone Wild

11) Artisan Pong (available exclusively in Brooklyn arcades)

10) Angry Words With People We Thought Were Our Friends

9) Madden: NFL Bounty Hunter

8) Dong Pic Construction Kit (require Twitter account)

7) Diablo IV: Quest for the Working Server

6) Turdwaffle II: The Turdening (beta available in Wisconsin; national release coming soon)

5) Sim Jobs (supplies limited and going down the drain fast)

4) Battleship: The Game of the Movie of the Game

3) Rock Band 4: Music Lessons (Teacher sold separately)

2) Resident Evil : Florida

1) The Videogame Industry Is Stuck in a Creative Rut and Headed Toward Obsolescence 6

Official Application for Republican Vice Presidential Candidates

Name: _________________________________________________

Date of birth: _____________

Date your political ambition died: ___________________

Race (skip if already white):
__ Black (please turn over and describe how you are non-threatening)
__ Mexican (include copy of birth certificate/green card/audio clip proving you don’t over-annunciate Spanish words when speaking English)
__ Oriental (please turn over and translate this phrase into Chinese: “Can we borrow a trillion dollars, comrade?”)
__ Arab (stay where you are and don’t move, dirtbag)
__ Indian (hi, Bobby!)

Gender
__ Male
__ Female (please attach photo, preferably in bikini or sexy librarian attire)

Age group:
__ 35-45
__ 46-59
__ LX-LXXXIX

Religion:
__ Christian

Marital status:
__ Single (notorious womanizer)
__ Single (notorious wide stancer)
__ Married (will your spouse hug you in public without monetary incentives Y/N)
__ Divorced (will your former spouse be revealing embarrassing sexual preferences in a forthcoming memoir Y/N)

Have you served in the military?
__ Hoo-ah!
__ No, but I’ve played Call of Duty
__ No, but I have no problem sending soldiers to die to keep gas under five bucks a gallon

How would you best describe your brand of conservatism? (Check one)
__ Profit-driven fiscal conservative
__ Prophet-driven social conservative
__ Jingoistic
__ Dittohead-istic
__ 50 shades of white male patriarchy
__ Tinfoil-wrapped
__ Overcompensating for some personal shit you really don’t want to know about
__ 100% pure batshit crazy

How are you qualified to serve as Vice President?
__ Was once told to go fuck myself by Dick Cheney
__ Have watched every episode of Veep twice
__ Can spell “potato”
__ An expert at speaking only when spoken to 

__ Always indicted, never convicted

__ Facebook friends with Koch Brothers

__ Could hit Russia from my house with one of the rocks from my head
__ Is this a trick question?

How would you be willing to serve this administration? (Check all that apply)
__ Sounding board
__ Dartboard
__ Scapegoat
__ Lap dog
__ Lap warmer
__ Whipping boy
__ Punching bag
__ Fall guy
__ Alibi
__ Food tester
__ Drinking buddy
__ Wife-swapper 

__ Body remover
__ Mouthpiece for the president (rhetorical)
__ Mouthpiece for the president (sexual)
__ Making the president look smart by comparison
__ Making the president look attractive by comparison
__ Securing votes of Christians who would normally chase Mormons with pitchforks
__ Securing votes of conservatives who wear American-flag zubaz pants 

__ Being a comforting presence at funerals for B-list heads of state
__ Being a vital member of the president’s cabinet because of ability to make really great sandwiches
__ Sorting President’s Daily Briefs by appearance of words “imminent,” “dire,” “swarthy,” “disastrous for re-election chances,” and “GO BOOM!”
__ Harvesting souls for our Dark Lord
__ Future source of presidential pardon

The president has just been incapacitated, possibly as the first stage of a major terrorist plot. What do you do first? 

__ Shit my pants
__ Cream my jeans
__ Ask to see the president and then poke him with a stick to make sure
__ Spike the nuclear football and do a touchdown dance before attacking Iran
__ Appear on television and reassure the American people that I am in control and fully capable of handling this crisis, all while maintaining a straight face
__ Use the event as a pretext to invade Canada and finish what we started in 1812
__ Put my feet on the Oval Office desk, light a cigar, and ask who’s the worthless, unqualified, moronic afterthought now?
__Start prepping for my impeachment

Do you have any of the following liabilities?
__ Desire to voice your opinion
__ Desire to be taken seriously
__ Use racial slurs as terms of endearment with friends who are minorities
__ Use racial slurs as terms of derision with anyone who is a minority 

__ Believe that military action is a last resort
__ Refuse to take money from lobbyists
__ Refuse to stop spending lobbyist money at sex clubs.
__ Become uncontrollably hungry when handed babies
__ Would be tempted to take advantage of gay marriage if it became legal 

__ Cannot account for all pictures of your junk

__ Enjoy hunting humans for sport

__ Think there could be something to this global warming thing
__ Unable to speak in public without a dose of “confidence juice” from pocket flask
__ Unable to speak in public without providing material for opening bit on Saturday Night Live
__ Have been known to show compassion toward the poor, the unemployed, the employed, women, minorities, immigrants, the sick, the middle class, Wal-Mart greeters, journalists not from News Corp, the gays, and Europeans

Please describe in no more than 50 words how you plan to occupy the ideal vice presidential space between “political albatross” and “makes a strong case for assassinating the president.”

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I hereby swear that I have answered the preceding questions truthfully and honestly, unless the presidential candidate wants me to change any of the responses. (Sign or make mark)

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Top Ten Wednesdays: What are we telling graduates during our commencement speeches?

10) As you enter the workforce, don’t even think of gunning for our jobs. We’ll fucking cut you.

9) The qualities that make you the best and brightest minds of your generation will also make you the most delicious and attractive brains during a zombie apocalypse.

8) Don’t think of it as a student loan. Think of it as a career mortgage. Or, for those of you in the humanities, a bar tab.

7) In these uncertain times, many of you may have to move back home with your parents. Take a word of advice that your dorm roommates should have already given: you don’t masturbate as quietly as you think you do.

6) Hard work, a positive attitude, and a commitment to honesty are no match for really juicy blackmail.

5) Thank you for joining us for this VirtualGraduation for the University of Phoenix. If you don’t receive your diplomas at the end of this Webcast, please check your spam folders.

4) When that old roommate that you haven’t talked to since graduation is on the news because the company he founded, based on that idea you guys had at three in the morning that you both agreed would never work, just got bought out by Google, resist the urge to kill yourself.

3) If your band didn’t suck, you would be on tour instead of here.

2) Here are the things that scream, “Don’t hire me!” in order of increasing unemployableness: real mustache, irony mustache, mullet, wife-beater, face tattoos, any clothing tight enough to reveal genital piercings, any mention of your number of Twitter followers, a poetry degree, a visible parasitic twin.

1) With your lives in front of you, it seems like there are a million possibilities. Try lowering that estimate to three, maybe five, tops.

Friday Random 11

It’s one more random than 10!

So fish has decided to cut bait on blogging. It is the end of an era, one full of LOLCAT poetry, homoerotic Tom Brady fan fiction, frothing rage at our Coke/Pepsi political system, puns for the whole family, and science. To commemorate his retirement and thank him for his services, we got him a gold watch. He immediately said he had a bus to catch.

It is a shame to see fish go, and to hear others in our little group talking about closing shop. I certainly don’t blog with the same frequency (or entertainment value) that I did in my heyday, when I toured Japanese and European blogs, developed an addiction to comments, and began writing a concept blog about black holes being the glory holes of the gods.

I thought about pulling the plug, but I’d miss it too much. Because what would I do if my wife handed me a Yankee Candle coupon for man candles, with the suggestion that one should be called Testicle Cheese (she’s speaking hypothetically, not from experience, by the way), and I had no blog with which to crap ou-…er, produce two dozen other prospective scents. I have other things vying for my attention and creative energy these days, but I have too many good comments, occasionally funny ideas, and dick jokes to stop now.

Plus, what would I do on Friday afternoons?

1) “Handsome Devil,” The Smiths. This won’t be news to those of you who saw what happened to me on Facebook, but as Jennifer suggested, what I’m about to share demanded cross-posting.

My friend Tom is a Philly sports fan. I am of course a Chicago fan. Over the years, we have had bets when our respective teams meet. This year, the eight-seeded Philly 76ers squared off against the Chicago Bulls in round one of the playoffs. The Bulls were heavily favored, and in the last 30-ish years, an eight has beaten a one seed only three times. So we made a bet: if Philly won, I’d have to wear an NBA jersey of Tom’s choice and make a picture of me wearing it my Facebook profile pic for the remainder of the playoffs. He’d do the same if Philly got swept.

I made this bet before Bulls guard Derrick Rose, by far their best player, blew out his ACL in the waning minutes of the first game. The Bulls won, but it was as bad of an omen as wearing a black cat as a thong. The Bulls went on to lose 4-2. A couple of days later, I received a package. I opened it up and saw white and pink. A women’s jersey. Funny, but no big deal to a man of my gender enlightenment. Except it was a girl’s large. I couldn’t even get it past my neck. After some cutting, I managed to squeeze into it, and this is now what I look like on the hottest stock on the Internet. WARNING: I am about 75 pounds and at least two cup sizes over the maximum inflation pressure for this garment. Some things you can’t unsee.

2) “Madness of an Architect,” High on Fire. Why is it that men insist on humiliating their friends? I don’t think women do that. They may undermine, betray, lie, and give their friends a complex, but they don’t seem as hell bent on making their friends look like a medical glove filled with 50 pounds of custard. Keep in mind, while I was not happy about what I had to wear, I gave Tom a tip of my cap at the creativity behind it and only wish I’d thought of it first.

3) “Gold Guns Girls,” Metric. Also known as the Ron Paul platform.

4) “Private Universe,” Crowded House. I am writing a novel in earnest again. After celebrating the completion of my first-ever novel last spring, I promptly stuck it in the virtual drawer of my hard drive because the main character was all wrong. Two years of isolation, sitting by myself, pounding on a keyboard, only to realize what I was writing wasn’t nearly as good as what I thought. So why not do it again? That sounds perfectly sane, right? Still, I had a very good idea for anpther book. An idea so good, it took nine months of writing to realize what I was doing wrong and figure out how to do it right. This is why writers drink. At the same time, I have dreams of sitting across from Jon Stewart, hearing him talk about my book and realize he actually read at least the first two chapters for reals.

5) “Girl,” Tori Amos. There was a funny joke about Tori Amos and writing in a journal on HBO’s “Girls”—incidentally, I think my book is going to be somewhere between that show and “Veep” in tone. I laughed, but then I realized that it’s probably time to retire Tori Amos jokes. There’s just a point when you have to get new material. Although doing a Butt-Head laugh and saying, “Huh-huh, you said ‘pole’” will never be unfunny for me.

6) “Southern Man,” Neil Young. Forty years later and this song still cuts. I want to stand outside a state courthouse with a boombox over my head blasting this song whenever some dillweed discusses flying the Stars and Bars over a capital building as an homage to Southern heritage. Why not just cut to the chase and hang a noose from the flagpole?

7) “A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off,” The Magnetic Fields. There are plenty of songs about penises in the rock catalog. But how many penis allegories are there?

8) “My Sister,” The Juliana Hatfield Three. Speaking of HBO’s “Girls,” this song always reminds me of when I got out of school and moved to New York. I was lucky and found a job in three weeks. None of this LinkedIn or internship stuff. I just got married to TLB (who already had a job in NYC) and figured I’d find work like the good, naïve, Midwestern hayseed I was. And only someone that dumb would get that lucky. Now there’s no way I’d even relocate to another part of town without an intensive Yelp review vetting of local restaurants. Anyway, we lived in Jersey for the first few months, and I made mixtapes to get me through the commute. I loved cranking this when I was heading home on a Friday.

9) “Subterranean Lovesick Alien,” Radiohead. I’m not sure, but OK Computer may have been the first album I bought because of Pitchfork, back when they could be infuriatingly entertaining instead of infuriatingly boring.

10) “Marry Me,” Drive-By Truckers. TLB and I are approaching eighteen years of matrimonial bliss this month. Yeah, I know, barf, but it’s true. I don’t know the secrets to a successful marriage, because we’re all snowflakes and one person’s Love Potion No. 9 (the magical potion) is another person’s Love Potion No. 9 (the Sandra Bullock movie, which is like having an outbreak of herpes while in divorce court). But there are two things that I think have to be in a marriage for it to work for men. First, you have to want to sleep with your wife. The older I get, the more I’m amazed at how many married men I’ve met who treat their wives’ hoo-hahs like a Christmas stocking that only gets filled once a year. Second, you have to want to talk with your wife. Imagine being on a date, talking with someone who makes you want to look up scores on your phone or shove a breadknife through your ear and not stop until you pull it out the other side. Now imagine seeing that person at happy hour for the rest of your life. It also helps if they buy you a new TV when they sell a book, but that’s not a requirement.

11) “Call Me,” Blondie. Another song introduced to me by Chipmunk Punk. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard Alvin singing about calling a male prostitute. Bet Dave didn’t see that one coming.

Have a good weekend.