First off, I should probably apologize for having exposed you to the image you are now witnessing. If I were a nicer person, I wouldn’t have done that. But it’s a Friday, and I’ve got nothing better to write about, so LET’S DISCUSS THIS PICTURE UNTIL WE BLEED.

In case you weren’t able to make out what’s happening in this photograph before your eyeballs started to melt out of your skull, that’s Kid Rock, Dane Cook and Jeremy Piven. Together. All in the same shot. Never before has such an alignment of douchebaggery come together in one place, and someone actually had a camera to record it. It’s almost beautiful, in a way. A terrible, horrible way.

So this photo was first shared with the world by Dane Cook on, of course, his f’ing Twitter (NOTE: to see Dane Cook’s tweets, you have to first be a Dane Cook follower, which I don’t suggest, because it’s fucking Dane Cook). Then it was re-tweeted by The Piv later in the night, as clearly seen here:

Nailing down 2am Vegas style. Dear God in heaven.

So let’s play a little game here. Like one of those games where you try to locate everything that’s different between two pictures, let’s instead try to count all the douche located in this picture, besides the fact that it’s a picture of Jeremy Piven, Dane Cook and Kid Rock.

1. Kid Rock is being his usual patented and trademarked anti-authority self by flipping off the camera. It’s his way of saying “I make a lot of money in spite of lacking any decipherable level of talent as a musician. Fuck you.”

2. Dane Cook is doing his goddamn double finger thing, which wasn’t funny five years ago and still ain’t funny. But keep trying, jackass. I’m sure it’ll catch on any year now. Also, please note the giant “D” ring Dane Cook is sporting. It doesn’t necessarily have to stand for Douchebag, but you know it does.

3. & 4. Matching fedoras. One can only hope they called each other the night before to set that up.

5. Jeremy Piven’s entire face. Don’t you just want to put your fist into it? Like a lot? It’s pretty much all I can think about right now.

6. This is either Piven’s cell phone or a throwing star. Please, God, let it be a throwing star. I need to think that Jeremy Piven is walking around Las Vegas with Dane Cook and Kid Rock carrying throwing stars for some unknown reason.

I missed a few things. Like Dane Cook’s professionally cleaned teeth and buttoned-down shirt and Piven’s attempt to both flip the bird and do the double finger, because he’s a John Kerry-like flip-flopper. Also please notice the lady on the far right hand side in the background, who is witnessing this whole thing firsthand. Please, say a prayer for her well-being tonight.

Okay, I’m finished. I’m sorry for having exposed you to this. It’s just that in order for this nation to survive, it’s imperative that we look our monsters in the face and say to them, “Dude, the glare from your teeth is blinding me. Could you please shut your mouth?” We’ll get through this, people. One day at a time.

Seattle: haven for the uninsured motorist searching for a dropped cigarette on the car floor, prone to smashing my car into stationary car in front of me, leaving me to foot the bill.  To you: Get Bent.

Seattle: paradise for unsophisticated bashers of car windows stealing hundreds of burned cd’s with zero street value, laptop bag with no laptop but with two aging ipods, a passport, and a checkbook that will collectively fund none of your future crack purchases, and the simple good luck treasure of a crystal in a hemp bag given to me by a hippie friend long ago.  To you: Get Bent.

Seattle: home of dog owners assuming no responsibility over excrement deposited by said dogs on what would otherwise be a delightful network of neighborhood sidewalks.  To you: Get Bent.

Seattle: birthplace of unredeemable sports teams.  To you: Get Bent.

Seattle: spawning ground for indie shithead trends defiling the memory of all things inherently good and pure to be diluted for soulless yuppie consumption.  To you: Get Bent.

Seattle, our love affair, such as it was, is over.  I spent 8 years wondering when you’d fuck me the way you’ve fucked so many people.  In fine, predictable style, you’ve done a lovely number on me.  You deserve only the most exquisitely contrived methods of tortuous vengeance leveled upon you by a mind of one slighted by your treachery.  I would infect you with a scourge most horrific if I could.

Seattle: get bent, get fucked, get out of my dreams AND out of my car.  Eat a dick, straight up.

I don’t know if this is my place or not, so I apologize if I shouldn’t be talking about this so soon or at all. I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to take my grief public like this, but I just have to, because this day is just destroying me and this is all I can think about doing right now.

We lost one of our bloggers here at the SodBlog this morning, Crystal Reid (she went by Candi Striper). Crystal was all of our friend, and the wife of our admin Rod. They were married this last Saturday. I had been planning to liveblog their wedding, but I ended up not attending because of circumstances, and now I have something new to regret for as long as I live.

Crystal put a lot of hard work in on the behind-the-scenes work here at SodBlog, and she also contributed a lot of very amusing, very outstanding blogs. I would encourage you to read each and every one of them, and also the LiveSod LiveBlog category, where she was a frequent participant in liveblogs of the Presidential debates and of awards shows. They can give you an idea of what a wonderful person she was.

Needless to say, we are all beyond sorrow here and I just want to say, on behalf of Nate, Kelly, Chris and everyone else who contributes to the site that our thoughts are with Rod today and our prayers are with Crystal that she has found a better place today. Thank you for everything, Crystal, and we will all miss you so very much.

The Academy Awards announced a while back that they were going to open up the number of Best Picture nominees from five up to ten this year. When this was announced, a lot of people got excited that finally some movies that deserved to be nominated, like last year’s WALL-E and The Dark Knight, might finally get nominations. For all those who believed that, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re kidding yourself. If you want to know why, take one look at the Emmy nominations from yesterday. They opened up the Best Comedy and Best Drama nominees to seven, and guess who got a nomination?

Fucking Family Guy.

So, since that’s the way things are, here’s my best guess for the ten nominees for Best Picture this year:

1. Transformers 2
2. Wolverine
3. Terminator: Salvation
4. That one movie with Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz in it
5. Fast & Furious
6. Paul Blart: Mall Cop
7. Hotel for Dogs
8. The Pink Panther 2
9. Hannah Montana: The Movie
10. Whatever movies The Rock’s ever been in

Cross your fingers, Michael Bay. I think this is gonna be your year, dude.

So all day long, all I’ve been hearing is how Family Guy is the first animated show to be nominated for Best Comedy since The Flintstones in 1961. Think about that for a tick. Family Guy. Not The Simpsons. Not South Park. Not Futurama or Venture Bros. or King of the Hill or Samurai Jack or Justice League or Space Ghost: Coast to Coast or Ren & Stimpy or Aeon Flux or even goddamn Beavis & Butthead. Fucking Family Guy. Lame, lazy, shameless Simpsons ripoff, non sequitur humor-driven Family Guy. Wow. We should all be so proud as a species.

But let’s forget about the fact that this is a big ol’ middle finger from the Emmy voters right in Matt Groening’s fat face. Let’s take a look at this from the prospective of all the other shows nominated for Best Comedy. How do you think the people who make 30 Rock or The Office or Weeds or Flight of the Concords feel about the fact that they’re competing against Family Guy and Entourage? It’s like Carl Owens running a foot race against Stephen Hawking. You think he’d feel good after he won? Yeah, probably, but come on. FUCKING FAMILY GUY?!

I seriously need some better shit to get upset over.

Anyways, hooray for Family Guy and its now Emmy award-nominated mediocrity. I can hardly wait until Seth MacFarlane uses this as inspiration to make even more lameass Family Guy clone shows, because it’s the only goddamn idea he’s ever had and God knows we don’t have enough Family Guy already. I look forward to a future of nothing but Family Guy. Family Guy. Family Guy. We deserve what we have coming.

This is how it all ends. With fucking Family Guy. The Aztecs were right all along.

Kids these days…

Do you remember your high school graduation? I do.

Three of my classmates showed up either nude under their robes or with just boxers and socks on. Another swiped his older brother’s honors ribbons and wore them on his robe, even though he was a C student at best. We sat on stage and made jokes and dicked around and every single one of us (aside from the one student who hadn’t finished all of his English credits) walked up to the podium and received our diplomas. In fact, even the guy that didn’t have enough credits to graduate at the time got to walk because he had already scheduled the equivalency exam to get his credits.

Getting handed our diplomas, a good number of us made some gesture to our friends or family in the crowd. If I remember right, someone hugged the superintendent, eschewing the traditional handshake. Nowadays, this seems very quaint, like I graduated in the 1950s (it was 1998), especially when compared to this:

While in his seat or waiting in line for his diploma, Justin Denney never touched a beach ball. After his name was called, he took a bow, blew a kiss to his family and pointed to friends, but he didn’t get his diploma, leaving a whole family in disbelief.

Article

Blew a kiss and took a bow. Insubordination. Immediately nullifies the last four years of actual scholastic achievement. How dare he!

Where does this kid go to school, Maine or 17th century Maine? I mean, the gall that it takes to be jubilant at your own graduation and to want to recognize the parents and friends who helped you graduate. The gall!!! He might as well have whipped his dick out and slapped the superintendent with it, then gone ahead and screwed that rolled up diploma.

Look, I understand that basic premise of the administration in wanting to keep order at a graduation ceremony. You don’t want pandemonium. Hundreds of hormone-pumping teenagers, all amped up to enter this exciting job market or, better yet, shell out decades worth of debt to attend the college of their choice. It’s an exciting time in a kid’s life. Anything can happen, even though most of it probably won’t.

What the article doesn’t mention is that the administrator had a seizure when, after the ceremony, she saw the entire class assemble on the front lawn of the school and hurl their caps skyward in unison, a clear act of mass insubordination. When she recovered, she stripped all of them of their diplomas and assigned them five hours of detention, each.

Good Lord, you would’ve thought this would’ve been the end of it.

One would think that after not one, but two on-air apologies to Sarah Palin, David Letterman would finally be off the hook, especially considering that Palin accepted his apology. You would think that. But the problem being, the only thing on this planet stupider than a Palin is a Palin supporter. So guess what’s still happening?

Yup, that’s right. Not having nearly quenched their thirst for David Letterman’s blood, hundreds of thousands tens of thousands thousands hundreds a gentleman’s dozen of Palin’s supporters took to the streets to demand that CBS give Letterman the Dan Rather treatment. Which, since it worked the first time, is guaranteed to work every single time they try it. It’s a scientific fact, you know.

Hey, quick question. Since when did we as a nation start caring about the opinions of the angry adult retards amongst us? Do you want any of these rage-mongers making personnel decisions at any of your places of business? Hell, I wouldn’t ask any one of them for advice on how to tie my shoe. I happen to like not tripping.

In case you were like most and only made it about fifteen seconds into the video before you started musing about how awesome it would be if you could keep kicking yourself in the forehead past the point of blacking out, I’ll go ahead and pick out some of my favorite lines.

“Should we talk about his son? I believe his son was born out of wedlock. I believe there’s a term for that.”

Yup, there sure is. A Tripp Palin.

“Is someone making jokes about his child? Especially, you know, when he had a daughter out of wedlock himself.”

Hey, thanks for making that connection. Only problem being, Letterman actually married the mother of his child. When exactly can we expect the big Levi/Bristol wedding to take place? I still haven’t gotten my invite, but I guess I’ll keep waiting.

Incidentally, Letterman had a son, not a daughter. But hey, knowing stuff is for queers.

“Everyone in the country is very, very frustrated and upset that he was allowed to make a rape joke about a 14-year-old girl sitting on the sidelines at an American basketball game.”

It’s true. Every single person in the country is frustrated and upset about Letterman’s awful rape jokes. And that’s why we, the entirety of the American populace, chose these fifteen people to be our representatives to protest at the Letterman taping. Because we all had better shit to do.

Also, the Yankees play baseball, not basketball. I’m beginning to sense a trend here.

“How dare he? When he has a bastard son, and a slut for a wife.”

Glad to see they’ve chosen to take the moral high ground on this one.

“At least Jay Leno had interesting people; this schmuck has nobody! You know what ’schmuck’ means in Jewish?”

Only someone regularly entertained by the comedic brilliance of “Jay Walking” and “Wacky Newspaper Headlines” could possibly think that someone needed to be explained what the word “schmuck” means. No, angry white woman. Please explain to me what your strange monosyllabic insults mean. I was far too busy eating my shoe to fully appreciate your creative word play.

“Close the borders!  Close everything down for twenty years, clean your house, and you’ll see how this economy will come back.”

I think I love this woman. It’s like she has rage ADD. “Fire Dave! Fire Dave! Fire Dave! Close the borders! No more taxes! Four more years! I like pudding! Stay off my yard!” For God’s sake, woman, focus!

“Keep children safe from David Letterman’s mouth!  He will rape them with his mouth!”

Words fail.

Despite my tomfoolery, it’s quite obvious that this band of merry rage monkeys will eventually get their way. Mark my words, David Letterman will eventually be fired. Because everything these people put their minds to, they eventually get. That’s why John McCain is President right now. Because eventually, angry uneducated old people will always get what they want.

It’s been a good run, Dave. But in the end, you can’t possibly compete with these people. America, meet your new comedians. Try as you might, it’s impossible not to laugh at them.

And now, I present to you some down-home, good ol’ fashioned Blue Collar humor. Because I hate you.

• If the back of your neck is often burned red from walking behind your plow with your head lowered all day long, you might be a redneck.

• If you harbor deep-found resentments towards people of different nationalities because of an instinctive distrust you have towards things that are foreign from your own regular surroundings, you might be a redneck.

• If you are a stereotypical Caucasian (i.e. white) person and are of a lower socio-economic status who lives in the United States or Canada, you might be a redneck.

• If you frequently smell of cow feces, you might be a redneck.

• And finally, if you call the police department to alert them that a comedian often smokes a cigar during his act and cause said comedian to be charged with smoking in a public building, you might be from Bismarck, North Dakota.

That’s right. Always mindful of finding new and innovative means for everyone else in the nation to make fun of us for, we, the citizens of North Dakota, actually felt the need to have comedian Ron White charged with a $500 infraction for smoking a cigar during his act at the Belle Mahus, despite the fact that everyone, everywhere already knew beforehand that Ron White smokes a cigar during every performance he’s ever given in his life. Because that’s just how we roll, bitches.

Comedian may be charged for smoking at Bismarck show

A popular comedian could face charges in Bismarck for a regular part of his routine.

Please, please be Carlos Mencia.

Ron White, the Scotch-swilling, cigar-smoking Blue Collar Comedy Tour comedian, performed at the Belle Mehus Auditorium on April 30. But prior to that, a Bismarck citizen tipped off police that part of White’s routine might run afoul of a Bismarck city ordinance prohibiting smoking in public places.

Gary Semmel, 55, wrote a letter dated April 17 to the Bismarck Police Department, letting them know White smokes a cigar during his act, which seems to be at odds with the city ordinance prohibiting smoking in public places, Sgt. Dwight Offerman said.

Whatever would we do if not for upstanding citizens like Gary Semmel, 55, who have nothing better to do with their time besides writing to the police department to let them know that they’d seen this comedian smoking on the TV, and they should totally arrest that guy for doing it in Bismarck. I’ll tell you where we’d be. In some other state.

Semmel did not have a listed phone number.

Because phones are how the devil gets you.

Management for White declined to comment, publicist Kathe Nelson said.

My guess is because he’s already writing up a 20-minute comedy bit on it. So, of course, we get to find out if there is, in fact, such a thing as bad publicity when Ron White makes “Bismarck, North Dakota” into the next “Tater Salad” bit from his routine that he tells over and over and over for the next fifteen years every single goddamn time he’s on national television. Hooray! We caught the Tater!

Because of the letter, police placed a plainclothes officer at the first of White’s two performances to document his smoking, Offerman said. The officer reported back that White lit up a cigar to start the show, took one puff, then let the cigar burn out. He lit up again and took another puff later in the show, again let it run out, then didn’t light it up again until the end of the show, Offerman said.

That’s some fine detective work there, Lou. I just think it’s fantastic that given the choice between putting an undercover office in the audience to meticulously document how many times Ron White smoked a cigar during his routine versus telling Ron White before his act, “Hey, you can’t smoke that in here,” our boys in blue opted for the more easily mockable of the two options. Huzzah and kudos, gentlemen.

Smoking in public places is an infraction, punishable by fines of up to $500. Offerman said the report will be sent to the city attorney.

White, whose nickname “Tater Salad” was listed as his alias on the police report, is best know for his performances on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour with Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall and Larry the Cable Guy. The Texas Legislature declared April 27 “Ron White Day” to honor the Texas native.

The fact that he used “Tater Salad” as his alias on the report clearly documents that in this particular incident, I am rooting for everyone involved to somehow die in a self-contained nuclear apocalypse. Begging for it, in fact.

White is no stranger to run-ins with the law, having been arrested in Vero Beach, Fla., for marijuana and paraphernalia possession in September. He pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal and was sentenced to probation.

Which is probably why he felt safe smoking regular tobacco on stage, assuming that no one could possibly be dumb enough to dumb enough to criminally charge someone for smoking a regular old cigar three times. Showed you, funny man!

The one lesson I think we can all get from this is that Larry the Cable Guy is performing at the Bismarck Civic Center this Saturday, and if he isn’t bum rushed by a Keystone Cop-level amount of police officers, tazed in the face, pepper sprayed and beaten to death with nightsticks, then justice is truly dead in this country.

In the old days, it was pretty simple to know what you were going to get from the cable network you were watching. Want to say something food-related? Food Network’s for you. Maybe some cartoons? Cartoon Network then. A little music, perhaps? Try Music Television. It was simple. It was good. So, of course, it changed.

Feeling a little boxed in, cable networks that used to be devoted to one thing and one thing only decided to branch out into things that were not in their title. The Cartoon Network started showing non-animated films like Spider-man and Cats vs. Dogs and hoped no one would notice. MTV replaced all their music programming with reality television and game shows, yet oddly choose to continue using the word “music” in their name. TechTV became G4 and replaced most of their tech-related programming that no one was watching with mindless idiocy that no one is still watching. Television suddenly got that much more complicated.

One of these networks was the Sci-Fi Channel, who, inexplicably enough, used to just run Sci-Fi programming. That consisted mostly of old episodes of Star Trek, the Twilight Zone, Dark Shadows and Flash Gordon, which wouldn’t exactly qualify as must-see programming, but at least they weren’t lying to you. But then, as time went on, the definition of Sci-Fi had to be stretched further and further to include cheaply-made disaster or monster of the week Sci-Fi Original movies and Law & Order, Special Victims Unit, until it reached a breaking point when they started showing professional wrestling. Now, no longer wishing to be limited to the sci-fi genre by their Sci-Fi name, the suits at the Sci-Fi Channel decided to rebrand themselves in an effort to make themselves more viable in today’s programming market. So this week, the Sci-Fi Channel officially became:

The SyFy channel.

So now, instead of being Sci-Fi, they’re SyFy. Notice the difference there? No more of those “i”s or “silent c” crap. “Y”s are the wave of the future. Screw Sci-Fi. SyFy’s all about SyFy now. So now, when the network suits have to tell people which channel they work for, they won’t be embarressed to say that they work for the Sci-Fi Channel, but will instead be able to proudly state that they work at SyFy.

On a related note, I am no longer Erik Hagen. I am now, instead, Aric Hagen. I spell my name differently now, so I am a completely different person. Good for me.

-Aric Hagen

Our country is falling into decline. The shit is starting to overflow the sewers and all around us, hipsters and others are growing beards, mustaches and goatees that are entirely unnecessary and, in some cases, very irritating. Walk into any indie coffee shop or dive bar and you’ll see them lined up at the bar or huddled in the corner, eschewing the pool table for a book or a laptop or a news weekly.

My objection to some guy wearing a locally-screenprinted t-shirt, hesher jeans that show entirely too much of his junk, horn-rimmed glasses that he doesn’t actually have a prescription for and a vintage blazer with patches on the elbows has little to do with his far too thought-out wardrobe and more to do with his waxed handlebar mustache.

The same goes for the mid-20′s schlub in the corner wearing a Led Zepplin tour shirt from 1974 under his carefully selected hoodie and sporting a big, bushy beard. You sir, need a razor.

Ditto the guy bellied up to the bar sporting gigantic, bushy sideburns that nearly tickle his nose. Underneath that skullcap is probably a shaved head, for no good reason other than the shaved look accentuates the sideburns.

The facial hair in these cases aren’t the kind of statements that they used to be. It used to be that men grew beards because they looked better with a beard, or because their face was cold. Now, they’re ironic statements, styles plucked from yesteryear by virtue of their quaintness. This is facial hair grown and groomed out of boredom. Pampered out of ironic pride. Specially tailored to piss me off.

Or, at least, it seems that way.

If there was a good reason for someone my age to grow a handlebar mustache- say a career spent kidnapping damsels and putting them in distress by tying them to train tracks or plotting to ruin some shining exemplar of society, then I’d understand. If that beard was grown to imitate Paul Bunyan or because the wearer is a desperate loner, that’d be fine. If those sideburns were accompanied by an epic afro, a la Sly Stone, more power to him. But, those jobs have long since gone by the wayside. Thankfully, it hasn’t become ironic to tie women to railroad tracks. Yet…

My acidic reaction to this irritating new trend has nothing to do with my virtual inability to grow uniform facial hair. I assure you. This isn’t sour grapes on my part. Even if I could grow a bushy beard, I wouldn’t. Why should I? It doesn’t look good. If I happened to be one of those men who benefited from a beard, I’d be bitter, but I’m not. I wouldn’t even think of growing a mustache, because blonde guys who have mustaches are pedophiles, period. As for the sideburns, I can grow them, but since I can’t grow the requisite afro, I abstain.

Of course, the reason that I run into these people and their unnecessary facial hair might have something to do with the fact that I live in the unnecessary facial hair capital of America, Portland. We have more hipsters per capita than most states. One of our local magazines, Portland Monthy, even had a recent story all about Portlanders and their annoying beards. Here’s an quote from one of the “beardos;”

“A beard is a bullshit filter. It keeps me from working at lame places and 
interacting with lame people.

“A beard is a reminder that I am wild, that my roots are from the wilderness.

Hey, buddy, that beard may keep bullshit off of you, but you’re getting it all over me and everyone else when you say silly shit like that.

This has to stop.

So, I’m declaring a War on Unnecessary Facial Hair. Be it a mustache, a beard, sideburns, or even a cringe-worthy soul-patch, they have to be curtailed. There can be no letting up, no surrender, no matter how bushy, no matter how hirsute, we must prevail. I will be issuing everyone an industrial-strength beard-trimmer/electric razor, along with a holster to carry it in. Remember, you are not alone. Together, we can defeat this menace!

I’ve always been a bit of an amateur linguist. I love language and learning about it’s origins, not to mention the differences and similarities across the spectrum of tongues that separate and link us all. So, running across an article purporting to contain the findings of researchers that have found the oldest English words makes me a little more giddy than most people. Perhaps too giddy. I should probably sit down, now.

Turns out, these super-nerds have discovered that the oldest unchanged words in the English language are “two”, three”, “I” & “we.” Awesome. Now I know, and knowledge, if NBC circa 1988 is any guide, is power. I’ve also imbued you, the reader, with this new power. Feel it course through your veins. Grrrr…so much power.

But, with every great discovery comes an equally great let-down. Or, at least that’s the case here. It seems that the group that found out the oldest words in our language have a computer program that can analyze the rate of change of words in the English language. This program has some bad news for us English speakers. We’re about to lose some words in the near future.

The team says it can predict which words are likely to become extinct – citing “squeeze”, “guts”, “stick” and “bad” as probable first casualties.

Shit. I like those words. Especially “guts.”

My ability to talk about gutsy performances or any reference of animal slaughter will be severely curtailed. And I talk about animal slaughter a lot. Perhaps too much for some people, but I have to be true to myself.

No more will we be able to refer to our significant others as our “main squeeze.” Gymnasts will no longer “stick” a landing. The AMC hit show “Breaking Bad” will have to change it’s name, because we simply won’t understand what the hell the “Breaking” is doing.

This is all so very confusing.

So, I’m starting a resistance to the loss of these classic English words. I urge you all to join me. Use “squeeze,” “guts,” “stick” and “bad” as often as you can. Slip them into conversation whether they fit or not. Use them in letters that you write to your grandparents and birthday cards that you send to friends. Twitter them. Blog them. Make use of them in instant messages to your online buddies. Do not let them die! Don’t give up! Don’t give in! Never admit defeat! Even if we all end up sounding like we’re speaking gibberish, we shall not let these English words die! Let this cause embiggen the world around you. It’s a perfectly cromulent thing to do, not just as an English speaker, but as a human being. Excelsior!