"What's a Shocker?"

Archer

My Parents Were Awesome

Yes, Granny's hat says "Ayatollah Eat Shit." Which is why this site is worth a look.

What happens when Jane Fonda drops acid

Caption Contest

GOP - Circling the Drain

Is this really happening? Its a build til the absured - but if you dont know where this is heading - its worth it (at time 3:34)

Compare and Contrast

Life Moves Pretty Fast

Director John Hughes passed away today, and he will be missed. To quote the man himself, ""Oh, he's very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, dickheads - they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude."

A nice set of remembrances here. Leave your own in the comments.

Dirty Sanchez

CNN's Rick Sanchez just ate and shat out the health care CEO who's behind those godawful Conservatives for Patients' Rights ad. Daaaaamn.

Birther Madness

As an ardent liberal -- and more important, as a connoisseur of unintended comedy -- I ask that the supremely insane and superbly ludicrous Orly Taitz be given a half hour on network TV every night for the next month.

This epic meltdown on MSNBC makes Chernobyl look like nothing.

A Real American Pie Chart

Somebody's Fucking My Lady

I've been looking for this forever -- Jerry Minor and Craig Robinson on "Real Time with Bill Maher," singing the greatest love song of all time.

Attention Advertisers

If you don't cease and desist with the "Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?" ad with those real-life, rythymless, still-schlubby morons pawing their way through the song like drunken fucking pandas, singing the praises of that corkboard piece of shit cookie, I'm going to take a hostage. You have been warned.

Also, Lipitor: Your ad with the heart-attack victim with the pencil thin mustache is creeping me out. Only two kinds of men have that look -- internationally notorious cat burglars and pedophiles. Either way, I'm not listening.

The Jordan Schlansky Project

Christ, this recurring bit from Conan O'Brien is funny. I still can't believe Schlansky is a real person. He seems like they crossbred Sylar from "Heroes" and the Queer Eye crew.

If Conan isn't your cup of tea, feel free to switch over to Leno. Might as well hit the early bird special at the Sizzler and then take your fiber laxative while you're at it, grandpa.

Seriously?

Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write: Tom Arnold is one smart liberal.

Jesus, Hannity, you just got your ass kicked by a guy who willingly married Roseanne Barr.

Friday Nonrandom One

Go hell, iPodians. This is how I roll.

Friday Random Ten

This week's album cover comes courtesy of friend of the blog -- and, indeed, friend of all mankind -- Pedro.

Just look into the eyes of little Eli Manning there. He has a secret to tell, but I'm not sure just who it's about. Maybe it was his dad Archie, taking out some trauma from his days with the Aints. Maybe his brother Cooper, the one without the football gene, trying to dominate his little brother with his own version of the hurry-up offense. Or maybe the pervert in the park had a present in his pants.

Who knows? But it's bad. Tom Coughlin naked bad.

Alright, let's do this thing.

For those of you just joining us, here's how it's done, in three easy steps. First, take out whatever music storage device you use -- an iPod, an imitationPod, a 1958 Wurlitzer jukebox, the rhythm-blessed wino on your corner, whatever -- set it to random, and give us the first ten songs that come out. Second, if you'd like to kick it up a notch Elzar-style, rate the songs on a scale of one to ten, with one being the biggest bunch of sucks who ever sucked a suck and ten being a song so cool that it collapses upon itself to form a black hole of coolness that not even Barry White's voice could escape. Third, and most important, mock everyone else's music.

And. Here. We. Go.

1. Wilco, "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" -- A song so perfectly Wilconian that they named a tour documentary after it. Just a little bit off-key and off-kilter, this slow strummer from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot really is the band at its best. 8/10

2. Greenskeepers, "Lotion" -- Lordy, Lordy, I love this song. It's catchy as hell, but you'll hate yourself for singing along, since the entire tune is written from the perspective of Buffalo Bill from "Silence of the Lambs." The song is absolutely brilliant on its own, but the video -- which syncs the song up to actual clips from the film -- is pure genius. 10/10

3. Big Boi, "Kryptonite" -- This is a fairly mediocre offering from Mr. Antwan Patton, a song that suggests that if the long-rumored Outkast break-up ever does come to be, then Big Boi is destined to join Andrew Ridgley, John Oates, and Art Garfunkel in the annals of castaway sidemen. 5/10

4. The Gruesomes, "Way Down Below" -- Fairly decent bit of garage rock revival from the 1980s. They're not as good as the premier garage rock revival group, the Gories. But then again, they're not as bad as the other retro group of the 1980s, the Goonies. 6/10

5. Earth, Wind and Fire, "September" -- A great song, and usually the one song I can count on for rump-shaking inspiration at a wedding. But if Aunt Reba is shaking her considerably large groove thing at the same time, I suppose the song can't be all that cool. 7/10

6. Yo La Tengo, "Cherry Chapstick" -- Hoboken's finest deliver the goods here on a nice strummy bit of indie rock. I think the entire And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out CD is terrific, and this song is certainly no exception. 7/10

7. Archers of Loaf, "Might" -- Two minutes of stripped-down indie-rock love. Sweet. 8/10

8. ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, "The Rest Will Follow" -- Not surprisingly, a band with the balls to use that as their name also throws a wall of sound at you too. Two drummers and what sounds like a half dozen guitars lead to a nice driving rocker. Solid stuff. 8/10

9. TV on the Radio, "Heroes" -- The original is probably my favorite Bowie song of all time, but this cover may be even better. Holy shit this is good. Do yourself a favor and go get this on iTunes. 10/10

10. The Guess Who, "Laughing" -- Aw, fuck. And I was doing so well. 3/10

Alright, that gives me a 7.2 average. Either I'm getting cooler as the summer heats up, or just getting much less judgmental. I prefer to think it's the former.

Let's see what you've got, folks. Drop your own Random Ten in the comments below, with or without the Coolness Self-Audit.

Where Have You Been?

An in-law of mine forwards right-wing cartoons, emails, etc., about 5 times a day. Just recently there's been a lot of stuff about Michael Jackson, his funeral, and the sick society and MEDIA that loves it all, usually juxtaposed with the story of a war hero or recent fatality in Iraq or Afghanistan. They end with some variant of "Why isn't the MEDIA focused on soldiers dying instead of Michael Jackson???"

To which I say, where have you been? Us naive libruls have been saying for years that the media should cover the wars more. It was conservatives who approved of the ban on photographing soldier coffins, it was conservatives who went bonkers when Nightline had the temerity to read the names of those killed in the war (back when the list was short enough to read in a few hours).

And unemployment. Just about all of my conservative friends are insisting that the true unemployment rate is 16%, because the way unemployment is accounted leaves out various unemployed groups. However, back in 2004, they scoffed at the idea that the low-ish unemployment numbers missed anybody.

The deficit is out of control, say my conservos. Yes, the same people who supported two wars and two rounds of tax cuts.

I wonder what's next. Gay marriage?