Back in 2010...

Hey Kiddos-

Many apologies for the long absence.

New posts will arrive in the new year.

Until then,

Happy Christmas, you dirty prole.

Best,

Teddy Adorno

Best Version of John Cusack?

Lowbrow Answer: Action Movie Cusack
I love you, John, but what are you doing in "2012"? I can just picture the audition process.

Roland Emmerich: "John, how fast can you run away from exploding stuff?"
John: "I ran the 400m in high school..."
Roland Emmerich: "Perfect. You're hired."

I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but you aren't Bruce Willis. Forget the action stunts and flaming cars and stick to what you know: running your hand through your weird hair while you blabber about the melancholy of love.


Middlebrow Answer: Dramedy Cusack
This is classic Cusack. You can't really argue with "High Fidelity" or "Say Anything." He's the hero for all of us indie kids who like to decry love and affection on the outside, but who are dying for a hug on the inside. You also have to give Cusack credit for sounding as witty in these movies as we all think that we are in real life.

Although, he's kind of a pussy. Dude. The blonde chick in "High Fidelity" is ugly. Move on. And "In Your Eyes"? Really? You get to blast one song on your radio to win back your love and you chose Peter Gabriel? Could you be any more cliche? You're the kind of guy who has the string quartet play "Fields of Gold" at his wedding. Lame.


Highbrow Answer: High-Concept Cusack
Remember when you first saw "Being John Malcovich" and your head exploded from all the awesomenitude? And you wondered why every movie couldn't be that good? And why Cusack wasn't the biggest star in the universe? But then you realized that most of America's population is comprised of drooling idiots who think that Rowe vs. Wade was a boxing match in the 1980's. Ah well. Sorry, John.

Cusack is at his best when his natural weirdness actually enhances the theme of the story. They could have had a whole scene of him just taking a dump in "Being John Malcovich" and I would have told all my friends about how mystical a moment it was for the plot. I love you, High-Concept Cusack. Stay strange, my friend, stay strange. Oh, and avoid "Serendipity 2" if it ever comes your way.

Best Team in Baseball?

Lowbrow Answer: The New York Yankees
Let's say ten people agree to run a marathon. Nine of the people show up on race day with a pair of a running shoes, a power bar, and Vaseline on their nipples. The tenth person shows up in a Lamborghini Diablo equipped with a 893 million dollar rocket booster that NASA designed. Now. When that tenth person wins the marathon with a world-record time of 4 minutes, am I really supposed to be impressed? Blow me.

The Yankees have the largest payroll in the history of baseball. I'm more impressed when they DON'T win. Remember in Jurassic Park when there's that goat chained to a post? And then the T-Rex shows up and eats the shit out of it? Yankees fans are the kind of people who are super impressed with the T-Rex for eating the goat and who throw a parade in its honor for doing so. Lame.


Middlebrow Answer: The Boston Red Sox
Have you ever noticed how the Red Sox players look like guys you'd want to have at a BBQ? That's because they have this little thing called "personality." They're allowed to have facial hair, they dance after championships, and they don't all have scary military haircuts like Jeter or A-Rod. Are those two dudes in the Marines or something? Boston also has the only scoreboard left in MLB that is operated by hand. Hell yes. Fuck digital technology. I want some arthritic old guy named "Walt" putting my numbers up.

Of course, when you look at it, the Red Sox are just as rich as the Yankees are. They just mask it better. And there's nothing worse than a liar. At least the Yankees are honest: "Hey. We're douchebags. Stay out of our way while we win everything." Boston is like that first boyfriend that every girl has in freshman year of college: "I'm not like the other guys in my frat. I care about your feelings. That's not a roofie in your drink, it's a vitamin C tablet. I wouldn't want my baby to catch a cold."


Highbrow Answer: The Kansas City Royals
Name me five people that root for the Kansas City Royals.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

No? Nothing? Didn't think so.

Nobody likes this team, which makes them FUCKING AWESOME. Supporting any kind of professional sport is lowbrow by definition, but if you're going to do it, at least have the decency to pick a team that's totally useless. Then you can sit in the stands and wax philosophical about the Calvinist idea of Total Depravity and how you're experiencing it at that very moment.

Best Body of Water for Vacations?

Lowbrow Answer: The Ocean
I get seven days a year away from my mind-numbing job as a corporate slave, do I really want to spend them with sweaty fat people in bikinis? Or annoying little kids with poop in their pants who can't build a decent sandcastle to save their lives? I hate the beach. It's like somebody took every reality show reject they could find and dropped them into the same pile of sand.

Speaking of sand, fuck it. Fuck it right in the ear. I know it feels good on my feet, but it finds its way into my butt faster than a drunk sorority girl. But unlike a drunk sorority girl, it isn't slippery and warm and blowing me. Lame.


Middlebrow Answer: A Lake
No salt, no currents, no deadly Orca whales trolling the shores for a snack. You can open your eyes under water, you can put a dock in right in front of your house, and you can skate on it in the winter. So, if we tally up the points here, let me see, we get a score of SUCK IT, OCEANS.

The one problem with lakes is that they're generally pretty small. So when some tourist jackass is buzzing around on a rented jet-ski, it's almost impossible to avoid him. I'd love to run him over with my boat and leave a crimson trail of blood in the water, but the pesky Marine Patrol guys keep telling me it's not allowed. Fuck those guys. They never let me do anything fun.


Highbrow Answer: A River
You have to appreciate anything that can carve its way through rock without making a sound. That's some psychic mind power shit. I wish I could do that to my enemies. Some bully would pick on me at lunch and I'd put a small grand canyon into his back with some mind bullets.

The best part about a river is that it's always recycling itself. You can dump your trash into it and BOOM, three minutes later it's clean. Poop in it, pee in it, bone in it; whatever. A river has no memory. It's nature's version of the roofie.

Best Way to Approach Life?

Lowbrow Answer: Happy
Stop smiling all the time. What are you, a golden retriever? Happy people blow. I hope those kids who go out to bars every night of the weekend and party like they're still at their frat houses in college get hit by a bus. A big bus with AIDS and Cancer smeared all over the front of it. Cheerful pricks.

You never see happy people getting anything done. They're always just lying around on the couch, stoned and watching Golden Girls re-runs. And they're too busy enjoying themselves with their friends and family to have edcucated themselves. You try and talk to them about Adorno or Marx and they just regale you with stories about riding jet-skis with their cousins last Friday.


Middlebrow Answer: Denial
Denial can be fun. It's like a Get Out of Jail Free card. Have abusive parents? Just forget about them! Your wife having an affair with your dog? No she isn't! Have a cancerous lump in your back? Ignore it! It's not happening! It's the magic eraser for everything bad in your life!

Denial is lame though because it turns your friends into unstable emotional timebombs. You'll offer your buddy a powdered donut one day and she'll suddenly burst into tears. Little did you know that her father was eating a powdered donut the day he molested her, or something horrific like that. You were just trying to share your pastry and now you've accidently unearthed 15 years of trauma. Nice going.


Highbrow Answer: Bitter Resentment
Life is shit. Nuclear bombs are dropped on Japanese cities, Holocausts happen, and Arrested Development gets canceled. The only way to deal with such tragedies is to be fucking miserable. All the time. It's not much fun, but it's not supposed to be. This is life, not a tea party in Barbados with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Look at how much bitter people accomplish. They write poetry, they compose symphonies, and they paint beautiful art. Sure, a lot of them kill themselves before they reach 40, but who wants to live past 40 anyway? I say get in, create some epic art, and get out. Fuck being elderly; I'm more content to end up as a blood spatter pattern on my curtains when I'm 39.

Best Way to be like Michael Phelps?

Lowbrow Answer: Eat 10,000 Calories a Day
Hey, Tubby. You aren't swimming 500 miles every morning. You don't get to eat four pizzas on a nightly basis and still feel good about yourself. Stop stuffing cheeseburgers into your pie-hole and get off your couch.

The worst part about this is how long it must take to consume that much food. Phelps probably spends hours at his kitchen table. So. To Clarify. He's a big slab of meat for all of the citizens of the U.S. to enjoy and he spends more time eating than doing anything else. He sounds like beef livestock.


Middlebrow Answer: Win 8 Gold Medals
Swimming in the Olympics is so bullshit. First of all, there are a thousand different events. The 50m butterfly, the 100m butterfly, the 227.5m butterfly. No wonder Michael Phelps can win 8 gold medals. He gets like, 56 chances at it.

And have you ever noticed that nobody from Africa is in these races? Or South America? Or, really, even Asia? I suppose it makes sense. There aren't many pools in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The kids there are too busy mining blood diamonds to practice the breast stroke. Olympic swimming is a bunch of white kids from the US, Europe, and Australia preening around in Speedos while IOC Officials hand out medals. Sounds like a blast.


Highbrow Answer: Be from Maryland
Maryland rules. It has Johns Hopkins, the FDA, and the highest median income of any state in the union. Suck on that, Delaware. It also has coastline, marsh, mountains, and forest. Maryland is like that girl we wish we all could date. You know the one; she's blistering hot, she plays the violin, she's a biotech engineer, and she loves sex.

The Maryland colony was chartered 1632 by Cæcilius Calvert, 2nd Lord Baltimore. Ummm, Cæcilius? Awesome. God dammit, I wish my name were cooler. I think I might have children, just so I can name one, "Cæcilius King, 2nd Lord Spankitmore."

Best Western Religion?

Lowbrow Answer: Mormonism
Magic underwear that protects you from bad stuff? Really? Okay, let's do a test. Let's put 50 of you against a wall and I'll shoot you all with a Gatling gun and we'll see how many of you survive. I'm not really a betting man, but I'd be willing to wager that my Gatling gun will prevail over your mystical Fruit-of-the-Looms.

And what's with hating gay people? Gay people are amazing. Without them, we wouldn't have good haircuts, sodomy, or Elton John. I love all three of those things! I mean, come on. If you get rid of all the gays, then who are straight men like me supposed to get blowjobs from?


Middlebrow Answer: Christianity
The only reason these guys aren't down in "Lowbrow" with the Mormons is the Unitarian Universalists. Now, THAT'S a religion. You want to wear sweatpants to church? Cool. You want to play some Radiohead during your sermon? Fine. You want to skip Church to play in a soccer tournament? Go for it. Just be nice to people and respect the Lord. Or don't. Whatever.

The rest of you are crazy. You tell me Jesus loved everyone then you tell me to hate gays. You decry cannibalism and then you eat the flesh of your lord every Sunday. You tell me not to have sex before marriage and then a bunch of your priests rape little boys. You guys do more waffling than the Eggo's company.


Highbrow Answer: The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
At least this one is based on science. The church has proven an indusputable link between the decline in pirate activity to the rising global climate. Boom. Science. Fuck you, faith. I have FACTS.

You can't really beat a flying spaghetti monster as your lord. Why would I want to worship Jesus Christ? He's just a dude that got nailed to a block of wood. I could do that. I could go outside and do that right now. That's not impressive. But a fucking flying spaghetti monster?! That shit is terrifying. It looks like one of Godzilla's enemies. Now THAT is a god that I want to pray to.

Learn more about the Flying Spaghetti Monster here.

Best Form of College Singing?

Lowbrow Answer: A Capella

I know that when I got to college, my first thoughts were "How can I spend more time standing in a half-circle with a bunch of dudes in khaki pants?" and "How can I sing Dave Matthews Band songs to idiot freshman girls?" Boom. A Capella. Done.

The worst part about this shit are the names. The groups are always one of two things. Either they're a semi-clever play on words like, "The A Capellicans" or they're silly and whimsical, like "The Whiffenpoofs." Either way, they're fucking stupid. College A Capella is like Coldplay: the only people who actually like it are 40-year-old middle-aged white women.

Middlebrow Answer: University Chorus
At big schools, the university chorus is totally legit. They usually have a hundred voices, all of whom can actually sing, and get to do stuff like Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The best part, though, is that they all have these ancient school songs that they sing. Shit like, "I Left My Heart at Old Cornell" and "Michigan, Michigan." Lemme tell you. When you hear a full choir sing one of those old tunes, it sounds like a barbershop quartet on steroids.

Of course, for every badass school song you're singing, you're singing four contemporary pieces of shit. And you're often forced to combine with other school choirs to do big numbers. Fuck that. I don't want to dillute my gene pool by mixing some lowbrow school. If I go to Cornell and you go to Ohio State, that means I don't have to talk to you because you're too stupid to understand the words I'm using.


Highbrow: Chamber Ensemble
Chamber ensembles allow you to sing stuff by guys likeThomas Tallis. Tallis composed music in the 16th century for Queen Elizabeth. His most epic piece is called "Spem in Alium" and was composed for the Queen's coronation. No big deal, but it has 40 different parts. Forty. Different. Parts. Musicians today are lightweight. Imagine John Mayer trying to come up with forty different vocal harmonies. His head would probably explode, finally revealing to the world that he's just a robot controlled by a tiny gerbil.

The music sung in chamber ensembles is also generally so old that it's a capella, which is great because I hate instrumentalists. Look, I know that playing the piano is hard, but you're just pushing buttons in a sequence. We could program a computer to do the same thing. Get off your high horse, pianists of the world, I'm through living under your tyranny.

Best Version of Hitler?

Lowbrow Answer: General
You were trying to take over the world, right? Kill everybody who didn't agree with you? How'd that go for you? Oh, you failed? But I thought you were the master race. I thought you were all powerful and unbeatable. Here's a little lesson for next time. Don't fuck with a bunch of people who are bigger than you are. That's like a gazelle walking into a lions' den and picking a fight. Dumbass.

And then, at the end of it all, you hid in a bunker like a little bitch and finally killed yourself? Nice one. Real heroic. I'll see you in hell, you prick. And when I do, I'm going to shit in your pillow.


Middlebrow Answer: Politician
Okay, so you rallied a nation that had been devastated by World War I. And you unified the socialist party to take power. And your speeches were crazy. You sound like some sort of motivational speaker on methamphetamine.

But, come on. Killing everyone who isn't Aryan? Are you insane? That's not really a strong platform to base your campaign on. I didn't study political science or anything, but maybe you should focus more on "I'll lower taxes" or "I'll get you better wages," and less on "I'm a crazy idiot who wants to kill six million people." Know what I mean?

Highbrow Answer: None
I'm sure some of you were expecting me to talk about Hitler as an artist for this one, but I can't. His art blows. His landscapes look like "paint by number" and his portraits are shitty. Which means there really isn't a highbrow version of Hitler. Although, are we really surprised by that? This is the dude that tried to exterminate an entire race of people. He's basically an annoying schoolyard bully, only with Panzer tanks.

I'm sure that there are a ton of arguments that could be made about Hitler being a genius and about his high level of intellectualism. But he lost. He lost the war. So fuck him. You know those people who lose a soccer game and then tell you that it was because they were a little tired and that they could totally beat you if they played you again? I hate those people. Win, or shut the hell up.

Best Site for the 2016 Olympics?

Like the Olympics? Learn about the events here.
Lowbrow Answer: Chicago, USA
I love how upset Americans get when they don't get picked first. Hey, Chicago. Newsflash. You kinda blow. What have you given the world besides the Sears Tower, Polish-Americans, and the Cubs. Who blow. I know our super-cool black president is from your city, but get over yourselves. I can name a million other cities in the world with way more super-cool black dudes than you.

My favorite part about this last Olympic bid was the scene in Chicago when they found out they didn't get it. It was like somebody had taken their favorite toy away from them. What did you expect? You can't just throw Oprah and Obama at the IOC and expect them to win. They're all from culturally elite countries like Switzerland and Luxembourg. Each one of them speaks like nine languages. Don't expect them to cave when you hold up pictures of Michael Jordan and demand the games.


Middlebrow Answer: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Brazil is awesome. You have to hand it to a country that's famous for both soccer and removing hair from female pubic regions all over the world. Brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it. The population of Brazil looks like a box of crayons; they've got redheads and black dudes, and everything in between. How nice. The Olympics will be one big ad for "We are the World."

It does seem a bit odd, though, to put the Olympics in the unofficial crime capital of the world. I can just picture the marathon course: avoid getting stabbed in the first ten miles as you traverse the dense city center, watch out for errant needles as you pass through the favelas, turn right at the whorehouses, dodge gunfire in the gang district, and be sure to take a nice hit of Colombian white as you cross the finish line.


Highbrow Answer: Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo
All the original Olympic events were based on battle, so why not put the games right in the middle of a war zone? It would give the Javelin throwers something fun to aim at. Just think about how much more fun those long track races would be if the runners were being chased by Hutu rebels with sawed-off shotguns in a 1989 Ford Pickup. I bet you'd get a lot more people tuning into the 10k.

While we're on the subject of Africa, I'd like say something:

Fuck you, Westernized World.

You showed up in Africa in the early twentieth century, stripped the continent of all its resources, killed EVERYBODY, and created endless civil strife by giving guns to some tribes but not others. Nice work. I'm really hoping that someday the African nations band together and attack the U.S. Maybe we will learn some humility when Rwandan soldiers are dragging the body of our president through the streets of New York behind a war elephant.

Best Form of Poetry?

Lowbrow Answer: Haiku
Have you ever noticed that only one in every forty haiku's even makes sense? It's just seventeen syllables worth of bullshit. You could literally pick out words from the dictionary at random and make Haiku's for a living. Here, I'll show you. Below are three Haiku's. One is a real, published piece, and the other two are just me trying to sound epic. See if you can guess which is which:

1. Coming from the woods
A bull has a lilac sprig
Dangling from a horn

2. A bitter morning:
Sparrows sitting together
Without any necks.

3. A mountain village
Under the piled-up snow
The sound of water.

---Answer Below this line---

Numbers 1 and 2 sound pretty bullshit, eh? Well, guess what. They're all real. Each one of those was a money-earning, fame-creating piece of poetry. Fuck you, Haiku. You're like a pretentious toddler who tries to convince me that the poop in his bedsheets is actually a priceless peace of post-modern art.


Middlebrow Answer: Sonnet
At least there's some real work involved here. You can't just stick seventeen random words in a row and be published. And you're embarking on a form made famous by this random English guy you may know of called Will Shakes-something. I forget his full name but I guess he's pretty good. I heard he wrote plays too, or something.

The problem with sonnets are that all the most famous ones are about love. Ugh. Kill me. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" No, you shan't. Your lover is a slut who's been sleeping around behind your back. Compare her to a community bicycle or an AIDS monkey.


Highbrow Answer: Blank Verse
Most of this shit is so oblique that you can't even tell that it's poetry. And that's the key. If it confuses the proles, it must be highbrow. Just like theoretical physics or Dickensian literature or simple algebra.

Blank verse is beautiful because it eliminates all the rules of other forms of poetry that poets are so intent on keeping in place. You actually have to write some good stuff, rather than relying on rhyming or form to save your ass. I hate poets. Just because you take long pauses in between what you're saying doesn't mean you're a genius. Just tell me how you feel about summer rain. Don't use 56 sets of rhyming quatrain to do it. I have more important places to be, like, anywhere but here listening to you. Jackass.

Best Way to Get a Dog?

Lowbrow Answer: Buy It
It's a dog. It drools on your couch, chews on your shoes, and poops on your lawn. You're really going to pay $1200 for it? Are you insane? You could buy something useful with that money, like a flatscreen TV or 1200 bags of Skittles. How about this. Send me a check for $500 and I'll poop on your lawn whenever you want me to. You'll save money and I'll finally be able to afford that vintage Punky Brewster lunchbox.

Most people who buy a dog want to put it in dog shows. What a blast these shindigs are. It's a beauty pageant without the swimsuit competition or the "World Peace" questionnaire. Oh yeah, and they're DOGS. Maybe comparing them to each other mattered back in the 1600s when they actually helped us survive everyday life, but come on. If you're going to dog shows at this point, you probably live alone and you probably own a sweater with your dog's face bedazzled on it.


Middlebrow Answer: Rescue It
If you're going to have a dog, at least get one with personality. Who would want a perfect-looking poodle when you can have a mangy rottweiler with one eye and dog-fighting scars? Rescuing a dog also allows you to sleep at night knowing that you did something nice, rather than sleeping at night wondering why you didn't get 1200 bags of Skittles instead of buying a dog.

Of course, you're getting sloppy seconds with this one, and we all hate that. Your dog probably belonged to some redneck named Cletus with 14 kids and pickup truck who never fed it and made it watch NASCAR races with him on the weekend. Low. Brow.


Highbrow Answer: Capture a Hyena
Fuck dogs. If I'm going to have a four-legged animal in my house, it's going to a be a Hyena. It can protect me from burglars, it can scavenge for food around my neighborhood, and it can take down the mailman like he was a sickly gazelle. Who doesn't want all those things? Name me one person who doesn't want those things.

Hyenas are also big enough that you could put little kids on their backs. Imagine it. Other kids are getting dropped off at kindergarten in a Ford Fiesta and your son rolls up on the back of a Hyena. I'll guarantee you this: he'd never get beat up. If he did, you could just train the Hyena to rip the bully's face off and eat it in front of the other kids as a warning.

Best Instrument in a Band?

Lowbrow Answer: Drums
When the most famous musician on your instrument is Animal from The Muppet Show, you've got problems. I understand that drumming takes rhythm, but come on. You're just bashing shit with a pair of sticks. You're basically playing lacrosse against a set of drums.

Music is made up of rhythm and melody, but you're just playing rhythm. You're missing half the artform! I wouldn't be impressed if somebody only put Jelly in my PB&J, or if they just shot a rifle in the Olympic Biathlon. Don't expect me to be impressed here. Lazy bitch.


Middlebrow Answer: Bass
At least you look cool playing this. Bassists always hold the thing way down low at their crotch so if you watch them from far away, it looks like they're masturbating. They also get that hip neck swivel dance that only bassists can do. I tried to learn it once but just ended up giving myself arthritis. Serves me right. I don't play bass, what the hell am I doing trying to learn the hip neck swivel dance?

Of course, the problem here is that you're playing the same five notes in the same octave for every single song. There's a reason basses have fewer strings: they're less interesting. You may look cool while you play it, but you sound like a 4th grader in music class at one of those public schools that's been forced to cancel its arts program and hires an ex-con to teach bass once a month while he's on parole.


Highbrow Answer: Rhythm Guitar
Any band you've ever heard that sounds shitty live; I guarantee you they're missing a good rhythm guitarist. It's the classic Ed O'Brien conundrum. O'Brien is the rhythm guitarist for Radiohead. He doesn't really write any of the songs, but he's crucial when they play live. The rhythm guitarist is like one of the linemen in football: he doesn't seem useful until he isn't there and your quarterback is getting sacked on every play.

Rhythm guitar also generally requires a pretty elaborate understanding of music theory. While the inept lead guitarist is plucking away on some horrendous solo, this guy is playing syncopated thirds in 9/8 time and doing vocal harmony in triads. Not too bad. You can't even walk and chew gum at the same time.

Best Way to Spell "Tiffany?"

Lowbrow Answer: "Tiffani"
Have we really become so smitten with the Apple corporation that everything has to have an "i" in it now? Steve Jobs isn't that great, I promise you. Everywhere I look, it's the iPhone or the iMac or the iPod. The company is like a swarm of locusts, multiplying and multiplying. Soon enough we'll have iDildos, iDrugdealers, and iAbortions.

The most famous person with this name is Tiffani Amber Thiessen. Man, it's gotta be tough when you're big celebrity's claim to fame is "Saved by the Bell." It's like those indie movies you see that advertise by telling you they played at the Tellumca Film Festival or CineFargo. I got news for you. The Tellumca Film Festival averages six people at every screening and CineFargo is me and my buddy Dwayne watching DVDs in my living room.


Middlebrow Answer: "Tiffany"
Okay, so you've got the jeweler on your side. Plus, your name is an old English reference to an epiphany. Classy. Too bad most people in our generation are only really aware of the lame pop singer from the 80's. She ruined it for you. Kind of like how nobody can really be named "Adolf" anymore.

There's something rad about the letter "y." It's like that amazing pretty girl in your class who has sleeve tattoos and wears cute librarian glasses. You don't really know anything about her but you've heard she's the lead singer of a band that's huge in Germany and she creates car designs for Saab. You know what I mean? No? Go out and find one of those girls. Then you'll understand.


Highbrow Answer: "Edith"
Any way you slice it, "Tiffany" just isn't a highbrow name. Sorry, all you unfortunate ladies out there. Your parents spent all their time watching MTV and getting to third base with each other instead of studying enough to know that Tiffany is a fucking stupid name.

It's names like this that make me wish that some of the old school girls' names would make a comeback. Here's my plan for the future:

Out: Tiffany, Brittany, Ariel, Misty, Brandi, Ashley
In: Edith, Gertrude, Edna, Hortense, Mabel, Millicent

Most Legit Type of Cancer?

Lowbrow Answer: Lung Cancer
Let me guess. You're a smoker. Nice job. I'm proud of you. Still feel cool and rebellious now that you're getting Chemo treatments once a week? Awesome.

My favorite part about lung cancer is this notion that people didn't know that smoking was bad for you back in the 50's and 60's. Are you kidding? You're inhaling smoke. What, did people not die in fires back then? How can it not be bad for you? It's like playing catch with a chainsaw and being surprised when your hand gets cut off. Dumbasses.


Middlebrow Answer: Breast Cancer
As a lover of both women and their boobs, I'm not up for anything that specifically endangers everyone's favorite female body part. That's some harsh shit, cancer. Couldn't you go after the appendix or the toenails instead? You know, more useless body parts? Breast cancer is like that terrorist who has a choice of any location in America but blows himself up inside the Radiohead tour bus. You BASTARD.

I also can't stand the pink. Pink ribbons, pink t-shirts, pink pins. Baseball teams even use pink bats on Breast Cancer day. Kill me. If blue is the color that subconsciously relaxes me, than pink is the color that subconsciously makes me want to stab out my eyes with a rainbow trout and throw myself off the top of the St. Louis Arch.


Highbrow Answer: Throat Cancer
This shit is horrifying. It fucks up your speech, your ability to eat, and can get into your brain pretty easily. Plus the chemo is terrible because it scorches your face and head. Respect to you if you've got throat cancer. If testicular cancer is the Desert Storm of cancers, than Throat Cancer is the Crusades. And you're the Muslims.

Sigmund Freud died of this, so at least you're in elite company. Near the end of his life, he decided he was sick of pain killers and went off his meds so that he could experience true suffering. And experience it he did. It's say he spent the final three days of his life crying out in unbearable pain. Say it with me now: "HARD. CORE."

Best Version of Jet Li?

Lowbrow Answer: American Movie Jet Li
Every movie that Jet Li has done in America blows. Like, literally every one of them. I don't understand how the guy keeps getting work in this country. Think of it this way. If I were a preschool teacher and I cut my students' heads off with a lawn-mower every time they came to class, somehow I doubt I'd keep getting new students. See what I'm saying?

What's amazing about Jet Li's American films is that they're all the same. It's always one rogue prisoner/detective/immortal being against everybody else in a fight to save his family/girlfriend/life/dog. You may have seen one of them. They're all called "Romeo Must Die When He Kisses The One Dragon While Rising To Honor in War."


Middlebrow Answer: French Movie Jet Li
Say what you will about the French, but leave Luc Besson out of it. The dude is responsible for some of the most badass movies of the last fifteen years, including "The Professional," "The Fifth Element," and "Taken." If you don't love all three of those films, do a quick check: I think your balls are missing. Besson also wrote the script for "Danny the Dog," which stars our boy Jet as a slave fighter who goes nuts and kills everything in sight when you remove his collar. Heavy.

"Danny the Dog" also sees Li do some acting against Morgan Freeman and Bob Hoskins, which is no small task. Acting in a scene with Freeman must be something like fellating Lexington Steele's bone-machine: It's hard, it's famous, and it's black. Of course, Li fails to earn true highbrow status when you start to notice that all his scenes involve him ripping peoples' faces off with his bare hands.


Highbrow Answer: Chinese Movie Jet Li
I don't know if you're aware of this, but apparently Jet Li speaks Chinese. Fluently. Who knew?! The next thing you'll tell me is that he's doing all of his own stunts in these movies. Ha, ha, ha. See what I did there? It's funny because he DOES actually do his own stunts. Get it?

Li's work in Chinese is awesome. I highly recommend "The Warlords," which sees him leading an epic army around China in 1860, destroying everything he can get his hands on. Reminds me of when I masturbate to "Braveheart." Jet Li is like a more smoldering version of Mel Gibson, except he isn't covered in blue face paint and his eyes are thinner.

Best Night of the Week to go out?

Lowbrow Answer: Friday
Kill me. Hordes of coked-out twentysomethings charging out of the workplace and right into a nightclub so they can drink till they're sick and then go home with a douchbag fratboy and fuck till they're herpe'd. And all while spending $17 on every cocktail. Hey, sweetheart. Why not go to the corner store, drink a Forty, and then fuck a hobo. It'd be the same experience you're having now, only $50 cheaper. And the hobo would actually be nice to you the next morning.

The worst part about Friday is that the only thing you can really do is go to a club or a bar. It's too late for a movie, no sports teams are playing, and you haven't left town yet. So every idiot in the city is standing in line at the same five hotspots. Awesome. Just what I want to do after working a mind-numbing job all day with people I don't like; stand in a mind-numbing line all night with people I don't like.


Middlebrow Answer: Thursday
This is only slightly better than Friday. The fact that people have work the next day helps to serve as a seatbelt for the really raucus stuff. Usually you end up actually having a conversation with somebody. How exciting. Of course, the evening is inevitably ruined by the douchebags who see Thursday less as a chance to enjoy a low-key start to the weekend and more as a chance to drink twelve shots of Patron and date rape college juniors.

Thursday is great because you're buzzing on anticipation for the weekend. It's like, you ever notice how the day before Christmas is better than Christmas itself? All the presents are under the tree, Santa is on his way, your Uncle Dave isn't drunk and hitting on your mom yet. December 24th is the best day of the year, just like Thursday is the best night of the week.



Highbrow Answer: Tuesday

But wait. Nobody goes out on Tuesday night.

Exactly.

Just about the only thing happening on Tuesday nights are chess clubs or library readings, both of which give me an intelliboner. The last thing I want do to with what little time I give myself away from my studies of the Protestant Work Ethic is rub up against legions of drunken blonde chicks in some dank nightclub that charges me $40 to get in. I'm pretty sure that's what hell will be like, why would I want to do it while I'm still here on earth?

Best Place to Keep your Blackberry?

Lowbrow Answer: In Your Hand
Has anybody besides me noticed that there is a fighting number of people who carry their blackberries around in their hands? Like, all night. Like, the whole time they're out. Like, they never put it down. I'm talking mostly about women with this one, which is weird because traditionally it's men who like to carry useless shit around in their hands. You know, like guns or NFL tickets or their cocks.

Is your ridiculous little network of digital friends so important that you're utterly terrified of missing one "I LUV YOU, LOL TTYL BRB OMG" text? Let me tell you a little secret: the people texting you are lame. Which means, if you do the math, so are you. By carrying a blackberry around all night, you're basically announcing to the bar: "Please come talk to me until somebody I like more tweets about something stupid." Hmm, what an enticing invitation.


Middlebrow Answer: In Your Pocket
If you're going to carry one, at least have the common courtesy to hide the thing while I'm talking to you. I don't whip out a canvas and some oil paint and start crafting an impressionist work while you tell me about your family, so don't whip out your blackberry and start texting your roommate while I tell you about my irrational fear of clowns.

The bonus of keeping your blackberry in your pocket is you get a little magic every time somebody calls if you have it set to vibrate. Basically, what I'm saying is, it you're talking to me and I suddenly start smiling, it's not because you're funny. It's because my phone is buzzing in my pants and it makes my tinkie-winkie happy.


Highbrow Answer: What's a Blackberry?
Technology blows. Why do I need to keep in constant touch with friends? They only distract me from musing on the philosophical irrationalities of religion. Why do I need to be able to check sports scores every minute? It only stops me from furthering my study of Kant's early work. Unless somebody invents a machine that can detect proletariat lifeforms and eliminate them, I'm not interested in technology.

I'm also sick of corporate shitheads trying to make stuff sound cute by giving it childish names. It's a personal computing device and you're calling it a "blackberry?" How obnoxiously adorable. What will they think of next? Maybe we can start calling the Iraq War a "Playdate in the sandbox," or referring to genocide as "frown removal."