Most Legit Form of Childhood Trauma?

Lowbrow Answer: Divorce
Boo-hoo. My parents don't love each other any more. My world is ending.

Yeah, join the club.

With more than half of American marriages ending in divorce, this doesn't impress me anymore. It's more common than Meryl Streep getting nominated for an Oscar. So don't come to me with your doe eyes, trying to explain how hard your life is because your parents hate each other. Maybe if your father tried to stab your mother with an Alaskan Salmon I'd be impressed. Until then, shut up and stop whining.


Middlebrow Answer: Near-Death Experience
Everyone has that one friend who was run over by a trash truck when he was five and just barely survived. Or who fell from a sixteen-story window and landed in a dumpster. These experiences will often give you really cool, really harrowing lifetime problems like you can't close your eyes without hearing the roar of plane engines or your left knee clicks out of joint every time you try to run.

The biggest problem with this one is that while it may cause some emotional trauma, it also gives you a cool story to tell for the rest of your life. I'm sure falling into the alligator pen will screw you up for a while, but it will also give you a badass set of scars from when the thing clamped down on your chest. It's hard for me to give you trauma points for something that will get you laid as an adult.


Highbrow Answer: Abusive Parents
This one will fuck you up nice and good. You'll spiral into an endless shame cycle, you'll have problems interacting socially, and you'll likely end up in drugs or prostitution or jail or all three. Now THAT'S what I call trauma. If divorce is the "Bambi" of childhood traumas, then abuse is the "Requiem for a Dream."

Phyiscal abuse to children is so gnarly that even criminals can't stand it. Most people who are caught for this and are put in prison don't last a week because the other inmates tear them to shreds. Anything hardcore enough that prison inmates kill other prison inmates over it is definitely valid. Plus you get mega-points from people like Adorno and Heidegger and Arendt who basically argue that the only true human experiences are ones that cause suffering and pain. Nice job.

Best Kind of Bicycle?

Lowbrow Answer: BMX
Hey, idiot. I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but you're riding a bike that's way too small for you. You look like some a cartoon character the way your legs are spinning at 900 revolutions per minute. Having pegs on your wheels is only cool when you're ten years old. Cut your hair, stop drinking so much Monster, and quit buying shirts made by skate companies. You look ridiculous.

The only place that these are even any fun is halfpipes and street courses. And I don't know if you've ever been to one of those, but they suck. It's basically a hundred kids standing around in baggy pants and drinking Mountain Dew, watching three kids with actual talent do their tricks over and over again. What the hell's the point? I don't go to Las Vegas to stay in my hotel and read Hardy Boys novels, if you understand what I'm saying.


Middlebrow Answer: Mountain Bike
Okay, I'll admit it's kind of cool that these things have better suspension than the NASA Mars rover. And sure, shredding the side of a mountain is far better than peddling along the sidewalk in whichever whitebred suburban yuppie-ville most people call home. And yes, the thick tires awake memories of watching Monster Trucks when I was a lad. Gravedigger was my favorite. Fuck you if you liked Bigfoot.

The thing I can't stand about mountain bikes is the people who ride them. Every single one of them eats powerbars instead of actual meals, is from Boulder, Denver, or Vail, has had dreadlocks at least once in their lifetime, wears Kavu or Teva sandals to social events as if they were dress shoes, and drives a Subaru Outback or a Nissan Xterra. If at least three of those things apply to you, I know a place where you can get a great string of rope to hang yourself with. I hate nature kids.


Highbrow Answer: Road Bike
Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

This sport rules. It's a massive chess match on wheels. At 50 mph. Along picturesque roads in beautiful places like Spain and Italy. I'm getting a sports boner just thinking about it.

Still not convinced? Watch the Tour de France. And I don't mean the highlights. Watch it. The whole thing. They ride for 6 hours a day. They endure horrible weather conditions. They don't get any breaks for meals. And the thing lasts three weeks. It sounds like the first Iraq War.

Best Sketch Comedy Show?

Lowbrow Answer: Saturday Night Live
While the current cast is in pretty good shape, this show has had some rough patches. For every Andy Samberg, we've had two or three Joe Piscopo's. Even when Tina Fey was the head writer, the last 30 minutes of the show have always been unwatchable. SNL is like that super hot girl in high school; everybody talks about wanting to hook up with her, but once you do, you realize she has bad teeth and smells kinda funny.

The worst part about this show is the host. What a moronic idea this is. Let's take ten talented sketch actors and make them pander to the horrible, grade-school theater abilities of some hack movie star or professional athlete. I don't understand it. Chris Farley never stopped by Yankee Stadium to play catcher against the Red Sox for a night, why should Derek Jeter be on SNL?


Middlebrow Answer: Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python started it all, rolling out sketches like "Argument" or "The Ministry of Silly Walks" to an unsuspecting 70's television audience. To this day, I pee blood whenever I watch "Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge." Eric Idle is my hero. All of them are my hero. The whole country of England is my hero.

The only problem with Monty Python is, of course, the accents. Ask any American about Monty Python and they'll inevitably give you their best Austin Powers English accent while reciting instructions for igniting the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. Kill me. The only people worse than uninformed Monty Python fans are people who wander around quoting Borat and giving two thumbs up.


Highbrow Answer: The State
The State was on MTV in the mid-90's when MTV was actually worth watching. You know, back when they programmed counter-culture shows like Beavis & Butthead and Buzzkill, and actually played music. Nowadays it's just softcore porn for 13-year-old girls with overactive sex drives and a weird love of Spencer Pratt: "I hope I meet an abusive, dickhead rich boy after I get MY first set of breast implants!"

The State wasn't on for very long because it didn't seem to really care what anybody thought of it. There were so many cast members that the show was basically a bunch of friends trying to make each other laugh for thirty minutes. And I'm okay with that. The last thing I want is art trying to pander to my needs. Real art is supposed to spit in my face and tell me to go fuck myself, not hold my hand and ask me what I want for breakfast.

Check out great sketches from The State here and here.

Update

I'm in New Hampshire.
Leave me alone, prole whore.
Back on Tuesday.

Best Confederate Leader in Civil War?

Like the Civil War? Find out the best movie on the subject here.

Lowbrow Answer: George Pickett
"Okay, men. Here's the plan. We want you to run across that mile of open field. Then we want you to hop over those four or five fences. Then we want you to scale the large hill where the enemy is hiding and take it over. Now, they have more guns than we do, and are fortified in an elevated area, but we're pretty sure you can take them."

"Hahahahahaha. Wait, are you serious?"

What the hell was Pickett thinking on this one? It makes less sense than a harlequin pony on a midnight train to Halifax. See what I mean?


Middlebrow Answer: Stonewall Jackson
This dude is terrifying. He was basically a one-man wrecking ball during the early parts of the war. He made huge gains for the South at Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredricksburg, and almost single-handedly won Chancellorsville. The guy was invincible. He could have taken on the Uruk-Hai army from the second Lord of the Rings with nothing but a staple-gun and still come out on top.

He was invincible, alright, to everything except bullets from his own men. Jackson was wounded by a few of his own soldiers in 1863 and died 8 days later. You have to feel shitty for a great hero when he dies in a wussy way. Imagine Mel Gibson choking on a ham sandwich at the end of Braveheart, or Russel Crowe stubbing his toe and dying from the infection at the end of Gladiator. Okay, that one isn't so bad. Stubbing your toe sucks.


Highbrow Answer: James Longstreet
You know you're doing something right when Robert E. Lee calls you his "Old War Horse." Getting a nickname from somebody awesome is even better than actually being awesome. I'll know I've made it in Hollywood when Johnny Depp starts calling me "Sparky," or Martin Scorsese dubs me "His go-to guy." Ahhh, dreams.

Longstreet was so badass that he didn't even take Lee's shit. When Lee began planning the tactics for Gettysburg, Longstreet openly disagreed and warned against failure. He was later branded a traitor by the South for his confrontation with the great general, but who the hell cares. It's the South. The only thing down there are homophobic rodeo clowns and illiterate hunting dogs.

Best Island Nation?

Lowbrow Answer: Japan
Has anyone else noticed that Japan is basically an immature eleven-year-old girl on Angel Dust? Look at the culture of that place. Everything is bright and neon and Hello Kitty and faux schoolgirl and what the hell is going on over there? Many teenage girls sell their used underwear to business men. It's trendy for adult women to dress like 5-year-olds. The most popular pornography is in cartoon form. I feel like the whole country is run by toddlers who still think boobs are funny.

And guys, what's with all the dolphin and whale slaughtering? You're supposedly one of the most technologically-advanced countries in the world; it shouldn't be too hard to see that you're wiping out your own food source. Plus, come on, dolphins are amazing. If you're going to wantonly kill an entire species, why not make it something useless, like deer or golden retrievers?


Middlebrow Answer: Madagascar
Of the 10,000 plants and animals on this island, only 10% are found anywhere else in the world. Suck on that, global ecosystem. If you live here, you are considered "Malagasy," which is awesome. You sound like a character from Mortal Kombat: "Malagasy wins, Fatality." And lemurs are amazing. I don't care what you say. Take your lemur bashing and get the hell out of here.

Any credibility the island earns, however, is blown to shit when you consider the animated movies of the same name. Who the hell came up with these? Listening to David Schwimmer provide the voice for a pathetic giraffe for two hours feels like the torture you'd get in one of the lower circles of hell. The only thing cool about the movies are the penguins, and they're the one animal that you won't find in Madagascar.


Highbrow Answer: Svalbard
Svalbard is the northern-most inhabited place in the world. The average summer temperature is 41 degrees. The largest city is Longyearbyen, with about 2000 people. There's a period of three months where there is no sun at all. Move to this island, and I guarantee you'll be free of anything lowbrow. Somehow I can't envision the girls from "The Hills" living here.

The leading cause of death on Svalbard is Polar Bear attacks. Umm, awesome. That means that by living there, you're basically guaranteeing yourself an epic and gruesome death at the hands of a wild animal. Bad ass. None of this bullshit cancer or AIDS where you're plugged into machines for months on end. Fuck that. I want to go out quickly and painfully. Why be buried in the ground when you can be eaten by a polar bear?

Best Feature of Facebook?

Lowbrow Answer: The Status Update
Dear Everyone in the World,

I don't care what you are doing in each minute of your life. If I did, I'd call you up every quarter-hour and ask you what you were up to.

I don't care that you're soooooo excited about your new puppy. I hope it gets hit by a car. I don't care that the guy next to you on the subway totally looks like Johnny Depp, LOL. You're ugly and the guy isn't going to hook up with you. I don't care that your wedding was awesome...thanks to everyone who came!! You're wife will starting banging her tennis pro in a few years and you'll be divorced before you're 40.

You're not as important as you think you are. Not one history book will have a blurb on you when you're dead. Nobody cares about the menial events in your day-to-day life. Get over yourself.

Sincerely,
Jeff


Middlebrow Answer: Photos
Yeah, okay, it can be nice to post pictures of cool places you've been. And sure, it helps when you're stalking a girl you just met that you can see pictures of her in a bikini. We've all used facebook pictures to fall desperately in love with somebody before we've even met them. And it can be a fun way to waste ten minutes while you're on break at your trivial, white-collar job.

But that being said, blow me. Nobody wants to see pictures of you doing keg stands with your frat friends. Or you sitting on the beach in Nantucket with the other trust fund babies. And posting shots of yourself in a bathing suit? Could you be any more transparent? "I have low self esteem! Please validate my existence by ogling my body!"


Highbrow Answer: Contact Information
I'm pretty sure that the original intent of facebook was to help people stay connected. It wasn't supposed to become people's entire social life. Having contact information is the only part of the whole website that is actually useful. Of course, in the hands of the inbred yocals who use facebook all the time, I'm sure it's wasted. They'll look up somebody's phone number and, fearing actual human contact, will text the person.

Remember when people used to talk to each other on the phone? Like, when the phonebook was delivered to your doorstep every few months and you actually used it? When you had to talk to your friends' parents before you could talk to your friend. Those are some precious childhood memories: "Hello, Mrs. Humbolt? Can I talk your daughter? Why? Ummm, I like her. Yeah, I like her, like her. No, I can't speak to her?"