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.