Culture Blues

The Final Countdown: November 13th Edition

Let's face it:  All the people at this party are way cooler than you. They know things. They're capable of substantive conversation about what's going on in the world. You? You're a wreck; a sweaty, stammering mess of non-sequitors, a cultural void. But all that can change! Your real friends at Culture Blues have put together a weekly rundown of worthwhile topics for you to wow these pretentious jerks with, maybe even gain back some self respect. Your social redemption starts here.

(12) We’ve come to the end of our week long partnership with Jason Voorhees. We’re sad to see Jason go, but thankful that we will no longer have to live in terror or put up with someone who always finishes the coffee without brewing a new pot. Jason, thank you for answering our readers’ questions all week. Working with you was a rewarding and eye opening experience. Today is your special day, and we know you have a whole lot of murdering to do, so allow us to sit and back and fondly recall some of your more memorable kills. Take care, good friend. And don’t forget to look us up next time you visit Manhattan.

Read my book!

(11) More site news:  Guess what you guys? We scored ourselves a copy of Sarah Palin’s rad new book Going Rogue a few days before it’s supposed to hit stores. Are you as pumped up for this as we are? Finally, America’s favorite lady maverick gets to tell her side of the story. Anyway, we don’t actually want to sit around and read this whole thing, afterall we’re still slogging our way through that last Newt Gingrich memoir. Any ideas on what we should do with the Palin book? Send your suggestions to editors@cultureblues.com.

(10) Good news/bad news on today’s countdown. The bad news is that DMX’s mixed martial arts career is seemingly over because he couldn’t get the fight fixed in his favor. But as much as we were longing to see the X man go batshit crazy on someone in the octagon, we are ten times more excited to see COOLIO’s entrance into competitive fighting! Yes, that’s 46 year-old former rapper Coolio. How the hell did Coolio’s name come up second after DMX? How does Coolio think that MMA would be a natural career progression? How is this fight not on Pay-Per-View???

(9) In Twitter news, Britney Spears’ account was hacked this week. The twacker posted to Brit’s feed that she worships Satan and was excited about the coming New World Order. Eventually, Britney or her handlers regained control of the page, but consider this for a moment: what if this wasn’t a hacker, but an appearance by the real Britney Spears? It is common knowledge that Britney’s life is rigidly structured by her dad, or her marketers, or her slavers, whatever you want to call them. What if this minor acting out was actually a cry for help, the real Britney momentarily exerting her will over the cybernetic device that controls her every thought and feeling? What if she was trying to warn us about something? Think about it. And if you’re with us, meet us under the oak tree in the middle of that phantom Google town that we talked about last week. We’ll discuss striking back against our shadowy overlords.

Casting a magic spell

(8) Thousands of XBox Live users suffered a massive nerd fail this week when they got totally pwned by Microsoft high score holder BFGates. Users were banned from Microsoft's online video game service for having illegally modified Xboxes. The maximum damage headshots were intentionally executed simultaneously with the release of the highly anticipated Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, causing a massive breakout of geek blue balls across the country. While modifying your XBox does void your warranty, this is a stretch. It seems like Gates has gotten tired of being Steve Jobs' punching bag and decided to take it out on people his own size.

(7) The Salt Lake City Council passed two ordinances this week that prohibit discrimination in employment and housing based on sexual orientation and gender identity. What's interesting is that the historically anti-gay Mormon Church backed them. Consider us not impressed. The Mormons only supported these laws because they don't apply to religious organizations, meaning the Mormons can continue to discriminate against gays all they want. It's going to take a bit more than this to make up for lobbying hard for Prop 8 just a year ago. What will surely be lauded as progress in some circles is really just hollow PR schmoozing.

Someone died from this

(6) We had no idea that ABC’s milquetoast Most Extreme Elimination Challenge rip-off Wipeout was still on, much less killing people. That’s right – a Wipeout contestant died of a stroke this week, probably after getting hit with a giant foam ball and falling into a pit of mud. Our condolences go out to his family and friends. Now here are some funny clips of people falling off shit!

(5) We are only eight days away from James Franco’s debut on General Hospital! Oh, you guys don’t follow the Port Charles news? In what he’s calling “performance art,” the Green Goblin himself will be doing a couple weeks’ tour of duty on the popular soap opera. It appears that he’ll be hamming it up as some kind of Dexter flavored serial killer. We’re not going to lie, it actually looks sort of badass.

(4) During Sunday night’s NFL game, Philadelphia Eagle Brent Celek imitated the “Captain Morgan” pose during an end zone celebration. Apparently this was part of a guerrilla campaign by the rum maker to get players to do the pose in exchange for donating money to a charity that benefits struggling former players. The NFL, absolutely incensed that someone, anyone, besides them and their chosen advertising partners should benefit from the NFL’s massive exposure, banned the pose and told Captain Morgan that they would absolutely not, under any circumstances, stand for someone trying to help their former employees that they’ve chewed up and spit out. During a press conference, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell stated “Look, if Captain Morgan wants to advertise during an NFL game, they are welcome to purchase any of the 120 minutes we have set aside for ads per game. If they’re really willing to commit, we could even talk about inserting some more ‘TV timeouts,’ maybe after every first down. I would just have to run that by Budweiser first. But I’m sorry, players advertising your brand on the field is something we simply cannot have. It cheapens the game.” He then smiled for the camera, washed down a bite of his $5 Subway Foot Long with a sip of Bud Light and proceeded to relieve himself on stage.

(3) Our birthday wishes go out this week to A-list comedian Sinbad who turned 53. You probably remember Sinbad from his major roles in Good Burger and Meteor Man, or maybe from his groundbreaking TV series The Sinbad Show. Sin’s been a long time friend of our site, so we decided to take him somewhere magical for his birthday. Check it out.

Elk fight! Wow, we love nature

(2) Natural selection, bitches! Hard to say what’s better about this, the fact that a buck in Wisconsin offed itself when it tried to “battle” a 640 pound concrete statue of an elk… or the fact that Mark Brye of Wisconsin has a 640 pound concrete statue of an elk. In either case, this is weird on many levels. The reporting up in La Crosse is a little suspect too, “Brye said the deer shattered its skull. The antlers were still on its head but were dangling”. Come on guys, that’s just gross.

(1) In the kind of “this can’t really be happening/how far down the rabbit hole am I/has the whole world gone insane” moment that makes us want to bash our heads against a wall, E! Online’s The Answer B!tch (how cute!) this week responded to a question about why people like Michael Lohan and Jon Gosselin can’t shut up. Her take? Well it’s a combination of modern society and their unique personalities. Wrong. Fucking. Answer. It’s you. It’s because you’re talking about them. It’s you and your filthy, perverse employer. It’s the fact that you masturbate these blowhards every time you point a camera in their direction, or quote whatever bile comes out of their repulsive mouths, or talk about them on your stupid blog! The problem isn’t that they can’t shut up, it’s that you can’t stop caring about them. For those who think that we’re splitting hairs here, because of course E! is just part of the society that she referred to, please understand that not once in her column does this bitch (self proclaimed) cop to the fact that her answering a question about these two despicable mongoloids is part of the problem. It’s time for E! to take a break from casting stones at the rest of society and take a long hard look in the mirror.

Whew. Guess Jason week really has us riled up!

Jeremiah White, Jeff Hart, and Jason Arican contributed to this Countdown.