Let me preface this post by saying that I like Weezer as much as the next guy, which means that I have either purchased or downloaded every album and listen to the green one regularly. Weezer’s music is good; it’s hook-y and pop-y and nice for my ears to eat.

So the question I’m posing is, at what point did Rivers Cuomo become the creepiest guy in the world?

In the beginning, part of the band’s appeal was that they helped coin the term “nerd rock.” Here was a guy, like you, who lived in his garage playing Dungeons and Dragons and getting his heart broken by the cool girls. Not like me, of course, but like you. That was his thing.

He did a video with The Muppets, and Happy Days, and dogs. You can’t get much more likable, right? I mean without doing a video with, say, Santa Claus and Jesus shooting off bottle rockets.

As far as my personal Rivers experiences go, the first time I realized he was a little off was when I read a pretty lengthy interview he did with Rolling Stone (worth the read), in which it was revealed that he occasionally did wacky things like get depressed and lock himself in a tiny apartment with all the walls painted black and nothing but a sleeping bag, a microwave, and a bunch of frozen burritos.

Or that he and the band didn’t really get along because he won’t let them write any of the songs on the albums and docks their studio pay if they don’t play to his exact specifications.

There was other crazy stuff in there, but I can’t remember it all, so I’ll just say he also likes to have lobsters pinch his nipples all the time on the tour bus, and they have to have a special lobster tank with them when they go on tours.

Then came his widely-publicized vow of celibacy, which is kind of redundant if he’s truly the nerd he claims to be. Hell, I could’ve knocked that vow out many times over by now without even trying. In fact, I’d say you’ve got to be kind of a ladies man if it makes press when you don’t have sex.

Then my friend told me he was on a Buddhist retreat and saw Rivers there, but that Rivers wouldn’t talk because he’d taken a vow of silence for the duration.

Then he grew this mustache.

So at that point, my mental image of the man is getting fairly “out there,” but when I see Weezer at Coachella, I still imagine going backstage and playing Xbox with him, so I can’t be too wierded out.

Then this happens.

Rivers Cuomo has a Youtube channel dedicated to collaboratively writing a song with his fans, and as cool as that sounds, it’s not. It’s horrifying. His rambling, run-on sentences, huge lapses in cognizance and wild, rolling eyes will forever haunt my Youtube viewing history. For me, this was it. The official point at which Rivers Cuomo lost all “cool nerdy outcast” status and became that weird guy who stands outside the grocery store and does gun fingers at people as they exit.

Watch them at your own peril. And please, someone, tell me there’s a joke here that I’m not getting.

When not blogging for Cracked, Michael practices the opening of “My Name is Jonas” on achoustic guitar as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!

This week, while Ross is in the mountains of Mexico training for his new role as a Cracked columnist, we’re counting down our favorite Nooners from five to one. And while number one is our favorite for sentimental reasons, this may be the greatest video Ross ever commented on.

Awesome Video Of The Day

Dancing Man Wearing A Horse Mask Cooks Wild Mushrooms (Probably NSFW)

This is the greatest video that I have ever seen in my entire life.

Hang on a second. I have to go get a mop - my head just exploded.

Yes - it’s a video of a mostly-naked Japanese man picking and cooking wild mushrooms. Yes - he’s wearing a horse mask and dancing. Why? That I couldn’t tell you. People do all kinds of weird stuff, I guess. When I cook wild mushrooms that I’ve hand-picked from the forests of Japan, I like to hum along to popular radio hits and make little farty noises with my mouth. Does that make ME a freak?! So I like to hum and make little farty noises. Big deal. We’ve all got our quirks - this guy’s just so happens to be that he likes to dance around naked in a horse mask while cooking potentially deadly wild mushrooms. Judge not lest ye be judged.

Okay, I’ll admit it - this video is completely fucking bizarre and makes me more than a little uncomfortable, but you know what? This guy is PUMPED to be cooking those mushrooms. He looks like he’s having the time of his life! Maybe it’s the expression on the horse mask faking me out… or maybe this guy is on to something. Maybe dancing around naked in a horse mask and cooking wild mushrooms is AWESOME.

Only one way to find out, I guess. Anyone got a horse mask I can borrow?

This week, while Ross is in the mountains of Mexico training for his new role as a Cracked columnist, we’re counting down our favorite Nooners from five to one. Coming in at number three is a stone cold classic that need only be introduced with the four oddly pronounced syllables: WIE-ner POO-pie.

Wiener Poopie

It must be hard to be a local TV reporter. You probably have to go to school for a long time, taking tons of classes on journalism and ethics and diction and all that stuff. Then you have to get an internship, hoping they’ll keep you on after the summer’s over. Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll get an entry-level job at some TV station in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You’ll work there for a couple of years, barely making ends meet, working late nights editing copy while your spiteful wife sits at home, stirring watered-down Kool-Aid and operating a phone sex line from your living room.

This will be your life.

Then one day you’ll get your big break. Your boss will call you into his office and hand you a script. “You won’t be on camera,” your boss will tell you, “but it’s a great human interest story. We need you to do narration.” You’ll give him a little self-satisfied nod, thinking to yourself, “No problem. I’ve got this.”

But then later on that night when you’re at home, staring at yourself in the mirror and practicing your lines, you’ll realize that nothing in your career could have prepared you for this. Most of it will be fine, the vast majority of it, really, but there will be those two words that you just can’t seem to get right.

“WIE-ner poopie,” you’ll say. “Wiener POO-pie. WIE-ner POO-pie.” You’ll inflect it differently each time, your voice rising and falling on each syllable in endless permutations. “Wie-NER poo-PIE.”

Your wife will sigh impatiently in bed. “Come to bed, honey,” she’ll say.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” you’ll say, then you’ll turn back to the mirror and furrow your brow. “WIE-ner poopie. Wiener POO-pie. WIE-ner POO-pie.”

Nobody ever said it was gonna be easy.

Any regular reader of my posts, or indeed even someone who just started reading them Monday (when I made a classic Maria Bello/Isabella Rossellini blunder that, I can guarantee you, will haunt my dreams), will be well aware of my predilection for the adult entertainment feature extravaganza, Pirates XXX.

Friends—and I call you friends because very soon we will be sharing erections and/or moist labia together—I bear incredible news. NOT ONLY is Pirates XXX to receive a sequel, but a trailer has been released on-line.

But wait! Hold that orgasm! O’Briens, put your weirdly shaped dicks back in your unfashionable pants. This is a teaser trailer, without a scrap of porno in it. No, not even a single pirate booby.

Which is exactly why Pirates XXX is the greatest adult film franchise ever made. And it is a franchise; they’ve got the movie, a soundtrack CD, a novelization in progress (written by yours truly), and the opening of Pirates XXX-World in Orlando is sure to crush Disneyworld come July.

The secret to their success is simple: they know that we’re bored with traditional pornography, where a thin, snake-related plotline leads to immediate fucking. We discerning, jaded, viewers want production value and story!

Sure, there’s some filthy strumpet-pumping and bilge-jamming in there, but it’s all to serve the greater arc about the search for a magical staff or somesuch (to be honest, I’ve never gotten all the way through the film).

Okay, without further gushing (pun unintended, but saucy), let’s examine the trailer and see what we can glean about the next installment.

First, they let us know that this sequel is being handled by none other than Joone, Director of the first Pirates XXX. Thank God they didn’t hand the reigns over to some amateur. We are in good hands (that time the pun was intended).

Next, an amazingly-realized storm at sea, entirely CGI. Of course, to get the full effect you’ll need to view the large, high-definition version of the trailer. But trust me, it looks a whole lot better than the shit in A Perfect Storm, and in this movie when there are a bunch of pussies onscreen, they’re not going to be slowly drowning and whining about missing their children grow up. Downer!

(more…)

This week, while Ross is in the mountains of Mexico training for his new role as a Cracked columnist, we’re counting down our favorite Nooners from five to one. Coming in at number four is a post that probably marks the closest the Cracked Blog has ever come to starting an international incident. The comic shown fondling a child in the clip issued this poorly translated statement a day after Ross’s post went popular on Digg. Ross took the high road and didn’t respond. Or he forgot. Either way, this video is creepy.

Totally Normal Entertainment From (What Looks Like) Eastern Europe

I’ve traveled extensively through Eastern Europe, and I’ve noticed that the people there are really eager to share their customs with outsiders. Whether it’s the proper way to take a shot of the local liquor without going blind, the etiquette of bribing a local police officer to get your wallet back, or the cheapest way to transport your new and lovely bride back to America (cargo ship), the charming local people of Eastern Europe are only too happy to help.

But this kindness extends to more than just basics like alcohol, police corruption and the flesh trade. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that Eastern Europeans will go out of their way to explain a joke to complete strangers - even, as luck would have it, if that stranger is wearing a fanny pack and a “These Colors Don’t Run” t-shirt. Eastern Europeans have a strange sense of humor, but they’re usually more than willing to let you in on the joke.

For example, one time I was in Estonia and decided to go see some live theater. During the play, a small boy walked out onto the stage, and all the other thespians (full-grown men) crowded around him and started poking him with long staffs while giggling like little schoolchildren. Baffled, I turned to a woman next to me and asked her what it was all about. As luck would have it, she spoke English.

“The boy,” she explained, “represents Estonia, and the men around him represent the encroaching influence of Russian culture.” That made sense so I left it at that. Then I left during intermission and vowed to never go see theater in Estonia again.

Another time I was in a small town in the Prekmurje region of Slovenia, and there was a crowd gathered around a man performing in the town square. Draped in chainmail and furs, he sang an upbeat song and danced around a bit. Then he asked for a volunteer from the crowd, and a young boy stepped forward to applause. The man went on singing his song and dancing about, and then he put his hand down the boy’s pants and the entire crowd burst into laughter.

Horrified, I turned to an older woman next to me and asked, “What’s the joke there?”

As luck would have it, the woman spoke English (what are the odds in Prekmurje?!). “The man represents the Ostrogoths who once pillaged our land.”

“And the boy?!” I asked. “What does he represent?”

“The land,” she said.

I guess the moral of the story is “Eastern Europeans like political humor.”

Last Friday a man burst into two supermarkets in England with a squeeze bottle full of what appeared to be urine, which he then proceeded to spray over the produce section. Authorities claim that over the preceding week the same man did something similar over food in a pub, and again in a children’s book store. Gross. If you’re anything like me, the mere thought of this will have completely ruined your appetite for produce, beer and children.

The accused, a Mr. Sahnoun Daifallah, was unavailable for comment, so we can only speculate as to the motives he might have had for the attack, although “Because He’s Fucking Crazy” seems a likely contender. (Also possible: “Dude Really Hates Vegetables.”) The primary reason I was unable to secure a quote from Mr. Daifallah is because I was too terrified to go anywhere near the man. Hell, I’m terrified of going anywhere near anything that might potentially be used to contact him - at the moment all the phones in my house are underneath an upturned garbage can in the center of the living room with a rock on top of it. A situation which my girlfriend isn’t terribly happy about, if I correctly read the mewling sounds she’s making about needing to call her mother and my “crazy, searching eyes.” Hopefully she’ll soon realize that the Chris Bucholz Homestead Security Agency is acting in her best interests, and that any threats I may have made concerning extraordinary rendition were, for the moment, playful.

Anyways, if we go back to the post-911 language we’ve only just finally stopped using, fruits and vegetables are what are technically referred to as “soft targets.” Counter-intuitively this is not because of their relative pliability, but because of the logistical difficulties and costs inherent in securing several million grapes, bananas, et al. For the moment, keeping a Predator drone on station over every Safeway in the country will have to remain something from one of Tom Clancy’s fevered dreams.

Indeed, as much as I would appreciate the security of knowing that a heavily armed robot was watching me buy food, the fact that the cost of Cheetos would rise to something like $4,500 per bag would increase my personal Cheetos budget by something like $200,000 per week. That’s just not sustainable.

Which brings me, in a crazy and rambling manner, to another point: Cheetos. As it may have occurred to you by now, these delicious corn based snacks, and indeed any foodstuff in hermetically sealed packaging, are invulnerable to urine based attacks. It would only take a stock manager a couple seconds with a hose to render a bag of Cheetos good as new following an attack of this nature. Of course that is if no-one saw him, or asked any difficult questions, e.g: “You’re not actually going to sell those are you?” and also “What the hell is wrong with you?” So if this episode teaches us anything, it’s the extreme vulnerability of our non fast-food chain to the works of evil doers and lunatics, and makes my all-Cheetos based diet look substantially more healthy than the twin pillars of medical science and common sense would otherwise have you believe.

So to tie this all off, let me get some reader feedback: where’s the most amusing place you’ve peed? I’ll give you bonus points for making me laugh, and subtract points if I have to co-operate with the authorities in tracking you down.

Wikipedia calls Isabella Rossellini an Italian film actress, author, Lancome model, and philanthropist. I’m assuming the last reference is to her appearance in The Cooler, in which a judicious use of her cupped hand spared us all the sight of William H. Macy’s limp dick.

It also tells us that she used to be married to Martin Scorsese, trains guide dogs for the blind, is an official ambassador to UNICEF, and was diagnosed with scoliosis at age 13. Man, Wikipedia is awesome.

But for all of its invasive and blandly worded detailing of the lives of a choice handful of the human beings on Earth, Wikipedia neglects to mention one very important Rossellini fact: that she is batshit insane.

How else can you explain her new series of “Green Pornos?” The made-for-cell-phone shorts feature Rossellini in various bug costumes humping cardboard, which is apparently an environmental message and pornography all wrapped up into one nauseating package. And since it’s for your cell phone, you can masturbate to them virtually anywhere!

Let me tell you something Rossellini; if this is your best attempt at pornography, you may want to stop your slow descent into drugs and self-objectification right now, because it’s a pretty lackluster effort.

First of all, who the hell told you porno was a good place to try and stick an environmental message? Who?! Craig? Fuck that guy. I don’t even know who that is. But I can guarantee you right now that your “Green Pornos” will go down in history alongside countless failed environmental/pornographic videos like Energy Cumservationists, Renewable Natural Re-Whores-es, and that scene in An Inconvenient Truth when Al Gore reams Tipper right there in the shaft of light from the powerpoint projector.

And let’s look at your production value. It’s terrible. Admittedly, this is porno, so we’re not expecting a lot, but your costumes look like they were cobbled together from thrift store clothes for a Third-Grade Performance of Jason and the Shitty Costumes.

If you want to see the kind of care and love that goes into the production of a truly fantastic porno, I direct your attention, as ever, to Pirates XXX. I heard the budget on that thing was in the eight-digits, and three stuntmen died while filming the sinking ghalleon/DVDA sequence. Now that’s dedication to the art.

And finally, when it really comes down to it, they just couldn’t get me over the edge. And believe me, I tried. I tried and I tried. For hours, at work, on the bus home, and nothing. I mean, I may have cum a little during the spider sequence (right when you dug your palpi into her epigyne), but I’m pretty sure it was because I was sitting over the engine and getting some vibration action.

Get your shit together, Rossellini, or this could very well be the last set of insectoid environmentalist mobile media pornography shorts you ever produce.

And again, thanks for cupping Macy’s cock. Really took one for the team there.

When not blogging for Cracked, Michael breaks his penis off in his mate’s vagina as a plug for his semen as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!

We saw some pretty inspired comedy and some pretty uninspired YouTube videos in the months since Ross began posting the Daily Nooner every day. This week Ross is in the mountains of Mexico, training for his new role as a Cracked columnist by drinking himself into a numb stupor. In his absence, we’ll be posting his five favorite Nooners counting down from five to one.

Dancing Pig

This abomination stars a “Dancing Pig” named Pot Belly Pete who talks like a Chipmunk, dances like Michael Jackson and bears absolutely no resemblence to a pig whatsoever. What kind of pig has wings and horns? I’ll tell you what kind: a GARGOYLE. But that raises another question: What kind of gargoyle dances around to “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” and talks like a Chipmunk?

I’ll tell you what kind: one that LOVES TO PARTY.

This video is plenty terrible, but what’s even worse to me is the fact that it’s been viewed over 220,000 times. That’s like every single person in Akron, Ohio watching it… although that doesn’t sound particularly impressive, I guess. How about Madison, Wisconsin? Does that sound better? How about this: That’s like every single person in Independence, Missouri watching it… TWICE.

A few years ago we threw off the shackles of corporate television. We called it “social media,” and then we smashed the Viacoms and Time Warners to bits. True, the internet has put the power of programming into the hands of viewers, but, sadly, this is what we’ve chosen to do with it. For shame, internet. For shame.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to throw my laptop out my window and watch Celebrity Rehab or something.

Much like Reese’s peanut butter cups that combine the deliciousness of chocolate with the yumminess of peanut butter, Barbara Walters appeared on Larry King last week. Only instead of being a delicious combination, it proved to be a largely pointless and irritating blend. Probably not surprising considering that separately each induces disgust convulsions in me. So actually that Reese’s peanut butter cup comparison wasn’t thought out very well. Maybe it’s more like an evil Reese’s peanut butter cup made from two old and bitter ingredients, neither of which you’d want to consume. Yeah, that’s a pretty weak metaphor, huh? Sorry, I’m out of practice with this whole writing thing. I’ve become an internet Talking Head. Fantastic. I can’t wait until I can do one of these segments about how much I hate myself. Here it is. Installment number three of:

Hate By Numbers

Well, folks, it’s that very special time again, a time I look forward to all year. I tremble with anticipation for this event, in fact, because it’s just so magical it makes Christmas morning look like violent prison rape. What event am I talking about? Is it Mother’s Day? No, that was last week. Is it Free Iced Coffee Day at Dunkin Donuts? No, that was yesterday. Is it Robert Darcy, 4th Earl of Holderness’s birthday? Nope, that’s tomorrow. Is it the “DOB’s Abs Are Fantastic” Celebration? No, that is a year-long event. What I’m talking about is better than all of those things combined.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Carlos Mencia is back.

I know, I know. You were worried for a while when you didn’t see any new episodes of his show, Mind of Mencia, for a few months. “Was Carlos cancelled?,” you probably wondered. “Where will I get my fresh, edgy, fredgy comedy?” But he’s here. Don’t worry. Not only will Mind of Mencia be back May 21st, but Carlos has a stand-up special on Comedy Central on Sunday in case, like me, you just can’t wait until tomorrow to get your Mencia fix.
(more…)