Tweets of the Week

We’re keeping it going with the debate. Absent from this list are the obvious “Obama and/or Christie are big winners of the debate” jokes. No, you weren’t the only one to tweet that (though Dave Weigel’s Buddy Roemer crack was obscure enough to distract us from his acne scars for a moment). Below are the best quips to come out of a mediocre debate, using the worst mode of communication ever. They are not ranked (or are they?):

@notjessewalker: “When do they ask about heroin? I like the part where they ask about heroin”

(Okay, they’re not)

@DaBeard: Cain: Sunni or Shiite?

Thad McCotter via @RickKlein: candidates “failed” the “litmus test” at #cnndebate by answering this/that questions

The Pratfalls of Post-Racial America: Hip-Hop and Indie Rock’s Illicit Affair

Indie kids have been into rap music for some time now. As with all things indie kids do, they tend to stay away from the really mainstream music that you might hear on your local KissFM station. Instead they are drawn more to underground rap (indie kids like anything that can be labeled as underground) and gangsta rap (anything to make them seem paradoxical).

His bicep keeps it gangster with lyrics from Eazy Emily Dickinson

But over the last few years the connection between indie kids and rap music has taken on a completely new life. Rap culture and indie culture are starting to mix in new and often bizarre ways.

TI bought this plaid shirt shortly after moving to Williamsburg.

Fashion, as seen above, is one example where the cultures are colliding. As indie kids adopt high tops, flamboyantly colored t-shirts, and other staples of 80s rap concerts, rappers are quick to return the favor by wearing skinny jeans and as much plaid as they can find. Anytime Kanye West shows up someplace not wearing a suit, you’re bound to get some weird hybrid look of classic rap star with suburban white kid.

State of the Union Highlights

In case you missed Obama’s State of the Union address, below are a collection of incomplete sentences, which sum up the direction in which the country is headed. Wait is clockwise really a direction? Whatever, it’s a down the drain pun. Follow us on Twitter.

@CrookedCopy

• Obama takes credit for 3 jobs created to make Michelle Bachmann’s powerpoint presentation
• For hilarity’s sake, Obama consolidates NCIS with Law & Order
• Obama to consolidate the IRS and TSA as a supergroup of despised assholes
• McCain and Kerry wear matching suits, their heiress wives bought them
• Fact, @RaulGrijalva has not stood up to applaud yet because he can’t get out of his seat.
• Roomful of millionaires (and Joe Biden) applaud newest challenge to avoid paying taxes
• Few people have noticed but @BarackObama‘s lapel pin is actually a picture of Chuck-E-Cheese.
• Boehner only cries when he hears his own story. Just call him Molly Ringwald
• Obama is sounding like a desperate husband: stop arguing about costs, details. My band’s gonna make it
• Ryan: Politicians broke our trust with economy. Let’s reverse this by eliminating anti-trust laws
• This speech would have been way more entertaining if America had understood the brilliance of Dennis Kucinich.
• Obama spends extra time shaking pages hand. It’s the least he could do for all the molesting they go through
• Fact Sheila Jackson Lee purchased her clothes from the sale rack at the local Goodwill.

@BillHaurton

• Michelle Bachmann looks like Miley Cryus, if she stayed back down south and was broke
• Obama to Marines: The real heroes don’t fight in wars, they teach inner city kids, who have more advanced weaponry than Al Qaeda
• Joe Wilson chastised for saying “wow” too loud during Chilean miner story

So you’re going to drink during the State of the Union

If you’re going to do anything, do it with purpose. And since the State of the Union address has taken on the look of an infomercial cardio-fitness program, it is up to you, the viewer, to give it some sense of usefulness. The best way to do this is to get hammered. Below are the rules for Crooked Copy’s official SOTU Drinking Game to throw a few sheets of garbled, sentimental, cheer/cringe-inducing speech to the wind.

1. Anytime Obama says something populist, drink Macallan 1926. The bigger the gulp the better, the common folk will use what’s left in your $38,000 bottle to light their torches following the speech.

Single malts burn much better than blended

2. Anytime the Democrats stand up and cheer, run headfirst into the television and see if you knocked any sense into them.

3. Anytime the Republicans stand up and cheer, belittle somebody that looks different than you.

4. Anytime Obama receives a bipartisan ovation, throw money into the fireplace–they’ve just agreed to waste a bunch of taxpayer dollars.

5. Anytime Obama mentions health care, eat a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. The government is paying for your bypass!

A Lesson on Bombing

Editor’s Note: Bill Haurton just returned from a trip to his alma mater, the place where he delivered his valedictory, along with not one, but three speech contest finals. But public speaking is a lot harder when it isn’t chalk-full of inside jokes. He was awful and limped into a Q&A session, in which he wet himself on stage, the only thing that saved him from his later attempt at self-immolation. He recovered and, like any American who fails, is now blaming the audience and shopping around a self-help book on public speaking, Speaking to Piss Ants in Piss Pants. Below is an excerpt from what will be his seminal work.

If you’re going to give a speech, make sure it’s worthwhile, and if you can’t do that, at least make sure you don’t announce that you bombed in the presence of TSA. They’re going to see you naked anyway, why make them feel awkward and necessary at the same time.

"I was just about to quit, but now I feel like the country needs me"

I made both mistakes last week in what was my least successful speaking engagement since asking for my first date. So, here is a how-to if you ever find yourself talking to a room full of teenage hormones and suffocating silence.

DO: Speak to your audience. If you start insulting Mark Zuckerberg and the demon behind Twitter in front of a bunch of high schoolers, don’t be surprised to find you’ve been the subject to an online smear campaign. American 12th graders may not be able to read or write, but they are trolling at a rate far beyond their Chinese peers.

Then again, this is what happens to their Chinese peers if they insult anybody with authority

DO: Keep on going. Your alcoholic father may have taught you if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, but this does not apply when you are at the podium. The only thing worse than speaking to a room full of people silently judging you, is to hear the judgments aloud when you have gone silent mid-sentence. The trick is to picture everyone in their underwear, then point at one teen and scream “he’s got a knife.”

DON’T: Really picture the kiddies in their underwear. Just because they’re at an age when accidental boners are inevitable, doesn’t mean it’s acceptable for you to have one.

In a word, Yes. See APPENDIX A FOR APOLOGY

DO: Make eye contact with your audience. This maintains a connection with them and lends credibility to your claim that weapons are present in the auditorium.

DON’T: Read from the script with your head down. When your speech blows up in your face, your audience will realize you actually put time, thought and effort into your terrible prose. Better to play it off casually and say you didn’t even try.

Failure is the only time acting like an Emo is chic

DO: Go up there with a glass of water. Coughing is poor form and you can always pour it on the microphone and claim technical difficulties.

DON’T: Bring your liquor up there. High schoolers need alcohol just to communicate with one another. They expect more out of an adult. Grow up and score some Xanax.

DO: Maintain good posture. Body language is very important to communicating your ideas. Nothing works better than a middle finger to wake up an unresponsive crowd.

Orator's Orator: This finger belongs on the Red Button

DON’T: Get too long-winded. People have short attention spans. It’s best to keep your sentences short and to the point. EXAMPLES: “They’re not paying me enough for this;” “Yeah? Well, screw you too;” “This is awful, I’m sorry.”

DO: Watch the State of the Union Address tonight and see which Supreme Court Justice finds a knife under his robe. Check back in the afternoon for Crooked Copy’s list of drinking game rules for the address. We will also live Tweet the event, so be sure to follow us HERE.

APPENDIX A: This series of jokes was run by a number of editors and fans to see if it was appropriate. Amazingly, 1/3 of those consulted objected to the “knife” joke because it conjured up images of the Tragedy in Tucson. It was not Crooked Copy’s intention to expose those of you who share this view as tolerant of pedophilia.