Michael Jackson: 1958-2009

No panic attacks today. I'd have one over Tito before him.

RMP Book Review: Gasping For Airtime

I recently finished reading this memoir in which Jay Mohr recounts his two years as a featured player on Saturday Night Live. My first thought when reading this book was, "How in the fuck can 22 of the allegedly best comedy writers and 15 of the allegedly best comedy performers working today only produce about one and a half funny sketches a week?" The huge popularity of Saturday Night Live has always baffled me. I assumed it's only been allowed to stay on the air all these years because it's riding on the past success of the older episodes, but I rented a few DVDs from the first two seasons, and I'm now 100% sure that the show has never been funny at any point in its existence.

But that's beside the point. This book isn't very funny, but it is entertaining in a sense that it's interesting to learn about the politics of the show and how it's put together every week, and it's always fun to hear a guy dish about celebrity hosts and musical guests as well as cast members. In one section Mohr reveals that one of his fellow cast members was completely bald and still secretly wears a toupee to this day, and while he claims to be a gentleman who won't reveal who it is, he leaves enough obvious clues to make it clear to the reader that it's fucking Mike Myers.

I enjoyed hearing about how the show is made and liked hearing him talk shit about celebrities, but my big problem with the book is that most of it is devoted to Mohr trying to garner our sympathy by telling us about how often the intense pressure to come up with good ideas and get a decent amount of airtime gave him horrible panic attacks.

Here we have a guy who scored a dream job in the field of comedy that literally thousands of people audition for every year, earning a six-figure income, trying to make us feel sorry for him that he couldn't hack it and had panic attacks as a result. Speaking as a person who has a long and storied history of panic attacks, I couldn't give less of a shit about his plight. Here is a list of just a few of the things that give me panic attacks:

-Having my throat touched or even lightly grazed by human hands or any sort of foreign object
-Driving my car on a highway
-Feeling any sort of pain in my chest (Here I'm convinced I'm having a heart attack)
-The pain in my chest ending (Here I'm convinced my heart has stopped beating)
-Trying to fall asleep
-Performing comedy in front of any group larger than 10
-Smoking pot
-Drinking a somewhat above average amount of coffee
-Attending virtually any college class that lasted over an hour
-Being the passenger in a car that's going over 80 miles an hour
-Being the passenger or driver in a car that's going over a bridge over a river
-Going to a loud concert
-Finding out that a celebrity I like has just died
-Watching an extremely loud movie at the theater
-Having a hard time taking a deep breath because my stomach is too full of food and milk

-Being inside a church for any reason
-Finding any mark on my body that looks like it could potentially be a staph infection
-Riding on the exercise bike too long only to find that my penis and balls are completely numb

So yeah, suck a cock, Jay Mohr. The only pressure in my life is bills that are easily paid by my dead-end job that is frighteningly easy to perform, and I still manage to find ways to spend 85% of my waking hours in complete and total psychosomatic white-knuckle terror. I would kill to have my insane tendencies be the result of professional sucecss. Your book, which is intended to be a horror story in which you make six-figures and are seen by 8 million viewers most Saturday nights at the expense of drowning in psychological hell, seems like a fucking dream to me.

One Minute of Praise Received!

Today at work I experienced a level of corporate fuckery from my bosses that had to be shared. Allow me to set the scene. I used to work for a restaurant that was part of a small laughable corporation that is currently going through chapter 11 bankruptcy. My managers didn't give a shit about anything we did, and allowed us to get away with anything we wanted. Completely incompetent management that paid little to no attention to anything that happened within the restaurant carried huge benefits and huge downsides at the same time.

I think this situation successfully illustrates both sides of this. One day at 5:30 in the afternoon on a Friday, our general manager decided to completely turn off the water to the restaurant. Nobody knew why it happened and to this day I've never received any sort of explanation. Seeing as how Fridays after 5 are pretty fucking busy hours for a restaurant, this was about the worst possible time you could do this. The only drinks available for us to serve to customers were coffee, unsweetened iced tea that was already brewed before the water was shut off, and a few bottles of Coke and Diet Coke that the assistant manager bought at the Target across the street.

After the water was shut off I had a table of six. Me taking their drink orders went something like this:

Customer: I'd like a Cherry Coke
Me: Actually, that's not available right now
Customer: Okay, I'll take a Sprite
Me: That's not available either
Customer: Fine, I'll have root beer
Me: We don't serve root beer
Customer: What do you have?
Me: We have Coke, Diet Coke, iced tea, and coffee that was brewed about 3 hours ago
Customer: What's the deal here?
Me: This is the worst restaurant in the entire tri-state area

You can clearly see all of the frustration that comes with working at such a place, but the huge benefit was that I could tell a customer straight to his face that our restaurant is the worst within 60 miles, an offense that would get most servers fired, without so much as a slap on the wrist.

Working at this place was a total blast, but the problem was that the location was horrible and the place being so incompetently run resulted in orders taking upwards of 40 minutes to make their way to customers, and that resulted in minimal business, and it also resulted in the few customers that did show up being completely pissed off, and that resulted in me making about $250 a week. I had no choice but to quit and leave for a more respectable place run by a larger corporation.

I won't say which restaurant chain I work for now, but I will say that they have about 600 locations nationwide, they have a history of discrimination lawsuits, the first word is a common perjorative term for white people, the second is a wooden container in which you might shoot fish, and they do not franchise to local owners. Every single location is ruled by the iron cock of corporate policy. My entire first week of training was just a list of shit that will get me fired. Apparently any evidence of theft, racism, or sexual harassment will get me shitcanned. I don't know about you, but any place where I can't whip out my penis and slap unsuspecting coworkers in the face with it while stealing containers of Apple Butter and ranting about how much I hate blacks is not a place that I'm comfortable with being at.

It never hit home with me how controlled every aspect of the place is by corporate policy until today. Our general manager and an assistant manager were eating lunch near one of my tables. They observed me greeting my customers, getting their drink order, getting their food order, entering all of it into the computer, and bringing out the drinks. As I walked away, the assistant manager took me aside and asked if he could speak with me for a minute. He informed me that I greeted and took their order perfectly, and praised me for doing a good job. I smiled and thanked him. Then, he pulled out a "Notice of Employee Praise" Form.

He told me that I needed to sign the form to confirm that I had received a minute of praise from a managerial figure. There was a section on the form where the manager could indicate the degree of praise that the underling received. It ranged from "One minute of praise" to "3-4 minutes of praise" to "Written Commendation." I signed the form, prideful that my minute of praise was officially logged in corporate records.

I imagined in my mind a theoretical bit from the horribly strained disaster that The Office has become where Michael briefly praises Jim and then asks him to sign a form, only for Jim to smugly inform Michael that he has only been praised for ten seconds and won't sign it until he's been sufficiently praised for 50 more seconds, which causes Michael to awkwardly improvise "hilariously" inappropriate compliments about his hair and nailing a hottie like Pam. Then I slapped myself for being a giant dipshit.

I realized that this moment of receiving an official notice of praise from one of my bosses would be completely at home in a network TV sitcom. As as result I have either gained an incredible amount of respect for the writers of The Office and how expertly they've captured real-life, or I've been crushed with the knowledge that my life is a fucking sitcom or cartoon devoid of any real meaning.

Then I though really had about the true implications of my official notice of praise, and I realized, did you get an official notice of praise from your boss today? Did you? Oh wait, you fucking didn't! SUCK IT! SUCK IT HARD!! I got official praise! It's even in writing!! It's been signed by my general manager AND my assistant manager. Your boss didn't sign shit for you today, and if he did it sure as shit wasn't an official document confirming that you're awesome. Fuck you if you're reading this, because YOU SUCK HUGE DICKS!!! Fuck you right up your stupid black ass! I EARNED THE PRAISE! MY LIFE IS VALIDATED BECAUSE I FOLLOWED THE RULES AND MADE MY BOSSES HAPPY!!! FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOU SO FUCKING HARD!!! EAT MY SHIT, COCKSNUGGLERS!!!!!!

God my dick is hard right now.

I got on Deadspin!

Well, it's not like I got a featured column or anything. Today they posted their feature on why Wrigley Field sucks. As you know, I responded to the challenge by sending them this e-mail. Despite all of my work, and all of the sexual humiliation I suffered at the hands of that enormous, curly haired man, the guy from Deadspin posted exactly one sentence of the two-page e-mail I sent:

"I half expected to find the Ark of the Covenant before I found my seats, and the smell was like taking a Fantastic Voyage inside a penis."

If he had to post only one sentence of the e-mail, I guess I'm glad he picked this one because I think it's pretty funny, although it's taken out of context and the actual point I was making is obscured and twisted to fit the point that the writer is trying to make. I feel kind of like a Michael Moore interview subject in that sense.

In the e-mail I sent, I remark that the stadium looks and smells like a shitty abandoned warehouse, hence the reason I expected to find the Ark before I found my seats, an obvious reference to the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the Deadspin article, the quote is taken out of context and it looks like my main issue with Wrigley Field is that your seats are hard to find. Anyone who reads the article who has also been to Wrigley undoubtedly finds themselves thinking I'm a fucking retard who can't read signs. So to anyone who thinks this was the case, allow me to reassure you that despite what you may think, I actually have mastered the advanced concept of looking at the numbers on my ticket and matching them up with the numbers on the hanging signs.

As an added bonus, here are the Deadspin comments that directly respond to my line:

"How can you half expect something?"

"I'm having a hard time even beginning to process this sentence"

"This would explain why the Urological Society of America holds their annual convention at Wrigley every year"

Rejecting Notre Dame

Every year, thousands upon thousands of hopeful high school graduates receive thousands upon thousands of brutal rejection letters from universities. Most of them are pretty bland "We regret to inform you, blah blah blah" type letters, but sometimes colleges get downright nasty. A couple years ago a high school friend of mine applied to Notre Dame. He knew he probably didn't have the grades, test scores, or extracurriculars to make it, but he sent and application anyway in the off chance it might work out. Notre Dame responded by sending him an extremely brutal specially made rejection letter just for him, that boiled down to, "What the fuck were you thinking even wasting our time?!?"

Well I'm not going to stand for it anymore. I'm 22 and college is almost a whole year behind me, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't strike back. I'm sick and tired of kids paying $150 for an application and poring over every single detail for days only to receive a rejection letter that will fall somewhere between thoughtless and written by a vindictive fucking asshole determined to crush an 18-year old he's never met. That's why I've decided to turn things around and write a rejection letter to Notre Dame in which I regret to inform them that I won't be attending their school. The following is a letter I actually sent to Notre Dame's admissions department:

To Whom it May Concern:

First, let me say that the following is not a decision that I made lightly. Let me assure you that I thoroughly considered every option and every aspect of my decision, talking it over at length with my friends and family, and staying up late at night wondering if I had made the right choice. That being said, I regret to inform you, University of Notre Dame, that I will not be attending your college in the upcoming fall semester.

Please do not take my decision as a personal insult against your facilities or prowess as a university, because I assure you that is most definitely not the case. I simply feel that at this time I wish to pursue my other options. My father is looking for someone to take inventory at his discount used furniture emporium, I have a great supplementary income stream hustling strangers at Golden Tee at the bar above my father’s furniture store, and I still have a promising night job as a male stripper at Broadsword’s Adult Entertainment Center.

I understand that you have faculty and a campus that can’t be beat. I appreciate your many, many years of tradition. I have a fondness for your motto of “Life, Sweetness, Hope.” It’s all well and good, but we have a slogan of our own at Broadsword’s: “Slaying them by swinging our swords!” In this case, “Slaying” takes on a special metaphorical meaning as it refers to dazzling the crowd, while “swinging our swords” refers to my penis. This is the organization I have chosen, and you shouldn’t feel like any less of a university because of that.

Your highly respected football program almost drove me to side with you. I certainly have the physique to be a great college football player, as evidenced by the hundreds of single dollar bills stuffed into my red, white, and blue Speedo. I wouldn’t be the highest paid male stripper in the tri-county area without rock-hard washboard abs and pecs that can dance the night away, that’s for sure. However, even if I didn’t make the team, simply being in the crowd would be a truly worthwhile thrill. But again, I find my life already offers all that I need as every Sunday night I don a football helmet and entertain the ladies as Peyton Manmeat. Sometimes I team up with my friend Dontrell who performs as Donovan McSex: The Erotic Quarterblack. It’s the simple things in life that I enjoy.

So again I apologize that I will not be attending your university in the upcoming year. Attending your school would be truly wonderful, but the friends I’ve made, the family I have, opportunities that face me, and nightly occupation of wagging my flaccid member at dozens of drooling bachelorettes is too much to leave behind. I know I never technically applied to your university, and you’ve certainly never expressed any interest in my attending, but I thought informing you of my absence would still be the professional thing to do. I will shake my ass extra hard in your honor tonight.

Sincerely,

Peyton Manmeat

If I receive a response, I will immediately update this blog with the result. Let's keep our fingers crossed on this one.

A few perfectly good reasons to hate Kentucky

Okay, now I admit I'm from Indiana, which isn't exactly a fucking bastion of cultural diversity and sophistication, but here are just a few local mannerisms and pronunciations that make me hate everyone from this state. It probably won't surprise you to find that almost all of them are related to food, seeing as how that kinda applies to my job.

1. They pronounce "Ranch" like "Wrench." This particular mispronunciation is a lot more difficult than most. For example, a lot of people around here pronounce "hell" like "hay-ull," which isn't a big deal since I can decipher from context clues the meaning of "Why the hay-ull are you fucking my pet dog?" The problem with asking for "Wrench" dressing is that there's this other reddish salad dressing that shares its name with a European nationality that sounds pretty similar.

2. "Promise" is pronounced, "Pamas." Listen to me, you little shits: This isn't fucking Boston where you can just leave out random consonants and change vowel sounds at your leisure.

3. Relish, that stuff you put on hot dogs, is referred to as "Chow Chow." This one is so fucking moronic that no level of snide commentary can do it justice.

4. "Crayons" is pronounced, "Crowns." How in the fuck do you get Crowns out of Crayons? Look at how the goddamn word is spelled. Look at it! One time this little racist asshole asked me if our restaurant has "Crowns." I thought he meant paper crowns like the ones they have at Burger King, so I told him no. Later on, his parents saw children at another table coloring with crayons, and they filed a complaint to my manager because I lied to them.

Suck my cock, Kentucky! Talk normal!

The Friendly Confines

Deadspin, the ever-popular sports blog, is running a feature during the baseball season entitled, "Why Your Stadium Sucks." The latest post picks on Nationals Park in Washington, DC and makes a strong case for why ever visiting would be a comically misguided waste of time. This feature really caught my attention, because at the bottom it says that Wrigley Field was next, and the writer of the post asked readers to send him their stories of horrible experiences at Wrigley. I am a hardcore White Sox fan who grew up a relatively short drive away from Chicago, and I believe I have the horrible Wrigley experience to end all experiences. Here is a copy of the e-mail I sent:

Let me preface this by saying that you're probably going to think I made this up just for the sake of getting on Deadspin, and I'm prematurely pissed off at you for that. Fuck you hard. Anyways, onto the story.

One of my best friends invited me and another friend to see the Cubs-Reds game on May 31st, 2006 to see Zambrano pitch. Despite both of us being White Sox fans, we obliged. It was my first time to Wrigley, and immediately upon walking in I was taken aback by how fucking offensive this place was to my eyes and nose. As you try to find your seat, it doesn't look like a baseball stadium, it looks like a giant desolate warehouse. I half expected to find the Ark of the Covenant before I found my seats, and the smell was like taking a Fantastic Voyage inside a penis.

When we got to our seats we were verbally assaulted on all sides by Cubs fans. At this point I should probably mention that my fellow South Sider friend was wearing a White Sox hat specifically for the purpose of pissing everyone off. A lesbian couple behind us made righteously indignant comments behind our backs the entire game, and two nearby guys brutally chastized us because, in their words, "Only real fans belong at Wrigley."

Eventually we drew the ire of an enormous drunk man sitting in the row directly in front of us who would be best described as the biological brother of Captain Insano from The Waterboy. Even though I wasn't the one who wore the hat, he decided to go after me, at first turning around and throwing typical drunken insults about my mother and all of the sex he's been having with her lately. I tried to ignore him and just pray he wouldn't rip my arm off and beat me with it.

When he saw he wasn't getting a reaction out of me with words, he took things to the next level by (and I swear I'm not making this part up) putting his hand on my knee and shouting, "Are you gay? You gotta be fucking gay to hang out at Wrigley Field! You're not fucking gay enough to be here, so you should leave!" Then he moved his hand farther and farther up my thigh and into my shorts while saying, "Do you like this? I'll bet you don't! You're not gay enough to be a Cubs fan, so get the fuck out of here!". I was paralyzed with sheer blinding terror, and the only thing I could do was stare forward and imagine being anywhere else but the rotting, crumbling, archaic house of horrors known as Wrigley field. Eventually Captain Insano's brother got bored with me and found an Indian guy a few rows back to yell racial insults at until he was finally removed by security.

To top it all off, the two guys who bitched at us for not being true fans left during the bottom of the 9th with the Cubs only down 3-2 to beat the traffic. I emphatically believed going into the game that this was the worst stadium and fanbase in all of sports and all of my prejudices were confirmed. The White Sox don't exactly have a model franchise or fan base, but come on. Why do Cubs fans think we should all be so impressed that the stadium is so old and has so much tradition anyway? Is it because it's from a time before stadiums were named after corporate sponsors? It's still named after fucking William Wrigley. So you're named after one insanely rich guy instead of a group of insanely rich guys? We're so impressed with you. Get fucked.

And that's the story of how I was sexually assaulted at Wrigley Field. You can call me the Gentile Golem.

I don't think they have any interest in posting anything this long, particularly from someone like me who none of them have ever heard of, so I've preserved it here so that at least one or two people can read and experience it. Again I reiterate that this definitely happened.

F--k the class of 2009

Fuck the class of 2009. I got absolutely slaughtered at work today because we were inundated with dozens upon dozens of groups of 8 or more celebrating their little turdstain's graduation. Oooh, congratulations, you graduated from high school. We're all really impressed that you successfully completed a feat that boils down to existing for four years. In a comedy movie or TV show, one of the main go-to jokes to establish a character as stupid or worthless is to refer to his credentials as "High school graduate." Bra-fucking-vo, you've officially put yourselves on par with Harry and Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber. After the kids left the restaurant I'm pretty sure their parents congratulated them for ten minutes for successfully eating. Suck my dick, class of 2009. Suck it hard.

Stuff I hate

I can't believe this shit that opinion columnist Drew Sharp wrote about Michael Vick. Allow me to explore this further.

There will never be a clean slate for Michael Vick, nor should there be. His apologists equate his release from federal prison sometime today as washing away the stains of his heinous transgressions. Punitive debt paid, he's somehow owed the opportunity to continue his high life before the feds exposed his sordid sub-life.

I know, right? Can you believe these apologists think he has some sort of right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness after repaying his debt to society? Fucking Constitution supporters.

Vick has a right to make a living, but playing in the NFL remains a special privilege dutifully earned.

I thought that privilege was earned by being good a football. Apparently I forgot about the morality and ethics powwow that all incoming rookies must pass. Michael Strahan almost wasn't allowed to join the league when he said he'd take one of the last remaining life jackets on a sinking boat for himself.

Is Vick truly appreciative of all he's lost? Prove it now that he's out of jail. Have him spend another year as an average layman earning modest wages trying to make ends meet.

The NFL is no longer a football league that exists for the purpose of entertaining fans and making money, it is now socially obligated to enact policies that make felons appreciate life more. It's kinda like the Jigsaw Killer if he organized sporting events.

Give him a real taste of what second chances at redemption are for the rest of us who don't run a 40-yard dash in 4.3 seconds or rifle a football 70 yards.

What does this have to do with anything? The world in the year 2002, in which Vick earned insane amounts of money with his physical talent, was in fact the real world. How will putting arbitrary and artificial limits on his employment opportunities and earning potential teach him anything about the real world? If a felon who gets out of prison is particularly charming, should it be illegal for him to use his charm to get ahead in the world in his first year outside?

Perhaps the additional humility wipes away the last vestige of celebrity entitlement and Vick emerges as a truly repentant individual.

Yeah, losing a $130 million contract and getting raped for 2 years straight has inflated his ego to monstrous proportions! It's about time we take his ass down a peg!

The issue isn't the value of a human life compared to an animal. The issue is strictly criminal intent.

He would have spent a lot more than 2 years in prison if he viciously murdered a human, so I'm pretty fucking sure that actually is an issue.

NFL defensive end Leonard Little got drunk following a birthday party, got behind the wheel of a car and tragically took the life of an innocent woman in another car in 1998. Little pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. He served 90 days in jail and resumed his professional career.

Why should Little get another chance in the NFL while Vick forever sits since Vick "only killed dogs?"

But it wasn't Little's intention to deliberately take another life when he took the wheel that night. If it was, prosecutors could've charged him with first-degree murder and, if convicted, he'd remain in prison to this day.

You cannot look at Vick's situation through Little's legal prism.

Oh fuck no, I know you didn't go there. Yes, Leonard Little didn't want to kill anyone that night, but he kinda got arrested for drunk driving again in 2004. How in the fuckity cotton candy fuck can you defend the morality or intentions behind a man who keeps drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car after he already killed someone? What the fuck, man? Seriously...

Running an illegal gambling ring and viciously murdering losing dogs is fucked up and all, but this column is obviously the ranting of a dog lover who's trying to twist some type of logic around his personal biases.

Ice Cream!

I know the calendar says it's still spring, but as far as I'm concerned summer is officially upon us. The pools are open, the little bastards are out of school, and the delightful sound of ice cream trucks is in the air. Wait, did I say delightful? I meant to say worse than being fucking strapped down and force to attend a 6-hour music festival featuring Yanni, Kenny G, and a third musician that hack internet comedy writers associate with being bad.

I usually work at night, so I'm home all afternoon, which means I get the honor of hearing one of those godforsaken trucks drive through my apartment complex at least once a day during the summer. The reason why I'm guaranteed to hear it every single day is because the garage that the trucks come from is two minutes away from where I live.

You see this horrible machine? I live right next to their spawning pool.

The most common song that the trucks play is It's a Small World After All. I can only determine that a team of Nobel Prize winning scientists in the field of awfulness worked around the clock for six years to engineer an even more annoying version of that song, because the one that plays from the truck punctuates every verse with a horrible cartoon whistle or "boing" sound. It's like taking a chocolate sundae that's already so ridiculously sweet and rich that licking it will make you vomit as all of your teeth fall out, and then dumping an entire bottle of grenadine on top. It's so horribly cutesy that I'm turned off to the entire idea of children's entertainment. If I ever have a child I'll only show it Kevin Smith movies and Oz reruns. The Kevin Smith movies will guarantee that my child will never like cutesy shit, and the Oz reruns will guarantee that the kid will become gay and never have to worry about kids of its own.

Another song that plays from the trucks sometimes is an eerily haunting version of the Russian music from Tetris. I really can't overstate how eerily haunting it is, I really can't. It sounds like the music is being whispered to you by a chorus of ghosts clad in white with disfigured faces. Once I woke up hungover from drinking ten Miller High Lifes and a large bottle of Smirnoff Ice (God, I'm such a fucking man) and I heard that song playing and I was so terrified that I wrapped myself up in every blanket I could find and buried my head under the pillows for five minutes, praying the evil undead chorus would stop.

It gets worse. One morning I had a nightmare where I went to a kegger in a basement, and suddenly had the crazy determination to grab a sharp object and start slitting the throats of random beer drinkers. It was really loud and dark in the basement, and I killed about ten people before anyone noticed that something was up. Then I looked down at my blood-covered hands and screamed. To this day I'm 98.3% sure that hearing the ice cream truck song in my sleep was what drove my brain to temporary insanity. I had a relatively healthy dream afterwards about playing quarterback, so I can only assume the truck went to another neighborhood to terrify a new group of night shift working Americans.

The point is, while I would never resort to committing arson or terrorism by burning down the ice cream truck garage and strapping C4 to every single mobile misery device and watching them all go out in a fully morally justified inferno, would anyone be that mad at me if I did it? I know the judge would sentence me to 20 years in prison or whatever, but I have a feeling he'd give me a congratulatory pat on the butt on my way out the door.

How these things still exist anyway is beyond me. Driving the truck requires an insane tolerance for the exact same 20-second jingle playing nonstop for 8 straight hours, and it gives you access to a giant mobile freezer area. How could anyone but serial killers work this job? How has a business model that encourages children to enthusiastically run into the street not been sued into oblivion yet? I have no idea, but I do know beyond all doubt that summer is the gayest season of all.

Chicken Livers

Hello, I'm Michael Greathouse, president and CEO of Cracking Barrel Restaurants, Inc. We strive to provide all of our guests with the greatest service, hospitality, and quality of food necessary to be the best restaurant chain in the country. When you think authentic and delicious down-home country cooking, you think Cracking Barrel. That's why this summer season we're going to expand our already sizable menu to include another country favorite: chicken livers!

I don't know if you've tried chicken livers at another restaurant, or if you've never tried them at all, but let me assure you that we are the only ones to prepare ours in the most authentic homemade way possible. You may be wondering how we manage to make our livers so hard and crispy to give it its telltale flavor. Other restaurants bread and deep-fry them, but that's simply not good enough for us. We harden our chicken livers the old-fashioned way: we get our chickens really fucking drunk.

Oh sure, we could just bread and deep-fry them and call it a day, but that's not what we're about at Cracking Barrel. That's why we hand-pick the most depressed and alcoholism prone chicken our farms have to offer and funnel quality Jack Daniels whiskey down their throats from sunup to sundown. At the end of their seven-day regimen we humanely allow our animals to die a natural death by choking on their own vomit, and their scrumptious, delectable livers are free for the taking.

I've heard that Denny's cuts costs by feeding their animals Skol vodka. I'm amazed a company would sacrifice quality in the name of the bottom line. You'll never see that type of practice from Cracking Barrel, because we are a company that cares. That's why we'll guarantee that we will force small animals to ingest massive quantities of only respected brands of quality sour mash whiskey.

When I see a drunken young and virile rooster make sweet passionate love to an obese hen three times its size, I smile. When a rooster comes home to the coop drunk off its tailfeathers proceed to peck the living shit out of its mating partner because she overcooked the feed, I beam with pride. One time the chickens revolted against our farmers and outfitted their coop into a flying machine to escape us like in the movie Chicken Run. The pilot was so drunk that he crashed the coop into a tree twenty feet away. I pat myself on the back for a job well done.

When people go to Cracking Barrel they want one thing and one thing only: a commitment to excellence. This is what makes this more than a job for me. When I cause fatal cirrhosis in poor, defenseless animals, the thousands of people who work in my restaurants are more than employees, they're family.