Anyway, without further adieu, here’s episode 10, “The Lost Episode.” The title is actually a nod to episode nine, which was literally lost. Download the .mp3 here, listen below or subscribe on iTunes, keyword “Sup Cuz”.

We hope to have new episodes starting next week, but no guarantees.

Click here to download episode 8, “The Butt Rock Show,” or as always, subscribe via iTunes.

Topics this week include: the awesomeness of 80′s hair metal, the lameness of hackey sack and the patheticness of flying the rebel flag. Also, Michael talks to an airline pilot in the second installment of “Curious Michael.”

This one time I was staying with my buddy, Hart. (I know it’s a weird, ridiculous name, I’ve told him several times, he’s aware.) He lives in a sort of eclectic neighborhood in Nashville, where a bunch of middle to upper-class folks live on the same street. He has a really nice, but small house and just a couple of houses away might be a million dollar home. Anyway, he called me and said, “What time are you getting off work and coming to the house?”

I told him it would probably be about 5:30 and he said, “Well, my neighbor is holding a rally for Obama and Michelle Obama is going to be giving a speech. But it’s at 5:30, so don’t be late.”

Well, this seemed like kind of weird situation, but Nashville is kind of a weird place and Hart is kind of a weird guy, so I said, “I’ll be there.”

I managed to get stuck in traffic on the way, but pulled into his driveway right at 5:30. I saw that two houses down was where they were obviously holding the rally. People were walking into the backyard and there were lots of Secret Service standing around. I walked over and was led to the porch.

“Can I have your name please,” the Secret Service-looking guy asked me when I got to the porch. When I told him, he started looking through a registry of some kind and said, “I don’t see your name on here.”

“Well, my buddy that I’m staying with tonight lives in that house right there,” I said, pointing to Hart’s house, “and he told me to come by and that he would be here. He must not have put my name on the list but don’t worry about it, I’ll just leave.”

As I started to back off the porch he said, “Well, just hold on a second, let me get someone.” Then he did this really cool move that I’ve only seen in movies or the West Wing, where he spoke into his wrist. Then this other, bigger guy with the sunglasses and the ear piece and everything, came over and started to look through the list too.

“Look, it’s no big deal, my friend just told me to come over and…”

“What’s your friend’s name?” the guy asked.

“Hart Knight.”

The guy flipped through some pages and said, “I don’t see a Mr. Hart Knight on here.”

And he said “Hart” really weird like he was kind of making fun of it and I wanted to say, “weird name, right?” but I instead I just said, “Yeah, don’t worry about it.”

But surprisingly, he said, “No problem, just sign your name here and fill out the information.”

So I began signing my name and address and he asked, “you’re not a member of the media are you?” and I told him I wasn’t. Then, as I finished signing up he asked, “Do you want to give any money to the campaign today?”

“No, I’m cool,” I said as I walked toward the backyard. He looked displeasingly at me, but didn’t say anything.

When I went through the gate I saw a backyard full of people. There was a porch where Michelle would be speaking from, but she had not started yet. (I guess I should refer to her as the First Lady or Mrs. President, but at the time she was simply the wife of a guy running in the primaries against a bunch of other Democratic possibilities, and she said to everyone that we could call her “Michelle”).  I walked to a spot about 15 feet from the porch, and as I began to look around, I realized that I looked extremely out of place. Every man there was in a suit and every woman was dressed very nicely. There was wine and cheese being eaten and it looked just like a really nice wedding reception. I was wearing my typical Dickies pants, that Justin refers to as my burlap pants, and a teal green, short-sleeved “Polo”-type shirt. I was starting to think they let me in to fill the “everyman” demographic so no one could say this was some type of elitist party.

It wasn’t long before Michelle was on the porch, to the obvious delight of a lot of wealthy white folks surrounding me.

During her speech I had been looking around for Hart but couldn’t see him. There were lots of people in the back yard but not that many bearded guys like Hart, so I figured he would be easy to recognize. Then I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I looked at a text from Hart that said, “Where are you?” I texted back: “In the backyard”.

As soon as I put my phone back in my pocket, a Secret Service guy came close to me and gave me a look, like I shouldn’t get out my phone again. So, as I stood there, listening to the speech and still looking for Hart, I saw this head pop up on the other side of the yard…a bearded head. Hart looked around and quickly found me, which was probably easy as I was a teal green shirt in a sea of designer suits. As soon as our eyes met, he started pointing and laughing really hard and then I saw his head disappear. Just a few seconds later, I see his head as well as about ten other heads pop up. I can see Hart pointing me out to whoever these people are and then they all start laughing like crazy.

I’m not really sure what to think at this point besides, “maybe I’m not supposed to be here.” Hart had told me to come to his neighbor’s house, but apparently he had meant the next door neighbor’s, instead of two houses down.

As the speech ends, everyone claps and for some reason, I guess because it’s Nashville and it’s weird, Emmylou Harris is suddenly on the porch hugging Michelle, and then it’s over.

So me and the rest of the white folks spill out of the back yard and I go over to the appropriate house this time. Hart is still laughing and there are about twenty people clapping for me.

I soon learn from all of my new fans that the back yard was filled with important government officials, including the Governor of Tennessee and that I had snuck into a $2,000 a person fundraiser. So, the whole night people are coming up to me saying, “You’re that guy that crashed the speech! Man, that was awesome!” So I suddenly have the reputation of being someone much cooler than I am.

And recently I have begun to feel some compassion for the Salahi’s, that couple that crashed the White House State Dinner. Maybe one of their friends told them to come over for dinner and they just went to the wrong house. “Oh, you said 1601 Pennsylvania Avenue?… I could swear you said 1600. My bad.”

Maybe they were let in by the same dumb Secret Service guy that I spoke to. But at least they looked like they belonged, being dressed in a tuxedo and evening gown. I’m pretty sure even I couldn’t have penetrated that operation with my burlap pants and teal green shirt.

So without further adieu, here’s S’up Cuz? episode seven, “The Most Famous People We’ve Met (Part 2) Show.” Click here to download the .mp3, subscribe via iTunes (be sure to subscribe to the feed that has episode seven in it, not the other one), or eat up a crapload of your office’s bandwidth and listen below.

Topics this week include: hecklers, Michael’s love of book signings, meeting the guys from Flight of the Conchords and the genius of Andy Samburg. Also, music connoisseur Matt High gives Michael is top 10 albums of ’09. Speaking of, his complete list (including honorable and dishonorable mentions, as well as his thoughts on many of his selections) is below.

1. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix – Wow.  These guys have been around for a long time and this album is a potent culmination of everything that is good about this band.  Maybe wilco and built to spill could learn a thing or two from these guys about the maturation process of one’s music.
2. Roman Candle – Oh Tall Tree In The Ear – The unfortunate circumstance of today’s music industry does not allow band like Roman Candle to hang around for a long time unless you get as lucky as KOL.  This long awaited album was worth the wait with it’s excellent storytelling and sound.  Let’s hope it isn’t the last we have heard of these guys.
3. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone – More of the same from Neko Case.  She has haunting stories to tell and haunting music to set the mood, but she does delve into the lighter side of things with this album.
4. Miike Snow – Miike Snow – If this album doesn’t make you bob your head then you need to make your way to the closest hospital to get your ears or your pulse checked out because something is the matter with you.
5. Jay Reatard – Watch Me Fall
6. Kings Of Leon – Only By Night – This is an excellent album.  It is where U2 should have gone after Achtung Baby.  Unfortunately it is so overplayed at this point that it feels like it has been around for five years.
7. Peter, Bjorn & John – Living Thing – The inventive Swedes decided to stay indoors and hit the beatbox more than they did on Writer’s Block.  Nothing To Worry about may go down as the most addictive song of all time.  Don’t feel guilty, just keep hitting repeat.
8. Karen O & the Kids – Where the Wild Things Are Soundtrack – A delicate album that is as warm as the story it is meant to accompany.  Quite a departure for Karen O, but with standouts like worried shoes and hidaway I excitedly wait to see the next avenue the YYY choose to take.
9. Dinosaur Jr. – Farm – Straightforward rock n’ roll.  Thank you for bringing back the guitar solo on every freakin’ song.
10. Hauschka – Snowflakes & Carwrecks – More of a classical music genre, but the frenetic pace of the ticks and tocks of this album result in a beautiful sound that is not found coming out of some American idols overhyped mouth.

Honorable Mention:

1. The Thermals – Now We Can See
2. Twilight Sad – Forget the Night Ahead
3. Yeah Yeah Yeah’s – It’s Blitz
4. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
5. Devandra Bandhart

Dishonorable Mention:

1. Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
2. Built To Spill – There Is No Enemy

For some reason, this photo made sense.

I recently made the mistake of going to a concert in a college town. At the age of 31, I don’t feel myself too far removed from “college-age” folks but apparently I am. I go to see bands all the time in Memphis and know what to expect from the crowd. There are barely any college people and most of the audience is around my age. There’s very little dancing, but there is still a very obvious appreciation for the music.

But what I experienced in Oxford, Mississippi, home of the Ole Miss Rebels, was utterly ridiculous.

It’s very rare that a band comes through my region and skips Memphis to go to Oxford, which is an hour and a half away. But when we heard that Modest Mouse was going to be there, we decided it was worth the drive, even during the middle of the week. Now, middle of the week concerts are always a big decision. Getting home at 3:30 and waking up for work at 6:30 is for young men, not me and my old-ass friends. And that kind of schedule is what we’d expect from one of the Memphis bars where we see music, where most bands don’t start until 10:00 pm, and that’s for the first of usually two opening bands. But the venue in Oxford said the show would be over by midnight, meaning we’d get home earlier than normal, so we went for it.

When the three of us got there, we immediately felt out of place. We were the “old guys”. Everyone looked much younger than us and I felt like somehow the eight years that we had been out of school must have really taken their toll on us.

The venue is called the Lyric, and it’s a renovated old theater with no seats, but merely a sloping floor down to the stage, with the capacity of maybe 800 people. As the opening band played we slowly moved forward, and when Modest Mouse came out we were probably 20 feet from the stage in a fairly large crowd.

If you know anything about Modest Mouse, they are a pretty loud, heavy band and this was definitely a rock show. But I don’t really want to get into the music or how the band sounded or how weird the 15-minute diatribe about Trent Lott was from the lead singer. I’m here to talk about the crowd. (Wait, what did he say about Trent Lott?) It’s a weird story and makes no sense, just don’t worry about it.

So, I’ve admitted, it’s been eight years since I was in school, so maybe some things have either changed dramatically, or I just can’t remember what it was like, or Oxford is just a really lame college town (which is definitely a possibility). First, if you know anything about Ole Miss, the students there have a reputation for being overly preppy. The girls were all in sundresses and the guys were all in slacks and knit Polo shirts. When I was in school, if you wore a t-shirt with less than three holes in it, you were really dressed up.

So here are some of the things I noticed about the college town concert-goer:

• Apparently “high-fives” are more in fashion now than in the history of man. And if giving a high-five to your buddy means knocking over four people to do it, this is totally acceptable. Also, high-fives are not just for when you see your friend for the first time that evening. They can be used in nearly every circumstance from a good song being played to, well, a five minute interlude with no high-five. This leads us to number two: high-fives given out after declaring how inebriated you are.

• “I am so wasted”, “Dude, I’m f#$%ed up”, “I’m tanked, bro.” These are just a few of probably several hundred different ways to describe how intoxicated or high you are. They must be said every time you see someone for the first time or immediately after giving out a high-five.

• The same group that is already intoxicated must also try to get more high by scoring drugs in super obvious ways. The guys near us would see a friend about ten feet away and because the music was so loud would yell as hard as they could, “Hey, man, do you have any…” and then they put their hand to their mouth like their smoking a joint as if this was much more subtle than simply finishing the sentence with “weed” . Even as an old man in the crowd, not used to the ways of the young folk, I quickly deduced they were trying to convey, “Hey friend, do you have any marijuana cigarettes we could smoke?”  This was not an isolated incident and we probably saw this happen with at least four different groups of guys.

• Now, I’ve always known concert venue etiquette in a place like this was that if you leave your place in the crowd to get a beer or go to the bathroom or whatever, unless your friends specifically save that small space for you, you have given up your spot. Sometimes it takes an hour or more to move up closer to the stage and if you or especially your whole group leaves, you have to go back to the back of the crowd. Well, we were asked by three guys to “hold their spot” as they all left. Our response was a sarcastic, “no problem” and then moved up. Have you ever heard of someone asking that? It’s ridiculous.

• Finally, you would have thought we were at a dance club or a rave. Most of the girls were grinding all up on dudes like Eric from “The Grind” was there. My friends and I were all in our “bobbing heads while holding a beer” stance while clothed copulation was happening all around us. I realize there’s a time and a place for this but a loud Rock show is not it. It’s like if there was a mosh pit that broke out at a Barry Manilow concert.

So, all of this to say, I’m through going to see bands at college towns. Let the young folks have their drunken, lust-filled fun, me and my buddies need a place to go where we can forget about our jobs and mortgages for a while and get lost in the music. We don’t need to be reminded what kind of fun we used to have or what sort of depravity will be happening to our own kids one of these days.

Jeez. Sorry.

The sixth installment of our podcast is now online. Click here to download it, listen below or subscribe via iTunes.

NOTE: If you already subscribe via iTunes, you’ll have to resubscribe. A computer error—not operator error, thank you very much—caused me to have to upload the episodes once again under a new RSS feed. In other words, if you don’t resubscribe, new episodes won’t show up in your feed. You don’t want that, do you?

Topics this week include: getting pooped on by birds, tatoos and fraternities. For good merit, I discuss getting dissed by a tween and Michael and I talk about hobo pee for a good 10 minutes. Trust me, this show’s a doozy.

Welcome to the Redneck Mardi Gras.

In my attempt to be a good father this weekend, I am afraid I may have inadvertently made my son dumber. It really wasn’t my fault and I feel like someone should have warned me. I’ve read a handful of books on parenting and the number one thing they say is to just “be present” for your kids. And that is what I was attempting this weekend when I took him to a monster truck rally.

In hindsight, I guess I should have seen the possible implications of such an outing. But when he saw the commercial for the monster truck rally coming to our town, his eyes grew to saucers and he pleaded with me to take him and well, I just couldn’t resist. But now I think my three-year old may be permanently dumb for life and it’s all my fault.

I had never been to a monster truck rally before this weekend and only knew what to expect from the commercial: gigantic pickup trucks rolling over junk cars, motocross guys flipping in the air and a 30-ft. tall fire-breathing robot dragon. And these things were delivered in what can only be described as a dizzying array of extremely loud engines, extremely loud heavy metal and an extremely loud announcer constantly screaming, “Are you guys ready!” probably 100 times.

Did I happen to mention the “loud” part? I think I have a new rule about going to events where you have to pre-purchase foam ear plugs: don’t.

First, the tickets were only $6 for my son but $20 for me. And I’ve got to tell you, by the look of the crowd, most of them could have used that $20 for something a little more useful…like a toothbrush. Or really any kind of hygiene product. Maybe a shirt with sleeves wouldn’t be asking for too much?

But, of course my 3 year old was loving it. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the trucks crushing the smaller cars and spinning doughnuts in the dirt. Meanwhile, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the guy three seats away from me, sipping out of a flask while bouncing a baby on his leg.

But as the night went on, I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “Can this really be good for my son?” Sure, we’re hanging out together…male bonding and all of that…but is this the atmosphere I want him around? Are these the role models I want him looking up to? I mean, the kid’s three years old, he plays all day with toy trucks, crashing them in to each other and making “VROOM” noises. But even he knows those are only toys…they’re not real. Yet here he is seeing adults yell for the monster trucks as they roar around the track, many of the men there without any children.

Maybe, I was looking way too into it. He’s just a kid, he’s not getting dumber watching this…it’s just for fun. But I know he’s not getting any smarter watching it either.

After an hour and a half of roaring engines and roaring drunk hillbillies, there was an intermission. Which was strange, because I haven’t been to an event with an intermission since my wife and I saw Les Miserables.

This event was slightly dissimilar.

Now, being the frugal genius that I am, I had emptied a box of Whoppers into my jacket pocket before we arrived, so we had some candy to snack on already. (Speaking of Whoppers, do you remember years ago when like every fifth or sixth Whopper you bit into was empty with no malted center? I haven’t had that happen in probably a year or so. Whoever is in charge of Whopper quality control these days…good work.) So this was really more of an excuse to just walk around a little bit. But we weren’t more than 20 feet from the entrance to our seats when we saw something that stopped us in our tracks: a Dip N Dots stand. I’m not kidding. (If you listen to our podcast you know that I am a huge Dip N Dots guy and that we are currently in talks with them for a large sponsorship deal.) Anyway, we both got some and started walking back to our seats.

As I looked at the smile on my son’s face, I began to think that maybe I was wrong. This wasn’t such a big deal. Maybe I was just playing up my prejudices about rednecks and just because my son sees all these people, doesn’t mean he’s going to be like them. This was what I was thinking when I saw a man with three children being arrested for public intoxication. It was easy to figure out what was happening because two policemen were standing beside him as he shouted into his cell phone, “Honey I need you to come to the monster truck rally. I’m gettin’ arrested for being drunk and you need to come get the kids. Don’t yell at me right now, just get your ass down here.”

I don’t remember this happening during the intermission at Les Miserables.

Driving this is someone's job.

We got back to our seats and soon came the 30-foot tall fire breathing dragon. This thing kept the audience enthralled as it lifted a late model Datsun into the air and chomped it in half. My son didn’t know what to think and was a little freaked out, so I was glad when it was over and a fat guy crawled out from underneath. My son looked really confused and as I began to explain how it worked, he became enthralled that driving the dragon and making the flames shoot out of the nose and the teeth crush the cars…was actually someone’s job. He suddenly had a very serious look on his face. “I want to do that when I get older, Dad.”

Great.

When the evening was finally over, we walked though the parking lot with our ears ringing. The smell of fresh air made me realize how bad the fumes and dust inside were. My son was so excited to call his Mom and tell her all about it and he said he was going to tell all of his friends. I was a proud dad that he had enjoyed it but I hoped this wouldn’t somehow become his new hobby. Maybe it would take a day or to, but hopefully he’d get back to wanting to be a fireman or policeman again instead of… well…I don’t want to think about it.

On the car ride home, while he slept in his car seat, I thought about the evening and wondered if I had become a little dumber myself. It’s the way you feel when watching Jersey Shore. It’s like you can feel the brain cells slowly dying.

As I was thinking about these things, I was eating the Whoppers that remained from my pocket. At one point, I put one in my mouth and it seemed strange. It was small and spongy and tasted bitter but also a little sweet. I spit it out into my hand and realized that I had just tried to eat one of the foam ear plugs that we had kept in our ears all night.

So had I also become dumber from our evening at the monster truck rally? I don’t know. But I can tell you one thing. I sure as hell didn’t get any smarter.

Who would’ve thought that two guys with the attention span of four year-olds could sustain such a labor-intensive podcasting effort for five episodes? You can celebrate with us by listening to this week’s podcast, “The Emergency Room Show.”

Click here to download the mp3 file. Or—and I know that you know what I’m going to say here—subscribe via iTunes. And if you have the bandwidth at work, listen to the full hour show below.

Topics this week include: trips to the emergency room, the “box truck wave,” Olive Garden’s response to Michael’s praise and the music of recently deceased punk rocker Jay Reatard. As a bonus, Michael launches his new interview series and Justin paints a mental picture that will make you vomit a little in your mouth.

Also, we discuss The Blind Project, a charity run by one of Michael’s college friends, which you can learn more about here.

In the first segment of “Curious Michael,” Michael sits down with Daniel Farris, drummer for Jason Freeman and Jeffrey James & the Haul (available on iTunes), to find out what life as a drummer in an up-and-coming band is really like. Farris was also the drummer in Staynless, Breath Your Alive, the Colorcast, ElDorado and the Ruckus and The Coach and Four.

Click here to download the mp3. Or, as always, you can do the logical thing and subscribe via iTunes. Or, just listen in the player below (run time is 15 minutes).

And for the record, I am aware that I said the name of the segment wrong in the outro song.

Finally, Michael has been bugging me to get these pictures up for a month now. There. Are you happy now, Michael?

Possible Captions:

“Want some candy?”
“Seriously though, how many roofies should we take with us tonight?”
“So where do we sign up to be cops?”
“For Sale: Van. Slightly used.”
“What do you mean he shaved it off? Tom Selleck you are dead to me now.”
“Mustache trimmed…check. Eagle on Trans Am hood polished…check. Aqua Velva applied liberally to erogenous zones…check. Zero percentage that we’ll spend the night at a ladies house tonight instead of Mom’s basement…check.”

By all means, add your own in the comments section.

But allow us to remedy that with Episode 4 of S’up Cuz, entitled “The Reunion Where Michael Screwed Justin Out of $200 Show”. You’ll have to listen to learn more about the ridiculously long title.

Click here to download the file, or for the love of Baby New Year, subscribe on iTunes. Or, if you have the time (and the bandwidth), just listen below.

A few thoughts on this episode:

1. We waste no time insulting a potential new demographic, but I think I’m okay with that.

2. If you listen hard enough, you can actually hear the discomfort in Michael’s voice when he talks about the clothes he had to wear for his family holiday portrait. I’ll work on getting the photo so I can post it in all its awkward glory.

3. Something about the song at the end makes for one of the more homoerotic outs yet. Maybe that’s because of all the harmonizing?

Enjoy and as always, email us at supcuzpodcast@gmail.com.