5 Things I'm Secretly Thankful for This Thanksgiving

5 I'm Not This Guy

Let's try a little experiment. See how long you can make it through this video before you turn it off:

My first time through, I made it 11 seconds. It's that voice. I don't know what entertainer he listened to that made him think, "This is what people like in a public speaker," but I'm fairly confident that person is currently in hell. Even if they're not dead yet.

The second time I lasted 57 seconds, and that's when I realized that he was a huge Lewis Black fan. It's not apparent right off, because your brain is frantically trying to escape whatever dumbass thing he's screaming at you. But when you get past the urge to steal a handgun and fire 20 rounds into your monitor, you can hear him doing his best to imitate a comedian he clearly doesn't understand. He saw Lewis doing his bit and thought, "That guy makes me laugh. I like the way he screams and gets all twitchy. I also enjoy making people laugh. Why not just do what he's doing? People will love that!"

How it's actually supposed to be done.

Yet at his core, he truly doesn't understand the mechanics of what makes a funny person funny. He knows he laughs when he sees Lewis Black perform ... but he can't quite put his finger on why. Instead, what he does is put on an absolute clinic on what not to do in comedy. From picking a cliche subject that nobody gives a shit about (girls taking pictures of themselves for Facebook) to framing the entire delivery around his "look how wacky and edgy I am" device.

Here's a rule of thumb for anyone just blindly firing into the Net, hoping to hit something awesome: If you come across a YouTube channel or a blog or a full-on website that's based around how wacky and crazy the author is ...

... it's going to be bad. Really, really fucking bad. If the entire drawing point is "Wait until you get a glimpse inside my head -- you don't know true craziness until you've witnessed the way I think," just close the window and forget you were ever there. See, the thing is, if he ever sees this article (and he will -- you can tell by watching his other videos that he looks himself up on Google like a weather report), he will view it as me not getting his material. Because, you know, it's so edgy and insane that only a select few people in the world can handle the truth he spits.

But all that aside, what kind of an asshole hypocrite am I? All comedians go through this phase at one point or another. Given, most of us do it when we're 14, but we do go through it. So in many ways, I can't fault the guy. He's learning. And so far, he's collecting an audience. Some of those videos are in the tens of thousands of views. Hell, the guy has almost 4,000 followers on Twitter, so he has to be doing something right. Right? Whatever, here's an hour and a half of the guy:

Don't worry, I'm not going to be one of the countless thousands to add their dumb, unwanted speculation on a movie that doesn't even exist yet. And I don't give even the most remote shit about what your opinion is on the subject, because it's not the movies I really care about. It's the situation itself.

The truth is that the franchise was buttfucked by George Lucas until his balls slapped its corpse into a fine powder, and then he snorted it in front of its own children. How much worse can they make it? Really? Regardless of how good or bad the new episodes are, there are two things that I find awesome about this whole thing, and I think it's why people need to take a breath and just enjoy the idea. Even if it turns out to be more of a catastrophe than what we've already been exposed to.

1) The mere idea that, after Lucas drained every last drop of blood from every capillary of the series, another company stepped in, slapped his hand like a frustrated mother and said, "Just ... just give me the damn thing, you're done here. Jesus Christ, do we have to do everything ourselves?" I find that far funnier than I have any right to, even though I know that's not the way it went down. But goddamnit, I'm picturing it that way because it's the closest we're ever going to get to a feeling of redemption.

2) We finally have a very realistic chance of making the next three movies nothing but nine hours of this:

If you think I'm ever letting that die, you're out of your fucking mind.

3 "Smell Yo Dick"

Sorry, Tosh fans, but back in 2008, long before he fucked up a good thing by saying that Riskay needed a "Web redemption" for what is quite possibly the most perfect song ever written, we were shouting our love of "Smell Yo Dick" from the rooftops. With all due respect, Tosh, you can bend right over and smell exactly where my dick is -- Riskay is our goldmine. We found her first. And as long as I draw breath, people will never forget that song.

I've derived more hours of happiness from listening to large-breasted ladies rap about dick smelling and the crushing defense of the Snickers- jacket-wearing accused (who, by the way, has enough dick to go 'round) than I ever will with my own family. And for that, I am truly thankful.

2 Some Video Game Companies Just Say "Fuck It"

About a year ago, FIFA 12 (the granddaddy of all soccer games) was released for pretty much every gaming system and was given damn near perfect review scores across the board. In its first week, it sold 3.2 million copies, becoming the fastest selling sports game ever. With the level of anticipation for its release, that wasn't all that unexpected. What was unexpected was the glitch-filled, physics-bending gay sex marathon that happened when you hit the Start button.

If hardcore fucking isn't your thing, maybe you'd prefer some soft, romantic gay make-out sessions:

Not into soccer rape? They have some good old-fashioned mutilation videos, too:

Oh, don't think that these are rare incidents. There are entire YouTube channels devoted to making not just single videos of these glitches, but full-on compilations. Don't worry, you don't need to know jack shit about soccer to get why these are awesome:

Americans, if you're with family right now, you tell those bitches they can wait a few minutes. You're at your computer being thankful as a motherfucker.

1 All Jokes Aside, I'm Thankful for You Guys (No, Seriously)

There's a reason for this beyond just "you guys read my shit, and without you, I don't get paid." Around 1990, I met my best friend (You may have heard of him) in a boring art class and realized he was the only person I had ever met who shared my sense of humor. Since we technically had to be doing artwork in order to be in that class, we'd sit in the back and make up surreal stories while drawing some of the stupidest shit we could think of.

David would draw stick soldiers firing "beard guns" at an opposing army and narrate what was going on. I'd draw Gallagher parachuting off of the sun, smashing watermelons on his way down to defuse the Dennis Rodman bomb that was about to go off any second (yes, it was a bomb made out of Dennis Rodman). Angels had break-dance wars in fields that bloomed with beautiful Bret Michaels bushes. Hell, I got my fake Internet name from one of those drawings.

Eventually, we realized that we could use that same comedy to get through other sucky parts of life -- not just art class. But the thing was, we had always been our own audience because no one else in that tiny shithole of a town got our sense of humor. I guess every kid goes through that, but we were antisocial enough for the theory to hold some legitimate weight. Imagine our surprise when we started writing comedy on the Internet and found that not only were there other people doing the same thing, but there was an absolute shitload of them.

So all joking aside, you have no idea how much I (and everyone here at Cracked) sincerely appreciate you as an audience. Because when shit gets the darkest in my life, the most surefire weapon I have against it is being able to make fun of it and laugh through it. If I didn't have you guys here to share that with, I'd just be another fuckup, laughing to myself until I literally went insane. So sincerely, thank you, thank you, thank you.

John has a Twitter where he rarely thanks anyone for anything, as well as a Facebook fan page. He preemptively thanks you for hitting the "Like" button over there. Unless you didn't, in which case, you can just lick his asshole.

For more things you should be thankful for, check out 6 Awesome 80s Movie Montages (That Make No Damn Sense) and 6 Real Acts of Self Defense Too Awesome for an Action Movie.

If you're pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix, then check out 4 Most Hilarious Public Screw-Ups Caused by Sloppy Googling.