Scott Says

Welcome to ScottSays.com, the official website of humor columnist Scott Green. There are a lot of sites on the internet - literally, dozens - but this is the only one that presumes you have any interest whatsoever in me.  On the right, you can access my humor columns, other stuff I’ve written, the Scott Says blog, my weekly podcast (also available on iTunes), and my bimonthly video podcast. You can also check out my biography and an FAQ, whatever those letters stand for.

And don’t forget to register for the site so you can comment on columns and blog posts. If I’ve gotten this site to work correctly, there should also be a way to sign up and receive e-mail updates when new columns are posted.

If you want to succeed in journalism, you need to select topics carefully, research thoroughly, interview intelligently, and use adverbs sparingly. Or you can write about sex.

It doesn’t matter what you say about it. “The sex was a vapid, purple, pistachioed umbrella,” you can write, and yours will be the most-read story on your publication’s Web site. You might even win a Pulitzer. If the Wall Street Journal followed Cosmopolitan Magazine’s lead and ran more stories like “50 tips to please Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke in bed,” they could finally afford real photographs instead of those silly doodles. (more…)

When it comes to the Internet, old people have the know-how of squid. I’m not sure if it’s because they’re stuck in their ways or because there aren’t a lot of web sites dedicated to false teeth, but something about going online leaves them quaking in their Depends.

[Note to editor: Please remove that paragraph from the print edition. Old men are tough and can kick my ass. Probably old women, too.] (more…)

Between the Iraq War, deniers of global warming, Guantanamo Bay detainees and pushy American tourists, the United States’s perception in the global community has hit a staggering low. So the last thing we need is for the world to know how vile our beer is.

Belgian company InBev bought Anheuser-Busch, which brews nearly half of all U.S. beer, in a $52 billion deal. The European company announced its intentions to promote Budweiser internationally to the level of Coca-Cola. But Budweiser, like all other top American beers, is swill. Just look at our two most popular domestic brands - there’s Miller Lite, which tastes like pennies, and Bud Light, which tastes like bland pennies. (more…)

There’s a code of ethics in the news media which, as far as I can tell, serves no practical purpose. You’d sell a lot more papers if you could make up headlines like “McCain grows to colossal size; uses laser-vision to slash budget.” That’s why working at Fox News is such a plum job - they don’t worry about things like “journalistic ethics.”

Here’s what Fox did last week. After New York Times media reporter Jacques Steinberg wrote accurately about “ominous” ratings trends for Fox News, which is losing ground to CNN and MSNBC, anchors on the “Fox & Friends” morning show called Steinberg’s work a “hit piece.” They also referred to Steinberg and his editor, Steven Reddicliffe, as “attack dogs.” So far, the network was still within the bounds of standard journalistic practices - you see this stuff all the time from respected media, like NPR’s recent report, “Peggy Noonan: Stupid Tramp Or What?” (more…)

At Chicago’s gay pride parade Sunday afternoon, I saw an outlandish collection of freaks and degenerates, out and proud for something inherently shameful. I’m talking about the protestors.

Near the end of the parade’s route on the corner of Pine Grove and Diversey, wooden riot-control barricades and a few disinterested-looking cops surrounded about 20 or 30 fundamentalist Christians. They yelled at the parade’s participants, often from a loudspeaker at the top of a rickety folding ladder. “You’re not really happy,” a frowning young man told a float of pink underwear-clad men who, from the passion of their dancing, were having a much better time than the demonstrators. (more…)

If you really wanted to make Barack Obama the next President of the United States, you would go online right now and make a large contribution to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

I’m not certain why this helps Obama, but in a new video posted on HillaryClinton.com, the New York senator asks America to join her in supporting him. “I look forward to campaigning with him,” she says, her face appearing next to a red button labeled “$ CONTRIBUTE” that lets you help pay her campaign’s $22 million debt. I swear this is true. (more…)

The manliest thing a guy can have is confidence, and I summoned all mine in a very manly way recently when I bought a vanilla and lime-scented candle.

This was the first aromatic candle purchase of my life. I started with no idea which one I wanted to buy, but I knew why I wanted it: I had to convince a girl that I am the sort of sensitive, caring guy who always has scented candles on hand. (more…)

Now that Barack Obama has secured the Democratic nomination for president, his focus can shift to the next major task: Petitioning Microsoft Word to include his name in spell check.

He can also choose a running mate. The Vice Presidency is a prestigious position held only by individuals who can “balance the ticket,” which is a roundabout way of saying “be a different kind of white guy.” For example, in 2000 Dick Cheney balanced George W. Bush’s ticket by having male pattern baldness. (more…)

As the old adage goes, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all, unless you have an 800-word column to write.” It is in this spirit that I recap spring semester 2008, which we would all like to forget, but not until after reading this piece. After all, The Daily Illini needs to sell more advertisements to bus companies trying to convey the important transportation-related message that their competitors would sell you to a tribe of cannibals if the opportunity presented itself.

JANUARY

The Fighting Illini football team plays USC in the Rose Bowl. All eyes in the nation are on the game until midway through the first quarter, when USC takes a seven-touchdown lead, at which point all eyes in the nation turn to “Seinfeld” reruns. (more…)

Graduation is the first day of the rest of your life, by which I mean “Ha ha, you have to be an adult now.” Not that I would know. I got my Political Science degree in 2006 but began law school that fall, so I’ve staved off adulthood at least until I get my Juris Doctor in 2009, and possibly until after medical school and barber college.

But if you’re an outgoing senior, you should be proud of yourself that you showed up to class often enough to not fail out. No one understands better than me how hard it is to crawl out of bed every morning at 2 p.m. (more…)