To Cleveland

"Yo Russ, I'm out! See yo ass on South Beach startin' next season. Watch my show. Hey Dwayne, where my beach sandals at?"

You know, as this LeBron ESPN "I'm outta here Cleveland" special is hours away from kicking off, we here at These Bastards would just like to take a moment to offer up some preemptive condolences to the city. Oh sure, we've mocked Cleveland at every opportunity resulting from our Pittsburgh heritage and the sports rivalries inherent within, but we feel for you here.

I mean the biggest superstar in your city, let alone an entire sport, is doing a 1 hour prime time special whose sole purpose is to essentially stab your city in the back, collect a giant check, and give as public a fuck you possible to the people who supported him over his career? And he's from Cleveland to boot? That shit's just cold as ice.

I mean imagine if Sidney Crosby did that to Pittsburgh? Or Hines Ward. Or Ben Ro.... actually, I think we all kind of want #7 to go right now. We just want to be able to go to the bathroom without worrying so much about inappropriate touching in our bathing suit area.

So, putting all that aside, we feel for you.

What, you think we went soft in our old age? Nah, eat it hard Cleveland. This is hilarious. I don't know all that much about this whole hooped sport, what with our fair city having the good sense to never let pro basketball take hold here, but I hope he sins with your biggest rival. Do you even have a biggest rival? The Cavs were pretty much ass before LeBron, so was a rivalry ever built up? Who cares, it's back to mediocrity when he picks some other team at 9 tonight.

Fuck it, I wish there was some way LeBron could sign with the Steelers. Just for a day. Maybe enroll at Pitt and play for Jamie Dixon. Whatever puts salt in the wound more.

Here, Cleveland, the sad trombone plays for you.

Broken In Brief: DJ AM's iPod announces it will continue on without him

The iPod's emoticons were on full display during today's tearful announcement.

LOS ANGELES—Today, with great sadness in its processing core, DJ AM’s iPod, a white, 120 GB classic model, announced that it was going to fulfill the late musician’s contractual obligations to clubs and venues around the US.

“Although I am devastated by his untimely death, I know that this is what he would have wanted me to do,” the iPod said during a emotional press conference. “Luckily, not only am I programmed with all of his favorite tunes, but I also hold many of the very playlists that he enthralled club goers worldwide with. I just want people to know that I am committed to bringing them the full DJ AM experience that they knew and loved so well: familiar hits and popular remixes, competently ordered and played through a large sound system.”

When asked about any tributes or additional material for the tour, the iPod did mention that joining him during select dates would be Samantha Ronson’s iPod, which would be adding scratchy noises over the song playlist while manning DJ AM’s turntables, an object AM’s iPod assured people was “largely for show.” As for future shows, the iPod seemed hesitant.

“Sure, I’d like to continue on,” said the machine, its view screen fogging up slightly. “God knows that after the playlists run out I can just use my shuffle function. But after that…it’s up in the air. I just will have to trust in the ability of the iTunes Genius feature to find new songs that are exactly like all the other songs on my hard drive. Other than that, I’ll just hire someone to download Top 40 hits and radio promo CD’s onto myself….*sniff*…so I can honor his musical legacy.”