Words to live by: “As an official crank, your editor does not appreciate the Twitter and the Facebook and putting up YouTubes of your children so pedophiles can form virtual attachments, etc. It is, probably, ‘bad for society,’ but whether it’s any worse than all the other stuff that ruined life — cable, corn syrup, Domino’s, Bud Lite, US Magazine, etc. — is impossible to figure out, again because there’s no way to see it in a bubble.”

What is going on in Lakewood, New Jersey? This town of 40,000 residents, just a dollop of hair gel’s throw from the Seaside Heights beach house occupied by the proud guidos of that show on MTV which is not to be named, has been dominating the Asbury Park Press’s Jersey Mayhem section in a very unhealthy way of late.

First, on Thursday, a 17-year-old boy was shot and killed and robbed of a pair of sneakers. That is terrible. That is like the late 80s.

On Monday, a man with a history of mental illness pleaded guilty to attacking a rabbi with a baseball bat in October. (That’s like Los Angeles in the nows!)

Then, on Saturday, a man was arrested after coming at a couple with a bayonet. (That’s like Bayonne.) Thirty-three-year-old Michael Cappello has been charged with aggravated assault, terroristic threats and weapons offenses:

“The victims, who know Cappello, told police they were at the store to buy supplies for the upcoming snowstorm when he entered, appearing drunk and agitated. After Cappello allegedly threatened to stab the woman, 44, the dispute moved outside, [Patrolman David] Liantonio said. Cappello emerged from the store with the 6–1/2-inch blade and a piece of metal rebar. He then lunged at the husband, who put up his hand and was cut between left pinkie and ring finger. The husband, who had pulled his own knife from his car, refused medical attention, Liantonio said.

Oh, is that a bayonet? Hold on a second, let me just get the knife from my car. Fair’s fair after all. And we are in Lakewood.

Good: “Police say a man tried to rob a New York diner while wearing a paintball mask and carrying a paintball gun.” Better: “Yonkers police Sgt. Patrick McCormack says the man was subdued at the Broadway Diner by four volunteer members of the city Office of Emergency Management.” Talk about being on top of the job!

Slate, our totally favorite website, where we all desperately want to work some day, looks at the annual statement by the good people at the Committee To Protect Journalists, who report today that 46% of journalists in jail are freelancers-and half of them work online: “A decade ago, when China first topped the list, most of those jailed were print reporters for mainstream media outlets who had gone too far in their criticism of government officials… But online journalists can’t be fired, blacklisted, or, in most cases, bought off precisely because most work independently. They don’t have employers who can be pressured. Chinese authorities have few options when it comes to reining in online critics-censor them, intimidate them, or throw them in jail. This explains why 18 of the 24 journalists imprisoned in China worked online.”

There is a three-part process to peddling a novel (a novel is a book that is not born from a Tumblr), according to Awl columnist Matthew Gallaway. Here is step two: “Write a ‘query letter’ in which you describe 1) your reason for writing a particular agent and 2) a summary of the book. The entire letter should not be more than 2.5 paragraphs; keep it polite and professional without any gimmicks. (E.g., do not include your photograph or even a ‘cock shot.’)” Oh. My bad!

Man, Herta Müller’s 2009 Nobel Prize lecture is breathtaking. [Via]

If you’re like me (and the rest of America, according to the Billboard Hot 100), you love the Jay-Z song “Empire State of Mind.” But here’s the thing: there’s apparently a frequently-misunderstood lyric regarding popular NBA players LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, one that seems to leave a number of people befuddled. Maybe you’ve heard this line? It’s in the second verse and goes something like this, “I got it made/If Jeezy’s payin’ LeBron, I’m paying Dwyane Wade.” A lot of people think this has to do with an NBA franchise, of which Jay-Z is a part-owner: the New Jersey-soon to be Brooklyn-Nets. Those people are wrong.

The lyric in question is usually misconstrued in one of two ways. Either:

1) It’s misheard as: “If Jesus paying LeBron, I’m paying Dwyane Wade.”

Or:

2) It’s heard correctly, but taken literally, as: “If Jeezy’s paying LeBron, I’m paying Dwyane Wade.”

Here’s how the different scenarios break down:

1) “If Jesus is paying LeBron, I’m paying Dwyane Wade.” A lot of people assume that this means that there’s someone named Jesus who owns a large equity stake in an NBA franchise who is vying for LeBron James (one of the best NBA players of all time, and close friend of Jay-Z) when James hits the market as a free agent in 2010. Well, you know what they say about happens when you assume, and that’s just what you’ve done. No one named Jesus, pronounced like the son of God and not in the more commonly used Hispanic way, owns any part of any NBA team. Sorry.

2) “If Jeezy’s paying LeBron, I’m paying Dwyane Wade.” So now you might think, okay, maybe the popular rapper Young Jeezy owns a bit of an NBA team, just like Jay-Z does, and he’s saying that if Jeezy signs LeBron, Jay-Z will then settle for Dwyane Wade. Again, you could not be anymore incorrect, I’m sorry. Young Jeezy also does not have any points in an NBA franchise. It seems weird that you even thought that.

The actual answer is a bit more complicated.

In Young Jeezy’s song “24–23 (Kobe-Lebron),” Jeezy uses the players’ jersey numbers to articulate the price he’s paying of a kilogram of cocaine.

The chorus of that song goes, “I used to pay Kobe [24], but now I pay LeBron [23].” This means that he used to pay $24,000 for a kilo of coke, whereas now? He only pays $23,000, you see.

So. In “Empire,” Jay-Z takes this one step further, so as to show his impressive status in New York. He suggests that, while Jeezy may be paying $23,000, Jay-Z is paying a mere $3000 (expressed as Dwyane Wade’s jersey number) for a kilo of cocaine.

David Cho is the publisher of The Awl.

50. South Carolina
49. Utah
48. Delaware
47. Mississippi
46. Alabama
45. Texas
44. Virginia
43. Indiana
42. Connecticut
41. Idaho
40. Florida
39. Nevada
38. Missouri
37. Alaska
36. Nebraska
35. South Dakota
34. Kentucky
33. Vermont
32. Oklahoma
31. Wyoming
30. Oregon
29. Arizona
28. North Carolina
27. Georgia
26. Kansas
25. Arkansas
24. North Dakota
23. Rhode Island
22. Montana
21. Colorado
20. New Mexico
19. Iowa
18. Tennessee
17. Louisiana
16. Washington
15. New Hampshire
14. West Virginia
13. Hawaii
12. California
11. Michigan
10. New York
9. Wisconsin
8. Minnesota
7. Maine
6. Ohio
5. Massachusetts
4. Illinois
3. New Jersey
2. Maryland
1. Pennsylvania

Previously: The 94 Best Philip Larkin Poems, In Order

The Prank Review, with Juli Weiner: Prangstgrüp

by Juli Weiner

Prangstgrüp, active throughout the early and mid-Nads, was the arbitrarily Teutonic prank-committing team out of Columbia University. The members of Prangstgrup have all graduated, and their membership is spread far and very wide. Fortunately, their youthful goings-on have been preserved for posterity both by YouTube and by eponymous stickers that are all over campus, still. Prangstgrüp pranks, for the most part, were confined to a formula: locate where Columbia students acted the most self-serious; recognize that taking college so seriously is inherently comical; and suggest as much, most frequently through the joy of music.

This first video records the best-known Prangstgrüp event. It documents a Grup member that interrupts a large lecture to pose a question about the meaninglessness of higher education in the form of a very earnest and rather catchy musical number. The professor very gamely and graciously stands there laughing, so do not let your increasing worry that he will interrupt ruin your enjoyment of the song.

This next incident revolves around the familiar trope of “ostentatiously loud computer start-up sound.” It is notable, prank-wise, for two reasons: 1. the brief, regular-sized sound that precedes the joke sound is masterful narrative sequencing, in that it subtly re-familiarizes you with this very normal occurrence; 2. that the studiers’ are significantly less tolerant and laid back than the professor whose class was interrupted by a random human speaks to Prangstgrüp’s larger ideological commitment, which is something like: college still counts if you have fun.

And here is the far lesser-seen video of Prangstgrüp’s legendary hijacking of an NYU campus tour. (Rumor has it that this video has been, from time to time, removed from the Internet by the NYU admissions office.) This prank succeeds as both a local and a universal parody. Of course, because it’s NYU, someone would be making a documentary about the admissions process-but also, the stereotypical characters planted on the tour are consistent with every campus tour in history.

A number of their other fine pranks are available here.

Previously: The Prank Review: An Introduction

Juli Weiner is an editor at Wonkette. Do you know of a prank? Would you like me to write about it? I’d love to hear from you!

Those of you who have jobs may be receiving one “extra” paycheck this year. You people make me sick.