11 Shocking Celebrity Deaths of 2014 (WITH PICTURES!!!)

James Franco

The result of a horrible misunderstanding, James Franco lost his life on March 1st during his most recent experimental art piece: The Death of James Franco. Though Franco anticipated that his public autoerotic asphyxiation wouldn’t result in actual death, stating that “art cannot die,” the enigmatic actor lost consciousness and subsequently his life in the “performance.”

James Franco’s Last Art Piece. No, really.

Leona Lewis

Answering the age-old riddle, “If a pop star who doesn’t twerk dies of something that isn’t a drug overdose, does it make a sound?” Leona Lewis was discovered in her apartment seven weeks after her death on October 7, 2014 (cause unknown). Sources reported, “Oh. Leona Lewis. She was a singer right? Is she the one from that ‘Put Your Records On’ song?”

2012 Sherman Ave Readers’ Poll: Results

If there’s one thing Sherman Ave prides itself on, it’s follow through. That, and our stunning mastery of the entire AP U.S. History Flashcard set. So, in the hopes of amping you up to take the 2013 Sherman Ave Readers’ Poll, here are the results of last year’s 2012 Sherman Ave Readers’ Poll. Enjoy the blast from the heinous past.

Most Heinous Event of 2012

With 18% of the vote, the winner was: Evanston revoking the Keg’s liquor license. The Keg may not have survived the wrath of Tizzy, but it did manage to eke out a one-vote victory over the advent of #YOLO, followed closely by the I Agree With Markwell campaign and the notorious Vandy seal clubbing scandal. Rest in peace, old friend. We swear to hold you forever in our memory by linking to this every goddamn opportunity we get.

Sherman Ave Freshman Guide: Managing Your Email

Remember when you set up your first email address?  You spent three weeks thinking of the perfect name, and another three weeks mourning when you discovered that batman@hotmail.com had already been taken by some douche who probably doesn’t even know who Professor Hugo Strange is.  You finally settled upon a name and password, cleverly lied to Hotmail and said you were 13 years old*, and next thing you knew, you had your very own email address. Hardly able to contain your excitement, you logged in immediately and

Samwise Donkenstein’s Preseason Top 5 Feelings About This Year

The 6th Feeling is Swag

It is my own misfortune, and indeed the misfortune of many reading this article, to have (mostly) unwittingly chosen a life of suffering and self-torture. I can’t ask for sympathy, I did this to myself, and I can’t ask most humans to understand my situation; how could you, being either outside the realm of fandom or lucky enough to root for a team by some other name?

I am an invested, devoted, fervent fan of the Northwestern Wildcats, and only a select few people to have ever walked this Earth truly know what that is like.

Sherman Ave Freshman Guide: Bicycles at NU

Testicular cancer? No way bro.

Before I came to Northwestern, it had been 3 years since I had ridden a bicycle for, well, socially acceptable purposes. Like most high school students, I felt that riding a bicycle was incredibly lame compared to owning a car, and even though most students at my high school did not own a car, getting a ride from your mom was still considered cooler than riding your bicycle (LOGIC BOMB). Nowadays, riding your bike is “hip,” “cool,” “environmentally friendly,” “a political endorsement of socialism,” etc. At Northwestern, riding your bike is a super viable way of getting to such important locations as: the student center that no one is close to; that place on Clarke that’s practically off-campus but for some reason they have classes there; your local alcohol purveyor; and many more. It’s important to understand whether owning and operating a bicycle at NU is the right decision for you. The following is a personal 2^nd amendment-centric manifesto confessional sexual novel handy guide on biking at NU.

Counterpoint: The Dark Knight Rises Like the Erection I Got From Watching It — With Some Difficulties but Fairly Well Overall

A graphical representation of Simon and Leo.

Before we begin, I should say that I have now seen The Dark Knight Rises (hereafter TDKR) in theater on three separate occasions. I feel that this qualifies me as an authority on the film in the same sense that stalking Carly Rae Jespen makes Sir Edward Twattingworth III an expert on the lyrics to “Call Me Maybe.” There, I referenced it, can I go on now?

I have seen too many reviews declaring TDKR to be an average, even “bad” movie not worthy of the previous two Batman films by director Christopher Nolan. Since Batman isn’t here to defend himself, I figure a self-confessed sex addict from Eastern Europe is as qualified as any to take up his mantle and cowl. To be blunt, Simon K, Sherman Ave’s esteemed correspondent, falls into the same trap as many other reviewers, declaring TDKR to be bombastic, unremarkable, and full of plot holes; in truth, those descriptors fit Simon’s review better than they do the film. No offense brah.

But first I must confess that I, too, found some major plot holes in TDKR. The following are a few I noticed:

• Bane performs a non-inoculated blood transfusion while hanging upside down, at altitude, in a disintegrating plane. THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION CLEARLY WAS NOT CONSULTED. At least no animals were harmed, amirite? (Disappointingly, there were only 2 adorable German Shepard police dogs in the film. Thankfully, there were no horses. Fuck horses.)

• No one except Joseph Gordon-Levitt deduces that Bruce Wayne is Batman. How many Gothamites can afford to throw thousand dollar Batarangs away like they’re pennies? Do you think, when the camera pans off screen, that Batman goes around picking up all his toys to reuse them? After all, Bruce IS broke as shit for the majority of this movie.

• How did Commissioner Gordon know where to throw the flare to light up the lighter fluid Batsign? Would Batman have provided another flare to ‘Mishner if he had missed? Would he have just used his Go-Go-Gadget Bat Flamethrower? The world will never know.

These fatal plot flaws RUINED MY MOVIE-GOING EXPERIENCE, FOR REALZ AND FOR SERIAL. But really, plot holes do not a bad film make, Simon. I would rather have a plot-intensive film with some issues than a totally smooth but unremarkable story. Unless that unremarkable story is, like, starring Will Ferrell or something, because he totally carries that shit. Also, contrary to Simon’s claims, no new information was introduced by the ghost of Ra’s Al Ghul — I know this because I’ve checked, and rechecked, and then checked again because I saw this movie in theaters three times and shutup that’s why.

Since I’m already advocating for a defenseless, sexually frustrated (LOLunderstatement), obsessive-compulsive, polisophile (Greek for one who is erotically attracted to his city) playboy who refuses to kill people but hurts them so badly they wish they were dead, I figured I would address some other complaints out there. I’ve seen other critics ask how Batman could have escaped the prison and re-entered Gotham. I guess it’s a thing now to doubt billionaire ninjas with connections to the most powerful people and technologies the world has ever known. Same goes for dodging a nuclear explosion with 5 seconds to go. Totally not a plot-hole that actually makes you go “lolwutfucksaw?”

At the annual Gotham City Keg Race, circa 1967.

Back again, now, to Simon’s complaints, because I, too, like to keep my reviews spastic enough to justify a Ritalin prescription. What’s the confusion about Bruce Wayne boning Miranda Tate? As you said, THOSE EYES. Also, THAT ACCENT. Bruce finds out the love of his life was going to choose some asshole lawyer over THE GODDAMN BATMAN. Of course he’s going to go out and get some. That’s how self-destructive people recover from disappointment. The real surprise is that he didn’t immediately go for DAT BODY on Catwoman. Seriously, this is the chick from Princess Diaries?! I need to go rent Love and Other Drugs. And Princess Diaries 2, because how WILL she handle all that pressure? She’s just a normal girl in a princess world!!! But as turned on as I was by Catwoman’s awesome bodeh, I too was turned off by her stereotypical and lame quips. Batman and Bane both have their puns and one-liners, but something about Catwoman’s retorts seemed off.

I personally loved seeing Batman and Bane duke it out. Those were some intense body-shots they were throwing. And we got to see it! So many movies hide the action with shaky cameras and other visual obfuscation. Those are PUSSY movies. Batman is NOT a pussy. Except when he gets his VERTEBREH dislodged. Total pussy move.

Honestly Simon, it appears that most of your complaints boil down to “this is more of a superhero movie than I expected and AH HATE IT!” Between Catwoman’s quips, Bane wanting to slowly punish Gotham, and Batman needing to “find himself” and recover from an impossible injury and stop a nuclear bomb at the last second, this is definitely the most “superhero” Nolan-does-Batman film of the series. Does that make it bad? I certainly don’t think so. Does that mean it can’t hold a candle to its predecessors? Hardly.

During one of the most powerful moments in TDKR, Alfred says: “Maybe it’s time people stop trying to outsmart the truth and let it have its day.” Simon, my dear, the truth is this: you are not smarter than this movie, and it is not bad.

Also, fuck Robin.

Other Things David Stern Should Veto

The most hated white man in the league since Toni Kukoc

When sports journalists heard about the NBA Commissioner’s probably ill-advised decision to veto a trade that would’ve sent New Orleans point guard Chris Paul to the Lakers, they practically pooped themselves with rage, railing about the end of the NBA with an apocalyptic despair that would’ve made Harold Camping proud. When I heard about the NBA’s decision, all I could think about was the goodness that could be accomplished by extending David Stern’s veto power, trigger-happy finger, and ‘screw it, I don’t care if I ruin the seasons of three teams’ attitude into other walks of life. Here are the fruits of that aforementioned thinking:

1. Rick Perry’s Presidential Campaign
Here at Sherman Ave we love Rick Perry. Oh wait, no we fucking don’t. No one in their right minds could ever stand to be in the same room, much less vote for, that intolerable shitmuffin. It now seems utterly ridiculous that people as intelligent as Mike Murphy actually thought that Perry could win the Republican nomination. Well, they were about as wrong as Custer’s last words. If only David Stern had stepped forward in August to stop this embarrassing shitshow of a campaign from ever launching.

His dreams were crushed by David Stern. M. Night Shyamalan's should be, too.

2. M. Night Shyamalan’s ability to make movies
So The Sixth Sense was maybe kind of okay. But I dare anyone to make it through The Happening without puking in a biological attempt to reject the atrocity from staying with you. Shyamalan made only one or two movies that could ever be considered ‘good,’ and everything since then has been so unbearably atrocious that Shaymalan should be prevented from ever tainting our eyes with such heinousness again. Unfortunately, the good people at Disney (and by “good people” I of course mean “stupid fucktards”) just keep signing off on his movies. Let’s get Stern in there to crush them the way he crushed Chris Paul’s dreams.

3. No Shave November
I’ll be honest, this year I tried doing No Shave November for the entire month, to see once and for all if I could really grow a beard. I can’t. And I’ve got news for everyone else who has tried it: you can’t either. You do look like an atrocious hobo, though. Congrats. Scumbag Steve would be horrified by your hygiene. Now let’s please agree to never do No Shave November again.

4. New Rebecca Black songs

Rosa Parks' personal hero

Katy Perry has no regrets — only love — about going all the way tonight. I have the same feelings about Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” Yes, it’s horrible, and yes, it probably shouldn’t exist, and yes, it speaks to some very heinous problems at the base of our modern society, but god damn is it funny. I’m glad it exists, and those two weeks where everyone in America absolutely refused to talk about anything else were just awesome. I feel bad for the hypothetical children I may or may not give birth to in the future because they will never have the experience of waiting at midnight for the release of Harry Potter books or movies, and I feel bad for them because they will never have the experience of going to school on March 18, 2011 (the Friday after the song came out) when everyone everywhere was singing “It’s Friday, Friday, GOTTA GET DOWN ON FRIDAY.” For two weeks it was fun to laugh, at the insipid songwriting, at the random rap verse that doesn’t make sense, at the problems with modern celebrity culture, but then those two weeks were over and we all moved on. DIDN’T WE?????

Apparently not. Apparently the ARK Music Factory thought that when 268,000 people disliked the “Friday” video, that meant “we love this, give us more please.” I hate to be the one to break this to you, Patrice Wilson, but when 268,000 people disliked the “Friday” video, it means they didn’t like it. At first, Rebecca Black was sad and kind of funny. Now she’s just sad.

5. Bill O’Reilly’s book about Lincoln
The only thing more ridiculous than the sentence “Bill O’Reilly wrote a book about the Lincoln assassination” is the sentence “Bill O’Reilly wrote a book about the Lincoln assassination that wasn’t true.” Yes. We live in a fucked up world. And while I think we have all accustomed ourselves to Fox News’s ridiculous excuse for news coverage, we don’t need them fucking up history as well. That’s Ross Packingham’s favorite subject!

6. “Ultimatum” by Jeph Loeb
If you’re a normal person, then it probably doesn’t mean anything to you when I say that Jeph Loeb fucked up the Ultimate Universe, but he did, and it is an intolerable atrocity.

Something doesn't seem right...

Quick nut graf: shortly after the dawn of the new millennium, Marvel Comics attempted to reinvigorate interest in their brand by creating an offshoot label, dubbed the Ultimate Universe, where they relaunched characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men as if their 40 year history didn’t exist, and the characters had been created in the year 2000. It worked. The stories were great, and their modern reworking of occasionally anachronistic Sixties concepts had a huge influence on Marvel’s later movie adaptations.

But in the year 2008, Marvel executives handed the creative reins of the Ultimate Universe to Jeph Loeb. It seemed like a sensible decision, as Loeb had won acclaim writing Batman at DC Comics. But whereas Loeb had done well on Batman with a strategy of utilizing Batman’s colorful cast and intriguing antihero sensibility, his plan for Ultimate Marvel was a little more like “destroy everything and kill every character.” His miniseries “Ultimatum” was basically a giant shit all over the Ultimate Universe, whose comics had helped spike my interest in the medium and which I still give to people who mention an interest in comic books, and I can no more forgive him for that than Eddie Murphy can forgive SNL for making one joke about him once.

And most importantly…

My First Quarter Grades
More important than any of the other things combined. I must admit, I got so caught up in college heinousness this quarter that I didn’t exactly get Will Hunting grades. Sure, it’s not like I stayed up past 2 am sequestered in the library every night of reading week preparing for my Ancient Philosophy final, but if Stern could have some words with Morty re: my grades, that would be dandier than Sebastian Flyte.

If that isn’t a convincing reason for giving David Stern a time machine and being done with it, I don’t know what is.