Hire Jim Essian

Tonight, the Cubs are holding their inaugural Social Media Night beginning at 5:45 tonight at the Captain Morgan Club at Wrigley Field. Because it's called a SOCIAL Media Night, our good friends PAUL SULLIVAN and BRUCE MILES were not invited to participate. So, they decided to host Anti-Social Media Night just outside of the Captain Morgan Club. There are few Cubs bloggers as anti-social as I am, so I will be joining them to tweet bitter things about the Cubs' "cool" clique of Carrie Muskat and...Kevin Saghy.

Hire Jim Essian turns five years old right...NOW. In five years, HJE has ripped through three managers, two general managers, at least four different people who contacted me thinking I AM Jim Essian, 1,847 posts, one Milton Bradley, and 17,340 comments. Those numbers are as meaningful to me as OBP was to Jim Hendry. But I couldn't keep slogging through the past five years without you, dear readers. Join me on Memory Lane as I look back at the post that created HJE (thanks to TJ Brown) and the very first post on HJE.

The search has begun for a new official WGN Radio Cubs song. I want to win. WGN has had nothing but terrible songs assailing your eardrums since the 1998 season. I can write some lyrics, but I have never composed a tune, can barely play a guitar, and my singing experience doesn't go far beyond a stirring karaoke rendition of Runaround Sue. If you're a tune writer who can't write lyrics, and you know a singer who has nothing to sing, let's get together and destroy the competition. I'm serious.

Thanks to all of you who came out to Shitty O'Kea's on Friday night. It was great catching up with those I hadn't seen since last year's outing and meeting some "newbies," as the internet fondly calls you. I didn't come quite as close to getting swung at by Gordon Wittenmyer, but Gordon Wittenmyer still owes me a beer. Kitty O'Shea's is still one of the absolute worst bars in Chicago. Next year, I'm going to suggest that we meet on the same night, but go to a bar that isn't absolutely terrible. Shitty's SPECIAL on Friday night was FIVE-DOLLAR BUD LIGHTS. What a dump.

For the past...four? Five? SIX years? The weirdos over at Desipio, and you weirdos have been getting together on the evening of Day One of the Cubs Convention to drink alcohol, say hilarious things about Domingo Ramos, yell at Crane Kenney to go fuck himself, and nearly get punched by GORDON WITTENMYER. Well, Day One Evening is almost upon us. This Friday, January 13th (SCARY!) many of us will be at Shitty O'Kea's, a place so wholeheartedly shitty, it doesn't even have its own website.

Another year/season/nightmare has passed. That means it's been yet another year that I've been writing stupid stuff about the Cubs. As has become yearly tradition, I'd like to wish a happy (fifth) birthday to Fire Lou Piniella / Hire Jim Essian. You don't look a day over three, old man. Stats time! Since the beginning, there have ... Read More

First of all, I have to thank my good friend Alex for fixing the site after I did my best to completely break it. It turns out there's nothing I can do to fuck up a website that Alex cannot undo. Fortunately, after years of threatening, HJE is finally out from under the thumb of GoDaddy, and we're ... Read More

Hire Jim Essian turns four years old today. Wow. In the past four years, we've seen: 2 different managers 2 NL Central championships 0 playoff wins 1 no-hitter 1 caught stealing on a walk 1,289 bad Harry Caray impressions by Ryan Dempster 126 128 unlikable Cubs 47 site theme changes A few Milton Bradley crimes 1,632 posts 16,580 comments Infinite dick jokes Thanks for sticking around, jerks. ... Read More

This Friday, specifically. The Somethingth Annual Desipio/HJE Shitty O'Kea's Field Trip of the Soul is set to take place this Friday, January 14th. It's the event where you get to rub elbows with the likes of Barry Rozner (SPOILER: You'll have to crouch down), only to later rip on everything he writes. Shitty's is located at 720 ... Read More

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I changed formats again. I've been annoyed with the format since the site was hacked lo those many months ago. I don't know if I love this one or how permanent it will be, but let's give it a whirl for now. I think the format looks cleaner and less cluttered than HJE ... Read More