Punk Sells Soul to Devil to Get Worse at Guitar

Posted on by Joe Rumrill

U.S. ROUTE 49, Miss. — Local punk and guitar virtuoso Drennen Boydell decided to sell his soul to the Devil in exchange for getting worse at his instrument, sources confirmed as a tumbleweed ambled by, as if on cue.

“I know it’s not something you hear too many people complaining about, but everyone’s always giving me shit for being too good at guitar. Punks in my scene telling me I oughta start a symphonic metal band left and right. A guy can only get roasted so much before he’s gotta look at himself long and hard in the mirror, take stock in what’s really important, and make a pact with Satan, y’know?” said Boydell. “So, I took a page out of Robert Johnson’s book, and headed down to the crossroads to get rid of this pesky soul in exchange for superhuman sloppiness. The only thing I used the soul for was crying at the end of movies anyway, so I figure I’ll save a lot on tissues too, as a bonus.”

The Devil was less than enthused about participating in yet another tired rehash of soul collecting.

“Man, I don’t know how the rumor got started that I was mainly interested in taking ‘souls’ as my main barter, but I’ll rue that day for all eternity. What I could really use is a couple hundred bucks every now and then, I’ll tell you that! Rent down in the fiery depths of Hell ain’t cheap, buddy. I should know, I made it that way!” said the Devil, with a pleasant laugh that betrayed his reputation. “The soul-to-cash exchange rate down here is just getting more and more meager. Things are tough all over, sure, but they’re especially tough in the land of eternal damnation, in my humble opinion.”

Angrier still is the man who owns the house facing the crossroads, the local crank known as Old Man Mahoney.

“You’d think owning crossroads-adjacent property would be a total dream, but take into consideration how often Beelzebub himself shows up in your front yard. That’ll take your resale value down a pretty penny, I tell ya what. The realtor who sold it to me made sure to mention all the natural sunlight and proximity to nightlife, but somehow forgot to say ‘Lucifer may appear frequently while you’re out mowing your lawn,’” said Mahoney, on one of his many rocking chairs. “Plus, to make matters even worse, I’m miles from the nearest hospital or airport. But the devil thing, that’s like, definitely toward the top of my gripes here.”

At press time, Boydell reportedly ended up so bad at the guitar that he’s since switched to being the scene’s best bass player.

Interesting: This Woman Doesn’t Believe In Therapy but Treats All Her Friends Like Therapists

Posted on by Dom Turek

The stigma surrounding psychotherapy has existed since its inception, and for good reason. If you seek mental and emotional help, you’re admitting that you have mental and emotional problems. How humiliating is that? You might as well start walking around town in a straight jacket and howling at the moon.

In a world where people scour the internet looking for sliding scale therapists to kiss away their mind boo-boos and blame mommy and daddy for sudden onset fears of birds, one brave woman has chosen a neural-pathway less traveled. For 34-year-old Jennie Delarosa, there is no problem too daunting that a night out with friends can’t solve.

“I don’t know where I’d be without weekly dinners with my gals,” said Delarosa. “We talk about everything from work crushes, to new recipes, to the recurring dream I have, night after merciless night where a group of men dressed in colonial garb remove my teeth one by one with a pair of my fathers pliers and force me to become the village seamstress, and then later one of us pretends it’s our birthday so we can get free cake. We’re so bad.”

Delarosa actually finds these dinners to be so helpful that she has started asking her friends if they have the availability to meet twice a week.

“Unfortunately, scheduling seems to be a little tight right now,” said Kayla Osborne, Delarosa’s longtime friend. “I’m looking at my calendar and I don’t think there’s time for another session this week, but I’ll contact her if anything opens up. She knows to call 911 if she finds herself in an emergency situaion.”

Not one to be impressed by showy college degrees or psychobabble buzzwords like “self-awareness” and “inner-peace,” Delarosa can’t conceive that anyone in their right mind would spend hundreds of dollars a week talking to a stranger about their most intimate problems.

She’d much rather deal with inner turmoil in a way her father would approve of by spending hundreds of dollars a week drinking screwdrivers at the bar and unloading decades of trauma on a man she just met who, unbeknownst to her, fell asleep an hour ago.

Dad Catches Daughter and Boyfriend in Back Seat of Car Listening to Weezer’s “Raditude”

Posted on by Matt Oriente

CHICAGO — Local dad Patrick Larken caught his oldest daughter in the backseat of her boyfriend’s fogged-up Toyota Corolla singing along to Weezer’s seventh studio album “Raditude,” confirmed sources.

“I suspected something was going on for a while now,” said Larken, father of three and an early Weezer fan. “The first time we officially met, he was wearing a Van Weezer-era t-shirt. It was just such an offensive thing to wear to meet your girlfriend’s parents. What kind of influence is he having on my daughter? When I caught them, she of course ran away crying, yelling, ‘Weezer is more than just the ’90s, Dad!’ In my day, it was simpler—you just had two albums to deal with: ‘The Blue Album’ and ‘Pinkerton.’ Kids today have so much Weezer music. How do you know what’s good and bad anymore?”

Daughter Jessica Larken didn’t see what all the fuss was about and said her dad needed to let it go.

“It’s like, I get that those two records came out at a critical time for that generation, but they’ve released 13 studio albums since then! And spoiler alert: some of those records are actually pretty great,” said the teenage daughter. “‘Hurley’? Slept on. ‘Pacific Daydream’? Exactly that, and it’s delightful. Rivers Cuomo is a low-key genius for his songwriting abilities. Plus, I’m 17 years old. I can listen to whatever I want with whoever I want. I can’t believe I was grounded for two weeks because of this and they said I can only date someone who liked pre ‘American Idiot’ Green Day.”

Family therapist Susan Squires, who specializes in parent-child Weezer therapy, says the dynamic between “old” and “new” Weezer is often fueled by misdirected expectations.

“Long before the parents had kids, they could get away with ignoring the last 25 years of Weezer records, but along comes a child who is new to everything and forming their own opinions. What speaks to them won’t be what spoke to mom and dad back in 1994 and it’s hard for the adults to see that,” Squires explained. “Often, parents in these scenarios will say they expect more out of their children, but in reality, what they really mean is they expect more out of Weezer.”

As of press time, Larken, in a show of goodwill, listened to “Raditude” to mend fences and admitted that he “digs the song with Lil Wayne.”

Mark Zuckerberg, Recipient of World’s First Rat Penis Transplant, Announces Meta Will Stop Fact Checking

Posted on by Matt Husser

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, medical pioneer who received the world’s first experimental rat penis transplant, announced today that the social media juggernaut would stop fact checking, sources claimed.

“It’s our duty to maintain the unfiltered free speech that sustains our democracy, and that’s why Meta will no longer fact check on any of our social media platforms,” said Zuckerberg, concealing his grotesque rat penis transplant scars and a row of engorged pig nipples underneath his trademark t-shirt and jeans. “It’s simply not our place to moderate important discussions happening on our platform, like this trending Facebook topic about how raw Sasquatch milk is the miracle cure for the Chinese ocular diarrhea outbreak being blown through the US by illegal immigrant wind farms.”

Facebook user Dr. Johann Sebastian Jovanović; pioneer in the field of extraterrestrial psychobiology, first man to climb Mt. Everest on the Astral Plane, and Zuckerberg’s personal physician; reinforced the importance of not suppressing the truth by fact checking.

“If our country is to survive, platforms like Facebook and Instagram must remain an unfiltered marketplace for ideas—as well as black market animal parts, like the menagerie of exotic animal penises I have personally transplanted onto Mr. Zuckerberg,” said Dr. Jovanović, posting in the ‘Medical Freedom Militia’ Facebook group. “Unfortunately the deep state is working hard to stop the truth from spreading by freezing my crypto wallet. If any of you patriots could help with just $100 in TruthCoin, I could unlock my wallet and continue my vital work to find out what Dr. Fauci’s hiding in his underwater bioweapon lab.”

Former Meta fact checker Anthony Gutierrez was saddened to lose his job, but expressed quiet relief that he no longer had to verify the many strange but true claims about the Facebook founder across the social media platforms.

“For ten years I worked tirelessly to moderate content, but now it’s simply not my responsibility to verify if Mark Zuckerberg is sexually intimate with a haunted porcelain doll that bears a striking resemblance to himself,” said Gutierrez. “And so what if he regurgitates Soylent meal replacement shakes into piles of loose hay to craft a nest in the rafters of Meta headquarters for his nightly slumber? And frankly, what he does in his private Metaverse server ‘Zucky’s World’ with all those Teletubby avatars is his business.”

At press time, Zuckerberg had reportedly died after a longtime battle with werewolf gonorrhea.

Study Shows 1 Out of Every 5 Local Metal Band T-Shirts Ends Up Inside an Auto Repair Shop’s Oily Rag Bin

Posted on by Chris Bowen

ITHACA, N.Y. — A recent study by Cornell University found that a striking one out of five local metal band t-shirts ends up inside an auto body repair shop’s oily rag bin, several greasy-haired sources report.

“We initially conducted this study in order to collect data on the impact of local metal band t-shirts on the environment,” said Dr. Alita Butte, lead scientist behind the study. “The fact that we found just how many of these are used to clean up messes at garages is pretty extraordinary. What’s even more stunning is that a majority of the shirts have the sleeves cut off. It’s as if shirt arms are trivial when changing the oil on a Toyota Corolla. Oddly enough, the other four out of five metal band shirts end up as cum rags. This music genre has a ton of uses for their merch.”

Local metalheads weren’t totally shocked to hear about the results of this study.

“I’m surprised the number isn’t higher, because every time I take my car into the shop there’s a pile of oiled-up death metal band apparel by the spark plugs,” vocalist of local metal band Downward Down Alex Thorne explained. “Come to think of it, I even saw a few No Fear shirts in there as well. It’s hard to tell those from nu-metal band shirts anyways. Oh well, I guess it’s nice to see these local bands’ merchandise being used in a practical manner. Beats being donated to the needy who don’t even appreciate ‘80s thrash.”

Car mechanic Harold Stumanski says the statistic hits closer to home as far as he’s concerned.

“Considering about 90% of my crew are in shitty metal bands, it would come as no surprise to learn that our rag disposal bin is overflowing with their merch,” Stumanski said. “Just about all metal bands print their shirts on Gildans and there’s just something about that brand that can really take oil, gas, battery acid, and whatever other foul liquids you can throw at it. The Jiffy Lube I used to run had indie band shirts that mainly used American Apparel. Those things couldn’t even handle windshield wiper fluid before disintegrating.”

At press time, Cornell University also revealed that five out of every five punk band shirts end up in the trash.

Help! I Took the Midnight Train Going Anywhere and Ended Up in Missouri

Posted on by Ben Friedman

I’ve made some questionable choices in my life, the biggest one being that I really thought that living and dying in South Detroit was a solid life plan. Why I thought manufacturing jobs would come back to the city is beyond me, but it dawned on me yesterday I had to get out of town immediately or else I’d never leave.

I mean I’ve worked hard to get my fill so I want a thrill dammit. Next thing I know, I’m at Michigan Central Station taking the midnight train going anywhere to start a new life. Unfortunately, that decision landed me smack dab in the middle of the shithole they call Missouri.

Turns out most of the trains leaving shitty places go to other shitty places. Who knew?

I know where I’m from isn’t exactly the gem of the Midwest but I am in awe that people choose to live here. At least in South Detroit there was actual culture. The only place signs of life near my final stop is this depressing dive bar where everyone is smoking like chimneys. I assume they ended up here on a whim too and are trying to kill themselves as quickly as possible. It’s my own damn fault asking for the cheapest train out of the city.

I want to kick myself for not shelling out the extra $7 to go somewhere cool like Chicago. Protomartyr is playing the Empty Bottle tonight and I’m stuck listening to some guy who thinks he was born to sing the blues. God I miss Motown.

The craziest part is I met this girl on the train who did the exact same thing as me! What are the fucking odds? We actually shared a moment until she went on and on and on about the small town she was from, and it sounded a little too “sundowny” for my liking. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to get away or looking to start over in an even more racist town.

Like I get it. When you roll the dice on a mystery train ticket, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. I just never thought the losing end would involve food options that look like they’re from an alternate universe. Have you ever seen a St. Louis bagel? I would take another midnight train going anywhere again so long as it takes me to real food.

It’s like a bad movie that never ends. Fuck this place, fuck the Chiefs, and fuck Amtrak’s rail network.

Residents of Crust Punk House Completely Unaware They’ve Been Transported to the Cenobite Dimension

Posted on by Steve Packosky

THE LABYRINTH — Residents of a crust punk house were seemingly unaware that they were inhabiting the Cenobite dimension, terrified sources confirmed.

“I woke up around noon, which is early for me,” resident Jason Thifton said as he absent-mindedly walked down a long, cobweb-laden corridor littered with severed body parts and bloody chains. “I would’ve kept on sleeping, but there was this naked guy on the floor in my bedroom scrawling ‘I AM IN HELL HELP ME’ in blood on my bedroom wall. I didn’t recognize him, but he must be one of my roommate Cole’s friends. I wanted to just sit on my bed and practice my bass a little, but some skinless lady emerged from a blood stain that got on my mattress after my new back tattoo got infected. I don’t know if she’s here because she’s banging Cole, or what.”

Visiting friend Gina Crowley was taken aback by what she saw upon entering the house.

“I swung by to see if Jason and Cole wanted to go to the dive bar down the street, and their house looked completely unrecognizable,” Crowley reported as she disgustedly shook a discarded human ear off her combat boot. “As soon as I stepped into the front door, I was in this maze of hallways filled with people screaming in agony as these horrible beings were torturing them. Luckily I ran into my friends, but they were just smoking cigarettes and listening to Nausea. I don’t even think they noticed that they were surrounded by fresh pools of viscera.”

Lead Cenobite Pinhead was frustrated by the apparent lack of an effect he and his brethren had on the crust punks.

“Here in the Labyrinth, pain and pleasure are one,” Pinhead provided. “While I feel that the tears shed in anticipation of my work are a waste of good suffering, I do secretly love to see them. I was not, however, expecting to be met with complete indifference like I was with these two. Usually, people cower and wail at the mere sight of me, but I don’t even think they noticed me. I shudder to think of whatever hell they inhabited before they made their way here.”

At press time, Thifton had unwittingly escaped the Cenobite dimension and was delighted at getting a free meal after being kidnapped and forced to sit at the dinner table with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family.

Report: 70% of Punk’s Hydration Sourced from Melted Ice In Vodka Soda

Posted on by Sarah Cortina

PALO ALTO, Calif. — A new report out of Stanford University reported that 70% of the average punk’s hydration is sourced from the melted ice in their vodka sodas.

“Most of the individuals we studied were receiving daily hydration mainly from drinks that were abandoned for 15 to 30 minutes while they smoked a cigarette and gravely reminisced on a better time before they blacked out, or someone who offered them a cup of water instead of kicking them out of the bar,” said Hugh Dwebe, a researcher from Stanford Medical School, who completed a survey amongst the only 13 punks who would “get that close to an institution.” “Demographics with similar findings included 70 year old male retirees and 19 year old sorority girls. Several of the test subjects reported dizziness and nausea, but we couldn’t determine whether that was from the lack of hydration or the effects of alcohol overconsumption. That’s a study for another time.”

Local punk Jeremy Scotts confirmed the report firsthand.

“It’s like a nice reward at the end of my drink. I chug the double shot vodka soda and then I drink water at the end of it. It cancels out. Like PEMDAS,” said Scotts before he paused to snort a mix of what appeared to be wheatgrass and ketamine. “I’ve actually become really healthy this year. My diet is mostly plant based where I mainly consume edibles and Marlboro Golds. Also, I’ve been on a raw diet, you know, where you don’t use condoms. I didn’t even know I was on it to be honest.”

Scotts’ doctor seemed less than concerned about his habits.

“Hey man, his tests are looking positively fine! I mean, positive. For eye syphilis. And chlamydia. And strep. Dehydration is actually the least of his concerns,” said Dr. Gregory Pembrooke while pointing directly at his medical degree from The University of Phoenix with coffee stains on it. “Sure, he often coughs for two straight minutes, but listen to those lungs! They’re working! We need to be more grateful that we’re alive, and that we’re up and moving. Sure, technically we need water to live, but we also need booze to work in tandem with the H2O. They keep each other in check.”

At press time, Stanford University released a new study revealing that another 20% of all punks get all of their hydration needs met by drinking PBR exclusively.

A Lot of Successful Performers Will Say “I Couldn’t Have Done It Without My Fans,” but Not Me — Guest Post by Billy Corgan

Posted on by Dan Rice

Listen to any random musician giving an award acceptance speech and there’s about a 9/10 chance you will hear that artist thanking their fans, perhaps even saying they couldn’t have “done it” without them. I’ve gotta say, that’s always puzzled me. I’ve never been sure how that ended up in the cookie-cutter award speech template. I would like to go on record as saying that I do not thank my fans for a single thing, I do not need them, and if anything they should be thanking me more.

This is woke, snowflake, everybody-gets-a-trophy culture at its absolute worst. You need me to thank you? For MY music? The music I gave you to enjoy that couldn’t have possibly made yourself in a million years? Oh thank you fans, thank you SO MUCH for ALLOWING ME to give you the GIFT that is my songwriting!

It’s bad enough I have to deal with James Iha getting credit for MY guitar work, or having Darcy spread a bunch of lies about me and then verifying them with screengrabs of texts I sent her, now I’m expected to lie that my fans had any hand in the music I’ve created? Oh, because it’s “polite?” I’m sorry, but everything I’ve created was created by me alone, that’s what makes it special, and if you can’t handle that truth, you’re a fucking snowflake.

As far as I’m concerned, The Smashing Pumpkins could just be me, alone on a stage performing some of the most beautiful music of this century to a completely empty arena. It’s not like anyone else knows how to properly enjoy my music anyway—I wrote it, that makes me the best at listening to it. I suppose I need fans to buy concert tickets and t-shirts, but honestly if there was a way for me to just buy all that stuff and still make money I would, in a heartbeat.

If you’re a Smashing Pumpkins fan, congratulations, you’ve got two ears that work the way God intended them to. It’s not, however, something you deserve thanks or appreciation for. In fact, you know what, you’re fired. You’re a toxic drug addict, and I don’t need you even listening to this band. Have fun crawling back to your safe spaces, I’ll be in the studio creating masterpieces, after hours of course, where no one can complain about me re-recording their parts or make direct eye contact.

CIA Installs New Frontman When Punk Band Becomes Too Political

Posted on by Dan Kozuh

WASHINGTON — Frontman Abha Alvarez of punk band Kissinger’s Prostate disappeared suddenly and was replaced with unknown musician Holden Everett mid-tour after Alvarez performed a new song “Red, White, and Profit” targeting American imperialism, leading some to suspect CIA involvement, fans of the band report.

“Abha did this song about how American democracy is just another form of feudalism. We knew that our music was rubbing some powerful people the wrong way, this may have been the last straw,” said bassist Lynn Sullivan after realizing all of Alvarez’s social media had been wiped. “The next morning we woke up and this blonde guy named Holden was driving the tour van. He said Alvarez quit and he is our new frontman. Now our whole set-list is Toby Keith covers and songs about how punk it is to enlist in the Army.”

When questioned about the sudden shakeup, a CIA spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied involvement but issued a statement:

“The CIA is committed to protecting the best interests of America and the American people, whether that’s abroad or in niche music scenes,” the unnamed spokesperson stated from the shadows of a barely-lit venue bathroom. “We’ll continue to support efforts that promote democracy and the Constitution, even when it comes to bands with only 74 followers on Bandcamp.”

Historians explained this type of intervention isn’t unprecedented or even uncommon.

“Guatemala, Chile, The Congo… the CIA has a long track record of toppling regimes they find inconvenient to American policies,” explained Dr. Morgan Palladino, an expert in U.S. covert operations at Georgetown University. “It’s no surprise they’d apply the same tactics to punk bands that criticize the establishment and fill young peoples’ heads with ideas they find un-American. Many people believe that Dez Cadena was a CIA plant in Black Flag and that his whole career is a government psyop.”

At press time, Everett has taken full control of the group and replaced all members with session musicians loyal to himself, and renamed the band The Free Marketeers.