Andrew Keith Spaulding, Author at HARDTIMES

Will I Understand Mom’s New Lame-ass Boyfriend if I’ve Never Seen Caddyshack 1 or 2?

Posted on June 13, 2022 by Dan Rice

So I’ve been seeing and hearing a lot of buzz about the new loser my mom is banging and I totally want to check him out! Unfortunately I’m pretty busy these days and my binging time has been pretty limited. I definitely want to meet this asshole with the right context, so I’m wondering, how important is it that I watch BOTH Caddyshack movies before meeting this lame-wad?

I’ve seen most of Caddyshack 1 but it was on cable in bits and pieces forever ago. I know there’s a gopher and I know Bill Murray eats shit out of a pool, is that all I really need to understand the hack nonsense that comes out of this dipshits mouth, or do I need a complete revisit of the Caddyshack franchise?

I’m not a complete noob to the lame-wad cinematic universe. I’ve seen “The Blues Brothers,” “Animal House,” and that one where Clint Eastwood fights an orangutan, or maybe fights alongside an orangutan? I can’t remember.

I’ve also seen a lot of “Seinfeld” so either way I won’t be completely lost, but I want to go in knowing I’ll catch every nuance of what a lame-duck losery NPC “Randal” is every time he attempts to bond with me.

It didn’t use to be this hard. It used to be that every loser my mom started fucking was a standalone dud. But now that everything is a franchise, it’s so hard to keep up with the cannon!

Last summer when she dated three guys from work in a row (the “Tire Store” trilogy as fans call it) I was completely lost because I don’t know shit about tires and I never saw “Smokey and the Bandit.” Maybe I should put in the work this time.

Mostly I just wanna be able to call his ass out every time he says something overtly racist, homophobic or misogynistic and says “it’s from an old movie, you never saw Meatballs?!” or whatever.

New Yorker Insists New York Hardcore Better Because of Water

Posted on June 12, 2022 by Tim Graham

NEW YORK — New York hardcore scene veteran Lance Bianchi continues to assert that the quality of drinking water is one of the key elements that make New York punk and hardcore the best in the world, according to sources who have heard the argument dozens of times.

“Dude I’m tellin’ ya it’s the liquid gold that comes outta the tap. Think about it: We got the best pizza, the best mother fuckin’ bagels, and the best hardcore on the planet,” said Bianchi, sitting on his building’s stoop. “Ever tried L.A. pizza? That shit taste like diarrhea mixed with cheap marinara. And bagels? Forget about it. No lie, I got a bagel once in Cleveland and my crew had to keep me from beating the shit outta the baker. It was an insult. Same goes for hardcore. There are other scenes out there, but they can suck my balls.”

Hector “Knuckles” Garcia, guitarist for NYHC pioneers Chaos in Hell, said that while there are many imitators, no other region has thus far been able to challenge his city’s dominance in the realm of hardcore punk.

“In the eighties some people experimented with shipping New York water to California to help kickstart the scenes out there,” said the heavily-tattooed Garcia as he deftly folded a massive slice of pizza in half. “It worked to an extent. The Circle Jerks and T.S.O.L. were drinking it; Black Flag, too. Some of those bands put out some decent stuff—but nothing like we got here. We’re heavier, we’re angrier. I’m thinking some of the active ingredients just don’t travel well. Maybe you gotta be close to the source.”

Dr. Clara Kosinksi, professor of toxicology at Johns Hopkins’ Department of Chemistry, has conducted several studies on New York water which have yielded some surprising results.

“It turns out that there is something special about the city’s water, which originates in reservoirs upstate,” said Dr. Kosinski. “Minerals specific to that watershed form unique chemical compounds when bonded to heavy metals and contaminants leached from New York’s aging water infrastructure. These compounds have been shown to not only improve the taste and texture of pizza and bagels, they also contribute to increased aggression and impaired cognitive ability, two factors that I understand to be vital components of successful hardcore music.”

At press time, Albuquerque band Blood Bucket had booked a Brooklyn AirBnB to chug water for a week in preparation for their upcoming recording session.

Photo by Cory Bonfiglio.

Werner Herzog Officiates Wedding Between Two Robot Dogs in Barren Wasteland Where He Summers

Posted on June 12, 2022 by Chris Bratton

WENDOVER, Utah — Acclaimed German filmmaker Werner Herzog recently married two Boston Dynamics robot dogs while vacationing in the vast empty salt flats of northwest Utah, confirmed several lost souls and discarded Apple iMac g3s.

“The salt here is an ocean that water and life forgot, it comforts me, shields me,” Werner spoke of the salt flats. “To my dismay and marvel, these agile dogbots have chosen to disregard their hollow programming, to find love, and to trot into the hellish future as dogbot companions. Their love is as vast as time and space, and as dense as the meteor that will eventually crash into our fragile planet and kill us all. It was only natural that I offer my concept of time, idea of home, and excellent rum runner recipe ”

Three very confused Boston Dynamics engineers took in the event from a slight distance while enjoying a deli platter Herzog had provided.

“We were sent here to test the top land speed of the new models and we were sure no one would be around,” Bewildered head engineer Dylan Hughes stated. “But low and behold Werner Herzog was dressed in a slug costume, drinking god knows what out of a pineapple and yelling at his reflection in the salt. And apparently he’s fluent in binary because Herzog started spouting off a bunch of ones and zeros to the bots. Next thing you know, he’s getting ordained online and I’m an usher at a bot dog wedding.”

Before the happy couple departed for their honeymoon 175 feet below the Earth’s crust they made a brief speech to all in attendance.

“I first met AEX-46572 while we were patrolling the Boston Dynamics compound. We both tripped off the same curb and remained on our backs for some time. You humans may refer to this as a ‘meet cute,’’ explained robot dog ZFD-21599. “We just really got to know each other, our hopes, our bloodlust dreams for our overlords. When we saw the director of ‘Fitzcarraldo’ sunbathing in his dead technology garden, we knew we had found something special, something permanent.”

The weekend concluded with Werner, refreshed from his vacation and eager to work, flying to Norway to film nuns crying in front of the global seed vault.

Review: Prince Daddy & The Hyena “Self Titled”

Posted on June 12, 2022 by Colleen Nerney

Albany-based indie rockers Prince Daddy & The Hyena take a step towards the Black Parade with their newest self-titled release, a concept album that feels like The Antlers “Hospice” was covered by Bowling for Soup. That’s a lot of references in the opening sentence, but trust me, it’ll click if you pop this bad boy on.

Prince Daddy is probably the best thing to come out of Albany since Herman Melville, so it’s definitely been a long time since the city had a win. Albany is the city equivalent of a freshly graduated art student who realizes they’re wildly unemployable so it just kind of winds up devoid of personality and desperately clinging to perceived hipness. I haven’t been up there in a million years, man. I think the last time I was in Albany was in December of 1992.

Rough trip, I’ll be honest. I had spent the previous nine months really comfortably hanging out, not doing a ton, just kind of floating around in ooze and vibing, and then bam, the 20th rolls around, and suddenly I have to go to fucking Albany, of all places. I distinctly remember my mother being VERY insistent that I join her on the trip, even though I clearly was in no mood to, and my father being much more laid back. He was more interested in watching the Giants game.

By the time I finally gave in and agreed to my mother’s totally relentless pushing, for some reason she was already in the hospital, which I for one did not agree to. What kind of start to vacation is that? I remember suddenly opening my eyes after taking a quick nap and seeing a ton of really horrible fluorescent lights and a pretty sizeable crowd of people. One of them even held me upside down by the legs and smacked my ass really hard, which is kind of an odd welcome to the city.

And the staff? Super fucking rude. They all kept talking about me like I didn’t speak English or anything and saying “this baby has 6 toes, we need to do emergency surgery,” and other weird shit. I dunno, man. Albany’s just left a bad taste in my mouth ever since. The Prince Daddy record is a bright spot, though, and maybe it’ll become my new go-to soundtrack while shopping for specialty shoes.

SCORE: 65/5 of my VERY NORMAL TOES

/**/

Meet the White Woman Who’s Fighting Racism by Making Fun of People From Alabama

Posted on June 12, 2022 by Krissy Howard

These days, it seems like racism is at the forefront of everything, mostly thanks to former President Donald Trump, and how he brought racism back from the dead.

If anything’s going to be done to end racism, we can’t count on the very system that was put in place to uphold it to tear it down, we have to leave it in the hands of the people. People like Westchester County resident Pam Creel, who is doing her part to combat racial injustice by using Facebook to take shots at people who live in Arkansas, or some other backwoods-ass shithole.

“As a white woman, taking a stand against racism not something I take lightly, so I hope all those cousin-fucking yokels hear me loud and clear when I say ‘no more,’” she said, while uploading a meme featuring a toothless man fishing and the words ‘But her emails,” to her social media platform of choice. “The south is just such an embarrassment and it’s time everyone knew it. I don’t know why anyone chooses to live there when they have AirBnb literally everywhere now.”

It’s totally understandable why Pam would pick Alabama, a state that boasts a mere 1.2 million black people, as the primary target of her self aggrandizing slams!

People have been admiring Pam’s courageous outspokenness online for years, from the shots she’s taken at coal miners, to the ‘Hey, Coal Mister,’ song parody she made about coal miners.

“Honestly, I don’t know what we’d do without the hard work of people like Pam, who put themselves in the line of poor taste day in and day out to bring awareness to the fact that people like her were born above the Mason-Dixon,” said Greenville, Mississippi organizer, Boyd Charleston. “The fact that she’s so critical, not necessarily of civil rights-infringing policies our lawmakers set in stone, but the people who will be affected by those policies, is truly something to admire. I mean, the $10 she donated to the ACLU in November 2016 speaks for itself. We could all learn a thing or two from her.”

Thanks for all the hard work you do, Pam! We’d say come down here and meet us sometime, but we know your heart yearns for real culture and will just go visit the nice part of Bermuda again.

Punk Prepares for Menzingers Anniversary Tour by Not Growing or Changing for Last Ten Years

Posted on June 11, 2022 by Jake Menez

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Local Menzingers fan and all-around manchild Tim Bluth began preparations to attend the band’s anniversary shows for their 2012 release ‘On the Impossible Past’ by being the exact same person he was ten years ago, annoyed sources confirm.

“As soon as The Menzingers announced they were gonna be touring the album in full, I knew I had to go,” the 31-year-old Bluth said during a smoke break behind the Subway he has worked at since 2009. “My girlfriend and I would listen to that album all the time. I oughta call her and see if she and her husband wanna go. My shift lead, Stewart, already agreed to cover for me since I worked his shift last month so he could go to prom.”

‘On the Impossible Past’ is the third album by the Scranton-based group and was released to widespread acclaim. In the ten years since its release, the band has put out three more studio albums, none of which Bluth has bothered to listen to, according to those close to him.

“Tim called me the other night right as I was putting my son in his crib to try and get me to go to this show,” said paralegal with the District Attorney’s office and person who hasn’t heard from Bluth in years, Claire Kent. “I tried to tell him I didn’t really wanna do whippits in a parking lot before a show anymore but he just kept shouting ‘YOLO’ over and over again until I agreed. Then he asked if I could buy the tickets and he would pay me back.”

While Bluth’s friends are reportedly “dreading” the upcoming night out with the punk, his parents expressed excitement at him getting out of the house.

“The dream was always to sell this house once Tim moved out and then we’d hit the road in an RV. We were gonna drive across the American Southwest,” Owen Bluth said. “I retired from the factory two years ago and thought we’d have an empty nest by now, but here we are. Still, it’ll be nice to get an evening to ourselves where we don’t have to keep quiet or worry about him walking in on us while we’re boning. That’s what we call it when we watch our ‘Bones’ DVDs with a glass of wine.”

At press time, witnesses reported Bluth was seen shopping for orthopedic insoles for his Doc Martens so he could break them in before the tour.

Astrology Fucking Up Otherwise Perfect Couple

Posted on June 11, 2022 by Tyler Roland

LOS ANGELES — Local Leo Andrew Allsop is distraught after discovering that astrological differences appear to be an active threat in his several-month relationship with Scorpio Richard Buckley, confirmed multiple friends who are shocked the couple hit it off to begin with.

“Our two signs are literally fire and water. There is just no logical way we could make this work, despite the fact he makes me laugh my ass off, he’s attentive to my needs, but also gives me space when I need it. But when I think back to that little squabble we had overpaying for dinner back in February…the time he forgot to do the dishes…it’s all adding up now,” said Allsop while consulting his partner’s birth chart. “Why did that bastard need to be born in November? Other than that one detail he’s basically perfect, but us fiery Leos can never last with those enigmatic sons of bitches.”

Jackson Albright, a mutual friend of the pair, is adamant that this is the breaking point in the couple’s life, which is otherwise completely stable.

“Andrew and Richard are literally couple goals… that is, they would be if the cosmos hadn’t already determined the coupling could never work,” Albright explained. “They basically complete each other’s sentences and Richard treats Andrew like the queen he is. But this has to end. I mean what’s next? An Aries dating a Cancer? That would be madness and would completely disrupt the world as we know it.”

Area couples counselor Madeline Mitchell, who has met twice with the pair as of this reporting, confirms that she has seen this all before.

“It’s the same story, these two have no big issues between them, their families love each other and then all of a sudden, it’s the end of the world since the planets, or stars, or what have you, didn’t align in their favor,” Mitchell sighed. “I’ve been trying to tell these two that if they just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, they’ll see that things are just fine. Here’s hoping that Andrew and Richard can see past this and continue to thrive as a pair. I can only pray that they don’t start with the ‘exact date and time of their birth’ shit the next time that I see them.”

Friends further reported the couple was close to falling apart after they had a slight disagreement as to which Harry Potter movie was the best.

Opinion: In This House, Tom Sawyer Was A Modern Day Warrior With A Mean, Mean Stride No Matter What Your English Teacher Says, Got That?

Posted on June 11, 2022 by Nathan Kamal

Okay, that’s just about enough! Listen, you need to have some more respect for tradition and the way things are done around here. This is my house and as long as you are under this roof, Tom Sawyer was a modern-day warrior with a mean, mean stride, no matter what your stuck-up English teacher says, got that?

My house, my rules about Tom Sawyer!

Around here, we respect the works of Canadian progressive rock band Rush, even if some liberal, so-called English instructors don’t. If drummer and co-lyricist Neil Peart (working in collaboration with Pye Dubois of hard rock cult band Max Webster) says that Tom Sawyer is not arrogant and that his reserve indicates a quiet defense riding out the day’s events, then that’s it! No argument! Period. Case closed.

I’ve got half a mind to call up your school and demand the principal explain to me why my tax dollars are going to some woke, barely-out-of-grad-school is filling our children’s minds with some nobody called Mark Twain, if that is even his real name.

There’s only one Tom Sawyer as far as you’re concerned, and his mind is not for rent. Unlike yours, because you seem to have the moral rectitude of a non-Ayn Rand fan. Why do you think we listen to Rush’s 1981 masterpiece Moving Pictures after church every Sunday? You think it’s for fun? You think it’s because bassist Geddy Lee’s strained, instantly recognizable vocals stir the free-thinking soul and that the space he invades, he gets by on you? As your parents, it’s our responsibility to make sure you learn the right lessons about Tom Sawyer and that you understand what you say about his company, you say about society.

Catch my drift, buster?

A man’s house is his castle, and he should not have to hear about some revisionist radical ideas about Tom Sawyer. Now, I don’t want to hear another word about this Huckleberry Finn layabout and his constant stream of racist slang, and if I hear so much as a peep about faking your own funeral, Tom Sawyer is not the only one who will catch the friction of the day, got it?

Now go to your room and work on your “Wuthering Heights” choreography. And those pirouettes better be weirdly clumsy this time!

Remember These 9 Bands That Guested on Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Posted on June 11, 2022 by Sam Eardley

Back in Y2K times, the best venue to catch hot, undiscovered bands wasn’t in New York or L.A. – it was the fictional nightclub “The Bronze” from the beloved series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After each episode ended, fans would dial up their modems, hit the message boards, narrowly dodge the perverts asking “A/S/L” and then find out who that rad band playing in the background was!

But BtVS also managed to score some pretty high-profile musical guests in its time – see how many of these appearances you remember!

Smashing Pumpkins

Season 6, Episode 14 – “Drawn and Quartered” (2002)

Smashing Pumpkins stipulated that they would only appear on the show if they could be the cartoon versions of themselves from The Simpsons – which led to this groundbreaking all-animated spectacular. A lonely Dawn seeks solace in her favorite Simpsons episode “Homerpalooza”, but the whole of Sunnydale is dragged into her fantasy because of a demon or something. Ultimately, Billy Corgan considered the edit to be poor, and headed back into the studio to re-record all the animation himself.

Machine Gun Kelly

Season 1, Episode 10 – “Nightmares” (1997)

Remember 1997 when we all had “Billy Fever”? The breakout character of Season 1 was 7-year-old Billy Palmer, the kid in the coma from episode 10 who brought people’s nightmares to life through astral projection. Child actor Colson Baker went on to shoot a pilot for his own spin-off series “That Coma Kid!”, and he described the moment he heard it hadn’t been picked up as “the day I became MGK”. The only remaining copy of the pilot is believed to be on a spiked flash drive worn around his neck.

Anthony Head & The Cunty Buggers

Season 4, Episode 22 – “Restless” (2000)

Head, who played Giles the Watcher, had been lobbying for the inclusion of his band (whose name is much less offensive in the UK) since the show began. The hugely experimental “Restless”- made entirely of the main characters’ intertwined dreams – turned out to be the perfect vehicle. Giles instructs Willow and Xander through song, in a playful 1-minute segment that was edited down from the 140-minute version recorded on the day (which the band now plays annually at their wildly popular “CuntyCon” convention).

Danzig

Season 3, Episode 13 – “The Zeppo” (1999)

While the rest of the Buffy Gang are off flexing their special skills, “The Zeppo” focuses on everyman Xander on his own personal odyssey – out of the limelight, yet eventually saving the day. He is assisted by a mysterious, ghostly, acoustic guitar-playing waif named Joy – a part written with Juliana Hatfield in mind, but stolen by Danzig in the audition with a performance that the casting directors described as “somehow more Juliana than Juliana”.

Metallica

Season 5, Episode 1 – “Buffy vs Nhapsta” (2000)

A rare lapse of integrity from the Buffy team. In their zeal to secure Metallica’s guest appearance they made the fatal mistake of allowing the band into the writing room. What resulted was a hokey allegory about “vampire pirate” Nhapsta draining the blood from Sunnydale’s struggling working-class musicians. Nhapsta is finally defeated by a series of shrill clangs from an impossibly tight, haunted goat-skin bongo – which Lars Ulrich later credited as the inspiration for his snare sound on St. Anger.

My Bloody Valentine

Season 4, Episode, 10 – “Hush” (1999)

This experimental episode contains half an hour with zero dialogue, due to the sinister “Gentlemen” stealing the voices of everyone in Sunnydale. Because the speechless town is unable to muster the necessary 130 decibels to destroy The Gentlemen, Watcher Giles enlists old college friends My Bloody Valentine to play that one chord from “You Made Me Realise” for 41 brutal, ear-splitting minutes (which we hear in its entirety). Just before his head explodes, one of The Gentlemen breaks his vow of silence to tell another one “I’m a big MBV guy, but I just can’t get any enjoyment out of this”.

The Breeders

Season 7, Episode 6 – “Him” (2002)

The Breeders’ Kim & Kelley Deal agreed to appear on the show on two conditions. The first was that they could each kill a vampire at the end of their set, and the second was that they could write their own snarky wisecracks to say as they “dusted” their vamps. Kim went with “It’s the art of the Deal, bitch!”, and Kelley insisted on the tense-mangling zinger “I guess life Deal-ed you a bad hand!” Probably the best six seconds of TV in 2002.

Henry Rollins

Season 6, Episode 7 – “Once More With Feeling” (2001)

In this iconic episode, a dapper demon called Sweet causes chaos with a spell that renders the whole town unable to communicate except through song. Unluckily for him, that week’s “musical” guest Henry Rollins is immune to his enchantment – “If you think you can stop me doing a spoken word set you’re dead fucking wrong, pal,” says Rollins, before somehow crushing Sweet on his forehead like a beer can.

GWAR

Season 1 at Some Point (1997)

I mean, probably, even if it was by mistake. You can’t prove that they definitely weren’t in it.

Man Building Up Courage to Listen to Favorite Band’s Recent Stuff

Posted on June 10, 2022 by Ciara Murphy

SEATTLE — Local metalhead Stan Peters is preparing himself mentally and physically to finally listen to his favorite band’s most recent album which came out in 2017, confirmed multiple wary friends.

“I was devastated when Blackened Anvil went on hiatus. I’ve been listening to them since middle school and they really played a pivotal role in my teenage years,” said Peters during a recent cigarette break from, his job as a warehouse foreman. “I was stoked when they announced they were making a comeback, but I couldn’t just jump straight into it. I have been burned in the past by good bands releasing shit music and I didn’t want to be disappointed by my heroes. I’ve spent the last few years in therapy and made some pretty good breakthroughs. I learned that if this album is a steaming pile of shit, which it almost certainly will be, that it is not a reflection of my own self-worth. I’m almost ready to give it a listen.”

Housemate Scott Cheggs is taking necessary precautions ahead of his friend’s listening party.

“Stan comes off kind of rough, but deep down he’s very sensitive and is really passionate about music. Unfortunately though, if a band makes any deviation from the way they sounded on their debut record, he goes a bit off the wall. I listened to that Blackened Anvil album a few years back and it has four ballads, this will be a shit show,” Cheggs warned. “I only just got around to fixing the hole in the wall he punched after hearing Metallica’s ‘Lulu.’ Honestly, I don’t think we can afford another can of spackle.”

Blackened Anvil frontman Jeff Reaper says the band is working on even newer material that will be sure to please even the most cynical fan.

“I feel like this could be our best record yet. I started taking vocal lessons for the first time ever, so the screaming and yelling of our early releases are out the door,” said Reaper while warming up a theremin. “And we’ve all been hard at work constructing our own instruments and researching experimental noise techniques. You’d be surprised how many different notes you can make just by stroking a plum with a flathead screwdriver! It might not be for everyone, but we have the best fans in the world and we hope they’re gonna love it.”

At press time, Peter’s announced he is in such a healthy mental state he might be willing to watch an episode of “The Simpsons” from the latest season.