10 Ways To Treat Yourself After Nailing a Basic Social Interaction

Posted on by John Adkins

BIG CONGRATS. Against literally all odds, YOU, a fully-grown adult, managed to pull off a basic social interaction with a stranger. You didn’t stutter, you didn’t make weird eye contact, hell, you didn’t even say, “you too” when the cashier told you to enjoy your food like you usually do! Instead, you somehow managed to not be a total fucking social disaster.

You nailed the shit out of that brief interaction with a stranger, and you know what, you’re right, you deserve a little reward! Here are ten reasonable ways to treat yourself after CRUSHING the absolute bare minimum!

Take A Nap Without Setting an Alarm

We know you’re ALL about the “15-minute power nap” *throws up* but this is a celebration, dammit! You deserve to take the kind of nap that makes you lose all sense of space and time. So don’t bother setting that alarm—nap freely!

Buy A Stupidly Expensive Coffee

You know the one. That 7-dollar cold brew with an extra shot, two half pumps of bee pollen and a skinny mascarpone macchiato cold foam. Oh it’s 11 DOLLARS? Who gives a fuck? Not you!

Scroll Endlessly on Socials

We know you’ll probably do this anyway, but you might as well carve out some time (and by “some time” we mean at LEAST four hours) to watch some Reels or Tik-Toks or Snapchats or whatever the fuck the kids are doing these days. LET LOOSE! ROT THAT BRAIN!

Crack Open a Cold One At Your Desk

Who cares if it’s 9am on a Tuesday? Kick back and suck down a couple of brewskis. And be sure to share one with Tina from HR. She’s seems chill!

Eat a Metric Fuck-Ton of Ice Cream

We’re not therapists by any means, but we’re pretty sure that the greatest act of self-compassion is horkin’ down a pint of ice cream. So grab a spoon and get to work! Hell YES the one with all the candy in it, this isn’t amateur hour!

Call Everyone You Know and Try to Win Some Lasting Good Graces From Your Friends

While we fully subscribe to “quit while you’re ahead,” philosophy, there’s the .001 percent chance that you’re on a hot streak. In that case, ya might as well try to call everyone in your life to remind them that you’re capable of having a completely and totally normal interaction. And who knows! They might even think you’re charming!

Skip that Charity Event That You Should Really Go To But Like Also Maybe Don’t Have To

You’ve already blessed a stranger’s day by not being a total social disaster. And in our book, that’s enough charity for the year. FUCK THE ALBINO WHALES!

Start a Mosh Pit at Trader Joe’s

It took a lot of discipline to nail that social interaction, so why not let loose in a grocery store? If they have a problem with it, they shouldn’t have made their employees where those party-time aloha shirts! Let the GROUP CATHARSIS begin!!

Buy 100 Cameos from Henry Winkler

There are two outcomes for this one and they both rock. Option 1: You’ll be blessed with 100 compliments from one of the kindest men on earth. Option 2: He’ll jump to the totally and completely logical conclusion that instead of recording 100 cameos, he can save a lot of time by becoming your best friend. Either way, Henry Winkler will be telling you what a great job you did. And you DID do a great job!

Spend the Rest of Your Day Flushing Your Meds and Doing Whippits

Or week, whatever. Social interactions are normally very hard for you!

Instagram Apologizes for Bug That Briefly Allowed Users’ Posts to be Viewed by Their Followers

Posted on by Tim Graham

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Instagram’s PR team apologized recently after a glitch temporarily restored the app to something resembling what it used to be when a user’s posts were consistently viewed by their followers, according to doomscrolling sources.

“We want to apologize to everyone who was impacted by seeing their friends on our platform,” said Meta spokesperson Eileen Fudge. “The problem was related to a bug in an update, which accidentally rolled our algorithm back to a version from about five years ago. As a result, there was a brief period of time when users were seeing increased engagement with friends and followers. Some reported experiencing a significant reduction in ads and an influx of likes, which may have been confusing or even alarming to regular Instagram users. Rest assured, the problem has now been resolved.”

Instagram user Shelley Bonelli was thrilled to see the app behaving as it once did.

“The ‘gram used to be a great platform for posting my artwork and keeping in touch with my friends,” said Bonelli while desperately refreshing her notifications. “But at some point, all the likes and comments just dried up. It was like no one was seeing my posts, and I was only seeing suggested posts from terrible open mic comedians. So when this ‘error’ occurred, I was really excited. Suddenly, my followers were liking my posts and I was getting all kinds of nice comments on my art. I even sold a couple of pieces in that brief window. But then they ‘fixed’ it, and everything went back to being shit again, making me question why I bother using this fucking garbage app at all anymore.”

UX designer Brandon Bryce says the lack of engagement on Meta’s apps is a feature, not a bug.

“The way Instagram essentially shadowbans the majority of users is intentional,” said Bryce. “Their algorithm is carefully tuned to maximize the time users spend scrolling. Their analysts determined that frustrating the user results in more time spent on the app—and more time viewing ads—than if users are satisfied. Remember in ‘The Matrix’ when The Architect tells Neo that the first virtual world the robots created was a utopia, but the people rejected it? It works sort of like that. The data doesn’t lie: People hate getting what they want.”

At press time, Meta apologized for another recent gaff that resulted in a dramatic decrease in the far-right propaganda which ordinarily fills up Facebook users’ feeds.

Want a Free Vinyl from the Hard Times Merch Store? Here’s Our Tutorial on How to Open a Credit Card in Someone Else’s Name

Posted on by Jack Humphrey

Everything is getting more and more expensive these days. Retailers like Target and Walmart recently admitted they are price gouging all of us. As a fuck you to those greedy corporate fat cats, we at The Hard Times we wanted to give you all the opportunity to get a free vinyl record from our Hard Times Shoppe.

Now we can’t just give you a free vinyl, that would rob you of the satisfaction of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and earning one yourself. My grandfather had a saying, “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man wire fraud, you give him the opportunity to buy a limited edition orange vinyl of Ceremony’s Rohnert Park LP at no cost to themselves.” In honor of this sage advice, here are our tips to open a credit card in someone else’s name.

Step 1: Dumpster Dive to Find Credit Card Offers Sent to Your Neighbors

The easiest way to get a credit card opened in someone else’s name is to find the offers people are sent in the mail. Go to the dumpster behind your apartment and start digging. You think you just saw the guy with the Chevy Camaro throw away his trash and that piece of shit keeps doing burnouts out of your parking lot at 2 a.m., so he has it coming.

Step 2: Ponder the Grim Implications of the Oppressive Economic Systems Put in Place to Keep Those in Power Thriving

Ok so you dug through your apartment’s dumpster and all you found were overdue bills and evidence that your neighbors have as many maxed credit cards as you. You did find the Camaro Guy’s mail and found he is in a pretty contentious custody battle and is likely using the early morning burnouts as a coping mechanism. Before you formulate your next plan of attack, take a moment to reflect on the structure of the economic systems of our society and how those systems are put in place to allow people that are already thriving to continue to thrive at the expense of those with lower economic status.

Step 3: Dig Mailboxes in a Nearby Affluent Suburb to Find Better Credit Card Offers

After a short period of reflection on our economic system, you decide that you aren’t going to let the bourgeoisie bastards get away with it. You’re going to the suburb near you that pays to be on a “Top 10 Places to Live” list put on by an online magazine and find credit card offers there. You’re not just doing this for a free vinyl anymore, you’re doing this for you and all your neighbors forced to barely scrape by.

Step 4: Bail Yourself Out of Jail

Yeah so the police in the suburb you picked clocked you almost immediately after you passed the “Welcome to Carmel, Indiana” sign. You didn’t even make it to a mailbox and they arrested you for “disorderly conduct,” whatever the fuck that means, and you have to call a friend to bail you out. Thanks to the bail costs, you are down $200 from when you started, which means you need a free vinyl more than ever. Keep going, now is not the time to quit.

Step 5: Regroup by Watching “Catch Me If You Can” Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks

You need some inspiration, so you decide to watch Catch Me if You Can with the buddy that bailed you out. You didn’t find any meaningful ideas since the movie takes place in the ‘60s and ‘70s and identity theft safeguards have changed since then, but it’s a solid flick.

Step 6: Just Use Gene Simmons’s Information

If all the steps above fail for you, feel free to use Gene Simmons’s information that we got by posing as someone looking to license the KISS brand for a mobile game or some shit like that.

Name: Chaim Witz
Address: 1234 Coral Canyon Rd. Malibu, California
Social Security Number: 666-16-5678
Security Question: Name of First Pet?
Answer: Peter Criss

Congratulations, you now have the skills to open a credit card in someone else’s name. Take time to scroll through the Hard Times Shoppe and spend to your heart’s content, you’ve earned it.

Punk Who Wears Too Little Clothing in Winter Excited to Now Wear Too Much In Summer

Posted on by Matthew Schneeman

MINNEAPOLIS — Local punk Bobby Anderson, who spent the winter underdressed, is excited to spend the summer wearing way more clothes than anyone would deem necessary, sources close to the sweaty man confirmed.

“It’s not like I don’t wear warm clothes in the winter. My pants have holes in them, but I’m not gonna support the fast fashion industry by buying more plastic garbage. And my vest is mostly patches so it’s like, thick, you know? I’m not an idiot,” said Anderson while layering a leather jacket over a vest and longsleeve shirt on an 89-degree day. “I’ll be honest, there really is no difference between my winter gear and my summer gear anyway. I only have like 10 pieces of clothes and the closest they get to being clean is when it rains really hard. Besides, the problem is global warming. I’m not gonna adapt to this apocalypse. Me getting too hot this summer is like a protest.”

Rochelle Anderson, Bobby’s sister, is not looking forward to another summer in close proximity to her sibling.

“He doesn’t have a car so I’ll give him rides to our parents’ house for holidays and dinners and all winter long he jumps in and says ‘F*** it’s cold’ and will, like, hit the dashboard as if that’ll make the heater work better,” said the older sister. “Then in the summer it’s the same thing and he’s like ‘F*** it’s hot’ and then rolls down the window even though the air conditioner is on, but now he stinks like the dumpster behind Red Lobster and his sweat soaks into my car seat and I have to pay a detailer to get it cleaned.”

Emergency room nurse Laura Synder says there is an uptick in dehydration and heat stroke among the punk-rock community disproportional to the general population every summer.

“The first heat wave is like punk spring break and these kids come rolling in. Punk fashion used to be more baggy but now it’s skinny jeans and everything is dark colors. Patches, tights with shorts over them,” said Snyder. “The goths come in too, but they seem to spend more time indoors so we don’t see as many of them. What makes things worse is, they’re all dehydrated. I guess it became a thing to remind people to drink water on Instagram and now they’re thinking drinking water is supporting Mark Zuckerberg or something.”

At press time, Anderson was being admitted to a local hospital due to his sweaty feet causing a case of trench foot far worse than anything soldiers in World War 1 dealt with.

I Lived Every Day Like It’s My Last and Now I have Crippling Credit Card Debt

Posted on by Arielle Andreano

We’ve all heard the adage that one should “live every day like it’s their last,” but what does it really mean? I’ll tell you. It means $300,000 in credit card debt and more than one antibiotic-resistant STD.

Like any self-respecting Millennial trying to find their way as they come of age at 34, I obsessively followed life advice from out-of-work Gen Xers on Instagram. I kept seeing this same idea, so I decided to take it seriously. My new morning routine was to have a friend call me and pretend to be a doctor telling me about a terminal diagnosis.

My friend Marian was the best for this. She spends a lot of nights on WebMD. Every morning she would tell me that I had precisely 24 hours to live, and I would spring into action, ready to reap the benefits of living life in such a way. Boy oh boy, was I not ready for the reaping.

Most mornings, after recovering from the shock of the news by taking a Xanax, I would think “Well, if I’m dying, I should do all the things I’ve been waiting for.” This included things like traveling all around Europe, quitting my job to spend time with my family, eating at Michelin restaurants, and getting more than half a tank of gas at once. It was fun, at first.

I started getting calls from collections agencies who didn’t seem to care that I was terminal or that I was just living life how we were apparently supposed to. Suddenly, it seemed, I had a mountain of debt I wasn’t able to pay off, not to mention a pretty intense Xanax dependency and a lot of discharge. But every morning I got the news that I’d be dying soon, so once again it didn’t matter. I’d go back to spreading the clap among all the aging rockers I’d never been able to see before money didn’t matter. Some days I would respond to the news by hiding in my closet and sobbing intensely. These days were cheaper.

I have decided that perhaps this advice is not meant for those who assume that other people use words properly.

Despite my struggles, I am finally on my way to paying off this debt with a deal for my debut self-help book “Live Every Day While Remembering That You Could Die Sooner Than You Think Due to a Variety of Factors, and Therefore You Should Keep Your Values, Goals, (And Budget!) in Mind.”

Man To Be Honored at GLAAD Awards for Giving Bisexual Girlfriend a Ride to Chappell Roan Concert

Posted on by Sarah Feliciano

LOS ANGELES – GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, announced that local boyfriend Noah Simms will receive a Vanguard Award for his work giving his bisexual girlfriend and her friends a ride to lesbian singer Chappell Roan’s nearby concert.

“My girlfriend Chelsea got me into Chappell Roan and we’ve been blasting her queer anthems non-stop. I thought it would be sweet to surprise Chels with tickets to the next show, but then I imagined her having to sing along to the bridge of ‘Good Luck Babe’ while I was standing next to her. I couldn’t do that to her, especially during Pride Month,” said Simms. “Bi girlfriends should be free to tell other girls they’re so pretty too and sing about regretting marrying a man. So, I gave the tickets and a ride to her and her best friends to right my wrongs of putting her in a hetero-normative relationship in the first place.”

GLAAD President Shanoor Arora sees this as a call to action for other boyfriends of queer women.

“With the current political climate and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments on the rise, Noah Simms displayed a brave act of allyship. It’s time to get behind the wheel, boys,” said Arora. “Rideshare and venue parking fees are a bitch. And frankly, Chappell’s concerts are not about to get cheaper, considering she went from 2M to 22M monthly listeners on Spotify in the course of six weeks. So it’s really up to the brave men who support their bi and pan ‘gfs’ to utilize their privilege accordingly.”

Chappell Roan was invited to present the award to Simms but turned it down, offering a message to Simms instead.

“Boyfriends shouldn’t be receiving any awards when their girlfriends are out there in my crowd, bereft of an iced coffee, staring longingly at a woman they will never know carnally. But I guess this guy should get some tiny speck of recognition. What if their girlfriend’s gay asses are craving Taco Bell after my show? Then I guess men like Noah need to be there with the car running for their partners now more than ever, babes,” said Roan. “It’s a perfect opportunity for them to literally stay in their lane.”

At press time, Simm’s received a text from his girlfriend asking for him to drop her and her crew off at a hotel for a “super cute slumber party.”

Want To Feel Old? The Crusades Were 900 Years Ago

Posted on by Charles Bill

In the words of Steve Miller and his band, time keeps on slipping into the future. Do you want to feel old? Well, guess what? The Crusades were 900 years ago.

That’s right, I bet it feels like just yesterday that Pope Urban II put out a papal bull calling for all good Christians to take up arms and reclaim the Holy Land from the heathen Saracens. But it was 900 years ago! Ugh, time needs to start slowing down or we are going to lose our minds.

You’re probably are thinking “well sure, that’s the First Crusade, but I remember Richard the Lionheart going into battle against Saladin, that had to be only two or three years ago right?” Nope. That was 800 years ago. If you can believe it, Saladin, Richard the Lionheart, and even the leper king Baldwin IV are now dead! It makes it hard to go back and look at the mosaics depicting the events without feeling a bit of bittersweet nostalgia about the whole thing.

We certainly can’t forget the day that Enrico Dandalo, Serene Doge of Venice, sacked Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade. We were pissed. We all were chanting ‘resist’ and wanted to vote that blind bastard out for what he was doing to Eastern Christendom, but he just kept sacking. And then we live to see it repeat itself with Donald Trump. Time’s a real bitch, and it makes fools of us all.

Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing. It’s easy to look back and yearn for the days of capturing Damietta, or resisting the Turks in Malta, or even being turned into an immortal vampire in Dark Ages Romania, but we need to look forward. A lot of people peaked during the Crusades and now spend their lives trying to chase that high again. But despite the calls for another Crusade, lets say we just let it be in the past.

Also for you younger folks, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated 160 years ago. Wild.

Joe Rogan Accidentally Books Mindforce After Mistaking Them for Supplement Company

Posted on by Tim Graham

AUSTIN, Texas — Hardcore band Mindforce appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast after they were mistaken for a brain-boosting supplement, according to confused, kettlebell-curling sources.

“We were psyched to be getting that kind of exposure,” said Mindforce singer Jay Petagine. “But once the interview started, it was pretty clear a mistake had been made. He started asking us about whether our product was organic and if it could help with focus for bow hunting. We said we’re a band, not a vitamin company. He looked confused, and then launched into some boilerplate Rogan schtick about gut biomes, then the conversation transitioned to him asking us if we think a chimp could fuck up an orca or if they’d be friends. Eventually, he and I bonded over kickboxing and that pretty much saved the episode.”

Joe Rogan himself claims that the booking was intentional, and that he’s a big fan of hardcore music.

“I love that shit, you kidding me?” said Rogan while doing a cold plunge inside a sauna. “Hell yeah, I want to have more hardcore bands on the show. I used to be into all those heavy groups like Godsmack, Disturbed and Papa Roach. Roaches, man… have you ever really thought about cockroaches? They’re the craziest motherfuckers in the world. It’s wild that you’ve got these little armored creatures that can survive a nuclear war running around people’s kitchens at night, trying to find crumbs while they wait for their chance to take over. I saw this video where some scientists put a little circuit board on a cockroach and controlled it like a robot. Jamie, pull that up.”

Seasoned talent booking agent Lester Stetson says that blunders like this are bound to happen once in a while, but can be avoided.

“Research!” said the chain-smoking, polyester-clad Stetson. “You’ve always got to do your research. A little due diligence can easily prevent this sort of fiasco. This reminds me of the time Dick Cavett had the band The Stooges on, thinking they were the Three Stooges. All of Dick’s prepared questions were in regard to pie fights and their vaudeville days. Even more embarrassing was when Regis and Kathie Lee booked some knucklehead named GG Allin instead of Steve Allen. They were scrubbing excrement out of the set for weeks!”

At press time, it was reported that Judd Apatow accidentally invited Joe Rogan to his birthday party when he’d intended to invite longtime friend Seth Rogen.

Every The Story So Far Album Ranked Worst To Best

Posted on by Scott Waldman

Pop punk frontman Parker Cannon (say those four words five times fast) of The Story So Far somehow morphed Liam Gallagher in 2018 without warning, he adopted the swagger and as well as the intentional and unintentional humor. But why? We may never know, but it’s certainly not a bad thing. The Story So Far are part of “The Big 4” of pop punk in the 2010s along with State Champs, Neck Deep, and The Wonder Years, and they just released their fifth album (which we just so happen to have in our merch store on an exclusive vinyl variant) and show no signs of finality; no pressure if the band wants to hang their hats. We attempt to rank their five records from worst to best below, and in closing, this band has better musicianship than 99% of the scene.

5. Self-Titled (2015)

We’ve said it before, but self-titled LP threes are often a boardroom calculated move when a band wants to return to form, and while this thrice of an effort without deadbolts is better than most pop punk records 2011 and beyond, but the unfortunate reality of rankings is something has to be in last place. We love ALL The Story So Far albums, but for some reason, this one had far less personality than its two predecessors, and certainly less than its perfect follow-up. “Still,” the world was clamoring for more TSSF records, and showcased such by buying/streaming the LP to a strong twenty-three on the Billboard 200 in its opening week. Also, how stoned was the band when they threw out the concept for this album cover?

Play it again: “Heavy Gloom”
Skip it: “How You Are”

4. Under Soil and Dirt (2011)

While this debut full-length is endearing, catchy, and a hell of a solid start for any band, it just isn’t as good as you remember that it is, and to directly quote uber-non-controversial Vince McMahon’s theme song, “There is no chance, NO CHANCE IN HELL that ‘Under Soil and Dirt’ is the best TSSF LP in their esteemed catalog. Honestly it isn’t even a medalist here but it IS likely your gateway drug to this fantastic band unless. And again, we really aren’t sure what is going on with the album cover here. Is this like their thing?

Play it again: “High Regard”
Skip it: “Rally Cap”

3. What You Don’t See (2013)

There are no “skip it” tracks moving forward. The Story So Far’s sophomore full-length LP was far from a slump, and like most solid second albums, it is a version of their debut on steroids that doesn’t give you bacne, make your balls small, and give you a giant face. Production value amplified? Check. Catchier songs with better musicianship? Check. Heavier? Check. The band’s collective net worth before even forming? Checks, IRAs, 401Ks, AND trust funds. Anywho, at just under thirty minutes, “What You Don’t See” is the band’s shortest LP, and that says a lot, as ALL of their LPs are pretty concise as well. Want to sweat remotely? Watch the band’s video for one of their biggest songs “Empty Space” and, uh, feel full; yeah. So, enjoy this bronze medalist musical recording and face value but without the “s” like The Suicide Machines’ song.

Play it again: “Empty Space”
Skip it: A full room

2. I Want to Disappear (2024)

The band may love that this most recent effort is ranked in the sterling silver medal position here, but you miscreants will still @ us and bitch in the comments/mentions because the music you listened to in 7th grade is always better than the music 7th graders get to listen to now. Whatever, man, we want YOU to disappear anyway. Speaking of the word “whatever,” whatever a valiant return to form is defined as in Merriam-Webster dictionaries. This effort also is the band’s longest gap between full-lengths AND their first without former bassist Kelen Capener, who has both a funny Twitter, and left the band two years ago. Produced by Jon Markson, who also sat behind the boards for Koyo and Parker Cannon’s side project No Pressure, this one truly shows that Markson made his mark, son. (Order a copy of the new album on our exclusive vinyl variant)

Play it again: “Letterman”
Skip it: Pearl Jam’s “Better Man”

1. Proper Dose (2018)

The gold medal winning full-length studio album “Proper Dose” was and always will be a series of four “uns”: Unexpected, unconventional, unrivaled, and unreal. Some bands “mature,” or at least attempt to do so, and their songs end up sounding like its antonym “immature,” or just “crappy,” but TSSF’s fourth album is far from a farce in musical form, and that’s NOT all we have to say about that. Please find us another Warped Tour band that combined the best parts of the mid-90s with some 00s flair, and a modern Ric Flair for the gold. We mean, you always find the words to say to keep us right here waiting, and take us as you please. We predict that the band will keep this up on album six, and will provide their listeners with a proper dose of quality.

Play it again: Just listen to it all front to back, man
Skip it: Not listening to it all front to back, man

Pitchfork Awards Perfect 10 to Hallmark Whale Noises CD Because They Thought it Was Sigur Rós

Posted on by Ian Steffé

NEW YORK — Pitchfork surprised readers when it awarded a rare perfect 10 score to “Humpback!,” a $28 ambient whale noise CD produced by Hallmark, after mistaking it for a new release by Sigur Rós, multiple sources confirmed.

“Today is a day of huge validation for us at Hallmark,” swooned long-time company spokesman Wolfgang Morrow in between personally sniff-testing a new line of scented candles. “For years we’ve focused on being seen as legitimate, first with our films like ‘Dean Cain’s Super Step-Dad Christmas,’ and now expanding into our music. We were thrilled to get Pitchfork’s attention with ‘Humpback!’ as a capstone to our projects dealing with wolves, wooden flutes, whale noises, rain, flutes and wolves, wolves and whales, rainy wolves, fluted whales, and Brian Eno.”

Despite the mix-up, Jónsi from Sigur Rós seemed flattered about the mistake.

“Many people, when they listen to the Sigur Rós, they think we try to be many thing. Some say that we sound like Böjrk on the nitrous. Other say, the Sigur Rós, we sound like very small Victorian baby ghost trapped in clock. Still other they go, the Sigur Rós sounds like a very hungry fox walking on the piano,” said the Icelandic musician. “And I say no. We always feel like we were in the shadow of the big whale. Very noble and musical beast. We love that. I spent many year dressing and living as whale in the bathtub to learn how to be the Sigur Rós. So our hearts soar to hear about the review.”

Reports initially stated that Pitchfork was embarrassed by the mistake, but they currently seem confident in their position.

“A small clerical error doesn’t change the merit of this project,” sniped Justine Neumann, who wrote the review in question. “It has the wide-eyed sonic introspection regarding the melancholy of a childhood bereft of unmet expectations. These whales coo a vulnerability rarely seen outside of what I would imagine would be the oeuvre of a postmodern Neko Case if she had fins and the burden of motherhood. It is everything and yet not nothing, but maybe less. Past all our characteristic word salad, though, we’re hoping to get bought up by Hallmark so we can be free of our GQ prison, so this might work out in our favor.”

As of press time, Hallmark will be releasing more additions to their whale canon, such as “A Whale’s Tribute to Daniel Johnston,” “Tony Bennett: Aquatic Duets,” and providing the soundtrack to the next Lars von Trier movie.