I can’t believe that this keeps happening! What are the odds that another Tinder date had to leave in the middle of me describing how Zack de la Rocha had a hardcore band that he left to form the seminal rap metal band Rage Against The Machine?
This is now the third consecutive Tinder date that didn’t even get to hear how Inside Out actually had an unreleased song called “Rage Against The Machine.” If her Grandma hadn’t been rushed to the hospital she would’ve heard me say that there are actually live recordings of that song online and that you can even hear how Zack is starting to bring in some hip-hop flavor to the music.
I should have known this was going to be a tough date when I showed up and she didn’t even compliment my ‘88 Gorilla Biscuits tour hoodie. I had us meet up at my favorite falafel place and she was already there dressed like some office worker. I mean come on, we’re only in our early 40s, no need to look like an adult going to the big business summit on Q3 marketing strategies.
Such a crazy coincidence that this is the third time this has happened with three different women and I sure hope her Grandma recovers from falling down the stairs or whatever and we get to go on another date because she would probably be fascinated to know how Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Zack de la Rocha had such humble beginnings in his music career.
My last Tinder date (who also got an emergency call and had to leave) at least got to hear me tell her how the guitarist for Inside Out, Vic DiCara, went on to form the highly influential Krishna-core band 108. But she missed out on the part that Inside Out did a reunion show in 1993 and DiCara wasn’t a part of it. I was going to show her Youtube footage of that show on my phone but now she might never get to see it!
“‘Rage against the machine’ is actually a term coined by Kent McClard who did a zine called HeartAttack in the early ‘90s,” was the last thing I was able to call out to my date as she was running to the door after she got off her phone. I feel awful now knowing that she probably doesn’t know what a zine is and that I might not ever get to explain it to her.
Bob is a stand-up guy. He is a successful lawyer, who runs his law blog in peace, and his only sin on this Earth is running up accounts receivable for the Bluths who, let’s face it, deserve every bit of legal extortion they encounter in the show. Barry does the same with his billable hours, but at least with Bob, there’s no danger of him joining QAnon.
Annyong spent years working as a mole for the SEC to fulfill a lifelong grudge his grandfather held against the Bluths, due to his competing banana stand being shut down and him eventually being deported back to Korea. Crazy American conspiracies hold no sway over Annyong. They wouldn’t accept him at a QAnon meeting anyway.
Michael Bluth, through some genetic abnormality or otherwise, has remained completely immune to the pitfalls that doom his immediate family. With a head screwed on straight, a surprisingly rare tether to reality, and a shrewd level of business acumen, QAnon will never breach Michael’s sense of reality.
George Michael was raised well by his father, similarly not falling into the same traps of his relatives. His internal metronome being so strong somehow renders him immune to any and all forms of propaganda. Wild lies around adrenochrome harvesting are deflected by George Michael’s inbuilt FakeBlock.
Despite her vertigo in the earlier seasons, and multiple disappearances through the years, Lucille Austero is steadfast in her beliefs. She is a bleeding-heart liberal, opposing the Bluth’s populist ideals, while still helping them in their times of financial hardship. She did originally stand for the Democrats, before her unfortunate disappearance on Cinco de Cuatro, ending her campaign.
Lupe is too overworked to pay attention to QAnon conspiracies. Lucille works her to the bone, and her constant firing and rehiring ensures that she never gets a chance to rest. The most she knows about QAnon is something that Buster muttered in his sleep once.
Marta is one of the few people in the show who has common sense, choosing to abandon the whole Bluth family once she realizes how childish the men are. She lives her life as a famous telenovela actress, and raises her children without paying any mind to whatever QAnon is or believes in.
Maggie Lizer’s trials and tribulations throughout her time with the Bluths have stopped her from joining QAnon, or taking them seriously. The most she would do is pretend to have been injured at the January 6th insurrection to garner sympathy at a meeting.
Ann’s mother is a relatively well-acclimatized Christian liberal. She went along with her husband to one QAnon meeting, and almost filed for divorce immediately after. Local baristas avoid her, since she tells this ten-minute-long story to anyone who will listen.
Sally is a sensible person with a strong business acumen. Like Lucille Austero, she is also a steadfast liberal, even taking over her Democrat campaign after her mysterious disappearance. Some say QAnon members in Orange County even have her on a list…
Wayne is a hard worker, and the most consummate of all professionals within the law profession, aside from Bob Loblaw. However, his dedication to the PATRIOT Act, and playing both sides of the Bluth prosecution lends him the most proclivity to QAnon of all the lawyers in “Arrested Development.”
Julia Adelaide is shown to love men when they are in a coma, not saying anything, and loathe them as soon as they say a single word to her. QAnon, with perhaps the loudest group of men on the continent, would be completely unappealing to her. She would think that they were all pussies, of the American description.
Carl Weathers met someone in an airport shuttle talking about how much money they were bringing to their QAnon meeting, and successfully converted them to a similarly predatory, but less politically problematic course of action: his acting classes. “These situations are exactly why you take airport shuttles,” was a piece of his sage advice.
Rebel is a good-natured woman, whose knowledge of QAnon is vast, but only for a role she played in an Imagine Productions mockumentary surrounding January 6th. She tried method-acting for the first time, earning plaudits for her performance, but also making her realize how she could never be a part of the movement.
John Beard is a simple man. The only time he ever paid any attention to QAnon was when, on an attachment to Washington DC, he had to report on what the January 6th insurrection “would mean for your weekend,” which he reported as being “not good.” Still better than most Fox News anchors.
George Bluth Sr. is a man who, through having to support his family and making his own company, has a similar sense of reality that Michael does. However, his time in prison seems to have rid George of this, making him more susceptible to QAnon, especially if they have ice cream sandwiches.
Mort Meyers’ aversion to QAnon is not based on any personality traits of his. His constant hitting on Maeby, despite him being married, makes him feel targeted when they start talking about predators running the world. He’s a philanderous weirdo with no chance of ingratiating himself into QAnon.
Warden Gentles, despite being a prison warden, is extremely attuned to the ways of the world, writing a screenplay on life in prison (even if it was only performed by children.) He recommends long documentaries on QAnon, and would never join them.
Ice is a jack of all trades: an excellent bounty hunter, going as far as Mexico in pursuit of his targets, and a similarly capable party planner, able to put on a showstopper of a celebration for a reasonable budget. QAnon is not one of those feathers in his cap.
Cindi is dedicated to two things in life: her job in the federal government as an undercover agent, and George Bluth Sr. She would follow George to many places, but the one place she would stray is QAnon. She loves “Caged Wisdom” too much to ever join QAnon.
Dr. Fishman once stumbled across a poster for QAnon on his way to work, but didn’t understand what the Q meant, so he threw the poster in the trash. On a date later that day, he talked about tearing down QAnon, and managed to coast off of that misunderstanding for three months.
You might think that Steve Holt, being a typical jock who peaked in high school, and is now slightly balding and overweight would be the main target for QAnon. With his father being absent from his life, and his experience on the S.A.D. program, but Steve Holt is a loyal progressive who abhors QAnon.
Stan Sitwell is a shrewd businessman, repeatedly besting the Bluths at their own game, including in his resistance to QAnon. If he were to go to a QAnon meeting, he would likely be laughed out due to his complete hairlessness. The QAnon devotees wouldn’t even know what alopecia was!
As the resident “consultant” for the Bluth Company, Nellie Bluth knows what she wants, and exactly how to get it. QAnon’s vitriol towards sex workers and powerful women means that she knows that it isn’t for her, even occasionally going out of the way to report QAnon content she sees online.
Tony Wonder is a magician, and his ability to bend reality would be scary to anyone in the QAnon movement. He went to a Q rally to try and sell his DVDs, but his W-shaped goatee and hand gesture seemed to be misconstrued by the attendees, causing him to lose his other testicle.
Ann is a long-suffering Christian woman, too bland in her younger years, and too unlucky with men in her older years. Once being so banal as to be forgotten in Mexico, Ann has little chance of joining and being accepted into QAnon. If she went to a meeting, she’d probably be there for three days until someone comes and switches the light back on.
Marky Bark was Lindsay’s activist boyfriend, a profession which stands against the whole idea of QAnon. However, Marky Bark also has a crippling case of face-blindness, meaning that there is a solid chance he stumbles into a QAnon meeting, attempting to follow a Newport Beach socialite he thought to be Lindsay.
We hate to say it but one year is simply not enough time to unravel the sinister knot that is nicotine addiction, and since every year only has one year in it, it’s never the right year to quit. You could maybe switch to the patch, and you’ll be better off, but that barely registers as an accomplishment, and declaring your intention to do so out loud just seems sad.
We combed a lot of resolution lists to nail down our top 30 and this gem was on every single one. We don’t get it. It’s like saying “This is the year I let everyone in my life know that I’m some sort of intrusive psychopath and convince them that my presence in their life is a complete imposition!” Is there anything more alarmingly unhinged than using your phone as a phone when no one even died? What the hell do you mean you’re “just saying hi,” what even is that?!
Sounds nice, but chips are pretty fattening, so hard pass. Sure our clothes would fit better, but they’re already covered in grease stains and burn holes so who really cares how they fit?
Apparently doomscrolling social media posts doesn’t count, they mean the bad kind of reading, i.e. books. We have nothing against books per se, they get turned into movies, but like why would you read books when there are movies? It’s just a more efficient story-delivery vehicle for people who are stoned out of their gourd carbo-loading on bag after bag of primo Cape Code Kettle Chips.
We have no problem volunteering our time to charitable efforts, provided that we can be high out of our minds and eat chips during that time. Like, maybe there’s something that helps homeless people that needs to be weighed down for some reason, and we could sit on it? Oh, that’s not super helpful? By all means fire us!
Sounds like a good idea until you get to that point in the week where junk food and pot get boring, and then what are you supposed to do to feel anything, jump out of an airplane? That’s dangerous.
Everyone enjoys the idea of keeping in touch with the people who have mattered throughout their lives. Unfortunately, everyone hates the practice. Even now just writing a blurb about messaging people I am becoming exhausted mentally and emotionally. Sorry everyone I went to high school or played music with, all the best, see you at a funeral or something.
Yes, apparently people en mass are deciding to make this the year they finally address their mounting dental issues, Most of us here at The Hard Times have passed the point of no return on that years ago. While the dentist can be a valuable source of Vicoden, the juice isn’t quite worth the squeeze. Besides, at least our weed dealer never judges us for how much potato chip gunk is embedded in our gums.
Apparently, there’s a rising trend of adults joining rec leagues to relive their high school sports days, but if you’re a sports person, think back to that time. What was the most fun part? Getting stoned and grabbing food after the game, right? Right. Just cut out the middleman.
A new year is a solid reminder that you’re not getting any younger, and your metabolism is not what it used to be. A proper diet includes plenty of whole grains, leafy greens, a wide range of vegetables, and fruits. It tastes like fucking garbage, pass me the chips I’m stoned off my tits.
Whether you’re doing dry January, sober October, or obstaning during a month without a fun rhyme, you are a fucking bummer. What, you’re just proving you can do it and then going right back? That’s sort of like rubbing it in the face of us addicts pal. Is it lonely up there on your high horse?
Really not much to report when you’re just getting blazed and eating garbage all day.
Do they have cannabis and junk food there? Oh, they do? Well, we have some at home and we can consume it without having to worry about a TSA agent going through our bag.
“Detective Holden McDiesel exhaled his morning bong rip through the tattered blinds of his office window, out onto the mean streets below. ‘I need a case like I need a bag of chips’ he mused to himself detectively.”
We’re not going to say we’re “too smart for therapy,” that’s a load of toxic bullshit. We’re not going to therapy because we’re already treating our traumas with potato chips and weed, and frankly, they’re doing a bang-up job. Thanks for helping me cope with my abusive father doctor Lays! Great job curbing those panic attacks doctor Mircale Alien cookies!
Have you ever tasted this crap?! It literally tastes like nothing. We even tried dipping some chips in the water to spice it up a little and it just made the water and the chips worse, even sour cream and cheddar ruffles! If the good lord wanted us to drink water he wouldn’t have invented Mountain Dew and vodka.
