You Know What Energy Source Hasn’t Skyrocketed in Price Due to Russia? Steam! Op-ed by Reginald Vondurchdenwald

Posted on by Dan Kozuh

By Jove! It appears that, once again, the cost of petroleum has gone through the roof! If only society had heeded my words once again and switched to a less costly, more efficient mode of transportation. Batteries, you say? Unreliable. Solar!? Har, we are decades away from that. No, no, no. Steam, my dear boy! The energy source of the past and future. Check your pocket watch, for the time of steam has come.

Under the power of steam, the only thing that will skyrocket is you in your jet pack. You heard that correctly, old boy. Steam-powered jet packs! Throw on your leather top hat, pull down your goggles, strap a bunch of cogs to your belt for some reason, and come with me on a fantastical adventure! An adventure to the future where all you need is some water to power your house, car, and dirigible. Just imagine using the same water for your morning cuppa tea as you do to power your computation machine. All for the cost of a shave and a haircut! Now doesn’t that just fog your monocle?!

Once the polar ice caps melt, we will have plenty of water to heat to boiling point and push through a complicated series of iron tubes and meters in order to power locomotives and automated launderettes. Now that’s what I call sustainability! Why, when last I checked, a liter of water costs much less than a liter of petrol. What the bourgeois Romanovs in Moscow do will have no consequence on your steam-powered robot butler.

Drought schmought! Water cannot just disappear, you daft nitwit! It has to go somewhere once we flush our toilets and water our metallic gardens. I suspect that it is collected in vast reservoirs deep underground and all we have to do is drill for it. I know what you are saying, “But Sir Reginald, we already drill for oil and it is destroying the planet.” Ah! But my drilling machines will be environmentally friendly because they will run on, you guessed it, steam! I LOVE STEAM!

I just need five million in gold doubloons to get my water drilling machine up and running. Soon enough we will be wealthy steam barons living in floating mansions on islands in the sky that stay aloft via the power of steam. STEAM!

Local Post-hardcore Show Features Band of High School Kids Opening for Band of High School Teachers

Posted on by David Arriaga

FERNDALE, Mich. — Local post-hardcore bands The Crooked Nose and Sleeping in Bushes brought a mix of high school-aged and middle-aged patrons out to the Loving Touch last weekend, confirmed annoyed bartenders working the all-ages show.

“It’s weird opening for Sleeping in Bushes, their bassist Mr. Glennon is my homeroom teacher and keeps telling me to ‘call him Kev,’” said Crooked Nose’s lead guitarist Buzz Hanlon. “I had heard they were pretty wild, but they seem to be on their best behavior. Mr. Glennon is even wearing his school lanyard. We have been hiding our beers and sneaking out for smokes so we don’t get lectured, but I know they are shotgunning beers in the hallway by the bathroom. We can hear them.”

Sleeping in Bushes explained the hard spot they were in. They have to set good examples as both teachers and scene veterans.

“Both our jobs and the scene are on the line here,” said Sleeping in Bushes guitarist, and Ferndale High School History teacher, Oliver Brown. “It’s a rule that you can’t drink or smoke in front of students, so we basically set up our own green room where we can get fucked up. We can’t confirm or laugh at any of our stories, but we don’t have to deny anything either. We have to set two opposite examples, at the same time. It’s funny there’re two age groups here, both partying, both aware of what the other group is doing, but both have to be discreet about it for it to be acceptable.”

Scene veteran Sheryl Oliver is responsible for putting the show together and has a close connection with each band.

“My nephew plays in Crooked Nose and I used to be engaged to the drummer of Sleeping in Bushes so it’s cool to bring these two worlds together. Most of the old heads have families or jobs getting them up early. The rest of us have a duty to pass down the hardcore culture of the 90s and early 2000s,” said Oliver. “We had our time in the limelight; running our DIY venues and throwing ignorant parties. I could tell stories all night, but it’s their turn now. These concerts are more of a passing of the proverbial torch to the next generation. We need to set an example until they are ready to take over the scene.”

At press time, Sleeping in Bushes were performing their second encore which mainly focused on the Pythagorean Theorem and various tips for college prep.

Photo by Jana Miller.

How My Partner And I Have Kept Our Relationship Alive After Being Together For 3 Weeks

Posted on by Rob Steinberg

Relationships aren’t easy. Finding the right one is hard, and it’s even harder to make sure they’re never let go. We all need that companionship and luckily I found someone who is amazing in every way. I see married people all the time who clearly don’t have what we have.

Even though things are great, we have definitely had our challenges over the few weeks of knowing each other. Here are some tips we can pass down:

Have Sex: There’s nothing more important to a relationship than having sex! My partner and I do it as much as possible. We must’ve done it twelve times by now.

Schedule Dates: Sometimes with busy lives it’s hard to meet up. My job as a Social Media Expert can take up long hours and whatever she does for work probably has long hours too. We usually try for weekdays ourselves.

Communication Is Key: Never leave in a moment of silence! Find the one thing you have in common and talk about everything you possibly know on the subject. When my partner once referenced the Sopranos, I made sure to keep referencing the Sopranos too. Even though I’ve only seen a few episodes of that show, it at least shows that we have a connection. If things ever get too quiet I just shout “gabagool!” and I can happily know that she knows exactly what I’m talking about. Learn what ethnicity your partner is too. Ever since my partner told me her last name was Dutch I’ve been laying out every fascinating subject on the Dutch I could and she nods and says “that’s right.”

Keep Things Interesting: After dating anyone for a couple of days it’s bound to get boring. One thing she likes to do is make sure we always meet up at a bar where nobody can recognize us. Spicy and mysterious, right? Surprise each other too. For instance, I just learned yesterday that she’s a vegetarian.

Did I Say Have Sex Yet?: You need sex! Otherwise, you have no validation. Make sure you switch things up too. Lately, I’ve been keeping things kinky by wearing sunglasses. Make sure you let everyone know that you’re having sex too otherwise nobody will think your relationship is going to last.

Well, that’s all our relationship secrets. Now you are on your way to having a love that will last weeks or even months!

“Keep in Mind the Year Was 2005,” Says Man About to Tell Racist Anecdote

Posted on by Rachel Steele

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Local man Patrick Miller prepared an unwilling audience for a lengthy racist anecdote, assuring everyone that he and his friends’ ignorant actions were socially acceptable because it took place in the antiquated time period of 2005, uneasy sources confirm.

“You can never tell what you’re allowed to say in this PC culture,” said Miller while looking over his shoulder for the 7th time before telling the story. “I remember in the good old days in 2005 when you could tell a joke without hurting someone’s feelings. People like to tell me that I had some fucked up friends back in 2005, and I should have risen above the peer pressures of that long-forgotten time period, but you just can’t judge our actions back then based on the standards of today. Just like you can’t judge me today based on any standards because then I will get really upset.”

Miller’s best friend Rick Walker believes that “political correctness” is killing hampering his ability to tell stories from his teenage years.

“We all love to reminisce on his glory days,” said Walker. “Sometimes we forget that racism didn’t really exist back then, it was just a bunch of kids having a good time. We’d all come together at our fraternity’s White Party to make fun of 50-Cent fans, do our best impressions of Apu from The Simpsons, and just have a grand old time like any kids back in 2005. We didn’t have Twitter or Obama to tell us that stuff was a little fucked up. Sure, there were protests and threats from the dean, but it just doesn’t hit as hard as a colorful graphic on Facebook.”

Historian Jenna Harbor weighed in on racial reckonings among aging millennials.

“It’s good to recognize that while a lot of progress has been made since America was segregated in the 1950s and ’60s, it’s still possible to look back on just 17 years ago and see how much bias and prejudice we still had compared to now,” said Harbor. “I’m sure a lot of people wish they could go back in time and erase the ignorance they had back in the day, as long as we all avoid the people who still think they’re the shit because of the stupid, racist jokes they told their idiot friends.”

At press time, after Miller explained there wasn’t a racist bone in his body, he finally proceeded with his anecdote of the time he and his friends bullied a waitress in a Chinese restaurant for how she pronounced “Pepsi.”

How I Got To Be In a Successful Band by Kidnapping the Bassist of Slipknot, Stealing His Mask, and Secretly Playing Shows as Him

Posted on by Bobby Korec

You know what they say. Be in a band that’s successful and you’ll never have to work a day in your life. Unfortunately, none of the bands I was in were even remotely successful. That’s when it hit me. What if I just kidnapped a member of an already prosperous band, stole their on-stage identity, and secretly toured the country while impersonating them? What could go wrong?

This is not as easy as it sounds though. First, you have to come up with a highly lucrative band and then figure out which member to abduct. Naturally, the first band I thought of was Foo Fighters. Who’s more successful than them? Then I realized that probably wouldn’t work because Dave Grohl is definitely too chill to kidnap. He’d probably think the warehouse I locked him in was just an old recording studio he could restore. He’d be posting about “all the history, man” within minutes and blow my cover. That ruled them out pretty quickly.

Then it occurred to me that Slipknot is always walking around in those masks from Party City. That makes disguising myself as one of them fairly easy. I figured the bass player would be a perfect target. Everyone knows bassists are the easiest band members to capture. That part only took me a half-hour.

After I had him secured in my basement dungeon and made him some ham and cheese sandwiches (I’m not a monster), I slipped on his mask and changed into his signature Slipknot uniform. The next step was to start playing shows as him. Turns out that was way easier than you might think since, ya know, bass.

I was finally in a successful band! Unfortunately, it didn’t last too long. The rest of the band figured out after a few shows that I wasn’t their actual bass player after my neighbor heard percussive low tones coming from my basement and called the cops.

But hey, I’ve learned my lesson. Next time I’ll kidnap the one that bangs on kegs. That noise is always coming from my basement anyway.

Marijuana Dispensary Capitalizes on Nostalgia by Selling Weed Out of a Backpack in the Parking Lot

Posted on by Chris Taaffe

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Sketchies, a newly opened marijuana dispensary, is getting rave reviews by selling weed out of backpacks in their parking lot as a way of adding nostalgia to the business, local potheads confirm.

“With many dispensaries marketing themselves as reputable medicinal practices, Sketchies takes a different approach by recreating what it was like to buy weed when it was still a crime,” explains store manager, Martin Lambert. “When you come to our store you can recognize our employees by their black hoodies with thumbholes in the sleeves, Jansport Backpacks, and dirty Chucks. All you need to do is tell them how much you want or the specific dollar amount you want to spend and they’ll give you that amount of our ‘best shit’ while looking over their shoulders like the cops could pop out at any second. When things are busy we’ll just come up to your car and sell to you right through the window.”

Customers report enjoying the retro feel of buying from someone off the street.

“The whole thing really takes me back to my high school days,” said frequent customer, Patrick Reed. “I was considering quitting pot altogether before I found Sketchies. It just wasn’t fun anymore now that I can just go to the store and buy it like I’m picking up a carton of milk. I missed the excitement of never knowing what was going to happen. One time after I had already paid, the seller just stood there telling all these stories about how he’s cheating on his girlfriend. It got really inappropriate and awkward until I finally came up with some excuse to leave. It was great! It’s that kind of detail that keeps me coming back.”

Legal weed analyst, Jacob Calaway, remarked that this is only the beginning of a trend in the marijuana industry.

“What we’ve found in our research is that, much the same way that people enjoy the music of their younger days, they also want to consume marijuana the way they did in their youth. By tapping into the nostalgia market, places like Sketchies are really seeing a sharp uptick in sales. It doesn’t just stop with hoodies and backpacks either. For instance weed today is much more powerful, so when dispensaries have older customers they will sell them dirt weed that is mainly seeds and stems to remind them of getting high in the ‘60s.”

At press time, Sketchies is offering frequent customers an exclusive beeper number for preferential service.

7 Handy Auto Repair Tips I Now Realize Were My Dad Trying To Connect With Me

Posted on by Nathan Kamal

Keeping your car in good working order is not easy. It’s especially more difficult when something goes wrong, and you have to decide whether you can really trust those smirking assholes down at the Jiffy-Lube. You don’t have to rely on those name-badged jerks any longer, since you can easily learn some great ways to do it on your own. Here are seven awesome, handy auto repair tips that my dad taught me and that only now years later do I realize were him trying to emotionally connect to me. Read one!

Replacing Windshield Wipers is Easy: Say you’ve got some old, busted-ass windshield wipers, and turning them on is doing nothing but smearing bug guts across the glass. But getting them changed at a shop will on average put you back at least $60, and that’s not including the cost of the wipers themselves! But all it takes to do it yourself is a little care, knowing where the separation pin is, and always remembering that it’s easy to replace this, but you can never replace family. That’s what my dad always said.

Prevention is Less Expensive Than Repair: My old man was the quiet type, a real Spencer Tracy. But sometimes when we were driving to the hardware store together even though I just wanted to watch “Animaniacs,” out of nowhere, he would say it’s always better to take care of things before they got too bad and couldn’t be fixed. Then he would quickly go into how he meant rotating tires.

Now I realize it wasn’t about tires at all.

Alternators Can Be Replaced at Home: If you take your Honda Civic to a shop to get an alternator replaced, you’re going to out at least $800 and have to talk to a guy named Clem. Don’t be a fool, stay at home, and spend some quality time with your Civic. Yeah, I know the Civic represented me as a child. It’s pretty obvious.

Air Filters Need Checking Every 12 Months, On Your Dad’s Birthday: We’re pretty sure this isn’t true, but why take the risk and end up with terrible air quality?

Repairs Go Faster When You Listen to “Cat’s in the Cradle”: We like Harry Chapin as much as the next guy, but this was almost certainly just Dad trying to use the poetry of 1970s singer-songwriter storytelling to say the things a lifetime under the weight of male emotional repression would never let him say himself.

‘57 Dodge Dart is Surprisingly Easy for Two People to Restore Together, If They Make The Time: We looked up some specs on a ‘57 Dodge Dart, and it actually looks like it would have been a lot of fun. It could have maybe been something that bridged the gulf that seemed wider and wider every year. Also, can be done with tools you probably already have!

A Car’s Engine is Just Like a Heart: It can be broken.

Damn, dad.

Well Now I Just Feel Bad: Dumb Bitch Who Cut Me Off Just Pulled Into the Animal Shelter

Posted on by Krissy Howard

HAMPTON, Va. — Some stupid-ass bitch with her head up her ass who cut me off coming down Jefferson just pulled into the animal shelter parking lot, a source who just feels bad now confirmed.

“Did you see that shit?!” you exclaimed while speeding up so you can get a good look at this dumb motherfucker. “Oh, apparently the princess is too busy and important to follow the same basic rules of the road as the rest of us plebes so she can just zoom in and out of traffic like she’s Fast and the Furious. Well, I’ve got two words for the most important person in the world if she has time to listen to them: eat shit, fuckface!”

A right turn made by the “asshole extraordinaire” in question into the parking lot of the Peninsula Regional Animal Shelter forced you to consider a different perspective, quickly and with great consideration.

“Oh…well, that really sucks. No one just pops into the animal shelter for fun on a Tuesday morning at rush hour,” you considered while rolling up your driver’s side window and putting on a pair of sunglasses as you slinked down in your seat. “This can only mean that she’s dropping off some poor pet to be euthanized, or adopting some sad ass animal who’s been in that godforsaken place for who knows how long. Best case scenario, she volunteers there, which means she’s probably the nicest person on Earth, even if she does suck at using her turn signal.”

“She probably couldn’t hear me call her an entitled hipster cunt overall this traffic, right? Ugh, I feel really bad now,” you added.

Road rage experts weighed in on your predicament, with an unsurprising lack of forgiveness.

“Rule one of being a pissed-off driver—never let the asshole you’re pissed at show their humanity before you get to speed off in a rage,” said the guy who has to cross the GWB with all these other idiot assholes, Daryl Hamilton. “You never know when the person you’re threatening to run off the road is a person with feelings. This is why you should always keep any wishes that other drivers drive into a bridge embankment from the privacy of your own car, with the windows up and your music on. It’s the civilized thing to do.”

At press time, 15 minutes after this situation, you were seen flipping off and honking at an elderly woman who paused for three seconds before moving forward at a green light.

Help! I’m Trapped Inside My Mom’s Body and the Battle of the Bands Is This Friday!

Posted on by Robert John Scucci

Has this ever happened to you? I was printing flyers for the battle of the bands this coming Friday on the company printer and texting with my mom about how I couldn’t make it to dinner on Sunday because I had a DJ set to recoup the losses from being in a band. She got super mad and said “I have no son” at the same moment I said “I have no mom.” Well, as you may have expected, I woke up trapped in my mom’s body. Help!

I only have a few days to figure this out. From what I understand, if you do a clothes-shopping montage to 80’s music and learn a little bit about each other then this whole problem goes away. But as a super cool dude in a local band I can’t risk being seen in public standing outside a changing room with my mom. Especially not while “Wham!” is playing.

The only other realistic alternatives are teaching my mom how to play guitar in three days so people think it’s me or just playing the gig as my mom. She isn’t really musically inclined, so I’m going to have to take the second option. The only issue here is that, as a grown man, I get my height and stature from my father. My mom is five foot nothing at best. I just know the second I strap on my 8 string I’m going to faceplant into the floor monitor and I probably won’t be able to get up to finish the set. Can anybody help?

Punk Instinctively Sneaks Into Free Show

Posted on by Bobby Korec

CRAIG, Colo. — Local punk Kenneth Dieter instinctively snuck into a show despite there being no cover charge to enter, sources who urged him to read the show flyer more carefully next time confirmed.

“You mean I spent weeks studying the venue’s elaborate air duct system as well as that one scene from ‘Die Hard’ where Bruce Willis shimmies his way through a ventilation shaft to learn how to successfully sneak into the building for nothing?” said Dieter before adding that it’s not as easy as they make it look in the movies. “What can I say? My dad used to say that I have to earn everything. And let me tell you, I work my butt off sneaking into shows without being caught. That being said, I didn’t realize this one was free. Hoo boy, do I have egg on my face with that one.”

Joey Bronco, the venue’s bouncer, sees guys like Dieter all the time.

“You wouldn’t believe the lengths people go through to sneak into a venue,” said Bronco before approving a library card as a valid form of ID for a 21 and over show. “Whether it’s three dudes stuffed in a trench coat approaching the door or someone digging a huge hole just outside the venue in an attempt to tunnel their way into the basement, you have to admit that their efforts are probably not worth saving five bucks in entrance fees. Starting to wonder why no one just sneaks through our unlocked and unguarded back door. That probably makes more sense.”

Experts warned that these mischievous habits could develop into more serious offenses.

“Sure, now you’re just sneaking into low-level punk shows for the thrill of it,” said counselor Lisa Tralkall. “Next thing you know, you’ll be formulating elaborate plans to break into famous band practices and you won’t get the same kick unless you’ve successfully kidnapped Dave Grohl, disguised yourself as him, and secretly tour the country as the lead singer of the Foo Fighters. Crimes like this usually start small and end with trapping Dave Grohl in your basement dungeon.”

In related news, Dieter pointed off in the distance and said “what’s that” to the merch guy to distract him long enough to swipe a completely free sticker from the merch table.

Photo by Jana Miller.