Benjamin Button Admittedly Getting More Liberal as He Reverse-Ages

Posted on by Bobby Korec

NEW ORLEANS — Local man who either looks good for his age or bad for his age Benjamin Button revealed that his political outlook is trending more liberal as he ages in reverse, sources who noticed that he hadn’t used the term “libtards” in quite some time confirmed.

“The younger I get, the more I believe health care should be affordable, and we need to start taxing corporations at a more fair rate,” said Button while subscribing to the New York Times. “I would’ve never guessed it either, considering I came out of the womb as a 100-year-old-man with impenetrable conservative beliefs. But then just last week I found myself instinctively browsing Ruth Bader Ginsburg replica judge collars on Etsy. I guess that means at some point I’ll lose interest in Tucker Carlson in favor of Rachel Maddow, and then eventually get all my political talking points from ‘Sesame Street’ like a child. I hate getting young.”

Those close to Button are noticing gradual shifts in his belief structure.

“When we first started dating we bonded over conservative values like Reaganomics and the right to own military-grade weapons to defend your home against intruding raccoons,” said Button’s wife Daisy Fuller. “But now he’s slowly morphing into a full-blown ‘Bernie Bro’ who believes no one should live in poverty. Gross. What happened to that checked-out curmudgeon I fell in love with who didn’t pretend to give a shit about climate change? Unbelievable.”

Experts who have studied how political beliefs change over time say this is a common phenomenon.

“It’s actually a myth that you get more conservative with age,” said psychologist Terry Montague. “You typically just become more set in your ways, which just so happens to be a conservative trait. You see, culture evolves so quickly that at some point you just stop trying to keep up and start voting for right-wing candidates who strategically claim that the good old days were better. If anything, it’s possible to get more conservative through a steady stream of misinformed memes that use simple straw-man arguments on Facebook. Otherwise, you were probably conservative all along.”

At press time, Button revealed that he would’ve voted for Obama for a third term, despite admittedly not even voting for him the first two times.

Oblivious Mom Turns Old Band Shirts Into $26,000 Quilt

Posted on by Peter Woods

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Local punk Matthew Verne reportedly suffered an immense financial loss after his mother repurposed over $26,000 worth of old band shirts into a decorative quilt, aghast sources confirmed.

“You never think something like this could happen to you,” a visibly shocked Verne said. “My mom said I had some stuff in the basement that she wanted to use for a new project she saw on Etsy. I figured she was going to paste some old papers I wrote in high school onto a birdhouse or something. I really didn’t expect this. I left all the shirts there because I figured they would be safe and could accrue a bit of value before I quit my dumb job for good. The Helmet ‘Meantime’ concert shirt alone was at least $300. This was my entire retirement plan just sewn together into a dull black blanket nobody will ever use.”

According to Verne’s mother, Julia, she shared her son’s feelings of surprise.

“I know I’m a pretty good sewer, but I had no idea I was $26,000 good!” said Julia Verne. “Just goes to show you what you can do with a few old rags lying around and a little bit of elbow grease. I mean, I probably wouldn’t pay that much for a quilt made of scraps, but it still feels nice to have your work appreciated by people. It was a great surprise to see how emotional Matthew was when he saw the quilt. He just cried and kept saying, ‘Why would you do this?’ It was a nice moment.”

Despite Julia Verne’s excitement over the quilt’s value, vintage merchandise traders are deeply worried this will start a disastrous trend.

“The moment all the other bored moms hear about this, we’re screwed,” said vintage shop owner Niko Dallen. “A good 30% of the store’s income comes from selling vintage shirts that parents get sick of having in their homes. We won’t be able to recover if these people start making arts and crafts with our potential inventory. Maybe we can convince them that making macaroni necklaces or gluing bottle caps to stuff is a better idea or something.”

In the wake of receiving the quilt, government officials have already taken steps to help Matthew Verne recoup his losses. The director of FEMA petitioned the US Government to allocate emergency funding, claiming the quilt is “the single greatest second-hand merch revenue disaster since Troy’s mom melted his record collection into those weird, unusable bowls.”

Photo by Peter Woods

Brave: This Security Guard Does Every Racist Thing a Cop Does but Without a Gun

Posted on by John Danek

Mr. James Bartnik isn’t your average enforcer of the law in Toledo, Ohio. He does his job without a gun or taser or any means to impersonally kill someone, yet maintains all of the racial prejudices of a typical police officer. How does he do it?

“Oh, you know, it’s pretty easy. I defend this here Wells Fargo bank like my hypothetical, very white daughter is playing with her very white Polly Pocket dolls in there,” explained Bartnik, who reportedly has no children or spouse. “I find it very easy to muster up the courage to loudly question whether or not some gang of teens have any proper business at this establishment.”

Due to federal felony charges stemming from an attempt to get a forged birth certificate from Kenya to invalidate Barack Obama’s presidency, Bartnik is not eligible to find work as a police officer, but he’s no quitter. He brought his racial profiling skills to the private sector.

You name it, Bartnik has done it. Abuse of power? Racial profiling? Harassment and use of excessive force? All in a days work for this gun-less wonder.

His most essential asset, even more valuable than his incredible sturdiness and low center of gravity, is the delusion that his presence provides an essential and beneficial effect to his surroundings.

“This bank would get robbed twice a day if it weren’t for me, especially with all the low-income housing in this neighborhood. So whenever I see some… potential troublemakers…” whispered Bartnik while darting his eyes from side to side, “I have a trusty list of go-to means to insert myself into the situation.”

To Bartnik, his words are his bullets. “Things like yelling, ‘Hey, those window tints are illegal, I’m calling the cops’ or ‘Are you even a citizen?’ That scares pretty much everyone off before things have a chance of getting physical.”

Despite Ohio’s significant distance from Mexico, Bartnik believes that the lack of a proper border wall is the primary reason why “crime is on the rise.”

“Trump did everything he could to protect our country with the wall, but those idiot Dems decided they’d rather let all the dickheads in to take our most essential jobs,” said Bartnik with tears in his eyes, despite violent crime being on the decline for the past 30 years. “It’s so bad. One of those illegal immigrants hopped the border, got picked up by the Patriots as tight end, and killed a bunch of people. Thanks a lot Biden. Go Browns.”

Aging Punk Lies To Doctor To Make It Seem Like He’s Drinking More Than He Really Is

Posted on by James Knapp

SAINT PAUL, Minn. — 37-year-old punk Ronald “Buckets” Drearer grossly exaggerated how much alcohol he regularly consumes in order to seem cooler during a recent checkup with his general practitioner, sources with pretty mediocre health insurance confirmed.

“I may not be able to drink like I used to, but there’s no way I’m gonna admit it to this egghead in a white jacket with his fancy stethoscope. Shit, I bet I could still drink him under the table; you know, as long as I ate a decent lunch and make sure to take my acid reflux medicine,” explained Drearer. “Sure, my cholesterol may be a little higher than in my twenties and I can’t really stay awake past ten o’clock anymore, but goddamnit I can still fuck shit up. Oh, but don’t tell my wife I swore. Since my son turned three years old, ‘f-bombs’ are a no no in our house.”

Drearer’s attending physician, Peter Hoitzman, MD., detailed his experience during the checkup, flagrantly disregarding doctor-patient confidentiality.

“I’ve been Mr. Drearer’s family doctor for several years now, and his health has actually improved substantially over that time. Which is why I thought it was so odd that he insisted he can drink at least five Jaeger bombs in an hour. At his age, that’s a three-day hangover, minimum,” said Hoitzman. “Of course I know people lie about how much they drink all the time, and it doesn’t make any sense. I’m not here to judge, I’m here to let you know that if you continue to drink a handle of economy-brand scotch every night, then you are going to die very soon.”

Abby Thorpe, statistician for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, informed on a recent trend NIAAA has recognized among aging punks.

“A while back we noticed that fewer and fewer punks were dying young despite professing their intent to do so. When we launched a case study into the matter, we realized that punk drinking tends to drop off precipitously around the age of thirty-three, the year most punks decide to give business school another shot,” Thorpe related. “When we looked into it further, we found out that alcohol preference also shifts, with many old punks preferring a small glass of chardonnay as opposed to the more traditional beer bong full of OE.”

Drearer is currently recovering after he confirmed that the blood pressure medication he was prescribed is “some pretty hardcore stuff.”

Congress Narrowly Avoids Shutdown After Crowd Chants “One More Bill”

Posted on by Ryan Fleishman

WASHINGTON — Congress signed a last-minute funding measure to narrowly avoid a government shutdown today after a crowd gathered on Capitol Hill began chanting “one more bill,” confirmed sources worked up into a frenzy.

“We’ve got a lot on our plate this week, and members on both sides of the aisle are exhausted from the long hours we’ve spent in the same room as Ted Cruz,” said Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. “Hearing a rowdy group of enthusiastic Congress fans clamoring for one more bill in those final moments really carried us through to pass this stopgap solution. It takes a lot to get us to do something for our constituents, and tonight, the crowd really inspired us to give our voters a glimmer of false hope that we might actually deliver on our campaign promises.”

Arlene Brodsky, a member of the bustling crowd who proudly displays lawn signs saying “Everyone is Welcome in This House,” said the energy from the group grew more raucous and desperate as the deadline to fund the government loomed.

“I’ve been following Build Back Better since its early days, but this is my first time really seeing these guys live in action, and it was even more electrifying than I imagined,” Brodsky said, wearing a homemade tee-shirt declaring herself a ‘Joe Stanchin.’ “Obviously, I knew they wouldn’t get to every piece of legislation on my list of faves, but when I heard that they might be going home without passing Biden’s agenda or averting a shutdown, something changed in me. I don’t know if I started the chant or someone else did. It’s like we melded into one person as a crowd. It’s crazy how energized you can be when you’re in fear of the global economy collapsing and the social safety net dissolving.”

A staffer from Representative Josh Gottheimer’s office who wished to remain anonymous said that some aides were shocked to see the funding bill passed both the Senate and House.

“As a moderate, Josh is committed to blocking anything significant from getting to Biden’s desk,” the staffer explained. “But there’s something so powerful about an audience of people cheering you on. There were a few moments when they were reading parts of the bill on the floor, and they’d hold out the mic and let the crowd sing every other word for them. You could tell the Reps were absolutely eating it up. It makes you wonder how great they’d feel if they passed laws that make people’s lives easier. I know it sounds wild, but I’m going to definitely bring it up as an idea at our next campaign brainstorm for Gottheimer 2022.”

As of press time, Senator Sanders was showing a few members of the crowd how to carve a bong from the Senate gavel.

We Compare the Top Gold-Plated Guitar Cables Instead of Confronting the Reality That We Are Incapable of Writing Songs That Move Others

Posted on by John Danek

When it comes to songwriting, the most important thing you need to understand is your audience. But since we’re an emotionless husk with no ability to express our vision of the human condition, we’re gonna focus on our gear instead.

Sadly, we could write the most technically sound song ever composed, but it won’t matter since we can’t connect to our audience. That’s why it’s so important to connect our guitar with high-quality audio cables. Gold-plated cables ensure that our connection to our amp will be crystal clear, which is good since no one at this show gets what we’re going for and we’re starting to worry no one ever will.

When it comes to gold cables, there are two names that stand above the rest: Mogami and Monster. We noticed that any cables from these companies are at least twice the price of their competitors. But that’s nothing near the price we constantly pay for pouring our soul into music that dies in the cold, cold void that is our Bandcamp page.

Mogami cables are known for their longevity and quality control, while Monster has an amazing lifetime warranty. These factors are important because once we invested in one of these gold-plated cables, we were much less invested in our personal failure to connect with fellow humans.

We also found that Monster cables lost a few Hz more of top-end signal around 24kHz, but Mogami tended to lose some deep lows at 6-Hz. While the human ear can’t actually hear either of those frequencies, they aren’t listening to our derivative, generic songs anyway.

Social Distortion Encore Consists Entirely of Mike Ness Revving Engine of Cherry 1946 Plymouth Deluxe

Posted on by The Hard Times Staff

VENTURA, Calif. — Social Distortion fans were treated to an extra special encore from frontman Mike Ness who used the extra 15 minutes of stage time revving the engine of a restored muscle car, excited sources confirmed.

“That was so fucking sick. When the band was playing through their set I was starting to worry that nobody was going to show us what was under the hood of the car parked off to the side of the stage,” said longtime fan Woody Lemire. “But yeah, sure enough, the crowd started chanting ‘Social D’ after their final song, and all of a sudden the car’s headlights turned on and Mike turned the engine over and let it fucking rip. Easily one of the best encores I’ve ever seen.”

Ness admitted he was surprised by the positive reaction to the unique encore of the first few stops of the band’s current tour.

“I knew our fans loved classic cars, but I didn’t realize they loved them this much. We could have probably played six songs and then spent the next 45 minutes doing burnouts in the parking lot and people would have lost their shit, but gas is so expensive we figured it’s best just to let the fans hear some horsepower,” said Ness after changing the oil in the band’s tour bus. “Next tour we’re going to offer some VIP packages where fans get to sit in the back seat while I rev the engine, maybe even have a couple people hold a flashlight for me while I change some spark plugs.”

Venues hosting Social Distortion are making special accommodations in order to get the mint condition 1946 Plymouth Deluxe on stage for use during the encore.

“Last time Social Distortion played the Bay Area, they had an entire 1950s diner with a fully operational soda fountain on stage, so we knew that we had to be prepared,” said UC Theatre talent buyer Dillon Hammond. “Thankfully their stage dressing is rather tame on this tour in comparison. All we had to do was build a ramp to the stage and then their road crew will throw up a few posters of pinup girls, some vintage tool cabinets, and install one of those rigs to pull an engine in order to make it look like the car will be in an authentic garage.”

The band’s management reminded all potential showgoers that they will need to sign a waiver before entering the show that allows Ness to punch them in the face if they are a Trump supporter.

Catch Social Distortion’s next encore Thursday October 7th at The UC Theatre in Berkeley, CA. Tickets available HERE

How I Got Over My Impostor Syndrome to Steal Valor With Confidence

Posted on by Eli Johnson

Have you ever felt like a fraud? You’re not alone. An estimated 70 percent of people struggle with impostor syndrome, the belief that one’s abilities and accomplishments are inflated or unearned. They live in constant fear that, sooner or later, their friends or colleagues will discover their inadequacies. Well, I’m here to tell you that you too can conquer these doubts. Here’s how I stopped worrying about impostor syndrome and started stealing valor with confidence.

Don’t let a few slip-ups sink your confidence

One of the first times I put on some Marine dress blues to run some errands at Wal-Mart, a fellow vet noticed I had on an Air Force insignia. This busybody started asking for my MOS and what unit I served in, and I totally froze up! To make matters worse, he filmed our encounter and uploaded it to YouTube, which quickly went viral. Not everyone will be an ally in your journey toward self-acceptance, a hard lesson I learned early on.

Recognize and accept your limitations

When I started out stealing valor, I styled myself as a Navy Seal and sported the Congressional Medal of Honor. I quickly realized that I was probably overextending myself.

Eventually, I settled for a Marine gunnery sergeant with a Purple Heart and Bronze Star picked up in Fallujah. Thing really clicked for me when I accepted the fact that just because I never served in the military, doesn’t mean I’m not a brave person. Arguably, the derision I risk by impersonating a member of our armed forces takes just as much courage as any soldier serving on a forward operating base.

I always wanted to join the military, I just have a problem with authority. Although I’d excel in combat, I just can’t deal with some dude barking orders at me 24/7. I’m more of a lone wolf, so I’d probably have become a sniper. I always gravitated toward the SRS99 in Halo.

Don’t forget to give back

You have so much to offer those around you, and you can’t let some meanie with a camera phone take that away. I don’t steal valor for myself. (I prefer the term borrowed valor, by the way. There’s enough valor to go around, don’t you think?) I steal it for the common man.

Have you ever looked directly into the eyes of a complete stranger who has approached you, asked to shake your hand, and thanked you for your service to our nation? Let me tell you, there is simply no better feeling. They feel good; I feel good. It’s a victimless crime.

Take these easy steps to feel more comfortable in your job or personal life, and I promise, good things will come to you. Just the other week, I was boarding a flight and Jake Tapper gave up his first class seat to me. I had no idea the guy was such a tag chaser!

Punk House Cat Absolutely Pissed Shows Are Back

Posted on by Natalie Vinh

BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Local punk house cat The Little Guy is reportedly furious at the return of house shows to the area and the loud, drunken visitors that come with them.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” The Little Guy said. “There’s no consideration for others. Fuck vaccines, fuck masks, fuck ‘bringing back live music.’ Our nation as a whole should be reverting back to social distancing outside of my basement, and definitely very far away from the bathmat I sleep on when I just need some alone time. These people aren’t even supposed to be using the upstairs bathroom. Animals.”

In response to the ongoing performances held by the owners of the home and band Naked and Ungrateful, The Little Guy has taken to pissing on pedals, chewing up wires, and showing his asshole to visiting patrons.

“He’s just so cute,” showgoer Beth Trotter stated. “He makes the whole experience undoubtedly better. I gave him a couple of scratches behind the ear. He bit the shit out of my wrist in response and I was like, ‘Rock on, dude.’ That’s how cats show you they love you. Based on the claw marks up and down both of my arms, this cat is fucking obsessed with me.”

Dr. George Williams, a local veterinarian and self-proclaimed cat expert, offered a few comments on The Little Guy’s situation.

“Loud noises and crowds are generally not ideal for the health of a house cat,” Williams explained. “Cats need ample sleep, which can be difficult to obtain when every soft surface in the home is either damp with mold or serving as a place for drunk patrons to make out. This feline’s best bet is to slip out the door when someone enters the home, which shouldn’t be hard, and just go take his chances with that colony near the 7-Eleven where it won’t have to worry so much about fleas.”

At press time, The Little Guy warned potential show attendees a promise of “death to all that cross this threshold,” and added that “whatever Hell exists out there, I hope they burn in it.”

Punk House Cat Absolutely Pissed Shows Are Back

Posted on by Natalie Vinh

BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Local punk house cat The Little Guy is reportedly furious at the return of house shows to the area and the loud, drunken visitors that come with them.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” The Little Guy said. “There’s no consideration for others. Fuck vaccines, fuck masks, fuck ‘bringing back live music.’ Our nation as a whole should be reverting back to social distancing outside of my basement, and definitely very far away from the bathmat I sleep on when I just need some alone time. These people aren’t even supposed to be using the upstairs bathroom. Animals.”

In response to the ongoing performances held by the owners of the home and band Naked and Ungrateful, The Little Guy has taken to pissing on pedals, chewing up wires, and showing his asshole to visiting patrons.

“He’s just so cute,” showgoer Beth Trotter stated. “He makes the whole experience undoubtedly better. I gave him a couple of scratches behind the ear. He bit the shit out of my wrist in response and I was like, ‘Rock on, dude.’ That’s how cats show you they love you. Based on the claw marks up and down both of my arms, this cat is fucking obsessed with me.”

Dr. George Williams, a local veterinarian and self-proclaimed cat expert, offered a few comments on The Little Guy’s situation.

“Loud noises and crowds are generally not ideal for the health of a house cat,” Williams explained. “Cats need ample sleep, which can be difficult to obtain when every soft surface in the home is either damp with mold or serving as a place for drunk patrons to make out. This feline’s best bet is to slip out the door when someone enters the home, which shouldn’t be hard, and just go take his chances with that colony near the 7-Eleven where it won’t have to worry so much about fleas.”

At press time, The Little Guy warned potential show attendees a promise of “death to all that cross this threshold,” and added that “whatever Hell exists out there, I hope they burn in it.”