DIY Venue’s Size Cut in Half After Upstairs Neighbor Parks Car in Driveway

Posted on by Ramona Apthorp

LOS ANGELES — Upstairs neighbor and generally lame dude Thomas Gordon reduced the size of famed local DIY venue The Shit House by half last night after parking his car in the venue’s driveway, according to sources.

“I came home from work and my neighbor Jeff [Matthews] just kinda started running towards my car while shouting about someone named Gigi Allen,” said Gordon. “I didn’t even realize until tonight that this was a music venue — I thought maybe it was some sort of weekly costume party where they use power tools. Apparently they’ve been making those noises on purpose. But at least now I know why people keep asking me for a donation of one non-perishable food item when I go in through the side door.”

Attending punks reported that The Shit House’s promoter Jeff “The Stink” Matthews was pacing around the venue and punching the air as Gordon pulled his car up.

“This is such bullshit. I’m gonna fight that car,” said Matthews. “Not just Thomas, but his stupid fucking clean car as well. He doesn’t even have loose receipts or cans rolling around in his passenger seat. This is just like the time my step-mom came over and decided to clean the bathroom — you can’t run a DIY space with a clean bathroom, Janice! I’ve had it up to here with this guy coming in and treating the place like he lives here.”

While the parked car was a nuisance to some, others were relieved by the venue’s size reduction.

“When I first saw the place, I was worried that maybe I’d made it big by how much crowd space the venue had,” said Coke Brothers frontwoman Gretch Stevens. “So you can only imagine how relieved I was when I saw a 2008 Honda Civic park in what was a mosh pit 40 minutes earlier. If it turned out I was playing a large venue, I don’t think I could ever show my face around the scene again. Nothing is more of a career killer around here than a career.”

The Shit House will be hosting its annual eviction show at the end of the month.

Review: Discharge “Live at the City Garden New Jersey”

Posted on by Krissy Howard

Each Sunday, The Hard Times travels back and reviews a notable album from the past. This week we tackle the legendary live album from Discharge at the height of their powers.

The year was 2021, which is this year, but it was last month, which honestly feels like a fucking lifetime ago and somehow also no time at all? Anyway, it was on a balmy spring morning that I woke up to the shock of a lifetime, for the sixth time that week, in my pants. As someone who prioritizes her health above all else, and just under ordering Seamless and looking at Instagram, I knew I had to seek help immediately. 

A cursory search led me to pages upon pages of information about my possible medical condition. Naturally, I jumped to page 14, which is where everyone knows all the good information hides out. It was there that I found something called Discharge: Live at the City Garden New Jersey, which called to me as I had just been in a hot tub in New Jersey the week before. I ordered the album and it arrived two weeks later, by which point my pelvic area was weirdly sore and all of my leggings had to be burned for reasons I will not disclose. 

The album was pretty good. The songs were screamy and short, unlike this problem I’m dealing with, which seems like it’s been here forever. It opened with a song called “Warning,” so I was fully prepared to find out whatever I have is with me for life, but it just kept going into more songs about breaking beer bottles or something. By the time I got to “Anger Burning,” I thought for sure I would get some answers, but the only thing burning was my pee hole, and apparently Discharge (the band) anytime they think about The Queen of England. Both the album and my internet search met me with the ultimate “Price of Silence,” for which I, and my fabric couch, paid for dearly.  

The album did get me curious about the band. According to their Wikipedia page and not WebMD, Discharge (the band) are a bunch of anarchists who are also pacifists, which means they must have been like the brontosaurus of the music world. There are a ton of words like “grindcore” and “thrash” used to describe them, but there was nothing that really captured what I was feeling while I listened to it, which I would call “red,” “painful,” “smells bad,” and “clumpy.” The closest comparison I could make was “crust,” but I didn’t really understand why the “punk” part was at the end of it. 

Honestly, listening to this music makes me feel kind of itchy sometimes, especially at night when I try to fall asleep or after I workout. But I guess art is subjective and affects everyone differently, so maybe that’s what makes it good. Unfortunately, this album did absolutely nothing to alleviate my burning vagina problem, but then again, I ordered some shoes that same day and they also did nothing, so I can’t be too hard on it. 

I did find out from a friend just yesterday that what I have is probably what’s called a “yeast infection” and can be cured with a suppository, which is kind of like a dildo full of medicine. 

Overall, I would give this album a 99% rating for the music, and minus 1% for the confusing name. Fortunately, there are no bands called Monistat-1 Maximum Strength and there’s a CVS like, three minutes from my apartment, so it all worked out. 

Official review: Monistat 3 out of 7

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Wet Shower Curtain Clinging to Woman’s Leg Most Intimacy She’s Experienced in Years

Posted on by Alice Lahoda

CHERRY HILL, N.J. — Local woman Stacy Tran was reportedly shocked by a recent revelation that she shares a more intimate bond with her shower curtain than any of her recent romantic partners, sources confirmed.

“I can’t remember the last time a guy couldn’t keep his hands off me for even a minute,” opined Tran. “But as I tried and failed to hold back my shower curtain long enough to shave my legs the other day, it occurred to me that this curtain still clings to me just as much as the first time we showered together. Not only is this the longest relationship I’ve ever had, but the cold, suction-y grip of that plastic is an embrace more tender than anything I’ve ever felt in my life.”

Tran explained that she values reliability and familiarity above all else in a relationship, which her shower curtain “absolutely delivers.”

“This curtain knows my secrets, like how sometimes I’ll pee in the shower even after I suds up, or how I cry every time Jesse McCartney’s ‘Beautiful Soul’ plays on my shower speaker. And no matter how many times I push it away, it never leaves me,” Tran gushed. “Boyfriends come and go, but this $24.99 shower curtain from Target is forever. No, seriously, it’s one of those washable curtains that you don’t need to replace. This is a lifetime commitment, and I think we’re both in it for the long haul.”

Tran’s most recent boyfriend, Ryan McSweeney, said he was surprised by her epiphany, although he doesn’t harbor any hard feelings towards her or the curtain.

“Yeah, it was a kind of strange thing for her to share with me, but I wasn’t hurt by it. I’m an open minded person, and Stacy and I both knew this relationship would end the day we were fully vaccinated,” confided McSweeney. “But in retrospect, it’s definitely weird to think about all the times we had shower sex. I don’t know who she was more attracted to: me or the curtain. But I can’t talk too much shit, especially since me and that Giovanni conditioner she keeps in there got pretty close over the last few months as well.”

At press time, Tran was spotted in a local sex shop holding a basket filled to the brim with waterproof toys.

Internet Can’t Fucking Wait to Push Newly Famous Artist to Psychological Ruin

Posted on by Andrew Murphy

SEATTLE, WA — Internet commentators and online communities announced this morning that they are “fucking stoked” to push recently famous musician Hank Todd past the edge of sanity in the wake of his viral hit “Cat Dance.”

“I left a comment saying he was awesome about four months ago, which I know will throw him off the scent from the backlash that’s about to come out of nowhere and for no real reason,” said YouTube viewer with a photo of a turd as their avatar known only as DirtyEscobar. “Hopefully, we can overwhelm him with so much praise that he loses touch with why we liked him in the first place. Then, we’ll randomly cut off the praise spigot, which will send him into an embarrassing spiral of trend-chasing and overly confessional live streams. This shouldn’t take long at all.”

While some have promised unquestioning support for Todd’s every future move, others have decided to devote their time to destroying him for any minor slight.

“When I first listened to the song, my reaction was that the western 12 note scale is colonialist,” said Twitter user Miranda Piersol. “My absurd comment and the hyper partisan over-reaction to it will eventually overwhelm the entire discourse, forcing him to make some comment which will only inflame the issue. Hopefully, he will resent his fans for forcing him to tailor art to the toxic discourse of the Internet, then lash out via poorly thought out political tweets. I’m beyond thrilled to be a part of this.”

Todd responded to the relentless barrage of attention by recording a brief video from the backyard of his house.

“I just feel so blessed,” said Todd of his upcoming demise. “It’s not everyday that you get thrust into the murderous gaze of the digital hellscape that is modern social media, and as a creative and highly sensitive person, I’m greatly looking forward to it. I’m thrilled at the prospect of becoming alienated from all my lifelong friends, replacing them with social climbers, then becoming consumed by the baffling amount of vitriol I’ll receive for slightly changing my sound. Who knows, I might even develop a drug problem! Hopefully they’ll have me for long enough to make that happen.”

Fans responded to the video by identifying Todd’s home address via satellite photography and telling the police to send a SWAT team.

The Phrase “I Was One of the Kids in the ‘Runaway Train’ Video” Used To Mean Something in This Country

Posted on by Dan Rice

When did America lose its values? There was a time in this country when people knew their neighbors, where they weren’t afraid to greet strangers on the street, and would say things like, “Hey, weren’t you one of the missing kids from the Soul Asylum video? Holy shit man, let me buy you a drink!” It was a simpler, happier time.

Nowadays, everyone’s 15 minutes are already up. You’re only as good as your last tic tock blog or whatever the hell it is. It wasn’t that way in the ‘90s. Yessir, minor celebrity had itself a shelf life back then, and a guy who found himself in the spotlight for a minute one way or another could squeeze a pretty sweet life out of it if he played his cards right.

Take for example oh, I don’t know, a scrappy young street punk by the name of Edgar John Towers, aka yours truly.

Edgar had the good sense to get himself missing during the biggest boom in the missing child world since the milk carton: the Soul Asylum “Runaway Train” music video. One minute he’s huffing glue by a trash fire with his fellow transients, the next, he’s on fucking television. He was on television in the ‘90s, back when that meant something.

The payphone we all hung around started going off the hook. Before I even told my parents I was still alive, I got myself booked on Larry King Live, Oprah, and something called Sally Jessy Raphael that mommies and daddies used to watch. After some tense negotiations with Mom and Dad (they wanted 60% public appearances and book rights, as if!) I was picked up and brought home. They had a fucking parade for me.

Yes, that was a good couple of years. I was all over the talk show circuit, Aaron Spelling was developing my life story into a teen sex show for FOX and everywhere I went people were buying me lunch hoping I would share the sordid details of my mysterious disappearance. But as they say in “The Outsiders,” a book they used to make us read in school to help us understand the American class system, “nothing gold can stay.”

So howbout it man. Buy me a beer?

Cherry Poppin’ Daddies Issue Apology for Like, Everything

Posted on by John Danek

EUGENE, Ore. — Ska/swing revival band Cherry Poppin’ Daddies shared a long-awaited apology accepting blame for their whole deal, including, but not limited to, their band name, entire vibe, music, appropriation, and more.

“We deeply regret basically every decision we’ve made since forming in 1989,” the statement reads, co-signed by all past and present members of the band who will be known as The Consent Acquirin’ Gentlemen moving forward. “Most egregious of our transgressions is our band name. ‘Daddy’ had not yet experienced rebirth into a sex-positive identity, so our name implied an incestuous version of deflowering. We are so, so sorry you ever had to hear our name in the car with your family members.”

“Next is our complicity in whitewashed genre revivals such as swing and ska that would have been better left alone, and not shoehorned into the advertisements of multinational corporations like the Gap,” the apology continues. “There are plenty more things we are ashamed of: profiting off the real and racist Zoot Suit Riots in the 1940s, normalizing fedora use, and releasing Greatest Hits compilations with more than one song. But lest we retraumatize innocent people, let us end with one more: we are so, so sorry.”

Music journalists weighed in on the quality and effectiveness of the band’s apology.

“The Cherry Poppin’ Daddies’ apology is unique because they have so many different things to take accountability for,” explained Vesper Wisniewski, contributor to Stereogum. “While the words sound sincere, it remains to be seen if they will truly pay a penance by selling their tacky outfits to thrift shops and cooling it with the bebop and jazz lingo moving forward.”

Though difficult to track down, one diehard Cherry Poppin’ Daddies fan offered their reaction to the apology.

“I knew this day would come, but I really hoped it wouldn’t,” said the fan, who asked to remain anonymous. “Being a CPD fan was tough enough, but it’s over now. There is too much shame associated with the band. I guess I’ll move on to a new bizarre music fandom to form my identity like, witch house or baroque funeral laments, neither of which could possibly be regretted 20 years from now.”

Vegas bookies are now allowing bets for the next band to apologize for their entire existence, with Barenaked Ladies leading the odds.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia.

Man Vaccinated Too Late for Selfie to Seem Important

Posted on by James Knapp

LOS ANGELES — Recently vaccinated man Albert Kalomatsos posted his out-of-focus vaccine selfie weeks too late for it to even have a symbolic meaning, way too proud sources confirmed.

“I put off getting my Covid vaccine until I was totally sure they got all of that autism juice out of it, or whatever it was Joe Rogan called it,” said Kalomatsos while picking out the perfect surface to put his “I Got Vaccinated” sticker on. “I feel it’s my duty to show everyone I’m making a difference. Sure, everyone else I know already got this done like two months ago, but I didn’t want my vaccine selfie to get lost in a sea of other vaccine selfies.”

Sources close to Kalomatsos debated the meaningfulness of his vaccine selfie.

“Look, I’ve been trying to convince [Albert] for months to go get vaccinated. He works as a waiter so he’s been eligible since February, but he just wouldn’t listen. He kept saying ‘the vibe doesn’t feel right yet,’” explained friend and Instagram follower Samantha Rone while living a care and virus free life. “I posted my selfie back in March and it got a lot of likes on Facebook, but now I’m just trying to go back to any bar that doesn’t have plastic sheeting around it. If he’d got vaccinated earlier I might have given it a heart react, but now that he’s fully vaccinated I can meet him in real life to safely punch him in the face.”

Stephanie Fellensoph, representative for the Center of Disease Control, detailed the office’s official position on vaccine selfies.

“We absolutely encourage every single American to vaccinate themselves against this unprecedented disease. But if you didn’t post a selfie of yourself with a bandage on your shoulder before like May, well you might as well be doing mannequin videos for all the fucks we give,” said Fellensoph. “Don’t get me wrong, we still want people to be vaccinated and social media is a part of encouraging that. But we need to move on to other things soon — like eradicating that mutation that makes hummingbirds thirst for human blood. Crap, I wasn’t supposed to mention that.”

At press time, Kalomatsos had taken to Instagram to nominate three friends to take the Ice Bucket Challenge.

Opinion: I’m Just a Better Babysitter on Shrooms

Posted on by Dan Rice

Well, this was one hell of a barbecue friend, but if you don’t mind helping me find my keys, I’ve got a babysitting gig to get to. Oh, don’t give me that, I had like three beers all day, way below the legal limit over here, I’m fine! Oh, the shrooms we all ate? Bro, don’t even worry about it. I actually babysit BETTER when I’m on shrooms.

Okay I know, I know, that’s what people with mushroom problems say, but for me it’s legit true. When you deal with children it’s important to get down to their level. What better way to do that than by taking drugs that give me the mind of a child for 4-6 hours?

To tell you the truth, I never go babysitting without a few caps and stems in me. I get way too tense! Anytime I try it sober those kids are too loud and whiny and their TV shows are way more boring. It’s honestly more responsible of me to take at least a microdose before Taking charge of other people’s children.

When I’m on shrooms it’s great because the kids and I just wanna do the same stuff. We want to watch cartoons, eat snacks and wonder if trees can talk. We actually might start our own YouTube show, but first we have to figure out how to make slime.

Seriously, if those kids had a little blow with them now and again, I wouldn’t want to trip with anyone else.

Trust me bro, I’ve been doing this a long time and the worst thing that ever happened was I forgot to feed and bathe them. And there was like a really small kitchen fire, that’s it. Those kids learned a lot putting that fire out!

You know they’ve done studies. I mean not on babysitting in particular, and with mice, but they’ve done studies.

Look, call me crazy if you want to but I believe that when you do babysitting right, it’s not really clear who’s babysitting who. It’s more zen that way and shit.

Oh, there are my keys! I forgot we encased them in jello because it looked cool. Alright now give me a hand backing out of here, I suck at driving on shrooms.

Guitarist with Beer Belly Hasn’t Seen Own Pedals in Years

Posted on by John Danek

DALLAS — Rhythm guitarist and craft beer connoisseur Kirk Tenly reportedly hasn’t seen his own pedalboard since the late 2000s due to his protruding stomach, concerned loved ones report.

“The other day, I couldn’t remember which vintage Big Muff Pi fuzz I was using. That’s when it hit me: I haven’t actually laid eyes on my pedalboard — my pride and joy, my manhood — in a decade,” admitted Tenly, who books his stoner metal band Danksmash’s tours based on nearby beer festivals. “When I’m playing with myself at home, I just kinda reach down past my spare tire tug until things get going right. But I don’t even remember what it all looks like. Maybe it’s time to lay off the fruit saisons.”

Tenly’s wife has noticed a decline in Kirk’s self-esteem and confidence levels.

“I’m going to be honest — it’s not the most impressive pedalboard in the world, so he’s not missing out on much. But I still love Kirk, so sometimes I’ll get down on my knees and tweak his knobs until he’s satisfied,” explained Laurie Tenly, Kirk’s wife. “He’s not a tall guy either, so I have to sometimes push his belly out of the way to get at the goods. He seems committed to wellness this time around, though. I guess it’ll also be nice for him to not be totally shithoused every day.”

Specialized music dietitians have developed nutrition plans to specifically address the needs of stoner metal guitarists.

“I look forward to applying my specially-crafted diet to Kirk to help reduce some stomach girth,” said Dr. Danielle Nameth, nutritionist to Matt Pike and Buzz Osbourne. “You can’t cut out pizza, beer, and weed cold turkey, or else the body will react violently and his new album might suck ass. But guitarists develop a psychosexual fixation on their pedalboard at a young age, so I also stress to my clients: it’s not about the size of your pedalboard, but how you use it.“

Rumors indicate that the Tenlys’ marriage is on the rocks after Laurie caught Kirk DM’ing pictures of his pedalboard to other women.

I’ll Find Waldo for Free, and I’ll Kill Him for $10k

Posted on by Nathan Kamal

Alright, now. Listen to me. You all know me, or at least, you know my reputation. You know how I make my living. This man you’re looking for, this phantom? I can get him, but it ain’t gonna be easy. So this is the deal I’m offering you: I’ll find this Waldo for free, but I’ll kill him for $10,000.

Before you all start making a big fuss, think about what I’m offering. I hear this whole town has been looking for Waldo. You been looking for this stripe-shirted tommycod, and you found nothing. To you, he’s a ghost, a shadow. He could be right here amongst all of you, blending into the packed crowd of people and eye-catching striped umbrellas that make you think, oh I got him. But no.

It’s just an umbrella.

Lucky for you, I’m the best there is at what I do. And what I do is find people…and take care of problems. I don’t know why you want this Waldo, and frankly, I don’t care. If he pulled the wool over this town’s eyes and swindled you, it’s not my business. If he seduced your women, burned your churches, tell it to someone else. If he made fools of you all and lived in your community, somehow slipping into every single situation imaginable, whether it be a packed beach, a crowded beach or in the arena of a sold-out football match…sing your sad song elsewhere.

Because all I want is that cold hard ten grand you’re going to give me to take this bastard out.

And know this: Waldo is a dangerous man. He’s one with the shadows, a dark chameleon. I don’t want no partner, and I don’t need no partner. I work alone, and I’m risking my neck to go after this one. If you don’t want to ante up, try locating him yourself. I think you’ll find it a long and frustrating task, with very little payoff.

But pay me my money, and your little Waldo problem is solved. 10k. That’ll get ya the striped hat, the glasses, the whole damned thing. I’ll drag his blood-soaked body in here and be on my merry little way. If you don’t believe I can do it, just ask around who hunted down and skinned the Berenstain Bears. Got the little one’s head in my trophy room now.

I’ll be waiting to hear from you.

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