New Amazon Prime Series Explores Alternate American Timeline Where David Lee Roth Never Left Van Halen

Posted on by Dan Kozuh

LOS ANGELES — Streaming giant Amazon Prime announced today the upcoming release of “I’m The One,” an alternate-history series that ponders how history might change if eccentric frontman David Lee Roth never left the rock band Van Halen to pursue a solo career, studio insiders report.

“In this universe, the Iran-Contra affair never happens because Roth gets the hostages freed in exchange for a private concert for Hezbollah,” explained showrunner Russel Gallant, whose previous credits include being a PA on “Entourage” and being fired from the set of “Supernatural.” “The Berlin Wall still falls, but years earlier due to the vibrations of Roth’s extended falsetto screech during ‘Unchained’ at a concert in East Berlin. Communism collapses early, hair metal continues late into the ‘90s, grunge never happens, Generation X emerges happier and mentally stable, we build hoverboards by 1997.”

Some music fans, however, feel “I’m The One” is punching above its weight.

“Sure, we’d all like to imagine a world where ‘Balance’ never happened but pretending that David Lee Roth sticking around would have magically solved all of America’s problems is peak delusion,” said 52-year-old record store owner Chuck Moreno. “Rock and roll didn’t save America then, and it wouldn’t save it in a timeline where David Lee Roth flaps his butterfly wings and the show ‘Friends’ never exists. Again, I’m not complaining but it’s just too fantastical.”

Historians seem to be cautiously endorsing the show’s premise.

“There’s solid academic debate over whether Van Halen’s split destabilized the cultural optimism of the late ‘80s,” said Dr. Madison Pryce, a pop culture historian at UCLA. “When Roth left, it was a signal to the American subconscious that nothing good lasts. The light of American optimism began to fade and we entered a dark age. Frankly, sign me up for a timeline where MTV still playing music videos somehow stops the dot-com bubble from bursting.”

At press time, Gallant revealed that the second season of the show will take place over 24 hours on September 11, 2001 where Van Halen performs at Madison Square Garden and nothing else of consequence happens.

Poser Skateboarding Bulldog Pushes Mongo

Posted on by Zachary Wolf

HONOLULU — Local skateboarding bulldog Excalibur reportedly pushes the board with his back legs instead of his front ones like a dork, according to its disappointed owner Kevin Willrick.

“Sure, it’s cool having a skateboarding dog, but why does he have to be such a poser?” said Willrick while browsing the animal shelter’s website for a different dog to adopt. “It’s always been my dream to be one of those guys who owns a dog that shreds, but there is no world that I ever imagined it’d push mongo. I just didn’t think it was possible. Plus, I bought him this sweet Hockey board with Ace trucks, and those new soft Spitfire wheels, but all he wants to ride is this ratty old Nash board he found in the garbage; the thing has plastic trucks. I wonder if the adoption center has a return policy.”

Willrick’s roommate Chelsea Van Hogen noticed some troubling patterns with Excalibur in recent weeks.

“I knew something was up when it was a warm sunny day and all the dog wanted to do was play ‘Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater,’” said Van Hogen as she slipped in some of Excalibur’s slobber. “Sure, THPS is fun to play on a rainy day, but this was ideal skating weather and he wouldn’t stop staring at the TV and pawing at the controller. Next day, same idea. Except instead of playing video games, Excalibur just spent the day fingerboarding on some old textbooks I had laying around. It’s almost as if he likes the idea of being a cool skateboarding dog rather than actually being a cool skateboarding dog.”

Razor Scooters founder and CEO Carlton Calvin says he might have something for Excalibur.

“Our company was built on posers that are too lame to ride actual skateboards,” said Calvin while Googling himself. “As a matter of fact, I was a failed skateboarding company executive before I founded Razor. And Excalibur sounds like just the kind of dog we could use on our pro scooter team. He might be the thing that finally brings scooters back on top of the niche transportation and extreme sports markets. Now I’m not sure how a bulldog can ride a Razor exactly, but I’m sure R&D can get that all sorted out.”

At press time, Excalibur was seen ordering $800 worth of clothes from a CCM catalog.

Profiles in Courage: Meet the Firefighter Who Has Single-Handedly Been Putting Out Kings of Leon Sex Fires for Two Decades

Posted on by Kyle Donley

Rick Stiever is a man of simple means. The unassuming veteran of the Humboldt County Fire Department is a lean, goateed man of 46 years who enjoys his dogs, woodworking, and a good Sudoku puzzle. By the looks of it, he is not the kind of man one would associate with ‘00s-era indie rock or ravenously hot sex, respectively, and yet he has been a guardian angel of sorts for both.

“Look, I wish I had never heard of these Kings Of Leon jokers, but here we are,” Rick told us over Zoom. As the story goes, multiple reports of sex fires started surfacing in early 2009. Initially thought of as a humorous oddity, casualties notwithstanding, a panic slowly started to take shape as more and more reports cropped up across the country. Why were people’s sex on fire? And also, why was there an iPod Mini found at every sex fire site with the Kings Of Leon’s unabashed arena rock sell-out album “Only By the Night” loaded onto it?

“When that damn song hit the top of the charts there was a whole unit dedicated to the KOL Sex Fires. I mean millennials were fucking to that thing like you couldn’t believe,” Rick told us, his eyes tearing up. “Lost a lot of good men that summer.”

A major roadblock for Rick and his team was the lack of research regarding sex fires.
Common side effects of coitus are mostly limited to feelings of pleasure, feelings of shame, chafing, getting the goddamn fitted sheet all messed up again, jizz, and peeing all weird afterwards. But almost never fire. To make matters worse, the KOL Sex Fire Unit was largely comprised of hunky firemen due to their perceived expertise in the sensual arts. However, they quickly learned you cannot fight sex fire with sexy firemen. The result was simply too sexy, causing the fire to get hornier and in turn, more deadly.

While “Sex On Fire” fucking levels have decreased to a much more manageable state, Rick still cannot shake the feeling that more lives are at stake. “All it would take is one millennial couple boning in the woods with a little JBL speaker blasting an ‘09 Fuck Playlist and boom. You know, they still haven’t found the exact root cause of the L.A. Fires, but something tells me one day they’ll find an iPod Mini somewhere in the brush.”

Aging Punk Never Thought Taking a Handful of Pills Would Be the Most Boring Part of His Day

Posted on by Zack Zagranis

BOSTON — Middle-aged punk Mickey “Goatfucker” Sullivan never thought that swallowing several pills at once would be the most mundane part of his day, confirmed sources.

“I used to get up to some pretty crazy shit back in the day and most of it was preceded by me slamming a fistful of capsules down my throat and chasing it with cheap vodka. Hell, one night I took a Xanny, an Addy, two hits of ecstasy, three or four Percocets, and a tab of acid all at once,” said Sullivan. “That’s the night I got the nickname ‘Goatfucker.’ I blacked out that evening, so I’m not completely sure how I got that name. I hope it’s not exactly what it sounds like. Good times though. Now I take twice that amount of pills every morning but it’s all boring shit like blood thinners, anti-depressents, and some little pink thing I can’t pronounce the doctor gave me for cholesterol.”

Sullivan’s wife expressed her own incredulity regarding how boring her husband’s drug intake has become.

“Goat — I mean, Mickey used to be a madman. He’d eat anything you’d hand him. Pink, yellow, blue, oval, round, he wouldn’t ask about the dosage or anything, just down the hatch. Back in the day we’d go see The Queers at The Rat, and Mickey would be in the pit the whole time taking elbows and not feeling a thing,” said Holly Sullivan. “Now he’s pushing 50 and breaks like a porcelain doll. If he even sneezes too hard, his back goes out and it’s bed rest and Advil for the next two days.”

Sullivan’s primary care provider, Dr. Ken Stuart, says this happens to every punk once they hit middle age.

“I see this all the time. Punks who used to shoot up in the club bathroom now give themselves daily insulin injections. Goths who used to wear gas masks as a fashion statement, now sleep with a CPAP,” explained Dr. Stuart. “Hell, I wouldn’t have graduated from med school without amphetamines. Now I have to drink decaf so my heart doesn’t leap out of my chest. What Mickey is experiencing is nothing unique. Getting old makes boring, normies of us all.”

At press time, Sullivan was strongly considering crushing up his morning medication into a fine powder and snorting it via some “fat rails” out of nostalgia.

Landlord Raises Rent to Cover the Cost of Never Doing Anything

Posted on by Charles Bill

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Local landlord Larry McNulty was compelled to raise rent to cover the ever-rising cost of never doing anything whatsoever, confirmed sources who were already looking for a new place to live.

“It’s expensive sitting on your ass all day,” said the cash-strapped McNulty. “My rental properties only generate $35,000 a month, which is barely enough to cover my house, vacation home, three cars, yacht, and horse stabling fees. If I don’t raise rent, it’s going to become more and more difficult to ignore the maintenance requests I receive. It’s an extremely hard job that I have to do. Sure, I contract out almost everything and still make an absurd amount of money. But with the economy the way it is, I can barely afford my private jet.”

The plight of the landlord did not go unnoticed by his many residents.

“I feel really bad for Larry,” explained cash-hoarding renter and mechanic Tanya Pozner. “I work 10 hours a day, but he’s working 24 hours thinking about which contractor to hire that will do the least amount of work possible. My fridge has been broken for three months. Do you know how hard it is for him to have to see my requests to fix it every single day? If I had to guess, he can barely afford toilet paper and is using my requests to wipe his ass instead. I hope he doesn’t give me my deposit back. Maybe that will help him support his Fabergé egg collection.”

The landlord poverty crisis has become so bad that the government has begun stepping in.

“We want to create a safety net for our country’s oppressed landlords,” said Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner. “I am creating a national relief fund that will allow landlords to take no interest loans to cover the immense burden of owning dozens of properties. For too long have they been forced to accept meagre rents in exchange for the hard work of… wait a second. Hold on. Come back to me on this, I’ll figure it out.”

At press time, McNulty broke down crying when he realized that he could no longer afford his daily saffron enema.

Opinion: Repealing EPA Restrictions Will Only Make My Paint-Huffing More Adventurous

Posted on by Tim Sheard

My prayers have been answered: EPA restrictions are getting rolled back! This is going to make my afternoon hallucinations so much more wild. Bring those gnarly forever-chemicals home to daddy.

Ever since these safe alternatives have been introduced, my paint-huffing has gotten so damn boring. The high from natural products is beyond weak. When I think back to when I first got started, I was dealing with Papa’s paint from the ‘80s, leftover buckets in a leaning tower at the back of the garage. Those were loaded with a swamp of toxic chemicals, the noxious swill zapping my brain to life. An ethereal mix of hyper-focus and blurred energy that I’ve been trying to recreate since. Maybe we’re all just chasing our own dragon, in some way. Maybe that’s the eternal struggle.

I’m banned from all Dunn-Edwards locations, same with Sherwin-Williams. You have no idea the profiling I experience at the Home Depot. Visits to Kelly-Moore? Not happening any time soon. Sometimes I pay local kids to go inside for me, but even that scheme’s run dry since Gen-Z just stays inside.

Ordering online is the move these days. You know what was a game changer? The Internet, specifically Temu. You can order globby, synthetic paints which, with the rip of a seal, emit a foul chemical odor. A muted plastic stench. It’s heaven. You can feel your nostrils slowly coated with a slick, synthetic layer. But now with these tariffs, I can’t even order my mysterious international acrylic oils anymore. Thanks Biden!

Can you imagine the highs I’ll be getting again? Floating, just floating. I’ll be communing with satellites. I’ll be able to kiss my dead grandma on the lips and leave a paint stain on her glowing angel face. It’s worth it every time, especially with the leftover pigment smeared across my mouth, looking like a fringe ‘Mad Max’ villain. I can lick my cheeks later and get a freebie bump. That’s living, man.

Getting rid of these pesky EPA restrictions means I can buy American again. Finally, supporting a domestic cause. Like a true patriot. A patriot that also happens to be feeling pretty damn groovy from this can of half-dry paint I found in an unlocked garage down the street. Looks like everything’s finally working out for me.

Pregnant Woman Weighing Ethical Considerations of Bringing Child Into World Where Metallica Still Releasing New Music

Posted on by Steve Packosky

CHICAGO — Pregnant woman Janice Bonder found herself second-guessing her decision to bring new life into a world where popular metal band Metallica was still releasing new music, sources report.

“I actually just listened to their last album ‘72 Seasons’ and I’m growing really concerned,” Bonder confessed. “Is it morally right for me to bring a child into a world where this is almost guaranteed to happen again? I remember vowing to never procreate after hearing the appallingly titled ‘ManUNkind’ off ‘Hardwired…To Self-Destruct.’ I guess I just assumed they would eventually do the right thing and hang it up forever. Now it’s clear that they’ll never stop, and I’m so worried I’m making the wrong decision.”

Bonder’s friend Deirdre Phong didn’t think bringing a child into this world was the right thing to do at this time.

“Listen, if it was 1986, things would be different,” Phong opined. “Metallica had just released ‘Master of Puppets’ and we had no reason to doubt their ability to make great music. But that was decades ago, and Metallica is still going strong despite the fact that they haven’t released a good album since before the Cold War ended. I mean, ‘St. Anger’ was over 20 years ago, so it’s not like this is a new problem the world is experiencing. Janice knows all of this, and still she’s bringing some pitiful soul into this world to hear whatever godawful music they still have in store for all of us. At the very least, she could’ve chosen to adopt some poor kid who’s already been born into our Metallica-poisoned society. If you ask me, this is an incredibly reckless and inexcusable decision.”

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich didn’t see the issue with his band’s music.

“Metallica has just entered the studio, so watch out,” Ulrich said. “I can confidently say this is the best material we’ve ever written, which is saying a lot considering how good ‘72 Seasons’ was. We just keep finding ways to make better music with each passing year. I know the world is a very dark place with everything going on right now, but metal fans can always count on new music from Metallica to be a rare ray of light. We might even announce another U.S. tour with Godsmack to make the release of the new album even better.”

At press time, Bonder was feeling better about her decision after remembering that it’s not possible for Metallica to do another collaboration with Lou Reed.

Five Songs We Listened To This Week While Acting Like We Didn’t Watch the AMAs

Posted on by Corey Montgomery

The unofficial award season began this week with the highly anticipated 2025 edition of the American Music Awards. Because we’re so cool and edgy, we couldn’t be bothered to watch. It’s about ethics, and mainstream music is at its best, unethical and at its worst, kinda totally lame. To prove how committed to this bit we are, here are five ‘alternative’ songs we listened to this week since we totally weren’t shrieking at the top of our lungs when Billie Eilish allegedly fuckin’ swept that shit.

Wet Leg ‘CPR’

It wasn’t too long ago that you would hear the words ‘wet leg’ and immediately think of some non-existent fungal disease that occurs when you leave one leg in the pool for too long. Thanks to modern pharmaceutical breakthroughs and the help of a New Zealand rock outfit, we now just think of getting down when Wet Leg is mentioned. Their latest single ‘CPR’ strongly affirms the association with an unrelenting backbeat that would have us moving if we knew how to dance.

The World Is A Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid To Die ‘Beware The Centrist’

Guiness World Record holders for longest goddam band name The World Is A Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid To Die – often abbreviated as TWIABP which, honestly, is still kind of pushing it – have dropped a new track ‘Beware The Centrist.’ Stylistically, it finds the band digging into their hardcore inclinations. It’s a blazing and cathartic ride. Coming in at under two minutes it will speed past you literally faster than you can say ‘the world is a beautiful place and I am no longer afraid to die.’

Bright Eyes ‘A Song To Pass The Time’

In case your saddest, most concerning friend hasn’t already mumbled to you about it in passing, Bright Eyes’ landmark album ‘Fevers and Mirrors’ celebrated its 25th anniversary this week. Said friend celebrated by locking themselves in a dark room and listening to the album on loop for a full 48 hours. Conor Oberst, on the other hand, marked the occasion with a new sprawling piano rendition of ‘A Song To Pass The Time.’ It adds a delightful ‘hopeful but still sad’ vibe to the original’s ‘sad but still hopeful’ vibe.
A Song to Pass The Time (2025) by Bright Eyes

Holy Fawn ‘Beneath A Lightless Star’

‘Holy Fawn’? More like ‘Holy Fucking Shit’ amirite? The Phoenix trio has notoriously avoided classification since their formation in 2015, and their latest offering ‘Beneath A Lightless Star’ does little to clear things up. The track starts off serenely. For a full minute it lulls you through a lo-fi dreamy soundscape before slamming you head-first into a wall of sonic obliteration. Just when you think you have your bearings, the genres flip again, as if the band is doing some bizarre ‘evolution of post-hardcore’ bit. It’s as confusing as it is exhilarating, and you might never recover.

Neck Deep ‘You Should See Me Now’

In case you missed it, Welsh pop-punk heroes Neck Deep are back with their first new music since last year’s self titled LP. ‘You Should See Me Now’ is a cathartic and empowering anthem that plays out like a particularly productive therapy session held in the stock room of a Hot Topic. With hooks for days, it’s highly possible you’ll be involuntarily singing the chorus out loud to yourself as your increasingly concerned friends look on.

Now that you are certifiably too cool to listen to music normal people have heard of, you’re probably looking to feed that personality even more. You monster. Normally we wouldn’t advise further alienating yourself, but we already have a playlist, so why not share it? Check out every song we’ve ever listened to (in 2025) below:

Once Obscure Dr. Seuss Book “Oh, The Ways You’re Fucked!” Popular Gift for Graduating Seniors

Posted on by Dan Kozuh

NEW YORK — Random House Children’s Books official reissue of the long-dismissed 1991 Dr. Seuss manuscript “Oh, The Ways You’re Fucked!” is quickly becoming the go-to gift for graduating seniors bracing for life in the rent-gouged, atmosphere boiling, politically divided, AI fueled nightmare world of adults, confirmed sources.

“Parents used to give grads ‘Oh, The Places You’ll Go!’ with a nice check tucked inside but kids need to know just how bleak it is out there right now,” said Sharon Delvecchio, Senior Editor at Random House Children’s Books showing the cover featuring a Truffula tree on fire. “This reissue is way more in tune with their vibe—and by vibe, I mean the existential dread that the world is spiraling toward its conclusion…but in rhyming verse. Reviewers have called it ‘delightfully grim’ and ‘enjoyably distressing.’”

However, according to some college graduates, the book may be a bit too honest.

“I opened it expecting whimsy and hope but by page five I was openly weeping into my cap and gown. It straight-up says, ‘Now you have the smarts and that important degree! But there’s no job for you without an unpaid internship, maybe three,’” said Bailey Kim, a recent graduate from NYU, while refilling her Klonopin. “It has these weird creatures like The Leaselock Fox and a town of middle-managers called The Superfluffus. One creature is called The Trumpelbluff—it’s an ominous, amorphous orange blob threatening global domination; which seems kinda’ prophetic for 1991.”

Academic experts believe the new edition will resonate deeply with Gen Z.

“The world has changed. Today’s graduates don’t need to be told they’ll soar—they need to know what to do when their wings are clipped by a third-party gig platform,” said Dr. Mina Rojas, a cultural sociologist at Columbia. “It’s also good the book is mostly pictures considering today’s college graduates only read at a 5th grade level. One page is just the Lorax’s rotting corpse with no words. I mean, the opening lines of the book say it all: ‘Congratulations, I guess, but the world’s a mess. You planned for adventure, to go here, there, and in between—Instead it’s four decades hunched behind a computer screen.’”

At press time, the book’s success already prompted plans for Random House to release “Apollo Global Management Guts The Chocolate Factory.”

Yeah Dude, We Know: Billie Joe Armstrong Just Revealed “Longview” Is About Jacking Off

Posted on by Tim Sheard

You can’t deny that Green Day’s “Dookie” is a legendary album. Therefore, when we heard that frontman Billie Joe Armstrong had given a tell-all interview regarding its first single “Longview”, we just had to twist an article out of it. To say we were let down when his big reveal turned out to be that it was about jacking off would be a huge understatement. Yeah, dude. We knew that already.

According to the interview, Armstrong apparently thought he was conveying new information by telling his interviewer that he got the song’s inspiration while sitting around in a fit of self-indulgent Onanism. Honestly, how fucking stupid does he think we are? What did he think we thought the song was about, anyway? Golf? Unbelievable.

OK, we suppose we’ll give him the benefit of a doubt. Maybe he thinks people don’t pay close attention to what he’s saying in his music. Smartphones have probably killed some of our innate curiosity with stuff like that, and it’s not like MTV plays “Say What?” anymore. Perhaps we’re being too tough on him, and it’s really not a big deal that he said this in his interview.

Actually, fuck that. He clearly says the word “masturbation” in the song. We take back that last paragraph. How insulting can a guy be to his fans? We’ve been listening to his music for the last 30 years. Well, to be fair, we’ve been casually aware of his music for 30 years. Still, he should be more cognizant of the average intelligence of people who are aware of his music. How out of touch has he gotten over the past three decades?

It’s not like we were expecting the scoop of the century, here, just something interesting. What’s next? Is Vitamin C going to tell us “Graduation (Friends Forever)” is about graduation? Is John Fogerty going to reveal that “Centerfield” is about baseball? For fuck’s sake, dude. Throw us a bone.

Oh well, we guess we’ll just move on from this and try to put more thought into our pitches going forward. Actually, we just read the rest of the interview, and it turns out Armstrong also revealed that “Dookie’s” artwork is a reference to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Goddamnit. That’s much more interesting. We really should have read the entire thing before we wrote this.