LODI, N.J. — A worrisome lump found on legendary Misfits guitarist Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein’s neck ended up being an extra abdominal muscle, relieved sources confirmed.
“It was a light gym day, so after my third workout I headed to the doc for my weekly physical,” said the guitarist also known as Paul Caiafa to his mother. “Usually I’m in and out, because look at me, but they just hired this very thorough nurse. I was already shirtless, of course, but she asked me to take off everything else, including my neck bolt choker, which I haven’t removed since the great Misfits split of ‘83. Then all hell breaks loose with this ghastly protrusion that’s been hiding under my neckpiece for god knows how long. I’m just relieved it was just another ab muscle. It’s the third one that’s sprouted up this month.”
Dr. Kip Villalobos with Turnpike Dermatology weighed in on the Misfits’ guitarist’s situation.
“I’ve been in the skin biz a long time. I’ve seen goiters the size of kettlebells. Siamese vestigial tails. Birthmarks that resemble Frank Stallone. But Doyle’s neck was a real head-scratcher,” said Dr. Villalobos while lancing a boil. “Was it a cyst? A tumor? An allergic reaction to Doyle’s Vegan Monster Chawklit Protein Powder? Once I chiseled through 58 years of body paint, the biopsy revealed the bump to be, of all things, another goddamn ab. I know this guy is more jacked than a hornet on trucker speed, but seriously, he’s the only patient I’ve ever recommended to exercise less to improve their health.”
Part-time strength coach and two-time Mr. New Jersey runner-up Cam Handy was more excited than worried by the bulge.
“Neck abs? You mean ‘Nabs,’ bro?! Uncommon but not unheard of,” claimed Handy. “When you’re six feet, three inches and 225 pounds of Grade A, plant-based beefsteak like Doyle, and you put in the fuckin’ work, you see gains in places most people don’t. Not to get all scientific, but D-Wolf’s torso is so swole, there was simply no more room for his newest ab-sterpiece. Sure, he looks like a python that swallowed a toddler, but you have to remember that Arnold Schwarzenegger once developed bicep muscles on top of his biceps. Doyle ain’t shit.”
After numerous conflicting second opinions, Doyle consulted WebMD, which confirmed that due to the bulge’s exact placement, it’s not in fact an ab but “a really, really, really jacked Adam’s apple.”
Surrender to the fact that at some point in your tenure here, you’re going to have to listen to him play guitar. This, for many, is the hardest step.
He’s called you in, after all, and if he’s bringing a guitar to the office every day, he probably has some serious rank in this company.
This will only lead to the following: “Wait, you like Pearl Jam?” and (picking up the guitar): “Okay, check this out.” (It won’t even be “good” Pearl Jam. He’s into, like, “Binaural.”)
When he asks who your musical influences are, it’s a clear “baiting” tactic to get you to ask him about his. Don’t go for it. Before you know it, you’ll be looking at an empty guitar holder—like the scene in “Jurassic Park” where the goat is missing and its chain is swinging back and forth. CUT TO: Your colleague is holding the guitar.
He’ll just pick up the guitar and say, “This IS the project.”
Tip back in the chair and give yourself a concussion. When you throw up, try to do it on the guitar. This might not sit well with your coworker at first, but he’ll understand eventually, and it will buy you—and your colleagues—some much-needed time.
When he gets the guitar back from the shop, he’ll want to show it to you. Appear confused. Say you don’t know what “that” is. Imply that the concussion has maybe erased part of your memory. When he says the guitar plays “music,” shake your head. This will lead him to “teaching” you, which in turn will lead to . . . Fuck. Too late.
Realize it’s not about you anymore: You’re taking one for the team. Your other colleagues have kids, mortgages, real problems. You can tough this out for the next thirty to forty-five minutes. Could be an hour and a half. You might want to think about other things. Don’t. There will be a quiz at the end.
This could indeed be your biggest contribution to the company.
You earned it.
Born in Reno, Nevada, Stern Hanson was amongst the most dedicated members of the Reno scene, much to the scene’s detriment. Kevin Seconds once referred to him as “that weird dude who always uses way too much eye contact.”
Born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Wallace Klenzendorf was born with his arms already crossed judgmentally. He allegedly learned to scowl before he learned to crawl.
Grimhilde Futz was born in Hamburg, Germany, and was near immediately abandoned by her parents out of sheer terror. She was raised by a coalition of anarchist chimney sweeps who had originally mistaken her for a creepy Victorian doll.
For someone whose rejection of capitalist ideology has been his whole thing (some might say annoyingly so) this seems like it should be an obvious dead last. No way would Scoutmaster Henry even have an interest in attempting this one, let alone ever being able to shake that punk ethos long enough to make it through just one requirement.
Can the Scout build a double A-frame suspension bridge using only split timbers and natural fiber rope? No. No, of course not. But it would be very very entertaining to watch those dusty kielbasa fingers of his try.
When you’re in one of the earliest punk bands who are notorious for having their shows broken up by bible-thumping protestors and militarized cops then it’s fair to say that crime prevention isn’t high on your agenda. His stick-and-poke ACAB tattoo would probably be good for a crafting merit badge though.
Can you even imagine Henry Rollins sitting up on horseback? Like full-on with the bandana and the hat and the boots and the “giddy-up, giddy up!” If you haven’t already, it’s well worth trying. But regardless, no matter which way we think of it, attempting this badge always ends badly for the Scout. However, Rick Ta Life would be great at this one.
This badge is not really the best for the Scout. Really, we can’t even see him enjoying sniffing the permanent markers for sketching storyboards while earning this badge, so it’s likely he would never even try it in the first place.
We’re gonna go out on a limb here and assume that the “American heritage” that makes up the Boy Scouts’ curriculum has some pretty stark contradictions to what we learned going to Bad Religion shows. Scoutmaster Henry would make a valiant effort at this one, but ultimately there’s no way he’ll be able “to define what American freedom means” to him without going into some long weird rant about the Bay of Pigs.
It’s hard to say what would be more of an impediment to the scout in earning this merit badge. Is it his pseudo-pacifist lifestyle and disdain of modern gun culture, or simply the logistics of somehow wrapping his medicine ball-sized head around a rifle sight? Either way, there’s no chance he’s getting this one in the ten ring.
Seriously, how the fuck is this a merit badge? Are the Boy Scouts grooming recruits for the next Manhattan Project? Scoutmaster Henry is a smart guy but it’s doubtful he’d be able to design the plans for a functioning fission reactor on his own. Plus, ‘80s punks weren’t always the fondest of nuclear energy, so it’s unlikely he would thrive with this badge.
Here’s another one of those badges where Scoutmaster Henry would spend the whole time he was supposed to be working on it just complaining about how only an elite few have the inherent privilege of being able to afford such a resource-consuming hobby in the first place. Of course it would all be a show to cover up for him not being able to get the boots to fit on right.
This one is less of a merit badge and more just a vague concept. Nevertheless, Scoutmaster Henry is not necessarily a play-it-safe type scout. So the campsite is gonna be real fast and loose safety-wise until he figures this one out.
As it says in Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War,’ “Don’t play chess against a computer, once those are invented, because they are all cheating, electric bastards.” But the scout wouldn’t take that advice as he has never met an opponent he would not gladly try to conquer. As such, he has already failed the first prerequisite for the chess merit badge.
Man, fuck this country! Scoutmaster Henry would absolutely fucking hate this badge. But having toured extensively, he at least wouldn’t be wholly incompetent at it.
Much like the horsemanship merit badge, the image of Henry Rollins sitting up on a tractor in a pair of denim overalls with a cheek full of Skoal is just a delight to us. But also like horsemanship, we have absolutely no confidence that once he gets up there that he will have even the slightest clue how to operate a combine harvester.
We’re pretty sure this is that thing where you leave a bunch of shit in one of those plastic tubes that you use in the drive-thru at the bank and then bury it and then later other people have to use GPS to go find it and usually it’s like a note or a little trinket or something in the tube. God, what a stupid fucking activity. Scoutmaster Henry wouldn’t waste his time on that crap.
Despite having spent a substantial amount of his career in the music business, or “the biz” if you’re on cocaine currently, the Scout has very little prior experience with the bugle as an instrument. We’re sure he could probably learn, but if we’re guessing he’d probably do better with any instrument that has buttons.
Let it never be said that Scoutmaster Henry doesn’t care about the environment. He’d certainly make his best effort to understand the science of flora while working on this badge. Unfortunately, yelling at a hibiscus that it needs to “push it to the limit” and “work the lats” is not the kind of growth that plants crave.
Scoutmaster Henry doesn’t seem like much of a water guy. He could probably paddle pretty hard (albeit always to the beat of the Misfits “Hybrid Moments”), but the first bit of choppy surf that hits him and that top-heavy moose of a man is definitely going overboard. Maybe rowboating would be more his speed, but for finesse watercraft he probably doesn’t have the prerequisites.
Here’s another one that its mere existence is pretty baffling? How does the Scout feel about industrial mining? Probably not too enthusiastic. But if this badge is about how anthracite extraction has impacted the modern labor movement then he may be able to figure out at least a few requirements before he absolutely loses his shit about clean coal legislation.
It’s hard to locate a missing person when the entire time you’re supposed to be stomping around the forest, screaming their name, you’re instead telling the lead paramedics about all the times you’ve seen ambulances called to unruly Black Flag shows in the ‘80s. To Scoutmaster Henry’s credit he does have some impressive stamina, which we think would aid him in a long-haul search for the Nordic metal band that got lost during a photo shoot.
Same argument here as for the rifle shooting badge (see above), but we gotta admit he probably has a much better chance of success with a firearm that requires, how should we put this, “less precision.” Honestly, if you just taped a picture of Ronald Reagan’s face onto a target or tell him a few of those clay pigeons they fling up into the air voted in favor of invading Iraq then the Scout would have no issue picking up a shotgun and blasting a fistful of buckshot down range. 
