Michael J Oconnor, Author at HARDTIMES

Punk Keeps Calling Parents’ Guest House His Squat

Posted on February 19, 2022 by Nathan Kamal

HOUSTON — Local punk Colin “Colonic” Birch continues to refer to his parents’ guest house, a two-bedroom A-frame with pool access where he has lived for the last 11 months rent-free, as his squat, according to multiple sources.

“It’s kind of a shithole,” said Birch while retrieving the Whole Foods grocery delivery his mother had scheduled for him. “Like, there are a bunch of rodents that live in the trees around the yard, and it doesn’t even have central air. The second bedroom doesn’t even have a wall-mounted TV, like the master bedroom I use, and if I want to get beer, I have to walk all the way to the other end of the property where my fucking parents live and take it from the garage fridge. It’s especially shitty when Aunt Gayle and her latest boyfriend are visiting and I have to go stay in my old room in the main house.”

Birch’s friend and occasional bandmate Ray Douglass was tolerant of his friend’s claim to be squatting in the building where they would frequently have childhood sleepovers.

“Yeah, it’s literally 500 yards from where his mom and dad sleep,” said Douglass. “Whenever someone tries to push back on it being a ‘squat’ he goes off on the ‘technical’ definition of what it is to be a squatter. I don’t think he gets how gross an actual squat is. My girlfriend’s studio apartment has mold in the bathroom and roaches everywhere, and she still pays like $1200 a month. Colonic’s place is way, way nicer than any of our other friend’s places, so it’s just easier to go along with it and then take turns crashing there.”

“If pretending he’s not a fucking poser is the price to pay for access to an infinity pool,” Douglass added. “I can deal.”

Eddie Marquez, a 31-year-old veteran of the Houston punk scene, was less charitable.

“These fucking kids don’t know what it’s like to actually spend a night in a dank squat that’s owned by your uncle, and he’s getting on your fucking case that you need to at least do some chores around the house to stay there,” said Marquez. “I remember, my first squat, you couldn’t even light cigarettes in there because there were fucking leaks everywhere. Well, it was more that it was really humid and my uncle said no smoking in the house, but you know what I mean. Fucker couldn’t even spring for a dehumidifier.”

As of press time, Birch was describing the bank account his parents fund monthly as his “beer money stash.”

Anthony Kiedis Steps Forward from Shadows After the Word “California” Uttered

Posted on February 18, 2022 by Nathan Kamal

MILWAUKEE — Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis dramatically strode forward from the shadows after the word “California” was uttered in conversation by several startled friends, sources report.

“Oh fuck, fuck,” said Liam Ho who was trying to light a cigarette to steady his nerves. “I was just having coffee with my friend Kristina, talking about politics and shit. She was saying something about all these gerrymandered districts and voting restrictions going into effect around the country, then he said something about California and Anthony Kiedis just, like, appeared from around a corner and just stood there. He just came out of nowhere, man. I think he was smiling but looking back, that might just be how his face is.”

Warner Music Group record executive Marie Dooley is familiar with incidents like this around the country and even the world.

“Anthony is a very talented artist,” said Dooley while hauntingly gazing out a high-rise window at WMG Headquarters. “And with all that talent comes some… strange abilities. Our researchers at Warner Music Experimental Laboratories are still uncertain of the nature by which Anthony manifests himself at any location in which ‘California’ has been said aloud. The leading hypothesis is that he has some innate sense of the word and can locate it across time and space, much as some birds can sense the magnetic poles of the earth to navigate.”

“But no one really knows,” Dooley added. “Maybe we should not delve too deeply into such matters.”

Fellow Red Hot Chili Peppers member Flea had other opinions.

“It’s really fucking annoying, is what it is,” said Flea from his home recording studio. “When Tony just, like, vanished into thin air the first time while we were recording ‘Freaky Styley’ with George Clinton in 1985, it freaked everyone out. But do you have any idea how many times people say “Cali-,” fuck, almost said it. How many people say that word every day? You know how long it took to get a complete take of him saying ‘Ding, dang, dong, dong, deng, deng, dong, dong, ding, dang?’ It’s just a drag, man.”

As of press time, Kiedis had disappeared back into the shadows as mysteriously as he had appeared, perhaps to someday return again.

Have I Lost My Lust for Life or Is Toast Just Not Springing Out of Toasters Like It Used To?

Posted on February 18, 2022 by Sarah S.

Where is the excitement these days? Whatever happened to the little joys in life that made us so happy when we were young? Where are the simple yet exhilarating moments Jack Johnson is always singing about? I just don’t know. Maybe I’m alone here but, to me, toast just isn’t springing out of the toaster anymore.

When I was a kid my mom would call me down for breakfast and soon that familiar “ding!” would ring out as two golden-brown slices would leap out of the toaster, double flip, and land perfectly on my plate. I can still hear my friends calling to me from outside, eager for me to join them for yet another day of discovering the wonders life has to offer.

Well, it’s 17 years later and I’m home alone on Friday night making garlic bread with dollar store onion powder, no longer sure if I’ve ever had a real friend. Meanwhile, these sullen slices of bread unenthusiastically creep out of the toaster like a child terrified of what they may discover upon entering the real world.

And it’s not just toast! I remember the feeling I got when smelling coffee in the morning. I had just graduated and was starting my first real job. Every whiff smelled like adventure! I couldn’t wait to grab a cup and go conquer the world! Now, all I smell is a reminder that I’m in the same dead-end job but now I also have crippling IBS.

But what about candles? They used to instantly fill me with a feeling of calmness that, along with the candles themselves, seemed to last for eons. Nowadays they run out so fast! Now all I’m left with is a reminder that everything ends.

Has the world simply become a much bleaker place? Or am I just massively unfulfilled by what my life has become? Either way, someone in this KitchenAid Toaster Department has a lot of explaining to do.

Punk Threatens to Stop Using Spotify Account That Niece Lets Him Access for Free

Posted on February 18, 2022 by Antonio Cruise

GLENDALE, Calif. — Local musician Charlie Clarke is reportedly threatening to join the growing boycott of Spotify and stop using the account that linked to his niece’s name and billing information, confirmed sources paying for the premium account.

“I’ve been a loyal Spotify user for years now, but after the whole Joe Rogan thing I decided that if the company continues being a vehicle for misinformation I’m going to take my business elsewhere,” explained Clarke, who is currently residing in his half-brother’s sunroom. “I can’t, in good conscience, contribute to something that has become a mouthpiece for anti-vaccine propaganda. I will delete the app from my phone immediately and suggest to my family members that they start looking into Apple Music. Which I hope they do soon, because listening to music on Youtube fucking blows.”

Clark’s niece, Harper Rossiter, reports that her uncle has been using her Spotify password for two years now.

“Yeah, I’m cool with sharing my account with Uncle Charlie, but I’m just kinda sick of him adding Leftover Crack songs to my yoga playlist and screwing up my Wrapped every year,” said Rossiter. “He used to threaten to stop using Spotify because his band has nearly 600 streams and he hasn’t seen a single penny in royalties. But something changes and he’s just going on and on about a bunch of old dudes I’ve never heard of. All I want to do is listen to the new Doja Cat song in peace.”

Kevin Rossiter, the primary bill payer in the household, says Clarke’s stance will have absolutely no effect on anything.

“The other day I heard Charlie on the phone with Spotify customer service saying ‘either Joe goes or I walk.’ It’s not even his fucking account,” said the father of three. “He was downstairs all aggressive, yelling something about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I could tell the agent was explaining to him that he wasn’t the primary user on the account and therefore wasn’t authorized to make any changes. Later that night Charlie asked if I ever used Tidal and I just changed the subject.”

“By the way, he’s not even fully vaxxed. He never got the second shot because he didn’t want to run into his ex-drummer, Harold, who recently started taking passport photos at the Rite-Aid down the street. Can you believe that shit?” he added.

At press time, Clarke reportedly decided to stick with Spotify until he can get to his former girlfriend’s storage unit to recover several of his CD carrying cases.

6 DIY Beer Can Craft Projects You Can Pretend To Be In The Middle Of When People Come Over

Posted on February 18, 2022 by Dan Rice

It’s always embarrassing when people come to your home and it’s one of the 358 days out of the year that your place is a fucking disaster. You have two choices — scramble to clean your apartment like a real-life ‘80s comedy montage, or come up with a legitimate excuse as to why every conceivable surface in your apartment is littered with empty PBR cans.

Aluminum has about a million and one uses when it comes to DIY craft projects. What a perfect smokescreen to hide your alcoholism and generally disheveled lifestyle from friends and family! Here are some specific projects you can claim to be interested in if your guest is a dick who asks a bunch of questions.

Beer Can Vehicular Model
Trains, planes, and automobiles, maybe even a helicopter! With enough scrap aluminum and some meticulous attention to detail there’s no limit to what you can pretend to be interested in creating!

Can-O-Lantern
Who says you can only carve faces into pumpkins? With an Exacto knife and the right skills you can carve any design into a beer can, from goofy smiles to elaborate photo-realistic portraits of famous icons. You’re not going to, you’re a drunk who probably shouldn’t have anything remotely as sharp as an Exacto knife in their hand at any given time, but your guests don’t have to know that!

Fancy Tea-candle Holder
You could be planning to turn all of those empties into tiny lamps, for all they know. There are tons of designs out there suitable for all skill levels, so if someone doesn’t buy it you can tell them to look it up on Pinterest.

A Miniature Replica Of The Accident
As seen in the film “Hereditary,” painstakingly recreating horrific events from your life in miniature can be a great way to process trauma. Another great way to process trauma is just staying drunk all the time but the people who “care” about you don’t see it that way, so just tell them you’re making an aluminum replica of that time you drove through a school bus.

Really Shitty Wind Chimes
Yeah, wind chimes. Fuckin… whatever.

Mind Your Own Business
You could just tell your guests to mind their own fucking business and save their judgment for someone who fucking gives a shit. Look THAT shit up on Pinterest, motherfucker.

I Missed the Show Trying To Decide if I Should Wear a Jacket Thick Enough To Stay Warm or Thin Enough to Not Have To Take Off Inside

Posted on February 17, 2022 by David Arriaga

It’s been a while since I’ve been to a show and my friend’s band is playing tonight. My plan was to jump back into my typical show routine. Do a shot, chug a beer, quickly pick out the right jacket for tonight, do another shot, chug another beer, and order an Uber with enough time leftover to fill up my flask so I won’t sober up on the ride over. Well, I spent so long trying to decide if I was better off bringing a jacket thick enough to stay warm or thin enough so I don’t have to take it off inside that I missed the entire show!

It’s not my fault. It was a very difficult decision. I figured if I wore my tried-and-true bomber, eventually I was going to get way too hot and I’d have to take it off and tie it around my waist like a fifth-grader. I guess I could have checked my coat with the venue but I’m pretty sure that kind of behavior can get you killed at a show like this. I also do not have money to be throwing around on renting hourly storage for a jacket.

So then I thought if I wear the windbreaker, I’ll freeze every time I go outside to smoke. Last time I wore that jacket I could barely ask people for cigarettes all night because my teeth were constantly chattering.

I ended up spreading both jackets on my bed and staring at them for the last four hours. I’ll just text my friend and make up something less embarrassing like that I got too drunk before the show and passed out in my own puke.

Historians Unearth Lost Scriptures Where Jesus is Super Rude to Waiter

Posted on February 17, 2022 by Ben Friedman

JERUSALEM — Archeologists from Brown University made a bombshell discovery late last week in a long-lost scripture describing Jesus being super rude to the waiter at the Last Supper.

“We are just as astonished as anyone else, and frankly we were reluctant to reveal our discovery. But we felt it does hold significant historical value and acts as a crucial puzzle piece explaining why the after-church crowds are so openly hostile to the service industry workers,” said Dr. Annette Langston. “It was surreal to read that Jesus demanded their table be moved three times because it was too close to the bathroom, only to exclaim afterward ‘do thy know whom my father is?’ I can see why this was kept hidden for so long.”

The scriptures had been held up to extreme scrutiny by the Vatican for months before the findings went public.

“After comparing these scriptures to our archives, we can confirm that these are indeed the writings of St. Matthew, describing Jesus snapping his fingers at the waiter to get his attention. While these scriptures reveal the Son of God to be less of a savior of humanity and more of a petty control freak, we do want to reiterate that he still does love everyone, and that he was probably just hangry,” said Cardinal Gustav Vargo. “The more our scholars look through this text, it does appear it was even unknown to Jesus that it’s easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than to procure a 12-top without a reservation.”

News of the first new bible verse in hundreds of years has turned the world on its head, particularly for the millions who work in the service industry.

“Well this explains literally everything, doesn’t it? I always wondered how a benevolent prophet who preached peace and love could beget such insufferable followers. At least now I know when the Sunday crowd beelines straight from church to our restaurant and only orders water, they’re actually doing it in Jesus’ name,” said Jeff Stein. “I mean that part about him demanding they make him a dish that wasn’t on the menu anymore was spot on. It figures that today’s Christians would justify their behavior based on cherry-picked Bible verses, even ones that were hidden for millennia.”

As of press time, researchers in Italy discovered a fresco corroborating the content of the scriptures, depicting Jesus rolling his eyes at the manager when being told the kitchen was out of ranch dressing.

We Rank Our Childhood Friends by How Into Crypto They Are Now

Posted on February 17, 2022 by Colleen Nerney

So your best buddy from 1st grade faded out of your life by the time you were in college. It happens! Childhood friendships often wind up morphing into nothing more than the occasional social media interaction, whether that be an accidental Instagram story reply or screenshotting their Facebook status to send to your other friends to make fun of. So we figured, hey, why not put together a ranking of those friends we lost touch with, organized by how into crypto they’ve become?

5. Laura – Laura is ranked last on this list because, honestly, we’re not sure she knows what crypto is. She was homeschooled until 3rd grade and it shows. But she is really into essential oils now and definitely deep into a pyramid scheme, which doesn’t seem that far off from the whole crypto thing.

4. Ben – Ben is the dude who got way too into whatever fad was happening at the time in high school and it seems to have stuck. He was snapping up old packs of Pokémon cards the second the pandemic buying spree started and has yet to turn a profit. It makes sense that cryptocurrencies are at least on his hyperactive trend radar, though the only evidence so far is the Bored Ape t-shirt that he’s wearing in his Discord profile picture.

3. Natalie – Natalie is an artist who seemingly got sick of earning $1.04 in Redubble royalties every month and apparently moved on to making NFTs. Look, we get it. The arts are tough. But did she really need to resort to this? Plus, it’s made her art look worse somehow.

2. Mark – Mark was one of those guys who was into Bitcoin in 2013 and everyone just thought he was a drug dealer. He’s always been on the wrong side of sketchy and, frankly, his rise to prominence on crypto Twitter isn’t helping that reputation. Mark is currently lobbying to have a Bitcoin ATM installed at his corner bodega, so that pretty much tells you everything you need to know.

1. Owen – God. Fucking Owen, man. He gets first place for sure. His preferred social media is LinkedIn where he’s constantly posting about #thegrind even though he’s been a mid-level sales manager for the last decade. He’s gone fully down the crypto rabbit hole; posting about investments every three hours and doing giveaways for $5 worth of DogeCoin like he’s some kind of celebrity. Worst of all, he’s constantly trying to hit on women in sports bars in the middle of the day by half-assedly explaining the blockchain. You know what? We’re happy your dad’s been in jail since middle school.

Prog Rock Band Assigns Crowd Homework

Posted on February 17, 2022 by Patrick Crooks

LOS ANGELES — Progressive rock band, Sagramore, surprised attendees of their most recent show when they used the time schedule for an encore to assign all ticketholders a homework assignment.

“Well, I certainly can’t say this is how I saw the show progressing, but c’est la vie, I guess,” remarked attendee Jason Tibbs while googling Arthurian legends. “I really like these guys, but to be frank, I’m really only into them for the music composition and structure. These guys have some pretty sick riffs and solos, but I don’t know what the hell they’re singing about half the time. I just assumed Guinevere was the lead singer’s ex or something. I was just going to blow this off, but they said that this was legally binding, so guess I’m writing a thousand-word essay on Medieval England?”

Sagramore frontman and rhythm guitarist Will Allard says that homework is an important aspect of truly understanding a band.

“Our music is meant to be an immersive and enlightening experience, so by giving these assignments, we ensure fans are fully engaging with our art,” said Allard while reviewing the syllabus for the band’s next tour. “Contrary to what some naysayers claim, this is not mindless busywork. Each lesson is crafted to ensure that they have completely listened to our albums and have fully processed our lyrics. Anyone who actually listened to the album at least three times should have no problem completing the assignment, so I don’t see what everyone is complaining about.”

Rock experts noted that while prog rock has always had a high opinion of itself, this new form of fan interaction was unexpected.

“With prog rock bands, their usual masturbatory gesture is some overwrought stage show like Rick Wakeman’s ice show, but this is another level. They had roadies ready to hand out the worksheets to everyone in attendance and they want the papers turned back in by Friday,” said music historian Scott Gerdick. “Not a lot of people have the patience to sit through 15-minute songs about obscure Jules Verne short stories, so tacking on homework to a six-hour concert may not be the best idea. For a genre that most people dismiss as pseudo-intellectual garbage, this really just confirms people’s stereotypes. The only band that could get away with this is Radiohead, but I don’t think even they’d do it.”

At press time, the band asked a fan at the front of the crowd if he had enough gum for the entire venue.

New Stepdad Hairiest Yet

Posted on February 16, 2022 by Dianne Nora

DALLAS — Gary McGee, a 50-year-old insurance salesman from Fort Worth who recently married mother of three, Linda Villalobos, is by far the children’s hairiest stepfather to date.

“I thought the last guy was bad, but man, it’s like he’s some kind of animal,” said Logan Villalobos, the youngest child. “It seems to be coming from everywhere: his ears, his nose, his feet. I don’t think there are any patches of his skin where hair isn’t there. His chest hair sticks out even when he’s wearing a turtleneck. He has more hair than my neighbor Miss Vicky’s dog.”

Alex, the oldest Villalobos child, suspects her mom wanted a change from her previous partners.

“Barry, he was our first stepdad, he was okay. But he was totally bald,” Alex Villalobos said, absentmindedly twirling her own hair. “I think maybe Mom’s subconsciously rebelling against him by finding the hairiest man in Texas. You really have to see Gary yourself. I don’t really care that much, but people do stare. He took us to the beach last summer. It looked like he was wearing a sweater. I told Logan he’s part bear.”

Anthropologist Myra Walsh confirmed that while many do lose their hair, some men grow more hirsute as they age.

“Our bodies can be full of surprises as we reach our senior years, and changes in hair are just part of that beautiful process,” Walsh said, just before seeing a photograph of McGee. “Jesus. You can barely see his eyes. The last time I saw something half this hairy it turned out to be an old carpet someone tossed out on the side of the road. On second thought, he might want to have his hormone levels checked. It’s entirely possible that this is simply genetic, but on the off-chance that this marks some sort of otherworldly explanation, I think humanity should have a record of it.”

At press time, McGee was shaving his beard for the third time today.

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