Embarrassed “Sid and Nancy” Director Just Now Realizing He Made a Two-Hour Long Movie About Bass Player

Posted on by Jonah Nink

LOS ANGELES — Film director Alex Cox came to the sudden and tragic realization this morning that his 1986 biopic “Sid and Nancy” was just a two-hour film about a mediocre bassist, consoling sources confirmed.

“I rewatched ‘Sid and Nancy’ yesterday, and all I could think was, ‘This is alright, but who would make an entire movie about a bass player who never wears a shirt?’ I kept thinking there was no way this movie could be made today — whoever pitched this would be laughed out of the room,” said an embarrassed, blushing Cox. “But then I thought, ‘Wait a second… I made this movie!’ I wish someone on the crew had told me what I was doing before it was too late. I feel like a fucking moron.”

Sources confirmed that the entire production staff, including lead actor Gary Oldman, were well aware of what the film was about and collectively decided not to tell Cox.

“It was my first major role, so I couldn’t pass it up… but even back then it felt odd for a studio to throw a sizable budget at a weird movie about a bassist — especially a bass player who was never actually plugged in,” said Oldman. “We tried to carefully explain it to him at first: I’d say, ‘Hey Alex, what instrument am I playing in this scene?’ and he’d say, ‘A bass.’ And then I’d say, ‘So that makes me a…,’ but then he’d always respond with, ‘Sid Vicious.’ Eventually we dropped it and hoped he would count the strings on his own at some point.”

Studio accountant Ed Adams revealed that the film was never officially greenlit, but still received its full $4 million budget by accident.

“I put the script into the ‘pretty-decent-but-it’s-about-a-bass-player-so-why-bother?’ pile, but somehow they still received the funding,” said Adams. “We were about to shut the project down, but we just couldn’t do it — the innocent, childlike joy in Cox’s eyes as he made the film melted our icy hearts. It felt criminal to crush happiness so pure… even if the end product was nearly 120 minutes of a bass player yelling at people.”

Future DVD releases of “Sid and Nancy” will include a written apology from Cox, and a coupon for guitar lessons.

Man Suffers Through 30 Minutes of Jazz Before Realizing He Just Likes Cowboy Bebop

Posted on by Steven Porfiri

LOS ANGELES — Local anime fan Jason Dominguez listened to nearly half an hour of a jazz album last Friday at a record store before coming to the conclusion that it’s actually just Cowboy Bebop itself that he’s interested in.

“I just really like how cool Spike is, and how his fight scenes are set to jazz, with all those trumpets and the saxophones,” said Dominguez, 26, when pressed for comment. “It’s just surprisingly badass music to fight to, y’know? So I thought I’d head to the store and find some music that’ll kinda put me in that space-faring, bounty-hunting mindset. I guess I’m not that classy, afterall. I just like anime.”

Dominguez reportedly spent a few minutes looking through albums by Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Kenny G, and the Broadway recording of All That Jazz while audibly humming the main theme to Cowboy Bebop. 

“I think I was hoping there’d be more stuff about spaceships and bounty hunters?” he said of a record by The Brand New Heavies. “Maybe like one song about corgis or something, and I kind of assumed that Steve Blum would have a role in this somewhere.” 

Store owner Rodney Vercetti, 45, said Dominguez fit into a familiar pattern.

“This happens a couple of times a month. Someone comes in, usually they’re wearing a lot of pins or something, and they start asking about our jazz section. Sometimes I give them a jumping-off point, sometimes they dive right in, but after wandering around for a while, they always come over and ask about the band Seatbelts. That’s when I pull out these bad boys over here,” Vercetti said, indicating a stack of vinyl pressings of the album Cowboy Bebop, the official soundtrack of the show. “They usually don’t make it a whole 30 minutes, though. I’ll give that kid credit — he gave it his best shot.”

Dominguez did eventually catch sight of the soundtrack albums, making his way over to the counter to purchase a copy and reportedly ask whether Vercetti had heard of Fooley Cooley.

Check out our comedy podcast The Video Game Super Show! Show, in which two of our editors watch and discuss every episode of  1989’s Captain N: The Game Master:

Dungeon Master Increases Puzzle’s Difficulty by Describing It Shittily

Posted on by Jimmy Beliakoff

SILVERTON, Ore. — In a groundbreaking move to combat his players’ adeptness at solving riddles and subverting challenges, local dungeon master Dan Richards supercharged the difficulty of his latest puzzle by describing it really shittily.

“Okay, okay… okay… I’m sorry, I’m so fucking lost,” remarked Jess Baker, the party’s Wizard. “So there’s a stone brazier in the middle of the room, and a skeleton in front of it… and the skeleton’s hand is pointing north-west to the corner?” 

The rest of the group then chimed in with their own clarifications.

“Wait, wait—there are also tapestries on the walls, right?” said Terry Graham, tapping into his Ranger’s knack for Perception and Survival. “They have arrows pointing south. Those seem important somehow.” 

While the skeleton, brazier, and tapestries did allegedly appear in the DM’s original description, various other details came into play as the party fought it out.

“No, the arrows are in the runic symbols on the floor, not the tapestries, and they’re all spinning remember?” said their Warlock, preparing to tap into his Eldritch Sight invocation.

“I definitely contradicted myself several times when I initially described the room to them,” admitted Richards with an air of smugness about him. “They basically just need to find the hidden key on top of the doorframe behind them, but thanks to my ability to rattle off a confusing and meandering list of unimportant details, I was able to get them to focus on a completely meaningless corpse next to a completely meaningless fireplace.”

After a few fruitless hours, Richards saw his plan backfire when the party unanimously decided the room must not be the correct path forward and began backtracking through three sessions worth of previous dungeon rooms.

“It’s annoying to describe the whole dungeon again,” Richards said, “but I guess I’m lucky since I have literally nothing planned for what’s behind that door.”

Check out our comedy podcast The Video Game Super Show! Show, in which two of our editors watch and discuss every episode of  1989’s Captain N: The Game Master:

Favorite Shirt from When You Were 29 Magically Turns to Infant Small Minute You Turn 32

Posted on by Krissy Howard

LEWISBURG, W.V. — The favorite shirt that you wore frequently the year you were 29-years-old magically transformed to a piece of clothing only large enough to be worn by an infant now that you are 32, confused sources confirmed.

“I found this old Millencolin shirt in the back of my closet that I nearly wore all the way out in my late 20s, but I tried it on this morning and it looks like it’s big enough to fit the smallest baby I’ve ever seen in my life,” you exclaimed, of the harrowing discovery you made upon waking up on your 32nd birthday. “It must be like, a birthday miracle or something… like the tooth fairy, or retirement.”

“Because there’s no way I let myself go that much, right?” you added. “I mean, I still get carded for beer. I can obviously still pass for 20… right?”

Friends of yours who assure you they “wouldn’t guess you were older than like, 25, maybe 27, tops” and have experienced a similar phenomenon offered a more practical hypothesis.

“The same thing happened to me, and the only thing I can think of is that the shirts are just like, super shitty quality or something,” said your friend and local 34-year-old who has made no lifestyle changes since she was 17, Karrie Tan. “I mean, nothing has changed on my end — I still drink three to five nights a week, and haven’t been getting any more sleep than usual, so it has to be the fabric or something. I bet it’s those shitty dryers at the laundromat. I’m gonna talk to them about that.”

Experts report that, while many people’s metabolisms slow down considerably with age, exactly no one is willing to accept it.

“No one wants to believe they’re getting older and that their bodies simply don’t respond to eating six pieces of string cheese at 11 p.m. every night the way it did in their 20s,” explained CAMC physician Dr. Shondra Stubblefield. “Thanks to an unwillingness to face reality, these people are left to rely on their nicest, albeit least helpful friends to tell them that they can totally still pull off glitter highlight.”

In an effort to prove to yourself that you haven’t changed that much now that you’re in your 30s, you continued to text the guy you’re exclusively seeing who “isn’t looking for anything serious.”

Don’t Let This Face Tattoo Fool You, I’m Actually Terrified of Commitment

Posted on by Bobby Korec

When people look me, they see my earnest expression, my passionate eyes, and just above, below, and in between the two, they see approximately 47 face tattoos. Naturally, they see a man capable and passionate about commitment. Well, check your biases first next time you want to judge a book by its cover. Don’t let this face tattoo fool you because I shake and piss myself at the very concept of commitment.

Don’t be fooled into thinking I can commit easily just because I’ve committed to having a giant panther and a flaming skull on the side of my face until I die, most likely of an infection caused by improper tattoo aftercare.

You might be surprised to find that I’m way more impulsive and spontaneous than this facial branding will have you believe. As the story goes, I got this tat completely on a whim on an otherwise average Tuesday evening and never once considered that one day my grandkids are definitely going to see me as their “weird and emotionally unavailable grandpa with cartoon characters on his face.” That makes me really sad. Rick and Morty are so much more than just cartoon characters.

Besides, I’m a Virgo. As you know us Virgoans are notoriously bad at committing. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do to change your astrological sign. You just have to lean into those assigned behavioral patterns and use it as an excuse any chance you get.

Termina Resident Convinced Giant, Ominous Moon a Liberal Hoax

Posted on by Matt Shore

CLOCK TOWN — A Termina citizen took to the streets yesterday to denounce the large, ominous moon inching ever closer to the city as “a liberal hoax.” 

The citizen, known only as Gorman, was scheduled to perform with a band of thespians and acrobats at the Carnival of Time this week, before the Moon’s looming threat led to the event’s cancellation. Soon afterward, he began to claim the hideous lunar anomaly was nothing more than “fake news” propagated by “radical leftist liberals of ANTIFA.”

Gorman denied the suggestion that his beliefs about the moon might be influenced by his pocketbook.

“These snowflake beta cucks and their globalist agenda are trying to ruin a proud Clock Town tradition,” Gorman said, speaking to a small crowd outside the Milk Bar, Latte. “They don’t care about the hard-working farmers who rely on the festival to pray for a good harvest. No, they care only about themselves and their blue-haired SJW girlfriends.”

Professor Shikashi, owner and operator of the Astral Observatory, challenged Gorman’s accusations, citing his own research as proof that the giant, highly visible Moon did in fact exist, and was rapidly approaching town. 

“It’s so close that it’s in danger of cracking the end of my telescope,” he said. “I don’t know how anyone could ignore something so massive and deadly, but that’s the political climate of 2020 for you. The Four Giants themselves could appear out of nowhere and play hacky sack with the moon, and people like Gorman would claim it was just some Gorons holding a bomb flower.”

When the Milk Bar’s owner Mr. Barten arrived on the scene to calm the uproar, things grew even more heated. Barten urged Gorman to tilt his head upward to see the apocalyptic threat for himself, but Gorman refused, declaring, “The moon isn’t visible during the day! Everyone knows that! You government simps will believe anything!”

Gorman was last seen drowning his sorrows inside the bar, complaining that PC culture had ruined music and wishing someone would remind him why he got into showbiz in the first place.

Check out our comedy podcast The Video Game Super Show! Show, in which two of our editors watch and discuss every episode of  1989’s Captain N: The Game Master:

Documentary About Rise and Fall of Quibi to Be About Ten Minutes Long

Posted on by Mark Roebuck

LOS ANGELES — Losing Stream, a new documentary chronicling the rapid rise and fall of subscription streaming service Quibi, reportedly tells the entire story of the failing startup in a single 10 minute chunk. 

“Wow, what a refreshing way to learn about these dumbasses. I’m so glad I got to watch a whole documentary while on line to get groceries,” said movie critic Julia Yates ahead of the film’s release. “I guess the fact that Quibi is absolutely DOA right after it launched doesn’t really lend itself to anything much longer. Too bad, really. I’d watch rich people lose their ass on a loop all day if I could!”

The streaming service, conceived as an instant competitor to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, HBO NOW, Apple TV, Sling, and Pluto TV, launched three months ago. The brainchild of former Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, Quibi sports two unique characteristics: short episodes, and content exclusively available on cell phones.

“Pretty good idea if you ask me,” said Katzenberg, who was recently revealed to have his emails printed out for him every morning. “At the very least, every person around me tells me it’s a good idea. Or else they mysteriously disappear. If anything, though, that’s just proof that they were wrong about my idea being bad!”

The director of Losing Stream claims that Quibi’s defining feature of being literally incompatible with the televisions, tablets, and computers that have become increasingly common and affordable in the last decade assured that its story would be a short, digestible one. 

“It’s a tale as old as time, really,” said director Helena Greene, who is currently shopping her film around various streaming services that’ll probably be around for a few more years at least. “Couple of absurdly wealthy people raise a bunch of money, lose it on some shitbrain idea, and then, that’s really it. That’s like the whole story. You could watch the entire saga of this 1.75 billion dollar disaster in say, the time it takes to ride the train, or wait in line for a cup of coffee.” 

As of press time, you better watch all the episodes of Speedrun and Reno 911! you can before your free trial runs out and you accidentally pay five dollars for Quibi.

Check out our comedy podcast The Video Game Super Show! Show, in which two of our editors watch and discuss every episode of  1989’s Captain N: The Game Master:

Libertarian Friend Continues Trend of Only 50% Getting The Point

Posted on by Stephen Bell

ODESSA, Texas — Local Libertarian Wayne Allen is maintaining his personal trend of only getting the point halfway regarding a variety of social and economic issues, according to friends wondering why they still talk to him.

“Wayne is a real single-edged sword: one side’s sharp, and the other side is so dull it couldn’t cut through butter on a hot day,” said longtime friend Alicia Davis. “He fully supports defunding the police, but doesn’t make the racial connection — he just wants lower taxes. Last month he complained about how cops made him late for work when they pulled him over for speeding in a school zone and let him off with a warning; meanwhile, they pulled my black ass over because my ‘windshield wipers seemed old’ and I spent 30 minutes sitting on the curb while dogs tore apart my car looking for drugs. The irony here is that he’s the one who owns the secret underground marijuana bunker, and I’m a fucking nurse.”

Allen was more than happy to offer what would, if given without any further reflection, appear to be a workable and well-nuanced political ideology.

“The government is constantly trying to take away all of our rights, and as a proud, rugged individual, that means they are especially out to get me,” said the almost correct Allen. “Libertarians believe the government is only capable of creating problems, not solving them — I can’t name a single issue the government has ever solved. I mean, besides winning WW2, building the highways, the FDIC, eliminating acid rain, or guaranteeing improvements in worker safety. Other than any of those things, though, the government only fails.”

University of Texas political science professor Dr. Anne Fraser noted Allen is not that different from most of the libertarians she teaches.

“Wayne, like many of the libertarians who took my course, always scored a straight 50%. Now, like most academic courses with the curve, he would probably receive a C,” said the professor. “However, he revolted against the curve, claiming curves are a form of ‘affirmative action,’ and that partner assignments are simply ‘communism.’ But strangely, he had a robust understanding of the difficulties marginalized groups face in the United States… I just wish his solution to these problems was more nuanced than, ‘Buy a shit ton of guns.’”

At press time, Allen was forced to shut down his anti-government libertarian commune after none of its members could agree on how to share their crops.

We Asked a Local Stoner to Shut the Fuck Up

Posted on by Amir Adan

4/20 may have come and gone this year, but that doesn’t mean stoner culture has. But what exactly does it mean to be a stoner?

We at The Hard Times wanted to give our readers some insight into this culture, so I sat down with an old stoner buddy of mine named Grant Anderson to discuss the ins and outs of this world. This was a mistake.

Hard Times: Thank you for taking time out of your day to chat with us about the stoner subculture, Grant.
Anderson: No problem.
So you’re a stoner, right? That’s how you identify?
I mean yeah, I guess. Doesn’t matter much to me. I smoke weed a bit, if you wanna call me a stoner, that’s your deal. I don’t really even smoke all that much, just when Rogan drops a podcast. He’s best to listen to when you’re high.
Interesting. So you think the experience is heightened when you’re smoking?
Oh no I mean he’s unlistinable unless I’m fucking blasted man.
That doesn’t make sense at all, but okay. Do you feel like weed is at all misunderstood in our general culture?
Yeah that’s pretty obvious to see. I think people think weed is a recreational thing which I strongly disagree with. You know the reason it’s illegal is because when you’re high you fucking see too much man. They don’t like that man.
Yeah okay so this went pretty much as expected, thank you for your time. 
They are the people who control things. It’s not any government or any one person. Even if every government collapsed right now, ‘they’ would be in control.
We’re all set, thanks. You can shut up now. 
I personally don’t vote and don’t believe I have a say at all. It’s all symbolic, I think. Like you know how the Queen of England doesn’t really have power but she’s kinda… just there? That’s us. We have no power to do anything.
You think we’re all the Queen of… Why am I engaging this? Shut the fuck up and get out of here we’re done. 
They look down on us from their corporate towers and we look like ants to them, know what I’m saying? 
Okay is there like one big thing you’d like our readers to know about stoners like you? And then maybe after that you can shut the fuck up?
Yeah man. We’re just like you. We’re not any better just because our minds are a bit more elevated. It’s all good, we’re just like the rest of you and there– uh, hey man I gotta go, my dealer, is outside, it was cool talking to you! Everything you read about chemtrails is real!
Shut the fuck up. 

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