Hard Digest My 3: Early Access Stand Up Comedy, Sanguisugabogg, and Vaping

Local Man Horrified and Disgusted to Learn All-Time Favorite Lead Vocalist Now Doing Open Mic Stand Up Comedy

By The Hard Times Staff

NEW YORK — Local man Peter Spearman was shocked when he discovered the frontman of his all-time favorite band Chaos Dissidents was doing low level stand up comedy around the city, equally disgusted sources confirmed.

“Chaos Dissidents were these coke-fueled maniacs playing a mix between thrash and screamo that nobody else was doing back in 1999. I still have four copies of their split 7” with Low Voltage that I planned on being buried with,” said Spearman. “So I’m watching the Yankees game at the bar and out of nowhere an open mic starts. I’m already pissed they turned off the game, but then the host brought up the first performer who was none other than Chaos Dissidents frontman Chris Deehan. I realized that the person I once thought was the definition of cool is now doing terrible jokes about how hard it is to date in New York. I don’t know where I go from here, I feel sick, like my insides are rotting and my mouth has tasted like battery acid for days now.”

Deehan, the once popular musician, says stand up has been a creative outlet since his last band broke up in 2012.

“I love being a performer, but the problem with being in a band is that you have so many mouths to feed. With stand up it’s just me up there bearing my heart and soul,” said Deehan after a set where his closing joke was about how he thinks his scrotum is lopsided. “I’ve been doing this pretty frequently for 10 years now and I will meet fans of my music. They always ask me questions about stand up like ‘Why are you doing this?’ ‘Is the band getting back together so you can stop doing comedy?’ and ‘Do you need me to Venmo you some money?’ Which is nice, but the band isn’t getting together anytime soon. Our guitar player teaches clowning now, and he’s so busy with that we could never get him to tour.”

Scene historian Sami Houston says the pipeline of ex-band dudes to stand up comedy has slowed down in recent years.

“This was definitely more prevalent during the alternative comedy boom of the early aughts, but now we see a lot of band guys starting pointless podcasts. These people have transitioned from degrading their legacies in dimly lit bars to degrading their legacies on social media,” said Houston. “This is the new reality we live in. The flip side of the coin are the band guys who go into hiding because of disturbing accusations. But honestly, every outcome is terrible and it’s best not to engage.”

At press time, Deehan announced on the official Chaos Dissidents Instagram page that he needs 15 people to buy tickets to his next comedy show in order for him to be allowed to perform.

Opinion: I Thought I Had the Perfect Name for Our Band, but Apparently Sanguisugabogg Is Already Taken

By Peter Woods

Is there a bigger time suck in this world than trying to come up with a new band name? Every time a new band starts, people spend hours and hours trying to come up with anything that works, but every single name anyone comes up with is either corny or used by someone else.

I figured, “Why not try something new for our band?” Since every band name we thought of so far has been taken, I decided to just make random mouth sounds until I came up with something that sounded cool. Spent three hours doing that, but then some sounds that make the perfect band name came out:

Sanguisugabogg.

I was so pumped to have found something so badass that perfectly encapsulated our sound, our vibe, hell our whole vision! Until I looked it up on discogs and immediately threw my computer into a trash can.

I had to go back to the drawing board, but I wanted to get some help. So I asked ChatGPT to make up a word that sounded cool and would work really well for our blackened tech death grind band. It spewed out ten options, nine of them sucked. But the last one it came up with was perfect.

The only problem was that it was Sanguisugabogg again.

I got so annoyed and depressed about this that I got completely hammered. And then when I was blacked out, I apparently recorded myself brainstorming band names. The problem is that I couldn’t make out a single word I was saying except for one pretty remarkable moment of inspiration.

Unfortunately, that name was also Sanguisugabogg.

So I guess we have to try something else. Maybe let’s just go with taking a cool word like metallic or something and add the letter A at the end to make it sound latin or something. I’ll look it up and get back to you.

Kid Whose Dad Went Out For Cotton Candy Vape Juice Secretly Hoping He Never Comes Back

By Matt Husser

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Local 13-year-old Elliot Johnson was reportedly crossing his fingers today hoping that his dad would never come back after heading out for cotton candy vape juice, confirmed sources.

“Every Saturday my old man makes a big deal about how he’s going out for cotton candy vape juice so loud the neighbors can hear, and I always pray this is the day he finally doesn’t embarrass me by coming home in a cloud of unicorn farts,” said Elliot, slamming his bedroom door. “All my friends’ dads went out for smokes and abandoned them, but my dad always comes back a few hours later smelling like a rainbow clown wig, saying some weird shit like ‘It’s me Darth Vaper, I am your Father’ before giving me a big hug and asking about my day.”

Father Jimmy Johnson revealed that the reason he leaves for so long is that it’s hard to find his favorite ‘Bussin Labs Cotton Candy Crave’ vape juice at the local stores.

“I know three hours roundtrip is a long time to sit on my ‘gyat’ in my ‘whip’ away from my ‘fam’ each week, but there’s only one shop in the county ‘bussin’ enough to carry my favorite vape juice and weekly supply of Feastables,” said the 55-year-old accountant, putting on his reading glasses to check the receipt. “Then it always takes me about 20 minutes to convince the liquor store guy that the Buzzballz and alcoholic Monster energy are for me, and not for the teenagers hanging outside. But it’s all worth it to see the ‘skibidi’ look on my kid’s face when I finally come back from the store.”

Mr. Johnson’s own estranged dad, Clyde Johnson, criticized his son’s juvenile commitment to his family.

“It’s high time that Jimmy stopped with this cotton candy nonsense, switched to some fuckin’ Marlboros, and abandoned his family like a real man,” said the 85-year-old, ashing his cigarette on an old family photo. “When I was his age I had already abandoned my second family and knocked up a stripper 20 years younger than me all on a plumber’s salary. How is Elliott ever gonna learn to be a man if his dad is always appearing out of a fruity pebble cloud like David Copperfield when he shows up to all of his music recitals and baseball games?”

At press time, Elliot Johnson was reportedly mortified after his dad had signed them up for Mr. Beast’s “The Sex Talk Puberty Elimination Challenge.”