Hard Digest March 24: Early Access C+C Music Factory, Jeff Rosenstock, Break Rooms, and More

Corporate Restructuring Leads to Mass Layoffs at C+C Music Factory

By Steve Packosky 

NEW YORK — A recent corporate restructuring initiative in adherence to a new five-year strategic plan led to mass layoffs at C+C Music Factory, disgruntled sources report.

“I’ve known this was coming for quite some time, but that doesn’t make it any easier,” General Manager Robert Clivillés said. “We’ve been dealing with a lot of challenges over the past few decades. Sure, in the early ‘90s it was a lot easier for us to get people to sweat ‘til they bled, but a rapidly changing business environment coupled with inflation and supply-chain issues have made maximizing our bottom line and getting funky in this post-COVID world untenable under our old framework. These changes are definitely necessary, but a lot of good workers are being sent home today. Of course we’ll miss them, but it’s now time for us to move forward as the nation’s prominent supplier of dance music.”

Laid-off employee Corbin Wellford was doubtful of the factory’s ability to carry on without him.

“I started out in the Department of Dancing Now 30 years ago,” Wellford complained. “I worked my way up from clerk to Senior Manager, and this place wouldn’t be where it is today without my contributions. And what do I get for it? Six months’ severance pay and a security escort out the door. I’m not a spiteful person, but I’m really going to enjoy watching this place go under. There’s absolutely no way they’re going to keep people dancing without my expertise. Is there even anybody left who can operate the Give Me the Music module? Whatever, not my problem anymore.”

Corporate Efficiency Consultant Latonya Burke was not surprised by the factory’s ordeal.

“We live in an increasingly borderless world,” Burke mentioned. “At surface level, that seems good for workers, but with it comes the attractive option for companies to outsource their labor and embrace artificial intelligence to drastically reduce their labor costs. This is great for their profit margins, but horrible for once-invaluable employees whose wages suddenly appear as an undue burden. C+C Music Factory is certainly no exception, as automation in land cultivation has resulted in similarly devastating staff cuts at Alien Ant Farm, and don’t even get me started on the hollowing-out of the entire industrial music sector, like the one at Fear Factory years back. Unfortunately, I don’t see the situation improving anytime soon.”

At press time, the factory was forced to shutter its doors after President Donald Trump declared a 25% tariff on all imported Canadian goods falling under the “Move & Grind” classification.

Help! Jeff Rosenstock Broke Into My House and Is Making Ska Versions of All of My Records

By Ryan Dondero 

It all started three and a half weeks ago when Tall Mike left the fucking back door unlocked and ajar again. Usually, a possum or one of the neighborhood cats gets in and we rustle it out in the morning. This time though it was fucking beloved punk icon Jeff Rosenstock. He snuck in and locked himself in Garrett’s old room.

At first, we were stoked. Confused but really stoked. Jeff Rosenstock was in our house. That’s RAD. But the whole first day, he stayed locked in the room, ignoring us when we tried to talk to him. Then, just after midnight, he finally emerged—only to grab a stack of my records and scurry back inside. The only reason we even knew he left was because Short Mike’s girlfriend, Harmony, saw him.

It didn’t take long to figure out what he was doing. First came the singing, familiar both because it was Jeff Rosenstock’s unmistakable voice and because he was singing songs from my own favorite records. Then came the horns. Finally, the Bandcamp releases started—two albums a day, all ska, all from my collection.
At first, it was incredible. Jeff gave each album a ska pun, so my roommates and I skanked and sang along to albums by the Ska-cteau Twins, Belle and Ska-bastian, and Simon and Ska-funkel. We drank to London Ska-lling, smoked weed to Ska-bbey Road, and played video games to Nashville Ska-line. It was great. Until it wasn’t.

But it wasn’t the albums. Those were still awesome. The problem was that Jeff was living in our house, rent-free, leaving unflushed growlers in the toilet, and eating all our spaghetti. He barely spoke to us unless spaghetti was involved, and even then, all he would say was, “More spaghetti.”

We don’t know what to do. Our shithead landlord is useless, so we didn’t even bother asking. Jeff also saw right through the elaborate, cartoonish Rube Goldberg-style trap we set outside Garrett’s old room. Desperate, we even emailed Laura Stevenson for help, but all she replied was, “You shouldn’t have fed him spaghetti.”

Someone has got to help us. Jeff just dropped three albums by Explosions in the Ska, and yeah, they rule, but I can’t take this anymore!

Tense Moment as “Used to Skate” Guy Comes Face to Face With “Used to Box” Guy in Employee Breakroom

By Ryan Danley

PORTLAND, Ore. — A routine lunch break turned into an unexpected battle of past glory Tuesday afternoon when Jake “Used to Skate” Piper and Mark “Used to Box” DeRosa found themselves together in the company breakroom, terrified onlookers reported.

“It was wild. Jake and Mark exchanged a quick nod—a tense truce at best. Then, without warning, they were in each other’s faces, launching into a brutal round of anecdotal one-upmanship. Nonstop talk of kickflips and sparring sessions. I was terrified,” said James Defoe, a fellow employee who witnessed the exchange while microwaving his leftover lasagna. “It was like watching two old warriors trying to outdo each other without throwing a punch. They kept raising the stakes until they both landed on a time they ‘really fucked up’ their wrist. That’s when things finally settled down.”

The company’s manager, Tony Daley, admitted he had concerns about the tension between high-testosterone workplace personas when hiring the two.

“I was hoping it would make the team more competitive, but honestly, it’s just led to a lot of people standing around, swapping stories about how sick they used to be. It’s really bringing down our quarterly earnings,” said Daley, adjusting his glasses as he organized a stack of Excel printouts. “Fortunately, I have the skills to keep things in order. After all, I’m the ‘used to be in a gang and deal drugs’ guy around here—I’ve seen real battles, not just some weekend warrior bullshit. You just have to know how to handle a crew and when to assert dominance.”

Corporate workplace solutions instructor Dana Morris, who was recently brought in to conduct a conflict resolution seminar, described the phenomenon as a growing trend in modern offices.

“Every office needs a ‘used to box’ guy, a ‘used to skate’ guy, and ideally, a former cheerleader who now runs HR with the cold efficiency of a retired assassin,” Morris explained. “It’s all about balancing the ecosystem of egos. That’s how commerce breathes. If men didn’t have these past-life personas to cling to, they’d be forced to process their emotions like adults, and let’s be real—the workplace would crumble instantly. Offices thrive when there’s interpersonal tension.”

At press time, Piper and DeRosa bonded over their joint history of orthopedic surgeries and were considering starting a “recovery club” at work, while the IT department stayed on high alert for any “used to lift” guy trying to join.

JFK Files Reveal Lee Harvey Oswald Played Violent Video Games

BY R. Anthony Mahan 

WASHINGTON — The recent declassification of all records relating to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination has revealed that the event was motivated entirely by Lee Harvey Oswald’s lifelong obsession with violent video games, historians announced.

“For the first time ever, we’re able to look back on that day with almost perfect clarity,” explained Owen Císte-Torthaí, professor of history at the University of Maryland. “All the ridiculous speculation and conspiracy theories can finally be put to rest. We know exactly why Kennedy was assassinated, and like every act of violence, it’s because of video games.”

A recently revealed FBI profile of Oswald found his obsession began in childhood, where he frequently visited the penny arcades of the 1940s. 

“Oh yeah, there was this old driving game Lee loved,” recalled Edmund Ford, Oswald’s last surviving childhood friend. “One day in ‘49 we were at it together, and he said ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if instead of a road, the screen showed two people fighting?’ He went on like this for a while, describing the dream game in his head, and … look, it was Mortal Kombat, all right? I don’t mean it was kinda like Mortal Kombat, I could’ve sworn he said ‘Earthrealm’ at some point.”

As he got older, Oswald’s obsession with this theoretical technology worsened, the report found. 

“In 1956, Oswald joined the Marines, since it was the closest he could get at the time to playing a military FPS,” continued Císte-Torthaí. “Two years after that, Oswald used his military connections to visit Brookhaven National Laboratory and play the early video game Tennis for Two. This was not a violent video game, but it was a video game, and it had the exact effect on his fragile young mind that you’d expect. A simple sports game can’t drive a man to kill, but betraying his country? That would make sense. By 1959, Oswald would defect to the Soviet Union.”

Oswald was unhappy in the Soviet Union, complaining about “no places of recreation,” and returned to the United States in 1962, shortly after the invention of the game Spacewar! 

“As soon as he heard about Spacewar!, Oswald had to go back,” said Císte-Torthaí. “It wasn’t a fantasy anymore, someone made a video game. A violent video game, where you blow things up. As soon as Oswald shot a digital spaceship and watched it explode, he knew he had to do the same thing to the President’s head.”

Equally revealing are the newly-declassified records of Oswald’s personal correspondence in the days leading up to the assassination. 

“Oh yeah, the whole video game industry basically exists because Oswald asked really hard for it,” confirmed Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, reading from a yellowed piece of paper. “He sent me this when I was in college. ‘Dear Nolan, please invent a video game company called Atari and make a game where two tanks shoot each other. It’ll kick ass. Love, Lee Harvey Oswald. P.S. I’m gonna kill JFK.’ And it wasn’t just me, he sent letters to all kinds of people. Nintendo, Sega, Sony, those were all him. He also complained a lot to Jack Ruby about how his nightclubs didn’t have any video games in them, so, you know … another mystery solved there.”

At press time, historians had discovered a 19th-century pinball machine with John Wilkes Booth’s high score.