Hard Digest January 17: Early Access Opening Bands, David Lynch, Elon Musk, and More

Opening Band Thinks It’s Really Important You Know Their Bass Player’s Name is Steve

By Ed Saincome

PORT TOWNSEND, Wash. — Local opening band Eyeball Soup thought it was crucial that the audience know their bassist’s name is Steve, confirmed sources who didn’t know what to do with that information.

“As the singer, frontman, and host of the band, I like to make it a point to provide the audience with each member’s name, instrument, and Social Security number so they can get better acquainted with us. Seems to work too because the crowd is always on their phones the entire time we play. I assume they’re just Googling Steve and simply cannot wait until after the set,” said vocalist Derek Fineberg while putting a name tag on the bassist so the crowd wouldn’t forget. “Besides, it would be extremely rude if we played our full 20-minute set without a proper introduction. Sometimes I even pause the show halfway through to ask all six members of the audience for their names. This way, it’s like we all know each other on an intimate level. It almost sometimes works.”

The crowd seemed excited to know about the existence of Steve.

“Wow, so cool that I finally know the name of a bass player,” said audience member Janet Remington. “Up until this point I had assumed they were all nameless. Primus? The Beatles? Red Hot Chili Peppers? No one ever knows the name of the bassist, yet here I am with the knowledge of Steve at my disposal. I am forever thankful that this band took time out of their set to let us know about him. I still won’t be buying their demo though.”

Experts understood the opening band’s reasoning for their bold move.

“Openers have to do everything in their power to get a crowd to care about them,” said scene veteran Lou Sastch. “It’s like the second you name an animal, the harder it is to kill it for food. Now that we all know about Steve, it would be emotionally traumatic to murder him for sustenance mid-set, he’s a fully realized human now. The same can’t be said about other more anonymous opening bands, however.”

At press time, Fineberg thought it was also important that their bass player was single and available for anyone who was interested.

We Honor David Lynch’s Legacy by Looking Back at 10 Scenes from his Filmography that Made Us Say “Wow, That Was Fucked Up”

By Jason Clemence 

Earlier this week, iconic American filmmaker David Lynch died, leaving behind an astonishingly brilliant and bizarre body of work that blends violence, romance, mystery, surrealism, and classic Hollywood panache into a style that no other director has matched. And within that body of work is a whole bunch of scenes that you’ve probably played on YouTube for an unsuspecting friend, prefacing the viewing with “Dude, you gotta see this, it’s so fucked up!” In honor of Lynch’s life and work, let’s look back at the ten weirdest, funniest, most disturbing examples:

10. Coffee Table Head Slice (Lost Highway, 1997)

Not only does Pete get to make out with Patricia Arquette, but when they’re ambushed by Andy (Michael Massee), he executes a flawless WWE-style rolling kick-throw that launches Andy across the room. Unfortunately, there’s a glass coffee table in the middle of that room, which pretty much perfectly bisects his head. In keeping with the typical Lynchian aesthetic, Pete and Alice examine this tableau with little more than bemused curiosity.

9. Shooting the Phantom (Inland Empire, 2006)

So you’ve just endured almost 3 hours of arthouse experimental horror insanity? Here’s some jumpscare nightmare fuel to send you home in a state of paralytic anxiety.

8. Laura Palmer’s Death (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, 1992)

After countless slasher flicks throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s gave us all kinds of ways that popular blonde girls could be killed, Lynch outclasses them all with a scene that is genuinely touching, emotionally gutwrenching, and terrifying. The cry of “Please don’t make me do this!” will stick with you for quite a while.

7. Willem DaFoe’s Head (Wild at Heart, 1990)

After one of the most unsettling scenes of sexual assault in cinema history, Bobby Peru pulls a heist with Sailor in which he shoots two store clerks and then prepares to kill Sailor as well. Then he gets into a firefight with a sheriff’s deputy, somehow falls to his knees with his own shotgun jammed into his neck, and, well, remember Sub-Zero’s fatality in the OG “Mortal Kombat” game? The next few seconds are basically that.

6. All of Dune (1984)

The entire movie is messed up, though not in the same sort of existential freak-out way that Lynch’s other films are. More in a “Wow, people actually spent creative energy and money to make this movie, that’s a shame” sort of way.

5. Welcome to Lumberton (Blue Velvet, 1986)

In a tight 2 minutes, the opening sequence to Lynch’s masterpiece puts across a pretty well-trodden idea: Beneath the placid surface of Anytown USA, dark and anti-social forces lurk, just waiting to infest all that is good and righteous. It’s a cliché premise that’s been explored in cinema from Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt” to “American Beauty,” but nobody does it quite like Lynch. With nothing but a montage of oversaturated images and a Bobby Vinton song, this scene not only introduces the theme of the entire film, but subtly suggests that the people on the “good” side of this duality are unknowingly empowering the dark side. And all this before Kyle MacLachlan even finds that ear.

4. The Horrific Figure in the Alley (Mulholland Dr., 2001)

Even the first time you see the movie, you know it’s coming. Two men in Winkie’s Diner literally just discussed a nightmare about how fear leads to more fear, and how that fear is, naturally enough, wielded by a filthy man who hides in the dumpster behind Winkie’s, and as they leave the diner to see if the man is real, every single aspect of the cinematography tells you a jumpscare is coming, and then, sure as shootin’, it comes, but you still jump a mile and shriek like a toddler.

3. The Mystery Man (Lost Highway, 1997)

Robert Blake’s first appearance at a distinctively Lynchian party in the Hollywood Hills makes for one of those scenes that sort of splits the difference between funny and terrifying. Sure, he freaks out Fred with the ol’ “I’m both here and at your house at once!” parlor trick, and it’s creepy, but he still seems like an affable fellow. But when he appears in a VHS shot along with Fred’s murdered wife a little later? You’re gonna need a minute.

2. Voyeurism in the Closet (Blue Velvet, 1986)

So you found out your friend hasn’t seen “Blue Velvet,” and you were like “Dude! You haven’t seen ‘Blue Velvet’?! That’s crazy, we gotta watch it right now!” and it’s going pretty well until the scene where Jeffrey spies on Dorothy and Frank while they do their whole non-consensual BDSM with amyl nitrate in a gas mask thing, and suddenly your friend is looking at you like you’re a psychopath for owning this movie, and all your protestations about how it’s the greatest art film of the 1980s and was basically Lynch’s redemption project after “Dune” shit the bed can’t make up for the fact that you just made your buddy sit through one of the most depraved scenes ever put on film.

1. Visiting Mary’s Parents (Eraserhead, 1977)

There’s really not a single scene in this movie that isn’t deeply unsettling to the point of making you feel vaguely violated and dirty. The smash cut to the baby covered in sores? The Vaudeville-on-acid spectacle of the Girl in the Radiator? Henry being decapitated by the giant phallic parasite thing that apparently lives inside him? All good candidates for number 1, but for our money it’s the long sequence in which Henry visits his girlfriend Mary and her deranged parents, only to be slapped with paternal responsibility for the infamously inhuman “Eraserhead Baby.” Whether it’s Mary’s out-of-nowhere seizure that doesn’t even stop Henry from talking about his job as a printer, or Mary’s mother’s attempt to make out with him, or her making a salad by manipulating a comatose old woman’s hands like a marionette, or the giant parody of a grin on Mary’s father’s face as he talks about being a plumber, this scene is offputting in a way you can feel in your bones. But it’s the carving of the homemade chickens that will really stick with you. Lynch’s career-long fascination with the intertwined dynamics of the organic and the mechanical really comes home to roost (as it were) in this immortal moment of surrealist indie filmmaking.

Every Book on Elon Musk’s Shelf Just False Lever That Reveals Yet Another Katana Room

By Matt Husser 

STARBASE, Texas — A contractor working on Elon Musk’s new Texas mega-mansion revealed that every book on the billionaire’s shelf was just a false lever that reveals a katana room, sources confirmed.

“You have no idea how much of a nightmare building this library was—see that shelf over there, the one with forty copies of ‘The Art of Epic War by Elon Musk’? Each copy is a fake lever that opens up its own individual katana room,” said Mark Galloway, examining the blueprints of the Imperium Wing. “Normally I’d be excited to win a contract this big, but every day he’d come in and give weird notes like ‘more yeet’ or ‘can you make the katana moan when I remove it from the display.’ Not to mention he keeps trying to pay me in something called SkibidiCoin. Sir, I don’t know what that is but I don’t want to accept any currency that comes out of a virtual toilet.”

Elsa McCormick, a maid at Musk’s mansion, revealed the difficulties of cleaning the labyrinthian interior of his palatial manor.

“Mr. Mus—oh, excuse my insubordination, he prefers God-Emperor of Mankind—The God-Emperor is very specific about how I clean his ‘cerebral dojos’,” said McCormick, carefully dusting a custom katana with a handle carved from a copy of ‘Atlas Shrugged’. “I do prefer this job to working in the Holodeck rooms, though. It makes me very uncomfortable when he commands me to read a bedtime story to his thirty virtual children who are programmed to call me ‘Mommy Grimes.'”

Musk himself insisted that his many secret rooms were necessary to concentrate on pioneering the next technological revolution.

“You must keep your mind as sharp as a fine katana forged from the rarest space metals, and my many cerebral dojos allow me a place to complete complex astrobiomechanical calculations while honing my skills with the blade,” said Musk, hacking through a stack of ‘woke’ videogames. “In fact, I have the highest-IQ master blacksmiths forging me new katanas around the clock. Satoshi-San here wrote me a fantastic haiku the other day: ‘Lord of space and time. Not weird, but cool, actually. Daddy would be proud.’ Simply tremendous, I shall have it emblazoned on the gates of my first Mars colony.”

At press time, President Trump visited Musk’s mansion and asked why he was having pajama parties with Benihana chefs in his dumb knife rooms.

Attendees to David Lynch’s Funeral Put Through Surreal Dream Journey

BY Thomas Wilde 

LOS ANGELES — Acclaimed director David Lynch was laid to rest today in a funeral that attendees called “a kaleidoscopic tour through the endless dark.”

Two generations of filmmakers turned out to say goodbye to Lynch, in an elaborate ceremony held at a condemned bowling alley in Little Tokyo. Attendees were ushered into the venue by two 7’-tall identical white men who did not speak or blink, and served coffee and cigarettes by caterers who, one assumes, were hired because they resembled the most famous people in the room.

The ceremony was officiated by an unidentified woman who read the day’s weather report aloud through tears, while only dressed in a black hat, veil, and opera gloves. She then gave a eulogy for a local porn producer named Dick Laurent before vanishing into the shadows behind her podium.

After 15 minutes of perfect silence, attendees who attempted to leave discovered that all the exits had disappeared. Several found other ways out via other doors inside the building, which led to other locations throughout Los Angeles County, including a cheap hotel in San Dimas and a greasy spoon in Alhambra. At time of writing, roughly half the people who attended Lynch’s funeral have yet to reappear in public.

“Oh, I thought it was perfect,” actress Laura Dern told Hard Drive. “The important thing about David’s funeral is what you personally take away from it. Asking what he intended is beyond the point.”

Dern continued, “Sure, I wish I knew where Nick [Cage] is now, or why his voicemail message has been replaced by a string of numbers read in a monotonous baritone, but I have faith in David’s vision. I’m sure Nick’s enjoying himself, wherever or whenever he is.”

Other attendees of the funeral weren’t as thrilled with the experience.

“I spent twenty-three years as a claims adjuster named Dexter Burbank,” said Justin Theroux, who appeared in Lynch’s final film, 2006’s Inland Empire. “I experienced every moment of Dexter’s quiet desperation, who was deeply unhappy in every way that counted and desperate for a way out. Then I, we, learned his wife was cheating on him, and dead, and also a wholly different person who sang in a 1930s jazz combo. I woke up in a dumpster, as myself, and cried. I guess it’s what David would’ve wanted.”

Lynch was 78. His family has requested that, in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to a random post office box in Venice Beach. Once an arbitrary amount of funding has been reached, the money will be used as an impetus for a tragicomic sequence of events with an uncertain ending.

Point-and-Click Adventure Gamer Denied Arthritis Medication by Insurance Company

BY Brett McCabe 

LANSING, Mich — A woman suffering from osteoarthritis was recently denied the cortisone injections she needed to painlessly pixel hunt around the backdrop of point-and-click adventure games.

Having tried over-the-counter acetaminophen, physical therapy, and browsing the forums of AdventureGamers.com, hand brace-clad Louisa Carver still needed help.

“After running around in Beautiful Desolation and then looking for one undistinguished book amongst the hundreds of books on a shelf in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it’s looking like I’m going to have to start playing controller games,” expelled Carver.

Before she was even declined, in order for Carver to find the phone number for her health care provider, she had to combine a balloon with packing foam, throw a rock to distract a goat, and steal a belt buckle from a fishmonger. Upon dialing, she had to guess the name of a gnome and enter it backward, before being placed on a two-and-a-half hour wait to speak to a representative.

“Unfortunately, having an extensive knowledge of the classic LucasArts catalog is a pre-existing condition,” explained Ronda Diaz, a representative of UnitedHealthcare, after a four hour wait and forty minutes of navigating the automated phone system.

While this news is upsetting to many Monkey Island fans, some loved ones of adventure gamers are not as supportive of this pastime.

“Normal boyfriends are up all night playing Call of Duty or Madden. When I’m trying to sleep, I have to hear ‘click click click’ all night while my boyfriend goes around asking unwelcoming villagers where to find a barrow in Victorian England,” bemoans Teri Taylor, a newer member of PAWG, People Against Wadjet Eye Games.

Louisa Carver is still going through her inventory, retracing her steps to see if she missed a Inland Empire check, in hopes to find a workaround solution.

At press time, Carver discovered if she sticks masking tape covered in cat hair on her face using maple syrup, she can use her friend’s ID to use his healthcare plan.

Paralyzed Pokemon Still Doing Quite A Lot Out There

BY Garry Kerls 

MAUVILLE CITY — In a miraculous turn of events, a thought to be paralyzed Sceptile has overcome the crippling status effect to defeat Wattson of the Mauville City Gym, sources in the gym confirm.

“I thought I had it in the bag!” claims the electric-type gym leader after embarrassingly giving up a badge and free TM to his young adversary. “A paralyzed person would never be able to do so much out there, I guess thunder waves don’t hit like they used to anymore.”

The victorious trainer’s Pokemon, who used nothing but sheer will and determination, powered through the debilitating condition, spamming physical moves until divine intervention allowed the immobilized monster to attack.

“It was nothing short of a miracle,” said one local Nurse Joy who was standing by during the gym battle. “It would typically take months, even years, for a Pokemon to rehabilitate from such a gruesome injury. Either that or a quick spray from a Paralyze Heal, the PokeMart’s groundbreaking medicinal spray that can suck the lightning right out of a Pokemon’s bones, now only $400 at Marts all across the region, get yours today!”

When approached by reporters regarding the sensational victory, the trainer from Littleroot Town told them he was doing a holistic challenge run.

“No potions, no healing items, and no trips to a Pokemon Center, I saw a guy on Twitch do it and thought, ‘that can’t be too hard’ so here I am,” he said. “The only way I can get my Pokemon to recover is by going all the way back home and having my mom do it.”

The recent influx of challenge runners rising the ranks through Hoenn has been concerning to the Gym leaders who make a living kicking the butts of naive children with underleveled Pokemon.

“It’s an epidemic!” says Sootopolis Gym Leader, Wallace. “These kids grind on route 1 for days and days and then slaughter every Gym Leader they approach. It’s an insult to the community and detrimental to the game, we need to do something about this.”

At press time, Officer Jennys have been placed at every route to ensure no Trainer is abusing the local wildlife just to complete some gratuitous challenge run.