thehardtimes

Hard Digest January 7: Early Access Weezer, Therapy, Selling Souls, and More

Added 2025-01-08 01:00:05 +0000 UTC

Dad Catches Daughter and Boyfriend in Back Seat of Car Listening to Weezer’s “Raditude”

CHICAGO — Local dad Patrick Larken caught his oldest daughter in the backseat of her boyfriend’s fogged-up Toyota Corolla singing along to Weezer’s seventh studio album “Raditude,” confirmed sources.

“I suspected something was going on for a while now,” said Larken, father of three and an early Weezer fan. “The first time we officially met, he was wearing a Van Weezer-era t-shirt. It was just such an offensive thing to wear to meet your girlfriend’s parents. What kind of influence is he having on my daughter? When I caught them, she of course ran away crying, yelling, ‘Weezer is more than just the ’90s, Dad!’ In my day, it was simpler—you just had two albums to deal with: ‘The Blue Album’ and ‘Pinkerton.’ Kids today have so much Weezer music. How do you know what’s good and bad anymore?”

Daughter Jessica Larken didn’t see what all the fuss was about and said her dad needed to let it go.

“It’s like, I get that those two records came out at a critical time for that generation, but they’ve released 13 studio albums since then! And spoiler alert: some of those records are actually pretty great,” said the teenage daughter. “‘Hurley’? Slept on. ‘Pacific Daydream’? Exactly that, and it’s delightful. Rivers Cuomo is a low-key genius for his songwriting abilities. Plus, I’m 17 years old. I can listen to whatever I want with whoever I want. I can’t believe I was grounded for two weeks because of this and they said I can only date someone who liked pre ‘American Idiot’ Green Day.”

Family therapist Susan Squires, who specializes in parent-child Weezer therapy, says the dynamic between “old” and “new” Weezer is often fueled by misdirected expectations.

“Long before the parents had kids, they could get away with ignoring the last 25 years of Weezer records, but along comes a child who is new to everything and forming their own opinions. What speaks to them won’t be what spoke to mom and dad back in 1994 and it’s hard for the adults to see that,” Squires explained. “Often, parents in these scenarios will say they expect more out of their children, but in reality, what they really mean is they expect more out of Weezer.”

As of press time, Larken, in a show of goodwill, listened to “Raditude” to mend fences and admitted that he “digs the song with Lil Wayne.”

Interesting: This Woman Doesn’t Believe In Therapy but Treats All Her Friends Like Therapists

By Dom Turek

The stigma surrounding psychotherapy has existed since its inception, and for good reason. If you seek mental and emotional help, you’re admitting that you have mental and emotional problems. How humiliating is that? You might as well start walking around town in a straight jacket and howling at the moon.

In a world where people scour the internet looking for sliding scale therapists to kiss away their mind boo-boos and blame mommy and daddy for sudden onset fears of birds, one brave woman has chosen a neural-pathway less traveled. For 34-year-old Jennie Delarosa, there is no problem too daunting that a night out with friends can’t solve.

“I don’t know where I’d be without weekly dinners with my gals,” said Delarosa. “We talk about everything from work crushes, to new recipes, to the recurring dream I have, night after merciless night where a group of men dressed in colonial garb remove my teeth one by one with a pair of my fathers pliers and force me to become the village seamstress, and then later one of us pretends it’s our birthday so we can get free cake. We’re so bad.”

Delarosa actually finds these dinners to be so helpful that she has started asking her friends if they have the availability to meet twice a week.

“Unfortunately, scheduling seems to be a little tight right now,” said Kayla Osborne, Delarosa’s longtime friend. “I’m looking at my calendar and I don’t think there’s time for another session this week, but I’ll contact her if anything opens up. She knows to call 911 if she finds herself in an emergency situaion.”

Not one to be impressed by showy college degrees or psychobabble buzzwords like “self-awareness” and “inner-peace,” Delarosa can’t conceive that anyone in their right mind would spend hundreds of dollars a week talking to a stranger about their most intimate problems.

She’d much rather deal with inner turmoil in a way her father would approve of by spending hundreds of dollars a week drinking screwdrivers at the bar and unloading decades of trauma on a man she just met who, unbeknownst to her, fell asleep an hour ago.

Punk Sells Soul to Devil to Get Worse at Guitar

By Joe Rumrill

U.S. ROUTE 49, Miss. — Local punk and guitar virtuoso Drennen Boydell decided to sell his soul to the Devil in exchange for getting worse at his instrument, sources confirmed as a tumbleweed ambled by, as if on cue.

“I know it’s not something you hear too many people complaining about, but everyone’s always giving me shit for being too good at guitar. Punks in my scene telling me I oughta start a symphonic metal band left and right. A guy can only get roasted so much before he’s gotta look at himself long and hard in the mirror, take stock in what’s really important, and make a pact with Satan, y’know?” said Boydell. “So, I took a page out of Robert Johnson’s book, and headed down to the crossroads to get rid of this pesky soul in exchange for superhuman sloppiness. The only thing I used the soul for was crying at the end of movies anyway, so I figure I’ll save a lot on tissues too, as a bonus.”

The Devil was less than enthused about participating in yet another tired rehash of soul collecting.

“Man, I don’t know how the rumor got started that I was mainly interested in taking ‘souls’ as my main barter, but I’ll rue that day for all eternity. What I could really use is a couple hundred bucks every now and then, I’ll tell you that! Rent down in the fiery depths of Hell ain’t cheap, buddy. I should know, I made it that way!” said the Devil, with a pleasant laugh that betrayed his reputation. “The soul-to-cash exchange rate down here is just getting more and more meager. Things are tough all over, sure, but they’re especially tough in the land of eternal damnation, in my humble opinion.”

Angrier still is the man who owns the house facing the crossroads, the local crank known as Old Man Mahoney.

“You’d think owning crossroads-adjacent property would be a total dream, but take into consideration how often Beelzebub himself shows up in your front yard. That’ll take your resale value down a pretty penny, I tell ya what. The realtor who sold it to me made sure to mention all the natural sunlight and proximity to nightlife, but somehow forgot to say ‘Lucifer may appear frequently while you’re out mowing your lawn,’” said Mahoney, on one of his many rocking chairs. “Plus, to make matters even worse, I’m miles from the nearest hospital or airport. But the devil thing, that’s like, definitely toward the top of my gripes here.”

At press time, Boydell reportedly ended up so bad at the guitar that he’s since switched to being the scene’s best bass player.

Silent Protagonist Jinxed Back in Middle School

BY Garry Kerls

PALLET TOWN — After quietly climbing the ranks and becoming the Pokémon League Champion, Red has broken his vow of silence revealing he was jinxed by Blue back in middle school.

“Fucking finally! You don’t know how frustrating it was to walk across the entire region, fight eight gym leaders, the Elite Four, and countless Team Rocket Grunts all while keeping my mouth shut,” he told our sources outside the Indigo Plateau. “After that jackass jinxed me I had two options, either become the greatest Pokémon Trainer in the world, or buy him a soda.”

The incident occurred in the PokéSchool cafeteria when both Red and Blue said “Dewgong these nuts” at the exact same time. Blue quickly jinxed Red rendering him speechless until Blue said his name three times.

“He came home from school one day and didn’t say a word,” said Red’s Mother as she sat motionless at her kitchen table. “I just assumed he was going through adolescence, and what better way for an eleven year old to come out of his shell than embarking on a cross-country adventure with some little rat thing Professor Oak gave him?”

The young Pokémon Trainer then spent the next several months silently wandering around the Kanto region, aimlessly walking into stranger’s houses, onto cruise ships, and infiltrating an underground crime organization’s secret headquarters.

“I suppose I should’ve gotten some sort of verbal consent before I thrust a Pokémon into that kid’s hands, but he would’ve been killed if he went into that tall grass alone, I saved his life,” said Professor Oak in an interview with Kanto Quarterly. “I never told him to go become a Pokémon Champion, he did that on his own accord.”

What was chalked up by most as being shyness, anxiety, or a monk-like spiritual vow of silence has finally been revealed, showing that if we listen more and talk less we too could become the very best, like no one ever was.

At press time, Red has started a podcast where he can yap on and on to his heart’s content.