thehardtimes

Hard Digest October 29: Werewolves, Early Access Bahaus, Fred Durst, Davey Havok, and More

Added 2024-10-30 00:00:11 +0000 UTC

Werewolf Criticized After Leaving Himself in Hot Car

TUCSON, Ariz. — Local werewolf Steve Callahan was under fire today after an unexpected transformation left his wolf form trapped in a hot car, concerned sources confirmed.

“How was I supposed to know the full moon would be visible in the middle of the day? I was just sitting in my car and suddenly I’m a werewolf, I can’t get the doors open cause I don’t have thumbs, and some Karen is calling the cops,” said Callahan, trying to cover himself with his tattered clothes. “Next thing I know this lady smashes the window, I black out during my werewolf rampage, and I wake up naked in jail. How can I get arrested for animal abuse when I’m the animal?”

Concerned bystander Gloria McHale came across the snarling nine-foot hellhound trapped in the car and immediately called 911 to help rescue the animal.

“The audacity of that horrible man to leave his sweet little angel puppy in that hot car! That poor little pup was so scared that he was clawing at the windows and biting through the steering wheel in one chomp. It’s no wonder he mauled all those people after we set him free,” said McHale, patching up a bite on her arm. “And worst of all they found the dog’s terrible owner the next day naked in some gutter, ranting about how he was actually the dog—no doubt coming down from some drug trip.”

Damien Krieger, spokesperson for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Cryptids, warned of the importance of protecting your animal transformation.

“While Lycanthropes might not be able to choose exactly when they transform, it’s their responsibility to take extra precautions near full moons to ensure the safety of their werewolf form. We recommend not participating in certain activities during that time of the month, like operating heavy machinery or being around a bunch of Halloween chocolate that might make your wolf sick,” said Krieger, throwing red paint on a display selling genuine Chupacabra leather. “Now you can’t always avoid things that might trigger your wolf form, like holidays with fireworks, but you should at least wrap yourself in a ThunderShirt so you don’t frighten your werewolf with scary noises.”

At press time, local vampire Andrei Moldovan was facing a fine for animal endangerment after he transformed into a bat and accidentally got tangled up in his clothesline.

Halloween Party Struggles to Power Through All Nine Minutes of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”

By Dan Kozuh

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Local Halloween party attendees were seen struggling to make it through all nine and a half minutes of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” by goth band Bauhuas after host Darkwave-DJ Max Pendleton put it on, according to sources who just wanted to dress slutty and get drunk.

“I was into it for, like, the first 90 seconds but then minutes went by and it was still just like strumming,” said attendee Erin Fields, while waiting to use the bathroom for the second time before the song ended. “Then I was like… this is still happening. Is it going to stop? Everyone was looking around at one another, like, is someone going to say something? By the eighth minute, most of us were screaming at [Max] to switch to another song. Some left, others were looking at their phones, while others pretended to be engrossed in beer bottle labels.”

Pendleton, however, refused to skip the track no matter how much they complained.

“BLG is all about the vibe and the atmosphere it creates. I was setting a specific mood for the party. I thought people would appreciate that,” Pendleton explained, adjusting his black velvet cape even though he wasn’t dressed as a vampire. “It’s a classic, quintessential Hallowen track. Timeless. Iconic. Mysterious. People need to experience it in its entirety to fully get into the Halloween spirit, you know? Plus, it just went so well after eight and a half minutes of The Cure’s ‘Disintegration.’”

Dr. Meredith Collins, a professor of music history at Eastman School of Music, explained this all too common phenomenon.

“People love to throw ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ on their Halloween playlists because it feels like a necessary Halloween track, but they always forget just how long, tedious, and monotonous it really is,” Collins explained. “It’s almost ten minutes of eerie nothingness that drags on, which is great for introspection when you’re writing the screenplay for an A24 horror movie, but it’s definitely not suited for a lively party. By the time you hit minute five, guests are usually staring at the floor, wondering when, if ever, it will end.”

As of press time, Pendleton’s party officially cleared out when the very next track was the seven-minute long “Love You To Death” by Type O Negative.

Are You Turning Into a Vampire or Just Simultaneously Horny and Hungry?

By Ben Friedman

Now that we’re in the throes of Spooky Season, it can be so easy to be caught up in the festivities you forget about your personal health and safety. You might go out to a Halloween bar crawl one Friday night and have a little too much fun, only to wake up the next day to find the sun through the blinds might actually kill you and experience excruciating hunger pangs. Now you’re starting to second guess if the couple that liked your vibe last night weren’t actually dressed as characters from “True Blood”. Since time may be running out, here are some handy questions to determine if you’re turning into a vampire or just horny and hungry.

Q: Does hypoglycemia run in your family?
Low blood sugar could explain the paleness and feeling weak, but they’re also boilerplate characteristics of vampire life. Another good question to ask is if you’re having a diabetic episode, is your go-to snack chocolate or are you desperate enough to suck the blood out of a rat in public?

Q: Are you experiencing an unslakable craving for blood?
This is the best place to start because if you’ve not been recruited into the army of the undead, you could just be low on iron. Now might be a good time to shotgun text all your Tinder connections for an intimate steakhouse dinner date. If the bloodlust remains after housing a 32 oz. prime rib and the handjob in the Uber afterward, do the right thing and tell your date to RUN.

Q: Can you turn into a bat?
Just checking! But if you said yes, know that the Catholic Church is probably hunting you as you read this.

Q: What’s your opinion on garlic?
If you find yourself salivating at the intoxicating scent of cooking garlic, chances are you are simply hungry or possibly Italian. But many benefits of the natural vampire repellent DO align with vampire superpowers such as boosting strength, extending life longevity, and being an aphrodisiac. It all comes down to the last time you had bolognese or let someone bite you during sex.

Q: Go rub one out, we’ll wait.
Now that you have some post-nut clarity, has your insatiable lust been quenched or do you still have a bloody orgy on the brain? If you’re feeling the latter, split the difference and hit up a local brunch spot and rizz up a bachelorette party while drinking one of those Bloody Mary’s where they stack half the appetizer menu on top of it. And if that doesn’t work, you at least can look forward to amassing a polycule of undead concubines to solve the horniness problem at least.

Fred Durst Begins Ghost Story, “On a Dark and Stormy Night, When Everything Was Fucked and Everybody Sucked…”

By Courtney Hill

MT. POCONO, Penn. — Limp Bizkit singer Fred Durst recently crashed a Halloween campout and borrowed a bit of his own poetry to launch into a ghost story, sources ‘round the bonfire reported.

“Some buddies and I were on a camping trip when there was a rustle from the woods,” Casey Morehouse explained while dousing embers with bong water. “Then we heard a belch and a fart at the same time and suddenly Fred Durst came tumbling out of the bushes like, ‘Whazzah ya’ll halloweenisses!? You want a ghost story?? Aight, check it— On a dark and stormy night, when everything was fucked and everybody sucked, there was a ghost who couldn’t say why but wanted to justify ripping someone’s head off.’ It started strong but then got kind of confusing. The ghost was part of some murder-for-hire plot, then went around punching people in the face just for talking and ultimately wound up harvesting someone’s skin with a chainsaw. For the big scare at the end Durst was like, ‘and the ghost was ME!’ and we were like, ‘Yeah, no shit.’”

Contrary to assumption, Durst himself clarified that the tale was not just drunkenly made up on the spot.

“Na dog, it’s been in the fam for generations… through the oral tradition,” Durst snickered. “The story has many versions cuz really it’s a metaphor for symbolism and shit. Like the ghost is mad dope, but the world got mad haters so to earn that respect the ghost has to climb out of a giant toilet. Sometimes the ghost just wants to crowd surf on some plywood but the world can’t hear him cuz the microphone’s broke. The scariest one is when everyone thinks the ghost is gone forever, but then it reappears and abducts Halle Berry to a psych ward just to film himself licking her chin. It’s relatable cuz we’re all the ghost.”

Professor of lyricology Dalton Norshank pointed out that this was no isolated incident.

“Hard rockers are always repurposing their own work to add to the Halloween spirit,” Norshank said while cataloging his toenail clippings. “Ozzy has started countless ghost stories with the rhetorical question ‘what is this that stands before me?’ Kerry King has been banned from speaking at any Halloween parade in the country ever since the Dead Skin Mask incident. Billy Corgan has a short yet stirring Halloween classic: ‘This killer in me is the killer in you. The end.’”

At press time, Durst remained lost in the woods asking fellow hikers if they knew which way was straight.

Davey Havok Overheard Screaming “Do You Know Who I Am?” After Being Kicked Off Haunted Hayride

By The Hard Times Staff

LOS ANGELES — Legendary AFI frontman Davey Havok was overheard screaming “Do you know who I am?” at Harold’s Haunted Hayride employees while being forcibly removed from the premises, confirmed multiple sources.

“The clowns running this so-called Halloween attraction have no idea what it means to be spooky,” said Havok while being escorted to his custom hearse by security personnel. “I knew this was going to be a problem as soon as they told me I needed to leave my rats in the car. And when I told them I have a colony of bats that follow me as soon as the sun goes down they basically freaked out. My bats are very well-trained and all of them have their rabies vaccines, so I don’t see why it’s a problem if they fly around me eating bugs. They also claimed I broke the rules by bringing a bottle of blood to drink. Apparently they want me to pay $16 for whatever drinks they have at the concession stand, I’m sorry, but I only drink top of the line blood.”

Lizza Ramirez, the General Manager of Harold’s Haunted Hayride, says Havok has been a nuisance for the past few seasons.

“Last year he crashed the children’s pumpkin carving contest and made all the kids cry when he cut the power to the tent, lit a bunch of hay bales on fire, and chased everyone around with a giant snake,” said Ramirez. “The year before that he mailed himself to our gift shop inside a coffin, and when one of our employees opened it Mr. Havok bit him multiple times on the arm while screaming ‘I am undead.’ He’s currently serving a lifelong ban from our property, but he will paint his face white, put in some vampire teeth, and wear a wig so we don’t recognize him. I just wish AFI would tour when our humble attraction opens at the end of September.”

Southern California law enforcement officials expect more disruptions at Halloween events by ghoulish musicians.

“Some people think this is all a big joke. But I don’t see what’s so funny about having to arrest Alice Cooper every single year because he refuses to leave the haunted house at Knott’s Berry Farm. Without fail, he struts in there, sets up shop, and proceeds to psychologically torment the fine people of Buena Park and surrounding areas,” said veteran police officer Lyle Winston. “One of my buddies was just telling me that Marilyn Manson entered himself in a dog costume contest and kept trying to lick his own genitals in public. These people are sick.”

At press time, Havok was being asked to leave a midnight screening of “Nosferatu” after bringing his own pipe organ into the theater to score the movie.

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New Hero Shooter Roster Looks Gay Enough to Last

BY Jake Mooney

SAN DIEGO — A promising new hero shooter, “Slayers,” is looking as though it will outlive predecessors in its genre thanks to the ostentatious queerness of its roster, insider sources confirmed.

“We studied what made hero shooters like ‘Overwatch’ so successful and shooters like ‘Battleborn’ and ‘Concord’ such major flops,” “Slayers” lead developer Alexa Prone outlined. “We ultimately found out that the perceived gayness of the games’ rosters played the biggest role in whether or not they would survive past launch. At best, ‘Battleborn’ had straight women with hairstyles that gay men could live vicariously through, and look how that game turned out. ‘Overwatch,’ on the other hand, recently added a nonbinary character and still has hundreds of thousands of active players.”

The “Slayers” development team have reported the bulk of their time and resources have been spent curating the game to an LGBTQ+ audience, with hero balancing and map design taking a backseat.

“We really wanted to do away with the traditional roles of ‘Damage’, ‘Tank’, ‘Support’, and implement roles that better reflect our roster of characters as well as the audiences who play as them,” gameplay designer Francesca Gould stated in a gameplay trailer. “Our four main roles: twink, bear, butch, and femme, all offer unique stats that allow for some really efficient team composition. Twinks and femmes are best suited for diving, whereas bears are ideal on the front lines, and butch heroes are flexible. We’re excited to see what creative combos you come up with!”

Despite this enthusiasm from the developers, players have reported balancing issues plaguing the game and ruining the overall experience.

“There is absolutely zero balancing, not to mention there’s only one map: Bushwick,” frustrated gamer Devin Fractal ranted while livestreaming. “I still cannot tell the difference between the twink and femme heroes, the bears are just damage-sponges, and I can’t stop jerking off to the fanart of the butch heroes! I really can’t see a competitive scene coming out of this, it’s way too broken in this state. I’m just gonna play ‘Overwatch,’ it’s much more balanced and the porn scene is amazing.”

At press time, “Slayers” announced that its release would be postponed indefinitely among queerbaiting allegations.

Democrats Paid Me Millions to Build a Weather Controlling Machine but It Keeps Only Making It Rain Meatballs (Guest Column by Flint Lockwood)

BY RJ Dralle

All the conspiracy theories surrounding the government controlling the weather with machines are true. I should know, I’m the guy who invented and sold the weather controlling machine to the Democrats for millions of dollars. But unfortunately, for both the Democrats and myself, my weather controlling machine went bananas. If those bananas tasted like meatballs.

It started a few years ago with a knock on my door. A couple of government agents came into my Swallow Falls home, sat me down, and pulled out a secured phone. On the other line was President Joe Biden. He told me he was a fan of some of my inventions like the spray-on shoes and Hair Un-balder. He was buttering me up. What he was really interested in was my weather controlling machine. He said that he wanted to, and I quote, “take out the competition”. Little did he and I know, the only competition my weather controlling machine was going to take out were Italian restaurants.

The first target my machine was going to hit was Florida. It’s a red state that has caused many headaches for the Democratic party. On the President’s orders, I fired up the weather machine and put the setting on “HURRICANE”. But that’s not what it sent. Instead, it rained meatballs. Hundreds of thousands of meatballs fell to the Florida ground. Which only caused a saucey mess but no damages were done. It was the complete opposite of what Democrats wanted. In fact, it only made things worse for them, because one of those meatballs became governor.

That mistake made the Democrats furious with me. And now, I’m in a pickle. They’re after me. They want me and my weather controlling machine destroyed before I spill the beans – literally. They’re afraid that if we aren’t stopped, I could send a catastrophic bean tsunami to a blue state like California. If you don’t hear from me again, it means they chopped me. But you can still fight back. You have to! If you don’t, you can just stick a fork in this country, because it’s done.

You’ve been warned