By Joe Rumrill
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Breaking university-level research revealed the unpleasant truth that the sought-after record you’ve been looking for your whole life was in the crate you opted not to check, chagrined sources confirmed.
“It brings my team no joy to report this, please believe us. However, the cruel truth of the matter is, that particular sought-after album, no matter who you are, was in fact in that last crate you decided not to bother looking through. I’ll give you a moment to grieve,” said Dr. Taja Braithwaite, Head of Chemistry at San Jose State University, offering us a tissue. “We swear, we’ll get back to trying to cure diseases and prolonging the quality of life after this. The news is too depressing as it is, but it’s our duty to communicate this stuff, no matter what a bummer it may be.”
Most affected by this revelation are those customers whose lucky day was thwarted by ignoring those final milk crates full of potential deals.
“I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that the investigation was going to hit me and my ilk with bad news, but I could have never assumed it would be of this magnitude. I mean, with my hoarder’s mentality, I thought I was being healthy by not checking the last few dollar bins,” said frequent record buyer Emilio Hartough, as if trying to make sense of it all. “But, sometimes life just deals you a bad hand. I’ll never leave a store without checking every inch of it for a diamond in the coalmine ever again. Mark my words, I’m gonna live in those stacks until a pile crushes me to death.”
Longtime proprietor of San Jose’s popular record store “Scratchy’s Wax” Lenny “Scratchy” Hasselback was crestfallen to hear his profession’s cover was blown.
“Oh, we always put a few valuable ones deep in the dollar bins just to amuse ourselves. Creating a little chaos in the world is one of the few ways we record store schlubs can assert any manner of dominance in our meager existence, really,” said Kramer. “This study is definitely blowing up our spot, which, as you could imagine, sucks considerably. We’ll have to put a few of our best men on devising new and undetectable ways of fucking around with the clientele. Damn, we may have to start putting itching powder in the sleeves, huh?”
At press time, additional findings divulged data surrounding whether or not the records were autographed, which they absolutely were.
By Nathan Kamal
How to describe David Lynch? Is he a genius filmmaker? An iconoclastic multimedia artist? The dude who fumbled Isabella Rossellini? Well, I have another question: if the so-called David Lynch is truly such a brilliant maverick of cinema, why won’t he face me like a man and fight me?
That’s right, David Lynch, I’m calling you out as both a writer-director whose works have debatable artistic merit and as a lily-livered coward with admittedly great hair who is afraid to face me and my fists. You can’t pretend that there isn’t a connection between your reputation as one of the most singular cinematic voices of your generation and your press agent Naomi not calling me back when I gave a list of dates and locations where I would kick your Eagle Scout ass.
It took six years for ‘Eraserhead’ to get made, Lynch. How come it takes just as long for Naomi to return a voicemail?
Maybe you think it’s me, Davey Boy. Maybe you think I won’t use my hands, feet, elbows, and teeth to take down a giant of American film, just out of respect. Trying asking Marty Scorsese how that worked out for him. He’s currently eating gelato through a straw, which is admittedly not that hard.
No, this is all on you, Lynch. Despite your ability to simultaneously work in the mediums of film, painting, industrial music, and mediocre whole-bean coffee, you’re afraid. You don’t have the Bob’s Big Boys to strip down to the waist, put on one of my custom-made celebrity auteur fight mixtapes, and face me.
Some modern master of dream imagery and noted practitioner of Transcendental Meditation! What’s that, David? You’re trying to catch the big fish of your mind in pursuit of profound meaning in your own depths?
Well, trying catching these hands, motherfucker.
You’d think being able to heartbreakingly capture the humanity and sensitivity of the Elephant Man would make you able to face some hard realities, like how you’re going to get your butt kicked when I catch you out in the streets. As if. You can’t even get his name right!
His name was Joseph Merrick. Not John, you insensitive Army brat.
And if you can revolutionize modern television by creating a complex, genre-defying work like ‘Twin Peaks,’ how come you can’t come to the empty lot behind the Ralphs in Glendale and bring the fucking noise? Is it that Mark Frost had all the guts in your long and fruitful artistic collaboration? Because that dude has a wicked left hook, and he doesn’t give a shit.
I’ll put it to you plain, Lynch. You fucked up adapting ‘Dune,’ you couldn’t get Netflix to buy ‘Snootworld,’ and using low-res digital video to shoot ‘Inland Empire’ may have had financial advantages and created an eerie sense of unreality in an already disjointed and fragmented nightmare narrative, but it straight-up looked terrible.
David Lynch, if you don’t fight me, you are acknowledging before Hollywood, the ‘Blank Check’ podcast, and the entire world that you don’t have what it takes to put me in my place. I’ll be waiting for you whenever you grow a pair.
And don’t think you can send Kyle MacLachlan in your place, either. I respect him too much to beat his ass.
By Matt Husser
LOS ANGELES — A K9 unit dog was commended during training today after he successfully shut his body cam off before tearing his squeaky toy a new asshole, police sources confirmed.
“It took months of hard work and training, but I finally figured out how to turn off my body cam with my paw before ripping that ‘Petey the Protestor’ squeaky toy a new one,” said K9 rookie Pawnold Reagan, digging up a rubber knife he had planted at the scene before alerting his handler. “Ever since I could open my eyes I just wanted to make my team proud, and I could see how happy they were when I shook Petey by his ass for an extra 30 seconds after it was clear he had enough. I asked him if I could learn to sit and shake next, but he said I won’t be needing any of those de-escalation skills once I’m on the streets.”
Reagan’s handler, Officer Joe Dower, was reportedly so impressed with the K9’s virtuoso performance that he thought he might be able to learn a thing or two from his star pupil.
“Pawnold just put on a masterclass in plausible deniability that they’ll be teaching at the academy for years—I mean, pretending to scratch yourself, lick your butthole, and then ‘accidentally’ shutting your cam off? Brilliant!” said Dower, watching the footage on his laptop while driving his cruiser down a residential street. “And even when the camera is running Pawnold is shaking himself so it’s too blurry to tell what’s going on. He’s so good it almost makes me feel bad about all those puppies we shot during stash house raids.”
Following the rousing success of the K9 candidate, Los Angeles Chief of Police Dominic Choi has reportedly considered hiring more dogs from Reagan’s litter.
“We could use more officers like Pawnold in the police department—smart, forceful, and unable to talk to Internal Affairs, unless they happen to have those little speech buttons the dogs on TikTok use,” said Chief Choi, rifling through a dossier about Reagan’s 12 brothers and sisters. “Plus even if he performs a civil forfeiture on a chunk of your arm during a routine traffic stop, how could you stay mad at that cute little face? Who’s a good boy with qualified immunity? It’s you! You’re above the law, yes you are!”
At press time, Officer Dower was busy trying to teach Reagan how to use his puppy dog eyes to coerce suspects for a confession before their lawyer is able to arrive.
BY Travis Tack LOS ANGELES — Two veteran officers were incredibly relieved last night when they discovered that the unarmed black man they opened fire on was actually a vampire.
“At first, I just thought he was a black guy with bad teeth. And I got really worried after I shot him because the governor specifically told us not to shoot any more black guys.” explained Officer Randal Dennison. “I knew something was wrong when the first two shots didn’t take him down. but I’m not just going to stab some black guy with a wooden stake on the off-chance he’s a vampire.”
The officers say the individual lunged at them with the incredible speed you can only find in a black vampire. Now they just need to convince Internal Affairs that it really was a vampire.
“I’m going to need more proof, because people have used that excuse before,” Internal Affairs agent Mike Gordon declared. “It’s always ‘he was acting erratic’ or ‘I thought he had a gun’ or ‘that black guy was a werewolf’. Then we check the body cam footage, and guess what? It’s almost never a werewolf. In the last month, we had cops say they shot two Frankensteins, one Jason, and a Chupacabra. Guy’s trying to tell me the Chupacabra was going for his gun. Now why would a Chupacabra need a gun?”
County coroner Dr. Philip Shastal, confirmed that his autopsy findings also concluded that the almost victim was indeed a vampire.
“We’re conducting further tests, but at this stage I’m pretty confident he’s a vampire. For one thing, he woke up halfway through the autopsy,” Dr Shastal told reporters. “Pretty cool, if you ask me! He looked like a better version of that guy from True Detective Season 3. Plus, his body was immaculate. No stress lines on his face and he didn’t have a single wrinkle. I’d guess he hadn’t paid taxes a single day in his life.”
At press time, the department is continuing their investigation and the officers are on desk duty and strictly limited to day-shifts.