thehardtimes

Hard Digest September 4: Tim Burton, Early Access Acid, Bill and Ted, Math Rock, and More

Added 2024-09-05 00:00:07 +0000 UTC

Hot Topic Immediately Opens New Location Next To Tim Burton’s Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

LOS ANGELES — A brand new Hot Topic franchise opened for business on Hollywood Boulevard mere moments after acclaimed director Tim Burton received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, inoffensively spooky sources confirmed.

“Tim Burton has been this company’s bread and butter ever since emo music became irrelevant around 2007,” explained Hot Topic CEO Steve Vranes. “It only makes sense that anybody willing to journey all the way out here just to see their idol’s name etched into stone is naturally going to want to pick up some Jack Skellington fishnets and a ‘Coraline’ strobe light while they’re here. Plus there’s a Sbarro right across the street so they’ll nostalgically feel like they’re right back in the malls of their youth.”

Hollywood resident Arlo Snedder believes that the addition of the Hot Topic is in contrast to the neighborhood’s obvious cultural value.

“The Walk of Fame is an institution in the recognition of artistic accomplishment! This new store is just some cheap gimmick to rob hapless tourists of their disposable income,” bemoaned Snedder while selling hand-drawn maps to Zendaya’s house for forty dollars apiece. “It figures that these greedy corporations would try to cash in on a true artist’s achievement like this. This neighborhood used to be cool, but now it’s so commercial that it’s like having your name scribbled into a piece of concrete doesn’t even have any meaning anymore.”

Filmmaker Tim Burton expressed his appreciation for the honor he recently received.

“I just want to quickly say, to everyone who made this possible, that all ‘Corpse Bride’ sleeping bags are currently 15% off for a limited time! Oh yeah, and I guess the star thing is pretty cool too,” said Burton, who has thus far won three separate ‘Best Costume’ awards simply for walking into various Horror-Cons in his street clothes. “But seriously, I just want to say that we filmmakers don’t choose to make art because of awards or honors – we do it because when we see the smiling faces of the young creatives who spent all of their birthday check on an Ed Wood ventriloquist’s dummy, well that makes it all worthwhile.”

At press time, it was reported that a Spencer’s Gifts location had also recently opened directly next to the Walk of Fame star for Bob Marley.

Man Who Took Acid Wasn’t Prepared for Sheer Volume of Ugly People in Philadelphia Park

By Ian Steffé

PHILADELPHIA — Local man Nathan Burke was traumatized by an onslaught of unattractive people in Fairmount Park after he took acid on a picnic blanket with the intent of enjoying a pleasant afternoon, sources report.

“It was perfect. A Brian Eno playlist. A cooler full of ice cream sandwiches. Some nice loose fitting clothes. But nobody ever warns you about avoiding ugly people while you are tripping, and this city is full of trolls,” said a visibly shaken Burke. “This family was having a picnic, eating rotisserie chicken on all fours without their hands. I turned around and these two guys playing frisbee smiled and their chins touched their eyeballs. A sausage and egg Sizzli from Wawa screamed in Portuguese while ducks pecked at it. There was a lady in thick pancake makeup applying eyeshadow with a trowel. Dark swirling holes for eyes. She tried to sell me a Joel Embiid jersey for a butterfly kiss on the cheek. It was too much man. I got the FUCK out of there.”

Burke’s friend and supplier of said acid, Shawn Aparo, offered some perspective of the situation.

“Look, Nathan was in a bad place after his break-up and wanted a hundred years of therapy in a day to move on. But this wasn’t his first rodeo. I figured he would be smart enough to control his environment, but he was the dumbass who wanted to play dice in Fairmount Park,” reported Aparo. “Even if you’re sober, that place is just rowing teams of Buscemi eyes and necklaces of skin tags . Some things you just don’t do. And being on drugs especially is most of those things.”

Among the subjects of Thompson’s hallucinogenic horror was Adrian Danon, 75, a local park regular known for his eyepatch.

“Oh yeah, the young fella screamed when he saw me. Thought I was a pirate of some sort I suppose,” Danon recounted. “I’m used to it at this point. Kids these days are too sensitive. Back in my day, we didn’t have drugs to blame when we saw an ugly face. We just married it. We loved it. Made a life with it. That’s the Philadelphia way. You know, you get past the arms and legs covered in scabs, the yellow teeth, and hope to God that face won’t kill nobody.”

As of press time, Burke is recovering and swears to stay away from Kensington for the rest of his natural life.

Opinion: It’s Time to Stop Letting Politics Divide Us and Start Building a Time Machine to Go Back and Help Bill and Ted Get an A+ in History

By Dan Rice

Words like “hope” and “optimism” have been going around a lot the last few weeks, but if you ask me, we’re just settling. Sure, it’s nice not to feel like we’re on the brink of global fascism for a little while and sure, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are, nice, or whatever. But are they going to make us all be excellent to each other? Will they bolster our infrastructure to the point where we have more awesome waterslides than any planet we’re in contact with? Why are we so joyfully accepting a band-aid to our growing turmoil when we’ve known the solution since 1989?

It’s time we all set politics aside and pool our national, or better yet global resources into perfecting time travel technology so Bill and Ted can ace their history report and lead us into utopia.

We’ve all seen what could be. The lack of war, the abundance of resources, the adaption of “Party on dudes” as a universal hello and goodbye. Why in God’s name are we settling for anything less? Do we want leaders who are maybe going to make late-stage capitalism suck a little bit less for a couple of years or do we want leaders who wear retro-futurist robes and sunglasses indoors who can make music by air guitaring somehow? We need to stop being so short-sighted and we need to start setting The Excellent Ones on the path that will lead us all to a brighter tomorrow.

I know what you’re thinking—” Aren’t Keanu Reeves and Alex Winters getting a little old? Isn’t George Carlin dead?” Well, that’s what’s so great about a time machine—it’s a time machine! Once you realize the possibilities time travel opens up, any alternatives become most heinous by comparison.

It’s been 25 years since that movie came out and I am most devastated to report that in all that time we have not made one step forward toward making it a reality. If anything, we’ve gotten further away from it! We don’t even have regular phone booths anymore, let alone a phone booth that can round up the likes of Socrates, Billy the Kid, and Abraham Lincoln. Right now Station are looking down at us from heaven thinking “Shouldn’t those bodacious dudes have come to pick us up by now?”

If we don’t collectively set forth on this excellent adventure now there will be no bogus journey to the idyllic Wild Stallion society that could be, and the only music we’ll be facing will be the shrieking terrors of societal collapse. Call your congressperson today and hum a few bars of “God Gave Rock ‘N’ Roll To You” before we are all just dust in the wind.

Math Rock Waiter Doesn’t Mind If You Split the Check

By Dan Bookbinder

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — Local Fangles Family Kitchen server and math rock fan Dave Morgan eagerly accommodated a request to split a check as a demonstration of his love of complex nonstandard calculations, relieved sources confirmed.

“Most waiters scoff when a 10-top orders drinks, apps from the discounted happy hour menu, fries for the table, then split four 3-For-Me dinners, and want to put it on seven separate cards, each paying for part of the birthday girl’s meal. It spawns a massive argument. But I love a mathematical challenge,” said Morgan, guitarist and programmer for mathcore band Tinkerer, as he wiped mustard off a King Crimson pin on his work vest. “Where else can you do complicated computations for an average of 17.3% gratuity? I’m going to be able to afford a new sequencer in no time.”

Local patron Heather Dickinson was excited to hear about Morgan’s eagerness to accommodate an otherwise restaurant bill disaster.

“Elizabeth insisted on Fangles for birthday happy hour, and the waiters usually are so pissy about the littlest request. But greasy glasses guy can handle checking the balance on multiple gift cards while splitting credit, debit, half cash half card, and a Groupon,” said Dickinson, Norwood Middle School Expository Writing Teacher and birthday outing organizer. “He just never gets the dressing right on my Southwest Caesar because he’s too busy tapping his notepad with irregular starts and stops. Small price to pay.”

Consumer advocacy groups applauded employees who are really into math rock for their work ethic.

“Restaurants don’t care about service and hospitality anymore. Customers are sick of going to a burger joint where servers can’t count change, and getting eye rolls when you want an Arnold Palmer that’s 80% iced tea, 20% lemonade,” said consumer expert Brennan Ling. “Math rock nerds can do it all with ease. We strongly encourage the hiring of these types of musicians for the benefit of diners and coworkers. They are rarely hungover, will work brunch shifts instead of weekend nights, and have already memorized the price on every menu item.”

At press time, Morgan’s eyes lit up after he was informed that the restaurant’s internal system was down and he had to calculate diners’ checks manually.

Every Character From “The Matrix” Ranked by How Likely They Would Try to Get You to Invest in Crypto

Rent Somehow Still High in Apartment Building with Annual Murder

BY Matt Fresh

NEW YORK — Residents of the historic Arconia apartment building are expressing frustration that their rent remains high despite there now being an annual murder in the building.

“It’s just getting a little ridiculous at this point you know,” stated resident Howard Morris. “I was fine with the high rent initially because it’s a beautiful high class building that has plenty of room for my cats and now dog but you’d think once people start getting killed every year the least they could do is lower the price to live here. Sure, it is exciting to live in the heart of a now famous podcast but any one of us could be the next victim and somehow we’re still charged rent like a building where no one ever dies.”

Another resident of the building, Uma Heller stated her belief as to why rent is still high.

“I blame those podcast putzes. The first murder that happened sure we’ll call an isolated incident but then they go around making a hit podcast about it, bringing attention to our building and drawing more murders to take place here. To make matters worse the one person who could have lowered the rent was murdered almost immediately after they solved the first one so now we’re stuck in a high rent building where people get killed once a year. We should have kicked them out when we had the chance.”

Podcast host and former successful Broadway director Oliver Putnam sympathizes with the other residents of the building but refuses to take blame.

“I get it, I once struggled to pay the rent in this building. I almost got kicked out and was forced to eat nothing but dip and gut milk. So I understand the frustration but it’s not our fault that people are getting killed in this building. And frankly I’m a little insulted by the implication. These murders have brought prosperity to me and this building thanks to the incredibly successful podcast I created about it. Rent is probably still high because this building is now even more famous, constant death be damned. If someone has to die every year to keep me on top then so be it.”

At press time, another murder has reportedly taken place and the building owners are actually considering raising rent in anticipation of the publicity the new season of the podcast will bring.