Hard Digest May 4: Early Access BOSS, Sublime, Documentary Films, Boycotts, and More

BOSS Finally Releases Pedal That Makes Guitar Sound Like “Jack Black Impersonating a Guitar Solo”

BY JOE RUMRILL 

HAMAMATSU, Japan — Pedal manufacturer BOSS announced that they will finally be releasing a pedal that sounds like Jack Black scatting a very dope guitar solo, sources confirmed with a little “squir-dit-dilly-derr.”

“For one thing, I know BOSS is relieved to stop getting constant messages about inventing a pedal that could recreate the specific sound Jack Black makes when he is impersonating a guitar riff, that’s for sure. Hundreds of emails and letters pour in every day begging for a stompbox to make a guitar sound like a ‘School of Rock’ outtake,” said ex-BOSS President Yoshi Ikegami, who still consults. “Or they’ve just rewatched ‘High Fidelity’ for the umpteenth time, and have Black’s character’s noodlings stuck in their head. We had no choice but to have our team work on the schematics day and night, startibg around 1999. Who knows what Hendrix would have done with this technology?”

The pedal’s inspiration, comic actor Jack Black, was more than happy to take part in the design process.

“It was a little bit of a doozy to record all my ‘’squeedily dees’ and ‘hrood doot doos’ and even the ever-so-rare ‘ferd-dee-durtle-durts’ in every possible key, but if I’m gonna do something, I’m gonna come correct. Glad to be part of rock history once again, and this time I don’t have to wear a little schoolboy’s uniform, which is a plus,” said Black while waving to a throng of well-deserved fans every few minutes. “Hell, I might just buy one myself, methinks. I’ve been playing in the D with Kage for a long time now, and it will be good to rest the ol’ piperoonies for once and just let my guitar do the squawking, so to speak.”

Representatives from the world-renowned Nobel Peace Prize committee agreed the invention could be a boon to mankind.

“We tend to typically only give out awards for the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology, medicine, literature, etc., but this year, we argue that the BOSS ‘Black Beauty’ could be beneficial to all of those mediums and more. Now that we have a guitar pedal that makes Jack Black ramblings, there’s really nothing left on the ‘seemingly impossible task’ docket to do but to solve climate change and cure cancer” lauded Nobel Prize committee member Anne Enger. “It’s inspired hope within us and our community, and we can feel all the good on the horizon now that the good people at BOSS have blessed us with this long-awaited miracle.”

Not to be outdone, ElectroHarmonix is fast-tracking a “Kyle Gass” pedal that mostly causes the player to get constantly mistaken for Andy Richter.

Opinion: “Caress Me Down” Taught Me More Applicable Spanish Than Duolingo

BY ARIELLE ANDREANO

Hola. Mucho gusto. That means “Hi, pleased to meet you.” Did I learn that from your little fucking owl? ¡No! (That means “No!”). I learned it from one Bradley Nowell. Let me break it down for you, hermana.

All your friends are posting about their Duolingo streaks, but is anyone actually learning anything? No one is talking about the time-tested importance of using a new language in everyday life situations, like when you listen to songs about sucking and fucking by Southern California ska punk band Sublime. They say “use it or lose it” and that means getting off that little app and belting “tenemos un bebe!” in your kitchen while you fuck up the stir fry. It’s true that Duolingo has tratar de improve things by adding a “speak” component, but we all learned from our little ADHD coping packets that putting things to music will help you remember, and that’s why I’ll always know how to say “the thing I like most, is pussy.”

Has Duolingo managed to teach me some things? Sure. Now I know how to say that Marcus lives with his girlfriend in Paris and works in London, but who the fuck do I know that can afford all that back and forth travel? No, I’m much more likely to know people who evade attempted murder and escape to Costa Rica on stolen cash. It has also taught me a great deal about how to ask for sweaters in various colors, but typically I like to speak with as few people as possible while shopping. I’m more of a “tienes que bailar” kinda gal, sabes?

Now, there are some limitations to this method. Like, I accidentally told my friend’s abuela to hand me her panties. And I might have told a business associate that I was their daddy. But any teaching method will require fine-tuning and adjustment periods. And the truth of the matter is, that stupid owl just can’t compete with sick beats.

My suggestion is that the avian overlord get with the times and learn to accept and grow from its limitations. I think they could stand to make a great deal of money from partnering with popular bands and releasing educational, multi-language music about canceled porn stars.

Man Whose “Life Is a Movie” Unaware It’s a Documentary About a Loser

BY TRAYE HOLLAND 

SUN PRAIRIE, Wis. — Overconfident white guy Randall Weiss, who frequently proclaims his “life is a movie,” is reportedly ignorant to the fact that said movie is a documentary about a total dud, sources shaking their damn heads confirmed.

“Bro, I’m telling you, sometimes I feel like I’m the main character in a majorly epicsauce story,” said Weiss, apparently unaware of that the director of the upcoming doc “No Friends, No Future, No Freakin’ Clue” was making the “keep rolling” motion with her finger. “Every single night I’m grabbing life by the cajones, because all I do is win! I got a sick-ass part-time job at a pet store, 6 hot as hell ex-wives, and an allergy to most forms of gluten – let’s do this! Everybody hates me ‘cause they ain’t me! Oh, I say that one a lot too… Now, watch me dazzle these fine, fine, FOINE chicas over at the bar with my Napoleon Dynamite impression…”

Filmmaker Jessica Salarini is consistently impressed and sickened by her documentary subject’s heroic lack of self-awareness.

“I hate to toot my own horn like this, but I couldn’t have cast this movie any more perfectly. Randall moves through life with such He’s like Mr. Bean if he went around quoting ‘The 40 Year Old Virgin’ all the time. And quoting it wrong, at that! All I have to do is point a camera at him and he says something so cringe-worthy that Tim Heidecker would be taking notes,” said Salarini, while she edited a montage of Weiss being terrible to various restaurant workers set to “Puttin’ On The Ritz.” “It’s just a shame that filming is coming to an end soon, and I’ll have to get a restraining order put on him just in case. If he calls me ‘mamacita,’ I swear I’ll have him killed.”

Representatives from the Sundance Film Festival are looking forward to the documentary’s inclusion in this year’s proceedings.

“From the early buzz we’ve heard, we expect ‘No Friends, No Future, No Freakin’ Clue’ to join the ranks of ‘American Movie’ and ‘The King of Kong’ in terms of documentaries with ‘guys you’ve gotta get a load of,’ so to say we’re merely excited is a considerable understatement,” said Sundance Head of Programming Eugene Hernandez. “Ms. Salarini should ready her mantle for a plethora of trophies and commendations, which we’ll take the opportunities to fill with mace in case she ever gets hit on by her documentary subject. On that note, we do hope we aren’t required to invite Mr. Weiss to the festival, as we’ve heard his hygiene is sensationally questionable. Man, we can’t wait to watch this flick!”

At press time, Sundance officially deemed the first cut of the documentary “far, far too sad for release.”

How to Boycott a Company By Talking About How Bad It Is and That’s It

BY MALIA SIMON 

So your favorite company did something ethically wrong and you want to start a boycott. Congratulations! A lot of people are under the impression that “boycotting” has to involve crazy radical actions like not giving the company any more of your money or not shopping there even when they have cool new stuff you want. Those people are wrong, and you would never be able to stick to an actual boycott for more than three hours anyway. Here is how you can look progressive on social media while doing nothing in real life.

Talk about how bad the company is

The first and only step to boycotting a company is—you guessed it—telling everyone it’s bad. A lot of people claim actions speak louder than words, but those people have clearly never berated their family for ordering from Starbucks before helping themselves to one of their four classic breakfast sandwiches (ordered off of Doordash of course). While you are not making a difference in the world, you are emotionally wearing down your parents, which feels—and tastes—ten times better.

Look up a list of bad companies and boycott the ones you already don’t go to

Fuck you and your business practices, Sodastream. Just for that, we will not be ordering any more countertop seltzer makers. That’s right, we’re completely done with grapefruit flavored sparkling water flavoring drops. You’ll get your hands on our money once you divest from genocide, or once you start making the flavoring drops in better flavors like cherry or lemon-lime, which we have kindly suggested to you in the “Contact Us” form on more than one occasion.

Police Teenage TikTokers about shopping from the company

Why take action yourself when you can kick the burden to TikTok teens who have recently come into internet fame and fear losing public approval more than death itself? The future is in the hands of our generation, and by our generation, we mean internet personas teetering on the edge of cancellation. There is nothing like commenting “Congratulations on funding Bezos’ sweatshop” and watching the apology video roll in while bumping your Amazon music-powered 100ft LED light strips.

Comment vague threats on the company’s Instagram page (which you still follow)

“Hey Papa John’s. You better sleep with one eye open.” Do we even remember what they did wrong? No, but that’s not what’s important here. The important thing is that everyone knows you are willing to do anything it takes to send the company a message—anything but stop hosting your birthday parties there.

Stop going there. Unless you really want to

Of course you are technically allowed to stop buying from the company during your boycott, but we realize there are circumstances that make this step almost impossible—for instance, if they have literally anything you want or even if you’re just tired or bored. Fuck it, maybe go there even more than you did before your boycott. After all, something about the forbiddenness makes Chevron gas even more appealing. Remember you’ve already made a bunch of people you know dread hanging out with you, which was the main objective here.

Only buy from them when there’s a sale

If you insist on doing something, just shop during sale time we guess. Buying something 30% off feels almost like your shoplifting, which puts you in the ranks of all your favorite civic disobedience heroes. You’ll be able to walk out of the store with your head held high knowing that, while you didn’t actually manage to hold to the political positions you aggressively preach, you did get a bunch of new stuff. And at the end of the day, while other people have their moral belief systems to cling to, you have a bunch of fucking stuff. Who’s the real winner here? Last I checked, moral belief systems can’t sync pulsating color-changing lights up to the bass of your music.