thehardtimes

Hard Digest April 13: Early Access Trump, Emotional Walls, Eric Clapton, TikTok Music, and More

Added 2024-04-14 00:00:05 +0000 UTC

Trump Brags About Latest Cognitive Test After Crushing Kids Menu Maze

HAZELTON, Pa. — Former President Trump took time during a campaign rally to brag about successfully completing another cognitive test after finishing the puzzles on a Denny’s kids menu “without any help whatsoever,” dazzled sources confirmed.

“I’m sitting there, in front of me the most beautiful moons over my hammy you’ve ever seen. But I said, I’m not eating until these words are unjumbled,” Trump explained. “They have a picture, it’s a cow, and it says ‘what sound does a cow make?’ Moo, and I got it right away. It was unbelievable. The waitress, really thick woman, said no one had done that before. She was stunned. Even the line cook, who was very busy, by the way, stopped what he was doing. And he came over to shake my hand, with tears in his eyes, and said ‘I want to personally thank you for leading the Grand Slams through the maze to Breakfast Island.”

Denny’s waitress Liana Flores had a different interpretation of the events.

“He went through about 30 menus, but he would crumble each one up and eat it so no one saw his mistakes,” said Flores. “After it became clear he was not going to be able to solve any of the puzzles on his own, one of his handlers approached another table and stole a completed menu from a six-year-old, claiming Trump had verbally ‘classified’ it. He also kept referring to me as ‘Liana Denny.’ I assume Trump thinks everyone who works at Denny’s is also named ‘Denny?’”

A former White House aide who wished to remain anonymous claimed all of Trump’s recent cognitive tests had actually been brain teasers and puzzles for children.

“The truth is, the majority of President Trump’s ‘cognitive’ tests were either printouts from PBS’s website, taken from the back of cereal boxes, or ripped out of a couple of coloring books I picked up at Harris Teeter,” explained the anonymous aide. “Trump was desperate for anything that would show his supposed intelligence. But every time he took a real test, he bombed it like it was a pair of his diapers after 3 Big Macs. We got the idea of using kid’s puzzles after Trump met my son, who asked him ‘how much wood would a woodchuck chuck?’ Trump was so impressed by the tongue twister that he made my 8-year-old Deputy Secretary of Agriculture.”

At press time, several mentally unstable dorks rushed to comment on this very article with some variation of “DURRRR WHADDA ‘BOUT BIDEN???”

How to Tell if the Emotional Walls You Put Up Are Load-Bearing

BY KATY MAIOLATESI

Are you the type of person who’d rather not expose your feelings to anyone in your life ever? We get it, it’s revealing and scary, and it gets in the way of quiet time. Unfortunately, society is on a big “mental health” kick at the moment, and your emotional barriers are not “in vogue.” You’ve probably been pressured by loved ones to seek professional help in taking them down, but not so fast—some of those protective barriers you put up could in fact be load-bearing.

This guide will tell you whether removing the emotional walls you’ve put around you will make everything collapse to the ground.

You Put Forth a Hard Shell Exterior

You don’t want anyone to see weakness, feelings, or even ask for help with today’s Wordle. Chances are you’re a softie on the inside, which is why this shell is not sustainable. One person will get to know the true you, and your guard along with that weak-ass shell will come crumbling down.

You’ve Erected a Wall of Silence

For you, it’s preferable to say nothing than something raw and vulnerable. Someone in your life wants to ask you a personal question and you shut them out with your trusty silence wall. One hit of the hard questions, and it feels like your whole life is falling down. If this is the case, then yeah, we’re talking load-bearing.

You’re a Fixer of Other People’s Problems

You’re the first one people call when there is a leaky faucet, a loose door jamb, or if they need help with today’s Wordle. When your significant other asks you what should be done about the problems in your relationship, you go right to the offense and offer to paint the entire home. This has kept you from revealing your own issues to other people, and it has worked out so far. While this is a sign of an emotional wall, tearing through and demolishing it won’t destroy your entire foundation. So go ahead and break those fixer tendencies, but finish that paint job first.

Your Significant Other Is Seeking Emotional Connection Elsewhere

Congrats! Your girlfriend wants an open-concept relationship. This is common when all you can offer emotionally is pouting after your favorite sports team loses. You’re a commitment-phobe, so what’s there not to like? She suggests seeing other people while you “deal with your dad issues.” Sleeping around won’t make your entire life implode, but you should probably try it out just to be sure.

Go Ask Your Mom’s Friend Brian

He’s always ready with his tool kit and knows how to deal with this kind of shit.

If All Else Fails, Try Removing Part of a Wall

You’ve made it this far in life, but your relationships have been mostly empty and unsuccessful. This is no thanks to the blockades you have built around you. Maybe it’s time to make a little pony wall and be real with people. Perhaps you could talk about your fears? Ugh, we just broke out in a cold sweat thinking about it. Forget it, you’re not ready for a remodel.

Eric Clapton Announces “Tears in Heaven” Now About Jesus Being Sad People Still Taking Vaccine

BY DOUG KOLIC

SURREY, England — Musician Eric Clapton surprised everyone by announcing that his 1992 hit song “Tears in Heaven” is now about the Messiah’s despair that people are still using vaccines to combat COVID-19, confirmed sources who hadn’t that track in years.

“This song was originally written to help me cope with my son Conor’s sudden passing,” stated Clapton as he Venmoed more royalty checks to RFK Jr.’s presidential campaign. “But as time went on and my heart started to heal from the loss, a new pain started to develop after taking that evil Astrazeneca shot, which is why this song is now about the Heavenly Father crying that his ignorant children on Earth are still taking this poison. I feel very connected to Jesus since we’re all made from God’s image, especially me, so what cooler way to educate the masses about the ‘scamdemic’ than with the collaboration of two powerful spiritual forces.”

Long-time fan and nurse Patricia Healy expressed confusion about the song’s new meaning.

“This tune used to resonate with me because I also lost someone close, but I’m not sure I really get the message anymore,” said Healy. “I know firsthand that the vaccine saved millions of lives, so I don’t agree with changing its meaning. Plus, how the hell am I supposed to connect with it knowing that it’s now some weird antivax Christian rock hybrid? I’m vaccinated and an avowed atheist. Plus, I don’t buy him ever working with Jesus, not because I question his faith, but because Jesus is technically a foreigner and we all know Clapton’s thoughts on that.”

Music expert Taylor Berube says it’s not uncommon for artists to re-interpret their songs as they age.

“It’s very normal for the meaning of songs to evolve as artists gain more life experience,” Berube stated. “That’s why the best songs are ones that keep their meaning vague so they have a wider appeal. But a song like this was so specific to Clapton’s life that it makes it difficult to accept that it’s now about something completely different, transforming what was once a beautiful tribute to a lost soul, to now something that your drunk uncle would say after he downed a bottle of Wild Turkey.”

At press time, Clapton also announced that his cover of “I Shot the Sheriff” will now be about what he’ll do to any law enforcement officials who even think about implementing another mask mandate.

Hell Yes: I Made a Song So Terrible Everyone on TikTok Is Calling It a New Subgenre of Pop

BY MALIA SIMON

Ifinally did it: after years of creating absolute dogshit music that no one would listen to, I finally found a group of people who are willing to generate nonsensical jargon out of thin air in an effort to pretend I’ve made anything of substance. Hell yeah!

I honestly never thought this would work. When I uploaded “4GETTING SUMM3R 4 3VER (Oh, Oh, Oh)” to TikTok, my first thought was “Yeah, this is pretty garbage. You couldn’t pay me to listen to this shit.” However, something must have struck a chord with the TikTok audience, because 5 hours later I opened the comments to find people saying I just made the “techno-low-life pop song of the summer” that “blends PCP vampire teen with abused wood-creature core.” Cool!

All the praise has been great. The only thing is, it’s hard to keep up with what exactly my aesthetic is. One week I was “diaper-boy core” and the next I was “hydro-femme Soviet maximalist.” Sounds great guys, but slow down! Let me get all this down so I can whip up another song just like it and ride on my own coattails of a complete fluke hit into a fraudulent music career.

Uh-oh. Someone just made a stitch with my video saying, “Why is everyone hyping this up? This shit is complete unlistenable garbage,” and now everyone in the comments is agreeing and they’re all turning against me. Guys, come back! I guess I got a little drunk on the electrifying thrill of being loved by chronically online teens because this hurts bad. Even worse, how the fuck do I defend this when they’re completely right? The song is absolute dogshit garbage and I have no idea why anyone listened to it in the first place. I literally recorded it in one take in my voice memos. That doorbell ring in the intro that everyone was calling “esoteric” was actually just my Wingstop delivery guy.

Wait now! Someone just stitched that video saying my song is “bad in a self-aware way.” Hell yes! There is no better feeling than public opinion swaying arbitrarily back in your favor, and I for one am content with a career that is completely at the mercy of it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we are lucky to live in a time when the taste and attention span of the general public has gone down the drain, and we should be shoving as much content down everyone’s throats as possible until the whole system inevitably caves in on itself. Until that day comes, I’m getting famous, bitch!