Volume 18, Issue 1: The Gumbfather
Volume 33, Issue 1:
The HEURISTIC! Squelch
The HEURISTIC! Squelch
Latest Issue
Scenes from an Improv Drama Troupe
Improviser 1: All right, for this scene, we’re going to need a trope. Tropes, anyone?
Audience Member 1: A wedding cancelled due to a miscarriage!
Audience Member 2: A man, trapped, sees no other course but to end his life!!
Audience Member 3 : A man beats his wife because his father taught him that love was desperate and hateful!
I**** mproviser 1: Miscarriage, I heard miscarriage.
Improviser 2: Okay, now we’re going to play “Bartender”. First up is Randall. Randall is despondent about something, what is he despondent about?
Audience Member 1: Crippling ennui !
Audience Member 2: A friendship irrevocably slipping away!
Improviser 2: Ennui it is!
Randall: (Drinks silently, sighs.)
Audience: (Empathizes wildly.)
Improviser 3: Okay, we’ve got our scene: a café with Immanuel Kant and King Edward VII. Now, can we have an inner conflict?
Audience Members 1 and 2: Oedipal complex!
(Everyone laughs cathartically)
Improviser 4: Damn it, Susan, I put my whole life into that painting! How could you take that away from me?
Improviser 5: Uh… I, um… shit.
Audience Member 1: Starved for affection!
Improviser 5: Right. Steve, it was consuming everything! You paid more attention to that painting than your own wife! [Whispers to Audience Member 1] Thank you…
Student Groups: A Field Guide
Congratulations on missing the deadline for private school applications! Welcome to Cal!
Remember how in high school you had to put up with a lot of bullshit extracurricular activities and student groups? Remember how everyone in high school said things were going to be different in college? It’s okay, crushed dreams and disappointment are the unofficial mascots of higher education. The official mascot is a bear! Who drinks.
Here’s a handy guide to the groups that will be hassling you this year to join, and what you can do to avoid them.
Big Treble in Little China
Group Type: Shrill A Capella Band.
Catalog Description: “How often have you find yourself walking down Sproul wishing there was a group of amateurs yelling 15-year-old songs at you without music? How often have you wished those songs were in Cantonese, arguably the most beautiful glottal-stop-based language in the world? Well, worry no more!”
Group Activities: Forming human rhythm section and giant roadblock.
How to Avoid: Seek refuge with the Taiwanese A Capella group.
**
**
**Finnish Neo-Orthodox Traditionalist Student Union
**
Group Type: Christian/Ethnic Fellowship
Catalog Description: “Members of our extremely specific faith will find our meetings a fun and safe environment for us to discuss the trivial aspects that marginally differentiate us from other branches of Christianity.”
Group Activities: Holding meetings, barbecues, flyering for said meetings and barbecues.
How to Avoid: Pray that you are one of the 99.99674% of students on campus whose historical origins render them ineligible for membership.
**CalPIRG
**
Group Type: Excuse me! Hiiii. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute?
Catalog Description: Have you pledged CalPIRG yet? Ex—excuse me, it’ll just take a second, have you pledged CalPIRG? Oh. May I ask why not? I realize you’re busy, but this will really only take a short while, we’re talking to people about the environment. Did you know—Excuse me. Hello. Can I walk with you for a little bit?
Group Activities: Hiii, what’s your name? Hi, I’m Denise.
How to Avoid: Being a Republican.
**Õs Mandíbulas
**
Group Type: Renowned Brazilian street-gang, Berkeley chapter
Catalog Description: “Perfect for those who seek cultural and personal fulfillment from peers of a similar socioeconomic background who are also skilled in varieties of street combat such as Krav Maga, Capoeira, and “Give Me Your Fucking Purse.”
Group Activities: Tattoos, talking about tattoos, lifting weights, tattooing pictures of weights on your chest (on which a dumbbell is currently resting).
How to Avoid: Carry nothing of value past 9 PM.
**Cal LARPing Society
**
Group Type: More of a _party _of swashbucklers than a group, technically.
Catalog Description: “ A group dedicated to the rollicking adventures of roleplaying and committed to furthering understanding about the nature and worth of adventure games in a post-electronic society. Midgets wanted.”
Group Activities: Adventuring, spellcasting, exploring the dismal depths of Travis’s Cellar. Fishing dice out from under the Couch Of Sitting. Perilous journeys to the 7-11 Of . . . Provisions.
How to Avoid: Make saving throw.
**Knuckles and Poison
**
Group Type: Shadowy Cabal of People Who Like Cocaine.
Catalog Description: “Knuckles and Poison has been Cal’s premier secret society since 1899. Operating underneath the campus radar, its existence has remained a total and complete secret to every student until…today, I guess. Shit!”
Group Activities: Covertly controlling everything from the tenure system, to financial aid, to how high a tuition hike the ASUC should unquestioningly approve.
How to Avoid: Do not go into Ishi Court on a moonless night at the strike of one. While there, do not whisper “excelsior” until a man comes to put a damp cloth to your face. Do not heed his instructions carefully.
Lambda Sigma Rho
Group Type: Pre-Vocational Ed Fraternity
Catalog Description: Whether you want to be a carpenter or just really like hammers, Lambda Sigma Rho is for you. We offer a hands-on approach to education for students who understand that the real world needs more plumbers and electricians, not literacy. Our fraternity boasts the largest number of students in any organization at Cal to attend ITT Technical Institute for post-graduate work. We are also the only fraternity on campus to make our own kegs.
Group Activities: Going to New Orleans during Spring Break and _actually _rebuilding.
How to Avoid: Have a major.
**The Republicans
**
Group Type: Surly defender of _real _American values.
Catalog Description: Writing trenchant editorials blasting California’s tax-and-spend fiscal policies and the erosion of marriage. Also the fucking hippies.
Group Activities: Being contrarian. Arguing with the ASUC that funding based on liberal fallacies like “group size” is for pussies.
How to Avoid: Join CalPIRG.
Gotham City Inexplicably Approves Clown-Themed Nightclub
In a move described by commentators as “moronic” and “unbelievably short-sighted”, the Gotham City Zoning Board yesterday approved plans for “Punchinello”, a new nightclub with an incredibly ill-conceived clown motif. Construction is to begin next month, defying the very rudiments of human logic.
“This is going to be great!” said club founder and fucking idiot Charles Cassidy after the hearing. “We’ll decorate it like an old Italian villa, have clown masks and pictures on the walls, and I think I can get some commedia del’arte costumes from that theater company downtown that closed after those mysterious deaths. Even the employees will wear clown masks, so no one will know who they are! I just know it’s going to be a big hit with promising young people with their whole lives ahead of them.”
Cassidy’s remarks were received with stunned silence and some scattered weeping.
The plan was strenuously objected to, particularly by Police Commissioner Gordon. “This plan is riddled with – I mean, full of flaws,” the Commissioner insisted. “It will be too noisy for its residential neighborhood, it backs right onto Crime Alley, and there are far too few emergency exits and poison-gas vents. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
Cassidy waved off the Commissioner’s criticisms, as well as his listing of the closure and/or destruction of every single Gotham business related to clowns, jokes, riddles, cats, plants, the number two, Greek mythology, ice, and giant replicas of everyday objects. “He’s a cop, he sees crime everywhere,” Cassidy said with confidence. “Just watch, soon everyone in Gotham City will associate a grinning clown with relaxation and good times.”
The GRE As Written by The Internet
**Reading Comprehension
**
After reading the following passages, choose the best answer for each question.
1.
Which of the following best summarizes the main point the author is trying to make?
A)“Zippers are a menace.”
B)“Proper pubic hair maintenance is important”
C)“kawaii ~*(^o_0^)#~~!!!!”
D)“I wish I had something to do besides make these.”
E)“This cat has Palsy.”
2.
Goku never thought he would feel this way about Vegeta, especially not after they both had been transformed into pregnant dragons. It was only when Vegetasaur’s tongue found its way to Gokudon’s taint that it dawned on him just how much he cared for him.Soon, Gokudon’s scaly nipples hardened like diamonds, and a glow began to take over him.
“It’s happening, Vegeta!”Gokudon shrieked.
“Do it.Give birth on me, Kakarot.”Vegetasaur cooed.
Little did either of them know that Captain Picard watched in the darkness.Except he was an adult baby.
The two lovers’ lack of knowledge of Picard’s gaze is known as:
A)Laissez Faire
B)Foreshadowing
C)Incredibly hot
D)Dramatic irony
E)Perestroika
**Sentence Completion
**
Choose the word or set of words for each blank that best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.
The Master Chief’s whole body shook. “I’m _________ inside of you!” he screamed. “I love you, _________!”
A)Orgasming, Hermione
B)Defecating, Xena Warior Princess
C)Copulating, The Cast of Cheers
D)Obfuscating, Jurisprudence
E)Twitterpating, Thumper
**Analogy
**
Choose the lettered pair that best expresses a relationship similar to that in the original pair.
Ubuntu : Vista ::
A)Helvetica : Arial
B)Resplendency : Groin Pain
C)Open Source : Apartheid South Africa
D)The way talking dogs are cute : The way talking cats are terrifying
E)LOL : ROFL, I WANT STEVE JOBS’S BABY INSIDE ME
**Analytical Writing
**
**Present your perspective one of the issues below, using relevant reasons and/or examples to support your views.
**
1.“Critics of the environmentalist movement claim that industrial regulation hurts the economy more than it helps the planet.Respond to this claim using only actions surrounded in asterisks.”
- “Your W0man Will Be Stupefied By Your ErectionSuperViagra $2.27 vqh 6h0y”
3.“Just as a purging fire is sometimes necessary to maintain the health of a forest, perhaps it’s not such an injustice that I’m no longer a Wikipedia admin.”
- “Tolerance and progress, taken to extremes, are incompatible.With this in mind, troll the Neopets message boards.”
SPORTS DESK: You Suck at Beer Pong
Since moving into your fraternity house in late August, you have spent every other night playing beer pong. Unfortunately, due to various factors, including your alleged summer-long abstinence from alcohol, your tolerance for Natty Ice has largely deteriorated. Coupled with your naturally bad hand-eye coordination, this has caused you to fail to win a single game of beer pong as of now.
“You are such a bitchass, bro,” your roommate crowed yesterday, over his third consecutive victory of the night, as he unrolled the sleeves of his button-down shirt with an annoyingly smooth flourish. “You throw like some kind of a bitchass or something.” He then proceeded to do a one-handed kegstand. Later, as you both prepared to go to sleep, he bid you good night by saying, “Sweet dreams, bitchass!”
In other news, you have come down with some kind of a weird eye infection or something.
BEER PONG STANDINGS
1. Your Roommate
2. Roommate’s Gay(?) Friend
3. That One Hot Girl
4. Guy Who Is Always Hanging Around But You Don’t Know Who He’s Friends With
5. 30-year-old Alum Who No One Wants to Kick Out
6. Next Door Neighbor
7. Next Door Neighbor’s Cat
8. You
So You’re Going to Hell
Lead a life of debauchery? Sinned against nature? Rejected the legitimacy of your one/multiple true God/gods? Use this handy reference to see just what you ought to expect.
Catholicism
What Your Hell is Like: Not as grandiose or visually striking as Vatican paintings imply.
Why You’re Here: Did not purchase indulgence.
Company: Serial killers, rapists, sex ed teachers
Tormentor(s): Lee Harvey Oswald.
Way Out: Knowing a guy.
Protestantism
What Your Hell is Like: Forcibly gay married to Richard Dawkins
Why You’re Here: Too poor.
Company: People foolish enough to live before Christ
Tormentor(s): Creatures evolving just to spite you
Way Out: Besting Satan in Fiddle Hero
Islam
What Your Hell is Like: A searing pit where sinners and Shaitan alike suffer in flames that are 70 times hotter than those on Earth, away from the garden of delight that is Paradise
Why You’re Here: Disobeyed one of the five (if Sunni) or eight (if Shia) pillars of faith or performed the most grievous crime of hypocrisy by claiming to accept Allah and Mohammed but denouncing them in your heart
Company: Betrayers and usurers in a tiered system of punishment similar to – but distinct from – the Christian Dantean viewpoint
Tormentor(s): A horde of the most fiendish ifrits and djinns, nightmare creatures made of smokeless fire.
Way Out: Please don’t have our funding taken away
Buddhism
What Your Hell is Like: Forced to own massive amount of property
Why You’re Here: Misinterpreted vague poem about lotus flower or bee or whatever.
Company: Bully who picked on Buddha in 4th grade
Tormentor(s): Monks embarrassingly more serene than you
Way Out: Ask politely
Judaism
What Your Hell is Like: Since you don’t believe in Hell, you’re actually stuck in the really shitty part of Heaven
Why You’re Here: You couldn’t have called ahead for reservations maybe?
Company: Those awful, noisy Pakowiczes next door, on my worst enemy’s dog I wouldn’t wish this kind of treatment.
Tormentors: Overbearing mothers.
Way Out: Go to med school, why don’t you.
Hinduism
What Your Hell is Like: Trapped in chasm, only allowed 4 sexual positions.
Why You’re Here: Reincarnated as another dead guy.
Company: Whatever the opposite of a cow is.
Tormentors: The studio that brought you The Love Guru.
Way Out: Die (again.)
Scientology
What Your Hell is Like: Simultaneously receiving psychiatric care and not enough attention.
Why You’re Here: Insufficiently crazed proselytizing
Company: Ghost aliens. No, seriously. Ghost aliens.
Tormentors: L. Ron Hubbard laughing at you atop a boat made of money
Way Out: Give him more money
Ask Miss Methiquette
Dear Miss Methiquette,
No matter what I try, my common-law husband always takes more than his fair share of meth. He says that because he’s bigger, he requires more to get high, but according to our police records we both weigh around 80 pounds. I don’t want to lose this guy ( he’s a keeper!!) but I need my fix! What can I do?
Shortchanged in Schenectady
Dear Shortchanged,
If a loved one is being greedy, cordially remind him that when it comes to crystal in a community setting, fair distribution and moderation are top priority. If he persists, cutting his eye with a sharpened Venetian blind ought to remind him more effectively.
-Miss Methiquette
Dear Miss Methiquette,
What is the proper etiquette for furiously clawing at one’s forearms? I often find myself with the urge to dig out the poison from underneath my skin, but don’t know if it would be rude to do so while, say, screaming at everyone who walks through the BART station. Help!
-Abraded in Alameda
Dear Abraded,
Scratching one’s self in public should be avoided at all costs. If you absolutely must, do it in someplace private, like the bathroom of a Quizno’s or in the home of someone who forgot to lock their window.
-Miss Methiquette
Dear Miss Methiquette,
I’m usually a neat freak, but recently my hospice has become something of a pig-sty, mostly due hours on end spent frantically dismantling appliances and government spy equipment in the dark. Any tips for making the most of my cluttered squalor?
-Sloppy in Stockton
Dear Sloppy,
An organized home is a happy one. Set aside a workstation to take apart every broken cell phone, baby monitor, toaster, and mini-fridge that you find on the sidewalk.
-Miss Methiquette.
_
_
Dear Miss Methiquette
How much does one tip for an Abe of crank? My friend and I have a gentleman’s wager.
-Vexed in Vallejo
Dear Vexed,
While tipping is always appreciated, it can sometimes be misinterpreted as flashy and nouveau-riche if you over-do it. Stick to oral.
-Miss Methiquette
Dear Miss Methiquette,
I just moved to a different city, and I’m looking to make a fresh start with a new dealer. How can I show my new friend and pusher that I am a collected, responsible client who won’t snitch?
-Restless in Riverside
Dear Restless,
It’s the little things that count. Keeping your fingernails neat and trim is a crucial part of daily hygiene and you should make time for cuticle upkeep every day. Also, remember to feed your baby.
-Miss Methiquette
Dear Miss Methiquette,
My in-laws are coming to visit, and I don’t want them to think me a rube. What goes well with ginger-glazed Mahi Mahi and organic spring greens?
-Frazzled in Fresno
Dear Frazzled,
Meth.
-Miss Methiquette
Words From the Top
18 Candles
There comes a time in every man’s life when he reaches a sacred right of passage, and the lessons he has learned congeal into a thick grease of responsibility and maturity. Before that, though, he turns 18 and goes to a titty bar with his step-dad. This year, the Heuristic Squelch reaches that milestone of legality, and now has the distinction of being a publication as old as a large percentage of its audience, a distinction that would only truly be impressive if we were World’s Oldest Living Person Weekly.
As a reward for reaching the age of consent, the staff here engaged in the time-honored tradition of getting a friend of ours laid. We headed to Tijuana’s famed red ink district, in search of their magazine-specific brothels. They wouldn’t let us bring Seventeen across the border until we told them it was founded in ’44, but other than the trip went smoothly
Things got a little crazy there, I’ll admit. We spent most of our time getting other magazines liquored up to give us advertising leads. And we are proud to say that at the end of the night, the Squelch finally lost its virginity. We are less proud to say that it was to Cosmo. (Honestly, we tried for Playboy, but we’re not made of money. That would be the Cartoonish Plutocrat Review, who didn’t show up.) On the plus side, it knew 1,435 different ways to please a man.
So Happy Birthday, Squelch. Call us when you’re 21 and maybe we’ll invite you to one of our parties.
Rumspringa
During the period known as “Rumspringa,” Amish youth are permitted to leave their insular communities and explore the world of the modern American teenager. Most return to be baptized, but a slim minority chooses to stay in the high-fat, high-octane world of the modern United States.
The following is the diary of one of those renegades.
August 25, 2008
Today is the day I leave for my journey into the technological den of the heathen, and already I am excited to see what kind of electronic pitchforks and wireless chicken coops everyone will have. I hugged my diligent sister and her industrious unborn child goodbye and set off into the world.
August 26, 2008
While crossing the street the other day, I was accosted by a large turtle with big rubber feet who made honking noises at me. Just kidding, I knew it was a car. I’m Amish, not retarded.
August 28, 2008
I wore a shirt with buttons today and have yet to be possessed by the Prince of Darkness. Will keep checking.
September 1, 2008
Wish me luck, diary, I’m going to an inner-city high school for the first time today! I’m a little bit nervous, all the other kids at school are probably going to have better-looking clothes, faster horses, and more pristine Bibles than me.
September 5, 2008
While I appreciate my new high school friends’ hospitality and their desire to entertain me, I’m beginning to wonder if there’s any other movie beside Witness.
September 7, 2008
I gave a sermon today explaining that electricity is the lightning of Hell. I think I made my point well enough, but the people in the Intensive Care Unit weren’t very enthusiastic.
**September 15, 2008 **
I still felt like I didn’t fit in at school until I met the Goths. Today I exchanged my black suit for a different black suit and talked morosely about hellfire and damnation. I don’t think anyone noticed the change.
September 24, 2008
As fun as school is, it doesn’t quite compare to my father clubbing me with a carpenter’s mallet while screaming the Psalms in Dutch. I think I’ll drop out and try working for a while.
September 26, 2008
My job search is going slowly. I guess everyone already has their own barn.
September 29, 2008
Success! I just got back from my first day of work as a cashier at a personal entertainment store called “Rasputin Records.” I don’t know anything about what I’m supposed to be selling, but I am very good at being judgmental and condescending about what people buy, so I ought to be manager within a few weeks.
October 2, 2008
Why is it so hard for people to relate to me here? Look, I know we all have our differences, but underneath it we’re all the same, right? We all have fears and hopes, we all have families and loved ones, we’re all indoctrinated into an oppressive society plagued with incest and a rejection of medicine and inoculation that can only be called hubris. What’s the problem?
October 4, 2008
I met a cute girl at work who I think really likes me, but it feels like things aren’t going very well. I mean, we aren’t even married yet.
October 7, 2008
Megan and mine’s first date was amazing! I don’t know if making out while listening to Feist is specifically considered a sin, but I’m starting to think this might be worth missing out on a heaven consisting of making your own candles and cider all day. I’m so fucking sick of cider.
October 18, 2008
My time in the non-Amish world is coming to a close, and I must make my decision soon. I’m really torn on this one. On the one hand, I have my family and the security of community, as well as the strength of their traditions and the beauty of their faith, but on the other hand, I have Rock Band. Have you ever played that? There’s like, seriously, a billion songs. A guy I know downloaded an entire Who album. Shit, I’m gonna go play that right now. Fuck my family.
