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Volume 33, Issue 1:
The HEURISTIC! Squelch
Volume 16- Issue 6

Smarmy Bastard Explains Everything

April 1, 2007

**Why do we love reality TV? **

Reality TV has persisted solely because we all love seeing stupid people try to solve problems. Who hasn’t felt the joy of watching a retarded child try and fit a square peg in the round hole of  his own eye socket? An illuminating case study is the hit TV series “Maui Fever” which features the trials and tribulations of  Hawaii’s surfer youth culture.

Blonde Guy : This double date is pretty gnar.
Blonder Guy : Hey, bro, I think I like your girl better.
Blonde Guy : Dude, no way! I like your girl better too!
Blonder Guy : [brow furrows in consternation] Well, maybe we could, like, switch dates?
Blonde Guy : Whoa! That’s, like, really smart. But how?
Blonder Guy : Uh, well, let me think–
Blonde Guy : NO, STOP!
Blonder Guy : [head explodes]

 

**What are the dangers of drugs? **

In the right hands drugs are a fine use of recreational time, but in the wrong hands there can be terrible, heart-wrenching consequences.

_Right Hands _
You : Boy, I love my drugs! z

_Wrong Hands _
Police : Now I have your drugs.

 

**Why is there so much conflict in the world? **

From my years of experience as an amateur theologist, it’s become clear that most conflicts are religious in nature. My new book explains why the reader must rise up and destroy two distinct groups: 1) Those who have not yet read my book and 2) The Nation of Islam, which is suing me for copyright infringement.

_Secular Exchange _
Person 1 : Hi.
Person 2 : How’s it going?
Person 1 : Good.
Person 2 : That’s cool.

_Religious Exchange _
Person 1 : Hi.
Person 2 : Eat this wafer.
Person 1 : Ok.
Person 2 : Now we’re married.

 

Do video games really cause aggressive behavior in children?

While I believe that these “videoed games” are beneath my intelligence threshold, they seem to be quite popular among today’s urchinry. Of primary debate is whether or not video games affect cerebral development.

_Development Without Videogames _
Child : Hey Dad, can you help me with my homework tonight?
Father : Why, sure! Is it that troublesome algebra again?

[they both laugh]

_Development With Videogames _
Child : Dad, could you help me with some of my homework tonight?
Father : Sure, I’ll help you…help you get burned by my cigarette!

[child cries, turns to video games]

Volume 16- Issue 6

Lieberman Announces Gray Horse Candidacy

April 1, 2007
,

Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut recently told reporters he sees himself as a gray horse candidate in the upcoming 2008 election. “I mean, I wouldn’t be shocked if I won,” Lieberman said. “I guess I wouldn’t bet on it though.”

The Connecticut Senator, whose prospects for winning the presidential election are moderate to average, began the campaign on a decidedly lackluster note, urging supporters to “find the balance between energy and lethargy.”

“This election,” the Senator noted to the nearly-captivated audience, “could potentially, maybe kind-of reverse the polarization of our political leaders. It might be about ending our engagement in Iraq, or even Afghanistan, or … something.”

Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was unaware of the gray-horse candidacy until receiving a call from Lieberman himself, reportedly responding with, “Yeah, and?” No other officials from the Democratic or Republican parties were available to comment as they were “busy with election stuff.”

“I’m not all that worried,” the Senator said upon arriving for a meet-and-greet at a Connecticut Denny’s. “Theoretically, I may very well win. Or lose. I haven’t decided.” Lieberman then gave half-hearted handshakes to people trying to enjoy their pancakes.

Volume 16- Issue 6

Fat, Black, Female Priest Actually Martin Lawrence Trying to Steal a Diamond

April 1, 2007
, ,

The sleepy bayside community of Elk Hollow was rocked recently when their local priest, working under the alias of Katherine O’Malley, turned out to be Martin Lawrence in a fat suit. Lawrence took over the parish at Elk Hollow’s Church of St. Edward the Confessor two years ago.

“Normally the Catholic church doesn’t allow women to become priests,” said Elk Hollow’s Cardinal Quinn Murray. “I think she just charmed us all so much, what with her sassiness, blackness, and break-dancing.”

Lawrence took the job under the priestly pretense in order to steal the Church of St. Edward the Confessor’s mystical Rainbow Diamond. The diamond, given to the church by Pope John Paul II on one of his visits to America, is valued at $300 million USD.

Parish members reportedly grew suspicious when Lawrence began mass with “Wazap-wazap-WAZAAAP??” and ended with “Forreal though, where that diamond at?” Lawrence is suspected of stealing the diamond while the entire congregation was preoccupied with a rousing Soul Train-esque dance-off to “Rapper’s Delight.”

“In retrospect, probably a bad move to keep the diamond in a neighborhood church,” Cardinal Murray said. “But I drink a lot.”

Volume 16- Issue 6

s.f. bay area craigslist > a guide to casual encounters

April 1, 2007
,

Reply to: 9634890095@craigslist.org
Posting : I’m a horny big black woman desperate for some cock.
Translation: My name is Eddie Murphy and I just want to get back into my big black woman costume I used in Norbit. I will suck your dick though.

Reply to: 907890456@craigslist.org
Posting : Me and my boyfriend are looking for one additional guy to complete our threesome. We prefer a big cock.
Translation: My Brazilian boyfriend and I would love to mug you and steal all your kidneys. We prefer someone with six large kidneys.

Reply to: 1008937784@craigslist.org
Posting : Hey there guys my name is Liz. I like going to the movies, or staying at home and renting a movie. I love to cook so you have to love to eat.
Translation: I just love to eat. I don’t give a fuck about the movies, unless they’re about eating. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape was a major disappointment.

Reply to: 907378928@craigslist.org
Posting : Wanted: no strings attached sex with a hot guy that says he loves me.
Translation: I wish my father loved me. I hope he responds to this posting.

Reply to: 648958731@craigslist.org
Posting : I am looking for someone who wants a fat girl that actually has fat rolls. You must be ok with things like touching my fat belly and fat thighs and love it because they are fat.
Translation: I might be fat.

Reply to: 278349876@craigslist.org
Posting : Any freaks down to have sex? You’ve got to satisfy my fetish and then I’ll do whatever turns you on.
Translation: Hope you like strap-on dildos going in and out of your eye socket.

Reply to: 837490011@craigslist.org
Posting : I’m a young girl but not at heart. Sophisticated for my age and sick of dealing with high school boys. Are you my Prince Charming?
Translation: If I lure one more guy onto To Catch a Predator, they’re gonna promote me to anchor.

Reply to: 3746083785@craigslist.org
Posting : It’s big, it’s brown, and it’s yours for $25.
Translation: I posted this in the wrong section; I’m actually selling a cabinet.

Volume 16- Issue 6

Post Apocalyptic Love Advice

April 1, 2007
,

Just because a series of horrifying cataclysmic tragedies has befallen the Earth doesn’t mean your love life has to go down the tubes with it! We all need some advice sometimes, and who better to answer your romantic queries than me, your everyday delusional hermit turned self-proclaimed all-knowing Oracle!

Dear Oracle,

My boyfriend and I come from rival marauding war-clans. Don’t get me wrong, I love pillaging bands of survivors with him, but I can’t take him to any clan raids without getting funny/murderous looks from the war-chiefs. Should I stick with him or kick him to the war-curb?

Karen of the Crunchfist Tribe

New Bloodzone, Connecticut

Always a sticky situation. Sometimes in life you just have to suck it up and kill the war-chief in ritual combat, eating his eyes to consume his strength and becoming the new de-facto leader. Either that or sell your boyfriend for ammunition.

Dear Oracle,

The freak clouds of radiation that have killed our town’s crops continue to bring havoc and despair, warping and mutating our bodies into hideous abominations, twisted affronts to creation and all that is sacred. My question is: How can I spice things up in the bedroom with my girlfriend?

Clark Goodman

Radiation Bay, Nebraska

_I’ve always been a fan of erotic massage. Put your webbed hand(s) and/or handless stumps to good use! If that doesn’t work, try her second vagina.

_

Dear Oracle,

My wife and I can’t seem to stop arguing, and being stuck in such close proximity all day just makes it worse. Maybe you can help. Does dry land still exist? Hoping you get this bottle,

Ben F.

Makeshift Raft in the Middle of the Pacific

_Yes it does, but you’re not missing much. If/when you find dry land in the future, remember that landdwellers look down on those that drink their own recycled urine.

_

Dear Oracle,

I’ve been hiding in this underground bomb shelter for nine years now, and I’m having trouble conceiving a robot-child with my toasterwife because she keeps transforming into a psychedelic rainbow. Should I keep trying or should I listen to the pickled beets and look for someone new?

Craig!

_Cabin fever is fast bringing dementia. Sending all these letters written in blood can only be quickening the process.

_

Dear Oracle,

For quite some time I’ve had my eye on this girl who lives in my building. Anyway, threepart question: 1) How can I tell if she likes me? 2) How can I tell if she’s another zombie? 3) Can the Umbrella Virus be spread by dry humping?

Ruben Mackey

Raccoon City

1) Watch for little signs, like her touching your arm when she speaks. 2) Watch for little signs, like her gnawing flesh from your arm when she speaks/groans incoherently. 3) No. But let’s be honest, one thing leads to another. And by that, I do mean “dryhumping” leads to “flesh gnawing.” Or at least it does the way I do it.

Volume 16- Issue 6

Eulogy

April 1, 2007
,

I cannot say that Jim was my best friend.

I cannot even say that Jim was my close friend. Jim was my roommate, and my roommate only, and it’s true what they say: you don’t really miss something until it’s gone. I regret that Jim and I weren’t closer. More than regret, I am ashamed. I am ashamed that what could have been a powerful friendship between us was stymied by my own bigoted intolerance of sharing a room with a nine-foot-tall fire ant.

Bob. Queen Abigail. I can only imagine what you must be going through; how hard it must be to lose one of your thousands of children. I remember meeting you and Jim on move-in day. Remember? Remember how I screamed and screamed and tried to smash your heads in with the fire extinguisher? It almost makes me laugh now. You may not know this, but that’s the day Jim got his nickname around the dorm: The Unkillable Hell Beast. I guess that seems pretty ironic now, huh.

In this, the most difficult of times, know that you will be in the hearts and in the prayers of all of us, but the management has asked me to inform you that you are being charged for each of those mutilated pews and ushers, and I am to respectfully request that you transfer any consumed humans from your holding stomachs to your digestive stomachs as the muffled screams are distracting the other mourners. I’ve been told to wait.

Thank you.

I don’t know what kind of horrible insect-God would allow Jim to be snatched so young, but it’s true that the candle that burns brightest, burns briefest. Despite his short time on this earth, Jim touched so very many of our lives, as is evidenced by the number of prosthetic limbs peppered throughout the chapel this morning.

In the end it took 50 state troopers and a federalized National Guard to bring Jim down, and if the amount of time he spent playing Grand Theft Auto on my Playstation while I huddled in the corner is any indicator, I’m sure that’s exactly the way he would have wanted it.

Sometimes, in the dark, when he was just falling asleep, Jim would make a hideous clack-clack-snapping sound with his razor sharp mandibles. Although I could never be sure just what he was saying or eating, I always imagined it was something like “Goodnight, fleshbag. Celebrate this day, for this day I have not devoured you.” Well, right back at you, brother. sniff Right back at you. I love you Jim.

Volume 16- Issue 6

Step into my office…

April 1, 2007
, ,

Don’t have a seat, Eric. I’ll get right to the point.

I built this company with my bare hands. I woke up at four AM for 60 years and never once took a vacation. Now I admit, I didn’t come in on a Sunday once, but only to impregnate my wife during church. I eat one grapefruit a day and carry my car home from work every night for the exercise.

Frankly, Junior, you’re just not cutting it. When I started this company, no one in this country had even heard of desk lamps. They’d just sit in the dark shuffling papers until their eyes started to bleed. Honest to God, you’d go to sleep with your collars soaked in blood. Now you can walk into half the homes and offices in America and find my namesake sitting on a desk.

Let me let that sink in. 100 million desk lamps, and they all have my name on them. They don’t say, “Eric Martinson, Junior VP of Marketing, and Probable Communist.”

Eric, you’re what’s wrong with America. Do you realize that 30 years ago this country really knew how to make an industrial lathe? And I don’t mean they knew how to order one from Hong Kong, I mean they really knew how to make an industrial lathe. You’d call up some guy in Idaho and he’d call you “Sir” and that damned thing would be in your factory by the end of business Tuesday. And if it did so much as chip a lamp, there wasn’t a court in the state that’d convict you for beating the salesman to death with a chair. A chair made in AMERICA.

Now get out of my office and leave your pens with my secretary.

Sincerely,

95 Year Old Businessman

Volume 16- Issue 6

Animal Love

April 1, 2007
,

What follows are transcripts of conversations between Earth’s creatures about the ups and downs of their love lives, collected through extensive field work and less extensive peyote use.

_Two male lions kick back after a long, hard day of waiting for the females to bring the food home. _
Bill : So my last girlfriend, right? Total controlling bitch. “Why do you stay out so late?” this. “Why don’t you ever call?” that. “Why is your penis covered with tiny, backward-facing spines?” Blah, blah, blah.
Larry : I feel you on the spines thing, man. Women bitch and bitch about the spines, but you know that they’d be totally unable to ovulate without them.
Bill : Thank you! See, that’s what I told her. But did it help? Noooo. I guess she was already pissed at me for killing the other males in the pride and eating her young so as to ensure that only my genes are passed on.
Larry : Women, huh? Can’t live with them, can’t live without extremely rough and painful sex with them.

Two toads succumb to their star-crossed love. _
Lisa : [_huffily] So your dad doesn’t seem to like it that I’m from a different species.
John : Lisa, I’m really sorry about him. I mean it. But you shouldn’t worry about the things he said, or his shouted warnings not to touch you as we left. I’m not like him. I love everything about you. I love your bright blue skin—the way it glistens in the moonlight, the way it warns predators, the way your paratoid gland secretes alkaloids when you laugh…
Lisa : Really?
John : Yeah.
Lisa : John, that is so sweet. [kisses him]
John : [dies of nervous system failure]

Nightfall brings bad news for these two blue jays. _
Martin : [_landing quietly] Okay Martin, play it cool, play it cool…
Sylvia : [springing from the nest] Where the hell have you been!
Martin : I, I just got back from the Wise Owl … it’s about my feathers.
Sylvia : Oh my God. Is it–
Martin : I have bird herpes.
Sylvia : [realizing] You son of a bitch. You slept with that fucking pigeon from work, didn’t you! You stupid son of a bitch, you brought a pigeon-whore into our nest!
Martin : [starting to cry] Sylvia… I…

[a ten year old with an Airsoft gun kills both of them]

Children are always a handful, and this hamster couple is experiencing that fact firsthand. _
Tim : [_reading his shredded newspaper] Honey … did you eat Tim Jr.?
Sara : [mouth full of Tim Jr.] Nopfff.
Tim : [sighing] I should’ve married the water bottle.

Accusations of infidelity threaten to tear this hippo couple apart. _
Brenda : [_angrily] So who’s this slut in your mouth?
James : Honey, for the last time, we spend time together as friends. She picks the parasites off me and, in return, gets  protection from predators.
Brenda : [incredulous] Oh, I see. It’s just symbiosis. If I had a goddamn penny for every time I heard that…
James : She’s a fucking bird, Brenda. Even if I wanted to have sex with her I couldn’t. I’m a hippo, my dick is like a grain silo!
Brenda : Get out of my swamp!
James : Your swamp?
Brenda : Float you!
James : Float your mother!

[accidentally inhales bird]

[pause]
James : [sighing] Are you happy now?

Volume 16- Issue 6

The Incredibly Hip Eatery

April 1, 2007
, ,

The Founders

[Two 5’8″ men stand in the middle of a burned down tire shop, deed in hand]

Sydney : So. Japanese Pop Art meets Sicilian Renaissance with unisex bathrooms?

Viktor : Obvi. Marble from Florence, glass from Stockholm, and waiters from the New School.

Sydney : Laugh. So, designer? What about Marco? He only uses soy-based building materials. He did La Negress in the Village.

Viktor : That place was aces before it collapsed.

Sydney : I liked it more after it collapsed.

Viktor : You’re right. So po-mo.

Sydney : Also, we shouldn’t let Jews in.

[They both blink sarcastically]

Early Buzz

Patron #1 : Hey, so what’d you get at Le Granil?

Patron #2 : Oh, I ordered a Dresden roll from the Sushi menu so they brought me a piece of rebar wrapped in cement.

Patron #1 : Oooooo, how was it?
Patron #2 : Dishy. What’d you get?

Patron #1 : The Prix Fix. The chef kicked me in the throat while shouting at me in Esperanto. But I hardly had to wait!

Sending Something Back

Patron : [Getting waiter’s attention by grabbing his ironic dreadlocks] Excuse me?

Waiter : [dramatic sigh]

Patron : I ordered the Aged Basement Eggs, and this came on a bed of hair. The menu said it came on a bed of arugula.

Waiter : [sighing again, more obviously] And?

Patron : It’s amazing.

Excerpt — NY Times Review

A gaunt, unwashed 24 year old wearing a tuxedo top and a thong approaches the table, a dying pheasant in one hand and a clove of garlic in the other. He slams the bird onto the table, its violent thrashing knocking over the dirty water glasses and sending a lit candle plummeting to the ground below. A glance reveals hundreds of such candles on the ground, a testament to the popularity of the Village’s newest culinary sensation.

Menu Sample

_Emotionally Battered Sea Bass – $86.68 _

A filet of Chilean sea bass, insulted, beaten, and spit on. Cooked upon request.

_Street Vendor’s Delight – $39.98 _

Other patrons’ leftovers grilled with a spicy Unagi sauce and wrapped in a British tortilla.

_Sack De Triumphe – Your Age Times 10 _

Oyster-leakings, shrimp tails, and pomegranate served in a cool canvas sack.

_Tasty Sandwich – Price varies by season _

Volume 16- Issue 6

Words From the Top

Secrets

April 1, 2007

As we, the editorial staff of the Heuristic Squelch, are graduating in a scant few weeks, we no longer have to keep the many awful secrets we’ve kept for these four long trying years. First, the obvious secrets.

We’re the ones that write the Daily Cal, and have been doing so sarcastically for years. No doubt many of you are wise to this ruse, for you know that no newspaper could be so intentionally poorly written, and we appreciate you keeping your silence. But don’t worry, we’ve found a really top shelf breed of dog to take over the Daily Cal next year.

Now onto the deeper, darker secrets.

If you’ve ever submitted a piece or idea to the Squelch and we didn’t reply to you, it’s because it was awful. Unspeakably awful. Rest assured, if your half-baked concepts or kitten-laden humor were at ALL worthy, we would have stolen it and put our names on it. You may have noticed the magazine getting less and less funny, and it’s probably because of the incredibly harsh and soul-killing hazing process that all writers must go through. On the advice of this lawyer we kidnapped, we’ve been told not to tell you about some of the more illegal aspects of the process, but rest assured any Squelch writer knows what wine goes best with a hastily aborted fetus. Hint: it’s not Franzia.

While we’re on the subject of horrible crimes, the magazine has been funded almost entirely for the last decade by selling pirated movies out of our office in 310 Eshleman. And we’ve never gotten caught. Or even come close to getting caught. Especially not for Snakes on a Plane. That movie fucking sucked.

Also, we were the ones that killed that cop. Sorry Mumia, we should’ve spoken up sooner.

Don’t tell anyone.