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Volume 34, Issue 1:
Squelch M.D.

Five Hipsters: A Play in One Act

Begin Act I **
**Hipster No. 1
: [Entering room.] Hey guys, what’s up?
Hipster No. 2 : Hey man.
Hipster No. 3 : Sup.
Hipster No. 4 : Manao ahoana.
No. 2 : Malagasy? Nice. [They give each other high fives, followed by folding their arms and staring awkwardly at the floor.]

[Five minutes of pretentious silence.]
No. 1 : …so I heard the Arcade Fire is coming out with a new album.
No. 3 : Whoa! The Arcade Fire. They were good until they got big, which retroactively ruined every note they ever played. Even frat boys listen to them now.

[_The other four hipsters hiss at the mention of fraternities. Posters of Devendra Banhart rustle, an eight track vibrates on a table and falls to the floor, framed artsy photos of hands, fingers, and a giant toenail

tremble on the dingy walls.]
No. 1 : [_Defensively.
] Well what are YOU listening to?
No. 3 : You probably haven’t heard of them.
No. 4 : Kraftwerk. Today is Tuesday, and I only listen to Kraftwerk on Tuesdays.
No. 2 : [Indifferently.] MC Hammer and Lionel Ritchie.
Other Hipsters : [With jealous admiration.] Oooooo….
No. 1 : Wow, that’s so bad and so fifteen years ago, it’s cool.
No. 3 : Man, I wish I thought of that first, but these pants I bought from a vintage store are so tight I can’t think straight. Do your balls hurt all the time too?
No. 2 : [Dodging the question.] I know, I know. I love/hate the combination so much, just like I love/hate my full beard and your Borat mustache so much. In fact, if you get me, I really love/hate it.
No. 3 : Sorry man, my bi phase ended last week after a leather clad biker love/hated me in the bathroom of a Mountain Goats show.
No. 4 : How was the show?
No. 3 : I love/hated it.
Hipster No. 5 : [Walking in.] Joom reab soor.
No. 1 : Cambodian? How bougie. He already rocked Malagasy.

[Pointing to Hipster No. 2 who sighs melodramatically.]
No. 5 : [More depressed than usual.] Fuck!
No. 1 : …but your cardigan sort of rocks.
No. 2 : For sure.
No. 3 : Awesome.
No. 4 : Totally chouette. But you know what that means, since we all think its cool, it’s now officially gay.
No. 5 : Fuuuuuck!
No. 3 : How Nietzsche of us.
No. 1 : Please don’t use the word gay in a derogatory manner. I thought I was gay once, but it turned out I just enjoy listening to Sufjan Stevens.
No. 5 : [Sadly gazing at his cardigan.] I guess that’s the end of that chapter. [Flinging it into the fireplace, where it whispers My Morning Jacket lyrics before dissolving in flame.] I guess now I’ll just have to increase the level of irony on all my T-shirts. [He takes out a pen and turns his “I love Ohio!” shirt into “I love Ohio!?”]
No. 2 : Hey, we’ve been in this room for longer than 20 minutes, it’s becoming lame fast.
No. 3 : I agree, let’s go to a bar that we pretend is a dive bar just because it serves cheap alcohol. You know, since we’re all too afraid to go to a real dive bar.
No. 1, 4, and 5 : Agreed!

[They walk outside.]
No. 1 : Hey! We all rode fixed-gear bikes here again!

[They all fall to the ground laughing, laughing, and laughing.]
End Act I

McCain and Guiliani Exploratory Committees Race to the Finish

Tensions mounted in the Republican Party over the weekend as the exploratory committees for Senator John McCain (R – AZ) and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani came closer and closer to reaching the South Pole.

“The polling data suggests that we are going to bury those fuckers in a landslide, both electorally and snowily,” an anonymous staffer on McCain’s committee shouted as he fed the group’s sled dogs. Earlier in the week it had appeared likely that Giuliani would reach the pole first, but his committee failed to reach quorum after half of its members killed and ate the other half.

Screaming himself hoarse as the snow and wind battered his already scarred face, Deputy Political Director Rick Wiley argued passionately that the Giuliani committee’s new snowman and penguin members were just as qualified as the men they replaced.

Thinking about it further he shouted, “Shit, why didn’t we just eat the penguins?!” He then sank to the ground in disgust and retched up part of conservative commentator Robert Novak.

Most Democrats declined to comment on the situation, as they were busy preparing their teams for the “Running Man” portion of the Democratic presidential primaries.

Incredibly Awesome Explosion Leaves 30 Dead, 60 Highly Entertained

Tragedy struck Berkeley this week when a big rig truck carrying petroleum crashed into a firearms factory that happened to be celebrating Chinese New Year. Over twenty employees were killed instantly by the panoply of explosions that followed, and an additional ten people were killed when shrapnel struck a fleet of hot air balloons which were racing overhead.

Onlookers reported that they were stunned, amazed, and highly entertained by the disaster which then spread and caused further explosions in the city’s coal, water, and sodium districts. The response was so overwhelmingly positive that rescue efforts were hampered by twenty minutes of standing-room only applause around the site of the burning factory.

“Holy shit!” one witness driving by the scene remarked, before accidentally swerving his car off the road and into a balloon stand.

A Very Few Special Entries in the Diary of Genghis Khan

March 4, 1187 AD

Today one of my more talkative concubines suggested that I should get a girlfriend. A girlfriend, she said, is a lot like a concubine, except you can’t have sex with other more attractive concubines, and that, get this, when she cries you actually have to beat her less instead of more. Wow, where do I sign?! Just kidding, that sounds retarded.

March 11, 1187 AD

I have decided to give this girlfriend thing a shot, if only out of boredom; I grow weary of my usual leisure activities, which consist of exiling my inferiors for insubordination and punching cattle. Tomorrow I am going “on the prowl,” which is what men without concubines call a girlfriend hunt.

March 12, 1187 AD

Although I seized plenty of women on my girlfriend hunt, none of them wanted to be my girlfriend. One of my generals suggested that I came on too strong when I brought twelve legions of my finest warriors into  the singles bar and slaughtered thousands. I took his words to heart, and then exiled him for  insubordination.

March 18, 1187 AD

I tried an ancient Mongolian remedy for my woman problems: Match.com. My Match.com profile slaughtered thousands of other Match.com profiles.

March 22, 1187 AD

So Match.com finally worked. I’m supposed to go out tomorrow for Mongolian barbecue with some girl. I fucking hate Mongolian barbecue. And even though I’m dealing with the weaker and inferior sex, apparently I’m expected to wear my least filthy fur coat and have less lamb sinew in my teeth than usual. Already I feel more whipped than a Chinese slave.

March 23, 1187 AD

So the date actually went really well. I don’t know just quite what it is, but when I was with her, I experienced the opposite of murderous rage. At dinner we talked and talked and it turns out that we like all the same things: ruthless conquest, ritualistic torture, the new Justin Timberlake CD. We went to the park and fed the birds, then ate them. I did what some of my men call “holding hands,” which is strange and difficult to explain but I’ll try: touching her without entering her unwillingly.

April 14, 1187 AD

Today is a ver y special day indeed. We watched the sun set over the plains as we lay next to one another, picking the ticks out of each other’s armpit hair. Afterwards, we went back to my yurt and drank rice-wine. One thing led to another, and I discovered something very beautiful indeed. Women can produce their own lubrication.

May 8, 1189 AD

So we’ve been going out for about two years now, and I thought I had waited long enough. Today I told her this: out of all the girls I’ve met, I can honestly say that you are the one I’ve had the least desire to discipline. I asked her to marry me, and she said yes! I feel as if I have become a changed man; the only thing I slaughtered this day is loneliness.

Father and Son Game of Hide-and-Seek Concluded After 30 Years

Edward Bixby, 46, recently concluded a drawn-out game of Hide and Seek with his 68-year-old father James Bixby. Edward found his father in the line of the Sheridan County Welfare Office in Sheridan, Kansas.

“I was doing the rounds in the neighborhood, and I had just walked in to put some more Chocodiles in the vending machine when I spotted him,” a jubilant Edward explained.

“As soon as I saw him, I ran right up and screamed, ‘FOUND YOU!’ at the top of my lungs,” Edward said.

“Yeah, some kind of God-damned miracle,” his father James muttered into his plastic flask of Old Crow whiskey. 30 years prior, James instructed Edward to go hide in their Mobile, Alabama trailer home. His ecstatic son said, “I’m even happier than the time he came back after he went out to get cigarettes for two years.” Edward said that he was looking forward to sitting down with his father and discussing 30 years worth of advances in vending machine technology.

Edward’s father was quoted as saying, “Best 2 out of 3?”

Pie Most Venomous

It is a mighty testament to the flexibility of my character that I have agreed to publish in this sordid periodical, which is produced by a particularly degenerate cluster of Hebrews, sodomites, and sour-tongued atheists who imbibe spirits at a rate that, by all reasonable and geometric standards, should already have sent them to whatever righteous torture awaits these heretics. I suppose I have made this contribution as an act of mercy towards you, the pitiable and corrupted readership of this magazine. I offer you the chance to avert your gaze from this vile heap of burlesque scribblings and instead give you a glimpse of the venerated theological wisdom of a bygone era. Thus, without further ado, I give you my appraisal of Berkeley’s various restaurants and eateries.

Blondie’s Pizza

My question, dear reader, is whether the cuisine of an establishment ought to be indicted if it is consumed primarily by the drunken, fornicating misfits of the late night bar scene? The counter emits a twin headed hydra of swaying primates held to the ground by the force of their own backwards baseball caps. Thus, when I arrived, I employed my impressive volume in the enterprise of reaching the register. There was a collective release of grunts and mush mouthed gibberish as I forged ahead. I was quick to silence their grumbling with an authoritative declaration of purpose, “Excuse me! But I am no mere customer. I am here as a representative of one of the city’s premiere publications. Now if you will all make way, I require a sample.” I thrust a wad of moneys into the waiting clutches of the rodent-eyed harlot behind the counter whose visage had been mutilated by no less than a dozen bars, hooks, and hoops of metal, making her resemble nothing so much as the pagan voodoo doll she undoubtedly enshrines within her fetid apartment.

I had already drawn in the hearty scent of the dish past the guardrail of my full bodied mustache and into my sensitive nostrils. Placing it upon the waiting, pink rug of my tongue I first absorbed the delicate softness of the crust. But the restaurant critic cannot merely consume, he must be an instrument of aesthetic precision, so I gently sucked the grease pooled inside a pepperoni. Apparently the act made an audible noise, for several faces turned in my direction. I screamed for privacy but with my mouth full of delicious cheese and tomato sauce I accidentally sprayed a moorish thug with steaming, half chewed foodstuff. When I noted that this was a living metaphor of avian feeding practices, he failed to fully appreciate the witticism.

At this point it was clear that they had given me a slice of inadequate size. Not wanting to disturb the staff I helpfully reached over the counter to scoop up another slice more deserving of my purchase. Unfortunately, I had picked up a vegetarian slice, covered in their cabbage patch swill and obscure middle-eastern dressings which offend both one’s sense of olfaction and morality. But this was the least of my worries, for by then the small Andes tribesmen garbed in the livery of the establishment became immediately agitated, exhibiting the cultural practices of his native land via wild gesticulations and emphatic shrieks. Before I even had a chance to explain myself they hustled me out the door and chucked me onto a filthy vagrant begging for stray coinage.

Until next time, dear readers,

Ignatius J. Reilly

Words From the Top

Stop Masturbating

In this crazy chop-chop, let’s-get-going, stop-crying-and-put-your-shoes-on-so-help-me-God world, time is our most important resource. Time and pig iron. And you know who know how to manage their time? Benedictine monks. Whether it be translating everything into Latin or making sweet-ass wine, those sons of bitches were veritable whirlwinds of white-hot, facefucking synergy, and they got results. Their secret? Not masturbating.

As an experiment of sorts, I’ve taken a page out of their incredibly nonerotic book and refrained entirely from riding the highway to my danger zone. I normally spend about eight to ten hours a week masturbating so I’m up to my ass in free time now. As of this moment I’ve lost sixteen pounds, painted my boat, cured Hepatitis C, come up with the best popcorn seasoning ever, and written over 25 hours of dialogue for what can only be described as Battlestar Galactica fanfic as penned by Goethe. And despite my constant shaking and perpetual urge to rub my groin onto various passersby or anything that doesn’t immediately scald me when I do so, the free time I have is just sweet.

The only problem is that I now have lying around my apartment piles of unused pornography, lubricants, and still-inthe-box RealDolls. It’s quite a feat to stumble over them without giving in to temptation, but I can only imagine it was the same for those monks, who had to walk around those cathedrals all the time with those spicy little nuns everywhere, their wrinkled breasts barely restrained by those habits, rosary beads clacking like two efficiently fucking robots… Excuse me, I’ll be right back, in eight to ten hours.

Goomba War Journal

A New Leader, A New Hope

A friend of mine brought me to a political rally today. The speaker had a brilliant two-point plan for reformation:

1) Kidnap the princess.

2) (To Be Announced)

Surely this Bowser is a revolutionary worth dying for. Also he was 14 feet tall and could breathe fire.

Joining Up

My mother cried, and I promised my fiancé I would write her everyday. Oh how I will miss her menacing unibrow and pronounced underbite on the cold, lonely nights to come. They’ve promised me 20,000 coins for college. When I get out, I want to become an orthopedic surgeon. Maybe then I can make myself some arms.

Issuing Supplies at Boot Camp

Today, our allies the Koopas lined up to receive their shells, wings, undershirts, helmets, throwing hammers, pipe-anchors for vicious piranha traps, squid tentacles, spines, giant bullet launchers, swinging columns of fire, or immortal skeleton bodies. Meanwhile, gracious King Bowser has provided us Goombas with shoes.

News From the Front Line

My brother Goomberto was killed today. There was no funeral, no trumpet sounded, only a single frame of animation. I hope Mario chokes on those blood-tainted 100 points and his dreams are haunted by the hideous ploopy sound of Goomberto’s flattening.

Relief From the Rear Guard

Weary from fighting, our division was relieved today by a highflying Lakitu. We all cheered as he swooped down in his flying cloud, attempting to decapitate our sworn enemy Mario. Morale took a hard hit when Mario kicked the Lakitu’s head in and took off in his flying cloud. I joked that it was the biggest victory ever for the Italian Air Force, but no one else laughed.

Comrades in Arms

I hung out with the Bob-omb squadron today. I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to live every day knowing that you could be sent out to blow yourself up at a moment’s notice. All I know is those guys are pretty fucked up. They spent the whole day torturing Bullet-Bills with a hacksaw and reading eastern philosophy. They don’t eat anything that can’t scream. And now that I think about it, for guys made mostly of gunpowder they sure smoke a lot of cigarettes.

A Break in the Fighting

Army Command sent us a special present today to boost our spirits. Bowser and the Princess arrived and did a Laurel and Hardy style comedy act for us all. Bowser had some great jokes about impregnating the Princess with horrible lizard babies, and some real “A” material about what he planned to eventually do with her corpse. I didn’t find her jokes about sobbing and begging for mercy as funny though, but I’ve never liked female standup comedians.

The Final Face-off

It was the kind of day made for battle: sunny blue skies with cheerful, synthesized background music. As I sighted the enemy, I stuck to the plan: I walked slowly across my platform, never wavering in direction or facial expression. But despite my advance, that damned plumber leaped straight over me, as if somehow privy to my attack strategy! There’s clearly a mole in our midst. Or there will be, when we move to Super Nintendo.

Afterthoughts

Why the hell weren’t we trained to stop at the edges of cliffs?!? As I continue falling in endless limbo, waiting to be respawned when Mario restarts this level, I can only hope that the obstacle of my moving body was enough to make him misjudge a jump and fall to his doom. Unfortunately, I didn’t see what happened, as I was walking sideways, according to plan.

Volume 16, Issue 4: Ridley Scott Presents

If Frat Boys Wrote Fortune Cookies

Love is like a rose; I’ve bought both from immigrants on corners.

There’s a time to be proud and there’s a time to be humble; everybody yaks on their knees.

You will purchase a hookah over the internet and people will like you.

Nothing says “I have sex with women” like a big poster of a naked woman.

The funniest things in life are the things that happened in Old School.

You will totally eat that urinal cake for five dollars. Oh my god, I can’t believe you did it. Naw man, I’ll give you the money tomorrow.

Every Bro deserves a Ho, and every Ho deserves some Blow, unless that Ho has Menstrual Flo

Don’t let the things you don’t know, stop you from not using a condom.