Hard Digest August 9: Early Access Ghost, Losers, and Serial Killers

Experts Warn Education Cuts Could Lead to Even More People Thinking Ghost Is a Metal Band

By Steve Packosky

WASHINGTON — Experts at the Department of Education (DoE) have issued a dire warning that further cuts to their institution could result in even more people thinking Ghost is a metal band, sources report.

“Education cuts by this administration will cause issues we could not have foreseen,” advised DoE official Shemeca Anderson. “Currently, roughly 36% of the American public believes Ghost is a metal band despite their music clearly being synth-pop. We have reason to believe that number can as much as double in the next ten years without desperately needed funding to music education. Now more than ever, children need to be given the tools that enable them to discern between genres of music so this trend can be halted, and that absolutely cannot be accomplished with money instead being diverted to give tax breaks to billionaires.”

Concerned parent Beverly Horwitz expressed her consternation at the news.

“I don’t think this was such a profound issue when I was growing up,” Horwitz mentioned. “I don’t have a musical bone in my body, but I was able to obtain a basic rudimentary understanding of what constitutes different music genres through what I learned in elementary and middle school. Now I fear that my six-year-old son Heath won’t be afforded the same experience in the coming years. The thought of him growing up to think that Ghost is a metal band doesn’t sit right with me. It just seems so tragic and preventable.”

Ghost fan Dom Serris did not see the issue with the cuts.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Serris said. “I grew up going to public school in Mississippi, so I barely had any music education whatsoever. However, I know enough to consider Ghost a metal band. In fact, they’re one of my favorites. Just look at how the lead singer dresses like an evil pope and sings about Satan. What more information do you need to conclude that they’re a metal band? Also, they won the Grammy for Best Metal Performance in 2016 for their song ‘Cirice,’ and who knows metal better than the people who decide the nominees and winners for those awards? I think these DoE dweebs are just freaking out over nothing, like they always do.”

At press time, experts were further concerned that the funding cuts would result in people thinking synth was a necessary part of all metal music.

These Losers Are Paying $15 for a Cocktail Where 2 Ativan and a Modelo Tall Boy Is Like $3

By Dan Kozuh

You know what’s truly pathetic? The crowds of trust-fund influencers desperately trying to get a bartender’s attention, only to drop fifteen bucks (plus tip) on a watered-down lavender-ginger cocktail with crushed pink sea-salt on the rim and a splash of Grey Goose. Meanwhile, there’s a far more effective and much cheaper solution available to have a great night: two Ativan and a Modelo tall boy. You could even save another 75 cents if you switch to a Milwaukee’s Best, but it’s good to have some standards.

Let’s crunch the numbers: even if you don’t have health insurance, or your doctor refuses to give you a script because you’re “Just fine” it wouldn’t take but 5 minutes to find someone in the Rite Aid parking lot selling benzos dirt cheap. Meanwhile, these idiots line up outside bougie bars to drop their rent checks on drinks named after fuckin’ characters from The Goonies or whatever the shit.

“Oh, but it’s about the experience,” they whine. Sure, if your ideal experience involves a crowded, unlit “speakeasy” with a garbage early-2000s indie-folk playlist berating your eardrums while you sip on a $19 Pineapple Macha Rum Punch. You know what’s a great experience? Dissolving a few Xanax in a box of wine and floating on my back in a public fountain until the police escort me away.

Let’s be honest — bar culture is a scam. They charge you $5 to strain jackfruit pulp through a mesh screen and garnish your drink with a sprig of rosemary. You know what garnishes my drink? Crushed Ambien on the rim of a Gatorade bottle spiked with homemade potato vodka, enjoyed on my fire escape as I shout incoherent insults at passersby. Assuming I stole the Ambian from my mom and the Gatorade from 7-11, the entire evening is free. And I did!

“But what about the community atmosphere?” These hashtag-trend-chasers protest. Please. The true social butterfly knows nothing brings people together better than the thrill of mixing Zippo fluid fumes with the questionable Vicodin a guy just handed to you on the subway, then asking strangers if they have any strong opinions on Israel.

So keep your $26 turmeric-cayenne Mezcal concoctions on your carefully curated TikToks feeds, losers. I’ll be out here pioneering the real artisanal cocktail movement. One that involves stealing mini-bar shooters from housekeeping carts, forging an Oxycodone prescription, and having a nightcap at the most exclusive club in town — the floor of a Taco Bell bathroom — knowing I’m smarter than all of you.

Aging Killer Knows What You Did But Can’t Recall If It Was Last Summer or the Summer Before

By Greg Heller

SOUTHPORT, N.C. — A veteran Southport slasher slash longshoreman is “beyond embarrassed” after botching the timeline in a series of threatening missives mailed to local youths, confirmed sources.

“As I get older, the years are just sort of blurring together,” said the killer. “I actually suspected I might be a little confused and had an early draft that read, ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer Or Perhaps The Summer Before,’ but that just felt so, I don’t know… clunky. You know, I do sometimes find myself reeling in a marlin or standing over a mutilated human corpse with no idea how I got there. And just last week I asked my wife where my shiny black head-to-toe foul-weather gear was and she was like, ‘Um, honey, you’re wearing it.’ But some things you never forget, and I am positive that at some point over the past few years, I was involved in some sort of traffic accident.”

The killer’s warnings were meant to reference an event in which he says 23-year-old Caitlyn Cline and a group of fellow Gen Z dickheads ran him off a winding road on the outskirts of Southport, plunging him down a steep ravine to his apparent death—an event he now realizes transpired the TWO summers prior.

“A note that was under my windshield wiper just read, ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer,’” said a very puzzled Cline. “But I spent last summer yachting through The Med with my parents. I guess the sender could somehow know I blew that random German guy at a club on Mallorca, but what… he’s gonna kill me for that? I don’t get it.”

Neurologist Dr. Jorge Kwan noticed an alarming trend among those in the vengeful murderer community.

“Cognitive decline is a real issue in the slasher population,” said neurologist Dr. Kwan, whose book, “Have You Seen My Machete?: When Psychopaths Lose Their Minds” is the definitive tome on the topic. “We’ve seen this recently when both Candyman and Freddy Krueger were hospitalized for forgetting which hand they wipe with. And Jason Vorhees often can’t remember if his signature outfit uses a hockey or baseball catcher’s mask.”

At press time, the killer hoped the recipients of his letter can both forgive him for the error and also prepare to die via fishhook to the midsection.