Hard Digest July 15: Early Access the Kinsellas, Drag Racing, Autographs, and More

Kinsella Family Reunion Leads to Formation of 12 New Bands

By Eric Degliomini

URBANA, Ill. — The bi-annual Kinsella family reunion, organized by brothers and Cap’n Jazz bandmates Tim and Mike Kinsella, successfully resulted in the record-breaking formation of 12 new bands that will inevitably be signed to Polyvinyl and/or Jade Tree, confirmed sources.

“This year has not only led to our largest quantity of bands formed, but our widest variety as well,” stated American Football bassist, Cap’n Jazz guitarist, Make Believe drummer, LIES multi-instrumentalist, and lead cousin of the event Nate Kinsella. “We have everything from the math-y in your face twinkly guitar riffs in ‘Isthmus Between Us,’ to the reverb-heavy acoustic guitars in ‘Wishwell,’ to the experimental two-piece, synth-backed twinkly guitars in ‘Plane Jain.’ I’m just so glad we could get family members from around the world to convene at our three-bed, two bath American Football house.”

The gathering has attracted attention from locals unaware of the area’s notoriety in the midwestern emo scene.

“I kept hearing music down the street that constantly alternated from fast sad noodle-y guitar rock, to slow depressing shit,” local resident Liam Hunter stated. “I thought some of the students were throwing a music fest, so I was surprised when I walked over to see a family reunion that was somehow 90% bearded dads in their 40s. They actually mistook me for their second cousin. Long story short, I’m in four new bands. Little do they know that I don’t play any instruments and I’m not even remotely related to anyone here.”

This year marks a controversial change for the event, as members of Algernon Cadwallader, the Philadelphia-based fourth wave emo band, were granted permission to attend this previously second wave midwestern emo-oriented event.

“Reviewers always called Algernon ‘Cap’n Jazz knockoffs’ and being reductively dismissed by music critics makes them family more or less,” explained the family historian and Karateoke drummer Itsuki Kinsella. “The bands they’ve started are taking off too. Amanda Zoldaz’s Ghost already has lyrics that have been spray painted on the walls of a renowned Japanese thrift store, and Gloo has a fall tour of Central Eastern Europe lined up where they’ve already attracted a cult following.”

At press time, eight of the formed bands announced their imminent breakups, citing the desire to build financial demand for a reunion offer from Best Friends Forever Fest.

Opinion: Men Only Want One Thing and It’s Beating Their Rival in a Drag Race To Win the Affections of a Woman

By Ben Friedman

It’s been said that men are happy with the simple things in life, if you’re going off of their predilection for dino nuggies and furnishing their apartments with nothing but a flat screen TV and a camping chair. Unfortunately, many young men today have been indoctrinated by nefarious influencers who tell them treating women like shit and being an asshole to bartenders will bring them the satisfaction in life they crave.

No, what men really want out of life is to beat their rival in a do-or-die drag race to win the affections of a woman.

Men just want that one moment of triumph that defines them. And according to 1950s rockabilly, it involves a date with the town’s hottest greaser gal who’ll only go out with the winner of an illegal drag race against your arch nemesis from a rival gang. Forget graduating from college, the children yearn for the chop shops to build badass muscle cars.

Sure, guys could scratch that primordial itch by joining a fight club or slowly going insane from eating nothing but raw meat. But life isn’t about that! It’s about publicly humiliating the guy who called you a chicken in front of everyone at the spring carnival, and you damn sure know Sally from down the street saw you get called out.

A good paying job, nice house, and loving family can’t happen unless a man can build all of it upon the foundation of leaving their cross-town rival in the dust in a much cooler, faster hot rod for the sole purpose of impressing a woman. Sure, the ensuing date could go terribly, but it’s not about that. It’s about building character.

The sentiment goes both ways, too. You think women only want emotionally mature men capable of feeling empathy? Well, yes. But they also want to watch you beat Jimmy “The Hustler” Amato in a high-stakes race down the Los Angeles River before watching him careen off a cliff hitting “Dead Man’s Curve.”

When today’s men are lying in their inevitable death beds, they won’t want to look back in sadness at all the chances they blew and people they should’ve treated more kindly. They want to reminisce about that life validating victory of burning rubber, hot asphalt, and being in the arms of a leather jacket-clad bombshell baddie.

Fuck yeah. Pink slips on the line, lets do this!

Loser Asks Personal Hero for an Autograph

By Sidney Conant

DAVENPORT, Iowa — Local Submissive Seventh fan and total dweeb Derek Maldonado reportedly threw away any remaining ounce of self-respect he had after asking the band’s primary songwriter and his personal hero for an autograph, sources too embarrassed to be seen in the same room as him confirmed.

“Getting to meet the man that changed my life and having him sign the vinyl I brought from home is something I’ll forever cherish,” said Maldonado, making absolutely no effort to hide his tears. “Marcus Shannon’s words have meant everything to me ever since I saw that Naruto AMV set to Seventh’s classic ‘Imperfect Cadence for a Perfect You’ and I’m so happy that I got to share that with him. I just wish I knew why everyone’s rolling their eyes at me right now.”

Friend and fellow concertgoer Jarrett Nash could barely keep from vomiting at the sight.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen Derek perform some master-level gagfest,” said Nash, doing his best to appear as disinterested as possible despite being backstage with the band. “Like, the guy remembers my birthday every year and regularly lets me and the boys know he loves us. Already some heinous dork-ass behavior, you know what I mean? But this is simply too much. Because yeah, the $200 VIP package was worth it to be able to breathe the same air as Marcus and maybe get some of his sweat on my face, but I’m not about to ask him for a signature and let him know I’m a fan or anything because that shit’d just be embarrassing.”

Dr. Sandra Woodard, former psychologist and expert in treating loser tendencies, reflects on her difficulties working with Maldonado.

“I used to think that I could fix anyone, but I’ve since come to the conclusion that some people are impossible to cure,” said Woodard. “I’m happy with what little progress I made with Derek over the past few years, but each success was followed by two new setbacks, like a godless hydra made of stacking the plates for your waitress and leaving bottles of water out for the mailman. After failing to teach him to not clap during the end credits at the movie theater, I figured it was time to cut our losses. This doofus even shook my hand and thanked me for everything at our last appointment. May history forgive us.”

At press time, Maldonado was seen trying to have a genuine conversation with the merch guy.

Hard Drive Investigates: Does Duke Nukem 3D Pass the Bechdel Test?

BY Steve Packosky

The famed Bechdel Test, wherein a piece of media is judged on whether it has two named women characters engaged in a conversation about something other than a man, is perhaps the most well-known indicator of active female presence in media. It was developed by cartoonist Alison Bechdel in 1985, and has rightfully called attention to the ongoing problem of gender inequality in film and television over the past several decades.

As a means of encouraging representation in interactive media, the Hard Drive investigative team has decided to begin regularly applying the Bechdel Test to certain video games. Unfortunately, the first game chosen, socially-backward 1996 FPS “Duke Nukem 3D”, might not have been the best example to test the medium’s execution on the subject.

VERDICT

Fail. While Duke Nukem 3D does include scores of women throughout the entirety of the game, they are far from empowering depictions as the protagonist battles invading aliens who have taken over Los Angeles in between bouts of cringe-inducing remarks and needlessly explicit urination animations. The vast majority of women only speak as a means of begging for death as they are left suspended in strange cocoons by the aliens, only to be abandoned by the heartless Nukem as he progresses to the next level in his mission to conquer the aliens. Furthermore, it is later revealed that these poor women were only used as a ruse by the aliens to distract him while they begin their attack on Earth.

The Hard Drive investigative team was given a false sense of hope in the final cutscene, as Duke Nukem, having retired to his quarters after killing the Cycloid Emperor (the leader of the aliens) is called back to bed by an anonymous young lady. However, no further conversation is provided, and at any rate, there appeared to be only one woman present in the scene. The ensuing copulative noises are an embarrassingly unsubtle indication of the lack of insightful conversation that closes out the game.

Further hope was provided by the extra stages in the game’s Atomic Edition, with one of which being set in a place called “Babe Land”. However, while this lamentably appears to be the game’s biggest effort to pass the Bechdel Test, it still falls far short of a passing grade. Virtually none of the women in this level have a speaking part, and their inclusion only appears to be for the sake of dancing suggestively in sexy pirate costumes. 

While the Hard Drive investigative team fully intends on continuing its probes into various games’ performances on this important metric, it would like to apologize to the readers for the rocky start to this new column, and assures them that more thought will be put into the selection process going forward.