Tom Waits blamed for increase in car failures among Tom Waits fans

*Hey guys.  Sorry about the lack of post last week.  Took the holidays off.  

On October 13th 2010, Matt Shad was driving home from work when suddenly he felt a large bump in the road and looked in his rear view mirror to see the entire exhaust assembly of his 1992 Ford Focus laying on the ground behind his now damaged car

Shad is just one of a growing number of Tom Waits fans who has fallen victim to such a tragic breakdown in recent years. A recent study from the Institute for Roadside Safety has found that over the past 20 years since the Rock and Roll hall of Fame recording artist first signed with record label Island there has been a steadily growing correlation between those who listen to the discordant music of the recording artist and those who find themselves failing to notice pieces of their cars dragging on the ground behind them.

What's more it appears the problem may not be limited to dragging incidents such as Mr. Shads. Correlations have also been found between foreign objects caught in the engine, cars back firing loudly and failures to acknowledge loose or broken elements of the suspension.

In an interview with Reuters Mrs. Callie Bastion of the totally unrelated conservative think tank "Family Research Group" had the following to say on the matter.

"While we are cautious to point fingers or even speak prematurely about any direct evidence of causality; early findings suggest that the loud and raucous music of Mr. Waits more recent career is, to many fans, indistinguishable from the sound of screeching metal fatiguing to the breaking point."

Other theories for the strange increase in accidents are that Tom Waits fans are actually deaf and choose to label themselves as Tom Waits fans because, although he has strong name recognition, virtually no one is able to actually name any of his individual songs, or produce a copy of one of his actual albums.

This most recent theory has largely been rejected by Mr. Waits' fan base. Matt Shad has stated publicly that while he is a Tom Waits fan, he was not listening to him at the time of the accident and believes that he simply didn't notice the deafening roar from his unmuffled engine and high pitched scraping from his exhaust pipe on the ground because, as a Tom Waits fan, he finds such noises to be soothing.

One other anonymous Tom Waits fan who responded to our requests for an interview said through a sign language interpreter "I like Tom Waits music, period. The fact that I'm deaf is totally unrelated. Mule Variations is my favorite album...Oh you don't own any Tom Waits? Oh well, I guess we won't be able to listen to it then."

When Broad Shoulders tried to reach Mr. Waits for an interview we were only able to get a sound akin to lag screws in a blender, accompanied by the apparent cooing of a dove.

The authors of this study have stated that they believe this may be a break though in the study of music as it correlates to behavior and are currently seeking grants to study recent rises in the rate of narcolepsy amongst smooth jazz fans.

Local Family Gives Clearance for Savior to be Born

St. Charles, IL- The Thompson-Dunn family gave the go ahead this week for the birth of the Son of God to proceed according to reports on the families yearly Christmas letter. Apparently the family's recent trip to the local Christmas tree lot carried more weight than usual as the matriarch of the family, Shar Thompson-Dunn explained in the yearly condecendence. “ As we entered the lot Zack said the most precious thing. We were talking about whether or not we could find a tree more perfect than the previous years and Zack exclaimed “If we don't find the PERFECT tree this year, then Christmas won't come and Jesus won't be born.”

As the letter goes on to suggest, onlookers who heard this were horrified to find out that this aging middle class family had been given responsibility over such an important event in the history of the modern world. However it would appear that their fears were put to rest quite quickly. Not more than twenty minutes after entering the rows upon rows of short needled evergreens the Thompson-Dunns emerged with a 7 foot tall tree slung over the precocious 28 year old Zack's shoulder. The tree has been described as a densely needled spruce with a slight bare patch on the bottom that will reportedly be turned towards the window and a slight space between the branches at about five feet up that will be an excellent place for the families collection of moving interactive Star Trek ornaments.

While it would appear that the salvation of mankind is preserved for yet another year Nooze Nuggets was there at the Thompson-Dunn home to ask what it felt like having such a weighty responsibility rested upon their choice of Christmas trees. After asking us what we were doing on their property and then asking us forcefully yet politely to please leave the father of the family finally agreed to give us a written statement about the event if it would get us “to go the hell away”.

“This year my son made an off color remark reflecting his new found atheism as we got out of the car at the Marlion Christmas Tree Orchard. As a joke, poking fun at the unnecessary weight given to many holiday traditions, my son stated that the birth of the Lord and Savior of Christians every where hinged on our successful execution of this ancient Pagan ritual. If anyone heard his quip and took it seriously I wish to now assure you that regardless of our Christmas tree hunt, the birth of Jesus Christ has been secured as having been a little over 2,000 years ago.

Thank You

Jon Thompson-Dunn.

According to the annual family letter that initially released this bombshell to the public, the Thompson-Dunns have no intention of allowing this responsibility to change them. Shar reports that both Zack and his sister Brittany have big years planned. Zack intends to work on his novel and hopefully have it finished by the end of the year and Brittany is taking this year to find herself. Apparently according to Shar “Proving the existence of God and the lack of inherent direction in cause and effect might be enough for some families, but we at the Casa De Thompson-Dunn usual try and go just a little bit further.”

Hipster Communities Reel After Leaked Internal Memos

Hipster communities around the nation were rocked last Friday when the controversial website Wiki Leaks released dozens of internal memos from the Hipster community. The documents, which reveal dozens of dark secrets behind the often closed door decision making which guides the hipster communities, were released on the website last Friday and immediately lit up the blog-o-sphere with heated debate over whether or not the documents could be trusted.

The documents were seemingly internal memos from some of the nations most powerful hipsters and released to local free trade coffee shop owners and co-op employees. The very existence of the documents reveals that the hipsters of America are more than a bunch of pompous young pseudo-intellectuals but rather they are a well organized network of young, pompous, pseudo-intellectuals.

Most shocking of all though is the information about the hipster community that is revealed by the memos. The following are just a few of the facts that have been confirmed by independent experts on hipsters.

• Hipsters who declare a love for “exploring their city” are actually expressing a desire to find the most upscale “dive bar” that still has overpriced PBR tall boys. Any attempts to actually venture into unknown portions of the city might result in entering an actual dive bar which creates the risk of meeting poor people.
• Animal Collective (who are actually co-treasurers of the hipster movement) is actually quite happy making money performing their music and having more the 17 “hardcore” fans.
• Liking something ironically is actually exactly the same as liking something for real.
• It doesn't actually matter if you were a fan of Death Cab for Cutie before they were famous or if you learned about them listening to the radio, they are still the exact same band.

Broad Shoulders sought comment from the Hipster community and received a prepared

statement from Hipster Public Relations officials, “We will find the ones responsible for the leak. We will unleash all of our powers against them. We will battle them with all the powers of our arsenal. They will fall to our irony, they will succumb to the might of our clever t-shirts. Then their heads will hang from our hoodies.”

On the street hipsters have demonstrated a somewhat more sedate reaction. At the local coffee shop Java Island local hipster Phil Abernathy had this to say “I think it's ironic that Wikileaks is releasing documents that were just randomly sent to them by reputable sources.” When it was pointed out to him that this was in fact not ironic but rather entirely predictable, as it is exactly what Wikileaks does; he continued by calling this reporter a “conformist” with my “definitions” for things like “common English words” (quotation marks were indicated by air quotes). Another local hipster Doug Somebody said he would “bet his full and unkempt beard” that Julian Assange wouldn't know a real hipster if they tilted their trucker hat at him.

Wiki Leaks for their part has maintained their standard response that they are not responsible for leaked information that is posted on their website. They are simply a news outlet working with information that is provided by anonymous sources.

Woman reveals 45 year relationship with Herman Cain

Iowa- Herman Cain's suspended campaign for the GOP nomination for president suffered yet another set back yesterday as another female associate came forward to claim a relationship with the former front runner. The woman, Gloria Cain, has perhaps had the most shocking allegations yet. In a statement released by her publicist early yesterday, Ms. Cain revealed that her relationship with Mr. Cain has gone on for over 40 years and in fact continues today.

According to Gloria Cain, she and the former Godfather's pizza exec met in 1966 and within two years the two had married. While she refused to go into any more explicit detail, Gloria did say that she was in love with Mr. Cain and has been for over four decades. Ms. Cain has slammed the other women who have come forth over the course of the past several weeks as gold diggers and predators who are looking to capitalize on her lover's notoriety. In the same statement in which Ms. Cain announced her relationship to the presidential candidate, she said “The women who have made such heinous allegations against Mr. Cain should be ashamed of themselves. I have been with Herman for more than forty years and in that time he has never even tried to treat me the way he did these women. Whether it be the women claiming to be his mistress, or any of the women claiming sexual misconduct, I know for a fact that such acts simply don't interest Herman Cain.”

It is believed that the threat of this revelation is what ultimately led Mr. Cain to suspend his campaign for the presidency. According to Matt Suresh of the the American Enterprise Institute the theory might have a fair amount of truth to it. “Up until now Mr. Cain's problems have all been well within the wheel house of election year politics.” Mr. Suresh told Nooze Nuggets, “Revelations of sexual harassment, assault and infidelity are all time honored favorites of the primary campaigns, no more controversial than the Iowa caucus. However, as far as I can remember, never before has a candidate faced an accusation as shocking as when Mrs. Cain revealed her forty plus year committed relationship with Mr. Cain.” While it would seem that over years the electorate has grown tolerant if not weary of the common accusations, Mrs. Cain managed to shake them back into wakefulness when she made her revelation.

When asked for a comment about whether or not he knew and/or was married to Gloria Cain, Herman Cain repeated the question several times under his breath and then said the following “Gloria, if I had met her, is truly the type of woman I would have met if we had been introduced at some point in the past. Herman Cain could be married to a lot of different woman, or just one, or in fact he could be a single solitary Black Walnut in the forest by himself. Either way, he is truly, not my wife.” In the hours since the revelation Mr. Cain has been seen in at least two separate locations with Gloria Cain, lending credibility to the woman's accusations that she is his wife of several decades.

While Mr. Cain's campaign might be able to rebound from this current scandal, it must do so quickly. With the primary voting season getting underway early in the new year Mr. Cain must rally soon or be lost in the crowd. Even those efforts may not be enough. Currently, rumors have begun circulating that he and Gloria have two children, whom they have raised together and remain close with to this day.

Kim Jong-il named Republican front runner

Pyongyang-With the 2012 presidential election a mere 11 months away the field of republicans vying for the chance to be president was rocked yesterday as the President of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-il was announced to be the new front runner for the nomination

In a report on Korean state television the “Beloved Leader” announced not only his candidacy for the Presidency but that upon filing papers to run he was immediately named the front runner and all opposing him had admitted to his superiority and offered to give him any votes they received in the upcoming primaries.

A later report by North Korean state media included a letter from President Obama, in which the President stated that, “It is wonderful to see the great, handsome and beneficent leader of the truly free Korea stake his glorious claim over leadership of the United States of America. When the primaries are over and The Supreme Leader has been name the most virile of candidates I will gladly lay down all opposition to his superiority and make the bed for him before the leaving the White House crawling on my belly lest I should offend him with my hubris.”

The news of the Korean dictator's announcement comes as a surprise to most political analysts in the United States due largely to the fact that Kim is forbidden by the constitution of the United States from running for the office of President. Molly Haverford, a constitutional scholar and professor emeritus at America University cited Kim's inability to meet several of the prerequisites for the nations highest office, including but not limited to the fact that Kim has no residency in the United States and is in fact banned from traveling here, has no US citizenship, has served in a foreign military and was not born a citizen of this country.

Despite these set backs many in the Republican Party have welcomed the announcement out of Korea and have thrown their full support behind the dictator. A spokesperson for Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said that the former Speaker of the House is glad to have to opportunity to challenge Kim Jong-il for the nomination. When asked if Gingrich had any comment on the apparent front runner status of the dictator Gingrich said that, his poll data didn't seem to agree with that of North Korea state pollsters, but that he was looking into his data collection methods to see if they were in fact skewed somehow.

Former front runner Mitt Romney has welcomed Kim into the race and leaks from inside his camp say that he is already in talks behind the scenes to fill out the ticket should the Korean maintain his reported lead throughout the primary season.

The only primary candidate who has publicly come out against the candidacy of Kim Jong-il is dark horse candidate Gary Johnson (campaign slogan: Hey, Hey everybody over hear, I'm running too you know), the former governor of New Mexico. In a press briefing yesterday Johnson responded to a question regarding his becoming even more irrelevant now that Kim has entered the race by saying, “Are you serious. This guy isn't even eligible to run. Like it or not we've proven that Obama is in fact a citizen, but this guy has never even set foot in this country. Does anyone really think that the American people are going to look to a totalitarian dictator to lead our country.”

When reminded of the poll news out of North Korea , Johnson looked stunned and shook his head in disbelief while muttering something that sounded like “Idiots”

Johnson's comments not withstanding polling shows that Kim Jong-il is polling well among the American republican base as well, who seem to enjoy leaders who tell them what to think and brook no dissent.