Rejected Onion Headlines 6/23

Sunday, June 29, 2008

As you may have been able to tell from our clip-show-style gay-issue this week, The Onion is now on summer vacation for two weeks. After that, it'll be a week of special projects. Good news: I get two weeks of paid vacation to myself in NYC. Bad news: no new headlines or article-writing for three weeks. Now let's get to the embarrassingly bad headlines!

Week Four
Failing in the first round (Monday 6/23):

1. Mugabe's Dog Certifies Another Election Victory OR Mugabe's Dog Drops Out Of Presidential Race
2. Bush Just Hanging Around Home This Summer After Failing To Get Internship At U.N.
3. Man Surprised To Come Across Black-People Version Of Favorite Commercial
4. McCain And Obama Locked In Harsh Battle Over Who Is More Civil
5. Man With Alzheimer’s Returned Home After Wandering Onto Space Station
6. Hot Cuban Band The Castro Brothers To Star In Own Cuba Disney Channel Movie (GROAN)
7. Wall Street Tumbles After Pretty Light Turns Off
8. OE: In My Day, You Had To Smoke Pot Uphill 15 Miles In The Snow Or Some Shit
9. OE: Istanbul Is Beautiful This Time Of History
10. OE: Point: I Want A Piece Of That Ass (by a 26-year-old pederast) / Counterpoint: I Want A Piece Of That Ass (by a 12-year-old cannibal)
11. MAG: How Often Does Your Pet Pray?

Failing in the second round (Tuesday 6/24):

1. America Suffers Through Record Box Office
2. Man Walking Onto Web Page Wants To Welcome You
3. OE: I Will Pollute This River If It's The Last Thing I Do

It was a slow week, funny-wise, just days before sweet summer hiatus. Thus, all four of my headlines in the second round went up for a vote to get in the issue. Three failed, and again this week one was picked by the great Chris Karwowski for a Radio News piece.

Articles written this week: I wrote a news story that will not go in this issue because of its similar subject matter to an Al Gore-related story, but it will appear eventually. To give you some perspective on the hiatus, the issue we put together this week will not go on newsstands until July 30.

DeGioia and O'Donnell Love Undergrads So Much They Plagiarize Themselves Again

Monday, June 23, 2008

The 2008 Heckler Summer Blog blogs on. We apologize for not yet "bringing the heat" on such sexy Georgetown news as revisions to local zoning laws.

The above photo is real, by the way. That's the dining hall's namesake sporting a genuine popped collar at a Class of 1956 Georgetown reunion. If you look hard enough, you can find some good photos of administrators, like this one that has become our stock photo of Todd Olson:


We write a lot of Todd Olson stuff, by the way.

Anyway, we here at the Heckler, despite our incapacitating laziness, have considered doing another parody this summer like our 2007 New Student Guide that so infamously left me with a threat from the CSP and the university counsel. One thing we considered was doing a whole new new student guide, but I checked today and the 2008 guide seems to be almost exactly the same as the 2007 guide.

That's predictable, of course, as much of the information is still relevant. However, two "personal" messages from President DeGioia and Provost O'Donnell to new students have also remained the same.

The letter from O'Donnell, who is not a muddle througher kind of person, seems to have only substituted one mandatory reading assignment for another, and despite past experiences, he still finishes it with a straight face, saying, "This will be one afternoon in your Georgetown life, but I can assure you it will be a memorable and rewarding one." The letter from DeGioia is exactly the same as his one from last year except the fancy watermark now dates the letter at "May 2008." Both appear to be the same as they were in the student guide I got the summer before my freshman year.

Somewhere the Honor Code is smiling.

We maybe could parody other parts of this sacred guide the administration is forced to protect from the Heckler, but the most enjoyable part is making fun of administrators, and we can't really do anything if they don't care about the student body enough to write a new message or, say, a new convocation speech once in awhile to give us some material. I guarantee you, by the way, we can run this letter from the editor again this September.

So we ask you: is there a stupid university publication or other Georgetown thing you think is ripe for parody? Let us know in the comments.

Rejected Onion Headlines 6/16

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Week Three
Failing in the first round (Monday 6/16):

1. Irony Put Up For Sale On eBay
   
2. Bush Falls Out Of Oval Office Window After Leaning Out To Yell At Dog
3. Top Consultant Not Exactly Sure What Consulting Is
4. Christ Returns To CBS Lineup
5. Bankrupt City Manages To Dedicate Citronella Candle To War Veterans
6. Person Talking In Movie Theater Ruins Internet Bootleg
7. People Of The World Come Together For First Time In Scam Facebook Group
8. OP-ED: What The Hell Is Wrong With Coming To The Olive Garden To Re-enact A Scene From Lady And The Tramp With Your Dogs?
9. OP-ED: I Could Circumnavigate The Globe Too If I Wanted
10. MAG: The Love Guru's Mike Myers On Kantian Ethics
11. MAG: From Cute Little Boy To Communist: Is Elian Gonzalez America's Next Big Threat?

Yeah, not too great.

Failing in the second round (Tuesday 6/17):

1. Area Man No Longer Trusts His Cell Phone
2. Angel Food Cake Actually Devilish, Area Woman Reports
3. Killing Spree At T.J. Maxx Lightened Up By Phil Collins' ‘Sussudio’

The first one there was considered, but ultimately didn't get the votes. I did get one headline from this batch in as a Radio News item, so that should be around at some point.

Articles written this week: I wrote two news-in-brief items.

The Voice May Have Been Better This Year, But They Still Manage To Do Shit Like This

Thursday, June 19, 2008

The offending item.

Really? Really?

1. Find the only way dead guy related to Georgetown ... Google ... got it! GEORGETOWN IS IMPORTANT, IMPORTANT PEOPLE TALK ABOUT GEORGETOWN!

2. Okay, but how are the students important? These are the only people their age who had an affection for this guy. Got it, they eulogize the dead guy in their away messages and stuff like that.

3. “All that and more on Meet the Press. But for now…” OMG, that makes me cry. So poignant. This person should have been on NBC talking about dead guy, not his son.

4. How do I stretch to say that this is appropriate? Ummmm....
a. Dead guy lived at same time as internet existed.
b. Living at same time as something means you are that thing.
c. Therefore, dead guy is the internet and the eulogizing is appropriate.

At least they blog, though. Hoya! Heckler!!!

Rejected Onion Headlines, 6/2 and 6/9

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Like this new blog design? Me neither, really, and I designed it. But at least it's better than using that generic template.

After getting rejected for crappy jobs by the Washington Nationals and the housing department, Heckler editor Jack Stuef somehow scooped up a sweet gig as a summer writing fellow in Manhattan with America's favorite newspaper, The Onion. What's a summer writing fellowship? Basically it's like being any other Onion writer, except I get paid less, get hazed more, and am met with lower expectations.

I was thinking I would share my experiences this summer with you, our Turkish reader. (Thanks for sticking with the blog, Recep!)

First up: why not my share with you some of my failures? At The Onion, we start with the headlines first, and each week I'm expected to bring in 15 fresh ones. The following are the ones I presented the past two Mondays that failed:

Week One

Failing in the first round (Monday 6/2):

1. following focus group tests, reform party nominates computer generated penguin for president
2. esl lab more advanced, productive than chemistry lab
3. local newspaper under fire for being 12-year-old's propaganda machine
4. hipster polygamist decides marriage just not in the future for him, girlfriends
5. beanie baby investment fails to mature
6. supreme court rules, appellate court drools
7. local woman enters medical school just for excuse to wear scrubs
8. manhattan toddler still refusing to like sushi
9. misbehaving congressman forced to spend entire recess inside capitol

"Jack, those headlines are shitty." I hear you, but it was my first week! But also, you're right, and they're only going to go downhill from here. I did get 6 headlines voted to the second round, which is not too shabby for a new guy.

Failing in the second round (Tuesday 6/3):

1. buddha statue used to hold second roll of toilet paper
2. area man somehow winds up on foreign policy panel
3. promotional towels sewn together to form usable towel
4. local mom tries to make her food chipotle-flavored too
5. inspiring dyslexic terrorist makes it to top leadership of hezbollah
6. area man can't stop fantasizing about stopping would-be obama assasin

This week I didn't get anything into the paper, though the one about the dyslexic terrorist came really close. One lesson learned this week: capitalize your headlines, dipshit.

Articles written this week: I wrote one news-in-brief item. I'll make a post whenever an article I write finally goes up online (we work a few weeks ahead).

Week Two
Failing in the first round (Monday 6/9):

1. Man Confused By Sign From God To Steal Second
2. Woman On Street Won't Shut Up About Lost Child
3. Waitress Area Man's Assistant-Managing Muse
4. Goodyear Announces "Win A Minimum-Wage Factory Job At Goodyear" Sweepstakes
5. Theater Audience Distracted By Autistic Fiddler On The Roof
6. Giant Rubber Band Ball Under Fire For Breaking DVD Player
7. Elton John Begins Writing Hillary Clinton Version Of ‘Candle In The Wind’
8. Battle Of Gettysburg Comes Alive For Drunk Teens Visiting On School Trip
9. Papal Apartment Blasting "Lady In Red" On Repeat
10. Area Man Not Ruling Out Being Obama's Vice President

Only five headlines made it to the second round? I told you things were on the decline.

Failing in the second round (Tuesday 6/10):

1. Cocky Media Now Wants To Pick Vice-Presidential Candidates Too
2. OP-ED: Yes, I Did Say I Wanted Butter On Those Dippin' Dots
3. Street Named In Honor Of Dead Guy Re-named After New Dead Guy
4. Standing Too Close To Microwave Will Give You Cancer Or Something, Reports American Journal Of Moms

"Shit, Jack, where's the fifth one?" IN THE PAPER, BITCHES. That's right, I got an op-ed headline in there. Again, a link will come when it goes up.

Articles written this week: I wrote a point-counterpoint column.


So there's a little summary of my writing the past two weeks. Hope you like this feature, Recep.

Fuck It, Let's Summer Blog!

We're gonna do it, I swear! ... NOW!