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!

New Posts

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

are coming soon as the Heckler has finished up its sixth year of hilarity.

The U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Field Manual

Friday, August 24, 2007

Hello and welcome to the U.S. Army’s Counterinsurgency Field Manual. The purpose of this manual is to update army strategy in order to cope with the ever evolving and changing insurgency in present day Iraq. Winning the War on Terror is not going to be easy, and this manual has taken this into account. After heavy pensivity and thinkingness, as well as innumerable and valuable contributions from the best and brightest minds in the field of military strategy, we have developed a three stage strategy for counterinsurgency: 1) Winning the War 2) Winning the Peace and 3) Winnie the Pooh. We firmly believe that following these steps, victory will be virtually insured…assured. Shit, I always get those confused.

Stage 1: Winning the War
Losing is not an option. There are those who say we should cut and run, but we here at the Pentagon don’t run with scissors. Instead, we intend to use these very metaphorical scissors to puncture the proverbial veil of secrecy behind this insurgency. We are in a way, haircutters, but instead of cutting hair we shoot people and instead of blow drying hair we blow up houses. In every other way we are like haircutters. Except that many haircutters are of the homosexual persuasion and we have banned their kind in our elite fighting force of heterosexual masculine dominance (and women). I guess my point is, we need to kill the terrorists. And we’re going to use guns and a shitload of bombs. That is our new war strategy. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. But Mr. Pentagon isn’t that what you were doing before. Yes it is. More questions? Yeah, how is this adapting to the ever-evolving insurgency? It’s not, precisely because evolution isn’t real. The insurgency only looks like it’s evolving, but really it’s always looked this way because God created it to be this way.

Stage 2: Winning the Peace
A lot of folks in Washington try to simplify the war too much. A war is a complex thing. It’s like a cake. There are a lot of ingredients and when you fuck up, it’s ok, cause you can just throw it out and start over again. Shooting the insurgents dead isn’t the only way we must approach this war. The Army is no longer solely a well-oiled, disturbingly well-equipped, bloodthirsty government death squad; it’s also a political and social tool. Winning the Peace is about utilizing the softer side of the army, the “downy” side if you will. Greeting Iraqis with a smile and hand gesture is often enough to win over even the harshest of insurgents. And maybe give them some candy or something. Hell if I know.

Stage 3: Winnie the Pooh
This is a crucial element to our new counterinsurgency plan. Some of you may be old enough to remember our less politically correct “Winnie the Gook” campaign during Vietnam. Oh man, ol’ Charlie loved playing with those toys right up until the moment they detonated with the high explosives and napalm they were packed with. However, this time we will be dropping actual bears stuffed with stuffing I believe. Will it be explosive stuffing you ask? I like your style, but unfortunately some of the “officials” in Washington won’t allow that. But what the hell am I gonna do if a couple of rogue soldiers stuff their bears with homemade napalm using these readily accessible ingredients in the following proportions: 1 part Styrofoam, 2 parts gasoline. But I digress. Our objective here is to kill them with kindness. Kindness mixed with bullets and napalm. Also, one note, if you accidentally receive a shipment of “Whiny the Jew” bears, please discard them. This are an earlier prototype that was ultimately discarded.

Well, you’ve now learned everything you need to know about counterinsurgency strategy. This concludes the operations component of the field manual. Thanks for reading and remember, if it moves, it’s probably a terrorist so shoot.

If you liked this, you might also like:
The Vietnam War: Of Course We Won
Arabs: Why are they all terrorists?
Military Invasions For Dummies
The Bay of Pigs: Perfection in a Plan
Winnie the Pooh and the Heffalump
HALO

Holy Shit, We're Back

Yes, after a very extended blogging vacation because of a sweet trip to Europe the staff won (the Voice bet us they would write at least one worthwhile article this past year) the blog is back. So sit tight, hold onto your nutsacks/respective genitalia, and prepare for a mind orgasm of hilarity.