14 minute read
FEaTUrE
from March 29, 2018
pictoRial: 1. Read it!
April Fools! The stories in this week’s feature package contain satire, exaggeration and outright misinformation … or do they?
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2. Roll it! 3. Smoke it! Smoke it!
neWSBuD ink (saTIVa) specTRum SpectRum of the Stinky inky RevieWWeeD ink (INdIca) specTRum
RN&R Staff RepoRt
This newspaper now made of 100% recycled marijuana! It’s totally smokable! (Also edible!) Will get you so high that the world turns sideways!
The Weekly World News & Review is pleased to announce that this newspaper is now printed on rolling papers and that we’ve partnered with fictional local cannabis grower Bäkd to develop special inks that are laced with cannabis oil. That’s right! Smoking this newspaper will now get you hella high!
And here’s what’s more: We understand that it’s a consumer’s market, so we’ve developed different blends for different colors. We use a four-color “CMYK” printing process. Feeling like getting a little wild? Choose pages with a lot of magenta (M) or black (K), because those inks contain Newsbud, a sativa-dominant blend. Feeling more like you need to mellow out? Opt for a page with more cyan (C) or yellow (Y), because those inks contain Reviewweed, an indica-dominant blend.
Sure, you can find new stories and local arts coverage online, but can those online outlets offer this? No way.
In a related announcement, the Weekly World News & Review is changing its slogan. “Think free!” has grown a little stale in the internet age because everyone expects everything to be free nowadays. Our new slogan: “Read it! Roll it! Smoke it!” Ω
also in thiS iSSue:
• City of Reno approved plan to demolish classic Reno recordings • Fashion victims! • Local man relieved that he no longer needs to pretend to care about college basketball • Don’t call it a comeback! • Local dad admits even he’s kinda sick of Fox News • Firearms industry puts on a friendly face for young liberals
continued from page 9
Fashion victims!
Having discovered “vintage is in,” Reno City Council regrets demolition of old motels
Having recently discovered that “vintage is in again,” the Reno City Council issued a statement saying it now regrets the decision to allow developers to move forward with the demolition of several mid-century motels in city’s downtown district, despite outcry from many residents and historic preservation activists.
“When the new season of Rehab or Raze came on Friday night, I knew we’d jumped the gun,” said Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve, referring to the hit HGTV series, a new season of which premiered Friday night. “The very first property they showed was this ugly mid-century place. I thought they’d tear it down, for sure, but they rehabbed it.”
The council’s statement on the matter acknowledged that the destruction of several old motels in recent years could backfire and hurt the hip reputation the city has sought to develop for itself—especially if a trend of featuring mid-century modern and other retro architectural styles appears in more popular shows like This Slightly Outdated House or Heritage Hustlers.
“We’ve been on a lot of ‘most popular’ and ‘best city’ lists in recent years,” said City Councilmember Neoma Jardon. “I swear, last year, all of the hipsters were into industrial design—you know, like the new Virginia Street Bridge? How is Reno supposed to keep reinventing itself if it can’t keep up with these trends?”
The development company, which prior to demolishing the old hotels issued a statement saying there were no immediate plans for redevelopment, has indicated that—should mid-century modern aesthetics continue to gain traction as a prevailing trend—new development on the sites could end up echoing the design influences of the very buildings it bulldozed. Ω
The Reno City Council recently approved plans by Colorado-based record label Jacobs Recorded Entertainment to destroy every known vinyl copy of Johnny Cash’s recording of his song “Folsom Prison Blues.”
The song, first recorded by Cash in 1955, contains the classic lyric, “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”
The City Council also recently approved similar demolition plans for the Grateful Dead song “Friend of the Devil,” which also mentions the city, and the entire discography of iconic Reno punk band 7Seconds.
“Those songs are just incredibly old-fashioned—it’s time for a fresh coat of musical paint!” said Jacobs representative Slick Tinears. He added that he’d like “reassure music fans” that those songs will be replaced by new recordings by Las Vegas-based “alternative rock” band Imagine Dragons.
“We’re really excited about that,” Tinears said. “Imagine Dragons are just incredibly innocuous. It’s the kind of music that you wouldn’t even notice unless you were ready to turn it off.”
Mid-Century Musical Modernists, a coalition of local activists, music fans and historians, have expressed concern that the destruction of all those records is totally pointless.
“Well, I don’t know what people are complaining about,” Tinears said. “We’re just going to destroy every known version on vinyl. Those recordings will still be available in highly compressed digital transfers on YouTube. We wouldn’t be able to track down all the digital copies of those recordings for demolition. Although God knows we wish we could.”
At a press conference announcing the planned demolition, a reporter asked Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve if she thought the demolition was “disrespectful to our city’s cultural legacy.”
“Our what?” Mayor Schieve replied. “Our cultural legacy? I’m sorry—I don’t know what that means.” Ω
“our cultural legacy? I’m sorry—I don’t know what that means.”
During an interview on Friday, March 23, Geoff Derbyhat, front-of-house manager of fictional local brewpub Sage & Hops, expressed relief that the University of Nevada, Reno men’s basketball team lost their game against Loyola University Chicago and were thus eliminated from the NCAA tournament.
“Every customer who’s come in here the last week or two has wanted to talk about it,” Derbyhat said. “Especially after they won against Cleveland or whatever, coming back from behind by 30 points or whatever.”
The Nevada Wolf Pack defeated the University of Cincinnati Bearcats in the second round of the tournament, coming back from a 22-point deficit to win 75-73 on March 18.
“We’ve had the games on here at the pub, so it’s been pretty unavoidable,” Derbyhat said. “But it’s been the same everywhere I go. It was all the guys wanted to talk about at my Wednesday night poker night. I can’t even tell those twins apart.”
Twin brothers Caleb and Cody Martin were big contributors to the Wolf Pack’s tournament victories.
Derbyhat had to cut the interview short to help a customer.
“Did you watch the game last night?” the customer asked. “Just one point short! But I guess that’s March Madness, amirite? There’s always next year.”
“I can’t wait,” Derbyhat replied. Ω
McQueen cracks down
McQueen High School principal Amy Marable today suspended a student for expressing anger at fate while hospitalized at St. Mary’s Hospital.
“Why is this fucking happening to me?” said student Luther Christiansen Theodore Cleaver while being rolled into surgery for an appendectomy yesterday. Marable heard about the outcry from the boy’s mother, who called McQueen to explain why he was not in school.
Marable gave the student a threeday suspension, which when linked to the upcoming weekend means the boy could be back in school as early as fucking Monday.
“The student’s comment was made during school hours, and so is actionable under the new Noah Christiansen rule, which allows me to penalize students for things they say out of school,” Marable said.
Noah Christiansen is a student who was marked tardy for being out of school in a political protest on March 14—and then was suspended for vulgar language in a telephone call to his U.S. House member’s office during the period of tardiness. “We have been empowered to penalize students for their conduct outside the school environment,” Marable said, explaining why she has also suspended a student who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge on Sunday. “This gives us the latitude we need to vent our frustrations with these kids.” Ω
Hip, local, urban branding firm develops hip, local, urban image for gunsmiths
According to a Pew Research Center study from 2017, about 40 percent of Americans say they own a gun or live in a household with one. The same study also noted, “For most gun owners, owning a firearm is tied to their sense of personal freedom.”
“It stands to reason, therefore, that more guns in America equals more personal freedom,” said Chase Emdown, senior brand development strategist at Brandmyne.
During a fiscal year that’s had firearms makers struggling—Smith & Wesson saw profits sink by 65 percent, and 200-year-old industry stalwart Remington declared bankruptcy in February—the Reno-based firm has achieved what many though tto be impossible. In March, Emdown’s branding team reached a group that the NRA had written off as being “so deeply against personal liberties, they’re not even worth trying to market to”—young, urban liberals.
This week, Emdown gave the WWN&R’s Business Desk an exclusive interview to explain how his team did it.
The whole process started on Feb. 26, after Emdown read a blog post by Josh Clafin from the Tennessee-based marketing firm Garrison Everest, which specializes in branding firearms: “It’s 2018, and it’s harder than ever to get your message out to law-abiding customers,” Clafin wrote. He advised five strategies, including native advertising and marketing to women.
NRATV, the National Rifle Association’s television network, had already helped make guns and gun accessories more appealing to women, touting products such as chic, concealed-carry handbags. Emdown figured there wasn’t much use marketing to a recently saturated demographic, so his team would need to find one that remained untapped.
On Feb. 26, Emdown began his team’s Monday morning “think sesh” by doing what he always does. Dry-erase
Local dad admits even he’s kinda sick of Fox News
Retired father of two Ted Durby was overheard last Sunday admitting to his adult children over brunch at Shenanigan’s Olde English Pub that even he is “kind of sick of Fox News.”
Sources familiar with the Durby family’s brunch conversation claim the elder Durby fondly recalled when Fox News host Sean Hannity made salient points.
“Back in ’07 when Hannity exposed Halloween for the liberal holiday it is—that’s when the network was at its peak,” he said. “The good old days were when Hannity called liberals out for teaching their kids to knock on other people’s doors looking for handouts.”
Durby also opined the days when Fox hosts like Glenn Beck called out Obama for being a “guy who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”
“Or how about the time Hannity called Obama out for putting that fancy Dijon mustard on his burger?” Durby asked. “But now they can’t focus on the important issues. They’ve lost touch.”
When Durby’s children reportedly asked their father to explain, sources say it became clear that Fox News’ increasing attacks on children’s pop culture in recent years is behind his increasing frustration with the television news network, which has criticized such movies as Disney’s Frozen for threatening masculinity, and the television show SpongeBob SquarePants for pushing a global warming agenda.
“Now, when they said The Lorax is selling green energy policies, they went too far,” Durby allegedly said. “I love that movie.” Ω
The baristas at Unique Bespoke Roastery are great foam artists.
marker in hand, ready to scribble any and all ideas on a whiteboard, he put his hands on his hips like a cheerleader, bounced on the balls of his feet twice and prodded his team with a loud, cheerful “So, what do we dooooo?”
“We change the woooooorld!” replied most of the team in unison.
But Brittany Benarjee—a promising junior strategist who had provided the brain, the brawn and the humor that were the trinity of the “God said it’s fine now” campaign, which increased sales of caffeinated beverages in Mormon communities by 14,700 percent in 2017—did not share the group’s earlymorning enthusiasm.
“We go for coffee,” mumbled Banarjee, not looking up from her phone.
“In your grandpa’s office, she would have been fired,” said Emdown, who is 36 and remembers, from his days as a teenage intern, a time when people still wore shirts with sleeves in offices. “But that’s not how things work anymore,” he said. “Brittany hungover in last night’s tank top and eye makeup is smarter than the rest of us put together on Adderall. So, when Brittany starts snarking, we take that seriously. Most of the time, it’s the start of a real solution.”
The team walked together to Unique Bespoke Roastery for some some sixdollar macchiatos.
“The barista was a great foam artist,” recalled Brandmyne intern Justin Sweet. “Each macchiato took about seven minutes to handcraft—and then another five minutes, so that she could draw a leaf or a heart or a hashtag with a lot of serifs in the foam.”
Don’t call it a comeback!
Former Nevada governor Jim Gibbons plots a return to public life
The barista, Jeweley Front, had been on a Tindr date with Sweet a week before. They’d gone for poke bowls, then to the acrobat dog show at the Carnival Midway at Circus Circus Hotel Casino.
“So, she put, like, an eight-minute drawing on his macchiato,” said Emdown. “It was a German shepherd puppy playing with a little stuffed mouse toy. It was meticulously detailed.”
The group assembled at one of Unique Bespoke’s unique, bespoke, charred-top tables, which are made from reclaimed apartment-fire beams that the Portland, Oregon, Fire Department sells on its Etsy shop and edged with copper dots made from reclaimed antique dental fillings.
As soon as the two-ounce coffees were assembled on the table, Banarjee looked at the puppy drawing on Sweet’s coffee, looked at the swirly-serif hashtag on Emdown’s coffee, rolled her eyes, and huffed audibly.
“We all know that huff,” said Emdown. “It means she had the brand strategy figured out.”
Benarjee spelled it out for her colleagues: “We put hand-knitted doggie heads and kitty heads on the end of the gun barrels. You know, so when a bullet comes out, it looks like they’re barfing up a cute little metal hairball. We contract with a sustainable, ethical fair trade knitter from the Andes to make little cat outfits and dog outfits for the guns.”
“It’s almost perfect,” Emdown said to the team. “We just have to figure out how to disassociate guns with the idea of violence, then we’ve got this.” Ω
Former Nevada governor Jim Gibbons is being wooed to run for office again. Republican political consultant Toony Loon said Gibbons, who also served in the Nevada Assembly and U.S. House, is ripe for revival in the age of Donald Trump. He noted that Gibbons had once been accused of attacking a cocktail waitress in a parking garage. “He walked on that as easily as Trump has slid on all his assaults.” “Jim’s image has been rehabilitated after a year of the Trump administration,” he said. “In the era of MeToo, Jim Gibbons fits right in.” Gov. Brian Sandoval, asked for comment, agreed. “Jim looks almost normal these days,” he said. As governor, Gibbons was noted for long absences from the governor’s capitol office and heavy use of emails. “It’s not the same thing as watching TV in the White House all the time, or flurries of nutty tweets, but this is Nevada,” said political analyst Fred Lokken. “We always run a little behind.” As a federal and state legislator, Gibbons had a record nearly devoid of accomplishment, which is seen as a strength. “You can’t make 30-second spots attacking his legislation,” said fellow former state legislator Goosy Loose. “He didn’t have any.” It is not yet certain what office Gibbons might seek. He will likely wait until after Trump tweets his preference for which office Gibbons should seek. Whichever office he pursues, proposed slogans have been bandied about among local Republican workers, with “I was insane before insane was cool” a favorite. Democrats had no comment, but several local Democratic leaders were observed with smiles so wide they appeared to have coat hangers in their mouths. Ω 03.29.18 | RN&R | 11
