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In memoriam: The Dandy Goat

February 1, 2017

The world of free online content is mourning the loss of a rising star. The Dandy Goat, which has published more than 800 articles since its launch in June of 2013 and was praised by readers as “lol” and “lmao,” has died following the institutionalization of its founder and publisher, Franklin J. Dubbles.

Richard Omega, the Dandy Goat’s chief writer, graphic designer, editor, social media coordinator and in-house legal counsel, says that in the absence of Dubbles, the closure was inevitable.

“Franklin was the heart, soul and gallbladder of the Dandy Goat,” Omega said. “Without him, we’re nothing but a snail without the mushy parts inside, just a shell. Or is it the other way around? Maybe he was the pretty shell and we’re the mushy parts.”

“Either way, we couldn’t go on without him,” he added.

Dubbles was known for his impeccable dress, unflinching certainty of his own moral and social standing, and a preternatural ability to talk at great lengths without actually saying anything. He launched the Dandy Goat more than three years ago as a vehicle to “push society forward on the right path towards real progress, if that makes any sense, which I suppose it doesn’t, but it sounds nice,” as he once said.

Those who knew Dubbles well say that he was obsessed with the idea that history could be nearly divided into two sides, the wrong side and the right side, and that he believed we had only a few more steps to go and we’d be located on the right side, forever.

“Franklin was convinced that everything would be so nice and sweet-smelling there on the right side of history,” Omega said.

Dandy Goat founder and publisher Franklin J. Dubbles, in better days.

Psychologists say that when in November a brash and wrong-thinking New York property developer was elected as U.S. president, Dubbles was struck by a bout of acute moral indignation from which even his firm sense of superiority could not protect him. He fell into a deep melancholy, barely able to make it to appointments with his stylist —or to brunches with likeminded friends.

And whereas he was once a luminary on social media, Dubbles found that he could he could no longer post rambling, self-righteous rants on Facebook, let alone tweet — as he was so fond of doing — in favor of trending hashtags created by activists.

“His tragic flaw was that he really had faith in the inherent goodness of people, of their willingness to follow him and other cultured intellectual fashionistas into tomorrow,” Omega said. “Sadly, this only set him up for catastrophic disappointment.”

A week after Election Day, Dubbles was sent to a private psychiatric hospital in upstate New York where he is expected to live out the rest of his days watching old episodes of Jon Stewert-era “The Daily Show,” taking fabulous selfies and posting them to an anonymous Instagram account, and writing a memoir about life among savages.

Richard Omega, whose minor roles included chief content fabricator and graphic designer.

“Franklin was always so passionate about his own ideas, even if they struck others as vapid, but he still wasn’t afraid to voice them, and that’s what counts,” said dentistry model Iris Pearl, who dated Dubbles in the spring of 2012. “He’d happily take to the streets to march in favor of polyamorous interspecies relationships, or go on Twitter to call for a boycott of the Smurfs for promoting an unrealistic body image, if he sensed it was the next big thing.”

Ichabod F.N. Herstal, who still weeps to this day when he remembers his time writing for “The Goat”

In addition to Dubbles’ tireless work as the Dandy Goat’s publisher and Omega’s humble offerings as chief content provider, several contributing writers did help to give the publication its reputation as one that would essentially publish anything. Not least among these writers is Ichabod F.N. Herstal, who over the last few years wrote nearly 60 articles for the Dandy Goat. I.M. Salmon, a relative newcomer, saw 11 of his articles digitally printed in the distinguished pages of the website.

Omega says that if Dubbles were able to speak today, he’d probably offer a tearful thank you to the devoted readers of the Dandy Goat and urge them to never give up the fight against — whatever is currently out of fashion.

“And then he would go back to grooming his eyebrows, something which he truly enjoyed,” Omega said.

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Drug lord escapes from high-security convention

December 9, 2016

LAS VEGAS — The FDA has launched a nationwide manhunt for one of the world’s most powerful drug lords who escaped from a high-security convention on Thursday.

Robert Pill, a lieutenant in the notorious Pfizer Cartel, was last seen around 10:30 a.m. at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas before blending in with a tour group of retirees from Nebraska and sneaking out past security guards and event staff.

FDA agent Brad Vax, who spent four years in the Pfizer Cartel working undercover as a supply chain manager, says that Pill rose through the ranks by dazzling his superiors with his detailed knowledge of Latin American distribution networks.

“Pill has overseen the trafficking of Viagra to rural villages in Guatemala, which has led to an increase of violent uprisings in the countryside,” Vax said. “He’s also responsible for a ruthless advertising campaign in Colombia that resulted in more than 200,000 people who suffer from high cholesterol asking their doctors if Lipitor is right for them.”

Pill, who is 54 years old and stands at just over six feet tall, was in Las Vegas to deliver a speech to other major drug organizations about the need to streamline approval processes in emerging African markets in preparation for the next generation of cancer-fighting ALK inhibitors.

“If you see Robert Pill, don’t approach him, don’t speak to him, just contact the FDA and we’ll bring him back for the keynote address, which has incidentally been rescheduled for Friday at 2 p.m.,” Vax said. “He is known to carry dozens of Pfizer-branded items including pens and tote bags, and he’s not afraid to give them out to total strangers.”

This the second such escape in recent memory. In February, CFO Susana “Numbers” Ortega and research unit head Wes “FDA Approval” Wu — both high-ranking members of the GlaxoSmithKline Cartel — escaped while being transported to a pharmaceutical convention in Boston. They remain at large.

Hurricane sending waves of giant fonts over parts of US

October 7, 2016

Residents in coastal areas of the southeastern U.S. who remain in the path of Hurricane Matthew are reportedly being struck by waves of dangerously large fonts, with some measuring as many as 236 points tall.

“I haven’t seen typeface this big since Hurricane Andrew in 1992,” said Daytona Beach resident Gus T. Wynd, 73, referring to a now-famous Miami Herald 244-point headline that simply read “Uh-oh.”

“Soon as I went on the CNN website today, I got walloped right in the eyes with a real scary 186-pointer, knocked me off my chair, so I fell on my cat Igor, and now he’s got a broken leg and won’t stop meowing,” he said.

Many of the fonts are so large that they’re reaching as far inland as the midwestern state of Iowa, where some residents are said to be too afraid to even turn on their tablets and laptops.

Paul Riggs, a self-described daredevil from Des Moines, says he was almost killed when at the urging of friends he opened a news app on his Android smartphone and the whole screen immediately filled up with a single letter.

“It was a big black D, must have been 136 points big, scared the crap out of me,” he said. “I didn’t even scroll down to see the next letter, just dropped my phone, but it rebounded and hit me right here above the eye, got cut up pretty good. Just hope my brains didn’t leak out.”

Experts are advising people all across the country to avoid reading newspapers, both print or online, unless they are prepared to have their eyes forced open and violated by screaming boldface type. If you do get injured by large font, it is recommended to sit in a dark room for 20 minutes and switch to radio for obtaining hurricane updates.

‘Lives matter’ activists crushed by meteorite

September 30, 2016

OAKLAND, Calif. — Dozens of Bay Area protesters allied with the Black Lives Matter movement, along with members of an opposing group called All Lives Matter, were killed on Friday morning in a freak astronomical incident.

The BLM activists had gathered outside police headquarters to protest the shooting of a dark-skinned man in rural Afghanistan who allegedly did not drop his missile launcher when ordered to by police. The ALM activists showed up to counter the BLM group, and also to “defend all lives,” according to chapter president Lane Harrington’s Facebook page.

“Mostly white lives, though, but that’s just a personal preference,” it says.

However, their heated back-and-forth proved all for naught when a large flaming meteorite shot through the sky and slammed into the ground precisely where the protesters were hurling insults at each other. The resultant explosion created shockwaves felt as far away as Palo Alto. Authorities are still unable to determine if the 50 or so victims were crushed or simply evaporated.

“What the fudge happened here?” said Sgt. Doug McGibbons, the first officer to arrive on the scene.

Passersby rushed to the crater, shouting abuse at McGibbons and accusing the Oakland Police Department of failing to protect citizens against falling celestial objects.

Police responded with tear gas, but in a rare misstep, they accidentally used actual tear-provoking gas, which simply causes people to cry.

“This whole thing is just really sad,” said one bawling reporter from a local ABC affiliate.

In an effort to calm the angry and now sobbing crowd, Bay Area geologist Stanley Lapide was brought in to shed the light of science on the bizarre occurrence, but instead he ended up inadvertently causing further disruption.

“The victims of this meteorite came here today to insist that their lives mattered,” Lapide said through a loudspeaker. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but they were wrong, barring one or two improbabilities, in which case you could say that their lives mattered a little bit.”

“Tell us, professor,” the crowd shouted in unison.

“One: if the victims were indeed crushed, it’s possible that some bone fragments remain intact and will join the geological record, as a fossil or tightly enclosed in a rock stratum,” he said. “Hundreds of thousands of years from now, cyborgs from another galaxy might unearth these bits and analyze them to better understand the nutritional habits of ancient sapient Earth dwellers.”

“Two: if the victims were vaporized, some molecules from their bodies drifted upwards and have been sucked into a jet stream,” he continued. “According to calculations I’ve just done in my head, that would yield a .00002 percent chance that they will affect the weather in some very imperceptible way, perhaps by adding a few drops of water to a light drizzle over some remote stretch of the Atlantic Ocean.”

“So, do black, white, or any lives matter?” he asked, but then stiffened and fell to the ground after being tasered by police who, due to the professor’s skin color, mistook him as a member of BLM. The esteemed professor went into cardiac arrest and was whisked away by an ambulance.

By that time, news of the unprovoked tazing had spread via Twitter with the hashtag #geolivesmatter, and dozens of faculty members from UC-Berkeley’s Earth and Planetary Sciences Department showed up with signs reading “Geo Science Lives Matter” and “I’m Giving A Free Public Science Lecture, Bro, Don’t Taze Me.” When an armored police half track accidentally reversed over several of the scientists, the driver — a rookie officer who had only joined the force the day before, and had forgotten to put on his glasses that morning — was yanked out by a group of angry Stanford geophysicists who had just arrived by bus.

The young officer was beaten with his own nightstick, prompting hundreds of members of the local police union to cordon off the area so they could hold a protest in the name of Blue Lives Matter. However, by that point, it was discovered that at least one victim of the original meteorite impact had miraculously survived.

But cheers at the discovery were soon replaced by shouts as the feuding parties began to claim that the survivor was one of their own. Burned and unrecognizable, the person slowly climbed out of the crater and, with a marker, changed the police union’s sign to say “black AND blue lives matter,” a point on which all agreed until it became clear that the words were actually only referring to the minority population of bruised people.

Triumph for gender equality: Saudi Arabia approves 16 emoji for women

September 29, 2016

Women in the conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia are well on their way to enjoying the same rights as their male counterparts when it comes to hot new tech trends.

The Agency for the Promotion of Technology for Slow Persons, which oversees the use of computers and electronic devices by the kingdom’s estimated 15 million women, girls, and other imbeciles, announced on Wednesday that it has received approval for 16 new female-friendly emojis for use in social media and text messaging services.

“Women may now convey a wide range of emotions when they electronically communicate with their husbands, male family members, or other women,” said agency spokesman Khalid bin Faisbouk al Watsap. “From submissiveness to contentment, devotion to obedience, these 16 veiled faces express them all.”

A special task force of religious scholars spent nearly four years researching the permissibility of emoji for women. A Jeddah-based design firm was then chosen to create the 16 images, and, after a short, 18-month wait to get approval from the country’s highest religious council, the king’s closest vizier signed off on the order allowing the emoji to be put into use.

“All my wives are delighted,” said Riyadh car dealership owner Abdul H. “They always used to say, how can we easily tell one another how modest we are feeling right now? How can we let our husband know that we remain chaste in his absence, without the hassle of composing a whole text message?”

“Now, it’s easy for them, at least on those days when I grant them access to their one shared cell phone,” he said.

Dandy Goat technology correspondent Richard Omega was dispatched to Saudi Arabia last week to ask women on the street for their reactions to the new emoji, but he has not been heard from since then.