HAMMOND ACTION NEWS

DDD ANNOUNCES HOT AUGUST NIGHT SIDEWALK BAN

HAMMOND, Louisiana — All roads and sidewalks in downtown Hammond will be temporarily closed to pedestrians for next month’s 15th Annual Hot August Night, the Downtown Development District announced on their website Friday.

The move has come after last year’s disastrous art stroll and wine tasting in which participants experienced long delays and heavy congestion on city sidewalks, and at least fifteen people were treated for injuries sustained in person-to-person collisions and other walking-related accidents.

“Safety is our number one priority,” read a statement issued by the DDD, “and we feel that allowing people to freely roam the sidewalks on Hot August Night is no longer in accordance with Ordinance No. 518 of the city code.”

The notorious Ordinance No. 518, which is only known and discussed within the deepest and most secretive local political circles in locations such as back rooms, empty parking garages, abandoned warehouses, and the Yellow Bird Cafe, invests total responsibility and unlimited liability for the safety of all city residents in the executive authority of the city, the mayor.

“Number 518? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mayor Mayson Foster told HAN with a straight face, “but even if I did know, I couldn’t tell you when or why it was established, or how I’m supposed to claim responsibility for the safety of over 20,000 people. You should really ask me about something else. It’s not safe here.”

While Ordinance No. 518’s history remains unclear, the DDD refused to comment on whether Mayor Foster was behind the Hot August Night sidewalk ban, only stating, “We encourage all area residents to enjoy the night from the safety of their vehicles.”

TANGI SCHOOL BOARD REPLACED BY PSYCHIC OCTOPUS

HAMMOND, Louisiana — In a shock move, Tangipahoa Parish officials have decided to dispense with the services of the continually controversial School Board.

Parish President Gordon Burgess revealed to HAN his reasoning behind the decision.

“This whole school board deal has us all plumb wore the heck out. On and on and on, with taxes, and magnet schools and districts and segregation and now suspension, sabbaticals and yaada yaada yaada. I’m over it already,” Burgess said, flanked by two of his most loyal but now slightly restless Afghan bodyguards.

Burgess went on to explain that he had been in negotiations with FIFA World Cup officials to hire the services of Paul the “psychic” octopus. From his aquarium in Germany, the octopus successfully predicted game scores throughout the competition.

“We just figured the octopus would be easier on everyone,” continued Burgess, “and it’s certainly going to work out cheaper. It’s nicer to look at. Another benefit is that the octopus has no relatives in the teaching profession and so is immune from accusations of nepotism when it comes to hiring and firing decisions, and believe me, that damn shoe is fixing to drop!”

WELLS PROMISES TO CRACK DOWN ON ILLEGAL ALIENS

HAMMOND, Louisiana — After long-time political contender Arden Wells qualified Friday to run for marshall in Tangipahoa’s 8th ward, the career candidate vowed to step up operations against the extraterrestrial. 

Wells’ pivotal platform is a promise to the electorate to reduce the number of alien abductions in the largely-rural ward.

Despite an increase in unemployment and the discoveries of illicit meth laboratories in the Robert area, alien abduction remains a hot-button issue for many residents. Wells is adamant he can reduce the number of abductions and associated probings by 50%.

Whilst Wells is unopposed in the October race, local political pundits remain dubious of his chance of securing a victory.

MAYOR APOLOGIZES FOR PAPARAZZI ASSAULT

HAMMOND, Louisiana — Mayor Mayson Foster has apologized to the owner of local magazine Tangi Mistress after body-slamming a paparazzo who photographed him mowing his lawn in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Foster, who for months has secretly cut his grass in the middle of the night to avoid paparazzi, “flipped his shit” when he spotted a photographer hiding behind a garbage can, according to neighbor Daron Gabagoo.

When officers of Hammond PD arrived at Foster’s residence shortly after 2:30 AM, the Hammond mayor was attempting to throw the paparazzo’s camera up into some power lines in an effort to get it permanently stuck. 

“You guys at Hammond Action News always treat me right, but these tabloids go too far,” said Foster, known as ‘Ma-Fo’ to the readers of the popular local women’s magazine Tangi Mistress, “If you can’t cut your grass in the middle of the night without someone peeping through the hedge, then it just ain’t right.”

Blagdon Gripps, who suffered life-threatening injuries and only awoke from his coma Thursday morning, communicated to HAN that he is not pressing charges. “I see Ma-Fo’s side of it,” he blinked, “There’s such a demand for pictures that I’ve been dogging him everywhere lately. I got him at the gym, Wal-Mart, and I even got some cool shots of him taking his nap on a bench in Cate Square.”

PEOPLE & PLACES: CABEL AND MORDICAI

with Shhwana and Sandra

Boy oh boy summer’s here. As we left church on Sunday, Pastor Blaine spent a few minutes with Shwana and I. We sat under the old oak tree and smoked us a cigar with our favourite preacher while we talked about the hot spell. “Girls,” declared the pastor, “It’s as hot as balls out here right now! What are y’all going to do with the rest of your Sunday?”

Good Question! It being too hot for anything else, we jumped up in the town car, cranked up the air and took us a ride out to Robert Station.

Well folks, we were blessed to bump in to some of those fine people from BP who are doing all that good work trying to clean up our dirty old gulf. Who would think that little old Robert would find itself home to some of the best minds in the oil industry? So we sat down and got the skinny from two of BP’s expert clean up guys, Cabel and Mordicai from the Houston office.

Mordicai wasn’t talking so good on account of some pesky mouth burns he caught from doing a taste test on a barrel of sweet Louisiana crude, so Cabel filled us in on the details.

“Well girls,” he said, “it’s as plain as the nose on those pretty faces of yours. Without that oil y’all wouldn’t be driving out here to talk to us about the oil you see? So it’s all part of God’s plan.”

“Some of folks might be spreading vicious lies about our company, but the truth of it is we’ve spent more on cleaning up the Gulf in the last month than most companies spend in a lifetime, and that’s the honest truth. Y’all need to remember that nature is all about balance, so with less of those critters out there, they aint going to be as much marine doo-doo floating around. By the time we get through with that gulf of yours, why you won’t even recognize it!”

My stars! We were so pleased we got the chance to visit with those boys and hear the real story behind BP’s super clean up plans. Unless you never had an accident, you got no right to be casting stones, nosirr, and I had 2 accidents on the drive home, I should never had drunk that second sweet tea.

See y’all round the Parish & God bless

S&S

Send us your adventure to schwandra@hammondactionnews.com!

NORTH OAKS EXECUTIVES ZERO IN ON NBA STAR

MADISONVILLE, Louisiana — The Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Clippers, and North Oaks Medical Center have emerged as top contenders to sign NBA megastar and potential free agent LeBron James this summer.

Executives at North Oaks have revealed that they are prepared to offer the Cleveland Cavalier a $100-million annual salary, which would be completely funded by Tangipahoa Parish tax dollars.

James’ agent refused to confirm whether his client would fly to Mandeville this weekend for contract negotiations with North Oaks management.

“Signing LeBron would boost tourism, which means big tax revenue for St. Tammany, Washington, St. Helena, Livingston, and East Baton Rouge parishes,” North Oaks CEO James Cathey told HAN.

The 25-year-old basketball star wrote on his blog Saturday morning that he is keen to move to a publicly-owned club that has “an unlimited amount of wealth,” leading sports fans and analysts to believe that a deal with North Oaks has already been made.

REVEALED! MAYOR FOSTER’S SEXY CAMPAIGN SECRETS

HAMMOND, Louisiana — After a Daily Star news article beat local media rival The Lion’s Roar in publishing the earliest details of Mayor Mayson Foster’s re-election intentions this week, Foster sat down with HAN in an exclusive interview to reveal his campaign strategy.

“Two Hammond incumbent [sic] will not seek relection [sic] because they have complete [sic] their term limits.  Neither one are [sic] Mayor Mason Forster [sic],” the Daily Star reported this week.

As residents nervously await to see who will challenge Foster for the ‘cool vanilla’ Chrysler 300, the mayor has begun an intense training regimen which he says will win him re-election on October 2.

Foster told HAN that he had been working out at Crossfit, a new fitness center located in historic downtown Hammond, but he was recently forced to hire a team of personal trainers and invest in a private gym after a growing number of spectators crowded around the sweaty mayor as he hurled a 60-lb concrete ball over his head using only his thighs during one of the many anaerobic high-intensity core-strengthening exercises.

“It’s all about strengthening the core,” continued Foster, “along with constant various mental exercises, which will allow me to crush anyone who stands between me and a dope victory party after it’s all over.”

Foster says he is attempting to focus solely on his campaign, despite recent controversy in which the mayor was accused of using performance-enhancing drugs after a successful first quarter and an increase in sales tax revenue for April.

The mayor denies the rumors, but he has since been subject to random drug testing in search for any illegal substance that may cause personal improvement in his job as mayor of Hammond.

HAN RECALLS 1 MILLION COPIES OF WEB ARTICLE

HAMMOND, Louisiana — One million copies of a news story posted on Hammond Action News this weekend have been recalled from the internet, after readers became outraged over an expletive used in the article’s headline which was allegedly caused by a typo.

The story, CHARTER CABLE TOTALLY MUCKS MOON, was published digitally at least one million times under a faulty headline in which the letter M in “muck” was accidentally replaced by an F.

“We do apologize to all of our readers who encountered this inappropriate story headline,” wrote a veteran member of the highly-experienced and award-winning HAN PR team, “but unfortunately it may be several months before the correct headline is restored for everyone.”

Restoration has been no easy task as hundreds of foreign workers in Malaysia, the website’s outsourcing nation of choice, sift through billions of lines of code to change a single word in over one million digital copies of the article.

“While we have undoubtedly lost thousands of readers over this, we do see the humor in the situation because ‘muck’ and ‘fuck’ can sometimes be used interchangeably,” stated another worker from the news website, “I mean, had it been ‘shit’ or ‘ass,’ then people would have immediately known that it must be a typo.”

Many readers have been less than impressed by HAN’s efforts to clean up its act, as some critics maintain the explicit headline was very much intended.

“It’s the sick, twisted, demented people over at the Hammond Action News website who think it’s funny to use swear words in their stupid arti” an angry woman posted on her Twitter profile after reaching the word limit.

CHARTER CABLE TOTALLY FUCKS MOON

HAMMOND, Louisiana — Following a bucket truck accident on Fagan Drive, Charter Communications now admits to “totally fucking up the moon” despite earlier reports from the cable provider suggesting the moon had only suffered a small chip to its upper corner.

Following subsequent questioning from federal agencies, Charter admitted that the moon was totally destroyed and large portions of it are now hurtling towards earth.

As early as Friday morning, residents reported smelling a strong parmesan-like odor which the EPA later confirmed to be caused by increasing levels of moon dust in the lower atmosphere.

Commentators cannot reach a consensus as to how much damage the earth will suffer, but most see the disaster as one of the more serious incidents the company has been involved with.

Charter officials remain at a loss to explain the incident but have suggested that the Anti-Moon Interference Switch on the bucket truck may have malfunctioned.

Federal and state officials held an emergency meeting at the stop light in Tickfaw yesterday evening, where Governor Jindal laid out his response to the disaster. “We have called in over 600 national guard troops, who armed with tennis rackets will bat smaller pieces of moon rock back into orbit as soon as they threaten to damage people, property, or wildlife,” said Jindal.

“In addition, we are covering as much of Louisiana as we can with trampolines. So far, over 700 acres have been covered, enabling chunks of moon rock to be bounced back into space. Volunteers are assembling at holding areas, where they will be trained in the reassembly of astral bodies before being shot into space on private space ships to stick the moon back together,” he exclaimed.

A spokesman for Charter told HAN, “The moon’s outage is just temporary. Normal moonlight and tidal activity will be resumed as soon as possible, but we would like the whole world to make sure there is an adult aged 18 or over at home between 2 and 6 pm on Thursday afternoon. Customers should also be aware that putting the moon back together is not cheap, so a monthly bill for basic will now be $9,055 as we cannot be expected to pay for it all.”

CITY COUNCIL THANKFUL FOR NIGERIAN BUDGET BOOST

HAMMOND, Louisiana — Recent actions of Hammond City Council President Jason “Good Lookin’ White Boy” Hood involving the transfer of funds from a bank account of the son of a deposed Nigerian dictator will save the city a million dollars, Mayor Mayson Foster told HAN today.

Hood was contacted by Mr. Claudio Moghalu via e-mail two months ago. “I am the son of the late Nigerian dictator Laurent Moghalu, who was unfortunately murdered in a non-coup-related accident last weekend,” the e-mail stated.

According to Hood, Moghalu had taken refuge in Somalia and needed help in transferring his $6 million in inheritance to an overseas bank account. “I was more than happy to help,” Hood exclaimed, “and he even offered to compensate me with 30% of the funds.”

“Jason called me at 3 o’clock in the morning,” recalled Mayor Foster, “and said he just found the money needed to build that new recreational facility we always dreamed of.”

Foster and Hood called an emergency meeting of the city council early the next day, drastically restructuring the city’s budget based on the $1.8 million promised by Moghalu.

“We were able to sign off on purchasing land for the new rec center, hire a shit ton of new employees for the fire and police departments, and pay to eventually have those abandoned train cars refurbished and turned into a restaurant by this fall — the ‘Fagan Drive Seafood Train,’” said Hood.

Asked by reporters if the city had actually received the funds, Foster replied, “Not yet, but it should be any day now. We did run into a little snag at the beginning of April when Claudio wrote us saying we needed to have holdings of at least $100,000 at a Tonganese bank for the deal to go through.”

The city council then approved a payment of $200,000 to a private bank account in Togo, but Hood says it’s been “a few weeks” since he last heard from Moghalu.

“I reckon his internet service is out,” Hood said, “They use Charter over there too, you know.”