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Corpus Christinos, the Vent has been hard at work, and as we begin our 7th year, we’re starting to get that itch… Not that itch, the other one. We are feeling bored and indifferent and just plain tired.
Do you know the last time I had a vacation…Never! The closest I have come was watching two National Lampoon vacation movies in one day. That’s not relaxing… it’s at best mildly entertaining, and at worst mildly torturous.
I don’t get a break from the Vent. Granted I only work 3-5 days a month on this marvelous publication, but that’s a grueling 3-5 days… consisting of calling advertisers and begging them to stay on
board, just one more month so I can feed my terrible children, who, during the other 25-27 day of the month, spend their time sucking the life from my poor withered soul.
I also have to sit on front of my computer for hours on end, slaving away just to try and bring you bastards to a light chuckle as you read this Comedy Art… I struggle for minutes at a time as I allow my pain and life experience to be date-raped by local headlines and fart jokes… all in order to make your life just slightly more enjoyable as you sit on the can dumping out.
It’s a daunting task that requires me to sleep 12-15 hours per night in the weeks
leading up to publishing. Not to mention the amounts of television I have to consume in order to keep up with current pop culture events. It can’t all be about 80’s references.
Long story short… I skipped the calendar this month; cause doing that part of the magazine makes me want to blow my head off. It will be back for the February issue, and it will be bigger and better and blacker. -Will Vent
Wake Up & Give Me A Breakby William Henneberger
The Vent Magazine is a division of The Vent. The Vent is an organization devoted to the
enrichment of Corpus Christi through Comedy.
Send all comments and letters to: [email protected]
The Vent Magazine 361-549-6213
Publisher/Creative Director: William HennebergerContributing Writers:
Kat McCloudKyle Hoelscher
Zombie Art by Russell Tippit
The Vent Disclaimer:The Vent is a satirical publication and is not intended for readers
under 18 years of age. The Vent uses invented names in all of its stories, except in cases when
public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is
accidental and coincidental. Any statements made expressed or implied in the Vent are solely those of columnist and do not represent
the position of our advertisers, who do not accept responsibility for such
statements. All characters, products, and photos
published are trademark and copyright of their respective owners.
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In July of this year my husband and I were living in San Antonio and were making plans for our future. My husband, being a recent grad student, took a job in Houston while I put in my notice at the youth shelter that employed me. We were eager for this new chapter of our lives to begin. But life has a way of re-writing our story.
On August of 2012 my kidney transplant of 15 years failed. We had no other option but to leave our careers and move to Robstown for family support. I have been receiving dialysis treatment three days a week since my one kidney stopped working. The good news is that my husband is a perfect match as a kidney donor. Soon we will be going into surgery with a recovery time of 2 months. This life transition has been a challenge both physically and economically.
It may not have been the story we expected, but it is one of hope and one I want to tell.
To assist Shelly and James with financial support please call 210-213-9496.
The divorce proceedings of local celebrity Montgomery James Wilcox II, have up until now, been reported as cordial and amiable. However, recent facts have come to light since the final papers were signed that prove otherwise.
The divorce was officially finalized on December 20th, 2012, since then, there have been seven instances to which police where called to the millionaire’s address for domestic altercations.
In a statement read by Montgomery at a press conference this afternoon, the distraught man pleaded, “For goodness sake, Janie, is there any limit to the nonsense you plan on putting me through? I only get first, third, and fifth weekends with the children, is it to much to ask that you don’t keep me delayed for three hours when I come to collect them… and you have to stop phoning me at my place of business about the quarrels with your mother, that’s no longer any of my concern. I just hope that we can both move on in a congenial fashion, and for the last time, NO, I am not sleeping
with your cousin Marcy.” Janie Noyola-Wilcox began
to publicly comment about the couple’s dealings after seeing her ex-husband having lunch with Janice Rothschild, at the club.
She spoke to the press following her ex-husband’s statement saying, “If Montgomery so wishes, he can take his sad tale to that dimwitted vixen with whom he’s been gallivanting about. Oh yes, I am quite aware of the relationship he began with the widow Rothschild. As far as she is concerned, I hope she becomes a widow twice over… and for his information; I sent word for you to collect the children form my sister’s residence. I’m not sympathetic if you didn’t retrieve it.”
Public opinion on the matter seems to be evenly split among local aristocrats. “I always thought that Montgomery was such a lovely chap,” remarked Delores Chenoweth, of the Southside Chenoweths, “however with the recent tittle-tattle surrounding their unfortunate split, I’d liken him to a common trash collector or AM radio personality.
Area Sophisticate Suffers From ‘Child’s Mother Theatrics’ by William Henneberger
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It has been almost a de-cade since Corpus Christi resi-dent Jeremy Chase, 24, first met Angela Garcia, 26, of Browns-ville. Since relocating from the Valley to the Sparkling City three years ago, Jeremy has done his best to maintain a close online and phone relationship with An-gela, even after countless failed attempts to “get together”.
“She’s a busy person,” says Chase, “ I mean, I can’t ex-pect her to drop everything and come visit every weekend, be-sides, she promised to drive up here in a couple of weeks and spend some time with me.”
Looking forward to An-gela’s trip, Jeremy has taken several measures to ensure a fun-filled experience for the two long time friends, going as far as getting his ’94 Escort detailed,
as well as purchasing tickets to an upcoming concert.
“It’s gonna be so great,” he continued, “First, we’ll check out the aquarium, maybe walk by the water for a while, hit the concert, and if everything goes well, I won’t have to sleep on the futon, if you know what I mean…”
“I don’t know why Jer-emy is so hung-up on Angela,” remarked Janie Espinoza, a mu-tual acquaintance. “I don’t think she even remembers who he is anymore.”
When asked to comment Angela Garcia said, “Um… about me going to Corpus this summer. I don’t think I’m gonna be able to make it after all. Do you think you can tell Jeremy for me…? Thanks a bunch.”
Promise to Hang Out This Summer Nears Deadline
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Mexting w/
Catch theC 4 Urself Tour
Jan. 19th - Selena
Auditorium
MENCIA
8twitter.com/theventnation facebook.com/TheVentNation 9www.TheVentNation.com [email protected]
Mexting w/
Catch theC 4 Urself Tour
Jan. 19th - Selena
Auditorium
MENCIA
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by KatMcCloud
My father once told me, “Beat your wife every day, if you don’t know why you’re beating her, chances are she does.”
Now that is just that kind of thinking that has society all messed up nowadays. Up until yes-terday, I used to beat my wife on a regular basis, sometimes for things like not washing the dishes and other times for stuff that wasn’t even important. But all that’s changed. I am a better man today. And it ain’t got nothing to do with that six-month probation that ignorant judge laid on me.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my wife, and I’m no monster. I never just beat her, I always tell her why I’m beating her so that she will know what to do to keep from getting beaten again. You can’t have proper discipline without some sort of explanation.
But, like I said, them days are over. Even if my wife does something unforgivable like, answer me in a disrespectful way or with a disrespectful look, or not answer me quickly enough, I will not beat my wife.
The courts recommended that I enter into a treatment program, but I don’t need that sh*t, if I’m
gonna stop beating my old lady, I’m gonna do it cold turkey. I love my wife, and I’m gonna do whatever it takes. If I have to rub her nose in the trash, or make her eat soap every time she mumbles something un-der her breath, I’ll do it… whatever keeps me from raising a hand to the mother of my children.
After all these years of getting hit, just the threat of a beating oughta be enough to make sure she doesn’t do anything out-right stupid, like try to clear my plate from the table before I’m actually done eating, or talk to me while Dallas is playing.
With any luck it won’t come to that, but then again my wife is pretty dense. Last winter, I had to make her sleep outside in the dog’s house because she added too much sugar to my coffee, and a week ago I had to do the same thing, for the exact same reason.
Like I said, I love this woman, I have ever since I knocked her up during our junior year at Car-roll, but sometimes I think she is just plain unteach-able. Still, I am making a vow, and if that means that I have to resort to verbal and emotional abuse, then I’m willing to do it V
Opinion: I’m Gonna Stop Beating My Wife...Or She’s Gonna Die Trying By Billy Joe H.
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When The Vent interviewed WWE Superstar KANE, in all of his giant, sweaty, bald glory... we knew we would be choke slammed if we didn’t at least get some questions answered from YOU, the reader! We reached out to fans from all over Corpus Christi, (Shout Outs to Facebook, we love you boo!), and asked them what they wanted to know from the towering demon beast himself. We discovered, among other things, that there is a softer side to Kane. He is a misunderstood man, with a soft voice, and a sincere interest in historical research and the afterlife. Kane keeps a Diary. Kane has a
sense of humor. Kane thinks it’s funny when Elijah Wood is afraid. So without further ado, we present to you, KANE: UnMasked: Chexty Threekay: I really need to know what your favorite Edward Leslie incarnation was. Personally I’m torn between Brutus Beefcake, and Bootyman.
KANE: [chuckles] Brutus the Beefcake, he used garden chairs, it’s sort of “not much subtlety....as far as a precise instrument”
Seth Johnson: Also, I know that he graduated college with degrees in English and teaching, but I thought that I had read that he almost went to graduate school in English. Is that true?
KANE: I have a degree in English, not education and did not ALMOST go to graduate school; I was already involved in that and some other stuff. If I wasn’t doing this, I think I would like to be hosting one of these ghost shows...paranormal investigations....we could look for bigfoot, accept I’ve already found him, turns out it was “the big show” the whole time..... A few years ago we had a couple of our guys do a ghost show, CM Punk, and Elijah Wood did one....they did ghost hunters....went out and spent the night in a haunted house, two different episodes. Eastern Penn prison I believe....I don’t know about Punk, but he said Elijah sure got scared, which I find very funny. Elijah Wood got scared. Ha ha!
Chexty Threekay: After Bischoff sold WCW to McMahon what were his biggest concerns? Did he ever think about a union?
KANE: Ummm...not really, WWE has a great deal of opportunity...our biggest concern as a company was, okay, yah, now we have to compete against ourselves in some respect. The Monday night wars forced us to improve our product, when I started, they were doing better than we were, we really had to change our program and improve it. Although we emerged as winners, the purpose was to be with them and put them out of business. As far as company wide, there was a bit of a concern whether we would become a victim of our own success.
Matt Nino: If he could choke slam any late night talk show host... who would it be?
KANE: I actually like em all. Okay, I lied, I don’t watch that much late night tv....maybe Jimmy Kimmel?? Yah, Jimmy Kimmel.
Bryan Barrera: Did Kevin Nash ever contact or confront him whenever Kane took over the “Diesel” character in 1996?
KANE: Nope.
Nicolas Puente: Holy shit! His match with Mankind is underrated (one of them took a pipe to the face can’t remember which). How pissed were you to win the championship & then lose it within 24hrs?
KANE: Hahahaha......uhhh...not really. Because, at the time, it was actually, I won against Steve Austin in King of the Ring, the next night on Raw was the highest rated show up to that point. You have to understand we were taking off quickly. Just to be able to be a part of that, I mean, you know, Stone Cold became a pop culture icon. I thought it was a great story. I remember in Cleveland, where I lost, the atmosphere was even more electric. Wasn’t mad at all.
1000 words with Kane... English Major, Economist... oh, and Pro Wrestler. by Kat McCloud
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Nick Barrera: When meeting fans do you feel that you have to put on your character for them?
KANE: I’m generally myself. I can’t be Kane, because that wouldn’t be good for anybody. As I go on further and further in my career, I’ve reached a point where fans appreciate and respect what I’ve accomplished. Now I’ve been around so long, I actually know a lot of them on a first name basis, which is sorta cool.
VENT: What does Kane do to kill time?
KANE: I read a lot of history and economics… A LOT. That’s actually my favorite thing to do. When I’m at home, I also do stuff like, keep a
diary; write short stories; in our business it’s hard to have hobbies like that.
VENT: Do you travel with anyone...like a Travel Buddy? A travel buddy on tour?
KANE: I travel by myself; it’s easier that way. When you’ve been around for a long time it gets old. You learn a lot, so for me, I travel alone all the time. A lot of newer guys have come in anyway because there is a big turnover in wrestling, so it’s kind of odd to adapt to that. I guess I kind of don’t really know people as well as I used to in the earlier days. People kind of have their own thing now, not so much a group situation like you’d think.
VENT: How do you feel about mishaps? Was fire in the ring eye opening, when MVP was lit on fire?
KANE: Well, we take a great deal of caution, we try to make sure no one gets injured… so yah. There are backup plans, and it didn’t end up so bad. We really have a strong group of people who know what they are doing as far as any of that is concerned.
Come see Kane and Daniel Bryan, “Team Hell No” , defend their Tag Team title against The Shield… Sunday, January 13th at American bank Center. V
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Me The People... by Kyle Hoelscher“Robotic Cops: the Law, the Danger, and How We Can Get Rid of Them.”
If you drive around the Southside of Corpus Christi, you are probably familiar with the ubiquitous presence of camera towers at several intersections. You see them flash at night after the lights switch and you see the warning signs before the intersections. You may even be a victim of one of these cameras. They are creeping into more and more intersections and are increasingly used for more things than just catching people running red lights. Let me give you a little back-story on these types of cameras. You have probably heard of speed cameras. Speed cameras look like red light camera towers, except that they are set up on highways with radar devices installed to scan everyone’s speed. The machine then mails you a ticket when the machine thinks you have been speeding. For this article, I will ignore the fact that these speed cameras are not calibrated often enough, that there
is no due process, and that they have no effect on safety on our highways. What I will tell you is that these are illegal in Texas. Our legislature had the sense to ban these things in 2007 just as other states began rolling them out. Unfortunately, in a play for extra money for local municipalities, the legislature established the rules for red light cameras. Of course, the official reason is not money. The official reason for these cameras is safety. Check out the TxDPS website on the subject. If you ask any bureaucrat or politician about these cameras, they will always give you the same answer. Unfortunately for them, they are required to publish the laws they pass. If you look it up, you will see in Chap 707 of the TX transportation code that the Texas legislature took the time to define how much (707.007) and where exactly the money goes (707.008). It is essentially free money to local governments. They
get to channel that money into traffic safety improvements, i.e.: every sign, crosswalk, and light on the road. They get extra county money for trauma centers. And as a bonus, they get to use the money to repay the costs of the install, they there is no disincentive for them to put them in. Houston started installing these cameras in 2005 and raised 45.3 million dollars by 2010. That’s an attractive sum to local governments. So then, let’s talk safety on red light cameras. They are installed to prevent people from running red lights and causing side or front impact wrecks. I will grant that side and front impact wrecks are the most dangerous types of wrecks. The problem lies in the numbers. Just like DWI, the risk and danger is overblown. The fact is that there are very very few traffic fatalities in these situations. At the bottom of this article is a link to 5 full blown studies on the subject, which actually show
that, front and side impact accidents are reduced, while rear end collisions see a dramatic increase. Every study concludes that there is no measurable savings in human suffering. Those are not the only studies that have said this, the Texas Sunset Commission (perhaps my favorite state agency) agrees. In 2009, the Sunset Commission told legislators that red light cameras show no measurable improvement on safety and should be discontinued. They put this in their official findings on the subject. Unfortunately, legislators yielded to lobbyists from the companies that own these cameras and removed the language that would’ve set up studies to prove safety claims. Wait, what did I just say? That’s right, private companies actually run these red light cameras. It’s not just a moneymaker for counties, it’s a business model. Someone makes profit by sending you those tickets in the mail, and
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then gets to enforce it through the power of government. This leads to some extremely dangerous conflicts of interest, dangerous for citizens, that is. Red light cameras are slowly getting banned around Texas, but I’ll get to that at the end. Red light camera companies are realizing their business model is being threatened by local democracy. What is their solution? Halt democracy. In Galveston right now, there is a big push to take down the cameras. Not a push by politicians, but by the people. So, Redflex Traffic Systems is suing the city to claim that even voting on the issue is illegal. As it stands, even if the ordinance passes, they have already won, because no matter what the vote is, they won a portion of the lawsuit that made sure the law wouldn’t go into effect until 2014. They sue every city that takes the cameras down by public vote. They are not interested in your welfare; they are interested in their bottom line. Most lawsuits are settled with cash payouts going to these camera companies. Also, these companies are now putting damages clauses in their contracts to make it easier to sue a city if the citizens vote down the surveillance cameras.So, finally you might be wondering: how can citizens fight such a corrupt, money-driven system? Like most problems, talking about the truth and voting are your most powerful tools. You can contact your local representation and ask them to bring the issue back up in the Texas
legislature. If you see a politician, ask him what his position is on red light cameras. Most probably don’t even know that the people hate these cameras. Even if the companies do sue, the citizens still get their way. In Houston and San Antonio, these cameras have been taken down. Cities across the US are voting one by one to take these cameras off their streets. You will probably never know when the city is negotiated to have these things installed, since they bring up little opposition BEFORE they go in. Once they go in, citizens have the power to petition their government for a redress of grievances, to use the parlance of our founding fathers. Here in Corpus Christi, we have a mechanism where we can remove these cameras. We can have a local ballot initiative. I want to get one of these initiatives going. If you are interested in helping, I would like to hear from you. Email me at [email protected]. I would like to see these things gone, or at the very least, I would like to see the voters affirm that they want them. The worst thing in a free society is to have decisions made behind closed doors without voter approval.
http://blog.motorists.org/red-light-cameras- increase-accidents-5-studies-that-prove-it/http://fireredflex.com/
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