ollowing the September special election of Republican Bob Turner to fill the Congressional seat disgraced by Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, newspaper headline writers are entering into a devastating period of depression as they face the prospect of never again writing a Weiner-centric news headline.

Rep. Weiner, a U.S. Congressman with a strong Democratic record since 1998, was the subject of a scandal in May 2011 for sending women illicit pictures of his namesake via Twitter. The accusation proved disastrous for the New York Representative and Democratic Party, and a windfall for bored and humorless newspaper publishers who were thrilled to be writing about naughty bits at long last. Boldface text announcing "Weiner Hanging Out on Twitter" and "Weiner Exposed Online" besieged the sleepy culture of America, increasing newspaper sales for people who found it funnier to read than just listen to a description of the disappointing sex scandal on CNN.

A little more than a week after the incident, the Congressman admitted to emailing links to women he was interested in polling, and by the end of June, the 9th District Representative resigned his seat. Headlines continued to roll, tongues firmly in cheek among the newspaper industry, proclaiming, "Weiner Loses Standing," "Weiner Ejected From Seat," and the timeless classic "Weiner Suddenly Pulls Out." Bad times for the sexually mischievous Congressman, great times for headline writers; although the news cut short some of the fun of the journalism industry, they were still guaranteed months of fun as a special election seemed some months off to fill the vacated position.

A confidential source from the New York Daily News, whose name simply isn’t as funny as Tony Weiner, remembered the past four months as if they were last year.

"As a copy editor whose only functions are to proofread stories and write headlines, let me just state for the record you’re lucky if you get big news story in your lifetime—think about it. A big-time politician exposing himself on the internet? That it in itself is gold. But the guy is named Weiner. Jesus H. Christ, that’s better than Cox. You gotta savor it," said the anonymous dude. "Even after he resigned we spent days writing headlines about him, just because dammit, we earned the right. I think we left three serial killings without coverage while we came up with ’Who Will Replace Weiner’? That was my favorite. Man, we’ll never get those days back."

This reporter reminded the confidential informant of the now classic, "No One Big Enough to Fill Weiner’s Slot," then we laughed ourselves stupid.

The halcyon days of headline writing seemed to fade as the date of the special election approached, and dull-as-dishwater Republican Bob Turner defeated the even-less-spectacularly-named Assemblyman David Weprin. The Republican election not only means a big GOP win in a district they haven’t held since 1923, but a promise that future Weiner-related headlines will only seem a desperate play for attention by print tabloids and newspapers.

At the New York Post, there was a somber feeling in the air on election night, and boos went around as a Republican victory was announced. All eyes were misty, and the feeling was best exemplified by copy editor Dawn Draper.

"Gentlemen… that’s our last Weiner." Half-hearted chuckles were all that met the dour atmosphere.

Draper spoke further on the subject as deadline approached, the staff rushing about us like mad men.

"Of course we’ll miss the chance to make Weiner-related headlines, and not just because it sold more papers," Draper said. "We at the Post have been doing Weiner write-ups before anyone else. I myself am responsible for our coverage of the firing of his Chief of Staff in 2006, which spawned the immortal headlines ’Weiner Loses Head of Staff’ and ’Behind Weiner’s Big Sack.’ But it’s never going to be enough for us again to write more Weiner coverage, to give the full skinny on Weiner—sorry, hard to stop doing that. For a while, it was a perfect storm of scandal and ’you’ve got to be shitting me’ names—everyone was game, we were all on board. Oh, the nights we sat here, giggling like school girls over Chinese take-out and writing up new Weiner coverage. We’ll never have that again."

Despite the morbid pessimism of some, others in the industry hold out some hope for the future. The New York Times, famous for its conservative coverage of news and events, has already announced their support for a fresh batch of congressional candidates in 2012, among them 8th District contender Penny Dick, 12th District candidate Patrick Dong, and 2nd District dark horse Mike Dixon-Kuntz.

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To those of you out there who think you can bust down my heavily barricaded office door with your flimsy limbs and pathetic, jerryrigged battering devices, I say bring it on. Unless you happen to be a huge and well-built muscleman, in which case I say don't come in here, I'm naked. And if you'd like to pick up some spare change for your supplements and muscle fuel, kindly pound the rest of my staff into quivering, mutinous jelly while you're out there.

Welcome to day two of the commune staff's soon-to-be-unsuccessful coup against yours truly, Acting-Editor Ramrod Hurley. They may think they can outlast me out there, what with their access to the outside world and all, but I have a secret weapon those dolts don't even know about: a case of army rations from WWII that Red Bagel had stashed away under the suspicion that they contained alien fetuses. Whatever kind of fetuses they have in them, they're delicious.

So don't expect me to crawl out of this office on my hands and knees waving a white flag any time soon, communers. Sure, I could use some medical attention for a gangrenous paper cut on my ankle, and using the windowsill for a toilet got old about 30 hours ago, but they can have this office when they pry my stiff, emaciated corpse out from behind the file cabinet, where I've built a makeshift fort in case the outer wall is breached.

It all started last week, when I found the office staff gathered around a television set playing grainy home-video footage of a mysterious figure striding across a street in some unnamed US city. Nobody wanted to say anything while I was in the room, but it was obvious everyone knew what this was.

Red Bagel. Alive.

It was then that I began to feel my igloo of lies collapsing in around me. Sure, I'll admit it, I'd been telling the staff Bagel died within a month of his disappearance, in a gas station bathroom during a botched abortion attempt. It was the only way I could demand the respect and obedience of the staff, get them to stop calling me "dickface" and end the childish outbursts of "You're not my real editor! I'll stay up as late as I want!" all the time. And now my roosters had come home to roost. Proof of Bagel's survival, writ large on the small screen.

Leave it to the commune staff to get all up in my head with mind games, like pretending there hasn't been a coup at all. That the coffee has always been this bad and that the staff was just watching Signs last week, the creature seen waltzing across the street on TV just some bugged-out space alien from the film. Nice try, commune staff. But anyone who's sat a mile in Red Bagel's office chair knows that he would never risk techno-viral infection by setting foot on a Hollywood movie set. Hurley: 1, Coupers: 0.

Besides, I've seen the effigy of my likeness they had strung up in the office last week, and I don't buy the claims that it was just a piñata. I know a piñata when I see one, and that thing was clearly a jackass, an obvious reference to the staff's term of endearment for me, Acting-Editor Ramrod Hurley.

So let's drop the charade and bring the noise, commune staff. I'm stocked to weather this storm. And I'll be here waiting to accept your unconditional surrender once you realize the hopelessness of your situation, on one condition: That you bring pizza, beer and toilet paper with you. And don't forget the TP.

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Thanks for offering to let me borrow anything from your CD collection, Joey, but I really have to decline. It's nothing personal, it's just that all your music sucks major wank.

I know most people get all offended when I say that, but c'mon: It's not like it's your fault you don't know good music from the sound of a rhino fart. You were just raised by a torturously dull family and surrounded all your life by automatons who eat what they're served without asking any questions. Some of us manage to break out of that mold and question the mundane garbage surrounding us, but if the most people don't, that's hardly something they're to blame for. But don't worry, because you happened to have hit on a music whiz, and I'm going to spot you while you flex your non-mainstream muscles.

We should start with the easy stuff, of course. Everybody's heard of Pirate's Cove, so let's just go back that far—please tell me you've heard of Pirate's Cove? I mean, I don't see how you could call yourself a fan of '90s grunge rock, as I know you do, and not know it all started with Pirate's Cove in 1985, and their top 100 hit "Chest Pains." Of course you do. I mean, if Cobain had never heard that—well, fuck, I don't need to tell you that Nevermind is a direct song-for-song answer to that third Pirates album. But maybe that's starting too simple. Not trying to insult you or anything.

You can't really fully understand what Pirate's Cove is all about until you know about Sheen and Glue Galaxy. But that goes without saying. A lot of people will tell you that Sheen sold out when they let Ivan Parkichov use that song in his movie Badgrarov, but in their defense, that movie was only supposed to play in the Soviet Union, so they kind of got tricked when it was released to Finland and Norway, too. Yeah, they're not as pure as a band like Bruntshot, but they're a guilty pleasure. Anyway, if it wasn't for their electric pop and the high tenor of lead singer Justin Vincent, Pirate's Cove would probably have sounded like a complete Glue Galaxy knockoff. Like the world needed that!

What's that other band you like? Green Day? Yeah, I suppose they're alright. I mean, alright if you've never heard Hot Chalk. Can you say Green Day completely stole every fucking thing from them? I mean, Chalk even has a song called "Church on Sunday," you telling me that's a coincidence? If that Green Day guy isn't totally copping Chalk lead singer Eddie Ward's singing style, I'll eat my entire 8-track collection. Oh, I suppose you listen to CDs? Vinyl? That's even worse. It's been proven that 8-tracks can carry up to 15% more ambient room sound in any recording. I can't even hear a fucking vinyl record anymore without wanting to jam my fingers right through my ear drums, it's fucking blasphemy when you can hear all that room sound missing. I guess my ears are just more sensitive than yours.

Oh, I remember now—you like the Strokes, right? I like the Strokes, too. Well, I should say I liked the Strokes. Back in 2000, before they sold out and released that album and shit. Don't get me wrong, I'm just saying they're the kind of band who sounds fucking awful when you commit them to a pressed recording. But I still like all those original bootleg live recordings I heard before anyone had heard of them. Now they're just a pale imitation of their former selves.

If you really like the Strokes, you've got to hear this new band I've been listening to—Carnal Rule. They're like the Strokes if they had never given up and just decided to play that shit they play now. Believe me, in six months, nobody but me will have heard of this band. That's the purest proof I need that a band is better than anything anyone else is listening to.

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