The Sad Cowboy Round Up - 2020 - Issue No. 1

T H E S A D C O W B O Y
R O U N D U P
2 0 2 0 • I S S U E N O . 1 ES €2.50
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E D I T O R S -
I N - C H I E F
Sad Cowboy Productions is a media company with a range of exciting content including Podcast,
Short Films, Journalism, Crippling Debt and Joblessness because we all did arts degrees.
To increase our chances of stable employment we have branched out into the world of publishing
and we couldn't be happier. We were founded in 2016 by Brad, Cal and Riley and have managed to
disappoint our parents for four years straight.
Don't take anything is this mag too seriously because we sure as hell didn't..
If you like what you see maybe follow us on social media
Facebook: @sadcowboyproductions
Twitter: @sadcowboyprod
IG: sadcowboy_official

T H E S A D C O W B O Y R O U N D U P

T H E S A D C O W B O Y R O U N D U P

WHY I WANT THE ALIENS TO BE TRUE.
EVER LOOK UP IN THE SKY AND THINK OUT LOUD TO YOURSELF “WOW HOW COOL
WOULD IT BE IF ALIENS WERE REAL”. WHEN I WAS 5 I NEARLY DROWNED IN MY
UNCLES POOL AND I THINK THAT THAT WAS A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE FOR ME,
FLOATING IN LIQUID, SECONDS AWAY FROM MY BRAIN BEING FULLY DEPLETED OF
OXYGEN. I IMAGINE THIS SENSATION IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE WHEN THE ALIENS WILL
COME AND TAKE ME. I HOPE THEY LIKE ME IF THEY ARE IN FACT REAL… I SAW THIS
PICTURE ON A FACEBOOK GROUP THE OTHER DAY OF WHAT THEY THINK THE
ALIENS MIGHT LOOK LIKE. SEEMS LIKE A DIVERSE AND ECLECTIC RANGE OF
INTERDIMENSIONAL DUDES… HOLYWOOD COULD LEARN A THINK OR TWO ABOUT
THESE GUYS.. AS WE CAN SEE IT’S THE LITTLE GREEN MEN THAT ARE OVER
REPRESENTED. WHY NOT THE PRAYING MANTIS VARIETY OF ALIEN OR EVEN THE
ALIEN THAT LOOKS LIKE KIM KARDASHIAN??? QUESTIONS THAT REMAIN
UNANSWERED AFTER MANY EMAILS TO WILLIAM H MACY.. THE POINT IS WHEN THE
ALIENS COME FRO ME I WILL BE READY.. CAN YOU SAY THE SAME?
T H E S A D C O W B O Y R O U N D U P

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Pinkercraft
Review by Weezer Fan, Gamer and suspected virgin Cal Behrendt
The debut album by independent Minecraft parody artist intilactic acid, Pinkercraft is so much more
than just a loving homage to Weezer’s Pinkerton – it’s a coveted message and statement on life itself.
As a songwriter, the band’s singer, intilactic acid, takes a gamer tack on personal relationships.
Throughout Pinkercraft, he pines for all the blocks he can’t mine, the blocks he can have but
shouldn’t, the blocks which are no good for him and the blocks about whom he just isn’t sure.
“Across the Sea,” which begins with a deliberately corny piano intro, is the tale of a pair of gamers who
live a sea apart on the server they spend so much time on. “I could never TP, I think it’s against the
rules,” sings acid wistfully – adding to the mind-crushing
sadness of a gamer who just wants to mine with his favorite Minecraft girl gamer but is unable to
because she is so many blocks apart from our lyricist.
In “Pink Rectangles,” acid humorously describes trying to scan the Minecraft wiki while trying to fend
off Endermen, a classic rookie mistake which is relatable to gamers across the world: “Every mob’s a
little hostile/oh can’t it be a little passive?”
However, the seventh track, “La Alex” proves to be the centrepoint of the entire album, a rocking
fourminute masterpiece which is lyrically stronger than all of Weezer’s work past 2016.
“Gosh darn you Minecraft girl gamers, you do it to me everytime,” acid begins, before delving deep
into his personal desire to have his girl gamer gf join him in creative mode and build while munching
on pork chops. It’s the chorus which really strikes a chord at the heart of listeners, with acid making a
heartful plea: “I’m a gamer too, so please/hello, TP accept me/I think I could build with you/And you
could build with me.”
The album touches on the depression a gamer can feel when their tp request is rejected, with acid
considering the dangerous move in minecraft of you could lose all your sweet items if you dig into
lava
in the song “Digging Straight Down”, while the final track on the album – the masterfully melancholic
“Brown Donkey” follows the tragic friendship between acid and his brown donkey, who was murdered
by some griefers and leaves him considering his own failures in not leaving his donkey in the farm like
the wiki tells him to.
“Pickaxe in my hands for days, I can’t mind away the pain,” acid sings in a line which draws heavy
comparison to some of the most depressing artists of our time such as Sufjan Stevens and Mount
Eerie – leaving even the most hardy gamer crying in the discord chat while mining with the bois.
Not every song lands on Pinkercraft - “Tired of Mobs,” a look at acid’s gameplay loop of fighting mob
after mob, is as aimless as the subject’s nightly routine, while “Game On” just goes through the daily
routine of a gamer. However, dig deep enough into Pinkercraft and you will find an album which not
only gamers can take comfort and solace in, but an album which has a little something for everyone.

Finding the lady from Gladstone House -
An Investigation her the photos.Here’s how the
search Long story has short, gone I found two so photos far.e in to my come… bed side drawer, both featuring a
blonde woman. The goal is simple - to find the woman and give her the
photos. here is how the search has gone so far:
I began with the guy who lived in my room before me, Clinto. I asked if he
knew anything about the photos. The answer- “no idea”, though he did have
the name of the woman who lived in the room before him.
Clinto had no last name for Baylie, but there was another ex-Gladstone
resident who could tell me more. His name is Sam and it as it happens, I
already knew from uni. I figured out he lived here when Vinnies sent his mail
to Gladstone, by then his old address. Fortunate mailing error for my part.
Sam told me he moved into Gladstone with Baylie in 2017. I got a message
to Baylie through him, and this is what came back.
“They’re (the photos) definitely not mine […] it’s the ghost of 79a [sic]”
According to Sam, Baylie also said she removed all furniture from the room
when she left, which
leads us back to Clinto.
If Baylie got rid of her furniture then Clinto must have brought the bedside
when he moved in, right?
Problem is, when I asked Clinto if the table was his, he said no.
Until I confirm with Baylie whether she bought the table, I’ve got two stories
that clash. Is one of
them right, or is there another explanation for how this table ended up in
my room?
More to come…

Do you know
this woman?
Resident Sad Cowboy journalist River McCrossen
found a photograph of a woman in a second hand
bedside draw, if you know who this woman is and have
any leads we would love to get her photographs back
to her.
CONTACT
rivermccrossen@gmail.com
0468 309 687

THE DIG
Zoe Behrendt
The Dig (1995) is a LucasArts adventure game which follows a plot involving
the diversion of an asteroid from its collision course with Earth, prior to
exploration of the asteroid’s hollow interior and subsequent transportation
of the three main characters to an alien planet. Here, they must utilise
xenoarchaeology to discover the mysteries of the ancient alien world and
search for a way to return to earth. The main characters involved are:
Commander Boston Low, leader of the expedition and the playable
character; Maggie Robbins, a journalist and linguist; and Dr. Ludger Brink, a
geologist and archaeologist.
The archaeologist character in this game, Ludger Brink, is relatively wellwritten
and evidently well-researched in comparison to other fictional
portrayals of archaeologists. This is illustrated by Brink’s regular objections to
Low’s ignorant assumptions and destructive methods. For instance, when
Brink compares an alien stone feature to ancient Peruvian masonry, Low
states “so it’s primitive”, to which Brink responds that “there was nothing
primitive about ancient Peruvian masonry”. This is a refreshing contrast to
other fictional archaeologist characters which are often utilised as a means
of accrediting the false assumption that indigenous or past peoples were
technologically inferior. Furthermore, when Low begins to dig up an alien
grave using a shovel, Brink strongly objects, stating that Low will forever be
remembered “as the boneheaded space hero who destroyed precious data
at the first alien archaeological site”. Similarly, Brink asserts that “a good
archaeologist doesn’t expect to make any sense unless he’s been digging at a
site for years” and that his “whole training is to be careful, not to charge in
with guns blazing”. He therefore recognises that archaeology is not a simple,
fast-paced process involving action-filled, destructive exploration of sites.
This is in notable contrast to several other fictional archaeologists such as
Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, who evidently do not take issue with the
disturbance of culturally significant sites or their artefacts.

This leads me to my main issue with The Dig, ¬which is that, despite Brink’s
good qualities, he is represented as the primary antagonist to the “hero”
Commander Low, and Brink’s desire to carry out archaeology using the
correct methods is portrayed as an annoyance. In fact, Low’s destructive
disturbance of the archaeological site and alien cultural material is essential
for the player to carry out in order to progress through the game.
Consequently, The Dig essentially promotes destructive methods of
archaeology through its allocation of the heroic commander — rather than
the actual archaeologist — as the playable character in a game with a plot
centred largely around the utilisation of archaeology. The most often-used
item in this game is also a shovel, which also implies archaeology to be a
destructive, excavation-heavy discipline. Furthermore, Brink is stated to be a
geologist and archaeologist, yet most of his dialogue demonstrates that his
character is, first and foremost, a plot device used to explain anything
scientific, even if the subject in question is completely unrelated to either
geology or archaeology. He is also revealed to be able to decipher the alien
language, despite the inclusion of an expert linguist character in the game.
Despite this long rant, The Dig is actually a fun game with picturesque visual
settings for its time, and a relatively well-written archaeologist character,
who is, unfortunately, not the playable character in this game centred
around the use of archaeology. Would recommend playing!

CONTRIBUTORS
Riley Jones
Flamingo Review
Skate 3 Review
Art
Bradley Sullivan
Catching the Big
Fish Review
Cal Behrendt
Pinkercraft Review
Mia Bathurst
Chaos Theory
Zoe Behrendt
The Dig Review
Paddy Walsh
Cover Photo
River McCrossen
Finding the lady from Gladstone House

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