Vol. I: Issue 028                                                                                             July 3rd, 2026

Breaking news out of Whiskview today, and I will admit right up front, this one comes with a proud father’s smile attached.

Recent Whiskview High graduate and, yes, overall cool guy Deuce Gotcha has received a scholarship to the prestigious Twincrest School of Design in Oniontown. There, he will be honing his craft in the school’s state-of-the-art Digital+Practical Movie FXs major, where artistic skill meets the smoke, sparks, creatures, and screen magic of the movie world.

Now, is this strictly breaking news by the usual newsroom standard? Perhaps not. But when your son earns a scholarship to chase the thing he loves, you take a moment, straighten your tie, and let the headline breathe. Congratulations, Deuce. Your old man is proud.

In other news, Tacodale is preparing for its annual Fireworks Extravaganza this Saturday night, and as usual, the show will light up the sky above the iconic TACODALE sign along the Fajitian Hills.

The nighttime spectacle will be paired with the town’s Jubilee Fair at the Tacodale Speedway, giving visitors a full evening of food, rides, games, and front-row views of the fireworks display. It is one of Tacodale’s biggest summer traditions, and if past years are any sign, the crowds will be out in full force.

So here is the part you need to know. Arrive early. Parking is expected to fill quickly, and prime seating space near the Speedway will not last long once the evening crowd rolls in.

Whether you are celebrating a graduate’s next big step or looking up at the Tacodale sky this Saturday night, there is plenty worth cheering for this week. Stay sharp, plan ahead, and don’t worry because Duke’s Gotcha covered!

 

Hiya friends!

Well, here it is, my latest kitchen masterpiece, the one that went viral on HeadCase with over 6,000 Yikes! And believe it or not, that was supposed to be a chicken pot pie. I know, I know. #NailedIt. At this point, I am starting to think my smoke alarm deserves a co-host credit.

Now, with that little culinary tragedy out of the way, let’s take a peek at the week ahead in Philly Heights.

It is looking a bit cooler than you might expect for this time of year, with plenty of clouds, a light breeze, and a damp little stretch settling in toward the start of the week. Things do brighten up a touch later on, with a little more sun and some comfortable afternoons mixed in, but overall this one feels more gray and mellow than hot and summery.

So keep a light jacket nearby, don’t let those spotty showers sneak up on you, and enjoy a week that feels a little softer over in Philly Heights.

 

The Mumph here, and whoa, I would have never guessed that was a pie. Zepha, I say this with respect, but Hambone and I were talking, and maybe the next kitchen experiment should be dog treats. Dogs tend to be a little less judgmental when it comes to snacks.

I’ll send you a list of Hambone’s favorites. Fair warning, that bulldog has a sweet tooth the length of his tongue.

But let’s talk about the subject at hand, baseball, where a different flock of birds came out hot.

Oilseed Springs and Tastyville gave us a wild one early. The Roosters put four on the board in the first, and the Tomatoes answered right back with three of their own, so right away this thing felt like it might turn into a full-on slugfest. Tastyville tied it in the third, and from there, both clubs started tightening the screws.

That is where Pankratz earns the MVP. After that bumpy start, he settled in and gave Oilseed Springs the calm they needed. No panic, no unraveling, just steady work until the Roosters scratched across the go-ahead run in the sixth. Tastyville had plenty of time to answer, but Pankratz and that Roosters defense kept the door shut the rest of the way.

Final score, Oilseed Springs Roosters 5, Tastyville Tomatoes 4. Winner, Oilseed Springs. MVP, Pankratz on the mound.

My two cents, when you give up four early and still find a way to steady the whole ballgame, that is not just pitching, that is backbone.

 

Hello out there…

First, let us take a moment to congratulate Deuce on his scholarship. When he stopped by the newsroom back in March, he showed me the portfolio he planned to submit to Twincrest, and it was stellar. His makeup effects work was the sort of thing that makes you do a double take and lean in closer. I told him then that he had better come back around Halloween and put those talents to proper use on the rest of us.

Now, speaking of faces a person does not easily forget, let us move to a man who has managed the rare trick of being both notorious and oddly difficult to find.

Guy Mortadello.

With a history like his, you would think tracking him down would be simple. I originally wanted to interview him on the tenth anniversary of his first court case, but despite a fair amount of digging and more than a few calls to the sorts of people who usually know how things move behind the scenes, I came up empty. So I set the idea aside.

But the question never really left me.

So here we are. Consider this the first installment of a segment I am calling: Where in the world is… Guy Mortadello?

For anyone needing a refresher, Guy opened the first Mortadello’s Meat Pies in Oniontown back in June of 2002. The concept took off quickly. Before long, the chain had expanded across the continent, and by 2005, Mortadello’s Meat Pies had become the largest restaurant chain on Gurth.

That sort of rapid rise usually comes with consequences, and in Guy’s case, the consequences arrived hot and undercooked.

As the business expanded, quality began to slip. Corners were cut. Profits were protected. And before long, the pies themselves had become the butt of late-night jokes and online ridicule, largely thanks to their growing reputation for causing a rather unfortunate range of digestive distress.

Then, in 2006, a new name entered the picture: Papa Louie.

With the opening of Papa’s Pizzeria in Tastyville, Papa Louie took the familiar idea of customizable meals and built something far more appealing around it. Pizza, for starters, has a natural advantage over a meat pie of questionable integrity. More importantly, Papa Louie understood something Guy apparently did not. Expansion works best when it adapts. Instead of cloning the same concept endlessly, he diversified, building restaurants around local tastes, regional flavors, and actual demand.

That was the beginning of the end for Guy Mortadello.

Less than a decade later, nearly all Mortadello’s Meat Pies locations were gone. The final holdout in Toastwood eventually closed its doors and was swiftly replaced by a Papa’s Cheeseria. That, apparently, was the final insult. In an effort to sabotage Papa Louie’s opening night in Toastwood, Guy stole an entire trailer full of instruments belonging to the opening band. He was arrested and held without bond until his court date in April 2016, when Ty Quilton, a man whose name has a habit of appearing whenever consequences need softening, managed to get him back out in remarkably short order.

From there, Guy’s path grew smaller, sadder, and somehow even shadier. He scraped by selling counterfeit watches, bootleg DVDs, and whatever other bait-and-switch hustle happened to be within reach. Then, in 2022, he resurfaced with another doomed venture, Mortadello’s Bird Meat, a fried chicken sandwich shop in Oilseed Springs launched on forged documents and borrowed money.

It went about as well as you would expect.

The restaurant was eventually shut down over repeated health code violations, and in its collapse, Guy left his employees, the BotWursts, stranded in Oilseed Springs with no real safety net to speak of.

Which brings us back to the question at hand.

What happened to Guy Mortadello?

Outside of bankruptcy filings and the occasional dry paper trail, I have not been able to find a single solid sign of him in nearly three years. Not a confirmed sighting. Not a reliable lead. Not so much as a blurry rumor with legs. In fact, the absence became strange enough that I went so far as to file a missing persons report with local authorities.

So no, it does not look like that long-delayed interview will be happening anytime soon.

And strange as it may sound, I do hope the man is alive and in one piece. But when someone with a past this loud vanishes this completely, it does not feel ordinary. It feels like the sort of silence that ought to mean something.

I will keep asking.

And that’s The Scoop.

 

 

Hey Everyone!

Welcome back to Wendy’s Wheels! Here we showcase the amazing karts created by Wendy at the Greasy Gear Garage in Maple Mountain.

This week’s exhibit is a custom kart created for Nevada called… The Findango. The kart is a gnarly skiff design built to patrol the coastline in pursuit of slower-moving karts. It has a rear-mounted dorsal spoiler to keep it tracking straight, while its wing-like fins help it catch extra airtime over jumps. The Findango is built to cruise, chase, and chomp through the competition.