Southpaw Jones

Southpaw Jones presents
Is This Interesting?
Thoughts/feelings that just might not matter:
Man, last night at Café Mundi was fab-o-tablier. Just laid back and smooth, the way I like ‘em. I was joined by friends/colleagues Max Tolleson and Bill Passalacqua who played three songs each. Before the show, Max interviewed me for his school paper on the topic of CDs versus MP3s, or hard copy versus virtual copy. I told him that I tend to fall on the side of empowering technology across the board. Yes, CDs sound better, and yes, going to the store is fun. But vinyl records sound even better, and buying them was much more fun! Technology always takes us one step back and two steps forward. The world of digitized music allows just about anybody to record and distribute their own sounds. That fact alone seals the deal for me. There are dozens of agoraphobic geniuses out there, and it’s time we hear their tunes!

There’s just too much stuff in the world already without more jewel cases, tray cards, liner notes, shrink-wrap, and compact discs adding to the junk. There, I said it.

Southpaw Jones presents
Quotopia
Freshly-picked quotes from the ol’ reference collection:
All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
Edward Gibbon

Southpaw Jones presents
And Another Thing…
More verbosity with velocity and viscosity:
Now, back to my telling of the Raina Rose & Southpaw Jones Pacific Northwest Tour. On Friday, we headed straight from Seattle to Eugene. Well, we did stop briefly at the Seattle REI store. It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under. You know, going Down Under to do some hiking and rock climbing. Shrimp on the barbie? No? Anywayz, it was huge, like three stories. And there was an urban forest with a waterfall outside the store! It was like an Ewok village. I didn’t buy anything. Raina got sunglasses. It seems that the strategy behind modern retail is simply to overwhelm customers. They want you to walk into a place and think, “Man, this place is gynormous and filled with stuff arrayed in unique ways. I…must…buuuuuuuuy…” It’s like marketing by gravity.

Once we escaped from REI’s tractor beam, it was smooth sailing to Eugene, specifically Cozmic Pizza. Ever have the desire to get a slice of organic pizza pie, drink some gourmet coffee, check out some used books, drink a beer, AND hear some live music? Well, Cozmic Pizza is the place for you. It was a fun gig, and we ran into Brian Cutean, Laura Freeman, and other Kerrville friends. After the show, we walked a few blocks to see Myshkin’s Ruby Warblers rock a fancy club for adults.

Spike Gillespie presents
A Haiku History of the World
A look at our past, / seventeen syllables and / three lines at a time:

The young dot-wealthy
kiss hubris ‘bye: bubble bursts.
Can’t cash laughingstocks.

Southpaw Jones presents
Paw Prints
Pics of Southpaw & his environ:
A small picture of a very large place: the flagship REI of Seattle, WA.

Thank you, come again!
www.southpawjones.net
©2006 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.

Southpaw Jones presents
Is This Interesting?
Thoughts/feelings that just might not matter:
Let’s see, where was I? Ah, yes, we arrived in the trendy, collegiate area of Seattle and found the Trabant Chai Lounge. More importantly, we found an Asian restaurant where I scored a mound of teriyaki chicken & rice, FOUR California rolls, salad, and miso soup all for $6.99. Awesome blossom! We had some more time to kill, so we stopped in the American Apparel store. If you’re not familiar, this used to be a progressive-minded t-shirt company. Well, now, it’s a hyper-sexualized world of solid colors. The walls were covered with soft-core porn, and the employees looked like high school girls straight out of gym class. I…did…not…have…my…camera.

The gig was fun. Tippers were generous. I got a some sort of chai drink with cookies & cream flavor. My old friend Jennifer was there with her boyfriend Matt. She was the coolest girl in my high school class. And I mean cool in the pure, non-ironic sense of the word. It was good to see her thriving in the NW. They joined Raina, her friend Tricia, new friends Keith & Hilarie, and me for drinks after the show. We discussed monorail versus light rail and coffeehouse quality among other locally flavored controversies. I had a melon ball and yes, I wore the skirt that came with it.

I spent the night at in Jennifer’s excellent guest bed after watching an odd, local sketch comedy show. Seattle has its own sphere of culture for sure. At this point, after munching intermittently, I still had some left-over chicken.

Spike Gillespie presents
A Haiku History of the World
A look at our past, / seventeen syllables and / three lines at a time:

Internet arrives.
You have mail! How did we find
things before Google?

Abi Tapia presents
Abi Tapia’s America
Our own wanderlusty singer/songwriter offers a view from her lens:
A walk in the mountains around Chattanooga.

Herman Bennett presents
Plumb, Plumber, Plumbest
Observations from Austin’s singing Jewish plumber:
You can say ‘butt joint’ to a carpenter and get a whole different reaction than you would saying it to a group of 10 year old boys. You can say ‘bastard file’ in a hardware store or ‘that bitch’ in a kennel. You can hardly wait to say ‘craps’ in Nevada, but ‘crap’ is an entirely different thing. ‘Ass’ is a word used in the Bible and so is ‘hole’…asshole is not. I think, thanks to the flap in which G.W. Bush called a reporter an asshole and it had to be reported, it’s okay to say a-hole. It’s even okay to say ‘pissed off’, used to just be POed. Can’t say piss, can say pee. Heard Ozzy Osborne say, on the travel channel, “I’m gonna go take a crap…are you gonna follow me there?”

Southpaw Jones presents
Rhyme Time!
One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:
Said “I do” with the dead
Highlight here for answer: [married buried]

Thank you, come again!
www.southpawjones.net
©2006 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.

Southpaw Jones presents
Is This Interesting?
Thoughts/feelings that just might not matter:
Sorry for the late entry today. I had to recover from the 3-day mini-tour, which I shall discuss…now.

On Day 1, last Friday, sweet Maggie took me to the airport early in the morn. Righteous! For some reason, this was a heavy travel weekend, especially on Southwest. As you may know, Southwest Airlines absolutely rules, unless it’s crowded. It seemed like there were an awful lot of very young people and very old people, and they were fascinated with/confused by the whole transportation system. I honestly wondered if there was a Folks Who Struggle with Modernity convention in Portland. But I didn’t have to talk to anyone, and I got some reading done. Bonus!

One quick note, a teenage girl on a cell phone, talking & laughing loudly throughout her entire conversation, uttered the words, “You know, I don’t like being around retarded people, but I tried to take some pictures for you.” Your guess is as good as mine.

Anyhoo, Ms. Raina Rose picked me up in her hippied-out Dodge van, and we headed straight for Seattle. Coming from Austin, 92 degrees felt positively pleasant. I quickly learned that Oregon features zero sales tax and full service gas stations. Washington lacks both. We arrived several hours later at the Trabant Chai Lounge near the University of Washington. That’s where my adventure will continue tomorrow…

Southpaw Jones presents
Paw Prints
Pics of Southpaw & his environ:
Exploring my outer dork on Flight 434 from Phoenix to Austin. World weary. Close to a nose pick.

Southpaw Jones presents
Lazy Links
Something way more entertaining that I can offer:
Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant in two “training” videos for Microsoft UK.
Check it out!

Southpaw Jones presents
Quotopia
Freshly-picked quotes from the ol’ reference collection:
Delusion is pretty major. The idea that someone can’t understand where they are in the world is interesting and very common. It happens in every place of work. I guess I’ve looked at music, theatre and films because that’s all I’ve known for the past 35 years. But I truly believe that you can arbitrarily pick something out of a hat and find something funny about it because the same characters inhabit and face the same troubles as everyone else. I went to a model train shop just to listen to the people talking. I thought ‘this is a movie in itself’. It was very deep, the way these adults were talking about their trains.
Christopher Guest on comedy

Spike Gillespie presents
A Haiku History of the World
A look at our past, / seventeen syllables and / three lines at a time:

John Travolta is
disco dance personified.
(What WERE we thinking?)

Thank you, come again!
www.southpawjones.net
©2006 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.

Spike Gillespie presents
A Haiku History of the World
A look at our past, / seventeen syllables and / three lines at a time:

Sixties. Some drafted.
Some protest. Some seek flower
power in the Haight.

Atomic Robot presents
Wikipedioh?
What you might not know about what you might now know:
The Bloop

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop

Here’s what Wikipedia tells us:

“The Bloop is the name given to an ultra-low frequency underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration several times during the summer of 1997. The source of the sound remains unknown.”

The sound signature of the Bloop is unmistakably organic, but because it was heard at distances up to 3,000 miles from the source, the Bloop is significantly more powerful than the sound any known animal would have the ability to make. An animal that could make a sound of this magnitude would have to be much larger than any heretofore known to science.

Here’s what Wikipedia DOESN’T tell you:

As a living citizen of this world, not only are you required to deal with the rapidly deteriorating state of the international socio-political landscape on dry land, but now you have to accept the possibility that there are legitimate sea monsters living in the depths of the ocean. There is no respite! Fortunately, there is no conclusive evidence that it IS a sea monster. It could just be the fat one from Wilson Philips. Remember? The fat one?

Southpaw Jones presents
Paw Prints
Pics of Southpaw & his environ:
Trying to keep my head up in the Portland Airport, 3:30 am.

Southpaw Jones presents
First Lines
Introductions to classic works I will never finish:
Clem had eaten squirrel before, but never this tender, and never so gratefully.

Southpaw Jones presents
Quotopia
Freshly-picked quotes from the ol’ reference collection:
I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance.
Reuben Blades

Thank you, come again!
www.southpawjones.net
©2006 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.

Southpaw Jones presents
Is This Interesting?
Thoughts/feelings that just might not matter:
I’m off today. Bound for Seattle via Portland via Phoenix. Three shows with Raina Rose sounds fun to me. It’ll be a treat just to get out of this 100 degree weather. The shows are listed here, and I’d sure appreciate any word-spreading you can do for me.

Last time I visited the area, I was with Matt the Electrician & Casey Holford. We rocked a few venues, including Mississippi Studios, where I actually met Raina. That night, there was a near-riot when I played “Everyman” and had to confess it was not on any of my CDs. That’s a bittersweet feeling. Well, almost two years later, it still is not available, but I’m closer than ever to getting that done.

What else? I was in Portland on September 11. Yup, 2001. Remind me to tell that story sometime. For now, I have to pack.

Spike Gillespie presents
A Haiku History of the World
A look at our past, / seventeen syllables and / three lines at a time:

Alphabet of strength:
MLK, JFK, X
spelling civil rights.

Southpaw Jones presents
Quotopia
Freshly-picked quotes from the ol’ reference collection:
Steer clear of overviews. Those of us who have the situation in Lebanon in perspective and know exactly how to plot a gay rights campaign are usually morons. We snap at our children when they have innocent homework questions. We don’t notice when our lover has a deadline. We forget to call our best friend back when she’s just had a root canal.

Homework, root canal and deadlines are the important things in life, and only when we have these major dramas taken care of can we presume to look at the larger questions.

Cynthia Heimel

Southpaw Jones presents
Rhyme Time!
One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:
Good-bye, curly little dogs. (2 syllables each)
Highlight here for answer: [toodles poodles]

Southpaw Jones presents
Fool Around Friday
Silly games for silly times:
Awesome desktop blues musicmaker. Click here to see it in its native habitat.

Thank you, come again!
www.southpawjones.net
©2006 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.