Southpaw Jones

WARNING: Today’s Gazette is not for weak-stomached mush-haters. Please return tomorrow.

Is This Interesting?
Thoughts/feelings that just might not matter:

It’s Valentine’s Day, my friends, and I am Southpaw Jones, an expert in the ways of love. So, please, gather ‘round and hear my heterosexual advice. Improve your chances at gaining and maintaining more amore.

1. No one cares about your dumb self, and neither should you.
2. Everyone likes to be touched. Even by accident. Even by strangers in the grocery store.
3. The guitar is not the automatic chick magnet that many think it is. You have to play mediocre, strummy, boring songs for it to have that effect.
4. Men, we are at war with one Justin Timberlake. Women, y’all are at war with geometry and skimp.
5. Men, clean the hair off the bathroom counter. Women, clean the hair off your armpits.
6. Men, you may have an amazing body, mind, and soul, but if your woman doesn’t see you eating greens from time to time, she won’t be happy.
7. Women like to be spiritual. Men like to be logical. Enjoy the first two Matrix films together, and pretend they didn’t make that third one.
8. Never let your partner be a better partner than you, unless it really makes them feel special.
9. There are many more erogenous zones of the body than those we’ve known since elementary school. Actually, there are many erogenous zones outside the body, too. These include the garage door opener, the set of “Wheel of Fortune,” and the “forward” button on your iPod.
10. Kiss like there’s no tomorrow, because, as Pat Robertson reported this morning, “There is no tomorrow.”

And the most important piece of advice I have for you: Come on out to my two appearances tonight!

Free Sex in Public @ Bookpeople, 7 pm.
Southpaw Jones’s Lonely Heart’s Club Meeting @ Café Mundi, 8 pm.

A word about Free Sex in Public from Spike Gillespie:
“For the seventh year straight (and gay!), Spike Gillespie and friends–including Southpaw Jones, Kristine Kovach, Herman Bennett, Doug Powell, Richard “Mr. Smartypants” Steinberg, Diane Fleming, PK Sax, Tom Benton, Adam Sultan, Liz Belile, Max Tolleson, Les McGeehee, Owen Egerton, and Genevieve Van Cleve present Free Sex in Public, a celebration of love and sex and hope and dreams and, yes, even nightmares. Ah, romance! Come sing, dance, laugh, cry and get your romantic rocks off as we celebrate life’s albatross – love — and that old albatross of love– sex.”

BookPeople
6th & Lamar
Wednesday Feb 14th
7 til 9 p.m.
FREE

Yes, the two events overlap, but I trust you to make an adult decision about that. I’ll race over to begin my show at Café Mundi after kicking off Spike’s event. I’ll have a couple of special guests, and I’ll pull out all my best love and anti-love songs, perhaps including some karaoke action! And remember, all tips I earn at the show will go toward a fancy dinner with my sweetheart, who has to wait ‘till Thursday because I’m a whore for my public.

Wednesday, February 14th, 2007
8:00 PM
Southpaw Jones’s Lonely Hearts Club Meeting
Cafe Mundi
1704 E. 5th St.
512-236-8634
http://www.cafemundi.com

I luh you,
Southpaw

Quotopia
Freshly-picked quotes from the ol’ reference collection:

Talk not of wasted affection - affection never was wasted.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Online Museum of the Week
Indexed:

Life beautifully diagramed by Jessica Hagy.

Poetry that Rhymes
And flows. And builds a bridge. And inspires:

My girlfriend’s name is Maggie.
She’s the one that I adore,
And when I kiss her briefly,
I want to kiss her more.
In addition to the kissing
I like to hold her hand.
I tend to pull her closer
To whisper what I’ve planned:

Happy Valentine’s Day, baby.

Paw Prints
Pics of Southpaw, his environ, and his interweb:

Thank you, come again!
southpawjones.com
southpawjones.net
myspace.com/southpawjones
E-mail southpaw@southpawjones.com
©2007 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.

Retro Blog
Real journal entries from elementary school:

This one was written exactly twenty-one years ago! Everything is big! And I seem to have a preternatural knowledge of greeting card retail:

I am a Valentine. I was made out of paper at a big factory. There were lots of other Valentines being made. One day I was in something big called a truck. It sent me to a store called Hallmark. They put me on a big rack! I made friends on the rack with other Valentines. Then in about two months people came in and started talking about Valentine’s Day. Soon the store was crowded. I was pulled up and pushed back in many times.

One day a boy picked me up but didn’t put me back in! His name was Earl. He took me to school then he stuffed me in a bag! There were Valentines in there that said “Craig.” Then Craig came. He picked us all up. Then he took us in a car to his house and I stayed there forever, and here I am.

Two (2) Pathetic Things
Humility is our only hope:
1] bundling up like a wimpy southerner
2] being cold

Online Museum of the Week
Indexed:

Life beautifully diagramed by Jessica Hagy.

Quotopia
Freshly-picked quotes from the ol’ reference collection:

Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.
Saint Thomas Aquinas

Plumb, Plumber, Plumbest
Signs o’ the times from Austin’s singing Jewish plumber, Herman Bennett:

Thank you, come again!
southpawjones.com
southpawjones.net
myspace.com/southpawjones
E-mail southpaw@southpawjones.com
©2007 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.

Is This Interesting?
Thoughts/feelings that just might not matter:

Yes, it’s Monday. Time to put our heads down and power through. I can’t complain; I had a fine, fine weekend. I had time to clean my living room and kitchen. I reunited with some old friends and old video games. I shopped. I caught a great band called The Recliners. They do lounge-style covers of well-known tunes.

I went to a party for Austin theatre folks, and no one screamed “Huzzah!” in my ear. I discovered a wonderful Tilapia dish with Maggie, then we went to sampled sexy fragrances and perused World Market for chocolate, wine, and olive oil.

Sunday morning featured Maggie in a performance of 12:21 by a group called Here Come the Puppies. It is 12 plays in 21 minutes, part of Frontera Fest. I thought it was wonderful to see such subjects as armpit hair, Judaism, MySpace, and a Super Friends orgy explored on stage. My ladyfriend is, you must know, a swirling burst of energy and beauty under the spotlight.

Or any light for that matter.

Back to the business of the present, it’s time to update the Southpaw Jones Virtual Excursion des Pieds! This week shall be forever known as “Hello, My Knee Pain.” Yes, there are some drawbacks to going from a below-average exerciser to one who jogs 20 miles a week. Honestly, my knees haven’t seen this much action since I attended an extra-long Catholic Mass.

So, I’ve been trying more stretching, longer strides, and shock-absorbing insoles to ease the pain. I’ve also decided to grant myself mileage from the stationary bike and elliptical machine, both of which I tried yesterday. Running five miles at a time is still my favorite, but I guess I’m going to have to add some variety if I’m going to keep up this pace.

This week’s total comes to 18 miles on foot, 5.7 miles on the bike, and 0.7 on the elliptical. Let’s update!

Week 1: 30 miles to Taylor, Texas
Week 2: 27 miles to Rockdale, Texas
Week 3: 20.7 miles to Caldwell, Texas
Week 4: 22.3 miles to Bryan/College Station, Texas
Week 5: 21 miles through Gibbons Creek Lake
Week 6: 24.4 miles to…

HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS!

It’s where my darlin’ went to college. Where I performed recently with Matt the Electrician at the Stardust Lounge. Where my friend Ben Bell lives. Where the big ol’ scary prison sits, looming on the highway. Do not pick-up hitchhikers! Except, of course, the virtual kind.

“Is that guy limping? Maybe we should give him a ride.”

And I will love you so…
Great love songs of the 20th Century for Valentine’s Week:

Angel
Aerosmith

I’m alone yeah I dont know if I can face the night
I’m in tears and the cryin that I do is for you
I want your love let’s break the wall between us
Dont make it tough, I’ll put away my pride
Enough’s enough, I’ve suffered and I’ve seen the light

You’re my angel come and save me tonight…

Online Museum of the Week
Indexed
Life brilliantly diagramed by Jessica Hagy:

Rhyme Time!
One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

A concentrating, determined short-horned swarming grasshopper.
Highlight here for answer: [focused locust]

Paw Prints
Pics of Southpaw, his environ, and his interweb:

Your odds of dying described visually:

Thank you, come again!
southpawjones.com
southpawjones.net
myspace.com/southpawjones
E-mail southpaw@southpawjones.com
©2007 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.

Is This Interesting?
Thoughts/feelings that just might not matter:

Good morning, fair reader. Happy Friday! Well, actually a bit of a sad Friday. Here’s what I wrote in a rare evening post after hearing the shocking news last night, a flashback of a flashback, if you will:

Anna Nicole Smith passed away today, after I wrote this about my fictional Super Bowl party:

I wasn’t going to invite Anna Nicole Smith, but I found a journal entry from a 15-year-old Southpaw that reads, “Older Southpaw, if you’re reading this, please don’t ever stop trying to meet Anna Nicole Smith. I don’t care how fat or skinny or old or deranged or married she becomes. She’s always a woman to me.”

So, ok, for my 15-year-old Southpaw, I called her up. (I also attended an Aerosmith concert.) Anyhoo, she couldn’t quite grasp the directions to my place, so she never showed up.

There was a time when Anna Nicole Smith was a wonderful personification of American beauty, excess, and desire. Before we heard her talk. Before her marriage to a rich, dying man. Before the reality show. Before the weight gain. Before the weight loss. She was the Playmate of the Year and the face of Guess Jeans. For a while there, America praised the wonder of a decidedly non-skinny woman before slithering back into its love affair with poles and sticks.

As a shallow, horny teenager, I thought Anna Nicole was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She was sexy but coy, young but motherly, hillbilly yet sorority, strong but feminine, rural and urban, modern but classic, all at once. There was also the small matter of that massive smile and those eager eyes. She had breasts that could feed the hungry of the world twice over. She was a wild, crazy Texas woman.

Now, as troubled as our country is, A.N.S. is probably more representative than role-models like Hilary Clinton, Angelina Jolie, and Oprah Winfrey. We kill citizens of an ancient land for oil; Anna drilled an ancient man for dough. Everyone around her told her she was perfect, so she never felt the need to learn anything or really do anything. She sought out comfort and pleasure and friends and family, and who among us can truly claim any better?

Call me crazy, but for a while there in the 1990’s, she was our Marilyn Monroe. If that’s overstating things, well, she was my Marilyn Monroe. And just like Marilyn, she never knew who to cling to when the rain set in.

I would have liked to have known you, but I was just a kid. Nowadays, I’m not certain I could stand 15 minutes of conversation with you. But I guess we’ll never know.

Good-bye, Anna. American woman, mama, rest in peace.

And Another Thing…
More verbosity with velocity and viscosity:

And here’s my annual SXSW rejection e-mail:
Dear Southpaw Jones,

Thank you for submitting music to SXSW in consideration for a showcase. This year, SXSW Music received and reviewed almost 8000 submissions. Unfortunately, this means that we must turn down many artists. With that in mind, we will be unable to offer Southpaw Jones a showcase this year. Please be assured that your materials were given full consideration. We wish you the best in your musical pursuits.

Sincerely,
SXSW Music Festival staff

“Please be assured that your materials were given full consideration.” I had a girl break up with me using this line once…

For those of you who aren’t aware, SXSW is a group that convenes to select the future babysitters of America.

Online Museum of the Week
todayspictures.slate.com/boredcouples/” target=new>Slate presents Bored Couples:

Quotopia
Freshly-picked quotes from the ol’ reference collection:

Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.
Oscar Wilde

Fool Around Friday
Silly games for silly times:

It’s Reel Gold! Use those arrow keys to nab something shiny for your weekend. See you Monday!

Thank you, come again!
southpawjones.com
southpawjones.net
myspace.com/southpawjones
E-mail southpaw@southpawjones.com
©2007 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.

Anna Nicole Smith passed away today, after I wrote this about my fictional Super Bowl party:

I wasn’t going to invite Anna Nicole Smith, but I found a journal entry from a 15-year-old Southpaw that reads, “Older Southpaw, if you’re reading this, please don’t ever stop trying to meet Anna Nicole Smith. I don’t care how fat or skinny or old or deranged or married she becomes. She’s always a woman to me.”

So, ok, for my 15-year-old Southpaw, I called her up. (I also attended an Aerosmith concert.) Anyhoo, she couldn’t quite grasp the directions to my place, so she never showed up.

There was a time when Anna Nicole Smith was a wonderful personification of American beauty, excess, and desire. Before we heard her talk. Before her marriage to a rich, dying man. Before the reality show. Before the weight gain. Before the weight loss. She was the Playmate of the Year and the face of Guess Jeans. For a while there, America praised the wonder of a decidedly non-skinny woman before slithering back into its love affair with poles and sticks.

As a shallow, horny teenager, I thought Anna Nicole was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She was sexy but coy, young but motherly, hillbilly yet sorority, strong but feminine, rural and urban, modern but classic, all at once. There was also the small matter of that massive smile and those eager eyes. She had breasts that could feed the hungry of the world twice over. She was a wild, crazy Texas woman.

Now, as troubled as our country is, A.N.S. is probably more representative than role-models like Hilary Clinton, Angelina Jolie, and Oprah Winfrey. We kill citizens of an ancient land for oil; Anna drilled an ancient man for dough. Everyone around her told her she was perfect, so she never felt the need to learn anything or really do anything. She sought out comfort and pleasure and friends and family, and who among us can truly claim any better?

Call me crazy, but for a while there in the 1990’s, she was our Marilyn Monroe. If that’s overstating things, well, she was my Marilyn Monroe. And just like Marilyn, she never knew who to cling to when the rain set in.

I would have liked to have known you, but I was just a kid. Nowadays, I’m not certain I could stand 15 minutes of conversation with you. But I guess we’ll never know.

Good-bye, Anna. American woman, mama rest in peace.