Southpaw Jones

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

If you stopped by last Friday, you know that I entered ten items in David Letterman’s online Top Ten Contest. The topic was Top Ten Little-Known Features of the New iPhone. Well, I didn’t get any placed on the list of winning ideas. Poo. No t-shirt for me. I should also add that I didn’t think the winners are very funny. You can see my list HERE and their list THERE.

Yesterday, they posted the new topic, Katie Couric’s Top Ten Complaints About CBS. I’m taking another shot at it, folks, and here are my entries:

10. Staff too quick to cry when slapped.

9. Not used to staying up until 6:30 PM.

8. Having to share a restroom with Charlie Sheen’s girlfriends.

7. Health insurance doesn’t cover “pep pills.”

6. Not so much the C, but definitely the BS.

5. Sign outside elevator that reads “You must be this tall to ride.”

4. That evil, all-seeing, lidless eye.

3. Too much reading, not enough chit-chat.

2. That son of a bitch Letterman.

1. Sputum!

Wish me luck!

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

I feel like a human pinata. The disappointing thing is, no candy is going to spill out.
Katie Couric

Online Museum of the Week
H & K Wine Caddies:

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

This particular client hated my guts! So I took him on a weekend fishing trip to win him over. I called it a…
Highlight here for answer: [placation vacation]

Upcoming Show(s)
Where can I see Southpaw in the flesh?

No shows this week!

Thursday, July 19th, 2007
8:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Cafe Mundi
1704 E. 5th St.
Austin, TX
512-236-8634
http://www.cafemundi.com

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

First Lines
Introductions to classic works I will never finish:

Alright, everybody, settle down! Find a seat, face the front.

Disrespect me, and I will disrespect you. Give me your ears, and I will edify you.

I am Mr. Klangeengong. Welcome to An Introduction to Philosophy.

This is classroom 32 in the Tiny Tim Memorial Annex. If you have the wrong room, please step to the front and show me your schedule.

If you have the wrong high school, I suggest you stick around for Monday Chicken Strips, then catch a bus across town.

[Pause for laughter.]

The information contained in this textbook and the supplementary information I will provide combine to form a powerful, life-changing cocktail. Many of you have never had a powerful cocktail, but I suggest you put it on your “List of Things to Do Having Survived Twenty-One Years on This Rock.”

[Pause for whatever reaction these little punks choose to dish out.]

What do you guys know about The Holy Infallible Judeo-Christian Bible? Any FCA or FFA kids in here? Well, we’re not supposed to talk about it amidst these hallowed halls of secular learning, but how ‘bout a show of hands: Who knows the story of Adam & Eve?

[Pause for brain-dead incubi to begrudgingly shift their hairy palms skyward.]

Good. Adam & Eve, naked, innocent, fed, watered, childless, directly in contact with the pre-vengeful Lord God, and BORED OUT OF THEIR MINDS!

[Slam book down on desk if AM class, slap forehead if post-lunch.]

So here comes a slithery serpent. “Don’t you want to ssssee as He ssssees? Know what He knowssss? Percccceive the differencccce between good and evil? Well, then, ssssnap thine jawssss down upon this ssssucculent fruit, and thank me laterssss.”

God had told them not to eat from this one particular tree, you may recall. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Why would He do that? Create sentient beings and then deny them knowledge? Was it because he was a control freak? An information miser? Because we were just some fun joke to Him, like an ant farm with gratuitous nudity?

I submit the following, my pubescent fellow Cougars. [Provide trademark school roar if eyelids are drooping.] God, knowing, seeing, and having power over EVERYTHING…

…was miserable.

Whether you see The Book of Genesis as myth, magic, or truth with a capital T, this is an important point to consider. This God was merciful, and he tried to protect these fragile little people from that most abusive life partner, knowledge.

[Pause for dramatic effect. Make eye contact with at least one-third of class.]

I, admittedly about the furthest creature from God-like you’ll ever meet, am also merciful. And since this is an elective class, I want to allow you all the option of choosing something else.

Philosophy will open your eyes.
Philosophy will give you something to roll around in your skull when you’re waiting in line at the post office.
Philosophy, and I know how much this appeals to you, will make you feel superior to the jocks, the preppies, the rich kids, and yes, even many of your teachers and principals.

But Ignorance will help you make friends.
Ignorance will give you time to exercise and dress nice.
Ignorance will tell you to focus on enemies, not complexities.
Ignorance will keep you warm at night.
Ignorance will allow you to see things in black and white, trust your government, believe the evening news, and tolerate network television in general.

The choice is yours, friends. Enjoy yourself or embroil yourself. I’m thirty-eight years old, and if I were sitting there like you, knowing what I know now, feeling every ounce of pain, analyzing it, pondering its meaning, gurgling it, letting it rest on my tongue…

…I’d probably walk on out of here. Take Carpentry down the hall. Contribute to the physical world! “Wood” that I were king!

[Wait for students to file out. Convince the unconvinced. Convert class period into down time. Use hour to continue personal study of advanced modern philosophy texts.]

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

You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.
Albert Einstein

Online Museum of the Week
H & K Wine Caddies:

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

You can’t scare the son of Poseidon! Go ahead an try to…
Highlight here for answer: [frighten Triton]

Upcoming Show(s)
Where can I see Southpaw in the flesh?
Monday, July 9th, 2007
9:00 PM
Sick’s Science Project (without Southpaw)
Hole in the Wall
2538 Guadalupe St
Austin, TX 78705
(512) 477-4747
Ok, I won’t actually be at this show, but I strongly suggest you attend to see Sick & Melissa Greener rock out!

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:

Happy birthday to Matt the Electrician, the Simon to my Garfunkel for the whole of five years now! He’s old.

Sometimes I dream of being a comedy writer, not to be confused with a comedy rider, hired to fall off bicycles at children’s parties. If you’ve visited the Gazette before, you may have recognized that I grew up digesting David Letterman’s Top Ten Lists. To me, they are the perfect comic exercise for creator and audience alike. You take a subject, look at it from every angle, and come up with a succinct list of funnies surrounding it. After all, “brevity is the soul of wit,” and who needs a goofy soliloquy when you can pump out a rapid-fire list to make people laugh?

Anywayz, I figure I may be able to score some attention here at the Gazette by practicing my Top Ten skills. Eventually, I may start a feature called Betterman than Letterman, where I try to top the previous night’s Top Ten List. No disrespect, of course. Mr. Letterman is my favorite talk show host of all time. I just want someone to sweep me off my feet, move me to New York, and pay me big money to do what I’m doing anyway: being goofy.

This week’s Top Ten Contest topic on the CBS web site is Top Ten Little-Known Features of the New iPhone. I could win a T-shirt! Here are my TEN entries…keep in mind that I’m going for mainstream, network humor here:

1. It literally tells people how cool you are.

2. Provides tight new personal budget taking its own cost into consideration.

3. Randomly peppers boring conversation with obscenities.

4. Automatically restarts your heartbeat after you drop it on concrete.

5. Offers maps, tickets, and reservations for hypothetical dates.

6. Suggests exercise routine to slim down “sausage fingers.”

7. Waits in line for you when new version is released.

8. Instantly interacts with imaginary friends.

9. In poor service areas, allows you to say, “Can you hear me, e-mail me, text me, MySpace me, read my blog, or see my movie now?”

10. Calculator

Now we just wait to see if any of these get in! Oh, and happy Friday! Come on back Monday morning…

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

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.
William J. Clinton

Online Museum of the Week
The Missing Piece:

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

Remember right after the sun went down, and you kissed me? That was definitely the…
Highlight here for answer: [twilight highlight]

Upcoming Show(s)
Where can I see Southpaw in the flesh?
Monday, July 9th, 2007
9:00 PM
Sick’s Science Project (without Southpaw)
Hole in the Wall
2538 Guadalupe St
Austin, TX 78705
(512) 477-4747
Ok, I won’t actually be at this show, but I strongly suggest you attend to see Sick & Melissa Greener rock out!

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:

Another Fourth of July has come and gone, friends. I spent it in true American cloudy-day fashion, joining my girlfriend at the mall for some pizza, clothes-shopping, and the latest Michael Moore film. [It’s great. Amazing. Go see it. I’m a big fan.] We ate Sonic corn dogs and hot dogs, we got eaten alive by mosquitoes, we chatted with old friends, we drank a variety of beer, and we watched the City’s fireworks display from my normally quiet little street, which had turned into Party City and Explosion Town.

Now it’s over, and I’m back here at American Money Team. I could complain, but my fear is that any utterance or typeface of that sort would come across as hollow, an ejaculation of sand from the mouth of a sloth who just can’t tell when he’s comfortable and content.

Anywayz, I’ll perform tonight with Matt the Electrician at Café Mundi.

“But it’s Thursday! You guys usually rock my world on Wednesday!”

Hey, I’m just as confused as you are, but you’ve got to trust me on this one.

“Trust you? How do I know this is even Southpaw typing and not some highly-paid marketing team?”

Because I’m poor. And I like to think I have a distinct, individual voice on paper or screen.

“Oh, you mean like ‘an endless bray of pointless jocosity’?

Uh, I don’t know what that means, but sure, something like that.

“Ok, so you’re playing tonight at Café Mundi?”

Yes, yes.

“And one more question: Chimney-Butt says what?”

What?

“You’re a Chimney-Butt.”

Who told you?

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

You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.
Charles A. Beard

Online Museum of the Week
The Missing Piece:

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

That yellow-belly was too scared to do anything but scrub the floors all day.
Highlight here for answer: [coward scoured]

Upcoming Show(s)
Where can I see Southpaw in the flesh?
Thursday, July 5th, 2007
8:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Cafe Mundi
1704 E. 5th St.
Austin, TX
512-236-8634
southpawjones.com
southpawjones.net
myspace.com/southpawjones
E-mail southpaw@southpawjones.com
©2007 Southpaw Jones. All rights reserved.

Do not spending it reading blogs! Our forefathers would not have wanted that. They want you to come back tomorrow relaxed and feeling good about your homeland.