Southpaw Jones

It’s Friday! Time to be FRee and let your FReak flag fly.

Welcome to Narcissist Day. You know, everyone has Googled their own name at one time or another. It’s completely natural.

It takes an Extra Nerdy Narcissist to look one’s name up on acronymfinder.com, but that’s exactly what I did this morning. Here are some interesting listings attached to the variations of my name/initials.

PAW

• Pride At Work
• People for the American Way
• Parents Are Watching
• Pets Are Wonderful
• Petroleum Association of Wyoming
• Post Apocalyptic World
• Prodigious Accumulators of Wealth
• Passive Attack Weapon
• Portal to Another World
• Petalumans Against War

SPJ

• Society of Professional Journalists
• Self-Protection Jamming
• Small Project Job

Wow. I hope this is as fun for you as it is for me! Hey, it’s been a long week, and this is about all I have energy for.

My favorite, of course, is Passive Attack Weapon. I might short circuit if I think about it too much. I don’t know what it means, but it sounds like one of my ex-girlfriend’s pet projects.

Anyways, I’ll leave you with one more piece of Narcissism, my Personal DNA Rectangle! It is the result of a rather long personality test I took at personaldna.com. I recommend it if you’re bored and curious about that person staring back at you when you brush your teeth.

Here’s the block. I’m not sure how I feel about its accuracy, but you can move your mouse over any section to see how the electronic hive brain judged me.

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

Everyone keeps asking me, What are you doing? I say, Why do I need to do anything? I’m rich.
Steve Guttenberg, happy birthday to you.

Online Museum of the Week
Cassette Tape Culture:




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

I like to move my riches around sneakily so no one can see. It’s a financial strategy called…

Highlight here for answer: [stealth wealth]

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

Thursday, August 30th, 2007
8:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
Austin, TX
(512) 380-0097
http://www.flipnotics.com
The New Weekly Show!

When I type “10,” I mean ten.
When I type “fine,” I mean all the fine, nocturnal ladies of Thursday will be there.
When I type “reason,” I don’t intend to belittle your faith in any way. I hate reason.
When I type “our,” I mean Matt the Electrician and me.
When I type “attend,” I mean come on down, you know, if you’re in the Austin area. Some of you Gazette readers may not live in Austin, and I want to kiss you on the mouth for visiting the site today. But I have to make this post act locally while thinking globally. Perhaps you’ll find cause to support live music where you live. It won’t be near as good as our show here, but it’s better than reality TV.

I’m kidding you.
I kid other live shows.
I kid reality TV.
On with le list:

1. Flipnotics @ the Triangle has yummy wraps and tasty beer on tap.

2. You can watch a left-handed man learn to play accordion live on stage.

3. The song title challenge of the week is The Matador’s Address. It boggles the mind.

4. Matt the Electrician has a new hat after earning his stripes in the Songwriter Mafia. Please tip generously.

5. We actually practiced this week. In flotation tanks.

6. Starting one’s weekend on Thursday has been shown to extend one’s life AND increase one’s chances of “going out in a painless blaze of glory.”

7. Matt the Electrician puts his mouth on two different horns, yet they both stick with him week after week.

8. When else are you going to have the chance to see white men sing songs they wrote themselves?

9. Um, today is Rick Springfield’s birthday. Celebrate! “Tonight I’m crawling out from in it, and though we’re livin’ on the brink, second by second by minute by minute, love is alright tonight. We’re gonna be alright.”

10. For thirteen years I’ve traveled, for thirteen more I’ve trained.
I never once unraveled, I never once complained.
And now I have a sack full of songs that I’ve composed.
I hope tomorrow morning, I’ll be the one you chosed.

Thank you, thanks.

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

My first crush was Hayley Mills when I was a little kid in England. I used to kiss her picture goodnight.
Rick Springfield, happy birthday to you.

Online Museum of the Week
Cassette Tape Culture:



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

Gentlemen, you are all here to audition for the role of The King’s Comedian. It is a high-pressure environment wherein bad jokes may result in death. Anyway, here’s the man who will find out if you’ve got the right stuff. We call him the…

Highlight here for answer: [jester tester]

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

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007
8:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
Austin, TX
(512) 380-0097
http://www.flipnotics.com
The New Weekly Show!

Knock, knock? How’s my little man? Can I come in? C’mon, Dickie, cut off the Mega Man and talk to your dad for a second.

Your mother told me you’re upset, and I honestly just want to understand why. I promise, I’m not going to yell or slap or shake or grill you. Let’s just talk this out like civilized people. To me, it’s all completely logical. Makes sense, you know? You’re my son. You’ve got my hair, my spindly figure, and my hairless legs. You are a late bloomer and a bit of a pizza face, just like your old man was. You know I’ve generated a great deal of prosperity for this family as Wiener Man, and now you’re too good to be Wiener Boi?

I don’t get it, frankly. Stop giggling, Daddy’s trying to be serious here.

This was always the plan. When you were born, after I had to watch four little girls come out of your mother, I felt pure relief. I finally saw my Little Wiener come out with a little wiener, and I relished your birth above all others.

You were to be the continuation of my story, our family, and yes, the hot dog business I built from the only thing my cold-hearted father left me in his will: 65 tons of pig entrails and cloven miscellany.

Now we have the factory, the grocery store displays, the billboards, and at last, television commercials featuring your dear old dad dressed as an enticing, happy-go-lucky Wiener Man. Suddenly, you’re too good for all this?

Was it not always our dream for you to reach 9th grade and run a lunchtime Wiener Boi stand for all your hungry, growing, expendable-incoming-hemorrhaging peers? How many do you think you’ll sell wearing a Dark Crystal shirt and dirty jeans?

Let me ask you something. How many people did Clark Kent save? Peter Parker? He might as well have killed his father with his bare hands, the way he acted!

Ok, uncle, whatever.

The point is this: The casing makes the man. Superman flies, shoots eye beams, runs fast AND wears a flamboyant costume. Spiderman shoots webs, sticks to walls, senses danger in some precognitive way AND wears a crazy suit. You can’t have amazing powers without a sweet outfit to tie it all together.

Wiener Boi is your birthright, your destiny, your ticket to local, regional, and maybe even tri-state glory!

If some kid wants to make fun, you say, “Buy a bun!”
If some joker wants to give you lip, you say, “Our products contain no bovine lips!”
If some bully calls you a chicken, you say, “Try our new Chicken Shaft! The Bird is the Word!”

Actually, our lawyers are still looking into a trademark on that last one, so keep it to yourself for now.

You are going to be ridiculed, yes, but think about this: if they really want to get in your face, they’re going to have to get close enough to smell them tasty tubes boiling between you. By this point, you’ve got ‘em! You’ve got a sale! You just took a whole dollar from someone who might otherwise have been your enemy. And you can spend that dollar taking said loser’s girlfriend out for a Deluxe Smothered Wiener at Wiener Man Headquarters, where, of course, you can take advantage of your 5% in-the-family discount.

Your P.E. coach has assured me that you can shower between lunch and 5th period. We both know how hot it can get in that suit. He said that varsity football players hang out in there after lunch, and they’ll be sure to give you some privacy. Maybe you can ask them how to bulk up your Wiener arms! Rawr!

Buck up, Boi. Most kids only dream of having their whole lives set out before them like a summer picnic. No decisions, no regrets. All you have to do is dig in! From Wiener Boi to Wiener Man to Wiener King to Retired Wiener at 45-years-old. Is that so bad? Is that embarrassing somehow?

You tell those jealous kids to Suck This Wiener.

We got that one trademarked last month. You can use it freely.

Yeah? Feel better? Sleep tight, son. Remember, you’ll never be a loser when you’re so obviously a Wiener.

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

For the most part, pianos are female to me. Sometimes they’re dykes, and they’re always good fun.
Tori Amos, happy birthday to you.

Online Museum of the Week
Cassette Tape Culture:



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

I found a great piano on the beach in an East Coast resort town. Will you help me get the sand out of my…

Highlight here for answer: [seaboard keyboard]

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

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007
8:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
Austin, TX
(512) 380-0097
http://www.flipnotics.com
The New Weekly Show!

George Carlin taught me how to look for redundancies, oxymorons, and other language-based folly.
He includes long lists of funky phrases in his books, and in case you can’t tell from the nature of this here site, I love lists.

Today, I have a brief collection of redundant statements I have heard with my own ears lately.
Actually, that’s not true.
I have heard four of the following five.
Do you care to guess which one is just for giggles?
I’ll include the answer at the bottom of today’s edition.

Here we go:

Redundancies Uttered Recently in the Vicinity of Southpaw!

1. refund money

2. internal gut feeling

3. thinking in my mind

4. deadly game of cat and mouse

5. underlying implication

There! I can finally throw away this post-it note I’ve been carrying around.
Check the end of today’s Gazette to find out which one I just sort of made up.

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

I simply hate, detest, loathe, despise, and abhor redundancy.
Oscar Wilde

Online Museum of the Week
Cassette Tape Culture:



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

I don’t drink ale out of a cup anymore. I use this ball-shaped container. I call it my…

Highlight here for answer: [beer sphere]

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

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007
8:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
Austin, TX
(512) 380-0097
http://www.flipnotics.com
The New Weekly Show!

• If you selected “underlying implication,” you’re right! I haven’t heard it lately, but I’m sure I will soon. Please whisper it in my ear.

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

Dear brethren, we are gathered here today to celebrate the life and mourn the death of a fine young Weekend. She passed on too soon, my friends, and it seems she took a part of us with her. I can still feel her free spirit brushing across my face like a summer breeze, and yet, I know she’s gone. You all know she’s gone, but we must not forget that she lived. She took the bull by the horns, and she rode that wild thing around town screaming, “It doesn’t have to be this way!” Church, now is not the time to pretend it didn’t happen. Now is the time to celebrate its happening!

She was born very late on a Thursday night, and we all thought she was the cutest thing. Full of promise. Wide-eyed. Completely innocent. She had never heard the words “work” or “responsibility,” and it was as if she would never understand them, even if you spent years explaining their meanings. In the same way, I believe she understood things that we deny, forget, or fail to recognize.
Concepts like Fun.
Rest.
Couch.
Mexican food.
Late-night television.
Swimming.
Driving out of town.
Movies.

I know you remember, like I do, last Tuesday or Wednesday, you didn’t know or care about any of these things. You didn’t want to know! All you acknowledged was function, function, function. But she changed all that, didn’t she? Our little girl who seemed to come from nowhere. She never asked for our thanks. She never wanted anything in return. Sometimes, we barely even knew she was here. She would just stand in a corner and laugh at us enjoying her gifts.

I got word that she stopped breathing late Sunday night, as I was stuffing my gym shorts into my work bag at home. At first, I panicked and thought that this action alone might have contributed to her demise. But Doc told me she just wasn’t made to last. She had a 2.5 day life span, and her time was up. I think she knew it all along. Of course, she wasn’t going to burden us with that information.

We can’t fault her for leaving any more than we can claim to deserve what she gave us. She was Freedom, and our little village will be forever changed as a result of her visit. Even now, as I look down upon her tiny lifeless body, I wonder if we might see her again someday, bounding through the meadow with an armful of wildflowers and a handle of rum.

I know I’m not supposed to get anyone’s hopes up here, but perhaps we could will her back into existence. I think maybe she left that much of an impression on us. And if we fail, I suspect we’ll all be better folks for having tried.

For now, though, we say goodbye, sweet Weekend. Please do not be insulted, dearly departed child, as we return to responsibility and toil today. Without you, we are slaves to many masters, and we only do what we must to survive. We will look in all directions for any sign of you and your spirit. At lunch. During breaks. In traffic. Return to us soon, and we will return to you, a glorious reunion foretold by even the simplest calendar.

Rest in peace.

My name is Southpaw Jones, and this has been The Personification of a Completed Weekend.
I hope you enjoyed it.
This actual weekend, I:
• celebrated the 9th Anniversary of Café Mundi
• enjoyed food and LOUD mariachi music at Neuva Leon
• saw David Wain’s hilarious new film The Ten
• drove to Houston for my Grandparents’ 60th Anniversary!
• purchased a desk
• bought a book: Ant Farm: And Other Desperate Situations by Simon Rich (funny!)
• slept in
• fixed up a little Photos page for this here site
• ate a burger with my girl

Voila!

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

I want to be alone for a couple of hours to kind of assemble myself. Is that such an extraordinary thing to want?
Don Birnam, The Lost Weekend

Online Museum of the Week
Cassette Tape Culture:



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

Hey, who read over this, cut out the boring parts, and fixed the language? I need to know who deserves the…

Highlight here for answer: [edit credit]

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

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007
8:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
Austin, TX
(512) 380-0097
http://www.flipnotics.com
The New Weekly Show!