Southpaw Jones

Happy Halloween! Watch out for candy in your razor blades. Attempted death by chocolate bar is NOT funny, I don’t care where you’re from.

They told us we could dress up at work, so I’m disguised as a comfortable young man in jeans. Boo.

I figure it’s an appropriate time to try an online séance. I’ve never done this before, and I’m certainly no expert, but I’m always ready to try something new.

So here goes…

Spirits of the Interweb! Dost thou have any bored citizens up for a little chat?

Spirits?

YES?

You are a spirit of the Interweb?

YES, YES.

Are you a man or a woman?

WHATEVER YOU WANT ME TO BE.

No, seriously…

I AM A MAN. A RATHER TRANSLUSCENT GHOST-MAN WITH AN AVERAGE BUILD.

Wow, this is great! What can you tell me about your life and times?

UM, I’D RATHER TALK ABOUT YOU, HONESTLY.

Oh, well, I guess that’s ok. What do you want to know?

YOUR AGE AND YOUR CURRENT ATTIRE.

Hmm. Well, I’m thirty years old, and I’m wearing jeans and a cotton shirt.

LET’S MAKE IT SEVENTEEN AND NAKED. OMG! YOUR PARENTS DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU!

What? Hold on. Is there anyone else in there I could chat with?

I BELIEVE IN YOUR DREAMS! I CAN TELL FROM YOUR PICTURE THAT YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL VOICE AND STAGE PRESENCE!

But I didn’t send you…can you just relax for a second? Drop the all caps?

RUN AWAY! MEET ME IN NEW JERSEY! I SHALL TAKE YOU TO ALL THE BROADWAY AUDITIONS YOUR LITTLE HEART DESIRES!

But that’s not really what I’m…

DOWN THE SHORE! WE’LL GO DOWN THE SHORE! YOU WON’T CALL ME A CREEP, AND I’LL BUY YOU OUTFITS AND CINNABONS!

Ok, well, our time is up here.

I WAS THERE THE DAY AMAZON.COM OPENED!

Really? This is the kind of stuff I’m after! What were they selling?

NOTHING AS SWEET AS YOU! YOUR HOMETOWN IS SQUASHING YOUR SPIRIT!

I’m done here.

YOUR FATHER DOESN’T UNDERSTAND FASHION! MY EFFICIENCY HAS NO KERFEW…

There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on the adult world.
Jean Baudrillard

Skull-A-Day




One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

Someone murdered them all in that Little House on the grassy plain there! It is such a frightening, treeless piece of land. The kids call it the…

Highlight here for answer: [scary prairie]

Thursday, November 1st, 2007
8:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
Austin, TX
(512) 380-0097
flipnotics.com
The New Weekly Show!

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2nd, 2007
9:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Anderson Fair
2007 Grant
Houston, TX 77006
713.528.8576
www.andersonfair.com
Doors open at 8.

1. Y’all’re no fun!

2. Don’t make fun of me!

3. Wouldn’t it be fun if we played a get-to-know-each-other game?

4. I haven’t had this much fun in years!

5. What do septuagenarians do for fun around here?

6. I feel sorry for people who don’t have fun at work.

7. You’re so funny. (uttered without laughter)

8. I can’t seem to get out of this funk.

9. Have you considered a hedge fund?

10. Regarding Noah’s ark specifically, I am a fundamentalist.

11. Fundamentalists are so dumb, dude.

12. Let’s do that fun thing in town that gets really crowded because it’s really fun.

Being in a band you can wear whatever you want - it’s like an excuse for halloween everyday.
Gwen Stefani

Skull-A-Day




One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

I broke my backbone, but the doctors were able to fix it using bits of old record albums. Now there’s some LP inside me! I call it my…

Highlight here for answer: [spinal vinyl]

Thursday, November 1st, 2007
8:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
Austin, TX
(512) 380-0097
flipnotics.com
The New Weekly Show!

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2nd, 2007
9:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Anderson Fair
2007 Grant
Houston, TX 77006
713.528.8576
www.andersonfair.com
Doors open at 8.

Hey, this old site registered 935 visitors on Saturday. That’s a record! On a weekend! Thanks for stopping by, and please continue to spread the word.

Can I get a witness for my documentary phase? Witness! Sometimes, I just get my fill of plot and fiction, and I have to retreat to the world of on-location interviews and archival footage.

I was able to catch two fresh docs over the weekend with my sweet Maggie: one in the theater, one via the ol’ DVD player.

Saturday night, we headed to the UT campus theater to catch Pete Seeger: The Power of Song. I like Pete Seeger, I like songs, and I like power, so I simply had to see it.

The film was so many things to me: a humanized history of the 20th Century, a collection of wonderful, warm musical performances, a portrait of a hard-working, no-nonsense, old-fashioned liberal, and a journey from urban to rural, New England to Mississippi, sunny rivers to snowy mountainsides, log cabins to Carnegie Hall.

If you don’t know who Pete Seeger is, perhaps you’ll know Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Martin Luther King, Bruce Springsteen, Bill Clinton, among other legends who appear in the film. Perhaps you know the songs We Shall Overcome, The Water Is Wide, Erie Canal, If I Had a Hammer, or Turn, Turn, Turn, which Mr. Seeger either wrote, adapted, or helped to popularize.

If you love folk music, 5-string banjo, peace, singing, or that wonderful brand of patriotism that expresses itself in dissent and questions, you really need to see this film. It will surprise you, inspire you, and move you to tears.

Sunday, we popped in a Netflixed DVD of Home Movie and enjoyed the heck out of it. Chris Smith, director of the wonderful American Movie and the alright Yes Men, created this film out of left-over footage from a series of homestore.com commercials. It’s better than it sounds, trust me.

Home Movie profiles five unique American households. One couple lives in an abandoned, underground missile base. Another lives with a dozen cats and radically adapts their house to suit their “family.” One man lives in a houseboat amidst the swamps of Louisiana, while another inhabits his dream house of sort-of futuristic electronics and gadgets (if your vision of the future sprouted in about 1956).

My favorite of the bunch was a woman who hit it big as the American star of a Japanese sitcom. She found a beautiful, isolated valley in Hawaii and built a treehouse there. Seriously, the trunk of the tree rests in the middle of her living room. She’s an elderly woman, but she is filled with life and wisdom and mischief. She has a beautiful dialogue with nature, she talks to dolphins, and her entire house is powered by a next-door waterfall!

Home Movie is only an hour long, and it, along with Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, sure beat the numbing numbness of network television. Two paws up!

Charlie Brown is the one person I identify with. C.B. is such a loser. He wasn’t even the star of his own Halloween special.
Chris Rock

Skull-A-Day




One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

No, I dislike her for two good reasons. She is too skinny, and she is a fraud. Jagged on the outside, jaded on the inside! I’m not the only one who thinks of her as a…

Highlight here for answer: [bony phoney]

Thursday, November 1st, 2007
8:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
Austin, TX
(512) 380-0097
flipnotics.com

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2nd, 2007
9:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Anderson Fair
2007 Grant
Houston, TX 77006
713.528.8576
www.andersonfair.com
Doors open at 8.

I had to say good-bye to my stray kitten Martin this morning. He’s going to a good home, but of course, Maggie and I will miss him after a week of petting, feeding, purring, and playing.

Here are some things he taught or re-taught me during our brief time together:

• It’s ok to cry out for help.

• Why not sleep in the warmest place possible?

• There’s nothing like a good bath when you’ve been sleeping under a truck for a few days.

• Freshly-fed kittens can be gassy without being self-conscious about it. Why not humans?

• The ability to stretch is one of God’s finest gifts to us mammals.

• Yawning is pretty cool, too.

• Kitten teeth are like fish bones.

• Stop what you’re doing and scratch an itch if necessary.

• Tuna fish is really good!

• If someone invites you into their home as a guest, it’s rude to not act like you own the place.

• If a stranger hisses, show no fear, and he/she will eventually become your friend.

• The window is way more interesting than the TV.

Happy Friday! Come back Monday!

When a man gives himself up to the government of a ruling passion, or, in other words, when his hobby-horse grows head-strong, farewell cool reason and fair discretion.
Laurence Sterne

Damp Cats




One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

The cops just came in here and took all my free time and relaxation! They even had a warrant for their…

Highlight here for answer: [liesure seizure]

Thursday, November 1st, 2007
8:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
Austin, TX
(512) 380-0097
flipnotics.com
The New Weekly Show!

Maggie found a home for our little miracle furball, Martin. Thanks to everyone who showed interest and helped spread the word.

Matt the Electrician and I were planning to perform in Ft. Worth this weekend, but that show is cancelled, unfortunately. The venue, MacHenry’s, is closed for now.

We are still making the journey to Houston on November 2 to perform at Anderson Fair. People are always complaining that there aren’t enough special occasions at the end of the year…

Tonight, Matt returns from the west coast to join me at Flipnotics @ the Triangle here in Austin. Come find out what he learned from the land of The Eagles, fake boobs, infernos, and other things I classify as “no fun.”

And now…

Five Things You Might Hear if You Are a Lizard Outside My Mother’s House

• Well, hello, Mr. Lizard!

• How are you today?

• Isn’t it a sunny day? Yes, it is!

• Aren’t you a pretty thing!

• Did you lose some of your tail, Mr. Lizard?

An ordinary kitten will ask more questions than any five-year-old.
Carl Van Vechten

Damp Cats




One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

She’ll come back to me, I know she will, and I’ll know when she does. I paid this guy to watch for her arrival. When she walks through the door, I’ll hear from my…

Highlight here for answer: [entry sentry]

Thursday, October 25th, 2007
8:00 PM
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
Austin, TX
(512) 380-0097
flipnotics.com
The New Weekly Show!