Southpaw Jones

Please take a moment to vote for Southpaw Jones as Best Songwriter in The Austin Chronicle Music Poll, http://www.austinchronicle.com/feedback/musicpoll/07/. You don’t have to live in Austin to vote, and you don’t have to believe he deserves it.

Tonight is the weekly show at Flipnotics @ the Triangle, and our song title of the week is Five Fridays in February Rain Water Green Blues. I would love to call in sick as a result, but I never get sick, like Bruce Willis in Unbreakable. (I seem to recall that he never got sick on Moonlighting, either. Hmm.)

My song will be about an engaged couple deciding upon which Friday in February they’ll schedule their wedding. Perhaps their invitations are rain water colored? Sort of a blue green? Sea foam? I’ll play this song once and only once, so come on out tonight for a taste of the fleeting.

I have to say, though, five Fridays in February is pretty exciting! It’s only possible thanks to Leap Year, I suppose. Leap Year, Summer Olympics, Presidential Election, ennui, every four years like clockwork.

Fridays are my favorite day, said the blogger who had run out of things to type. Thursdays are nice, mostly because they precede Fridays. Wednesdays are only a day removed, and Mondays and Tuesdays sometimes bask in the glow of the preceding Friday. That’s how great Fridays are!

Don’t get me wrong, Saturdays and Sundays rock, too, but they don’t have the explosive release that Fridays offer. Whatever you do on Friday, you have two full days to recover. You fellow full-timers know what I’m talking about.

Thank you, upcoming fairy dust February, for your rare offering of five Fridays. Oof!

as reported in The New York Times

January 17, 1908
SNOWBALLS SAVED A TOWN
Residents Prevented an Explosion in Burning Building.
JOHNSTOWN, Penn.
Probably the most remarkable manner of extinguishing a fire occurred to-day at Boswell, a mining town near here, when hundreds of men, women, boys, and girls saved the town from destruction by throwing snowballs.

One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

That industrial plant extracts metals by heating houses, apartments, and lean-tos. We call it the…

Highlight here for answer: [shelter smelter]


Cool Birth vs Crazy Death Of Stars

Two watermelons can’t be grabbed in one hand.
Afghani proverb

EVERY DANG THURSDAY
with Matt the Electrician
8:00 PM
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
AUSTIN, TX
(512) 380-0097
http://www.flipnotics.com

Sunshine Walk-a-Bout w/ Cell Phone Cam
January 13, 2008

Please take a moment to vote for Southpaw Jones as Best Songwriter in The Austin Chronicle Music Poll, http://www.austinchronicle.com/feedback/musicpoll/07/. You don’t have to live in Austin to vote, and you don’t have to believe he deserves it.

Drink, for the night is younger, younger
Eat, if you feel the hunger, hunger
We are the lucky few invited guests
Move, if you feel the one, two, three, four
Link with a partner on the dance floor
Stare! Everyone is looking quite their best

Nothing is the matter here
We have no conflict to fear
Let’s relax and take in all this peace
Spend, ‘cause we all have money, money
Steal kisses from your honey, honey
How could this golden era ever cease?

We’ve lost our lease?
Something’s startled the geese?
They’ve drafted our niece?
We can’t trust the police?

What’s this family gonna do
In lieu of a falling shoe or two?
Can we stick together come what may?

No!

Oh, shut up, Timmy. I love you!

Ok, then, yes!

It’s up to us to save the day
We’ll symbolize our struggles
By

Wearing

Gray!

as reported in The New York Times

January 16, 1908
EARTH SWALLOWING A TOWN
Minas de Rio Tinto, Spain, Is Threatened with Destruction.

One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

Every time I sit down to a meal, I get crumbs and sauce all over myself. So messy! I often wish I was a…

Highlight here for answer: [neater eater]


Cool Birth vs Crazy Death Of Stars

Drip-along Daffy’s the name! Anybody care to shoot it out? Under western skies? West of the Pecos? Tumbleweeds at ten paces? 10,000 head the cattle? Cut ‘em off at the pass? Perry? Larriets? Anyone for tennis? Anybody? Well, reckon I’ll have me a little bracer!
Daffy Duck

EVERY DANG THURSDAY
with Matt the Electrician
8:00 PM
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
AUSTIN, TX
(512) 380-0097
http://www.flipnotics.com

Sunshine Walk-a-Bout w/ Cell Phone Cam
January 13, 2008

Please take a moment to vote for Southpaw Jones as Best Songwriter in The Austin Chronicle Music Poll, http://www.austinchronicle.com/feedback/musicpoll/07/. You don’t have to live in Austin to vote, and you don’t have to believe he deserves it.

This week’s topic for Letterman’s contest is Top Ten Slogans for the New Driverless Car. I don’t even bother to actually enter anymore, but I like to test drive the ideas. Having typed that:

• Go Sleep Till Brooklyn

• Finally more time to touch yourself.

• Who wants control when hurtling down the road at 70 mph?

• HALp yourself to the future.

• Includes “Tailgaiting Jerk” setting.

• Enjoy guilt-free viewing of the television that’s already in your dashboard.

• Imagine beating your kids with TWO hands!

• Unhindered exploration of glorious American FM radio.

• One more way to sleepwalk through the day.

• Stay out late and blame it on the Taurus.

• Nachos and a view.

as reported in The New York Times

January 15, 1908
CANAL TO COST $300,000,000
From the original estimate of $135,000,000 as the cost of the Panama Canal the figures have been going steadily upward until the latest estimate, made to-day by Col. Goethals, Chief Engineer and Chairman of the Canal Commission, is that the canal would cost $300,000,000.

One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

Two people came to see the house today, but the one who arrived last has really bad credit. We should probably sell to the…

Highlight here for answer: [prior buyer]


Cool Birth vs Crazy Death Of Stars

I can scarcely manage to scribble a tolerable English letter. I know that I am not a scholar, but meantime I am aware that no man living knows better than I do the habits of our birds.
John James Audubon

EVERY DANG THURSDAY
with Matt the Electrician
8:00 PM
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
AUSTIN, TX
(512) 380-0097
http://www.flipnotics.com

Sunshine Walk-a-Bout w/ Cell Phone Cam
January 13, 2008

Please take a moment to vote for Southpaw Jones as Best Songwriter in The Austin Chronicle Music Poll, http://www.austinchronicle.com/feedback/musicpoll/07/. You don’t have to live in Austin to vote, and you don’t have to believe he deserves it.

Good morning! I had quite a weekend with a pleasant combination of activity and non-activity plus the constant, swirling aromas of chicory and fudge. Now it’s Monday, and I have just enough creative energy to supply some made-up words and definitions:

• bespackled – dotted with plaster-like material, perhaps from splatter

• auntonomy – ruled by a parent’s sister

• involvemint – a relationship based entirely upon fresh breath

• tawwwdriness – cheap but cute, i.e. a kitten in lingerie or a toddler in a rhinestone suit at a rhinestone piano

• determite – a bug that simply will not quit

• shardship – dealing with the aftermath of a broken vase

• amatour – adventure with a novice guide

• Wants de León – wish list that includes Fountain of Youth, motorized boat, and antidote

as reported in The New York Times

A THEATRE IN A SCHOOL
January 14, 1908

The plan to include a theatre, equipped with stage, footlights, and scenery, among the departments of the Washington Irving High School seems to be extending the scope of our public school system beyond the dreams of the most enthusiastic believers in free liberal education.

One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

The film was great, but the music was so dull! The whole picture definitely suffered from the…

Highlight here for answer: [boring scoring]


Cool Birth vs Crazy Death Of Stars

A scholar without practice is a tree without fruit.
Sa’di

EVERY DANG THURSDAY
with Matt the Electrician
8:00 PM
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
AUSTIN, TX
(512) 380-0097
http://www.flipnotics.com

Sunshine Walk-a-Bout w/ Cell Phone Cam
January 13, 2008

Please take a moment to vote for Southpaw Jones as Best Songwriter in The Austin Chronicle Music Poll, http://www.austinchronicle.com/feedback/musicpoll/07/. You don’t have to live in Austin to vote, and you don’t have to believe he deserves it.

Coffee-fueled Thoughts

• I guess I only need one book about The Sopranos in my home.

• If Republicans nominate John McCain, I’ll feel a lot better about them and about my country. He was a bloody POW in Vietnam! He’s been an active senator! He can speak using complex sentences! He is the real deal. I disagree with him on many, many things, but were I on that side of things, he would be my undisputed champion.

• Cotton is great, but isn’t Coffee the true “fabric of our lives”? The touch! The feel! The teeth-staining immortality!

• Dear Grover, if I had to choose between Near and Far, I would pick Far. Please stay Far away from me. You give me the creeps.

• Someone asked me about my favorite philosopher this week, and dang it, I couldn’t name one! I just don’t have that personal relationship with a single dusty thinker, except Jesus, I guess, and he was more hippie-punk than a philosopher.

It’s pretty embarrassing for someone with a philosophy minor, so I’ve thought about it, and I guess I have to say René Descartes comes closest to my fave. I mean, “cogito, ergo sum” is some pretty wild stuff, and I’m a big fan of doubting like he was. I could doubt all day long if someone would pay me to do so. I’ve always been attracted to dissenters and critics. “Doubt it out,” that’s what I always (never) say.

Is it cynical to question the corporate owned media coverage of wars and elections? Does it take a bitter attitude to think that “reality” programming is more fake that scripted fare? Well, this guy Descartes took all that dark thinking a few steps further. His first philosophical step was as follows: “I don’t believe any of this reality! Let’s start from scratch.”

No house, no sunlight, no ground, no sound, no food, no friends, no family, no body, no heat, no nothing! My senses fool me constantly, so trust them I shan’t! Descartes ended up with nothing but black nothingness. Then, from nothing, something:

“Hello?”

“…”

“Hello? Anyone?”

“Yes? Who’s there?”

“I’m not sure! Who are you?”

“Let me think about it. Um, I just got finished dumping everything I ever knew…”

“Oh, that was me! I’m the one who dumped everything! Now all I’ve got is this blackness and doubt.”

“So you must be Me, then! We’re the only one in this abyss. I doubted everything I could, but there’s still something here!”

“Yes, the doubting! I’m doubting, you’re doubting…”

“We’re doubting!”

“You certainly can’t have doubt without a doubter!”

“No, I should think not. I’m flat out giddy with certainty!”

“Me, too!”

“So where do we go from here, Me?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it, You?”

“Let’s not talk aloud like this in public. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

And that, my friends, is the birth of Modern Philosophy. Happy gawl durn Friday!

as reported in The New York Times

BEAR HUNT UP STATE
Bruin Finally Shot After Killing Two Hunting Dogs.

One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

I just know she’s going to rule against us! Look at her in that silly black robe up there. We’ve got to change her mind! Is there any way to make this…

Highlight here for answer: [judge budge]


Animated Musicians

Humor: The ability to laugh at any mistake you survive.
Jerry Tucker

SUNDAY, JANUARY 13, 2008
10:00 PM
Spike Gillespie’s Dick-E-Oke
Alamo Drafthouse Ritz
320 E 6th Street
Austin, TX 78701
512.476.1320
www.originalalamo.com
It’s a multimedia blowout party of all things dick, dickish, and dickified. Our good friend and yours, writer Spike Gillespie, presents Dick-E-Oke, including performances by cast members of The Dick Monologues, everyone’s favorite perverted boy band, Cedar Fever.
________________________________________________________________

EVERY DANG THURSDAY
with Matt the Electrician
8:00 PM
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
AUSTIN, TX
(512) 380-0097
http://www.flipnotics.com