Southpaw Jones

Hovergirl is sick of hearing the question, “Is that it?”

From a distance, folks describe her as “The Girl Who Can Fly,” so their friends and family come running only to find disappointment in the truth. Hovergirl is just kind of stuck, constantly suspended one-foot above the ground by an unknown force. She can’t soar, she can’t walk, and years of floating have left her with rather unimpressive posture. Pull her down to the ground, and she’ll pop right back up to her usual twelve-inch altitude. So, yes, I guess that’s it.

Hovergirl is cynical teenager, a safe dresser, and an average student. She went on talk shows and met the president when she was ten. She even had a bona fide Hollywood agent for a while, but all he could score was a commercial for a children’s anti-depressant called Li’l NumbX. In his last conversation with her parents, he said, “We’re in the age of CGI. If they want someone to float creepily all day, they’ll just wire up Dakota Fanning.”

Back home, she makes a little money singing the national anthem at events in surrounding counties. Her social life is limited to friendships with open-minded girls and comic book boys. She has been on a few dates, but only with members of the basketball team and other tall kids with shoddy hand-eye coordination. The majority of her human interaction involves gawkers. Gawkers at the mall, gawkers at the baseball field, and gawkers at church. She likes to silently time people as they stare at her shamelessly. If they stand there, mouth agape, for more than seven minutes, she assumes they don’t have cable television at home. If they keep it up for more than ten minutes, she instantly incinerates them with her laser eyes. Every girl deserves a few secrets, just like every town deserves a few missing persons.

as reported in The New York Times

April 28, 1908
HIGH PRICES FOR SAILORS.
Santa Barbara Charges $12 for a Room and 10 Cents for Pie.

One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

“Use dryer sheets frequently to make your clothes more comfortable,” my mama used to say. If she was short on time, she’d simply say…

Highlight here for answer: [soften often]


Mickey Feio

Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip . . . But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
Oscar Wilde

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

Happy Thanksgiving Week! I’m taking it easy, but here’s something tasty from the archives of The Southpaw Jones Gazette. Enjoy…

Originally posted November 30, 2006:

It was the first day of winter. Not the first day according to calendars or meteorologists or almanacs, but the first day that Martha really felt it. “It’s gonna be cold for a good long while,” she thought as she licked her chapped lips with her twice-pierced tongue. The first piercing was a mystery, the second an attempt at regaining some modicum of control.

She drove stop-and-go from work while listening to NPR. The reader reported matter-of-fact-ly on Richard Branson and Stephen Hawking, who had recently teamed-up to explore and populate the far reaches of space. “The powerhouse twosome is looking for two lucky and fertile women to take with them,” the story proceeded. “They have randomly placed ten golden tickets in the glove compartments of used cars throughout the States. Their belief is that God should choose the finalists, while a committee of college deans gets final say.”

Martha had bought her 4-door sedan two weeks ago, and though she detailed it with a tooth brush and baby wipes, she had never explored the glove compartment. She was second in line at a notoriously long red light when she reached over to learn her fate. Earthbound and bored or Space Mother of the Future.

She did not find a golden ticket. She found three human teeth and a map of Tuscany.

When she arrived at the apartment, she immediately told her husband about her odd discovery. Not one to be outdone, he responded, “Well, I found a mockingbird nest and an albino’s passport in the Subaru. Did you know there’s a new Beatles record?”

Happy Thanksgiving Week! I’m taking it easy, but here’s something tasty from the archives of The Southpaw Jones Gazette. Enjoy…

Originally posted December 18, 2006:

Four times I rapped upon the door, and four times she did not answer. She knew it was me; my knock is sharp and distinct. The neighbors must have known it was me, even in the darkness; my dress is distinguished, individualized, and very expensive. Our dog knew it was me; my odor is a well-thought-out combination of man-made fragrance and natural superiority. The pup scratched twice on the other side of the door for each declarative blow I rained down. It had been a long day for me.

Four times I rapped upon the door, and four times she did not answer. I pressed my face against the draftiest gap where the door was supposed to meet the frame and said loudly, “Adult relationships are tangly webs, my dear!”

No human response. Just one scratch then another.

“Isn’t our relationship the least tangled and the most comfortable?”

Nothing.

“Comfort is not cheap, darling, and not without sacrifice. If you want to feel the cold wind against your shoulders you might have to donate your coat to charity. And you hate charity!”

Silence.

“Did we marry too young, Blanche? Have I bored you to the point of insanity? Is it the fleeting satisfaction of some ‘other’ that you seek? Some marvelous man or woman who looks nothing like me and appeals to parts of you that I simply don’t see?”

A car passed slowly with its lights off. I turned, gave a strict look, and obnoxiously bobbled my imaginary breasts until they turned on their high beams and sped up. I glanced over at Blanche’s silver sedan, its cracked window a mocking smirk.

“You didn’t have to go through with it, you know. Our fathers were business partners! Just because it was easy doesn’t mean it was wrong!”

“And just because it’s difficult now doesn’t mean it’s wrong!”

I heard a bit of a whimper from inside the house. Could have been the dog, could have been Blanche.

“Why shouldn’t our relationship have some modicum of disappointment in it? Parents disappoint! Friends disappoint! Careers disappoint! This life is nothing but the story of growth and decay, and let me tell you, darling wife, WE ARE FINISHED GROWING!”

Another whimper. Definitely the dog this time.

“I wish that I could be perfect for you. I really do. Why did you marry such a mediocre clod? You never sufficiently explained that to me, and I’ve always been curious. Why does anyone marry anyone? I give up, dear. The world has whittled me down to a toothpick. I’m going to start walking. Maybe I’ll walk to Utah and dissolve amongst the salt flats.”

Four times I rapped upon the door, and four times she did not answer. I was crumpled on the porch when a tan mini-van pulled up and let Blanche out.

“Did you lock yourself out again, Bernard? Patty and I went to the outlet stores, and I got you one of those huge pretzels you like!”

I raised up on one elbow as she waved good-bye to Patty. She then leaned over, kissed my cheek, and said, “Nothing like a little shopping to kill the winter blues. Massage my feet, baby?”

“But you don’t like the way I massage your feet, dear.”

“I don’t like anything about anything, Bernard. And yet, I will go to sleep tonight and wake up next to a man who is willing to put up with that.” She paused knowingly and smiled. “I may hate God, but it’s obvious he doesn’t hate me. He pummels me with gift after gift after gift, and you are my favorite one. Every day, I wonder why you haven’t left me. And when I think about the day you inevitably will, I imagine that I’ll walk to a field in Mississippi and just dissolve into nothingness.”

A scratch from the inside of the door awakened me from a long stare into my wife’s eyes. “What other life but this one?” I thought. It’s too good a thought to keep to oneself, isn’t it?

“What other life but this one?” I said, “Let me help you with those bags. I’ll get the lotion.”

I met her in South Carolina last week. She was working at a peach stand. She didn’t own the business, but I could tell she was cooking up a surprise purchase of 51% of the company shares. I’d say autumn, January at the latest. Come to think of it, I could also see her swiping a basket of them mother-grabbin’ fuzzies and heading to Canada. She wasn’t as unpredictable as I’m making her out to be.

When a soap-opera-style corporate takeover and a clandestine escape from the States comprise your next decade’s menu, well, I’d say you’re less free than most in your own skin.

I had just completed a study at the University of Georgia, and I was celebrating the beginning of my sabbatical. Sweet concept, that. My team and I took six years to determine that sex is “hottest” between a smart person and a – what’s the word these days? – dumb person. Turns out, intelligent people have trouble with the clichés of the bedroom. We observed several cosmopolitan couples using phrases like, “Oh, we’re doing this now?” and, “What are you, a producer for Cinemax?” Too much thinkin’ when you should be stinkin’, I guess.

Meanwhile, slower folk tend to giggle too much during the act. They are wonderfully talented at “letting go” and “going with the flow” and “tryin’ new thangs” in the sack, but they seem unable to make connections between sex and any real intimacy or universal consciousness. They exhibit the exact same emotional patterns when watching Wheel of Fortune as when screwing.

(Note to self: Upon return, observe salt-of-the-earth couples having sex as Wheel of Fortune airs in the background. Foreground? Why did I not think of this while we still had funding?)

So why is sex “hottest” between geniuses and the oft-stumped? We didn’t quite figure that out. Perhaps the smarter of the two jumps into some sort of pleasing, condescending teacher role, even though they don’t really know what they’re doing. Perhaps the slower has the satisfaction of getting ol’ Mr. or Ms. Facts & Figures del Squaresville to loosen up for once. They both come out of the room feeling like they’ve done someone a favor, I think.

Dim women conjure up the most unbelievable fake orgasms which smart men cherish with absolutely adorable faith. He wakes up the next morning to the sight of her reading the Sunday comics, and he swoons, swoops, and oops, they’ve done it again. The conversation over brunch is excruciating, of course.

Stupid men give a highly educated woman the wild eroticism of riding some sort of Tarzanic, monkey/wolf-man over the horizon into Bliss Parish. He makes her friends break out in fits of righteous indignation, which turns her on even more. He also reminds her of her idiot father.

My friends, I have digressed, and for that I apologize. I just spent six years watching people have sex. Give me a break.

The point is this: I bought peaches in South Carolina, and man, they were scrum-diddly-umptious.

Out among the big things —
The heights that gleam afar —
A feller gets to wonder
What means each distant star;
He may not get an answer,
But somehow, every night
He feels, among the big things,
That everything’s all right.
Arthur Chapman, Out Among the Big Things, st. 3

Johanna’s Tambourine Art Inspired by Stevie Nicks




One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

I’m really upset with you two for eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil. But before I send you out into the cruel, thorny world, let me make sure you look alright. You’re not used to making clothes, I know. Or wearing them for that matter. Let’s see, um, Adam? You’re wife is a little exposed down there. Could you help adjust…

Highlight here for answer: [Eve’s leaves]

Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
7:00 PM
Spike Gillespie’s Dick Monologues
Hyde Park Theater
Austin, TX
dickmonologues.com
SOLD OUT!

Thursday, November 8th, 2007
8:00 PM
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
Austin, TX
(512) 380-0097
flipnotics.com
The New Weekly Show!

I’m writing a novel starting today. On this here blog, no less. I have no plan. I have no outline, no characters. I’ve never written a novel before. It’s time. No more excuses. It’s called, let’s see, um, Separation of Church and Kate: A Novel. Wish me luck:

Roland was only five feet from Marvin when he shot him three times. Marvin shot Roland, I should clarify. Would there have been a shooting had they been “she” and “her”? Debatable.

One thing you could feed to a truth-eating dragon is this: Marvin felt no remorse. He even giggled a little when he pulled the trigger, loaded the BB, pumped the pump, pulled the trigger, loaded the BB, pumped the pump, and pulled the trigger a final time with a flare of elder satisfaction.

He owed his younger brother three shots in the butt for the supposedly not-on-purpose breaking of his favorite vase. He had named it “Glacier Blue.” Most boys liked to play with action figures, tanks, and rope swings, but Marvin preferred his vase collection. And since you can’t punish annoying little brats with a vase, he also kept a clean air rifle, as at-the-ready as an air rifle can be.

TO BE CONTINUED

My generation of radicals and breakers-down never found anything to take the place of the old virtues of work and courage and the old graces of courtesy and politeness.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

suicide food: animals that desire to be eaten. sickening.




One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

Old Mr. Wind just has to blow. He has no choice but to puff. And when the world needs a stiff, quick blast, he simply…

Highlight here for answer: [must gust]



Thursday, October 11th, 2007
8:00 PM
Flipnotics at the Triangle
4600 Guadalupe
Austin, TX
(512) 380-0097
http://www.flipnotics.com
The New Weekly Show!