Southpaw Jones

CRUELTY is now available!
Order the CD now at southpawjones.com.
Purchase MP3s at cdbaby.com or .
Grab a copy in real time at Waterloo Records, End of an Ear, or Bookpeople in Austin.
Or buy one from me any Thursday at Flipnotics @ the Triangle.

My family and friends seem to be safe after Hurricane Ike struck Texas and Louisiana and everywhere north.

Many of them are without power and some are without water, and who knows how long that will last. It could be weeks instead of days, and southern Texas is not the most pleasant place in September, especially with a lot of standing water around.

The media like to show pictures of the extreme damage in Galveston and flooding in coastal Louisiana, as that is deservedly the top story. But because of this focus, they aren’t sharing the struggles of literally millions of people in Houston who can’t flush their toilets or take a shower.

They are alive and safe and healthy, but they are not comfortable, and it could be days or weeks before normal services return. Perhaps worst of all, these people are without TV, DVDs, and the internet.

They are getting to know their family members and roommates all over again, but everyone is smelly, tired, frustrated, and paranoid about looters.

If ever there was a recipe for hurtful declarations, plate-tossing, and divorce, this is it.

They still need your prayers in Houston.

They also need money and volunteers. Visit the American Red Cross to learn how you can help.

In Austin, we got about ten minutes of rain and a few scattered guilt trips.

as reported in The New York Times

September 15, 1908
WARNS AMERICANS AGAINST JAPANESE
California Congressman Says Marquis Ito Told Him 3 Years Ago of Asiatic Awakening.
PERIL OF THEIR RIVALRY
Industrial Strides Since War with Russia a Menace to the Commerce of This Country.
Congressman McKinley of California in an address last night at the Metropolitan Temple. Seventh Avenue, near Fourteenth Street, sounded a note of warning against what he termed the peril menacing American manufactures because of the awakening of Asia.

One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

You were born between June 22 and July 22, so when anyone asks what your sign is, you should…

Highlight here for answer: [answer cancer]


Wackyfun Food Art Time

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.
Peter Ustinov

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

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2008
9:00 PM (Doors open at 8.)
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Anderson Fair
2007 Grant 77006
HOUSTON, TX
713.528.8576
www.andersonfair.com

CRUELTY is now available!
Order the CD now at southpawjones.com.
Purchase MP3s at cdbaby.com or .
Grab a copy in real time at Waterloo Records, End of an Ear, or Bookpeople in Austin.
Or buy one from me any Thursday at Flipnotics @ the Triangle.

Come on out to Five Things Austin tonight to see me play my new song. Details below.

Most of my family is in Houston, so my thoughts and eyes are on Hurricane Ike today. We get it, Ike, you’re big and strong, now turn around and leave us alone!

as reported in The New York Times

September 12, 1908
DEATH FALL IN MUSEUM.
Lentz May Have Thrown Himself Down Shaft — Wife Had Left Him.
George Lentz, Deputy Assistant in the Ethnology Department in the American Museum of Natural History, either leaped or fell to his death at 4 o’clock yesterday morning in the Museum’s main elevator shaft. He plunged down from the fifth floor to the basement, a distance of nearly 100 feet.

One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

I love having this device so people can page me, but I wish it didn’t have such a high pitched tone. Do you know where I could find a…

Highlight here for answer: [deeper beeper]


The Condiment Packet Gallery

It has always surprised me how little attention philosophers have paid to humor, since it is a more significant process of mind than reason. Reason can only sort out perceptions, but the humor process is involved in changing them.
Edward de Bono

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

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2008
7:00 PM
Five Things Austin
Do512 Lounge
2208. S. Lamar
AUSTIN, TX
Each artist is given an item purchased at a local dollar store (mundane to insane) and a month to craft a 5-10 minute piece (fiction or non-, musical or otherwise) that involves the item as directly or obliquely as the author wishes. The item is then put on display during, or incorporated into the performance. Featuring Owen Egerton, Spike Gillespie, and more!
________________________________________________________________

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2008
9:00 PM (Doors open at 8.)
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Anderson Fair
2007 Grant 77006
HOUSTON, TX
713.528.8576
www.andersonfair.com

God bless the world on this anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001. Seven years later, let’s pray it was the end of the beginning, and not the beginning of the end.

Thanks to the fine folks at Bookpeople for hosting my CRUELTY CD Release and Lyric Reading last night. It was a wonderful, strange experience and one of the best nights of my life. If you’ve never had people you admire read your life’s work back to you in public, well, I whole-heartedly recommend it. It’s sort of like attending your own beautiful funeral, but you didn’t do anything to urn it. Oh, I kill me.

I want to thank everyone who attended and all the participants. If you were there last night, you may remember these amazing performances:

Amelia Gray – Sometimes I Forget
Ben Bartley – Grandma
Brian Kremer (as election year politician) – Everyman
Idgy Vaughn – Hot So Hot
Jaycee Wilemon – You Let Me Down
Kristine Kovach (as William Shatner) – Sewing Machine
Laura Lane (as Sarah Palin) – The Last Remaining Beatle
Lindsey Lane – Main Street
Maggie Wilhite – El Soldado
Robin Chotzinoff – Fatty Arbuckle
Rudy Ramirez (as sultry soap opera gentleman) – To Be So Bland + Women, Yes Sir
Spike Gillespie – The Cruelty of Teenage Girls

All these folks are involved in amazing individual and group projects around Austin, and I’m so glad they took the time to recite my words in the comfy, supportive belly of Bookpeople.

as reported in The New York Times

September 11, 1908
JILTED AT THE ALTAR.
Hiram Curtis, 79 Years Old, Changed His Mind at Last Moment.
STAMFORD, Conn. — Jilted at the altar, Miss Emma G. Weed of High Ridge, Stamford, is ill at her home. She threatens to sue Hiram Curtis for heavy damages.

One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

In this judge’s opinion, you are falsely impersonating a clothing-conscious British teenager from the 1960’s, and I will not allow you to continue this…

Highlight here for answer: [mod fraud]


The Condiment Packet Gallery

A dreaded society is not a civilized society. The most progressive and powerful society in the civilized sense, is a society which has recognized its ethos, and come to terms with the past and the present, with religion and science, with modernism and mysticism, with materialism and spirituality; a society free of tension, a society rich in culture. Such a society cannot come with hocus-pocus formulas and with fraud. It has to flow from the depth of a divine search.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

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

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2008
7:00 PM
Five Things Austin
Do512 Lounge
2208. S. Lamar
AUSTIN, TX
Each artist is given an item purchased at a local dollar store (mundane to insane) and a month to craft a 5-10 minute piece (fiction or non-, musical or otherwise) that involves the item as directly or obliquely as the author wishes. The item is then put on display during, or incorporated into the performance. Featuring Owen Egerton, Spike Gillespie, and more!
________________________________________________________________

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2008
9:00 PM (Doors open at 8.)
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Anderson Fair
2007 Grant 77006
HOUSTON, TX
713.528.8576
www.andersonfair.com

CRUELTY is now available!
Order the CD now at southpawjones.com.
Purchase MP3s at cdbaby.com or .
Grab a copy in real time at Waterloo Records, End of an Ear, or Bookpeople in Austin.
Or buy one from me any Thursday at Flipnotics @ the Triangle.

Austinites! Come on out to Bookpeople tonight for a very unique CD release celebration at 7 pm. As you may remember, I had a release show at the Cactus Café over a month ago, and I had a great time playing all the tunes and putting my digital baby into the world. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you release a CD. But I also wanted to do something different, because I believe CRUELTY is a bit different. It has a lot of words in it, pretty and ugly words that I worked hard on. What better place to celebrate words than the best independent bookstore in Texas?

We’re going to treat CRUELTY like a book tonight, and I’ve invited some old and new friends to provide oral interpretation of the lyrics. Those friends are:

• Amelia Gray
• Ben Bartley
• Brian Kremer
• Idgy Vaughn
• Jaycee Wilemon
• Kristine Kovach
• Laura Lane
• Lindsey Lane
• Maggie Wilhite
• Robin Chotzinoff
• Rudy Ramirez
• Spike Gillespie

Thanks in advance to them for participating. Thanks in advance to you for attending! In addition to the readings, I’ll perform a few songs, and there’ll be FREE St. Arnold beer and snacks!

And now, the question of the day: Am I going to be able to follow this election without having a breakdown or punching my TV?

I’m not sure.

Here’s what I do know: If there’s one thing I hate more than Republican campaign tactics, it is literalism.

Oh, what did big, bad, mean Obama say now?

“You can put lipstick on a pig,” he said to an outbreak of laughter, shouts and raucous applause from his audience, clearly drawing a connection to Palin’s joke. “It’s still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It’s still going to stink after eight years.”

McCain’s campaign immediately organized a telephone conference call in response and called on Obama to apologize for calling Palin a pig. Obama’s campaign said he wasn’t referring to Palin; he had been talking about McCain immediately before the lipstick comment.

I know these McCain people are supposed to be silly, but aren’t they also supposed to be tough?

When did the Republican Party become a bastion of crocodile tears?

If they are going to take everything literally, The Bible, the flag, even this lipstick phrase that McCain has used in the past, then I demand that they demand that Sarah Palin apologize to herself for this:

“The difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull?” she joked. “Lipstick!”

Sarah Palin! How dare you compare yourself to a dog! You are better than that, and besides, um, you are better than that! At the very least, you are a human being.

I must say, though, a pit bull would make a better president.

Literally.

as reported in The New York Times

September 10, 1908
TESTS CHURCH WELCOMES.
Minister, Disguised as Workingman, Cordially Greeted in All But One.
CHICAGO — To disprove the assertion of the Socialists that the churches only welcome the rich and scorn the workingman, the Rev. John Thompson, pastor of the McCabe M.E. Church, spent his August vacation disguised as a workingman and attending services at nine wealthy churches of the city.

One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

That big cylindrical bag sure is making a lot of annoying noise. Can we deaden that cacophony somehow? Does anyone have a device that…

Highlight here for answer: [muffles duffles]


The Condiment Packet Gallery

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.
W. H. Auden

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

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2008
7:00 pm
Celebrating the lyrics of CRUELTY!
BookPeople
603 N. Lamar
AUSTIN, TX
(512) 472-5050
www.bookpeople.com
________________________________________________________________

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2008
7:00 PM
Five Things Austin
Do512 Lounge
2208. S. Lamar
AUSTIN, TX
Each artist is given an item purchased at a local dollar store (mundane to insane) and a month to craft a 5-10 minute piece (fiction or non-, musical or otherwise) that involves the item as directly or obliquely as the author wishes. The item is then put on display during, or incorporated into the performance. Featuring Owen Egerton, Spike Gillespie, and more!
________________________________________________________________

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2008
9:00 PM (Doors open at 8.)
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Anderson Fair
2007 Grant 77006
HOUSTON, TX
713.528.8576
www.andersonfair.com

CRUELTY is now available!
Order the CD now at southpawjones.com.
Purchase MP3s at cdbaby.com or .
Grab a copy in real time at Waterloo Records, End of an Ear, or Bookpeople in Austin.
Or buy one from me any Thursday at Flipnotics @ the Triangle.

In honor of tomorrow’s celebration of the lyrics of CRUELTY, here are the lyrics to Everyman. Mr. Brian Kremer will provide the oral interpretation live at Bookpeople. 7 pm! Free beer!

Everyman

I’ll be there when you need me
Like rivers wriggle to the sea
I’ll dig a trench with constancy and patience
Before your car begins to sputter
When your toast needs jam or butter
You’ll never find another man like me
I’ll be your everyman
Your back-up plan
Your biggest fan
For as long as I can

I’ll be there when clowns attack
And when your high school calls you back
To tell you that you never passed geometry
And I’ll be there to hold you in
When slow metabolism sets in
I’ll be your lift and tuck procedure
As well as your
Everyman
Your catamaran
Your VW van
Your luxury sedan
For as long as I can

I’ll be there when toil and trouble
Pop or burst or blow your bubble
I’ll excavate you from the rubble
And I’ll arrive when slippery slopes
And radioactive isotopes
Come callin’ for to dash your hopes
You can count on me
I’ll be your everyman
Your cotton candy
Your mocha grande
Your daily brandy
For as long as I can

Now with this song I don’t refer
To how we are or how we were
But rather how we’ll be as long as you’ll have me
I see a brilliant future coming
Trumpets trumpin’, drummers drummin’
You are my every woman
Glory be
And I’m your everyman
Your Peter Pan
Your Steely Dan
The wind beneath your wingspan
Your open-air CAT scan
Your sunless tan
Your lifetime ban on the Ku Klux Klan
Your Mexican flan
Your everyman
For as long as I can
Not quite done
I’m your everyman
I’m your everyman

as reported in The New York Times

September 9, 1908
SWELTERING IN TEXAS.
At Waco, They Do Say, Wall Paper Is Splitting from the Walls.
FORT WORTH, Texas — A special from Strawn, Texas, a mining town west of here, says that the thermometer yesterday registered 112 degrees, and to-day is standing at 109, with a hot wind blowing from the south. All business has been suspended in Strawn.

One clue whose answer consists of two rhyming words:

Have you seen the latest hippie film? Man, that is one far out…

Highlight here for answer: [groovy movie]


The Condiment Packet Gallery

The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice.
William Makepeace Thackeray

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

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2008
7:00 pm
Celebrating the lyrics of CRUELTY!
BookPeople
603 N. Lamar
AUSTIN, TX
(512) 472-5050
www.bookpeople.com
________________________________________________________________

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2008
7:00 PM
Five Things Austin
Do512 Lounge
2208. S. Lamar
AUSTIN, TX
Each artist is given an item purchased at a local dollar store (mundane to insane) and a month to craft a 5-10 minute piece (fiction or non-, musical or otherwise) that involves the item as directly or obliquely as the author wishes. The item is then put on display during, or incorporated into the performance. Featuring Owen Egerton, Spike Gillespie, and more!
________________________________________________________________

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2008
9:00 PM (Doors open at 8.)
Matt the Electrician & Southpaw Jones
Anderson Fair
2007 Grant 77006
HOUSTON, TX
713.528.8576
www.andersonfair.com