HAMMERDOWN TURPENTINE NEWSLETTER
"The Saloon Tribune"
JANUARY 2004 Vol. 3, No. 1
Forward to a friend. This is not the "Arzamas Society of Unknown People."
CALL TO ACTION: Hammerdown Turpentine will play the newly opened club "12 Galaxies" at 22nd and Mission on Saturday, January 24. 9 p.m. Also playing: AL DUVALL!!!! Don’t be late! $7
Dear "friends" of "humanity,"
Be Gone Demons and your spongiform encephalopathy! Welcome to a rather negative edition of the HDT newsletter.
Every one of us has a sense of the world, unfortunately I got stuck with "smell." In any case, I know you can sympathize with my longing: Hammerdown Turpentine, like you, feels the futile need for some kind of Lebensplan, or plan for life. Let’s plan on attending our show blah blah blah.
Our first show of 2004 will be January 24 (the 10th of Thermidor) which is probably THIS SATURDAY. We’re playing a brand new club called 12 Galaxies. Looks big. Sure is big of them to make fun of Frank Chu. I know what you’re thinking, SF needs another bar like it needs another fucked up Chinese butcher shop - but it is nice to have another music venue. It’s right near Doc’s Clock on Mission and 22nd. I think we’re playing a spotty set of long forgotten songs so come by and don’t worry about singing along. I’ll take care of that.
We’ll be sharing the night with the incomparable Al Duvall from New York, courtesy of Jet Blue. No stranger to the PAHC, Al played my wedding and we love him - so will you. We go together like Zinoviev and Kamenev. Here’s his Web site: http://alduvall.com/ Al sort of looks like his brother Andy if Andy had to go through some hardship. You can judge for yourself as I’m guessing Andy’s playing drums. Don’t tell Al I said that though because it’s inappropriately important to me that Al likes us. Call it an appreciation of the man’s music or the way his first name changes the pronunciation of his last name.
Look forward to some serious gyri (bumps) and sulci (grooves). Brain joke! This could be our last show. Clint, Dave, and Rob are apparently in a Cheater Slicks cover band now.
Jif Johnson,
Majestik Magnificent
For whom no statute of limitations presides.
West Virginia’s Pride of the Mountains
www.hammerdownturpentine.com
P.S.
In front of my office a street performer was playing the flute. When I got in the elevator I said to some guy, "Now I’ll have ’Edelweiss’ in my head all day." And the guy goes, "How was it?"
What the hell does that mean? I can’t complain I suppose - if it were not for work I’d never eat M&Ms. Or use the Internet. Or write these newsletters. Or stop drinking. By the way, for those curious, I’m a successful moon rock sample salesman. You know, for schools. I used to bottle up samples of drugs for school assembly scare-tactic displays but I was caught smelling my desk.
P.P.S.
The average American man spends about 33 days of his life removing facial hair. I think I’ll spend my 33 days writing unnecessarily long newsletters.
NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS POUR VOUS
2004 is going to be lame, I can tell already. There’s my big prediction. I can’t believe the Packers lost. Fuck this world. Well, the New Year is upon us with resolutions and associated ebullitions. My resolution is "Less being fat. More cowboy hat." Or something. Even the perfect can aspire to "More angel-gazing. Less anal gauging." Zinger! If I were you, I’d resolve myself to more HDT shows. Unless you abuse children in which case you should probably make that your primary concern.
What I don’t like about 2004 is the persistence of people. That and the fact that my dog sheds like a motherfucker. Boy, there are a lot of curse words in 2004! This year we’ll probably make a new record or break up the band. If we make a new record I know we won’t break up since making a record seems to take more than one year which would plop us down in 2005 at least. Meilleurs vÏux pour la nouvelle annŽe! Go to hell.
TAPES: NIXON CALLED JIF "STRANGE"
COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) -- President Nixon didn’t think much of Country Music Tragic King Jif Johnson, calling him "strange" and not "pleasant to be around," newly released White House tapes show.
Talking politics with White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman at Camp David, Nixon switched the conversation to two members of Hammerdown Turpentine, drummer Clint Golden and singer Jif Johnson.
"Jif is not one that wears well," Nixon said.
"I know," Haldeman agreed.
"On a personal basis, Clint is a pretty nice guy," Nixon said. "Jif on a personal basis, is terrible. He just isn’t pleasant to be around."
"No, he isn’t," Haldeman said.
"Maybe he’s different with others," Nixon said.
"No," Haldeman said.
"No, he’s just an uncomfortable man to be around," Nixon said, "strange."
The conversations are part of the 240 hours of White House tape recordings from the Nixon administration released Wednesday by the National Archives.
JUDE OF THADDEUS’ HORN
A waitress presses a handkerchief in a thick book and lets something drip from it into a cup of coffee which she gives to a blind man whose head resembles a sausage. At some point this waitress is fired, having been caught shaving bits of horn into the soup of the day. The man with the sausage-like head has also eaten this soup because now a thick yellow fingernail is growing out of his head. He goes to buy a hat. When he gets outside, he notices that it has become very hot and finds his seeing-eye dog unwilling to leave the fountain. People are dropping their winter coats and stripping down, using their shirts to wipe their faces. Everybody just stares at the sun and then stares at each other and then stares at the sun again.
CHOOSE YOUR NEXT NEWSLETTER STORY
I want to hear about:
1) The suicide pact between the man who could not stop waking up and the woman who could not stop falling asleep.
2) How the "Horatian sense of tempus fugit" felt by an astronomer bored Alan Alda to death despite his natural curiosity and his enthusiasm for science.
3) Dildos.
Giddyap! Send your choice to jifjohnson@yahoo.com today!
GUEST SPOT: SAM’S MOVIE
Picture it, Hammerdown is on tour in the van, Andy driving, getting all hepped up on goofballs when BLAM! you crash by Murder Ridge, meanwhile a blind farmer (Brian) watches the Night of the Living Dead while his wife (Sheila) narrates to him what is happening on the screen. Then he hears the crash, grabs his gun and runs out. Jif and Lynn B. Johnson stumble down the path, bloody and upset and arguing about the fate of the tour now that everyone else is dead (jump cut to a pan across the corpses in the van). The Farmer’s wife screams "Zombies" and Brian fires at the sounds he hears and hits Jif just as You approach the steps to the dome. Jif yells "This Suuucks. I can’t believe you shot me." (etc.) Lynn acts quick and kicks the farmer in the balls.
What do you think?
sam
SPEARS AND/OR SARS
BEIJING, Jan. 7 - They forgave the short shorts, the tart tops, and even the juicy smooch with Madonna but the confiscation and slaughter continued today in Guangdong Province, where officials trying to prevent a new outbreak of Britney Spears fans also announced plans for a "patriotic campaign" to eradicate teenagers.
The sweep came as health officials in the Philippines announced that a woman quarantined as a suspected case slinks behind a wall of publicists - without cause. "She loves cornbread," said Hu Jintao, whose wife runs the Civet Basket, "Where the hell am I supposed to get cornbread? Next the kids will want cheese."
In Guangdong Province, the 32-year-old man who became mainland China’s first male Britney fan of the winter told the Chinese news media that he had never eaten cornbread, and that his only symptom was occasionally wearing tart tops. One Guangdong newspaper quoted him as saying he had handled Justin Timberlake with chopsticks.
The flurry of activity this week comes as Chinese officials are severely disappointed after Britney Spears married a hometown boy last Saturday and then cut him loose after 55 hours saying, "Let’s do something wild and crazy."
The confiscation of teenagers began in earnest on Tuesday, and the state news media reported that workers were drowning them in disinfectant. The World Health Organization has cautioned that such a slaughter must be carried out carefully to avoid the risk of causing more fans or contamination.
Guangdong officials have estimated that they plan to confiscate and kill about 10,000 teenagers by Saturday. The exact number put to death so far is not known, but the official New China News Agency reported that on Tuesday more than 1,500 government workers in Guangdong inspected 67 shopping malls, 797 sleepovers, and 137 high schools. They reportedly seized 171 teens.
"Man," one Guangdong official said, scraping the gum off his boots, "what was Britney thinking?"
CALL TO ACTION
Was your dad a thief? Because he stole the stars and put them in this goddamn club! See you at 12 Galaxies on Saturday! It’ll be more fun than looking at a digital display while eating something crunchy!
TO UNSUBSCRIBE
Reply to this e-mail with the phrase: "The people’s flag is deepest red." in the subject line.
CAUTION: Keep the thought screen helmet in the safest possible place when you are not wearing it. In Kentucky, one thought screen helmet was taken from a box that was in a closet. The abductee had dental work and could not wear it. She thought she put the helmet in a safe place. Expect more alien aggressiveness in 2004 as this is a suck year.
Bonus Track:
MY FRIENDSHIP WITH PRINCE CHLODWIG OF HOHENLOHE-SCHILLINGSFUERST
He said through his moustache, call me Clovis - Romance! And of first loves it is said that they come and go like shadow-plays! My country-western heart foredoomed, the season of balls began - but wait, an introduction is perhaps required. Oh gallop, gallop, my little typewriter.
One day of my marriage de convenance - how amazed I was - a messenger brought me a bouquet. Despite my wife’s goodness my peace was over. Torture! O sobbing on a sofa! One visit the Prince did not withdraw. In a quavering voice he wrote, "When you receive this letter I shall be already in Munich - Your unchangingly faithful C.H." To my amazement he was gone and I alone with my wings broken. My forsaken children! "You can fall no lower," whispered the voice in my long, sleepless humiliation, "Take the hand that offers." I went to Munich.
Prince Clovis had reached his 75th year and me only 15. Innumerable examples of blind confidence rise in my memory like cocks. I saw no balls, theatres, promenades. Malicious tongues had me believing in electric fluids and magnetism - whatever the Prince laid bare for me. Apparently my wife was taken to the asylum.
The Prince forbade me to leave, "Why do you come to me in dreams every night and whisper such strangely maddening things in my ear?" I thought of my children. The Prince began swallowing poisonous flowers. "Why," I said to myself, "should I trouble his busy life with my trivial feminine worries?" He gratefully kissed my tummy.
The Prince’s mind never rested. "I’ve been smelling you everywhere" he’s say. He wrote me hundreds of poems:
We found a book about sex in the Black Forest.
It was left in the brush by murderers.
I saw that a woman’s heart can squint.
Indeed, his poetic bent once on a chamois-hunt let the chamois pass unhurt!
I was out in the wood when behind me came the Prince, his eyes almost angry. "Oh please don’t scold me!" "Who could be angry with you, you ardent rushing stream of passion!" Suddenly I felt two arms go around me. Dear aborigines! Then the grand dame - the Prince’s wife - rode in - Our secret was lost. The Prince was driven to melancholy by hypochondriacal musings. I spun, confused, out of the forest. How happy I was to leave that abode of pain! Humpbacked desire! As I packed my things a message was brought: "Farewell Jif Johnson," said the Prince sadly. I went looking for my children. Then I remembered I had no children. But fate was hostile toward me - Only now, 15 years later, can I kiss him in imagination, can I relive briefly, publicly, decidedly - despite the fact the Princess Amalie, his sister, has denied it in the Germania - that I enjoyed this particular friendship of the Prince.
Jif Johnson
1783