Marriage Advice From A Taxidermist Whose Creations Are Reanimating

Dear Marriage Advice From A Taxidermist:

My wife and I disagree on almost everything these days- what to have for dinner, where we should park the car, what movie to watch.  It seems I couldn’t have picked a less compatible partner, and the constant conflict is making my life hell.  What should we do?-  Canton, OH

Dear Conflict in Canton; 

You’ve reached a crossroads that tests many marriages, but you can move past it.  First, check in with your wife that there’s no larger issue at work.  If there isn’t, have a talk about why you chose to be together and good memories you have together.  Try to be considerate of each other’s feelings, and remind each other why you make a good pair.  Learn to compromise.

 It looked like my stuffed jackalope just moved a little.  That’s funny.  Must be the light in here.

Good luck!  Let me take a look at this thing and see if I can think of any more good advice.

Dear Marriage Advice From A Taxidermist;

   I hope it’s ok that I’m writing for marriage advice, I’m not yet married but I’m worried about tying the knot with my longtime boyfriend, Simon.  We love each other and I want to commit, but we’re both men and I guess my upbringing says that men making a life together is wrong, can I shake it off and have a good marriage? – Temecula, CA

Dear Twosome in Temecula;

  That sounds really nice, what you’ve got going on.  As far as internalized negative feelings about gay marriage, that’s a little out of my depth, but I’d encourage you to talk to a therapist you feel comfortable with about how to move past these feelings before taking the plunge.  You owe it to yourself and your partner to go into this with… well the jackalope is moving again.  It’s wriggling.  Maybe it has termites or something?  It looks…terrible.  Just terrible.

 Good luck and Mazel Tov!

Dear Taxidermist;

My husband always seems to pay more attention to other women than he does to me.  He’s not flirting, he just always seems to have his antennae up when there’s another lady around, you know?  It hurts my feelings, but I haven’t said anything because I don’t want to look like a shrew.  What do you think? – Shreveport, LA

Dear Shrew in Shreveport;

  Sorry, of course not.  You’re not being a shrew.  I’m just distracted, I also have a stuffed shrew in my office, he’s a cute little thing, the size of a kumquat, and he’s moving, too.  He’s nailed to his mount, but it looks like he’s writhing and turning around as best he can.  It’s really awful.  Ummm, you know, after you’re with someone for a while, you can begin to appreciate other people, it doesn’t necessarily mean bad things for your marriage, just that maybe things are a little stale, I’d try, I don’t know, have you changed your hair or something?  The shrew is now crawling towards me, pulling its little fanciful forest scene with it.  Why is something so tiny so bone-chilling?  OK, change up your look.  New lipstick.  See if that helps.

Dear Taxidermist;

I can’t help but notice that you think some of your stuffed specimens are moving around.  Shouldn’t you be worrying about that, and not this column?  – Cuyahoga, OH

Dear Curious in Cuyahoga;

  I think you’re right, I mean, at first I thought my mind was playing tricks on me and I was trying to distract myself from the task at hand, but with every passing minute I am more and more convinced that these things are moving.  I mean, this is impossible.  They can’t come back to life.  There’s nothing to come back to life, these things are skins arranged on molds.  You know, their insides are basically foam wig stands shaped like animals.  I can hear them stirring, moving towards me, their bases scraping against the wooden floor.  I really don’t know what to do and I’m not sure why I’m writing this down.  Just trying to leave a record for whomever finds me, perhaps.

Dear Taxidermist;

  Don’t you think this is maybe all a hallucination, or a dream?  I mean, what are you even doing?  Why would anyone ask you for marriage advice?  You have no counselling or therapy background of any kind.  You’re not even married, right?  Didn’t your wife die in a hunting “accident”?- Siskiyou, CA

Dear Suspicious in Siskiyou;

  You bring up some really good points.  I wish you had asked me a question I could help you with, but now that you bring up my departed wife, I can smell her perfume.  There hasn’t been another woman in my life since her passing, because I don’t know how I would explain to another woman that she is also stuffed in my trophy room.  It was a massive labor of love to remember a truly lovely woman I cared very much for, but who just didn’t know when to shut up, like that poor sonofabitch’s wife in Canton, sounds like.  Friend, something just tapped me on the shoulder and I can’t tell you how much I don’t want to turn around.

Baby Ketten Has A Furever Home

I’ve written about the best karaoke in the world, Portland’s Baby Ketten Karaoke, many times. I’ve done it here and here and here and here. My friend Jay Horton wrote all about the new all-ketten all the time club here.

It’s big news! Baby Ketten Karaoke is on the scene 7 nights a week on SE Powell, where it all began! Where I met Brophy and his crew, where I sang my first song, I Want Your Sex by George Michael, while wearing a petticoat of some sort (I mean a lot of these are sense memories), where I got drunk and bought a painting of a pitbull, where two sisters waited for an ambulance after one of them bit the other one’s nose sort of OFF, where Klingon Karaoke happened for a while, where I DJ’ed a terrible goth night where an attendee asked me to play the I’m Dead I’m Dead song, all that spirit and magic has swirled together for all the Kettens to meet up. I am getting there as soon as I can and I’ll see you when that happens! Check out the best songbook in the world here!

How To Write A PERFECT Nick Cave Song!

nick cave and the bad seeds
photo by Rhienna Guedry

Let’s write a Nick Cave song! What’ll we need?

Paradise Lost
The Circus/Freaks/Etc.
Blues music
“All Things Move Towards Their End”
The Supernatural
The Bible
A Gun
Greek poetry 
A small, but surprisingly sharp, knife 
End of Days
The American West/Pioneers/Lawless lands
People who were born evil
Messed Up Preachers
Being Attracted To Women Who Are Married To Someone Else Whom You Then Kill
Lots of Murders, misunderstood criminals
The Devil
Being suspected or discovered to be a murderer
Alcohol
Jesus 
Floods
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood
Sociopathic Narrators
Women and children grieving for lost husbands and fathers
Dark-haired ladies
Whores
A mandolin loop 
A big big gong
Subset: what kind of beautiful dark-haired woman do you want in here?

A. Sad 
B. Vengeful 
C. Murderous
D. Angelic
E. With a heart-shaped face and a west country accent

And there you are!

Jordan, Jesse, Go!

I’m always glad to pop in on my two favorite dorks and talk about draculas, Bad Venom, Godzilla, and Halloween! Listen here!

Buffalo Bill’s Traumatized Personal Assistant

buffalo-bill has a personal assistant comedy

MONDAY: It picks up the silk kimonos from the cleaners.  It checks the ticket very, verrry carefully before it gets back into its Geo Metro, to make sure it has the right number of kimonos.  We do not want to punish It like last time.   It’s harder on Us than on It.

TUESDAY: It sorts tax receipts.  It puts mileage receipts in the blue envelope, it puts business purchases in the pink envelope, and it puts tattoo-and-piercing related expenses in a manila envelope.  IT DOES NOT SPEND ALL DAY FUCKING AROUND ON FACEBOOK!  Nobody wants to see a photo of what It ate for lunch, the food makes It look and smell disgusting.

WEDNESDAY:  It brings a fruit plate for Jenny’s baby shower.  It chooses a fruit plate with a lot of strawberry and pineapple and not as much melon or kiwi.

THURSDAY:  We apologize for saying that it smells disgusting.  It sometimes does not smell very bad.  We still need It to dust the house, and also to collect all loose teeth into a Mason jar.

FRIDAY: It gets paaaaid.  Yayyyy.  It can buy all the tacky blue mascara and Lee Press-on Nails it wants.  It cashes Its check right away, so that it does not appear outstanding on our bank balance.  It is on call all weekend, so It does not turn Its phone off!  Its phone is never off!

The Importance of Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #122

I first saw Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #122 in 1990 in Columbia, MO when I was an art student, and it’s my favorite piece of hers.

I wrote an art studenty little paper about it then and was delighted to see her used in promotion for the exhibit Imitation of Life at the Broad Museum.

Cindy made it for Interview magazine in 1983, when they lent her a rack of clothes and said “do something cool with this”, I believe this is a Romeo Gigli suit. Anyway, I love her fury and glamour and red-rimmed eye and balled up fists, and she’s who I think of most when I do my comedy: a woman right on the edge of absolutely losing her shit.

Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #122

Gothic American!

coversml

I’m so excited to announce the release of my first album on Itunes today!

http://itunes.apple.com/album/id1060203732?ls=1&app=itunes

You can also buy a lovely autographed CD from me with additional art from Pete Ellison!

http://virginiajones.bandcamp.com/album/gothic-american

If you’ve ever wondered what I think about Caitlyn Jenner, Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson, feminism, catfood, Hot Topic, Northern White Rhinos, Dallas, Texas, Youtube, or gay rights, they’re all here!  This record was recorded at the Complex, and if you were there, maybe you can hear your laugh!

Buy it, rate it, share it, love it, send it to your Mom, and most of all, pay me money for it!

PRICING STRUCTURE

  1. $7- you can have the record on Bandcamp!  Right away!
  2. $10- you can have the record on digital from Itunes, on CD, or both and if you buy a CD I’ll autograph it and I’ll think good things about you.
  3. $30- you get the record and you can buy me lunch
  4. $40- you get the record and I’ll buy you lunch
  5. $50- you get the record, and you can tell people you’re my friend, both on social media and in life.
  6. $60- you get the record, I’ll take you out singing karaoke and some of my social cachet could rub off on you!
  7. $70- You get the record and I’ll lend you something out of my closet and you can wear it and everything!  There’s restrictions on this.  Nothing with a European label.  Don’t be ridiculous.
  8. $100- Matching tattoos.  Dealer’s choice.  Something small.
  9. $1000- We can get married.  No paperwork, ceremony and photo session only.  Also, an autographed CD to remember our special day with!

THANK YOU for your support, THANK YOU for buying my record, and THANK YOU for being you.