Her problem: Hot Mystery Lady from the Past gives Heavily Emoting Christopher Reeve a Keepsake Watch, when she’s like, old, and he’s at a play or something. She says “come back to me,” and then he sees a picture of her, falls in painting lust, or something, and then figures out it was she that gave him the Keepsake Watch, and so then he goes back in time, and totally does it with HMftP.

She asks him about the watch, and he’s all like, this rad chick who I dig gave it to me, and gives it to her. Then, OH NOES A PENNY and swirling and then I miss her, and then beach walks, and then HECR totally dies.

So Sally is all, dude, why didn’t you just wish yourself back into the past? And also: where did the watch come from in the first place?

Today I visited her lovely Research Emporium, and quickly brainstormed some answer. YOU NEED A TRUE NERD TO HELP YOU, I said, as she rolled her eyes, rollingly.

Her conundrum is that, if old HMftP gives HECR a watch in 1979, and then he goes back in time and gives it to her in the first place, whence its origin? And my TRUE NERD answer is (killing both questions at with one whack!):

The Keepsake Watch itself is a device of temporal power and mystery, foreign to the timestream, and imbued with time-traveling powers. HECR’s longing for HMftP triggers the device, thrusting him back into time. Once he gives it to HMftP, he is vulnerable again to returned to his proper chronological time (as the timestream, like gravity, ever pushes those timelost or time-travelling to return to their actual and proper chronology).

So why can’t HMftP use the Keepsake Watch to travel to the future? Well, a couple of reasons. First, maybe she doesn’t really dig HECR that much—I mean, dude, with the staring and the longing. It’s all so very emo. So she’s sort of giving him a pity romance, since, you know, it’s pretty flattering that a bro traveled through time just to sleep with you. That would totally flatter me, anyway.

So giving him the Keepsake Watch was just a sweet way of saying “hey thanks for travelling back in time to totally have sex with me.” I mean, she could have done it whenever, right? She didn’t have to wait until he was, like, twenty-eight or anything.

OR, in the alternative, the Keepsake Watch is just crazy and fickle.

I AM A GENIUS. Because I learned from Dr. J. Kirby. Whut, you mean? BABY I’M SAYING TIME FROG

OH YEAH King Solomon’s Frog!! Dude, I’m saying the Keepsake Watch is really King Solomon’s Groovy Time Watch. Just like that sweet Time Frog concocted by Doc Kirby, crazy and unpredictable things happen when you touch it.

THUS ENDETH THE LESSON FROM A TRUE NERD.

Gorjus: WHAT UP
want to be my executrix?
Sally: omg you’re chatting
Gorjus: i know it’s HOT
Sally: i want to be anything that ends with trix

Gorjus: Executrixie
having a will drawn up today
Sally: awesome. i would love to be your executrix.
Gorjus: basically at this point it’s like “pay off Citibank and let Sally figure out the rest”
Sally: do i get to execute you?
Gorjus: YES
Sally: AWES
i told the internet about the knocked upness.
Gorjus: NO WAY WHEN
Sally: last night. when people i don’t actually know start telling me congrats, it’s time to tell the internet.
Sally: thank you for saying i look amazing.
i think having twin kittens would be kind of rad.
Gorjus: I saw you two weeks ago! I refrained from saying that “you were glowing” for fear of cliche backlash
Sally: now that the vomiting has started, i actually do look a little rosier.
Gorjus: I’m just glad you’re not “fifteen and pregnant”
Gorjus: Okay, help me estimate the value of all my stuff. Uh, $10k?
Sally: eh, i could probably get at least that just for your comic books alone
you have artwork, “collectibles,” computer, shitty car, etc.
Gorjus: haw haw
Sally: i’d say $20 just for good measure
Gorjus: okay, $10,020
Gorjus: i’m giving roy my el camino! SUCKER
Sally: is it an art piece now?
Gorjus: You get “Any and all books, letters, postcards, diaries, journals, sketchbooks, or correspondence of any type, including any electronically saved correspondence; in addition, any and all contents of whatever personal computers or other digital archiving devices in my possession”
Sally: omg! that’s the best part!
Sally: i will catalog it all and then write a book about it.
after i execute you.
Gorjus: Yeah yeah! “And then he had all these different Conan books.”
Sally: i’ll let prof. fury write the chapter on the comic books. otherwise it would be one line.
Sally: do I have to take that shitty microwave cart from the kitchen?
because i’m leaving that on the curb.
Gorjus: I will send you a copy of the will when it is done
Sally: I AM SO IMPORTANT
you are leaving me better stuff than my dad is. i read his will when i was 14 or so. i’m getting a freaking dining room suite.
Gorjus: that sucks
but you have to dig through all my junk
Sally: which is 80 million times more preferable to a dining room suite
what about all the arm hair that will be left under the furniture?
i could donate it to arm locks of love.
there are cold, hairless arms out there who need protective coverings.
Gorjus: p.s. if I get offed tomorrow you get my bank account, too, sucker
Sally: but what will i do with that $.30?
Gorjus: I am totally posting this

Oh God. I think I’m still drunk. I know at the very least I was drunk when I woke up this morning, and I thought splashing on some Brut was a great way to mask that I had been in a bar last night. I did this in lieu of taking a shower. Basically . . . yeah, not working on even, like, three cylinders. I’m like a lawn mower engine right now. I have no idea what I’m even talking about.

The photograph above of DJ Trick isn’t by me, but by the extraordinarily talented Ginger Brilliant. Like cursive, her work weaves its way through genre and form, and its her art that so many think of when they think “Jackson.” The ubiquitous Eudora button worn far and wide is culled gently from a portrait she did of our patron saint, and is probably one of her best known pieces, although the gigantic canvases displayed so prominently in Fondren Corner rival anything created here in decades.

She is also the architect of the Terry-Go-Round, that hellish ideal which has confronted patrons of Don’s for many moons now. Once erased with a vengeful swipe of a paint brush, it was recreated last night, and it is even more horrifying than before.

Looking again at that great portrait of Trick, I realized that the girl’s bathroom at Don’s has a mirror. I am going to start a petition to have one in the boy’s. Also, I am going to start a petition to spray it with bleach and noon and midnight. Everyday.

Sally made me a mix for my birthday, and oh my did it have a wonderful cover:

That’s Eudora in her high school photo—doesn’t she look just great? All gothy and deep. I remember seeing this at Central High School—where she went, in downtown Jackson—and saying she looked pretty and somebody making a vomiting noise and then I totally pushed them down some stairs.

The mix was packed with favorites, including songs I didn’t have that I adore, namely “It Never Rains in Southern California,” by Albert Hammond, which seized me by the heart a couple years ago and will not let go. Then there’s the song I think of as Vendela’s—”Give it Up” by KC (a solo hit without the Sunshine Band). I will never forget sitting in Sally’s house (now mine) and somebody putting on that record and it was like V came alive, and she spun around, and basically I had no idea that she is apparently a dancer on the Soul Train, and I’d never heard it before and it was amazing and just a moment of pure joy.

Another song on the mix is one I think of as Sally’s song, one I’d never heard until she put in on a mix for me around 2000 (a cassette!)—”Very First Lie” by Material Issue. It’s a song so funny and bittersweet that I fell in love with it immediately, and people think of lies as being bad things and they really are, but sometimes you can’t help but say the wrong thing trying to be silly or realize that you got things all messed up without even trying:

I’d like to wake up with you early in the morning
or stay up late just playin’ records on your phonograph.
I’d like to get to know your mother and your father,
maybe just once pretend to be somebody’s better half.
And I would like to tell the very first lie.

I’d like to ignore all my friends and spend my time with you,
maybe shake your tambourine.
I’d like to do the sorts of things that you and I could do,
and we could do most anything.

Therefore:

Happy birthday, everybody.

DEAR SIRS,

I wanted to let you know about an EXCITING OFFER available to you both. It’s called YOUR WEBSITE. You should WRITE SOMETHING and POST IT THERE.

Your Friend,
Sally

Ahem. We have both perhaps been remiss, swept up in the pleasures of Boys and Girls in America. I’ve got more Polaroid sets from Yazoo City, Legion Field, the Nick, and stories about the Goxxip, but I actually think the Prof. has given up writing.

“My spleen,” he has been heard to say. “I feel it inside me still, although softer, paler, more ghostlyish.”

It really creeps me out when he says that.

To: Gorjus
From: Sally
Subject: You Should Probably

...just give up your website. I could save myself several hours a week if I didn’t have to check every 5 minutes to see if you’ve posted something.

So she’s not just sick, she’s mean!

I keep meaning to vow that I’ll post everyday; I’ve done it before, and it lasted six or seven minutes before I broke it. But, eh, if it makes Sally happy, I’ll post utter trash five days a week!

First off will be the following “cartoon”: like actual real live artists, I tend to sketch out drawerings before I go over them with ink. Last nite I attempted this process, but due to the true-life exploits chronicled—which had happened about twenty minutes before—I couldn’t quite finish it up.

Here is the script, as near as I can figure:

Setting: W.C. Don’s, Tuesday night, midnightish.
Jaysus: Gorjus, I think you’ve had enough.
Gorjus: OOTAH!!
Caption: Ten minutes later, in Don’s baffroom:
Gorjus: (vomiting) BLIZZORG!!
Caption: Even l8r
DJ Patrick: Should we call an ambulance?
Jaysus: Son, it is so RAD that somebody barfed in [here tonite.]

The script is culled from true-life events and also this telling exchange of text messages with Jaysus around 1:00 a.m.:

Jaysus: It is so AWESOME that you barfed in here tonight! Seriously.
Gorjus: I am so ashamed.
Jaysus: Do not be ashamed, my child!
Gorjus: I love Jesus!

Yeah. Yeah, I don’t know what was really going down with that, either. Just remember, kids: Budweiser + Sparks Plus (with even more sugar!!) + Goldschlager = BLIZZORG!! (Also: HORK).

So the reclusive and wonderful Harper Lee has “published” for the first time in decades. Really, though, it’s just a letter she wrote to Oprah, which spurred the conversation Sally and I had above. I’ve yet to make up my mind about the letter, but I can tell you that I wholeheartedly agree with this exquisite sentiment: “some things should happen on soft pages, not cold metal.”

You are my favorite website. You are clearly a website, and not a blog! I am mindful that, for some trivial “Gen-X” reason, you don’t like being called a blog, probably because you think you are “artists” and not “self-obssessed indy rockers.” I love you and would sleep with you if I met you. I am a very pretty person, and also young. My English is poor, but I am willing to learn.

Signed,

I Live in Brooklyn, USA, and Not in Ukraine, I Swear It

Dear Russian Bride Spam-Author,

Please stop writing us about yr Ukrainian availability. It’s really quite creepy. Professor Fury is married (to royalty, no less!), and I have sworn off dating Brooklynites, because that’s just so 2004 (pssst: the new Seattle is Spokane).

Yrs in Christ,

gorjus

Dear Professor Fury,

My husband says you are a much better writer than Sally Nordan, but I say that Sally is hella funny and posts every day and that you only post, like, once a week, and then about French gorillas and not enough about your family (p.s. is your brother in jail?).

Your Friend,

Dedicated OhReallyiAn

Dear DORA,

Look. Sally writes about, like, license plates and busted recipes and stuff. The Prof. writes about talking goddamn gorillas and, you know, Sufjan Stevens and stuff. That takes time. Even the essays you think are about comic books are really about, you know, the inevitable tragedy and ultimate failure of the New South and stuff.

Plus, his brother’s sentencing isn’t until mid-July, so we’re all basically on tenterhooks around here.

I Can’t Wait Either!,

Gorjus

Dear Gorjus,

Recently you posted a Polaroid of Eudora Welty’s house, but it was all black. Are you trying to say that you oppose the recent transformation of her home into a museum, as it invades the deeply personal space that she so carefully guarded while alive?

Wonderingly,

Optimist’s Granddaughter

Dear OG,

Um, actually, I seriously meant that photo, and sort of did a drive-by and took it but it was a lot darker than I thought and then I had moved on a couple miles by the time it turned out and then I was like, damn it all to hell! when I saw that it didn’t turn out at all but then I thought it would be funny to post and it really is a photo of her house.

So Many People Read So Much into That, but I Do Not Oppose the Recent Museum, and in Fact Am in Support Thereof,

Gorjus

Dear Prof.,

There is a persistent rumor that you engaged in a “hot make-out session” with a quasi-famous indy rock lady at one of your infamous Fury Palace PoolParties®. My friends say it was Kori Gardner, but I was think they got her confused with Amy Dykes because of Gorjus’ blurry Polaroid. Either way, I’m hearing that it was Caithlin De Marrais.

Sincerely,

Who Was It??

Dear Reader!! Who Has Won a Prize!!,

Hi! This was such a great letter! You are our Letter-Writer of the Week!! Thank-you so much for writing! What a great writer you are! Because you are so great, we will send you copies of many comic books and also several Bruce Springsteen bootlegs! And also . . . haikus about you, I guess! Sure, even that! And . . . cartoons, too? Okay, yeah!! Cartoons about you! And also American dollars!

You just have to send us a that Polaroid your friends were talking about! Which was never supposed to be left at W.C. Don’s during a night of drinking! Ha, ha! Or taken by that goddamned straight-edge band from Nebraska who I threw Jack Daniels on! Ha, ha! Who threatened revenge! In a sissy, straight-edge way!

Seriously! What Do You Want?

Gorjus!! Who Does Not Have Prof. Fury on the Other Line Right! Now!!

I understand that. But I was shocked to hear from an all-new, all-different fan: Sally J. Nordan.

Sally: Bacon.

Gorjus: Ooh, it’s creepy when you whisper it!
Sally: That’s the new style that I’m bringing: “Sally Nordan, horror librarian.” So, do you want to go see a movie with Larry and me?
Gorjus: Um. Are you going to see RV?
Sally: Already seen it. No, the new X-Men is coming out, and it looks really cool.
Gorjus: (spits out Coca-Cola) What?? But that’s . . . that’s science fiction!! Which you hate!
Sally: No, it’s not. It’s comic booky. That’s not science fiction.
Gorjus: (spits out remainder of Coke) What?? It totally is! I mean . . . listen. Wolverine’s skeleton is covered with an unbreakable metal alloy! That’s totally science fiction!
Sally: Nope. Comic books.
Gorjus: You have put me in the totally bogus position of wanting to disagree with you, yet somehow thinking that I can make comics less nerdy by agreeing that they are not science fiction. Damn your eyes! But . . . seriously, why do you want to go?
Sally: I kind of like all the characters. I have to concentrate really hard because there are, like, thirty of them.
Gorjus: Yeah, no kidding. I just don’t understand why “normal people” dig it. I mean, Jean Grey dies, she’s resurrected, she dies again, she’s resurrected . . .
Sally: HEY!! Spoiler warning, ass! I didn’t know she got brought back to life!
Gorjus: Sally, her name is Phoenix. And she came back to life in the comic books in, like, 1983 or something. That’s not much of a spoiler!
Sally: It’s a spoiler to us normal people, you nerd.

FIN

Jaxxie Glam turned me on to Blue Heaven, a terrific vintage lamp/record/clothing/guitar shop in Water Valley, Mississippi. I was up there on business Monday and she sent me directions, which were crucial, because I would have never found the (almost-unmarked) store otherwise.

It was locked up tight with a “Wednesday to Saturday” sign on the door, which sucked, but a fellow working on the house next door waved me down and said “just knock on the door—I know the guy is in there.” I did, and Mr. Guy let me in, and now I am three shirts more awesome. The yellow one, though—it’s a little, shall we say, form-fitting. Like, bikini-on-Farrah Fawcett in 1977 form-fitting. If you’re reading this, and you don’t weigh over 200 lbs., then it’s yrs.

The scorpion shirt, though—or as I call it, The Scorpion Garment—that’s a whole ‘nother story. An embroidered scorpion on each side of the chest, with a giant one on the back?? Oh, mais oui. Listen, I put this shirt on and then bought myself a beer. It’s that hott.

Sally played counterpoint/spoilsport when I told her about The Scorpion Garment:

A NOT COMPLETELY FABRICATED DIALOGUE AS REGARDS THE SCORPION GARMENT
Complete with Times-stijl Points of Clarification

Sally: Bacon!
Gorjus: Ahoy-hoy!* Dude, listen: I just got the best shirt of all time. I mean . . . in other space/time continuums? This shirt actually rules entire galaxies.
Sally: God, but I hate science fiction.** What’s so special about it?
Gorjus: Other than the multiple embroidered scorpions and the shiny black snap buttons? Only all the awesome.
Sally: Oh my lord. That sounds . . . terrible. Almost as terrible as that silver lightning bolt necklace you insist on wearing.***
Gorjus: Terrible? Terrible and mighty, you mean. When I am wearing this shirt—nay, this Garment—you shall address me as Lord Scorpion.**** And you shall beware my sting!
Sally: I’m hanging up before this conversation gets any more pathetic.*****
Gorjus: You mean, ‘I’m hanging up now, Dread Lord Scorpion, my liege.’
Sally: Say good-bye, Lord Dorkian.
Gorjus: Whatsamatter with my lightning bolt necklace??

Click.

* This is how we actually answer the phone.

Okay, that might be making the case a little strongly. It may be more like the Cream and Led Zeppelin of . . . oh, who am I kidding. She’s the Foo Fighters, and I’m Taylor Hawkins & the Coattail Riders. At worst, she’s Paul Simon, and I’m Art Garfunkel.

I often call Sally just to say “I’m bored, please entertain me,” and she will ignore me whilst reading Page Six. Today our standard conversation evolved into a Question and Answer session about the state of the internet, and how she got was introduced to this august medium in which we ply our trade. It went a little something like this:

Gorjus: Okay, so what do you think about the internets? I think they’re hollow and empty.

Sally J. Nordan: Oh, I totally agree, especially today. I feel like how I felt when I first heard about the internets. I couldn’t figure out what you did with it. I went and looked at some Cary Grant websites, and then I was all, ‘well, I’m done!’

G: When was this?

S: Ninety-four. I had a big crush on this one guy, and I totally got an e-mail address so he could write to me.

G: This has to be the famous Derek Tortellini [link, link, and #19 on February Crushes].

S: Of course! I still have every have every e-mail he ever wrote me, printed out on a dot-matrix printer at Lee Hall, filed away in a three ring binder.

G: Um . . .

S: Chronologically.

G: Well, back to the subject at hand. Why is the web so worthless? I know you read tons of blogs and trashy news sites.

S: I think it’s just that everyone has to now face the fact that Katie Holmes actually did have a baby, and that sort of ruins the fun.

G: Of the whole web?

S: Of the whole fucking web! Seriously. I can’t tell you how many websites were saying ‘she wore the ten month pillow, and she was supposed to wear the eighth-month pillow,’ and so on. It’s all moot now.

G: What is the website you read that you are most embarrassed of?

S: I’m not going to tell you , because you’ll link to it (laughs). So I’ll just describe it. I read a lot of . . . well, ‘mommy blogs,’ I call them. A lot of stuff about people taking their kids to the park.

G: So, no porn?

S: I did do a search for “Gwen Stefani topless” yesterday.

G: Because you are the most awesome research emporiumist evah!

S: Thanks!

G: Okay, one last question: is it true that people used to call you “Bang Bang” Nordan back in college?

S: Fuck you.