I recently sat down with the Stony Lonesome for a hard-hitting, take no prisoners, straight from the hip interview. He rarely allows journalists entree into his circle, so I felt quite privileged — as should you — to have this rare insight into the mind of a man known to us only through his intrepid and audacious interactions with his environment. I found him a willing, if slightly intimidating subject; his eyes, fervent in their intensity, stared into my very soul like a pair of gallium lasers trained on the genitalia of an international spy trapped in a supervillain's underground lair. Ruggedly handsome but with a boyish quality, S.L. is a man of contradictions — charming yet churlish, thoughtful yet to Tourettian, brilliant yet somehow retarded. Here, in all its brutal, unexpurgated truth, is the text of our conversation.
Me: Good day sir. May I say, you wear those prison blues with verve and style.
S.L. You may.
Me: First question.
Me: Wait a tick, you just asked me if you could say how nicely I filled out the state ish. I believe you mean second question.
Me: Fair enough. What is the greatest problem facing this country today?
S.L.: Veneration of Clint Eastwood. This insufferable, doddering old fraud has bought so completely into his own mythology that he's managed somehow to hoodwink the public into abetting him in his pseudo-patriotic charade. See here: the man is not a stern, stoic gunfighter, or a loose cannon cop dispensing his own brand of street justice, or a bareknuckle brawler with an orangutan sidekick. He's an actor with the emotional range of a rock-'em sock'em robot and a ham-fisted, slapdash bungler of a director with all the subtlety of a runaway semi plowing through a craft fair. I'd give Pauly Shore a lifetime achievement Oscar before I would let that mossbacked old fool anywhere near a movie set. Don't get me started.
Me: Beg pardon, but that's kind of the point.
S.L.: Huh?
Me: To get you started.
S.L.: What? Shut up.
Me: Alright then. What's your position on shoes?
S.L.: I'm for them,. You want a good fit, something comfortable. Nothing too garish or outre. Oh yes, and keep them off the furniture, and the bed.
Me: Sound advice. Who do you like in the 2016 presidential election?
S.L.: Interesting choice of words since I don't "like" anyone. If you are asking which of the myriad evils I would prefer representing the interests of the oil companies, I guess I would say whatever Bush happens to be next in line for the job because we as a nation need to learn how to laugh again.
Me: What would you think about a Hillary candidacy for presidency?
S.L.: Hillery? Sounds like an adjective, right? "The landscape was very Hillery, what with all the hills and stuff."
Me: Yes, but is the nation ready for a female president?
S.L.: Have you personally met any women? If we'd started electing them 100 years ago we would currently be living on the United States of Earth.
Me: So that's a yes?
S.L.: That's a, Hell yes. Let them run everything, governments, corporations, NASCAR, whatever.
Me: Okay, three dinner party guests, you can choose anyone in history, who do you pick?
S.L.: Jesus, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Marcia Brady.
Me: I mean real people.
Okay, SpongeBob, LePetomaine and Benjamin Disraeli.
Me: Nice. What is your biggest regret?
S.L.: Not investing myself more fully in the Macarena craze.
Me: Tell us the circumstances of your birth.
S.L.: I sprang from the womb unassisted, sexually mature and fully armed. Immediately on breathing free air, I gnawed my way through the gory tether binding me to the blessed wench breathing her last on the table and strangled the doctor with it. I then had semi-consensual relations with all three of the nurses attendant at the glorious moment of my birth, fashioned a rude tunic from a surgical smock and rubber tubing and lit out for the territories where I fell in with a band of wild dogs. They cared for me and educated me in their ways for several years then handed me off to a group of kindly outlaw bikers who inducted me into the Arcanum Methamphetorex. The rest, as they say, is history.
Me: Fascinating. Define "semi-consensual."
S.L.: At least 50% of participants at any given time were willing. It's a gray area.
Me: If I weren't 100% sure you were confabulating, I'd be concerned.
S.L.: If I weren't 100% sure that you'd love it, I'd smash your beans right now.
Me: Do what to me?
S.L.: It's prison slang, it means—
Me: Let's move along. I understand you have a famous ancestor.
S.L.: Yes, my great great grandfather Cadwallader invented the nap.
Me: Do you mean to say that prior to your antecedent's discovery, nobody ever took an hour of the day to catch 40 winks?
S.L.: That's right. Nobody. It wasn't allowed. Cadwallader Washburne wasn't just an inventor, he was a social reformer.
Me: Top five songs with "rain" in the title.
S.L.: "Rain," "No Rain," "Purple rain," "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," and "It's Rainin' Men."
Me: What about "Have you ever seen the rain"?
S.L.: That song sucks.
Me: Point taken. Given unlimited resources, what would you do to improve Mendocino County?
S.L.: That's easy. Bullet train. Fort Bragg to Boonville, minute and a half. Boom. Also, heat up the ocean a little. I'm imagining either geothermal vents drilled a few yards offshore or giant nuclear immersion heaters placed every half-mile down the coast.
Me: Both suggestions sound like they might have significant environmental impacts.
S.L.: Yes, well, Charley don't surf.
Me: Apropos of what? Never mind. Remember the scene in Lost in Translation at the end when Bill Murray whispers in Scarlet Johansson's ear? What do you think he is saying?
S.L.: The Lord's Prayer in Esperanto.
Me: What about the briefcase in Pulp Fiction? What's in there?
S.L.: Austin Powers' mojo, or maybe a pile of glow sticks.
Me: What is the best song to play when bombing down Highway 128 at 4am trying simultaneously to pilot the car, not spill your drink and discern hallucinations from actual road hazards?
S.L.: "Gato Negro" by the Supersuckers. Duh.
Me: What animal would you be unable to swing within the confines of Albion without hitting an angry lesbian?
S.L.: That would be a cat, sir.
Me: Who put the bomp in the bomp-bomp-shebomp?
S.L.: Sheriff Tom Allman. He also inserted the ram firmly into the ramalama-ding-dong and penetrated the very heart of the dipdadipdadip with the dip.
Me: What National League pitcher is an actual god with all the rights and privileges thereof?
S.L.: Well, he's not an angry vagrant, but he is Mad Bum.
Me: And his demonic counterpart to the south?
S.L.: I dare not utter his name for fear of conjuring him, but it rhymes with Slayton Murtaugh.
Me: May his elbow disintegrate beyond the reach of any Tommy John magic.
S.L.: Hardly sportsmanlike. I like the cut of your jib, son.
Me: Well, it's been a real pleasure talking to you. Anything you'd like to say to the folks out there in newspaperland?
S.L.: Yes. Be awesome to each other. Hold fast. Measure twice, cut once. Never trust a horse with four white socks.
Me: Meaningless platitudes. I expected better from you.
S.L.: jk lol brb IMHO :) #gandydancer. Seriously, any readers who would like to send the Stony Lonesome a personal message, go on and friend Flynn Washburne on Facebook.
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