Joe Potts – Author, Blogger, Humor-For-Hire.

You're traveling through a wondrous dimension of humor and shadow, of imagination and mist. Welcome to my website! Wander around a bit and see what’s up. If the mists get too thick, well, some things look better in the fog anyway. So come back often to The Joe Zone – and bring your friends. That way, if you get lost, or marooned here, at least you’re together. Not that people get marooned here. Very often. For very long. Signpost up ahead, your next stop – The Joe Zone!

Lost without my Floss

Most of us have experienced awkward social situations, like realizing you have coleslaw on your shirt after you’ve been talking to someone you’re trying to impress. The particulars may vary, but I think many will be able to relate to the following story. (This is an abridged version of an article of mine that appeared in a local magazine a few years ago).

 

One look in the mirror confirmed my worst fears: a poppy seed the size of the Hope Diamond was stuck between my front teeth.  Except this diamond was still a black lump of coal.  Why had I given in to temptation, knowing the potential consequences?  Because the poppy roll had looked so scrumptious, that’s why!  And the aroma of fresh baked goods – am I some superhuman who can resist the Siren call of momentary pleasure?  I had known it would be dangerous, and now I was paying the price for my weakness.  So there I was at work, in the men’s room, unfit for social interaction.

I took some hot water in my mouth, and vigorously swished it around.  Swisha, swisha, swisha.   I spit it out through the front teeth, like we used to as kids, then checked my teeth again.  I can’t believe it!  It’s still there! 

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Winter Olympics Have Begun in Russia

The Games of the 2014 Winter Olympics are now underway in Sushi, Russia, or some similar place, and appear to be off to a flying start, at least for the ski jumpers. After tense moments when some bad press was being generated due to unfinished hotels, and an apparent mixup between drinking water and urine samples, the games seem to be running smoothly now. (I have just been handed a bulletin stating that the games are actually in Sochi. Who knew?)

The USA team got off to a fast start when Sage Kotsenburg won the first gold medal, for falling off a cliff on a snowboard while twisting his body into a pretzel and spinning at 33 1/3 rpm, before regaining consciousness and landing on his feet. Afterward, he commented, “Cowabunga, dude! You should see the dream I just had!” Many other competitors also gave awesome impressions of skydivers who forgot their parachutes, but in the end, the gold went to Sage. When asked if he had ever attempted that particular maneuver before, he replied, “Not while I was awake.”

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Polar Vortex Has Joe Circling the Drain

The polar vortex is making multiple visits to much of the United States this winter, inflicting misery on millions of people, animals, polliwogs, and mosquitoes. Unprecedented bitter cold, ice, and snow have been ravaging the country, pillaging and looting along the way.

Winter has apparently taken umbrage with some words that could be interpreted as negative in my previous blog post, “The Four Seasons, Part 4: Winter” (December 22, 2013). So, we can safely add “no sense of humor” to winter’s shortcomings. Fortunately, the Joe Zone has access to the world’s foremost authorities and smartypantses (note: remember to check on plural of smartypants).

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The Four Seasons, Part 4: Winter

As regular Zoners know, we have been toasting and roasting the arrival of each new season. We last hailed the autumnal equinox (“The Four Seasons, Part 3: Autumn Falls at Our Feet,” September 23, 2013). The series finally reaches its end (praise be!) with this fourth and final installment. So once again we fire up the Joe Zone nuclear-powered microscope, and objectively examine the hated season of winter, that abysmal time of year when death would be welcome relief, and you feel yourself curling up like one of the dry, lifeless leaves shriveling and shivering on your lawn, under six inches of ice.

Of course, winter isn’t all bad.  Some people actually like winter, and in fact look forward to it. They enjoy the cold, the snow, the lack of light, the misery, the depression, the soul-sucking numbness that winter brings. Scientific study has shown that many of these people are on hallucinogens.

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The Night the Christmas Tree Fell

Christmas memories encapsulate some of the most cherished moments of our childhood. We remember warm family gatherings, presents that delighted us, church services celebrating the Infant’s birth. Often, however, our memories also include grim tableaus seared into our brains by events gone horribly awry. These are the exclamation points rising above the landscape of periods; they are cymbal clashes in the lush, hushed strings of the soundtrack of our youth. And for me, one of the harshest, most discordant cacophonies of my childhood has to be the night the Christmas tree fell.

It began as a Normal Rockwell night. My father had come home from work in a good mood, bolstered by a wonderful hot meal prepared by my mother. Cups of steaming tea for my parents, bittersweet hot chocolate for us kids, helped us forget the December winds blowing outside. Christmas was my mother’s favorite time of year, and I could see the joy of the season in her eyes. The magic day was right around the corner, and my two sisters and I were working ourselves into a frothing frenzy of Yuletide anticipation. Ornaments! Lights! Presents! No school!

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Secrets of the Hunger Games

Catching Fire, the second movie in the Hunger Games series, is rocking the box office as expected, bringing in something like eighteen quidzillion dollars in just a few weeks. To put that into perspective, the federal government, even on a slow day, spends that much money in about eighteen seconds. And Katniss thought her Capitol was bad!

The Joe Zone, in our passion to bring you the hottest scoops and the truest truths, is bursting with pride and sickeningly smug self-satisfaction to bring you the lowest lowdown on the Hunger Games. Yes, it’s time to dust off, rev up, and shake down the Joe-ma-Tron! As regular Zoners know, the Joe-ma-Tron is a combination time machine, teleporter, dream extractor, fantasy generator, and deluxe snack and gourmet beverage machine. It is equipped with interstellar radio, back-up beepers, and a Magic All Language Translator (MALT), so we can talk to anyone (some may recall the pre-MALT Julius Caesar/Latin fiasco).

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English as a First Language – the Premier Episode

We are tingling with excitement in the Joe Zone as we launch our newest series in informative blogs (or web toots, as we call them in the JZ). Sound the trumpets and blast the bagpipes, here comes “English as a First Language” (EFL). We’re so excited, we’ve quivered our liver with a righteous shiver right out of our abdomen, and down our leg onto the floor. Hang on, I need to grab some paper towels.

In addition to the Joe Zone’s “Startling Science” series bringing you all the latest lowdown on that heady scientific jazz, we’re now also going to wake up, dust off, and polish your language skills such as you never thought possible. We’re going to clarify your clauses, pump up your participles, and juice up your gerunds into the high octane zone like you always dreamed of, but were afraid to hope for. (Holy preposition!  This is insane!)  Yes, I once had the language skills of a paramecium, but I elevated myself to at least the level of a slug, if not a sloth. And I can turn you into a sloth as well! I know it’s possible, because my pet paramecium recently signed a three-book deal with a major publisher, for a vampire protozoa series. 

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It’s our First Anniversary!

Celebration time! Heaven knows that in the Joe Zone we’ll celebrate anything, from a new tube of toothpaste to a healthy, blow-the-pictures-off-the-wall sneeze, but today we have a legitimate reason: the Joe Zone has reached its one-year anniversary.

Yes, it’s true. One year ago, the Joe Zone exploded onto the internet like a doomsday disease. The web has never been the same. Since the inaugural post on my blog page (“Reflections in a Misty Mirror”), the number of Joe Zone fans, zealots, and stalkers has increased by a factor of ten (from the initial fan base consisting of Mrs. Zone). I want to thank the loyal readers of my blog – you know who you are.

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The Four Seasons, Part 3: Autumn Falls at our Feet

Regular Zoners will recall that we have been celebrating the arrival of each new season. We last partied for the summer solstice (“The Four Seasons, Part 2: Summer Hot, Summer Hotter,” June 21, 2013). So once again we drag out the Joe Zone nuclear-powered microscope, and examine the season of autumn, which fell with a thud on the northern hemisphere September 22 at 4:44 PM. Did you hear it?

Ah, autumn! What is so fair as a midsummer night’s dream of autumn, when frost has dusted the pumpkin patch and covered the grass, which still needs to be mowed because it won’t stop growing in this cursed damp, dreary, chilly season that reminds us that death – well, maybe I’m getting carried away. Autumn, actually, is often the fairest of times, with mild weather and pleasant temperatures. Of course, occasionally Mother Nature will throw the odd hurricane or blizzard at us, but on the whole it’s a mellow time.

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Look Out! Driverless Car!

There’s been a lot of hubbub lately about driverless cars. I’m not talking about the cars that we’re dodging because some brain-dead nimrod is texting instead of driving. I’m talking about cars that are driverless on purpose. By design. Because somebody thinks it’s a good idea. Or they think that because it’s an idea that someone thought of, we should do it.  Because, if we can dream it, we can do it, and we should do it. Because that philosophy has worked out so well with nerve gas, nuclear bombs, and tofu.

At first glance, a driverless car may seem about as practical as a pilot-less plane or doctor-less brain surgery.  Of course, we already have both of those things.  Most planes take off, cruise, and land by computer these days, with the pilot only getting involved to test the scotch, tell us it will be another three hours before we’re cleared for takeoff, or to make amusing comments about the turbulent air about to be encountered.

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