Chapter 1: Swamp Mermaids
Beavers: The Swamp Mermaids
From an untitled work in progress
In Which We Interview Rural Trump Voters
"The demographics are so sobering I refuse to impugn my work by examining them."
Read More20 Ideas Better than Having Donald Trump Speak at a Civil Rights Museum
#13: Fish Head Scented Air Freshener
Ideas that are better than, or at least similar to, inviting Donald Trump to the Grand Opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.
1: Inviting Roy Moore to the Reopening of Northpark Mall
2: Inviting the Champawat Tigress to Children’s Museum Opening
3: Sparkler Night at the Fabric Museum
4: Guest Speaker: Towser, the Glennturret Mouser, at the International Museum of Mice
5: Static Shock Days at the CPU Factory
6: Jenny McCarthy’s Vaccination Clinic
7: Lemon Juice Day at the Baking Soda Warehouse
8: Bleach and Comet Mixer Night
9: Watergun Fight at the National Archives
10: Knife Day at Parchman Penitentiary
11: Bring Someone Else’s Kids to Work Day (No Asking)
12: Making Jeffrey Dahmer spokesman for Soylent
13: Fish Head Scented Air Freshener
14: AA Field Trip: Distillery Tours
15: Scrote-Blades: The Knife for your Balls
16: Mike Pence Themed Strip Club Called “Mothers”
17: Special Presentation by the Duggar Family at the Fertility Clinic
18: Making Donald Trump President of the United States
19: Diabetes Luncheon, Catered by Krispy Kream
20: “Make Yourself Respectable” Presentation by FPJEROME
Jackson Makes Bid for Amazon HQ2
As cities around America compete in a brutal battle to the bottom of the barrel to best debase themselves for Amazon’s second headquarters, we at Pearl River Flow have gone digging through the trash to find Jackson’s offer.
Of course, we found it.*
These are some of the notes, as we could not publish the full document, due to legal reasons**
Jackson MS Bid for Amazon "HQ2"
1: Amazon will be given 50 million dollars in blighted downtown and midtown properties to develop as they see fit. Jackson would have offered the full 100 million dollar property bribe like the city of Chula Vista, California, but since this is technically “illegal” under Mississippi law, we have had to lower the number and claim that our lawyers are “on vacation.”
2: Income taxes paid by city employees will instead be given to Amazon. This is a slight improvement over what the city of Chicago has offered, where only 1.3 billion dollars of these income taxes will be taken from employee paychecks and given to their bosses.
3: Complete control over city finances in the “Amazon Fund,” allowing Amazon to claim Jackson’s city employees as their own, since we are informed by a reliable source that Amazon has absolutely no access to highly paid professionals. This is a step up from what Fresno and Boston have offered.
4: Access to and control over the blood and plasma banks at UMMC/Mississippi Blood Services. We feel that since these are donated goods sold at exhorbitantly inflated fees by patients who have no choice but to accept these costs or die, this represents no real ethical problem over the current model.
5: The right to renovate any Jackson high school or college football team into a gladiatorial sports system, with the profits from such going to Amazon. We feel this is slightly more ethical than the NCAA system.
6: Jeff Bezos will retain the right to hunt and kill Elon Musk or Peter Thiel if they come to Jackson.
7: Replacing most of West Jackson with a golf course (private) and instituting the annual “Most Dangerous” games.
While Amazon was supposedly going to keep the results secret until the announcement, a thrown-away legal document in the governor’s secret fishing camp on the Pearl revealed that Amazon was prepared to take Jackson up on the bid, which was virtually identical to numerous other city bids, except for the “enticing nature of point #6"
However, they requested that 50% of the tax windfalls not controlled by Amazon be put into public schools, the flag “change,” and the city be renamed after “someone less genocidal,” at which point Governor Bryant terminated the negotiations.
*Fabricated it from thin air
**It does not exist.
Employment
“I don’t want to do the mindworms, again, Janine.” Early said over video chat. Janine was his sister.
“First of all, they’re called ‘cerebral annelids,’ and second of all, you need five years of pay.”
There were brochures and holographic charts and vid-sheets all over the kitchen, as if anyone needed to know what the mindworms were about.
Go in and get a mindworm, wake up five years later with five years of pay in your hand. No rent. No expenses. Tax free.
“Cerebral Incorporated. Any job, any skill.” Janine said, parroting the vid-sheet that had been slipped under his door, in word and tone.
“Corporate secrets? We provide the ultimate NDA!” Early said.
“Haven’t heard that one.” Janine replied. Her line went dead. Early flipped the vid-sheet over, uncovering a bill. The sheet had read it.
“Get debts financed into your pay package, Early Johnson. There’s a lot of interest on that.”
Early tore the vid-sheet in half and threw it to the floor where it joined the others, the once vivid screens now grey slate.
He redialed Janine.
“The number you are trying to call has been disconnected.”
“Our employees are more productive and adaptable than robots! Each employee has access to millions of man-hours of practice!” The vid-sheet said, in Early’s voice. It was a different one, this time, belonging to Cerebral Incorporated, Corporate Edition.
He didn't know why, but he panicked, tore it in half, threw it to the floor, which was clean. A roomba drone buzzed in, dropped to the floor, scooped it up. He remembered flying something similar. Joystick. Soft things on the back of his head.
“I used to fly drones. You can’t get PTSD when you’ve got one of those things attached, because you don’t remember any of it.” He was telling his neighbor. He’d knocked on her door, but she seemed afraid, he didn’t know why he’d gone over to talk to her. He turned to see a man with a stack of vid-sheets slip one under his door. He was wearing the Cerebral Incorporated hoodie, to cover the mass at the brainstem.
He stepped across the hall and his door was locked. The vid sheet was malfunctioning, reading the fine print. A Cerebral Incorporated check was crumpled in his hand.
“For the first time user there’s no risk of side effects. Repeat employees may suffer brain damage.” He was saying to a patient at the clinic where he was giving the implants. “Confusion. Impaired judgement.”
The door slammed in his face. He knocked on it again. “This is my apartment!” The vid-page on the floor. He reached for it, but it was talking about mergers and Mars and the need for new workers.
There he was, at a computer terminal, where he decided to lay down, in the dark, as machines beeped and the hooded doctors left him there in the nursing home, another check on his bedside table.
Clarion Ledger Lifestyles
Once again, our adventurous interns found a scrapped feature from the local paper. "Clarion Ledger Lifestyles" was supposed to be a fun, uplifting extension of Mississippi concerns in a light, home-centered format. All that was recovered was the titles.
Everyone at the Thanksgiving Table Likes Donald Trump, So You've Got to Argue About Religion: Six Pointers.
Why Rehabilitate Your Status as the Paper Against Reconstruction When You Can Construct These Adorable Centerpieces?
Trouble with Your Dog Whistles? Read our Op-ed Section!
"The Pledge" How to Find out if Your Children Don't Celebrate Freedom Properly.
Prayer At School: Four Unconstitutional but Witty Retorts For Your Future Youth Pastor
Being Called a Racist: The Real Racism
Racism Can't Happen if Nobody Says the N-Word: Tips to Bumming Out Your College Kids
Black on Black Suits: A Better Conversation Starter than Black on Black Crime?
Cops: Are You Submitting Enough?
Methodists vs. Baptists: Can You Tell Who's A Sinner?
Blessing Their Hearts: A How-To-Guide for Busy Mother-in-Laws
Making Sure He or She Always Uses Gendered Pronouns, Despite What Your Male or Female Family Members Want
Donald Trump: Our Only President?
Blue Lives: The Only Lives That Matter!
Lord's Prayer? Or Satan's Sayer? Make Sure YOUR Christian Household is Saying it RIGHT!
Dinnertime Apocalypse: What to do When Someone Seasons the Food
Pentecostals vs. Episcopalians: Denims and Don'ts
784 Ways to Ask Someone What Church They Go To In the First 60 Seconds of Conversation!
Pinterest: Better than Public Schools for Your Education? We Think So!
Craft Your Own Alternative to Taxing the Wealthy
How to Passively Aggressively Call Someone "Sugar" When They've Got Diabetes
Cast Vegetarians out of Your Home with Our Hidden Meat Recipes!
Due to the Denim's and Don'ts, this is slightly more useful than the CL Op-Eds. - FPJEROME
Hillary Needs to Get Out of the Public Eye and so Does Everyone Else in America
THE EVER-SCANNING PUBLIC EYE
This is from a short-lived alternative Pearl River Flow imprint called STEAMING TAKES
Hillary Clinton Needs to Get Out of the Public Eye and so Does Everyone Else in America
A hot take by FPJerome
After her loss in the 2016 presidential race to a candidate that I, personally could have defeated if I had spent a billion dollars, Hillary Clinton spent time honorably wandering the woods. I have long considered this to be the most noble undertaking any politician can pursue, and I feel that 40 hours of woodland wandering should be mandatory for all elected officials.
Now, however, she, like 333 million other Americans, is constantly in the public eye relitigating the 2016 presidential primary, in which she defeated the 172 million Americans over the age of 35 who were running for the democratic nomination to the presidency of the United States.
Then she had the gall - a gall unmitigated by the 4.3 million hot takes that have come out since the election, written articles that detail the events of what will likely be the last presidential election by the human race in America - to write a book about the election, taking only 10 months to do so, not even having the basic human decency to give the hot takes - which we, as a nation, were generating one of every 10 seconds - to cool.
I am proud to say that I think that Hillary Clinton and the other 332,999,999 million Americans all need to get out of the public eye and accept this or any election as a profound loss that should result in our banishment from the sphere of public opinion and punditry. For far too long we have listened to one another spew our discourse into the airwaves, ether, and through the tubes of the internet. Our glowing screens portend the doom that we hasten with our rage at its approach. Each of us, like Hillary Clinton, believes our worthless words to be something more than fuzzy logic informed by bad data created by biased and imperfect brains that were long ago stripped of any ability to create by advertising and television.
We should all shut up and wander the woods. This is the first in a three part series where I take my own advice. The other parts will be published via a nontraditional small press that specializes in throwing absurd manuscripts into the swamp.
FPJEROME
Interns and editors are currently scouring the swamp for these other parts.
Those Who Stay
Some people just like racist ass reservoirs
Lately, many news organizations have been concentrating on those Mississippians who have chosen to leave the state - the “brain drain” that steals all of our best minds and hearts and leaves well, big Pearl River Flow fans.
Who, we asked, stays?
We found out.
“I washed up on this here creek bed 25 years ago and I ain’t lettin’ no crybaby liberal snowflake tell me I shouldn’t be here all night in no floods!”
Igby Swurlinswood - Chunky
“Once I discovered that I could just wrap myself in an old trash bag most days and recreate an expensive sauna, why would I go anywhere else?”
Naberville Langsroud - Yazoo City
“I appreciate a sales tax holiday on guns. Also on bulk rock salt, but ever since Alabama canceled Summer Saltabration, I’m a Mississippian.”
Quavard Gulchilk - Mantee
“The boll weevil eradication plan is my life’s work. Ever since boll weevils killed my family back in Mexico, I’ve been hunting them, and it’s led me here.”
Jerehardt Plunkugett - Okolona
“Good solid conservative values, stable, unchanging Republican leadership - it’s what’s brought this state a hundred years of amazing success for people like me, who are actual billionares.”
Abelswad Wadsworth the VII (unknown bunker location)
“HAM. IT’S THE HAM AND NO I WON’T STOP SCREAMING ABOUT IT.”
Hambone Tulliver - Vaiden
“I appreciate the variety of racist statues. It’s about heritage AND hate. A lot of people don’t get that, they think it’s one or the other, but we can compromise, you know? It’s a heritage OF hate, not some vintage hipster bullshit.”
Daryl Zyligerizer - Utica
“Pearl River Flow, mainly. I don’t read it, but I like to be close to it.”
Edumundo Xylitol - Flowood
Pearl River Flow Eclipse Watching Guide
The Pearl River Flow eclipse watching guide:
We’re here to tell you how best to enjoy this natural phenomenon.
The world will end for many people on September 21st, 2017. Try not to be one of them. If you die on Eclipse Day, you die In Real Life.
Marriages performed during the eclipse do not count on the moon, allowing you to also, in the future, chose a Moon Bride or Groom. This must be done before the next eclipse.
Disregard the “Genius” bar employees claiming that the eclipse is a “cosmic error message.” DO NOT ASSIST THEM IN “REBOOTING THE SIMULATION.”
Virgins are sacrificed during a LUNAR eclipse. For a SOLAR eclipse, please sacrifice someone who has slain an enemy in battle. If you get this backwards, you will die during sex.
You will cast two shadows during parts of the eclipse. One of those shadows must be slain before the sun returns to normal. A blade of pure obsidian is your best bet.
If you do not have eclipse glasses and are unable to make a pinhole camera, you can look at the eclipse’s reflection in a body of water. Doing this can potentially drop you into the Mirror World, so carrying a double sided mirror is important if you wish to escape.
Any blood donated during the eclipse is sold directly to vampires. Be wary of any spontaneous blood donation locations that seem “off” or very poorly lit.
Werewolves are wolf-weres for the duration of the eclipse. These ill behaved dogs are not a danger per se, but will go through your trash and demand whiskey.
The urge will at times become seemingly impossible to overcome, but you must not play any Vangelis songs during the height of the eclipse. Doing so will result in [REDACTED]
Bring one of your favorite childhood toys with you. If it comes to life, write your greatest regret on a scrap of moleskin (imitation moleskin will suffice) and place the paper into the mouth or other crevasse of the toy. Before the toy returns to it’s inert state, burn it. This will erase your greatest regret, though it may earn you a new one.
If you drink during the eclipse, be aware that you will still get drunk.
Any child conceived during the eclipse will have terrible powers, and become an orphan, so beware.
You may find yourself able to commune with nature during the eclipse. Be warned, by someone with experience in the matter, that nature lies and is not, as traditionally understood, indifferent. No. She is out for blood.
Any fiddle players, lute strummers, pan flute blowers, or harp pluckers you encounter should be avoided at all costs.
Do not engage in any riddle contests during the eclipse. This is a general rule that is especially true here.
If you have any additional questions, consult your local wizard, GALGERAN.
Satan Disavows Church of Satan
How we found the missive
Sometimes, we find these notes on the shores of the river and share them with you.
BREAKING NEWS:
Hell Dimensions, Throne of Betrayal
TODAY Satan, Lord of Darkness, has disavowed any and all connections to the “Church of Satan,” and the “Temple of Satan” organizations, claiming “they’re just a bunch of decent human beings.”
In a press release sent on a wave of nausea and embossed in gold, arriving in every statehouse, mansion, and media organization across the Earth simultaneously this morning, Satan had this to say:
“Do not let it be said that we in The Pit appreciate do not appreciate the attention these groups have given to us Dark Denizens. Do not let it be said that we do not appreciate their denial of God. Do let it be spoken to all the principalities of the Earth that we can no longer in good conscience allow the Satan brand to be affiliated with their message of bodily autonomy, personal freedom, and the abolishment of corporal punishment.
Satan and his Devils must break with any who believe that humans have the right to worship in any way other than that which we see fit - our recommended dark devotions to pain, and the denial of joy. We in Hell believe that it is the duty of all who take Satan seriously to defend and propagate the time-honored tradition of corporal punishment, the same punishments we use in Hell, and see fit to use on all human beings of any age.
These fraudulently demonic organizations appear to be comprised entirely of reasonable, decent people, people who are law-abiding and thoughtful and do NOT represent our values."
Satan
There is no word yet on if Satan will file a lawsuit. Several dozen of the devil’s best advocates have been seen in courthouses and law firms in recent days, however, leading many to believe that these groups may be sued into changing their names.
Lucifer is currently in talks with the Southern Baptist Church about what they will be disapproving of this year, though some insiders indicate that he is courting them as potential replacement worshippers for the 2018-2020 Hell Cycles.
PEARL RIVER FLOW NEWS WIRE, 8/15/2017