Talk Southern to Me Read online

  “I’m gonna pray for her.”

  If Granny had something ugly to say about someone, she was careful to frame it like this: “That woman hasn’t worn a napkin’s worth of clothes since her divorce. I’m gonna pray for her.” Or, “That man’s so negative he’d depress the devil. I’m gonna pray for him.” And there was nothing worse than when Granny hurled this particular phrase directly at you, “Julia Fowler, I heard you went out on a date with that hooligan Ronnie Haggarty! I’m gonna pray for you.”

  Granny made it her business to protect my reputation as well as her own, because in the South everybody tends to know everybody, so gossip spreads faster than kudzu. But despite Granny’s best efforts, she once found herself in serious danger of being the topic of town gossip. Granny agreed to babysit her uncle Gene’s pet myna bird while Gene was out of town. Myna birds are talking birds, and they learn to talk by imitating the words and conversations they hear from their owners.

  Granny brought the bird home one night and went to bed early because the next morning she was hosting Bible study at her home. As she cooked breakfast and prepared for her church guests, she began talking to the bird and was tickled she taught it to say things: “I’m making biscuits . . . I’m frying bacon . . . I’m hosting Bible study.” When her Sunday school class arrived, Granny bragged to the church ladies about how quickly the bird had learned to imitate her.

  Just as she began to lead the Bible study, the phone rang. Granny decided to let it ring because she didn’t want to interrupt the lesson. And that’s when the bird started hollering, “Sheeyut the phone’s ringing! Answer the dayum phone! Somebody answer the dayum phone!” As you can imagine, Granny was totally embarrassed and the church ladies were horrified. Granny finally answered the phone so the bird would stop cussing and she attempted to resume the Bible study. But it wasn’t long before the phone rang again and the bird went nuts again, “Sheeyut, will somebody answer that dayum phone! Jesus!” Granny wisely took the phone off the hook and scrambled to explain that the bird was her uncle’s but realized this only verified that the bird was technically family, so unfortunately Granny was further humiliated.

  Granny told me that after that incident she got several sideways glances around town and in church. She didn’t know for certain what the church ladies said about her, but she was keen enough to know that stories like that travel faster than lightning. Don’t worry, Granny. You keep resting in peace. Even if the church ladies did spread the gossip about your cussing bird . . . I bet they prayed for you.

  That woman’s so

  annoying she could raise

  a stye on a pigs ass.

  That man would

  pull up a sign and argue

  with the hole.

  She should just skip

  the pleasantries

  and strap a mattress

  to her back.

  There she goes,

  ass swinging like church bells

  at Easter.

  He’s so dumb it took him

  three days to study for a

  urine test.

  She's so dumb she

  sits on the TV

  and watches the

  couch.

  He's so dumb

  he could throw himself on the

  ground and miss.

  She’s dumber than

  a box of hair.

  She’s so fat when she

  hauls ass she has to make

  two trips.

  She’s so skinny she’s gonna fall

  through her butt and hang herself.

  He’s so dumb he couldn’t pour piss out of a

  boot with instructions on the heel.

  She don't have all her

  chairs in her parlor.

  His cornbread’s

  not done in the middle.

  That man's only

  got one oar in

  the water.

  She's

  nuttier

  than a

  fruit cake.

  She’s not even a hot mess . . .

  she’s a lukewarm mess.

  He's so lazy,

  sweat won't run off

  his head..

  She’s so lazy, she wouldn’t

  work in a pie factory

  licking spoons.

  Her nose is stuck up

  so high in the air she could

  drown in a rainstorm.

  I'd like to buy that

  man for what he's

  worth and sell him

  for what he thinks

  he’s worth.

  That woman’s

  wound up tighter than an

  eight-day clock.

  That woman

  wouldn’t warm up if

  she was cremated.

  He’s meaner

  than a sack full of

  rattlesnakes.

  She's so ugly

  if she wore a stamp nobody

  would lick her.

  He’s so ugly he’d scare a

  buzzard off a gut pile.

  His breath smells so

  bad it could make

  a funeral turn up a

  side street.

  That woman talks enough

  for four sets of teeth.

  That man could talk

  the balls off a pool table.

  Her face looks

  like she was weaned

  on a pickle.

  I wouldn’t trust

  that man if

  his tongue came

  notarized.

  He’s so crooked

  if he swallowed a nail he’d

  spit up a corkscrew.

  That woman’s

  full of more

  crap than a

  constipated

  elephant.

  That man’s slicker than

  pig snot on a radiator.

  He’s as useless

  as a milk bucket

  under a bull.

  She's as sorry

  as a two-dollar watch.

  She's so sorry

  I wouldn't wave to her if

  my arm was on fire.

  She was so drunk

  she was stumbling

  around like a blind mule

  in a pumpkin patch.

  He was so high

  he could sit on Wednesday

  and see both Sundays.

  That woman’s got

  more issues than

  Better Homes and

  Gardens.

  That man would complain

  if you hung him with a new rope.

  He couldn't find

  his ass with both hands

  and a road map.

  The only culture

  that woman will ever have is a yeast infection.

  Talk

  Southern

  to Me 'Bout

  Life

  Life

  “Sometimes you gotta hang in there like a hair in a biscuit.”

  I was in Philosophy 101 class at the University of South Carolina listening to my professor prattle on about the merits of famous philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates when it dawned on me that I had been raised by philosophers. Being taught “Southern philosophy” is a rite of passage in the South. Southerners have their own particular system of philosophical thought that’s not always rooted in formal education but rather in life experience. And that life experience is passed down from generation to generation. And although much of this philosophy doesn’t make a lick of sense to us in childhood, as we grow and begin to view life through the prism of adulthood, we come to appreciate the tremendous value of this homespun Southern wisdom.

  My granddaddy, who I called “Papa Cooter,” was a cattle farmer, an auctioneer, and a war hero. Now, Papa Cooter wasn’t eat up with book smarts, but he was certainly eat up with life smarts. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease when I was young and lived with my family for many years, so I got a full dose of Papa Cooter’s phil
osophy. He used to say, “Never kick a cow turd on a hot day.” As a kid, I thought to myself, “Why on earth would ya kick a cow turd?” Later in life I understood the lesson he was teaching me—timing is everything. I also came to learn that this was a quote attributed to former President Harry Truman, who, like Papa Cooter, had a grounded sense of philosophy informed by years spent on a farm.

  Lord knows I couldn’t have been farther away from a farm when I moved to New York City to pursue Broadway. I was young and naïve and had to navigate my way through that urban jungle and all of the dangers that lurked within it. I attribute my survival to the treasure chest of Southern philosophy accumulated from family folks like Papa Cooter. When I first landed in NYC I had a sublet apartment, but the term was only for a month, so time was a-tickin’. I knew I had to immediately hunt for a place to live and thought, “How hard can it be? My cousin Billy and Uncle Jimmy are first rate deer hunters—hunting’s in my blood. Hunting comes natural to Southerners.” It only took a skinny minute for me to learn that getting an apartment in New York City is more competitive than a Texas beauty pageant.

  Now this was back before the Internet, so the apartment listings were in a weekly newspaper called The Village Voice. I would run to a newspaper kiosk at dawn to purchase the latest edition, encouraged by my Daddy’s motto, “Luck favors the backbone, not the wishbone.” I would immediately scour the classifieds and begin the grueling process of calling and setting up appointments with people looking for a roommate or with real estate brokers showing available apartments. Then I would haul my tail all over the city meeting weirdos I could never live with in spaces that were either uninhabitable or outrageously expensive and were usually taken by the time I got there anyway. And the real estate brokers were all slicker than snot on a doorknob. They were fast-talking Yankee sharks whose fees were 15 percent of the yearly rental rate, and that fee was required on top of two month’s rent and a security deposit.

  The hunt had to be repeated each day, and there was no amount of deer corn that could help me attract an NYC apartment. Every morning began with such optimism and every evening ended in despair. How would I ever make it to Broadway if I couldn’t even find a place to live? I went to bed night after night crying crocodile tears but found strength in the philosophical words of my Granny Winnie, “Sometimes you gotta hang in there like a hair in a biscuit.”

  Sure enough, Granny Winnie was right. Mere days before my sublet was up, I met a lady who had an enormous, sprawling, stunning apartment. She was a widow whose husband had recently died. She said she liked to spend most of her time at her house in the Hamptons, so she was looking to rent one of her bedrooms to someone who could house-sit, since she was hardly ever at her city apartment. Not only was my hunt a success, I had broken the Boone and Crockett Club record! Score! I quickly wrote her a check for nearly half the money I had saved teaching dance back home in South Carolina and skipped through the streets of Manhattan happier than a tick on a hound dog.

  I moved into this gorgeous apartment and was so relieved I could finally focus all my energy on getting a job. Unfortunately, this lady focused all her energy on me. She never went to her Hamptons house. In fact, she barely left the apartment. She had everything delivered: groceries, dry cleaning, medicine. I caught her listening to my phone conversations. She rearranged my food in the cabinets and refrigerator. She plastered “No Smoking” signs on my bedroom and bathroom door. I reminded her I was not a smoker. But she insisted the signs were necessary, “In case I had a visitor.”

  Well one afternoon I did have a visitor. A friend of mine worked on a cruise ship and it was docked in Manhattan for the day, so we went to dinner, and then he came over to see my new place. When he left, this lady had a meltdown and said I was never again allowed to have a guest in the apartment because they might “steal something” and that “strangers made her uncomfortable.” My childhood friend Leslie had a sassy Southern Mama named MurMur, who used to preach to us, “To argue with a fool makes two.” So instead of telling this fool she was overreacting, I quietly retired to my room. And that’s when I noticed that the clothes in my closet had been rearranged. My heart sank. I knew I had to immediately find a new place to live ’cause my Granny Fowler had taught me, “there’s never enough makeup to hide crazy.”

  “There’s never enough makeup to hide crazy.”

  I left early the next morning for an audition and when I got home in the afternoon, two policemen were waiting to inform me the owner was evicting me. I explained that I had paid for three months rent. They explained that my name was not on the lease so I had no legal rights. My jaw dropped . . . I was homeless. The police forced me to pack on the spot and haul my things down to the lobby. I sat on the stoop of that building, incredulous that I was back at square one and not sure what to do. But eventually, I wiped my tears and accepted reality. As Papa Cooter used to say, “Sometimes you gotta lick that calf all over again.”

  Thankfully, I had a friend from Tennessee, Tabb, who was a dancer in NYC. Being a true Southern gentleman, he rescued me and allowed me to stay in his crowded apartment until I could figure something out. I was determined to find my own place—no more lunatic roommates. I searched for another few weeks, then one day I made an appointment with a real estate broker handling a vacant studio apartment on the Upper West Side. I put on my nicest dress and heels, did full hair and makeup, and took the subway from Tabb’s apartment in Queens to Manhattan. New Yorkers were melting from the oppressive summer heat, but being a Southern woman weaned on humidity, I was unfazed and simply applied more pressed powder. I was on a mission.

  When I walked into the office, the real estate agent gruffly shooed me towards a chair then yelled and cursed on the phone while I waited. And waited. And waited. As time passed, my red-headed temper began to boil, but I remembered my Mama’s philosophical mantra: “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” When he finally spoke to me, I proceeded to unload every bit of Southern charm inscribed in my DNA. The ruder he was, the nicer I was. Mama always taught me to “Kill ’em with kindness.” The more he tried to dismiss me from his office, the more questions I asked him about his life and family. Charm disarms, and I eventually got him under the Southern spell. Despite the fact that he had a huge stack of applications for that apartment and I was the least financially qualified candidate, he became exhausted by my cheerfulness and said, “Fine! If you’ll leave so I can get back to work, I’ll help you get this apartment.”

  I had to bust through a lot of red tape, beg my friend’s husband who worked on Wall Street to cosign the lease, and make oodles of pleading phone calls to my Daddy, who reluctantly helped me with money, but I got that apartment. It was so small, when you sat on the toilet you had to put one foot in the bathtub, but I was proud as punch of my palace. Despite an army of roaches, I slept like a baby my first night there, feeling as if I had conquered New York. Little did I know I was about to face a mountain of new obstacles trying to make it to Broadway. But a blind mule ain’t afraid of the darkness. So I chased my dream with gusto. And when I made it to Broadway, I got that real estate broker tickets.

  Don’t let your alligator mouth

  override your hummingbird ass.

  The sun don’t shine

  on the same dog’s tail all

  the time.

  Don’t go up

  a hog’s butt to see

  how much

  lard is in a pound.

  Don’t bolt your door with a carrot.

  Sweep your own

  back porch before sweeping

  somebody else's.

  Sometimes the juice

  just ain’t

  worth the squeeze.

  The grass is always greener

  over the septic tank.

  No need to fear the wind

  if your hay’s tied down.

  Anyone can eat

  an elephant

  one bite at a time.

  Don't worry about

  the m
ule going blind.. Just

  load the wagon.

  Turnip tops

  don’t tell you the size

  of the turnips.

  Worrying is like a rocking chair:

  gives you something to do

  but gets you nowhere.

  Don't stir up crap

  unless you're willing to

  lick the spoon.

  No matter how slick

  you are, you can’t

  slide on barbed wire.

  You plant a butter bean,

  you get a butter bean.

  Live like a peacock: don’t ruffle your

  feathers unless you’re prepared to fight.

  Don’t bring a knife

  to a gunfight.

  Even a blind hog

  finds an acorn now

  and then.

  Many good flowers

  get chopped up by associating

  with weeds.

  Let sleeping dogs lie.

  You can put boots in

  the oven, but that don’t

  make 'em biscuits.

  Tend to your

  own knitting.

  Don’t air

  your dirty linen

  in public.

  Some folks are

  all hat and no cattle.

  When getting your ducks in a row,

  remember that some may not be

  your ducks.

  If you ain’t the lead dog

  then don’t expect the view to be

  a-changing.

  The guilty dog

  barks the loudest.

  Everybody walks

  up fool’s hill.

  An ounce of

  pretension

  is worth a pound

  of manure.

  Some folks

  think cow horns

  won’t hook.

  Never wrestle with a pig;

  you’ll both get dirty, and the pig likes it.

  Life is full of folks