Where are you now Slurve when the country so desparately needs you?
According to their Twitter account Slurve Magazine was an arts and culture review online mag that masqueraded as a baseball publication, and non-profit org that supports arts, education, and social responsibility. The magazine's last Tweet was from 2013.
For a number of years this was the official website for Slurve Magazine.
Content is from the site's 2007 -2013 archived pages providing a glimpse of what this magazine offered its readership.
Where are you now Slurve when the country so desparately needs you during the presidency of Drumpf?
Dear Friends, Readers. and People from the Future,
Thank you for visiting SLURVE magazine. Welcome to The First Pitch. Before you get to the art part, we’d like to take a minute to thank Mike and Bill for their respective help with the design and programming, as well as everyone who sent in a submission for giving us such an incredible selection of talented artists to draw from. More importantly, we would also like to thank our mothers. Not that our mothers sent submissions, or any seed capital to help defray our start-up costs, but we still couldn’t have done this without them.
We would also like to apologize to everyone we did not have a chance to respond to, but turning a sandlot into a major league ballpark is a lot of work, especially for a four-man organization - so if you don’t see your name in the table of contents, you can consider this your rejection letter.
We have to go write our academy award speech now just in case someone decides to turn our magazine into a flash animation movie and the academy creates a category for it. If not, we’d also be willing to accept a daytime Emmy; we hear they’ll give those out for just about anything. Anyway, we hope you enjoy your stay here at SLURVE, and remember; we’re still holding tryouts for all positions, so don’t worry if we rejected your initial offer; it doesn’t mean we’re not willing to negotiate.
When we decided we were going to start a magazine, the first, and probably most difficult thing we had to do was decide on a name for our publication. But what would it be? We could pick anything. It wasn’t an easy task though; we needed a name that would encapsulate our entire existence in just a few words. Impossible, our friends said. We said we liked that name, but there was still something missing. Something missing that is, until one of us came up with SLURVE.
It didn’t take us very long to realize we weren’t going to come up with anything better. Of course we didn’t want to waste all the other fantastic names we had thought of, so we decided to post them here and turn them into a contest. Winners of said contest will be published in the off-season issue next winter. Just incorporate one or more item from the following lists into any piece you wish to submit.
List of Rejected Magazine Titles:
| Lux Vortex MHJ Spongeworthy Bad Apple Zoo Cellophane Jesuit Monkey Retarded Cousin Grass Clippings Relevance Potatoes & Rye Pelican Soup You’ve Got Dysentery! Tentacle Pile |
Disaster Aneurism Please Regenerate Sour Pudding Shelf Dustbunny Stab Liminal The Confabulant Somnambulism Vertigo Corpuscle This is Not a Democracy Loose Lips Charismatic Harlequin Pouch |
Faceplant Leaden Astrologer Sandpiper Portent The Conspirational Other People’s Garbage Toothpaste Xenophobic Lover Carrion Reliquarium You Have Lupus. Dead Ex-Girlfriend Cycloptic Mother Whorus Jungle Propagandopoly |
Roomful of Mirrors Prophylactic Sedition Headless Pedagogy Marble Tea Artichoke Ballyhoo Pirate Magazine Zword Defunct Please Use Your Inside Voice Electredible Caddywompus Literarity Gyrovague VROOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!! F |
Continued List of Rejected Band Names:*
| Frank & Sally The Little Yellow Pills Your Worst Nightmare The 1976 East German Olympic Swim Team Kittens with Rifles Just Out of Diapers The Swiss Yodeling Team Peaches & Lavender Stu the Rabbit Al Gore Rhythm Clever Spartacus Satan’s Doorknob Lactose Intolerant In Some Faraway Place Toilet Training for Dummies |
Seriously Not Joking Not to be Harmed Full Romnul Alert The Hopeless Romantics The Mexican Firing Squad Death Elevator Chocolate Sunday Strange Noises in the Basement Drowning Polar Bears Two Left Feet The Felonious Monks Trespassing Elephants in Tutus Picking Up Hitchhikers Snakeskin Cowboy Boots Like Nothing You’ve Ever Seen Before Gauntlet of Gerbils |
The Ghost of Charlie Brown Dead to You Outta Here Velvet Taco Decapatiller Hortu Vorple A Better Mousetrap TPing Ned Lamont’s House Spork Divided by Horses The Radioactive Violets Anthropomorphic Vultures The Underwear Mafia Flotsam and the Jetsons Terrified of Weasels Turd Ferguson |
Porful Orpus The Epidermen Tromboneronius Interstellar Overdrive Panda Ed. Flapjacks The Hanging Kitties Phil and the Blanks Krazy Kat & The Sandwichman The Sedimentalists Orgatu Ginjaro The Chesnut Brown Canaries The Digital Fridge The Protagonists |
If you’ve made it this far, and are interested in submitting, go ahead and send us your stuff to seventhinningstretch@slurvemag.com some time between now and next year.
*Not that we’re starting a band, but some of the names we came up with did not sound like magazines.
Dear Slurve,
I really like you and all, but I just don't think we were meant to be together. I've tried text messaging you this over the last week, but no response. I know it sucks to get broken up with over a text message, it's just, I was so afraid to do it in person. On the brighter side of things, I don't have the clap, which means neither do you. Well, it was really good while it lasted, and I hope we can still be friends that enjoy air soft pistols and making fun of each others' relatives. My mom really liked you. She said you had spunk, but spunk only gets you so far these days. You should know it was me that stole the condoms from your brother's glove compartment. It's better to be safe than sorry. I don't think he was using them anyway. I just hope that you get this letter before you go out buying puppies or 5 gallon tubs of heavenly hash to make yourself feel better. I never thought I'd say this, but I think I have fallen in love with a real baseball magazine. I'll never forget you though, or the way you throw a gyroball.
Take care of yourself, and don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll find a new girl that likes the spin you put on your balls real soon.
Love Always, xxxxx
There was a beauty there, refined from country pastures; a game of solitariness, of waiting, waiting for the pitcher to complete his gaze toward first base and throw his lightning, a game whose very taste of spit and dust and grass and sweat and leather and sun, was America.
~ John Updike
Don Newcombe pitches to Gene Baker at Wrigley Field
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Slurve is currently holding open try-outs for the 2012 season.
Want to get on the field for a game, or earn a regular spot in our lineup?
All you have to do is show us you can hit a Slurve.
Here's what we're looking for:
| Creative Non-Fiction: | Whether you're covering sports, politics, current events, art, photography, film, tv, music, literature, food and drink or travel, we we're looking for pieces that are both insightful and entertaining, so be informative, but be funny. Including links and pictures is encouraged, as is completely making things up. Pieces can be as short as you want, but we prefer reviews be kept under 755 words, and articles under 1,600. |
| Poetry & Short Fiction: | 3 piece, 9 page limit. Not more than one about baseball. |
| Longer Fiction: | 2,632 word limit. Submit one piece at a time. Queries acceptable. |
| Other: | Want to send comics, or other audio, visual, or multimedia projects for consideration? We'll publish any format that is publishable on the web as long as we consider it Slurveworthy. |
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The Starting Lineup
Arts & Culture
Inside the Diamond
Right Field/Left Field
Foul Tips
Around the League
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Inside the Diamond
Slurve's Baseball Section
Since we are an arts and culture review that masquerades as a baseball publication, we've never had much of a baseball section per se. That is not to say that we're not interested in funny, fast-paced baseball coverage for folks who don't follow the game all that closely but like occasional updates on their teams, but our editors have been focused on arts, culture and politics, and we haven't really had the time to build out our sports department. So if you think you've got the spin we're looking for and are interested in covering your team, division or league, or sports in general, we certainly encourage you to try out for Slurve.
Until then, here's some baseball-related creative writing.
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Right Field/Left Field 2013
Slurve's Politics Section
Top 9 Ways to Spot an Illegal Immigrant
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A few years ago Phil Collins and Genesis sang something about how it’s no fun being an illegal alien. Well, you know what, Phil? It’s no picnic hunting them down either. For those of us Americans who want to keep everything in our land on the up and up, how do we tell an illegal alien from a nice, lawful one like Simon Cowell or the Great Gazoo? Well, being the proud Americans that we are, Slurve has come up with nine ways to spot an illegal immigrant. Learn them, love them. But most of all, have fun using them. 1. Ask Just like a tazer or a plunger, if racial profiling didn’t work, cops surely wouldn’t use it. And if there’s a better way to profile, tell me. I’m all ears. We’ve tried doing it by sex, size and people wearing leather pants. None of them have worked. So the best thing to do is stroll up to anyone who looks Spanish and say, “Are you legal?” If they say no or something about not hablaing ingles, tackle them. Make a citizen’s arrest. If they say yes, or even “si,” move on. And throw away that jury duty notice. You’ve already done you’re civic duty. 2. Get Some Papers
Studies show illegal immigrants aren’t always truthful about their legality. Thus, further harassment may be in order if they claim to be legal. You can begin by asking the three questions Chong asks Cheech in the song “Born in East L.A.” Where were you born? Where’s your green card? Who is the president? With the first question, do not just accept East L.A., Phoenix or Tucson as an answer. Get them to produce a green card. They might hand you something pink. This is an illegal alien trick. Reiterate to them that you want a green card – a tarjeta verde. Next they’ll hand you all sorts of things: a Blockbuster card, a slice of cheese, a 1966 Roberto Clemente. None of these will suffice; although, the Clemente might fetch a few dollars. 3. Get a Social Security Card All U.S. citizens have a social security number and should have a card to go with it. If a suspected illegal panics when you ask for a green card, get an SS card. The card itself won’t do, however, as many illegals steal SSNs from children, dead people and other foreigners. Ask them to tell you their SSN. Anyone who hasn’t memorized their SSN – even clean, normal, white people – is an idiot and belongs behind bars. If they have memorized the number, let them go. Even if they are illegal and an identity thief, remembering those nine digits in English is a feat for which they should be applauded and freed. 4. Listen For Any Language That Isn’t English
Let’s face it. Not knowing English should be a crime anyway. So if you hear anything that sounds remotely Spanish, even Spanglish, be suspicious. You may not want to approach a suspected illegal. This is understandable. They may pull a knife or a gun on you. So if you can just listen, strange, unfamiliar speech is enough to report your suspicions to authorities. It may be Spanish. It may be one of those other crazy, moonman languages. If it hurts your American ears, report it. Footnote: Be suspicious of white people who speak English with German or Swedish accents too. If you plan on making a citizen's arrest in these cases, make sure you are equipped with furry pink handcuffs. 5. If You See Any Suspicious Race Mixing A silly loophole in the immigration law is that by simply tricking an actual U.S. citizen into marrying you, you become, as if by magic, a U.S. citizen yourself.
When you spot an everyday American-looking person walking with a foreigner of the opposite sex, your illegal radar should go off. If you can corner the American alone, tell them you understand their situation and that help is on the way. 6. Patrol the Utah Border If an illegal can’t find an unhitched citizen to marry, where else will he or she run but the state where you can double up on spouses? This multiple-spouses business within the Mormon community in Utah may or may not be a bunch of hooey to us right-thinking Americans, but to illegals it’s something worth trying. Head to the Utah-Arizona border. It’s reported that Mitt Romney and Carlos Boozer have already captured fifty immigrants between them. 7. Extreme Rooming We’ve all had a roommate or two to knock the price of rent down, but how many of us take in up to twenty unless we have something, or someone, to hide?
Yes, whenever you see an illegal immigrant raid it’s always at an apartment where 15 to 20 of them are living together. No one does this outside of nursery rhymes in which the living quarters is a shoe. Remember, they may look alike, and they could indeed all be the same guy. They could also be brothers. One could be a grandmother. Eventually they’ll slip up and you’ll spot them all together through the living room window watching soccer or a cockfight. 8. Get Yourself a Border Patrol Patch Spotting an illegal can be as simple as sewing a Border Patrol patch onto your jacket and cap and watching the criminales flee. This is perhaps the most ideal way to tell an illegal because you don’t really have to do any work other than the initial obtaining of the patch and getting your mother, wife or gay cousin to sew it onto something. Now it’s not you trying to spot the illegals. It’s the illegals spotting you and then running for their lives. All you have to do now is find a cop and shout “Illegal!” Unless there’s a basketball game happening nearby where they might think you’re some nut yelling about a defensive penalty, everyone will look for the nearest sprinting Mexican. 9. Keep an Eye on the Kitchen at Mexican Restaurants The greeters and waitresses at Mexican places are almost always hot white chicks. If you can get past this and focus your attention on the kitchen staff, you might catch as many illegals as Boozer. Here’s what I do. I ask my most handsome white, male friend to have lunch or dinner with me. Mexican sounds good. All hetero American males love Mexican food. Then get this friend to charm his way into that kitchen via the sexy dining room help. She doesn’t even have to be sexy. In fact, the less hot the better, because catching Pedro urinating in the guacamole will be that much easier. Go Extra Innings: Build Your Own Predator Drone
When it comes to the top nine ways to tell an illegal immigrant, there are at least ten or twenty. But those who mean business only need one, and, while the President orders the MQ-1 and the MQ-9 Reaper to be aimed at the likes of the Jonas Brothers and Justin Bieber, you can fly yours all over the deserts of Southern Arizona. |
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An interview with David Kirby: Words, Wisdom, Women, Whitman, Willie Mays & The White House, and 17 other questions David Kirby doesn’t answer.
David Kirby is the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University. He has two books forthcoming in 2007, The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems (LSU Press) and an essay collection entitled Ultra-Talk: Johnny Cash, The Mafia, Shakespeare, Drum Music, St. Teresa Of Avila, And 17 Other Colossal Topics Of Conversation (University of Georgia Press).
First, we would like to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to sit down and answer some questions for us. Which leads us to our first question: why did you agree to this interview?
Oh, I agree to everything. That doesn’t mean I’ll do it or do a good job, but people like it when you say yes. Why not cheer them up?
Well thanks. But don’t you find that agreeing to everything can lead to some sticky situations? And when you agree to something and don’t follow through, aren’t people more upset than they otherwise would have been if you didn’t agree in the first place? What are you, some kind of sadist that gets off on cheering people up just so you can disappoint them later?
Usually people forget. The real disappointment comes when you say to Mr. Dithers, “I skipped my kid’s soccer game and stayed at my desk all weekend while Blondie brought me mugs of soup, but I finished that report.” And he says, “What report, Bumstead?”
Hmmm. You have a point there. How many liquor stores have you held up?
Just one, and it was a convenience store. I’d given a reading at a little college in South Carolina, and the young men of the English Department took me out so we could moisten our clay with strong waters. After our clay was good and moist, we needed snacks, so we stopped at a store and sent a guy in. Two minutes later, he barrels out the door with maybe a dozen family-sized bags of chips, cheese curls, and pork rinds spilling out of his arms as he shouts, “Start the car. Start the car!” I remember looking glumly out the back window while the proprietor gained on us and then fell away as the driver accelerated. I guess I was just an accessory, but judges don’t seem to make that distinction.
Does that mean you got caught, or turned yourself in, or what?
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Government Enters Mexican Standoff
by Noah Veil
Last December, Slurve reported that Barack Obama have been taking his cues from Keanu Reeves, and in particular his role in the movie Speed. Republicans (Dennis Hopper) had taken Progressives (Jeff Daniels) hostage, and in order to save him, Obama shoots Daniels in the leg. Hopper gets away though and wires the economy (a bus) to explode if it drops below 50mph.
Since that vote to extend the Bush tax cuts, we have been circling the runway biding time. But now we're running out of fuel. And even if a deal is reached on the debt ceiling, the hostage-takers' demands have largely been met. It's all spending cuts and no revenue increases, which is not going to help the economic recovery or put more people to work.
Unfortunately this is where the analogy falls apart. The President, whose policies the American people seem to agree with, has seen his approval ratings steadily decline for the past few weeks--I can only assume because he is not being forceful enough in advocating for a more balanced approach instead of capitulating to the Republicans yet again. If he's not careful, he won't get to make out with Sandra Bullock, or be asked to star in a sequel.
Of course there are other Reeves movies we could look to: Point Break has bank robbers that wear masks of dead Presidents, which seems strangely appropriate, and our political system is so dysfunctional right now that I have to wonder if this isn't really The Matrix.
All this political brinksmanship however made another action-packed thriller come to mind--this one starring Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage. That's right, I'm talking about The Rock, and specifically the mutiny scene that comes near the end of the movie. The American People are obviously the hostages, who have been taken by a gang of rogue government employees. Captain Darrow ("I want my fucking money!") represents corporate interests, and Captain Frye ("Who ever said anything about bluffing?") is the Tea Party. The President is forced to kill the hostages in order to prevent a global economic catastrophe. And General Hummel, that's John Boehner...if only John Boehner were such a badass.
As for Nick Cage and Sean Connery, I want to say they're the Progressives and Independents, who are trying to dismantle the chemical weapons that General Hummel and his men have pointed at San Francisco. But in the real-life version I'm not sure Cage makes it to the rocket in time.
We're just going to have to wait and see what happend next. Will Cage be able to talk sense into Darrow and Frye, making them realize that in order to get the economy moving again and ensure our long-term prosperity we have to invest in education and infrastructure and science and technology? Let's hope so, otherwise perhaps the ending of Reservoir Dogs serves as a better analogy. I won't try to explain the whole thing, but mob boss Joe Cabot ("You don't need proof when you have instinct.") is the Tea Party, and pretty much everyone dies.
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America’s obsession with equality predates the very existence of our country. Going back to the Declaration of Independence, when nationhood was still just a gleam our Founding Fathers' eyes, we thought it...
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Foul Tips
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Welcome to
Around the League
Paul Lander, Managing Editor
We make snap judgements onthe latest headlines from around the web so you don't have to.
(And we even include links on the off chance you're actually interested in reading the articles.)
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