Two Truths and a Lie with Paul Thorn

Photos by Stephanie Rhea

Paul Thorn was raised in Mississippi and spent his youth as a middleweight boxer. After getting his ass kicked by Roberto Duran in 1988, he turned to music. He’s written enough songs to have a greatest-hits record, and his new LP Pimps & Preachers is out now, but he may be just as well-known as a yarn-spinning storyteller. So we asked him to tell us three tales—two true, and one not. We bet you can’t tell the difference. (Scroll to the bottom of the story to see the answer.) Nick Marino

Story 1
It was the last jump of the day. All I had on was a pair of shorts, flipflops and a parachute. I exited the plane at 14,000 feet and free fell toward the earth at 120 miles per hour. As I plummeted, it started raining. At that speed of descent, the raindrops stung me like liquid bees. I rolled into a ball to try and protect my exposed skin from the elements as a sudden wind blew me dangerously away from the landing zone. When I pulled my ripcord the chute opened, but I had to land in the middle of a busy interstate. Cars swerved to miss me as I landed hard on the concrete. When I woke up in the back of an ambulance, I was thankful to be alive.

Story 2
My uncle once told me, “Creative restraint in a man brings out intense passion in a woman.’’ He proved this to me as we sat on a couch at a friend’s house with six other men in the room, watching a pretty girl dance seductively to a boom box playing Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me.’’ We all sat there with our tongues hanging out. As the girl swayed to the music, my uncle whispered in my ear and told me to stop watching her. He said, “Pick up a magazine and pretend to read it.’’ I didn’t understand his request but I managed to put my eyeballs back in my skull and browsed through a Field & Stream that was on the coffee table. Suddenly, she singled me out and started giving me a lap dance. As she gyrated on my trembling knee caps I wanted to look, but I stood my mental ground and focused on an article about fly fishing in Alaska. Out of nowhere my uncle looked at me and said it was time to go. When we walked out to our car, she followed us outside in her stone-washed Daisy Dukes and Chuck Taylor low-tops. As we were backing out she tried to kiss me through the passenger-side window. I literally had to push her upper torso out of the vehicle as we drove away. In the rear-view mirror I could see her standing there with a confused, hungry look on her face.

Story 3
Two years ago my wife caught me French kissing a fan at one of my shows and filed for divorce. She poured her wrath out on me like hot grits. She even hooked up with my best friend to give me a taste of my own medicine. I said I was sorry, but nothing I tried could soften the hard shell that she had built around her broken heart. In a last-ditch effort I drove to a local radio station and asked the DJ to dedicate Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn’’ to her from me. She heard my plea as she was driving home from work, and she melted like butter. That night we had a romantic meal at Bonanza and were reunited as a couple. We went home and made sweet, sweet love. The hickey on her inner thigh didn’t even bother me. The past is the past. The power of Bret Michaels’ music had saved our marriage.













˙ǝıן ɐ sı ʎɹoʇs pɹıɥʇ ǝɥʇ ˙sɥʇnɹʇ ǝɹɐ sǝıɹoʇs puoɔǝs puɐ ʇsɹıɟ ǝɥʇ :ɹǝʍsuɐ