Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor | Pye in the Face

Leveraging low-hanging synergies outside the vertical fruit box since 1999.

Archives for November 2004

Why I Don’t Drink Much Anymore.


in Heartwarming

Pyeman73: So I’m at the Tap.

Anonymous (my sister): right now?

Pyeman73: No. It’s 11:30 in the morning. I was at the Tap.

Pyeman73: Bryan’s bartender buddy was feeeding us beers.

Anonymous: yick

Pyeman73: Bryan gets up to go to the bathroom. I catch this guy’s eye who was like 10 feet away.

Pyeman73: Scummy black guy. About 25.

Pyeman73: Comes over. ‘What are you looking at me fo’?

Pyeman73: ‘Is you gay?’

Pyeman73: And these two white chicks he’s with are sneering at me like backup dancers.

Pyeman73: So I put down my beer and go: ‘Buddy – are you looking for a fucking problem?’

Pyeman73: And the chicks go pale and drag him out of the bar.

Pyeman73: Do I look like a sissy or something?

Anonymous: you are 30 and hanging out at the tap

Anonymous: you deserved it.

Fair enough.

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The Boston Common Pumpkin Festival.


in

The Life is Good Pumpkin Festival was held on October 23rd, 2004 on Boston Common. 50,000 people shuffled through on that cold, cloudy day to watch the organizers try and break the Guiness world record for the most lit Jack-O-Lanterns. They didn’t actually break the record (somewhere over 16K) but they came within spitting distance. And to be fair the feat was quite amazing in spite of that – as there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 29,000 carved pumpkins (just not all lit) on the Common over the course of the day.

Where does one get or grow 29 thousand pumpkins, you ask? Dammned if I know. There were trailerloads of them dumped out around the carving stations which some guy on a microphone kept trying to get people to come over and participate in. Only problem was, you needed your own knife. I don’t imagine I need to delve into the potential legal rammifications of handing out knives to strangers on Boston Common after dusk. But still, it’s hard to carve pumpkins with car keys. Not impossible though, judging from some of the more crap carvings on display. I’ll put it on record – little kids have no business whatsoever participating in Halloween related festivities.

Also featured on stage were Mayor “Mumbles” Menino – who i believe thanked Life is Good for organizing the event. But he could have been reciting the 4th act of The Merchant of Venice for all I could make out. And then there was a country-western band who got the crowd jumpin’ with a backwoods version of ‘Hold Me Now’ by The Thompon Twins. I tried to think up some alternate titles for the song in this incarnation, and finally settled on ‘Hold Me Now And Pass The Corn Liquor Before You Sodomize Me Uncle Cletus’. I kept that to myself.

My roomate Betsy and I brought Nakul, and his wife Deepika along for the pumpkin peeping. They’re proud new parents but were grateful for the chance to get out and see more Boston/less bright yellow baby-shit. Among our favorites, the scary skeleton, the turtle from Finding Nemo and the 80% of the rest of the 29K that read simply “Go Red Sox”. Actually, the Red Sox carvings got a little tiresome after awhile. But we were bearing down on the World Series at the time and I guess all those pumpkins did a lot to help clinch the victory. And very little to feed the city’s homeless. Personally, I could see a pumpkin pie kitchen, as opposed to a soup kitchen, doing quite well in the old combat zone. If it were run by underage male prostitutes.

The adventure ended across the street at the Public Garden, where Nakul chased a Canada Goose and I had an unfortunate disagreement with a squirrel over (insert ‘nuts’ joke here – I like to make the blog interactive when I can). The Boston Pumpkin Festival was a great time, and a massive undertaking akin to the pyramids of Egypt. I have no idea how much money was raised or who sponsored it, but nice work kids. A produce-wasting effort of Gallagherian proportions.

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Not All British People Despise Us. Or Are Sane.


in

This is a touching diatribe I found in my e-mail this morning from my British friend, Taz. He is a learned man, a scholar, who also resembles a maniacal scientist. When he’s not re-animating dead human tissue, he’s usually locked in a political debate with myself and a group of our other friends – liberals and conservatives alike. Yes – Taz’s view of the world is similar to my own. But that’s not why I’m posting this colorful snippet this morning. It’s quite simply some funny shit, and I want to share.

“Universities are nothing but rabid festering hubs of Marxist subversion and bogus revolutionary propoganda… a fifth column, the enemy within, the source of poncy half-baked leftist theory, political correctness and pandering to Johnny Foreigner. They’ve made all the clever people soft as shite in the head, I tell you! I say burn them down along with their libraries full of odious liberal manifestos and filth! Smash up the data centers, throw the servers out of the window, kill C++, unix and Java, hang anyone wearing glasses and behead Michael Moore a with pair of rusty nailscissors on national TV… Year Zero… Zilch AD… back to the fields, people, back to the fields! Those green fragrant fields…As a Pink Floyd remarked so prophetically: we dan’t need nah ejoocayshin…

I spent 6 years being systematically brainwashed at these sinister institutions and emerged a big girls blouse pinko dilettante reading The Guardian newspaper fervently, supporting the miners strike, Greenpeace and Amnesty International, wearing black denim 501 and suede brogue Doc Martens and boring the tits off people about the repression of the working classes, the evils of colonialism and ‘sticking it to The Man’ etc…The worst part was dating a string of chicks who were more passionate about vegetarianism than they were about shagging…”put your unfeasibly large and impressive knob away, Taz, can’t you see I’m cooking couscous with Soya bean mush, woodchippings and chick pea sludge tonight, yummy!”



The truth is I’m still not cured… I still read the bloody Guardian even though most of it is bollocks, still occasionally listen to my Style Council records, vote Labour and still partial to the odd falafal tucked into a pita. A sushi socialist my mates call me. How I wish sometimes I’d been born in Pigs-Rectum, Mississippi and got my simple innocent kicks by dining on grits with deep fried squirral, boning my 6-year-old handicapped sister, dressing up in mama’s piss-stained bed sheets, wearing a pointy hat made out of soiled underpants and torching wooden crucifixes in the backyards of those…”

I’m gonna stop you right there Taz. Some of us have work to do today. But a welcome and entertaining Thursday rant, nonetheless. And please, do not use the brain in the jar marked “Abby Normal”.

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Moby Wants To Move To Canada. Canada: “No”


in Musical, Politics

Electronica ‘musician’ Moby keeps blathering away in a journal on his website, and in typical Streisand style does little else but lament the election and bash George W. Bush. He’d like to secede to Canada, and bring most of the Northeastern USA with him. I think I’d like to address his wishes on Canada’s behalf, if I may.

“Dear Canada,

Now, more than ever, your neighbor to the south (aka-the blue states) needs you. most of us living in the Northern and Western parts of the United States don’t feel very connected to the rest of the U.S, so can we bring our states and become part of Canada?”

In a word, “no”. I can’t speak for every frostback on snowshoes, but your desire to flee to the Great White North reminds me of that little kid in my neighborhood who owned the baseball all us other runts used to play with. If you didn’t get to play first base – which was each and every time you asked due to the fact that you were a spineless, scrawny weakling with the athletecism of a bowl of warm potato salad – you’d take the ball and go home. This would leave the rest of the kids stuck searching the field for a suitably sized rock to take the ball’s place. Or to knock over a sports store with an Entertech.

“The benefits to you: …in one fell swoop you can have Southern California and New York City! surfing in Canada! suddenly the U.N. is on Canadian soil! Broadway is suddenly in Canada! you could then say that Canada is the birthplace of jazz and hip-hop!”

Courtesy of The Spectator

I want Robert Redford, Moby and the thousands of other Americans who’ve thrown their hats into the ring for Canadian citizenship since the election to know that you’ll be getting in the cue with everyone else. And you can’t bring any of your states with you either – because real citizens have fought for hundreds of years to keep every last inch of them free. It’s completely illegal and utterly impossible for Bush to run again. If you revile him so very much, buckle down and do something positive to get your party back in power. Stay where you are, in the amazing country in which you were lucky enough to be born, and stop acting like a 2-year-old with a heat-stick in his diaper. So you know – Canada is the most nationalistic country on the planet, and we’re most certainly not accepting phony, fairweather pseudo-patriots at this point in time. I’m sure you’ll be more than welcome in North Korea.

“Accepting this offer will give you more good karma than you’d know what to do with (because you would instantly make 120 million people VERY happy). So you get warm beaches, tons of cash, and good karma.”

Please don’t talk to me about karma, Moby. You’re probably the only visiting performer in history to get your ass kicked in front of the Paradise. People CAME TO YOUR SHOW just to kick your ass. Now – if I needed advice on how to get my head to resemble that of a Gashlycrumb Tiny or how to score a commercial for Audi, Reebok, American Express, Motorola or the Gap – Moby would be near the top of my list of people to call. Keep rebelling against all things corporate, my bald anti-establishment brother.

“Please let us know if you accept the offer. Given our enthusiasm to join Canada it’s safe to say that the details of the offer could probably be worked out in an afternoon.”

Canada? Are you listening? Do you mind if I jump in real quick and handle this one? I’m already down in Boston, and I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than talk to this snivelly Powder lookalike. Great! Thanks.

Moby, I’ll eternally savor being the one who gets to tell you to “fuck off“. Eh?

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Wookin’ Pa Nub: Search Yourselves Silly.


in Pye in the Face

Four months and 115 articles later, it’s officially time to add search functionality to Pye in the Face. If you’d like to revisit something you read weeks ago, and don’t know where to look, simply type an appropriate keyword into the search box on the left and see what happens. It’s surprisingly accurate, powered by Google and just an absolute joy to have around.

If you want to “kick the tires” on this new feature, here are some recommended silly keywords you can type that will bring up some of my personal favorites.

  • Inka
  • Littlest
  • Oompa
  • Tragically
  • Puking
  • Masshole
  • Graceland
  • Poutine
  • Saget
  • Puckey

You can also move the button to “web” and it will return a regular Google internet search for whatever you might be looking for. I hope you all find it useful. I have some catching up to this week, so stay tuned for lots of bloggy activity in the days to come.

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Tough Crowd’s Last Episode – Guess Who?


in Television

I wanted to go into excruciating detail about our trip to NYC to see the last episode of Tough Crowd taping but had absolutely no time. What I’ll do is rewrite the previous article when I can properly do it justice.

In the meantime, here’s a screen shot from the final seconds of the show. When we arrived, they told us about a “bit” they were going to do at the very end. Colin Quinn read a snarky, petty, meanspirited and rambling goodbye, the regulars got up and walked out on him and then the audience followed. So basically, when Colin looks up from his notes – we were all gone and the studio was empty. It suited the celebratory yet sad mood of the evening, and you may even recognize two of the people walking down the stairs over Colin’s shoulder.

I captured this somewhat blurry picture from TiVo, but I imagine there’ll be a crystal clear “Best of Tough Crowd” DVD released – and this final scene is sure to be on it. And there you have Brunelli’s and my contribution to television history. For now.

Watch the final clip HERE.

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Tough Crowd’s Last Episode Taping.


in Television

I’ve gotten 200 hits today from people looking for information on Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn’s last episode, so I want to post something before I lose consciousness. We were in the car for a total of 10 hours today, and I’m shattered right now – but I’ll get something up and add to it tomorrow.

It was pissing rain all the way from Boston to New York City. Our directions were terrible. We got so lost, that at one point we almost gave up. But we decided we’d come all this way and we were at least going to find Sony Studios and let them tell us to frig off. By some miracle of God we found our way to a parking garage in the neighborhood a good hour and a half after we were told to be at the taping. We fought our way through the drenched, Blade-Runner-esque umbrella congested streets until we found it – a small, plain looking building near 9th and West 53rd. As we jogged towards the building, we noticed a woman with a headset and called out to her as she was heading back inside.

“You’re too late. We’re already taping the first segment” she said. We calmly told her we’d driven all the way from Boston to see the show. She was impressed, and probably a little creeped out, but she made a call on her walkie and told us we’d be allowed in to sit on the steps between the rows of seats during the next break. We raced to the nearby bathroom and then got back to the stage door just in time to be let in.

I’ll add to this article tomorrow. In the meantime – there’s a picture of Los Angeles, 2019 taken quickly as we were hunting replicants. And a blurry photo of Colin I took without a flash before I was jumped on and beaten by a stage hand. Then, Brunelli, Keith Robinson and myself outside after the show. His handler didn’t want him to stop for the photo (he had a train to catch), but he smiled when we told him we’d driven from Boston and posed with us while she hailed a cab. None of the other regulars came outside (Colin was in a BAD mood), so Keith’s gesture was much appreciated. More detail tomorrow. What an exhausting day – but fully worth it.

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Please Disperse: Tough Crowd’s Last Stand-Up.


in Television

We’re about to leave to drive to New York City for the travesty which is the final taping of Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn. We’ll trek three hours to get there, wait in the freezing cold for another two outside Sony Studios before getting right back in the car to drive home to Boston. Miserable. But nothing can make me feel worse today than knowing I won’t be able to watch this brilliant show ever again. So I just gots to be there.

I’ll give you a full report on this sad day when I get home tonight. All the regulars and folks who made the show what it is will be guests tonight: Jim Norton, Patrice O’Neal, Nick DiPaolo, Greg Giraldo etc. And I sincerely hope that Tough Crowd goes out with a bang. Comedy Central got this one all wrong, and they’ve lost me as a viewer. Not out of spite, either. There’s just nothing quite as funny on the network and I don’t like consolation prizes. Here’s hoping the show isn’t soon forgotton and ends up on another network. Regardless, thanks for the laughs, Quinn. We don’t all think you’re an unfunny hack, stupid.

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Fahrenheit Bowling For Ohio 911.


in Movies

Running a little sluggish today. I was up until 3 am watching the election results come in, surfing between 5 or 6 of the main news channels and trying to get a reasonable semblance of what was happening. Dan Rather, fighting back tears, said that Kerry still had a fighting chance. Larry King and Wolf Blitzer were hanging on by a thread, interviewing Democratic Party lawyers who were already plotting their antipathy. Al Franken was drawing an illegible map of the USA on a whiteboard and calling Kerry way ahead, all the while referring to any state he colored red as “one of the dumb states”. And all this was happening 3 hours after Fox had already given Ohio to Bush, pretty much sealing things up for another four.

Now, we all know that there isn’t, and never has been, the slightest inkling of a liberal media bias. So why then did Fox and ABC jump to give Florida and Ohio to the GOP, and why has the Bush camp now all but declared victory? Why is it now being reported that Bush has surpassed Reagan and broken the all-time popular vote total?

You guessed it. Space aliens.

But fear not – Objective crusader for truth, and definitely not an irresponsible partisan hack, Michael Moore sped to Ohio last night just as soon as he saw how smoothly tabulations were going where he was lying in wait for a scandal in Florida. Nope, the real mustard and material for his next Oscar-winning cinematic masterpiece would have to be manufactured elsewhere.

So as the whining begins in my home state of Massachusetts (I live about a 10 minute walk from John Kerry) I look forward to the giggles I’ll get out of the conspiracy theories that will undoubtedly start pouring in. My friend is having a contest on the subject, and I’ve already spotted a side-splitter while reading the news this morning. Then, of course, there’s always the possibility that Kerry will concede – that would be classy. Oh wait – he just did.

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The Big Haunt: Fun Photos For Fruity Friends.


in Heartwarming

Festivity photos keep rolling in like severed heads. So take a break from CNN’s election coverage – and wondering how you might look in a turban – to dig these latest shots from that oh so ridiculous evening.

First up we have beauty and the beast. Anneliese and Bryan square off for the best costume credential and both score big points for different reasons. Bryan looks exactly like the character he’s portraying: Ricky from Trailer Park Boys. Huge credit goes to Betsy who dyed and styled his hair. Whereas Anneliese looks exactly like what every man in attendance wanted to take home and rub peanut oil all over. Like I said – both winners in their own way.

And here’s another interesting paradox. People of Herb‘s distinguished ethnic background make unlikely Klansmen. And as for Adam – people who look so comfortable in hot gay biker attire are unlikely to finish the evening beating the living ladybugs out of some clown in my living room. Never judge a book by its leather chaps.

Nicole and Paris turned heads as their alter egos Brittany and Becky licked the frick out of anything with a pule. These two lovely lasses are big Boston bar fans, and it was good to have some regulars representin’ at The Haunt. It was also good not having to worry about anyone blaming me for stealing wallets.

OK – back to all the fair and balanced election coverage. Be sure to look for more party photos as the week progresses. And a certain Fendi purse.

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The SideBar Website Needs Your Help.


in

This blog may be a bit flooded with SideBar and Halloween tidbits for the rest of the week, so please bear with me. There are lots of photos from the Big Haunt coming in gradually – but I still need more! I especially need a photo of me, Seamus and Bryan (The Trailer Park Boys) together. So help a brother out.

Also, I’ll be finishing up the SideBar‘s website this week! I’ve built a Boston Bulletin Board area that I hope will become popular… but I’d like to get a few preliminary comments in there before I release it to the general public. It’s currently hidden behind the main site and you can only get to it by clicking one of the links below. So please – have a look at some of the categories and quickly add your two cents. You can talk about Boston sports teams, Boston clubs/bars, something specific to the SideBar or even add a new topic of your own.

So please – click one of the above links and drop in for a look. You don’t need to register to post something. And It’ll only take a minute of your time. Thanks very much!

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The Big Haunt: I’m a Horrible Person And Am Going To Hell.


in Heartwarming

I work with a young Indian lad named Nakul. He’s become a great friend and I like to get him and his wife out of the house whenever possible, as they’re new to Boston. He took a bunch of photos at the Haunt Saturday, one of which I’m posting here. He just told me this was the first hard alcoholic beverage that he’d ever had in his life. I am now officially a corrupter.

When I worked with a large group of Indian programmers 4 years ago, we used to take them out all the time and had great fun together. And I know they were very thankful to have a local who tried to include them in his debauchery. But now I’m a little torn. I feel like I’ve just ridden into an Apache village circa 1682 with a pony keg of Schlitz before trading it for Manhattan.

Actually look at him. Hard hooch and big old fake angry titties. He looks as happy as a lark, and I guess I should lighten up. So welcome to the liquor, Nakul. It’s a fickle friend.

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The Big Haunt: Send Your Photos, Liver.


in Heartwarming

The Haunt went off without a hitch. Mostly. There was a loud late night ass kicking in the North End and many subsequently pissed off neighbors, but we squashed it sufficiently and everything’s cool now. And I feel much better about it knowing that the guy fully deserved to get trounced like you read about. I’m not going to get into it here. Let’s just say – don’t hit on a gay biker’s girlfriend.

Then there was Dave, the kissing bandit, mercilessly terrorizing the female population of the bar. Look, let me offer you all some advice: if you’re going to have a party, and put lots of effort into organizing it, make sure you’re actually going to be able to remember it the next day. I am forced to cut myself some slack, however, due to the fact we all started drinking beer right after the parade we missed because Venditti wanted immediate breakfast. Sox parade + Halloween Party + 8 visiting Canadian University buddies = FUCKING MAYHEM. That was, bar none, the worst hangover I have ever had, and a friendly reminder of why I stopped drinking.

So here’s where you can help me out, dear readers and party attendees. Send me your photos. I want to get a big whack of them together and post the best ones here. I am getting rave reviews for the party so far so I’d really like to get a sense of what it was like to be there. Even though I was. I also want lots of photos for the SideBar website that I’m currently building. Send me any anecdotes you have too and I’ll tie all of the material into a funny article you can enjoy with family and friends for generations to come.

Thank you all for coming, and I’m glad everyone had such a great time.

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