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

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

Archives for January 2005

There’s Still Hope For Me Yet.


in Animalistic

“The survey showed that 85 percent of men, and 94 percent of women, don’t think it’s wimpy or needy for a man to love his cat.”

Yes… but are they heterosexual? Because I think that’s where my problem begins.

“Three-quarters of male respondents say their cats fulfill their cuddle requirements, and single men are also almost as likely as single women to consider choosing their cat over their partner.”

Choosing them for what, exactly? Anal? Forget I mentioned this article please. And that I have a cat.

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Friday’s Quizzlet: Baby Streps To MGH.


in Monday's Quotelet

Appetizer – Have you been sick this winter? What did you have?

July 4th weekend I came down with the most awful case of strep throat imaginable. I had old friends in town, and three nights of parties planned, so I grinned and beared it like a little tipsy trooper. Come Monday, after 4 straight late nights on the razz, I could hardly even speak. I dragged myself over to MGH’s emergency room and sat down to wait. I started watching Uncle Buck on a wall-mounted television from the paleozoic era, and before I knew it, John Candy had tearfully won over Macaulay Culkin’s older sister and the nurse was calling my name. The doctor sat me down and explained he’d need to take a swab and then have me wait for another hour or two while they determined if it was indeed strep. I shook my head, pointed at my lips and opened my mouth so he could see the carnage for himself. A look of horror and revulsion washed over his face as he reached for his prescription pad and then sent me on my way. I’ve been sick 3 times since then and have decided to start paying for chewing gum rather than hunt for it under tabletops.

Soup – What colors dominate your closet?

Black, grey and forest green. I misread the ‘dominate’ part and briefly thought you were going to try and make me admit that there’s also a leather mask, stirrups and a red ball gag in there. Thank God that didn’t happen.

Salad – How would you describe your personal “comfort zone”?

As finally not including Cheez Whiz & Jalapeno enemas. I’ve tried to kick them… but they call out to me in the night as I sweat in my bed. One day at a time.

Main Course – On which reality show would you like to be a contestant?

Is there one called “Systematically Kick Every Former Cast Member of the Real World in the Teeth?” Keep me posted.

Dessert – Which holiday would you consider to be your favorite?

Thanksgiving. Because I’m Canadian and I get to celebrate it twice. Stay tuned for the long awaited photos from November. I’ll get to them this weekend. Here’s a spoiler: We ate turkey and drank a lot of beer. But you didn’t hear that from me, OK?

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Snow Shovel Symphony.


in

Boston’s North End has become an extremely trendy place to live over the past decade – so landlords have been scrambling to maximize every square inch of their buildings in an attempt to squeeze any potential nickel out of their properties. The result is a lot of henhouse and basement apartments. My apartment is a split-level, but my actual bedroom is in the basement at the front of the building facing the street. And I chose it because it’s the biggest. Not because I had to mount my sex swing on the lowest possible support girder.

My bedroom windows are street level, and my view consists of feet, hunched over homeless going through my garbage and stray dogs. It’s breathtaking. But in the winter, it gets a lot worse. It’s not the drifts blocking my view, and it’s not the chilly seasonal drafts. No – it’s the 5:30 a.m. snowshovel symphony.

I work late most days. Our office hours are unconventional in that respect and as a result I don’t have to wake up until 9 a.m. So if, like last night, I decide to catch up on Tivo’d episodes of Sanford and Son or bad movies until 2 a.m. – I can still get 7 solid hours of sleep. That is unless it snows, and the folks who shovel Cleveland Place arrive before dawn to clear a path for the morning commuters.

Try and imagine what a snow shovel sounds like at 5:30 in the morning. The dirty, rusty blade scrapes along the cement incessantly – with the edge shiny and sharp from extended use – literally a foot from my unconcious head. I awake with a start and then try to figure out why I’m not actually lying on a beach beside a topless Rachel Weisz (note to self, watch Runaway Jury right before going to sleep again tonight). I bury my head under 3 pillows, groan and pray for the din to cease. When it does, I try to salvage whatever sleepy-time I happen to have left.

And, if its continued to snow, the concerto starts all over again at 8.

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Revel In My Photoshop Prowess: Illegal Elians


in

Shortly after refugee Elian Gonzales was all over the news, Bobby and Monster tried to get a bunch of us to go to some shitty Cuban-theme party at a downtown Boston dance club. The backlash was immediate. Some poked fun, some refused, some balked and I contributed a Cuban/Elian-themed Photoshop:

I used the same photo of Bobby as I did here, and the original photo of Bryan’s head is from the Tiernan’s candid gallery. I’m sure you all remember seeing the source photo at every Liberal news outlet known to man. Which is basically every news outlet known to man. Baby Monster was eventually returned to the custody of his father in Cuba, while INS agent Bobby retired and opened up his own private poontang detection agency.

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DougAndDoug.com – Intense Comedy.


in Heartwarming

I built DougAndDoug.com for my friend Doug Triconi and his comedy partner Doug Krintzman a year or so ago, and it’s about to have a bunch of new content added to it. The duo has been trying to break into the bigtime for years now – producing their own videos and performing live stand up routines in Los Angeles on a regular basis.

Have a look at the hilarious short films The Search For 5 (the boys set out on an action filled quest for a missing porno tape) and Small Town Antics (Triconi is torn between robbing a house or making a sandwich) in Quicktime on their site right now, and stay tuned for their latest odyssey in the coming weeks. You can say you “saw them here first”. Alternately, you may wish to say “What is this awful hack shit?” You be the judge. I think it’s brilliant stuff.

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The Iceman Cometh.


in Movies

Remember that movie from 1984 where Timothy Hutton discovers the Neanderthal frozen in the arctic and then brings him back to life? Basically he thaws the smelly bugger out, hides him from some dissection-happy fellow scientists and then teaches him to sing Heart of Gold by Neil Young. While I think Neil Young is a God, I probably would have started with Bill Russell’s A Little Bit of Soap.

As you may know it’s been an unusually warm winter here in Boston so far, with this past week bordering on humid. And I thought I saw an Iceman on the way to work this morning. As he approached me, I tried to identify the sort of animal hide he was wearing, checked his hands for wooly mammoth flesh scraping tools and wondered if I’d be able to get him back to my laboratory for some guitar lessons without a net and a tranquilizer dart.

Then he asked me for a quarter. Previously driven inside by the bitter cold, Boston’s homeless have returned to the streets in force. My great contributions to science and guitar-driven rock will have to wait a bit longer.

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We’re Sorry Everybody. And Virgins.


in

I’ve already given this truly awful website some begrudging lip service here on Pye In The Face, but I’ve been forced to revisit it due to an article I just read in my friend’s newspaper. One of the guys who writes for him, Norton Tierra, runs down a refreshing list of reasons Americans have absolutely nothing to be apologizing about.

I could have used any number of photos from the eyesore in question, but I chose these two heartbreakers for the absolute plethora of Dungeons and Dragons jokes I’ll be able to mine. Is the sign pertaining to their disappointment at Bush’s re-election? Or the disappointment they feel because the rohypnol they bought from a fraternity brother before the kegger turned out to be Similac? Regardless, It’s still convenient that whatever EverQuest server they were using last Saturday night crashed long enough for them to contribute this photo.

In summation – Will you people please stop whining? Don’t apologize for Bush. Don’t apologize on my behalf. But since you already have, allow me to return the favor: I’m sorry you weren’t born a Kurd and gassed along with your entire family and then buried in a mass grave because that may have actually been preferable to screwing produce in your dorm room.

But someone eventually created a welcome alternative, the aptly entitled SorryEverybodyMyAss, at which the less snivelly members of our population are encouraged to submit antidotes to the disgraceful whinges on the original site. I decided to join the fray.

I’ve never liked the way in which household pets, particularly cats, are employed to relay the stomach-turning apologetic messages on SorryEverybody. This does little to help their already less-than-macho image. I found a photo of a fairly distressed looking cat on a shelter’s website, added the scroll and decided to give our feline friends a chance to pick their own party. If cats are indeed as smart as I’ve grown to believe throughout 30+ years of having them around, they’re certainly not Liberals by default. Even though they most certainly sound like them from time to time.

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Christmastime in Torontooooo.


in Heartwarming

Actually, I never really set foot in Toronto over the holidays. I just like the song. OK – I did pee on the side of a KFC off Dundas St. while my sister asked for directions inside. So technically, I set foot and also set a little urine if we’re splitting pubic hairs. But I did hang in Burlington, Guelph, Grimsby and Hamilton for extended periods of time, and took a few photos along the way.

Janet and I coughed our way up to Kingston on the Wednesday making the trip in about 7 hours which isn’t bad. But it turns out we didn’t need to pick up my mother’s car as we’d originally thought, so we could have gone Northwest through New York State – straight to Toronto – and saved ourselves a lot of time. So that kinda blew. Coupled with the blizzard that descended for the final 4 hours of the eventual 12 hour trip, it definitely blew. Goats.

The photo of Gooch and Art on the left was taken at the Albion in downtown Guelph. I recognized a guy I lived in residence with ten years ago, and also a T.A. that I’d had for a short-lived psychology course. It was very cool to return to the Royal City after such a long hiatus and recognize people I knew – but that was just the tip of the iceberg. On the right we see Jim, Art, Gooch, Myself and Lynn. This photo was taken at Frank & Stein’s where I eventually ran into another Mills boy and Tonizzo who used to work for me at the Bullring. I hadn’t seen him since the final night of exams in 1998 so that was a tsunami from the past. Don’t cringe – I’m topical.

Christmas day I posed proudly in my new jumper with Beatrix the cat. ‘The Bix’ is Janet’s roomate’s and we had to bring her with us because she’s still young and not very well behaved. Kinda like Janet’s roomate. Bix was fun to have in the car though – her fur improved windsheild visibility much faster than the defrost button. From there it was on to Uncle Richard’s for the annual Pye gathering – and as usual it did not disappoint. Most kids are bummed when they get clothes for XMas, but Seth found his robe a whole lot more interesting when I told him it made him look like Muhammad Ali and then taught him a few pugilistic poses. Then I slap-boxed the shit out of him because he’s only 8 and I knew I stood a good chance.

Kathy’s father, my father and Thomas’ father are brothers. Kathy’s father spent Christmas in Cuba with his new woman, Thomas’ father spent Christmas with us in Grimsby and my father spent Christmas alone in a Trailer in Florida. Well, he wasn’t completely alone. He had a cat and a deep-fried turkey there with him. Gordo, if you read this, you’re coming up next year. Stop being a… turkey. And finally Beatrix meets Gooseberry for the first of many violent, fur-flying encounters. Which was healthy because it kept Goose from attacking my Grandmother for 5 days. Pet/owner Love-hate relationship there. Basically, the cat loves to scratch the Christ out of her at every given opportunity. It’s adorable.

Right. So happy 2005, everyone. My New Years Eve was nothing special so I’ll spare you the details. Thank God the holidays are over for another year. I think I’d find medieval torture less stressful.

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