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

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

Archives for June 2005

War Of The Squirrels.


in Movies

I took my work crew to see War of the Worlds tonight, as I’ve been tasked with HR responsibilities (aka HR period) for the company. But I enjoy the “take the nerdlets out to see films you’d be downloading anyway” angle of the position. That I’ll also be in charge of sensitivity training could be viewed as a bit of an error on management’s part. Although in my own defense – I did cancel the “It’s Not Sexual Harrassment If She’s Asleep” T-Shirts I had planned for this year’s harbor cruise.

2005’s War of the Worlds is a very good movie. Worthy of both Orson and H.G. Although I did find Tim Robbins’ “Everyone knows that wars of occupation never work” line detestable and about as subtle and out of place as Elliott calling his brother “Penis-Breath” in the first 15 minutes of E.T. – Spielberg gets a big thumbs-down in my book for letting that little liberal turdlet seep into the otherwise fucking spellbinding movie. It’s Shindler’s List Meets V. It makes Independance Day look like, well E.T. – Forget I said anything.

Hanging over the entire marketing effort for this movie has been Tom Cruise’s bizarre stint on Oprah, Scientology and Katie Holmes. After the movie, I met my sister and her friends from work for a beer, and one of her buddies went on for 15 minutes about how Katie Holmes was one of 3 major actresses approached by the Church of Scientology to pretend to be Tom’s girlfriend – because he’s really gay. Listen man, I saw huge alien Tripods chasing Tom across Connecticut for two hours tonight. Not a barrage of rodents vying for access to his bunghole. But then I remember the whole Lestat thing and think – Dave, quit while you’re ahead.

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Canada Day, Up Canada Way…


in

… a great song by a truly great Canadian. And I thought of the title tonight because I’ll be heading up to the Great White North for Canada Day – which is this Friday, July 1st. The song is rivaled only by Bud the Spud and Little Wawa in terms of ruling the entire repetoire. Have a look here if you want to play it alone on the guitar in an air-conditioned room whilst slathering yourself in poutine and maple syrup. That might just be the only way to help my American friends grasp the true essence of Canadiana, get arrested for indecency or whichever comes first.

With songs like Give Me Cold, Cold Beer, The Hockey Song, The Bars of Vancouver, “Wop” May, The Man in the Moon is a Newfie, She Don’t Speak English and Snowmobile Song rounding out the catalog – I know I’ve probably peaked your interest in Stompin’ Tom Connors. Now, mine is always peaked – which is why I’ve learned the hard way not to go outside in tight shorts – so I did a few searches for recent news on old Tom.


The Canadian version of the upcoming Live 8 concerts takes place in Barrie, Ontario on July 2nd, and will bring a sudden influx of over 35,000 people into the community. But starving Africans aren’t the real draw, as the line-up includes a veritable who’s-who of Canadian rock icons. Not so fast, Celine. While Barenaked Ladies, Bruce Cockburn and Bryan Adams don’t exactly have me rubbing my snowballs with glee – the show closes with Our Lady Peace, The Tragically Hip and Neil fucking Young! I used to spend a lot of time in Barrie and know it pretty well. And for that reason I can honestly say it would take Neil Young to get me to go back. Actually, a hand-written note from Neil himself. Actually a hand jo… I don’t much care for Barrie.

A DJ in Ottawa has made the news this week by raising such a stink over that fact that Stompin’ Tom was not included in this roster of Canada’s finest that it has cost him his job: “A true Canadian icon like Stompin’ Tom, it’s unbelievable this guy’s been overlooked. I made a vow to play non-stop Stompin’ Tom until Bob Geldof put ‘The Stomper’ on the bill.” Since the station only had one Connors song in its library, Big Joe Mufferaw, Brown played it six times in a row until he could get a colleague to rush out and buy more Connors CDs.

Put the fuckin’ Stomper on the Bill, eh? You don’t like Mondays, Geldof? Well I don’t think you’ll like gettin’ gooned by the fuckin’ Stomper much neither. Fuck’s sakes (and scene). Ottawa DJ Jeff Brown – Pye in the Face salutes you, buddy.

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Damn You, Blogger. Damn You All To Hell.


in Pye in the Face

A WordPress migration looms ever closer on the horizon. Google’s shares have soared to $300 this week – while one of their flagship properties, Blogger, has continued to sniff furry little mice nuts:

“The launch of Blogger Images required a bit of new code that is causing some users annoying layout problems. Before launch, the templates passed our tests but because of the open nature of Blogger templates, we weren’t sure which kinds of template modifications were going to be affected. We’re hammering out the solution now and we’ll update our help site with some workarounds today.”

And I’m hammering out a batch to the latest Victoria’s Secret catalog. But where is the progress? I mean, besides all over my T-shirt? I’ve been watching the evolution of Blogger since the guy who created it sold it to Google, and it’s being run (into the ground) by a bunch of kids. I should have packed up and moved last summer when I got industrious and almost pulled the trigger one long and sober Saturday night. But I couldn’t get the comments to transfer properly, and I lost my nerve. So if you’ve been wondering why my text has been looking like Camryn Manheim jacknifed onto it off a telephone pole – now you know. Bear with me.

There are as of yet undiscovered tribes in the heart of the Peruvian jungle who’ve developed better content management systems than Blogger. And I wished I’d joined them months ago. Although my head would now likely be very tiny and hanging on someone’s belt.

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Monday’s Quotelet: Puppa Duppa.


in

As it’s his birthday, our old roving photo-hound friend, Gary, is the subject of today’s Quotelet. Here he is during his Epixome rounds with the lovely Houston Rockets Power Dancers (cheerleaders). Send him your best, your jibes and your best jibes. I never told you this, but I’m extremely impressed with the way you saw that flailing business and massive debt through to the level of success/trim you’ve reached today. So yeah – fuck you, birthday buddy.


“Houston? We have a massive erection.”

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The Deep Clean. The Deeper Burn.


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Martin the Mouth was a long-haired and shaggy East Londoner who used to hang out at the Hind’s Head of Bray in the late 90’s. Everytime he came in, he’d try and recruit me for his deep kitchen cleaning business. While there was no other way I’d have rather spent my one day off a week, the notion of spending 12 hours scrubbing through years of muck within derelict kitchens around London frightened me worse than spotted dick.

“Cah mon Dave, me old China! – 20 pound an houwa, and only one day a week!” He was incessant. So finally I asked our chef, Gus, what a “deep cleaning” entailed. “All surfaces and equipment, mate. You don’t want none o’ that. Never mind with that Martin twat leadin’ the bleedin’ charge”. So that pretty much settled it – I would continue to spend my days off at the Hobgoblin in Maidenhead, and not deep cleaning grimy meat slicers from Windsor to Blackpoole.

Yesterday I wanted to do something productive that did not involve my laptop or the sun (I got seared again on Saturday), so I settled on a task I’d been avoiding for months – nay – over a year. It had been a good 365 days at least since I’d last deep cleaned my shower and bathtub. I stocked up at CVS with every related corrosive chemical known to mankind, cleared away all of my roomate’s girly shampoos/scented oils, and stepped sheepishly into the terrible tub.

Long story short – I scrubbed away for over 2 hours and the facility now glistens with nobility. But I simply cannot move today. My back, arms, chest – all stiff as a board. I walked to work today like a pre-oil Tin Man. However, I can now take a shower without having to worry about contracting West Nile.

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Friday’s Quizzlet: The Digital Cable Dilemma.


in Monday's Quotelet

Appetizer: What time do you usually wake up each day?
I wake up at 8:50. That may sound ‘late as all heck’ to some people, but I stay at the office until 8pm on average – so don’t envy me too much. Also feel free not to envy the fact that I share my bed with a cat 91% of the time. The good news is I can stay up later than the average Joe and still get a fair amount of sleep. Although I do spend that extra time watching British TV. With a cat.

Soup: When was the last time you bought groceries?
During my brief stint on the Atkin’s diet I hit the Golden Goose in the North End and bought enough salami and American cheese to constipate Jabba the Hutt. I buy food on a ‘need-to-eat’ basis and don’t keep much in the house. Which, as you can imagine, results in one of the unhealthiest diets known to man. So now, in addition to sharing Jabba’s gastrointestinal traits – I’m also beginning to look like him. “Me yarga. Milona na di kato?”

Salad: How many books have you read so far this year?
I haven’t. Not a single one – and I’m embarassed. I could write a book based on the first half of this year though. It would be entitled “How to Hook-up Digital Cable and Tivo in Your Bedroom and Never Read a Book Again”. I see a theme developing this week. And a severe lull in brain activity from watching 2 episodes of Big Brother every night this week.

Main Course: What is something you consider to be very elegant?
I was recently interviewed by the Boston Globe for an article being written about Boston bloggers (it runs on July 3rd and believe me – I’ll link to it for you). I work near the Public Garden, so I decided to walk over and take the call there. As I strolled around speaking to the woman interviewing me I noticed an area on the pond’s shore that had been fenced off. A large sign read “Swan Nesting Area” and a huge white (you guessed it) Swan sat on her nest, her head nuzzled in her breast to fend off a light rain that had started. I thought that looked quite elegant. Anyone know any good Swan jokes?

Dessert: Who taught you how to drive?
When I was 15, my father took me to the CCHS parking lot and told me to let it rip. I drove around in circles, spun out in the snow and basically had the time of my life. I don’t think I’d ever driven a car up until that point. I have some friends who’d racked up DUIs by the age of 15, but I was a late bloomer. My mother and an auxillary cop driving instructor fine-tuned my driving skills in the weeks prior to my test, and frequent blog contributor “The Len” taught me how to drive a stick over near White’s Pond a year later. So, so hot.

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The Departed Dildo.


in Movies

Last Friday as I was walking home from work, Anthony Anderson and his crew walked right past me in front of the godforsaken Alley on Boylston street. Being a big fan of The Shield, and an even bigger fan of Kangaroo Jack, I was pretty psyched. His career has taken an incredible leap this year – going from the dregs of… uh, Kangaroo Jack, to the reason he’s gracing us with his presence here in Beantown. Namely, a starring role in Scorcese’s next film, The Departed, which is currently filming in Southie and other locations around the city. A secondary-unit was shooting a scene in a North End restaurant a block from my apartment Tuesday night.

Anthony’s co-star is Jack Nicholson, among many others, and old Irish has more than lived up to his deviant reputation so far during the production: “Jack suggested using a [prosthetic appendage],” adds the source. “He also wanted to dust the [posterior] of one of the actresses with cocaine. Marty said, ‘Go for it!’” This old dog can still hunt. Oh – and birth calves from the looks of it.

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AFI’s Top 100 Movie Quotes Mockery.


in Movies

“Stop your grinnin’ and drop your linen!” – AFI has finally released their top 100 movie quotes of all time. And while Aliens didn’t really make the list, they’ve still done a decent job with a difficult task. But obviously I’m still going to fly into a silly snit and point out some glaring absences. It’s what I do/why I will die alone.

– Roy Batty’s pre-death speech from the end of Blade Runner. “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe…” Hard to believe those tights either, Rutger.
– Indiana’s Jones’ cocky “Trust me” from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Love it.
– Choose any 10 second snippet from Glengarry Glen Ross you like and jam it in at #50. Mamet should be all over this list. “How was her crumbcake? Homemade?”
– You may also remember a small, seldom seen, independant movie called Goodfellas that could populate the first half of this list all by itself.

I’m a busy boy today and can’t really elaborate to the depressingly fanatical extent I’d like to. Please help me out and give a little love to the plethora of quotelets that have fallen by the wascally wayside.

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The Ghost of Cincos Past.


in Heartwarming

I’m donating my old work desktop to an intern next week, and decided it was high time to clean some of my legacy MP3s and photos off of it. Or “cover my tracks” as someone with a flair for the accurate would probably say. As I dug through nearly 2 years of emails and hundreds of photos, I found a few worth firing up to the new gallery. Since many of you have been enjoying it to date, here’s the quick, straight, poopy dope…

I found a ton of great photos from 2004’s Cinco de Mayo party, or Cinco de Quatro as it became known, that I don’t think anyone’s ever seen. You’ll remember that night if you were there – a crowded, boozy evening at Tiernan’s which ended in extreme violence. But it was still better than this year’s feeble attempt. My Cinco parties have run their course and gone to the big hacienda in the sky.

A few additions to the homeless revelry section were in order. The only common theme in this album being severe alcohol abuse – Highlights include the 2004 Boston Wine Expo, Frank N’ Stein’s this past Christmas with the Guelph boys, BHP nonsense and me trying to cling to heterosexuality somewhere in the South End.

And finally the I Like Having Friends section has some new life breathed into it courtesy of Colangelo, more Herb, Beyonce Knowles (seriously), and the rarely seen tender side of JJV. Why are you putting so much work into the galleries, Dave? – glad you asked. It will all make sense soon enough. To date, the gallery has added nearly 1000 pages to the davepye.com domain – all of which will eventually be spidered by search engines… and all of which will eventually have advertising on them. I love the gallery, but there’s a method to the percieved madness. Enjoy.

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Children Of The Granola.


in

My first reaction when I see someone handing things out for free in the middle of Government Center is “Oh Jesus, here we go again” – and this morning I was right on the ball. Because on this of all mornings, the bearded-bugger wanted me to have a snack, apparently.

A nice young lady approached me and asked, “Would you like a free granola bar, sir?” You’re goddamn right I did, so I accepted and watched her pull one out of the tasty little things out of her dirty handbag. She kept rooting around inside for something else, produced what looked like a business card and then handed me both. “Damn it!” I thought. Why does Granola always have strings attached? And raisins?

The card was for a nearby church, and the granola bar was chocolate chip instead of raisin. So the morning, while morose, grey and rainy, took and unexpected upswing and I quickly thanked our lord and savior for the divine confection. But I was immediately reminded of an old movie I used to love about over-zealous religion and food. And by the time I finally remembered Jonestown, forget it – I’d already snarfed down the delicious bastard and then immediately began having hypochondriacal-cyanide-stomach-pains.

“He wants a chocolate chip one too, Malachy. He wants a chocolate chip one too.”

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Something New, Something Doyle, Something Blue.


in

Congrats to Jen & Brian who just recently tied the knot up in Penn Yan, New York. To say that my favorite little tulip looked lovely would be an understatement – and Jen looked pretty good, too. Best of luck with your happy weddingness, pickety fences, childrenlets and all sorts of other major life milestones of which I have absolutely no comprehension.

I think Jen is definitely Doyle’s greatest match since Carrie got cancelled and Jerry shuffled off this mortal coil. Seriously – best wishes for a happy, togethernessy, monogamicious and matrimonious lifetime together.

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I’m A Little Gallerina.


in Pye in the Face

As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, I love my new gallery. Then why don’t I marry it, you ask? Believe me, the thought has crossed my mind. Anyhew, one of the things that’s been bugging me (besides the fact that there’s way too many pictures of Monster) is that it was necessary for people to go through a boring registration process before leaving comments. I rolled up my sleeves last night and figured out how to turn this requirement off. And also that I need to spend more time on my forearms whilst in the gym.

Now anyone who may be looking at the gallery can enter a nickname and comment right into an existing box below the photo, hit submit and VOILA. Couldn’t be simpler if you paid a ghostwriter to do it for you. You don’t even need to be taken to a new page first like you do when you leave a comment on the blog. So effortless, a rabid squirrel with swollen paws and a drinking problem could do it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy/squirrely.

So if something crosses your mind whilst perusing all the photos of my silly life – by all means, share. I also just added a new album dedicated to photos my friends have sent me of themselves. So if you’ve got a funny snap handy, or you’ve been somewhere cool on vacation, email away and I’ll gladly contribute 0.2 seconds to your 15 minutes of fame.

* Update: Janet has started her own category.

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Homolka Hears A Who!


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Karla‘s gettin’ out soon, kids. Details of the early 90’s trial and tribulation is forever burned in my memory, and it’s hard to believe that a decade has passed so quickly since she flipped on Paul Bernardo and saved herself from a life of well-deserved incarcerated rug-munching. For my American friends who need to get up to speed, have a gander here – but let’s just say that in addition to the surprise many of you exhibited over the existence of Canuckian biker gangs, we can also lay claim the worst serial killer couple in modern history.

Leslie Mahaffy disappeared literally several hundred feet from my grandmother’s house, and the entire country watched the drama unfold in OJ-esque fascination – from the first inklings of the Scarborough rapist through to the eventual plea bargain and conviction – for nearly 6 years. With her imminent release looming, and plans for a heavily protested movie in the works, the salt’s gettin’ rubbed in a lot of old wounds. Karla plans to move to Montreal where she thinks people are likely more preoccupied with where their next pack of Player’s is coming from than any indiscretions/murders by power tool she may have hidden in her past:

“A 32-year police veteran noted most of the Homolka photos the media are using are at least 12 years old, from before she went to jail. And the handful of photos the public has seen of her behind bars are grainy and don’t clearly show her face. Prison officials and police are expected to take extraordinary steps to avoid letting photographers capture new images when she’s sprung from jail sporting her new look.”

She’s going to have to sand-blast her evil incarnate face to keep from being recognized – even in the think-tank that is Quebec. The original online Homolka Death Pool is long gone due to a court order, but please feel free to add any best wishes here for her here via comments. I don’t like her chances/care whether she’s drawn and quartered by an angry, poutine-reeking, mustached mob.

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Newport Rhode Island Air Show Shennanigans.


in Heartwarming

Cornett (aka Detroit Velvet Smooth) and myself drove down to Newport at the ass crack of dawn yesterday to take in the 2005 Newport Rhode Island National Guard Air Show. Then we displayed further post-show ass crackery whilst jumping off of Harkins’ dock and just generally being ridiculous. When you’re finished abusing yourselves to the sexy photograph below, you can keep the self-inflicted orgasms going strong by viewing the full gallery here.

If you look carefully, you can see a concerned Sam the dog paddling towards us at breakneck speed – eager to rescue the flailing fatties. Chris and Kinger stand watching on the dock to the left just in case we need them to throw us a life-preserver/bottle of Pucker. The best day I’ve had in a long, long time. And by far the worst sunburn.

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