Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor | Pye in the Face
Leveraging low-hanging synergies outside the vertical fruit box since 1999.
I just found out Don Lennon is playing tonight at ZuZu’s (The Middle East) in Cambridge. I guess he doesn’t need a place to sleep this trip. I’ll be attending with a few folks if anyone would like to check him out. Read my previous reviews and articles for a refresher, babies.
Update: A photo from last night. Good times, good times.
Doug sent me this photo last night from a couple of Thanksgivings ago. It’s really remarkably good, if of course you know any of the participants. I took a lot of photos this night at Jim’s too – but none of them really captured the moment as well. Shortly prior to Doug’s email, Phil dropped me a line and asked me to help organize… wait for it… my 15 year high school reunion. The 10 year was a blast, so of course I agreed, but jeepers. 15 years. Nostalgia started creeping in a little bit, and I figured I’d say a few words about how I feel turning into the home stretch of this awful anniversary.
Everyone thinks that they know crazy people, or fun people, or maybe that their high school was a little bit nuts. CCHS, from about 88-92, was a special time. By the time we all got to college in 1992, we were bored. There are many people who’ll attest to that fact. We sowed the shit out of our collective oats. School and town officials really started to crack down after then, and it can all be traced back to the video tape of a party at a certain person’s house – who may or may not be typing this right now – which got about 25 kids kicked off of sports teams. Worst part is, the host in question wasn’t even going to the high school at this point. Anyway, it was the beginning of the end of the insanity.
Concord is a very affluent town, and many of our parents had lots of room for vacations, or even summer/winter houses in other states. My point is – every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night – without fail – there was a party. And if there wasn’t a house to haunt, we’d take it outside. Namely “Eden”, “Boonyards” or “The Mayflower”. We got pinched at Eden once, and a friend went to the clink for peeing on the fire after the police told him to put it out. Jeeps full of soldiers with M-16s invaded Boonyards another time, as we’d failed to realize the muddy lot was in fact property of Hanscom Airforce Base. We were resourceful, we had a little money, we all had our own cars – it was a minor delinquency Neverland.
There are a hundred good stories, that we delight in telling to eachother when we all get together – which I can never reveal here. So I’ll keep it general: We so crazy. I have lived in a lot of places, and known a lot of people, but this bunch is a special one and I hope we’re all still in contact on the eve of the 30 year. I know we will be. People say to me sometimes, I can’t believe you still hang out with and keep in touch with all your high school friends. And to them I say – Why the hell not? You grow up with these people. They know you better than anyone. Why would you ever throw all that away because you move half an hour away. Why would you throw that away if you moved to fucking Singapore? I like having good friends. Maybe it’s just me.
“Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.” – Stuart Smalley.
A grand total of 2 people have checked in with their new weights so far today, and sadly – one of them was me. I am deadly serious about the Pork Ass Challenge, and anyone who does not get their latest fatbody figures to me by midnight today will be removed. So let’s keep it going and I don’t have time to chase you, lardies. Participant names will be bolded as the results come in.
– Monster >> Current: 270 / Last Week – 272 / Target 255 / Gained 2
– Smash >> Current: 139 / Last Week – 139 / Target 129 / Lost 0
– Pyeman >> Current: 226 / Last Week – 230 / Target 210 / Lost 4
– Greg >> Current: 205 / Last Week – 205 / Target 170 / Lost 0
– DVS >> Current 250 / Last Week – 252 / Target 210 / Lost 2
– Aubz >> Current: 134 / Last Week – 135 /Target 125 / Lost 1
– Ka-Rista >> Current: 159 / Last Week – 160 / Target 140 / Lost 1
– Venditti >> Current: 232 / Last Week – 238 / Target 219 / Lost 6
– Sly >> Current: 216 – Last Week – 218 / Target 205 / Lost 2
– LBN >> Current: 155 / Last Week – 157 / Target 135 – Gained 2
– BDoyle >> Current: 189 – / Last Week – 190 / Target 175 / Lost 1
– AllMusicFan >> Current: 185 – Target 170 – Lost 0
– Brick02 >> Current: 154 / Last Week – 154 / Target 144 – Lost 0
– Piglet >>> Current: 148.5 / Last Week – 151 / Target 135 / Lost 2.5
– Richard >> Current: 180 / Last Week – 185 / Target 170 – Lost 5
Good lord this is more fun than the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Only less Kenyans. Did I have a miserable week? Not really. I ate the cheese off a piece of pizza. Took a run around the Public Gardens and Common. Ate 6 protein bars and a lot more fruit and veggies than normal. I also murdered about a box of green tea. It’s almost fun, as hard as it is to admit. And I’m not having any trouble with my momentum this week. Share your weekly experiences, diet, tips, anecdotes etc. in the comments below. Keep ‘er fuckin’ goin, guys! We can do this.
Before we get started, the second weigh-in of the PITFPAC is tomorrow morning – sharpish! If you lollygag, pussyfoot or otherwise slack on getting me figures, you’ll be culled from the determined flock of 15 and left to wallow in your own porktralesence.
Every year around this time, my beloved Trailer Park Boys begins another series on Showcase in Canada. Through devious and piradacious means, I get to watch them about 12 hours after they premier. I was quite unimpressed with Season 5, and lost a lot of my TPB zeal. You could say I feared they had truly jumped the shark somewhere around the introduction of Conky in Season 4. But I take it all back. Season 6 is killing me thus far. I found this graphic yesterday, someone obviously took the TPB characters and morphed them into South Park cartoons, and I knew it was time to write about the new hotness…
I am just going to bulletpoint a few things that have happened in the first 2 episodes The Way of the Road and The Cheeseburger Picnic. Fans of the show will ‘get it’, and people who haven’t seen it will be so morbidly transfixed by these statements that they’ll be forced to rush out and get the DVDs for Seasons 1-5.
– Bubbles opens a day care center for cats called “KittyLand”. While he is currently working for free, as he owns about 30 of them anyways, he hopes to eventually make some cash caring for other people’s. He’s built a mini amusement park on the front lawn of his shed and it looks ridiculous.
– Julian made $8200 selling potato vodka in jail, and also got his real estate license during his last stint. He buys a run-down trailer from Barb Lahey in episode 1 and now intends to ‘flip’ them for an honest living.
– J-Roc has 2 pregnant “Baby Momma’s” living with him and T-Bone, and is also trying to go legit. No longer stealing groceries or rapping, J-Roc seems to be trying to get in on the whole real estate thing with Julian.
– Ricky and his father Ray have developed a new scheme – stealing garbage. “Once it’s at the curb, it’s garbage“. So naturally they pull a lot of lawn furniture down to the end of people’s driveways when they’re not home and then come back for it later. The garbage strategy is becoming a problem for his reconciliation with Lucy, because “He always smells and bees follow him everywhere“.
– Randy and Mr. Lahey break up. Jim moves in with his ex-wife Barb to sober up, and Randy starts spending a lot of time with two local cops. Lahey mixes iced tea into his rye bottles to appear drunk when he’s really sober, and plans to lull the boys into a false sense of security and then get them out of the park once and for all. Lucy tries to seduce the cops at the park’s first annual Cheeseburger picnic with her hot dog eating techniques, but they seem more interested in Bo-Bandy. Sam Losco also crashes the proceedings.
– Sarah, Corey and Trevor, still dating as a threesome, open a convenience store in a shed in the park. It seems like a good idea, as Bubbles in particular is always going down there for “pop n’ chips“, but everyone’s credit seems to be great at this particular store, and I don’t see it ending well for park commerce.
– Ray gets kicked out of the park for his urine disposal methods. A former trucker, Ray claims that pissing into 2 liter jugs and then throwing them into the tree on his property is simply “The Way of the Road”. Bubbles thinks that “firing pissy jugs into the forest isn’t the way of any fuckin’ road“. Randy and the cops agree, and Ray has to take his detached semi sleeper cab and move to the nearby dump.
I couldn’t make this shit up. Welcome back TPB, and I can’t wait to see the movie this summer. See the hilarious trailer here. BTW – a Saturday afternoon North End Season 6 marathon is forthcoming as soon as I get a few more of them. And you didn’t hear this from me, but you can download them yourselves via torrent here. Stay tuned for an afternoon of rye, chicken fingers and pepperoni very soon…
But they do play the Andy Milonakis Show all day. And it’s brilliant. So I spent 5 minutes trying to learn some more about him. He’s 29, he’s Jimmy Kimmel’s buddy and he has a growth hormone issue which makes him look like he’s 12 years old. Recently he has been dating Desa Crabtree, an aspiring model from Denver,Colorado – so for a fat 30 year old man with a serious medical condition, he’s doing alright. Watch the show if you get a chance – if I had my own TV program, this would be it. Stupid, stupid brilliant humor.
Appetizer: List 3 things you keep putting off.
This is a list that has gotten a whole heck of a lot shorter this very week. I’ll spare you more chatter about the new desk and the bedroom project, but it’s nearly finished and is making me very happy. The new workspace is going to lead to the only major ‘to-do’ that is still really bothering me – sitting down and doing more writing. My blogs are cool and everything, let’s be honest – wicked fucking cool – but they aren’t making me any real money. I have some book ideas I am going to start flushing out. And while we’re at it, I am going to get off my Canadian tush and get Yank citizenship so I can continue to live wherever the wind/liquor takes me, unmolested by either government.
Soup: What do you feel is your greatest responsibility?
I am almost completely devoid of them – which is one of the reasons I have been feeling uncomfortable as of late and whipping a few facets of my life into shape. If there is one thing that breathes down my neck at night, that isn’t Philippino and wasn’t paid $600 for the whole evening, it’s the fact that my parents are likely going to have to sell their new house in the next few years in order to downsize and get closer to civilization for medical reasons. Perhaps to a retirement community – or at least a cheap Motel with an outdoor soda machine. I would love to strike it rich and be able to buy it off them, and then move there permanently, grow my fingernails, write a manifesto and never have to see an Emo ever again. They could live in their trailer on the edge of the property and do really shoddy senior citizen yardwork. But we’d keep Graceland North in the family.
Salad: If you’d starred in any movie, which one would it have been and why?
Office Space. Because everyone seems to think I’m Ron Livingston anyway. Not really – I’d love to be in a Spaghetti Western, or a Rat Pack or Matt Helm movie where they do a song and dance number while Tommy-gunning loads of people to death. Alright, I’ll come clean. I obviously would have made a great Roy Batty.
Main Course: What is a false expectation you had as a kid about being an adult?
That I would eventually become Spiderman.
Dessert: When was the last time you had your car serviced?
I suppose having it picked up by a charity counts as servicing. Maybe? I gave my last automobile to the good of the kids, and save for a time or two I have never missed it. I want one of these so badly, blame my inner-guido and my love of Bullitt I guess, but would probably end up driving it once a month. It would be more useful to get my tits done.
The attempt to drag myself kicking and screaming into adulthood continues at an encouraging pace. I wrote about my insane-librarian-frat-basemesnt-esque bedroom a few months back (re-reading it, it’s damn funny if I do say so myself) and I haven’t lost the maturity redecorating zeal just yet. Monday my new desk and shelf set showed up, and I’ve spent every night this week jamming that square peg into the round hole – namely, Dave in a room that doesn’t look like it belongs to Quentin Tarantino with a drink problem.
Tuesday night I gutted my bedroom – and I mean gutted like a TaunTaun. Bags upon bags of stuff I didn’t really want to throw away – but forced myself to. It’s not so much about improving the decor as it is lightening my collective load. There’s was stuff in my room Allston hippies wouldn’t pick up for free off of Craigslist.
Last night Matt came over and helped me assemble the new furniture in the now empty room. I specifically invited him because I worked with him on the sets for the play, and I know how incredibly handy he is. The guy built a secret room in his apartment, for God’s sake. It’s together, looking good and I am incredibly excited. As I type, my boxed new garment rack was just wheeled in (yes, I am blogging at work) and things are really coming together. I have an incredibly small closet, and am tired of jamming all my good clothes in there and coming to work looking like, um, Ron Livingston with a drink problem.
Tonight I get my hands on the sister’s photo printer, and I plan to hit CVS and buy a whackload of frames. I will take my favorite digital snaps, frame them and use them as the basis for the new room design. I’m not going to bother to paint, because I may move in September, but this is going to look cool regardless. The movie/band posters are history, my workspace looks amazing and there’s almost enough room left to get to the bed without an Olympic long jump. I haven’t created space with the new effort, but I’ve eliminated 6 years of crap. It feels good, and I’ll post some photos when the task is complete.
Alright you fat little bastards. This is it. All participants have until the end of today to send me their current weights for the first checkup of the official Pye In The Face Pork Ass Challenge. Here is how it will work:
– The Challenge will run from now until Wednesday July 5th – 11 Weeks.
– Every Wednesday, participants will email me their current weight and I will post it here on the blog for all to see/encourage/mock.
– Since we’re all of varying sizes and sexes, a’ la Celebrity Fit Club, we’ll set a target weight for ourselves, based on realistic personal experience, and the measure of success will be whether we hit that target in the 11 weeks allotted.
– We need full disclosure for this to work properly, and we’re all on the honor system. No telling porkie pies, mate!
– Prizes and awards are to be determined, but at the very least will include bragging rights and the ability to put on a swimsuit without crying and cutting yourself on the forearm with shards of beach beer bottle glass.
Now who the fuck is with me?! Let’s drop some blubber, buddies! Here is the tale of the tape so far. If you want to get in on this, send me your info by the end of the day, and be prepared to go the distance:
– Monster >> Current: 270 – Target 255 – Lost – 0
– Smash >> Current: 139 – Target 129 – Lost – 0
– Pyeman >> Current: 230- Target 210 – Lost 0
– Greg >> Current: 205 – Target 170 – Lost 0
– DVS >> Current 252 – Target 210 – Lost 0
– Aubz >> Current: 135 – Target 125 – Lost 0
– Ka-Rista >> Current: 160 – Target 140 – Lost 0
– Venditti >> Current: 238 – Target 219 – Lost 0
– Sly >> Current: 218 – Target 205 – Lost 0
– LBN >> Current: 155 – Target 135 – Lost 0
– BDoyle >> Current: 190 – Target 173 – Lost 0
– AllMusicFan >> Current: 185 – Target 170 – Lost 0
– Brick02 >> Current: 154 – Target 144 – Lost 0
– Piglet >> Current: 151 – Target 135 – Lost 0
– Richard >> Current: 185 – Target 170 – Lost 0
I’ll eventually get some sort of graph software to chart this out week to week, but for now – let’s just get the numbers on the board. There is room for many more. Best of luck to us all – this will be quite the reverse-culinary adventure.
Before I go any further, and on a sorta related hippyish note – Neil. My beloved Neil. You’re killing me. OK – I feel a little better now. Back to business.
I’m on a bit of a health kick at the moment, one I hope will last longer than a Tootsie Roll Pop, and I’ve purchased a whackload of Green Tea to sip at the office. A great guy who used to play for the Revolution once interned here for me, and he swore by it. I think I saw him drink 8 cups in one day, and I’m not exaggerating. I asked him if he was trying to ward off some sort of mystical Chinese dragon that maybe I couldn’t see, and he said that “It is the best anti-oxidant you can get”. I then wondered if he perhaps drank Crisco all day at home and this was his way of countering that bad habit. Regardless, he had a jawline like Marv and must have been doing something right.
Gosh knows, if anyone needs a little anti-oxidizing it’s probably me. A winter’s worth of beer, questionable red meat, french onion dip and Reverse the Curse has left me feeling like one giant arterial clog with shoes on. Other efforts include – walking to and from work (50 minutes a day roughly), oceans of water, salad, fruit and veggies followed by a health shake thingy for dinner. So it’s a crash, boom pow system shocker for a couple of weeks, and then back to the gym every day once the metabolism is back up and the lion’s share of the winter weight is gone.
Why do I write about this potentially embarassing stuff on my blog? First of all, I could use some opinions and advice. Smash said it best on her site a week or so ago while running down a very simple list: “3) If you do more and eat less, you’ll probably lose weight.” That’s really all there is to it. However any words of wisdom for myself and others may be left in the comments. Second of all, when one makes obnoxious public declarations about their sveltness like anyone actually cares, people will hold you to them. “Glad to see you went right ahead and didn’t get back into shape the way you said you were going to, male Sally Struthers“. That always feels great.
The only way to get rid of this turkey gobbler, which is making me look extremely old and decrepit, is to get myself back down to fighting weight (210 lbs.) – and that’s not going to be easy. So I’m putting my sloppy, poulty-esque neck out there on the chopping block and calling my shot – I will weigh 210 and look studly by Independence Day. Or I will shave my head. Who’s in? Any other chubbies want to get in on this and set up a similar wager? And shaving pubes doesn’t count, because I do that already. Let’s fuckin’ go, eh?
For the love of all that’s holy. Please get me off this demented carousel that is Roach Brooch. Now even the Boston Globe is writing about Hissy and I. T’was good timing, because I just added a Carmen Electra category featuring pictures of the real deal which I took myself last week. The real deal being Hissy – not Carmen. I photoshopped the Hisster smack onto her right funbag. A good job, if I do say so myself.
I also built a related Cockroach Jewelry Squidoo lens, as I am prone to do about absolutely anything, and it actually has a great feature. The Technorati module pulls in RSS feeds of bloggers around the world talking about Roach Brooches. And there are a lot of them! Take a peek, courtesy of your favorite bug geek!
Since I’m already re-exposing myself as a tremendous toolshed today, why don’t I mention some other recently created lenses that I’d like to see spidered? Fantastic then. You know, nothing gets me more excited than a sizeable collection of diabetes supplies. Except maybe for pre-paid calling cards – how could I forget those? I also think it’s a good idea to keep a healthy dose of Guelph, Ontario in your life at all times. And I can’t say enough good things about mesothelioma, either.
I saw the little girl I gave Hissy to Friday and you’ll all be happy to know he’s doing just fine. As she was leaving the restaurant I’d met her parents at for dinner, she turned to me, made little antennas on her head with her fingers and shouted “Hissy’s in the hizzy!” I’m sure her Dad is to credit for that imparting. Across the street and down the road from simple ‘cuteness’, at any rate.
I saw them again Saturday morning, when they dropped by my apartment to give me a copy of the New York Post. As the munchkin was chasing Boss around, I noticed the front page:
“This really reinforces my theory that society is imploding,” cracked Pete Donelan of Princeton, whose meal at a tony wine bar was interrupted by the sight of our live cockroach – Kafka – scurrying up its wearer’s arm. Kafka is a fucking pussy, man. Hissy should have been the covergirl, and you bloody well know it. Hissy’s jewels are tri-colored and this embarrassment of a Brooch has only two, for a start. Plus, Hissy owns his own home, has a human girlfriend and made out with Andy Dick at a party last weekend.
Thanks also to Allie from upstairs who sent me the photo and link. Can I please be snapped back into reality now? I’ve spent more time talking about friggin’ roaches in the last two weeks than an entomologist. Let’s wrap this saga up – because at this rate, they’re going to start infesting the North End, looking for me. I am the Roach King. I can do anything.
Appetizer: What movie soundtracks do you own?
If by own you mean ‘find’ online – I recently got Spamalot, and have always been partial to Blade Runner. Vangelis, not the orchestral version. Once, 10 years ago when I worked at David’s Bistro in Acton, I put the BR soundtrack into the dining room stereo alongside Sinatra, Ella, etc. I was really into it at the time and thought it was amazing. I honestly believed the somber, space melodrama would go over like gangbusters on the suburban, rich Massachusetts crowd. After the third diner shoved a rusty nail through their hand, I skipped over to In the Wee Small Hours.
Soup: How much cash do you usually spend on a weekend?
Depends what I’m doing, who I’m with and where I am, I suppose. There are wedding weekends – which cost as much as most cars, and then there’s couch weekends – where $4 will get you a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and Meatballs 2. I forgot there was a space alien in Meatballs 2. How did Bill Murray not rush back to do this? (I am working from home today).
Salad: Have you ever seen an adult movie? Who is your favorite actor?
Can I plead the 5th on this one? There was an impressive stash of smut in my house growing up which I quickly located and pilfered. Probably explains a lot. When I was far too young to be enjoying it, I was a solid Amber Lynn fan. Recently, I saw Jim Norton do an interview with Belladonna which was hilarious – so I checked out some of her distinguished work. Breathtaking. Anyhew, porn stars are like legitimate celebrities now, and I shudder to think what future generations of warped youth are going to deem normal. “Sure I’ll go to the Prom with you, but only if you pee on me during Stairway to Heaven“.
Main Course: What is the most mischievous thing you remember doing as a child?
I’ve got to talk about “the move”. At Manotick Public School, where I did kindergarden – grade 5, the true measure of a man was their ability to play King of the Mountain. The harsh Ottawa winters would produce mountains of snow, pushed to the sides of the school parking lot by plows. After a fresh downfall, there would be enormous walls of packed snow all over the place. When recess came, we’d all run out of the doors, through the lot and start climbing up the piles. You had to get up there early, or you’d get taken out before you got settled.
There were 3 bullies who usually had it in for me – the Hutt twins and Richie. They were all big farm kids who liked to prove their toughness against me at every opportunity – as I was a big kid too. So after we’d collectively finished off all of the smaller buggers, they’d set their sights on me. Now, when you got pushed off of the mountain, you’d fall a good distance and sometimes split your lip. So the stakes were high. I developed a “move” that no one was able to dodge or replicate – and I won every single lunchtime. When one of them would charge towards me, their arms extended, I would tuck my arms into my chest and begin to spin – but slowly neough that they couldn’t really notice. When they hit me, arms fully extended, my momentum would spin them around 90 degrees and they’d be rife for a violent kick in the ass, and off the mountain. I call it ‘snow cred’ looking back.
Dessert: Have you seen your family tree? Does one exist?
I emailed my aunt just last week to get some info on my family – as I realized how little I knew. I don’t even know my grandfather’s first name, for example. He died when my father was 13. I found a site called Ancestry.com and decided to start a tree there – then send it to older members of my extended family to see what we come up with. I will keep you posted on my family tree, as I’m sure you’re all waiting to hear that I’m the missing link.
I wanted to have a surprise party for Janet, but she found out about it. So then I tried to have some surprise guests attend – and she found out about that too. Actually my father, who knew he was half of the surprise guest package, told her himself. He may be in some sort of a facility come this time next year, so make sure you take this opportunity to come say goodbye to him. The only surprise left at this stage, is that I won’t be wearing any pants. But at least that’s something. Damn it, it happened again.
I’m not really allowed to use her full name on my blog anymore, because work colleagues and potential MySpace boyfriends keep finding this site. Obviously, they’re all either instantly a) Afraid they are working with someone who has far superior intellectual genes – or b) In danger of receiving a terrible, premeditated, bloody thrashing from the older sibling of their affections. Either way, it obviously makes perfect sense.
Please bring yourselves, your signifigant others, your pants etc. to the Fez on Saturday May 6th to help Janet celebrate her 30th birthday in boozy style. There will be food, music, Gord/Bonnie and abundant parking. Yes, I said Gord and Bonnie. And look, I hate it when invites say ‘no gifts necessary’ so I’m fully encouraging them. It’s her 30th for flip’s sake. Bring a present, you thrifty bastards. Check the Fez’s site if you need some geo-targeting and call me, Damaris, Beatrice or Aaron with any questions.
If you don’t know me, Janet, Damaris, Beatrice or Aaron – don’t come. That would just be fucking creepy. If you’re a friend and you’d like to attend, please email me and I will add you to the Evite formally.
