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

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

Television

Friday’s Quizzlet: In Praise of Wiig


in Monday's Quotelet, Television

Appetizer: Given the choice, would you prefer to live in the country or in the city?
The country, as long as there is a city within reasonable driving distance. Here in the sleepy town of Portland I have Ottawa an hour and fifteen minutes to the West and Kingston forty-five minutes to the East. South I have the Big Rideau. North I have Yeti and Sasquatch. As I eluded – I like a mix.

Soup: Who is the cutest kid you know?
I can’t possibly answer this question in public. I know many of cute kids and many of their parents read this blog. Some of them are even related to me. I’ve been looking for an excuse to make a very important announcement, so I guess this is the best chance I’m gonna get. Pay attention: Christopher Walken is hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxgkTvZonrE[/youtube]

Only Alec Baldwin is as consistently excellent a guest host. Oh wait, I just checked NBC.com and they’re re-running the Tina Fey episode from last month. Damn – must have been a last minute pull out like when Janet Jackson was replaced by Mariah last week. I’ve been watching all of the current season, as I always do, and let me tell you something. Remember you heard it here first, kids – SNL is funny again. Samberg, Hader and especially Kristen Wiig are pulling the show from the jaws of death. Amy Poehler and Fred Armisen have done their parts too. Last week’s episode which starred Jonah Hill was basically the Kristen Wiig show. She carried no less than 3 solid skits all by herself. In only 2.5 years she has established more recurring characters than most cast members ever manage. My favorite being the Target Lady which you can see above. If I hear one more person say “Well, I hear SNL isn’t funny anymore” who can not go on to name even one of the newer cast members… I will summarily beat them to death with a land shark.

Salad: Fill in the blank: I couldn’t believe it when I heard ___________.
DMX didn’t know who Barack Obama is.

Main Course: If you could star in a commercial for one of your favorite products, which one would you want to advertise?
I gave it some air time in my Greek recipe segment from earlier this week, but I’ve got to give some more props to my T-Fal indoor grill. That’s what I call it anyway. Officially it is known as the Excelio Comfort, and I’m a big fan. I decided to buy it because everytime we want to grill something on the BBQ my father gets involved and it turns into a mess. It’s one of his dementia-related fixations. As you can imagine, we don’t want him playing with fire. This way, we can grill things quietly in the kitchen and he never has to take his eyes off The Quiet Man.

Dessert: What type of vitamins or supplements do you take on a regular basis?
I take Emergen-C every morning. I currently have a box of orange and a box of tangerine which Lauren was nice enough to send me up from Boston for my birthday. It’s the Mom in her, no doubt. It’s tasty, delightfully sparkly and contains all kinds of things I’m not getting from poutine. The first person to ever give me E-C to try was my friend Bridget way back in 1999. You probably remember her as the alarmed and beautiful nutritionist in Super Size Me. What better a person to make the introduction. Although back then I think she was far more concerned about my McBeer intake then anything else.

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Let’s Fire Up the Quattro!


in Television

New Amsterdam is a direct, and poorly disguised, descendant of my beloved Life on Mars – which the BBC offered to several American networks without takers. I just want to get that down for the record in the midst of an insanely busy day which, coupled with a penchant for buggery, prevents me from writing more.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Enn6zc9ug-o[/youtube]

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Friday’s Quizzlet: Trailer Park Nerds


in Friday's Quizzlet, Monday's Quotelet, Nerdery, Television

Appetizer: What is your middle name? Would you change any it if you could?
My middle name is James after my Grandfather Jimmy Smith. Not to be confused with Jimmy Smits who is far too young and hispanic to be my Grandfather. Jimmy Smith was born in Scotland and I spent most of my youth following him around and aping his accent – which probably explains a lot regarding my propencity for mimicry. And scotch.

Soup: If you were a designer, which fabrics, colors, and styles would you use the most?Gay-Pirate
I am a big fan of forest green, cobalt blue and not being gay. In terms of a style I think I’d be leaning towards metro-sexual pirate. “Avast, me hearties! Can I borrow a flask of rum and two fingers of product fer me fookin’ beard?”

Salad: What is your least favorite chore, and why?
I find that changing bed sheets requires an insane amount of effort. Especially if you use the same set over and over. Or frequently piss the bed. Stripping the mattress is quick enough, washing and drying is fairly automatic. It’s putting the whole thing together that takes the most time. Then you have to pull the bed out from the wall, flip the mattress so you can sleep on the dry side and sprinkle more lime on the dead hooker under the boxspring – it’s quite a chore, to be fair.

Main Course: What is something that frightens you? Can you trace it back to a life event?
Even now I do not like swimming in the ocean. I have never been a big beach person but to actually submerge myself in the open sea is something I might do once a summer. In terms of an determining event I’ll say what everyone else probably does – repeated viewings of Jaws as a child. And the fact that I was drowned as a witch in one of my former lives.

Dessert: Where are you sitting right now? Name 3 things you can see at this moment.
I am sitting at a makeshift desk in my parent’s trailer. Dad is to my right watching the first season of SNL on DVD (a present from me, obviously). The hockey fights DVD is probably going to be next. I can see the picnic table outside where I plan to sit tonight, have a beer and play LOTRO after the sun sets. That’s wicked nerdy, I know, but I’m on Dad-duty this week and as crazy as it sounds even I can only watch so many Bond films. Finally I see one of the park peacocks strutting around the lake next to our trailer. This is definitely a strange little universe I’ve found myself in that I will try to relay in future posts. Happy Friday, y’all!

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Reality Bites Itself in the Ass


in Television

I finally got Direct TV… any TV… and the holy grail that is American reality television is once again mine after 7 long months of seclusion. I don’t watch a whole lot of it intently, but I do tend to keep it on during the day while I am working and soak a lot of it up through some sort of crapola osmosis. As you can imagine I have made some observations.

People who write MTV in the hopes of getting their ride pimped seem more interested in possessing a reliable car that doesn’t have to be hotwired or towed on a daily basis than having a tropical fish aquarium with a blacklight mounted in their back seat. It’s all well and good to have 6 high definition flat screens in your hatchback, but they won’t really help you when you when you’re stalled at 3am while a meth addict taps at your windshield with a hook. The guys who soup up these cars are extremely good at painting an intricate spider web on the hood of a car, but I’d rather see them get under it. How about a spinoff starring MC Serch entitled ‘Fix my Transmission’?

There’s Something About Miriam is a tipping point. A frightening one. I think the show was inevitable, it just took reality producers 15 years (the genre was technically born in 1992 with the first episode of The Real World) to find a transsexual that could actually fool anybody. More shows are going to feature shocking twists the contestants didn’t sign on for and more humiliated people are going to sue, kill themselves – and even kill others like the guy who’s best friend came out and professed his love for him on Jenny Jones a few years ago. After they got back to their small town, the crushee whacked the crusher. There’s a difference between introducing a surprise guest and introducing mental anguish – and the backlash is coming.

A PE fan since the day in 1986 when I first heard Rebel Without a Pause pumping out of a boom box at JV basketball practice, I have been glad to see Flava Flav’s fortunes increase via his second wind on Surreal Life, Strange Love, Flava of Love and his Comedy Central roast. Let’s face it, the man has a financial responsibility for every sperm that’s ever swum through his sack. I hear that “My 13 Children and Their 5 Mothers Thank God Everyday for Introducing me to Brigitte Nielsen” is currently in development.

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Reminiscelets: Tough Crowd and Moby


in Politics, Reminiscent, Television

Four years and a thousand entries ago, I started this blog – knowing full well I probably wouldn’t maintain it but that it would be a learning experience relevant to my line of work. Who knew? I recently added a “On this date three years ago” feature in the sidebar in the hopes of getting a few eyeballs on some of the Pye in the Face canon. But I don’t think that’s really enough – especially where search engines are concerned. So I’m going to take time out now and then to draw attention to past posts I think are pretty cool and that you very likely missed.

Three years ago the thoroughly unique and enjoyable Tough Crowd was canceled by Comedy Central – much to my chagrin. I wrote a bunch of posts on the subject that I know were passed around and read by people involved with the show – including Jim Norton, Laurie Kilmartin, Patrick from Cringe Humor and probably even Colin Quinn himself. If you want to learn why I liked the show so very much, follow some of the Tough Crowd related links you see in this paragraph. That’s the whole point. This is how we play the reminiscelets game. My good friend Brukakke and I drove to New York to see the last Tough Crowd episode taping and even made it onto the show via an audience shot that you can see below. We met a lot of the guys and it was good closure for us. We were probably the equivalent of Tough Crowd superfans.

Tough Crowd Last Episode

Another article I read over recently and got a chuckle out of was in response to a blog entry by Moby right after the 2004 election. Moby was so distraught that George Bush had been re-elected that he was asking Canadians if it was alright if he moved up there. I was only too happy to give him an answer. You won’t often see me talk about politics on PITF, or draw attention to when I’ve done it in the past, so enjoy it while you can.

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Oh What A Whack It Was.


in Television

There are two camps of Sopranos fans making noise on the internet this morning regarding last night’s series finale. Like Marmite, Ovaltine, sushi or the Scissor Sisters – you either love it or you hate it. I fall into the former category. Although I had an “oh no Chase didn’t” moment when the screen fell quickly to black at the end, after some thought I calmed down. Like Sam Malone straightening the picture of Coach before turning out the lights on Beacon Street for the last time, it couldn’t have been concluded any better.

Carlo flipped, and ultimately even if Mink can win Tony’s case on the handgun charge there are some seriously rough waters ahead. Three of his best Capos are either dead or incapacitated and of the three remaining one is banging his daughter, one is named after Bobby Darin and one is afraid of cats. But there’s a lot of positives when you think about it that may carry the family through to a feature film, or at least comfort the average viewer who is miffed at the lack of tangible resolution.

AJ finally has his head out of his moonbat ass and is working with Carmine Junior on a movie. Meadow is going to be a lawyer at 170K starting salary and seems to have landed a decent guy in Patsy’s son. Christopher has been reincarnated as an orange tabby. Carmela is pressing on with her real estate development and Janice has 3 kids and Johnny Sack’s old house to be nutty in. And Tony – Tony is genuinely happy. Note the scene where he’s raking the leaves and he pauses to contemplate the back yard, probably thinking about his beloved ducks. Or when he grabs AJ’s hand in the diner at the very end. His closure with Junior in the state mental hospital. I think there were a lot of “finale-worthy” moments that the detractors missed.

Back to Junior and Tony’s scene in the ward. “You and my Dad, you used to run North Jersey.” “Did we? That’s nice.” Maybe it’s due to my current personal situation, but that exchange really choked me up. For all their past glory, and all the ‘respect’ they are supposed to command within their universe – at the end of the day it doesn’t amount to a hill of penne, and the mob simply doesn’t work anymore.

So what happened to Tony at the very end? I remember a scene from a few seasons ago where Bobby is intimidating a guy in a bar who owes him money. It’s the first time you ever see Bobby as anything more than Junior’s flunkie and you can trace his transformation from that specific moment like a road map. He tells the guy that when you get whacked, it just goes black suddenly. Much like the end of the diner scene last night. But I don’t think Tony is supposed to have been clipped in Chase’s final bow. No way.

The level of anxiety that was created in the final moment’s of the Soprano’s last episode was incredible. It was right up there with Henry Hill’s sauce and Carlito’s cousin’s beer cooler. Tony scans the room for potential leftover Leotardo interlopers and FBI goons. From the trucker, to the paisan, to the hip-hoppers, to the couple and back to the guy at the counter again. He’s out in public with his family, devoid of any crew and a sitting duck of the highest order – even with his back to the wall. That’s the life he has chosen and how he’ll have to live it long after we don’t get to follow along anymore.

For this long time Baba-Binger, last night was a calculated mix of both closure and speculation. I am glad Tony and his family survived, and I am especially happy that Paulie didn’t defect to New York – but we know that there can never be a happy ending for any of them. Whether we literally see Tony’s brains all over a big bowl of onion rings or are forever left to wonder exactly whatever happened to that Russian in the Pine Barrens.

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Trailer Park Boys: Season Fucking 7.


in Television

While most of us are running around filled with glee at the imminent start of the Sopranos’ final 6 episodes, let us not forget that April also marks the start of a new season in Sunnyvale. Season 7 begins with “I Fuckin’ Miss Corey and Trevor” and premieres this Sunday night at 9pm:



“The Trailer Park Boys are back for their 7th season. Cross border dope smuggling, model train hobbyists and Sebastian Bach, ex-frontman of Skid Row collide in these 10 hilarious new episodes.“

It sounds like the boys will have a few run-ins with Americans in this new foray. After a little digging, I found some spoilers. They boys will be selling meat in the LC parking lot to make money. Lahey switches from Liquor to dope. Apparently there’s several new animals in the park, including Sheryl the Crow and some raccoons. Ricky discussing the new influx of critters: “… but I got fuckin’ insects now coming to my trailer, frogs and fuckin these things that look like cats but they got this long beaky nose things , they’re all attracted to my dope …“

As for #7 supposedly being the Sunnyvale’s last hurrah, Rob Wells (Ricky) recently said: “It’s still up in the air,” he said. “We’d love to keep going. A couple of people are a little tired and burnt out and need a break.” It’s no secret who Wells is referring too. Corey and Trevor are apparently completely absent from this series because the actors who play them didn’t want to participate. Which I’m sure they’ll regret in a few years when they’re both living off bar appearances. “We’re definitely up for keeping going, if everyone else is.” In the new series it’s apparently reported that Corey and Trevor have been committed to a mental institution because of all the abuse at the hands of Ricky and Julian over the years.

If you live in Canada, you can watch the entire first episode as of yesterday on Showcase’s website. If you live in the states, like me, it’s blocked. Bugger. But never fear my Yank friends, about an hour after the show airs on Sunday it will be available for download via a torrent right here. If you can’t wait, here’s a poor quality torrent rip of the webstream that is blocked in the USA. Now frig off.

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Friday’s Quizzlet: Am I Mad, In A Coma, Or Back In Time?


in Friday's Quizzlet, Television

The Quizzlet was another repeat today. I wish she wouldn’t do that so often. Perhaps I should start my own quiz meme site. I’ll get in a little practice and write my own questions today. Please feel free to play along in the comments.

What will you miss most about Boston if you ever actually leave?
Not counting friends, narry a whole heck of a lot. If that were a different story, I probably wouldn’t be leaving in the first place. I won’t be sitting in my apartment in Toronto weeping and working on an oil painting of the Charlestown skyline – let’s put it that way.

What is your favorite television show? Pay TV doesn’t count.
The second season of the brilliant Life on Mars started last week, and I’ve downloaded the first 2 episodes, as I recommend you do here. If you don’t fall in love with Gene Hunt and Sam Tyler after an hour, “I’ll come around your houses and stamp on all your toys. Got it? Good kids”. The Trailer Park Boys Movie is now out on DVD, too.

What profession do you wish you’d taken up instead of your current one?
Take it easy, James Lipton. I should have become a homicide detective. All I do in my spare time is watch reality cop shows, and I would love to clock in every day tasked with catching lazy, murderous scumbags. Coincidentally, that’s also the new name of my garage band.

Are there any hardcore Democrats in the audience who feel like their party is completely screwing the pooch in terms of selecting a candidate for 2008?
I’d love to see a woman in the presidency some day. I’d love to see a black person in the presidency some day. Hell – let’s just blow everyone’s mind and elect Tyra Banks. But let’s also be realistic and keep the endgame in mind – this isn’t the decade. The country isn’t ready for it yet. Short of running a unicorn or one of those hairdo trolls that you put on the end of a pencil, the Dems are going to have to come back down to Earth if they want to stand a ghost of a chance next year. Am I wrong?

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Wednesday Wadio: Liquor & Guns & Whores & Roses.


in Television, Wednesday Wadio

“This is a song I play down at the legion sometimes…” – Bubbles.

The Trailer Park Boys rake in a ton of money in the show’s off-season making in-character personal appearances, and for the last few years they have toured as opening acts for a lot of Canadian bands. They took it a step further last week in Halifax, Nova Scotia – their home Province.

“Axl has done duets with the likes of Mick Jagger, Steven Tyler, Bono, Springsteen, and now …Bubbles! A page in the history of rock n roll was written that night, and I’m glad I was there to witness it.” -YouTube comment

The Metro Center in Halifax holds a gazillion people, and I know it was sold out for this show. To hear thousands of voices singing along to Bubbles’ infamous ditty is something you just have to watch for yourself. And when Axl himself does his strange little serpentine slither up to the front of the stage to join in, and actually appears to know the words, it’s a very odd sight indeed. But in a good way.

“Seeing Axl Rose sing along to Nova Scotia’s new official anthem rocks …and hearing how the nearly 10,000 people there knew all the words is just so insanely funny.” YouTube Comment

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Wednesday Wadio: Trailer Park Menagerie.


in Television, Wednesday Wadio

To celebrate P-Cip, Sean and my’s foray into Canadian media fame, see the Trailer Park Boys have American Fans article from yesterday, I thought I’d look for a musical clip related to the show. The first thing I found is a funny scene from the new movie where Tragically Hip’s lead singer, Gord Downie, makes a cameo as a cop. Ricky, who is famous in the TV series for tricking cops to get out of trouble, convinces them that Julian is deaf. The other cop, who asks “Where are you coming from?” is Alex Lifeson, the lead guitarist from RUSH:

Then I found a clip from the beginning of my all-time favorite episode, Who’s the Microphone Assassin, where J-Roc and the Roc Pile shoot a low-budget video for the song of the same name. “The day that J-Roc loses his flow is the day that hair on Jim Lahey’s bald head grow…“

Later in the same episode, the boys have a rap concert. But J-Roc has stage fright due to having been caught masturbating (I couldn’t make this stuff up) so other members of the gang have to fill in. Cory, Trevor and then finally Bubbles get up on stage to bust some rhymes. “Mad MC skills leave ya struck, and I roll with my kitties and I’m hard as fuck!”

And finally, J-Roc gets talked into performing, and the ditty he performs about his mom catching him wanking is undeniably catchy. Ask anyone who has seen this episode – you’ll be chanting “It could happen to you, cause it happened to me…” for a few days afterwards.

If you’re uninitiated, I’ve just given you an easy way to take a peek at this ridiculous phenomenon. Hit the play button on any of the videos to see the clips. I swear this is almost the last of it. Since I’m now an official authority, I have to act accordingly.

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The Media And Me.


in Television

The Pye In The Face Press Desk has been ablaze all day. First, Goonblog gets mentioned on MSNBC. Obviously, I thought it would end there. I didn’t go on a tri-county shooting spree or anything. Maybe Chris did – I should ask. Then, a nice woman emails me from the Canadian Press and asks if I’d like to do an interview about American Trailer Park Boys fans. She Googled PITF and obviously found an obsessive number of references. I am inching closer and closer to winning the ultimate object of my desire. My muse. My filthy fantasy dirty-time woman. You guessed it – Liz Walker.

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The Reviews Are Trickling In. And It Doesn’t Suck.


in Television

Trailer Park Boys: The Movie is set to become the top-grossing Canadian film of all time. And if that doesn’t happen, it will at least eclipse the current canon of FUBAR, Porky’s and Strange Brew as the most internationally accessible piece of Canadian celluloid out there. With Ivan Reitman (you may have heard of Ghostbusters) producing, Clatterburg’s motley crew of guttersnipes is poised for an accompanying distribution deal of the 7 seasons of hilarious TV shows. They are currently talking to three major networks – including Showtime. The stipulation so far has been that it has to be sold somewhere on cable so they don’t have to edit out all the swearing, which is why many feel it didn’t fare better on BBC America 2 years ago. Bleeps just aren’t as funny as creative lines like: “Knock knock, Who’s there? Fuck off“, obviously.


The soundtrack they’ve put together is impressive, and should make a mint all by itself. And, like on the TV show, Canadian musician cameos are in full-effect. “two already avowed Trailer Park fans, Rush’s Alex Lifeson and the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie — unrecognizable beneath cheesy moustaches — as a couple of gung-ho cops.” That is definitely worth the price of a ticket right there. I will post reviews as I find them over the weekend. Things are looking good so far, and don’t think there aren’t critics in Canada who’d love to see this movie fail. These reviews will be fair.

Toronto Star: *** – There is even time for a little character development — actual, almost heartwarming romance, even.

Ottawa Citizen: *** – The dignity is the surprise in Trailer Park Boys … most of the time. Julian is the large man who carries a constant glass of rum-and-Coke, even when he goes to the bar (“I brought this from home,” he explains).

Globe and Mail: ** 1/2 – Where it works, brilliantly on occasion, is at the edges (the best lines arrive as tossed-off asides) and in the performances of a cast who have lived with these characters long enough to capture them intimately, and to convey their strange blend of weirdness and familiarity.

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Then We’ll See Who Can Go Fuck Who’s Self.


in Television

I saw a little kid this morning with the same Sunnyvale T-Shirt you see me wearing in the photo below from the Beachcomber. He was with his family outside the Park Plaza. I yelled out “Freedom 35!” and he looked at me like I’d just opened the sliding door of a black 1975 Chevy van and offered him moist candy corn. Then it seemed to sink in and he laughed, as did his father. I assume he was a Canadian tourist, but what if he wasn’t? What if the upcoming movie becomes a cult classic along the lines of Strange Brew or FUBAR and I’m suddenly vindicated for all the TPB prattling I’ve been doing on here for the last 24 months? October 6th fast approaches.

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I’m Not Your Donner.


in Television

The only thing that’s worse than oppressive heat is oppressive heat in the middle of a rainstorm. And the only thing worse than that is having nothing better to talk about than the frigging weather. At least in this scenario no one can accuse me of having a degenerative sweat duct disorder. I have to traverse the city twice tonight for meetings and will undoubtedly stumble through my apartment door around 9pm like one of the Donner Party.

The Oilers lost last night, and although I was bummed it was one of the greatest and most exciting series of hockey, or any other sport, that I’ve ever watched. Now what am I supposed to do? Glad you asked. Luckily Big Brother (the UK version – I’m not that sad) is in full swing, and my router at home is smoking from all the downloading. Year after year I am absolutely transfixed by this show, and I’m not proud of it. Good watchin’.

I have to wrap it up and start the evening’s journey. I’ll leave you all with this insane Lego site, where someone with even more spare time than me has made “dream playsets” of all his favorite pop-culture icons – including Trailer Park Boys. And yes, Julian has a little lego Bacardi and Coke.

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Trailer Park Boys Video Clips


in Television

“Got a grey kitty, white one and a tabby too – and a little orange guy who puts snakes in my shoe. Mad MC skills leave ya struck, and I roll with my kitties and I’m hard as fuck!” – Bubbles.

I’ve lost a little steam in regards to my affection for Squidoo. The first couple of months it made me some money – but now it’s slowed down and a lot of people have abandoned it. It’s still useful in terms of SEO, but if I’m not at work building lenses for clients – I don’t really touch it at all. Squidoo, that is.

Yesterday all that changed. The most recent versions of Flash have enabled great and easy video compression, and sites like Google Video – and especially YouTube – have blasted through the roof. Now anyone can upload massive sized videos and have them compressed on the fly for all to see. I uploaded some clips I shot at the Pogues concert back in March, and they got tons of traffic and I even received emails from other people who were at the show, saying hello. A big honking community has built up around it.

Now Squidoo has a YouTube plugin, which enables you to choose thumbnails of your favorite videos or even embed the player right into the lens full-sized. I wanted to give ‘er a test last night, so I opened up my Trailer Park Boys lens for the first time in a while and integrated all of the funniest clips I could find. There’s Bubbles rapping, a Jim Lahey drunk montage, Ricky trying to get his grade 10 and many more. If you’ve been curious about the show, or just want to refresh your memory, visit Sunnyvale to watch all of the readily accessible new videos. Or maybe don’t.

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