Pye in the Face

It’s like clockwork. Just like a big stupid clock. The weekend comes and the heavens open up to piddle on Boston. So, like a trooper, I’ve stayed inside and done work today. A little domestic cleaning and a little on the laptop. So it hasn’t been a complete wash.

But listen, weather - and I’m deadly friggin’ serious now. One more weekend like this and I’m going to take down my weathervane, cancel my subscription to the Weather Channel and never - ever - listen to “It’s Raining Men” by the Weather Girls again. Not so tough now, are you… weather?

Appetizer: Which keys do you have on your key chain?
Building, apartment, basement, suitcase, mailbox, office, grandmother’s house. All my other keys I keep in a locked briefcase stowed in the engine compartment of a scarab currently en route to Miami from Bogata.

Soup: What is the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?
Shelving my second degree and moving to England. Jumping out of an airplane was a little nuts too. I’ve still never gotten those photos developed, with the exception of this one. I did it at an airfield in Maine with a friend that I made while living in England, so I guess the two spontaneous events were linked in an odd way. Those of you who actually met Gus will also remember another strange link - the fact that he was the “missing” one.

Salad: Who is the best cook in your family?
Bill Clinton waved to me this morning as his motorcade sped down Tremont Street - and I wanted to fit that in somewhere today. So I’d have to say that Bill Clinton is the best cook in my family. All he ever makes is popsicles, though. They taste like brie and are high in protein.

Main Course: If you were to write a “how-to” book, what would the title be?
It would be a sort of “Die Broke” meets “Who Moved My Cheese?” meets “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” entitled You Will Die Alone Beside A Trunk Of DVD Porn.

Dessert: Name a recent fad you’ve tried.
I tried the Atkins diet about a year and a half ago. But then I realized there’s really no substitute for exercise. I also realized I was beginning to smell funny and hadn’t gone to the bathroom properly in weeks. Normally, this is called going to visit my parents. But in this instance, I decided to accept the fact that bread was my little yeasty buddy. Not to be confused with that girl I met at HarpoonFest last year.

I’ve never seen my friend Sam’s band play, and for all I know they may sound like sick cats porking in an echoey alleyway, but I’m going to check them out next week on the strength of this flyer alone.

He contributes to this site frequently so I figured a shout-out was in order. He’s also from New Zealand - that’s got to weigh heavily among the sympathy voters. Sam’s about to rock, and I salute him.

I am busy this week. Freaky busy. Four new clients starting the same month. I’m psyched we have a new sales guy and all, and by psyched I mean I want to drown him in a bathtub full of vinegar. Good for the company, but makey Davey crazy.

Had a great time with my old Vermont Academy buddies Cara and Bonnie last night. They’re just in town for a couple of nights, and what a first night we had. My point is, between work and necessary-decade-overdue socializing - blog time is scarce. So I need y’all to talk amongst yourselves today. I’ll even give you a topical topic.

Name a song that reminds you of someone you went to high school with, and why.

Oh, and I also want to point out that I have the leaked first-new-episode-in-3-years of Family Guy on my laptop ready for repeated weekend viewing. I love technology.

Have you ever wished there existed a one-stop-emporium for all things hockey enforcer related? Well, there already are a few hockey fight fan pages, but we’ll be adding a more humorous, personal bent to the pugilistic passtime. None of them are written and maintained by a minor league employee with a wit as sharp as a CCM blade, either. I’ll be helping out with the project and adding it to the mountain of partially-finished web projects now teetering on my virtual desk. It’s a great idea, a great domain name and I’m therefore proud to unveil:

www.goonblog.com

We’ll be clearing the benches towards the middle of next month, and I hope you’ll all get a kick out of it once it’s up and skating. I’m showing it to everyone now because as soon as I post it here on Pye In The Face - the sooner the search engines follow the link through and spider the domain. Jesus H. Christ I’m a dork.

Hey you know what? A round cookie with one bite out of it looks like a C
A donut with one bite out of it looks like a C - but it’s not as good as a cookie!
Oh and the moon sometimes looks like a C, but you can’t eat that, so…

C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me, yeah!
C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me,
C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me,
Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C!

Did you hear about this? I mean - did you fucking hear about this?! In an attempt to battle childhood obesity Cookie Monster, who sat on my stuffed animal shelf and watched over me for the majority of my first 10 years on this planet, is having his entire identity stripped away. Read this great article and see if you can guess what ‘C’ word I currently have on the tip of my tongue to describe PBS’s social engineers. And here’s a great related Fark Photoshop Contest.

Listen, can we rename him “Liberal Monster” instead? Like.. have the character roam around the neighborhood (while Oscar acts as lookout) puncturing the jugular vein of Janine Garafalo behind a dumpster the next time she guest stars? I’ll miss ya, my little blue buddy. Thanks for all the cookies.

Most hockey fans don’t need another reason to count Bobby Orr amongst their hockey heroes, but Sunday he gave them one anyway: “Our sport is in danger of becoming irrelevant unless both sides immediately put an end to this nonsense.” He’s referring of course to the complete lack of a hockey season this year, stemming from a stalemate which ultimately boils down to reasons of business (greed). Bureed. Grisness.

Bobby’s been quiet thus far regarding the labor dispute, publically putting trust in National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow to resolve their differences and do what’s best for the game. Well not no more. Since the lockout’s inception on September 14th, the two men have met nearly 40 times to try and reach an agreement - and now Orr feels more drastic measures are in order:

“Owners and players should demand that both sides continue to meet until they emerge with a deal or a statement that they can’t resolve their differences and are stepping aside.” Orr is obviously not alone, but the buzz his column is generating on both sides of the border might finally push something through should either of the major players in the negotiations wish to keep their souls.

According to Mike Brophy, “Bettman, the sixth man in charge of running the NHL since 1917 has taken hockey from heaven to hell to non-existence.” Even the best Zamboni can’t smooth things over in that kind of heat, boys. Let’s just please wrap this up so I can stop pretending to like baseball. Much appreciated.

One of my co-workers has been chatting with his parents on and off all morning behind me. They live in Hawaii and apparently his poor mother was admitted to the hospital over the weekend, hence the multitude of calls. The one-sided versions of the conversations I’ve been privvy to started off normal enough, but have gotten progressively weirder as he must have been able to tell - because he just came over to tell me what was going on with mumsie.

Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Kahn sticks out among my childhood memories for two reasons. It was the first VHS tape we rented at the video store after getting a VCR in 1982. The second reason being the awful scenes involving Ricardo Montalban placing slugs into the ears of various prisoners thereby controlling their minds. “Mind-controlling Ceti Eels” to be exact. Please believe me when I tell you I had to look that up. There’s a party in my ear, and everyone’s invited.

So this guy’s mother wakes up Saturday morning with a narsty headache. After a few hours some blood begins to drip out of her ear and his father rushes her to the hospital where they learn she’s hosting an uninvited skull-guest. They’re taking it out later today and still don’t know exactly what it is. He seems to think it’s a cockroach as they’re apparently way too common in Hawaii. I think someone needs to track down Mr. Roarke immediately - the safety of the Reliant, the Genesis project and Dog the Bounty Hunter may depend on it!

People like to Google themselves. I’m no exception. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea though - Google as a verb means to look something up using the search engine of the same name. It’s not a euphamism for feverish masturbation. Although most people I know enjoy that as well. Myself? Well, some days I don’t even leave the house.

This site gets hits for “david pye” and “dave pye” every single solitary day. They can’t all be looking for me. So I decided to sniff around and see what some of the few folks I share my name with have been up to. Are Dave Pyes Googling themselves and finding me? Are there Dave Pyes of considerable notoriety out there somewhere? Nobel prize winners? Astronauts? I decided to have a wee look.

There’s Dave Pye the power lifter. Dave Pye the math teacher. Dave Pye the sound engineer. Dave Pye the software COO. Dave Pye the electrician. Dave Pye the distributor. Dave Pye the DJ (he even refers to himself as “Pyeman”) - and the list goes on. The other thing all these cats have in common is that they’re English. Apparently we’re a dime a dozen on the haunted isle. Am I the only colonial Dave Pye? Do others exist? If you find this, let me know. It would appear we’re on the brink of extinction here in North America. Act now and Sally Struthers will send you a bundt cake.

Since its inception almost a year ago, readers of Pye In The Face have been puzzled by the rantings of a frequent poster called ‘Monster’. Sometimes he’s funny, sometimes he makes absolutely no sense and still other times his writings make you want to bathe obsessively with a pool brush. Whatever your reaction to the guy, there’s now an all-Monster-all-the-time option available on the interwebnets for you to enjoy/avoid like the plague:

www.monsterbehave.com : Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I got my new Inspiron 6000 home last night, switched it on, and immediately found myself jacked in to someone’s wireless connection. And to top it all off - it’s one of the fastest wireless connections I’ve ever seen. Amazing. Is it the girls who live above me? Is it Seamus? Is it someone across the way? I don’t know - and I don’t care.

I was planning to spend the day on my roofdeck, getting some sun and setting up my new machine. But at the stroke of weekend, the weather went south and I’m stuck indoors like a veal. It was beautiful all week. And it’s supposed to be beautiful all next week. But the moment I got off of work, the locust descended.

So I suppose I’ll make a pot of Tim Horton’s and enjoy my new toy. Incidentally, today is Boss’s 8th birthday. My best little orange buddy is 56 in cat years. Time flies. Actually - time screams. Like this wireless connection.

Appetizer: Name something that helps you fall asleep.
Liquor. But seriously folks, liquor. I have a lot of trouble falling asleep usually, but recently hooked my bedroom computer up to cable. A Tivo’d episode of CSI or two - and I’m off to sleepy sleepy land. And if I’ve gone to the gym that day, I may not even make it to midnight. Even though I usually just masturbate in the locker room.

Soup: Who brings out the best in you?
Whenever I need some pep in my step, I think of friends who died young. That may sound a little morbid - but it works for me. I’ve staved off the reaper for 31 years and I really want to make the most of my life in memory of those who had to cash their chips in early for whatever reason.

Salad: What do you like to do on a rainy day?
I’m ridiculously productive on rainy days. As long as “rewire a plugged in toaster outside” appears nowhere on my proposed list of tasks.

Main Course: Complete this sentence: In our home, we never have enough:
Puerto Rican hookers, fireflies, liquor, chinchillas or Al Franken books. I was able to cross Trailer Park Boys Season 4 DVD and NHL2K5 off of the list only this morning as they both just arrived in the mail.

Dessert: Which shoe do you put on first?
The one without the scorpion. Not such a great quizzlet this week, folks. I apologize. Poor material and an extremely busy day at work. Help a brother out and take a stab at these questions yourselves.

Janet has been in Sweden all week long visiting our old friends Mike and Joanna. I’ve just been sent a barrage of interesting photographs that look like outtakes from a Stockholm tourist pamphlet of questionable quality. But then that, undoubtedly, was the point.

I think this photo was taken on the ferry to Estonia. I love ferrys that have bars on them. The ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, the ferry to Prince Edward Island, etc. It’s like taking the booze boat to Liquorton. Whiskey on the waves. Cockys in the crow’s nest. Pabst on the poopdeck. I’ll stop.

Here Janet enjoys one of at least several non-alcoholic beverages which were imbibed on her trip. After he sent me the photo I asked Mike “Is that Janet’s new Swedish jacket?” To which he replied “One of them.” Now I know Sweden is insanely expensive - that coffee probably cost $11 USD. Janet, did we have a relative die and leave you money that I’m not aware of? Do I need to check in on Grandma?

I wanted to get the skyline in this photo, but became increasingly obsessed with the number of cobblestones making up the street. In fact, I’ve already counted all of them four times and am now going to move on to incessant hand-washing and lightswitch-flipping. Yes, the ‘C’ in OCD apparently stands for cobblestones.

I frequently annoy Joanna by applying Switzerland jokes to Sweden. Little does (did) she know - I do this in an attempt to drive her batty (battier). For example: “What did you do yesterday? Sit around and eat Toblerone while watching The Sound of Music three times?” Or “Does the fact that your country is neutral exclude you from buying rounds?” She loves it. And geese.

The Fat Duck has just been voted the best restaurant in the whole entire world by London’s The Guardian. Now let me tell you why I care. In the years since I left England in 1999, owner Heston Blumenthal has made a serious name for himself, becoming a culinary celebrity across the pond. If Gordon Ramsay is the evil tempermental British chef, then Heston is his calm, measured nemesis. I was there when the Duck first opened, and served Heston and his staff many after-work pints as they were coming up and busting their balls to make a name for that strange, tiny eatery.

The Duck happens to be right beside the Hind’s Head which is the pub I worked at for the better part of two years. Those of you who have been to my apartment and seen the painting I like to show people of the Hind’s have seen the Duck depicted right beside it in watercolor. In fact, Heston bought the pub about a year ago and now owns 75% of the trade in the little village of Bray. Quite an impressive little empire he’s building.

Anyway - I know Heston, he came to my leaving party, and I couldn’t be happier for him. My girlfriend at the time loved his mashed potatoes, and he used to bring them over to the pub every night he knew she was in town. Heston used to be a collection agent, and how he went from cracking skulls to cracking eggs I never really got out of him. But he’s a genuine nice guy with an incredible talent that was evident even then.

If you ever stop in, tell him “Canadian Dave” said hello. And in case you missed it, I said the best restaurant in the fucking world! Way to go, duckies.

Am I writing an article about biker gangs to give me an excuse to post another old Brando photo? It’s entirely possible. But I also read a most unfortunate story this morning, and wanted to point out a few things that may just end up saving a life one day. I’m no expert on the subject of motorcycle culture, but I do claim to be a big proponent of common sense - so I feel almost obliged to offer my $0.02.

You see - hipsters love cheeky little t-shirts. Not the “I’m With Stupid ->” or “Grandpa’s Little Fishing Buddy” variety, but rather the obscure pop culture reference sort. If you want to walk around in Arthur Fonzarelli or Mork From Ork gear, that’s perfectly fine. But if you plan on wearing one of these bad boys outside of your own home, slap yourself silly - because you’re no longer simply “with” stupid.

The story I’m referencing took place in New Jersey, but out there such gangs are greatly overshadowed by traditional goombas. Now in Canada, biker gangs eclipse even the mafia in terms of power and brutality. They’re an ultra-violent, ruthless faction who in the last 20 years have come to completely embody organized crime in the Great White North. Keeping an eye on alliances and squashing turf wars between Hell’s Angels, Satan’s Choice and the Rock Machine keep the RCMP far busier than any seal-clubber or escaped polar bear. And just try catching up to a Harley Fatboy on horseback.

Any Canuck with the street savvyness of a fruitfly, knows better than to even discuss the gangs in mixed company, much less fly their colors in an affiliated bar. That would be tantamount to strolling through Brooklyn with Sammy Gravano’s face on the front of your mock turtleneck - with the phrase “Squealers Kick Ass” emblazoned beneath. So be forewarned, skinny Allston emo boys and the like - stick to the Atari apparel.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted any friends-with-celebrities photos, so isn’t it just uncanny that some came my merry way recently. Those of you who remember Jason Thelen from Concord probably haven’t met his lovely wife, Cary. And that’s probably not an accident, knowing him. Incidentally, you can see multiple photos of Adam and I misbehaving at their wedding here. It’s a pretty funny gallery - some of my best old-school captioning work - so check it out.

Anyhew, Cary was some gala event or another, and who should be attending but the one and only Ben Stein of Ferris fame. I don’t have many other details (perhaps Jason or Cary will chime in via the comments) other than it looks like our man Ben is a new fan. Stay tuned for his new show, “Fight Off Ben Stein’s Indecent Proposal” coming soon to FX/civil court.

The aforementioned new feature is live. Have a look over to your left and dig the new testimonials section. Keep refreshing to scroll through them all. I managed to collect about 12 good ones, but the rest of the submissions really fell a bit short of the mark. I hope that now you’re able to see the feature in action, you can bring your full A-game to the tepid task of testimonial typing - right here in the comments. Help a brother out.

The boys are back in town. How fucking excited am I?

Hard to believe it’s already been a year since we first met Conky and Steve French. And what’s in store for us this time around? According to Showcase’s official site, a whole fuckin’ whackload:

“Grandmothers in drug dens; wheelchair fraud arrests; nasty rap videos; stolen rocket launchers; break-ins at the local college; dope shipped in shopping carts; Lahey getting an award and probably the biggest gun fight in Canadian television history—and that includes King of Kensington.”

For my American friends who want to see what all the fuss is about, episodes are usually available for download via torrent here just a few hours after they’re aired in the Great White North. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’m looking forward to another summer in Sunnyvale.

Appetizer: What was your first “real” job?
I assume by “real” quizzlet that you mean salaried. My first job was a paperboy, but my first “real” job was as a junior web developer for a now defunct Internet incubator. It was a low-paying, entry level job but the competition for it was still fierce. After I got home from the interview, (this was 1999) I fired up a strange program I’d found called “Flash” or something - and redid their entire website on my own web space. When the CEO of the company saw the site (I eventually forwarded the link to the underling who had interviewed me) he said two things. The first was “Jesus, that’s not our new site, is it?” The second was “Hire that kid”.

Soup: Where would you go if you wanted to spark your creativity?
My roofdeck. A few years ago I went up there with a pen and a notebook for the afternoon and mapped out my first retail website. The logo, the design, the site map, most of the content - everything. My creativity was also probably enhanced by the strange tea my roomate had given me earlier, and the fact that I thought I was on Pluto.

Salad: Complete this sentence: I am embarrassed when…
…people tell me they’re embarrassed to be American.

Main Course: What values did your parents instill in you?
My mother is an all around good soul. She kept me on a short leash and gave me an even mix of discipline and support for which I’ll forever be grateful. My father, on the other hand, was more like the Tie Domi of the household, enforcing my mother’s will whenever I got a little too fucking cheeky. He’d skate onto the ice and goon me whenever I started crowding the crease. But he did have his memorable parental moments, and I’ll share one with you now. When I was about 6, my mother had a birthday party at which people from the neighborhood came over and did the usual. The next night my mother, who was doing home fashion parties at the time, went out leaving me alone with Gordo - and an enormous leftover chocolate cake which stood unguarded in the dining room. I couldn’t stop thinking about that damn cake, but I knew that in order to get to it I’d have to sneak past my father who was watching hockey in the living room. He’d have his back to me, so I decided to risk it. Unfortunately, I risked it about seven too many times. During my umpteenth sortie to sneak in, get a fingerful of icing and then scoot back to my bedroom, something went horribly wrong. A split second after I looked over my shoulder to make sure my father was facing the other way, he quietly ran up behind me. As I returned my attention to the cake, he grabbed both my ears and rammed my face firmly into the choclately goodness. “Nobody likes a thief. You want the fucking cake? Have the fucking cake”. There was a similar incident weeks later with chocolate pudding and the two messages reverberate through time to me even now - I am still incapable of stealing. Although in all fairness I haven’t been confronted with Jell-O pudding in a long while.

Dessert: Name 3 fads from your teenage years.
I was less susceptible to fads by my teens. I think a better question would have been to ask me about fads from my childhood. One thing I do remember from Grade 9 at Lorne Park Secondary School in Mississauga, 1988 and my first foray into the teen years, was that my clique wore nothing but clothing from Mark’s Work Wearhouse. We all had the same green workpants with the ends rolled up, the same fleece MountainGear tops and the same bad 1/2 buzzed on one side, 1/2 long on the other haircuts. We were far too young to be drinking, having relations, running from police - and we definitely way overshot the section of the eighties when it was cool to emulate Flock of Seagulls. So there you have it. If I were to wind back a little further into childhood, I’d have to discuss my unhealthy fascination with SeaMonkeys. That’s not a joke. Ask Janet.

It’s official. It’s happening. The chihuahua is out of the bag. Harvest the limes and board up the Alamo. Grease up the roofdeck - It’s time for a little Cinco de Cinco!

The 5th annual Cinco De Mayo party will be held Saturday May 7th at The SideBar! Corona will be holding a promotion, my usual DJ will be spinning himself silly, and we’ll be going all the way until 2AM. The official Evite is here, and I’ll be adding more people gradually over the next few days. It’s a free-for-all, so don’t be shy. Bring your friends, add your friends, introduce your friends to my friends, get a tetanus shot. Send me an email if you would like to be added and haven’t been already.

Last year was a decent time, especially when I got punched in the face, and I promise this year will be even better. Between the gratuitous violence and the sunburn, it’s amazing I got any liquoring done. Make the nightmares stop. Speaking of sunburns - weather-permitting, and in keeping with tradition, the roofdeck will be a rockin’ all afternoon prior to the official par-tay. Feel free to join us/make a noise complaint. And if anyone would like to volunteer to have a pinata constructed in their likeness, a la Summer Wheatley, it would be much appreciated.

Back to the Evite - anyone who replies “maybe” and doesn’t have solid plans for that day, or at the very least a gravely ill family member, can suck a habenero. Vote for Pedro.