Pye in the Face

Janet and I went to the U2 concert last night - and as usualy those wacky, socially concious, ultra-billionaire micks did not disappoint. I was a bit torn while getting ready for the show as to whether or not I should bring my camera. I live near the Flee… the Banknorth Garden, but it certainly would have been a drag to have to run home to ditch the camera had it been discovered. And it was muggy and rainy here in Boston last night, so a jacket to help the smuggling efforts would have been a bad idea. So, disappointed since I wanted some snaps for my new concert gallery, I decided not to risk it. Here’s Lego instead.

After Tibbets hooked Janet and I up with a few drinkie-poos, we ran across Causeway street through the pelting rain and ran inside the Garden (feels good to be able to say that again). The will-call area was all but closed and we could here the first strains of Vertigo blaring beyond. Luckily the guard let Janet head over to the booths on the condition that I stay by the entrance. There were tons of stragglers trying to get tickets.

When she got to the window, the will-call guy said “Pye! I’ve been waiting for you. You’re with the band!” Janet (her night officially ‘made’) blushed, grabbed the tickets and ran back over to me. We got the tickets from Adam Clayton’s girlfriend, afterall. It’s an interesting story. In a nutshell, Janet knows the girlfriend’s sister. After the equivalent of a cavity search (glad I left the camera at home,) we darted up a long, broken escalator and took our (very good) seats.

I won’t go into detail about the show - you can read that for yourself in a dozen places. What struck me though is that during the slow songs, the once prominent lighter had been replaced by cell phone lights. As “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own” kicked in little blue, orange and pink LCD displays flickered on and illuminated the place. It was a very cool effect of which I was unversed. But then again I only go to shows of this scale when it’s U2, so why would I be? If you pulled out your cell phone and held it up like that in Avalon or the Orpheum, you’d probably get slapped in the back of the head for your efforts.

A great show, and I’m glad I finally had an excuse to spend a night at the Garden. With hockey off the menu this year, up until now it’d been a choice between basketball, Disney on Ice or Motley Crue. Only combined would the three fully substitute for the glaring lack of violent Canadian dirtbags on skates that I miss so very much. I’m not sure where all the cornrows and bling would fit in, though.

Appetizer: What is the Total number of DVDs you own?
About 200. I could have many more if I borrowed and burned - but I like collecting the real deal - jewel box, cover art and all. The format will be around for a long time, so it’s a good investment which I enjoy hoarding.

Soup: What is the last film you bought?
Dog Day Afternoon. Pacino playing gay back when it was more likely to ruin your career than get you an Oscar. Of course, he also did Cruising shortly after. It was also one of only 5 movies that Johns Cazale (Fredo) made before he died of cancer. What a run the guy had though - if you’re only going to make a few movies in your lifetime, make sure The Godfather and Deer Hunter are on the list!

Main Course: What is the last film you watched?
I saw Revenge of the Sith last weekend, but wasted 3 hours downloading and watching Hostage Wednesday night. In retrospect, I should have my genitals held hostage in a tight, painful metal cuff of some sort as pennance.

Dessert: Name five films that mean something to you & why.
I have to get to work, but you can see full write-ups on all five on my old site by following these links: Rushmore - Goodfellas - Waiting for Guffman. Add Blade Runner, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Blazing Saddles to the list as well. If you need to ask why, it’s because you’ve never seen any of them. Have a great long weekend. I’ll be sleeping.

Very.

They got me 3 times this morning during my merry jaunt to work. The first was at the end of Salem Street - “Hi, how do you get to Haymarket from here?” she asked. “Easy… follow me.” I’m not sure if she did, because I walk at a pretty fierce clip and her short little self likely had to break into a trot to keep up. I hope she didn’t scuff her walker in the process.

The second inquisitor got me as I was crossing Government Center Plaza. “Helloooo…” the bearded-wonder said in a strange, sing-songy voice. “Do you have the time?” I rolled up my sleeve “It’s 10 past 10.” I told him. “THANK you.” he said, and then looked at his female counterpart in such a satisfied kind of way that she must have tried to warn him not to approach me for fear of a beating or a bum rape or something. I refrained from asking him if was true Al-Zarqawi had been wounded, and if there was an address to which I could send a bouquet/Patriot missle battery. As I was late for work.

But she’d be the exception to the rule. Because every summer, as the tourists descend, I may as well have an “Information” sign strapped around my neck. As I’ve said before, I kind of enjoy it. Because the inquiring mind’s level of politeness dictates whether I send them to their intended destination, or whether I send them into the Combat Zone. It’s fun for so many reasons. Especially if they have small children with them.

“Excuse me sir, can you tell us if the information booth is around here somewhere?” two little old ladies asked me as I was walking through the common. And I was quickly reminded of another reason I probably shouldn’t be representing Boston in the face of tourism. “Yeah… see that little building with the turquoise trim? Between those fucking pine trees there?” Their eyes widened, and I actually felt bad. I swear profusely until I’ve had my first coffee.

I just took a gander at the 10-day weather forecast for my favorite zip code, 02116. They are predicting rain all 10 days. Why did I move back from London again? Walking home from work late last night, I was blown around Tremont street like a rag doll - normally I have to pay good money for that, and it happens on Washington Street. My Putnam umbrella acted as a parasail as I tried to find a comfortable medium between remaining dry and being pulled straight into the grill of a utility truck.

This morning, as I walked back to the mines, devastated umbrellas lay strewn about the city - everywhere. Like scattered corpses in the wake of a holy crusade. If that comparison sounds over-dramatic, that’s because it is. But I must have counted 20 dead little soldiers between the North End and Copley. So I want to share a little secret of mine with you, faithful reader.

I have a friend, let’s call her Yuki, who works for Putnam. About two years ago she overheard me complaining of an unfortunate umbrella-blowout I’d suffered on a particularly windy walk to work. She proceeded to tell me about the Putnam umbrella (not to be confused with an escrow company), which is so well made that when it’s plastic spines are blown inside out - it can be easily popped back into it’s original state. These buggers are rugged. Rugged buggers.

I now own two, both courtesy of Yuki, and I love them. They keep all of my broad bod bone dry, and can fend off the mightiest gusts Beantown can muster. I can’t stress this enough - make friends with a Putnam employee immediately. Use them, sexually or otherwise, to get an umbrella. But get an umbrella/handjob, you must.

There are hundreds of pictures on my hard drive, spanning years, with more in production all of the time. Gallery creation is a time consuming and miserable process, so I’ve always been on the lookout for a solution - and I think I’ve found it. Back in the david.pye.com days I’d make the photo pages manually and write all of the captions at once which would take an eternity. So I abandoned it in favor of the blog format, much to many of your chagrins. Well I’m bringing it back so we can have the best of both worlds! Introducing the all singing, all dancing:

Pye In The Face - The Gallery!

It slices, it dices. You can vote for your favorite photos, leave comments, upload your own pictures, search and much more. I spent last night uploading and categorizing a ton of old photos from past Thanksgivings, concerts and parties. There will be more on the way as I find time. Have a look - I bet you’ll get a kick out of it.

If you’re a frequent reader/contributor, please register in the gallery section. It takes 5 seconds and you’ll only have to do it once. And - if I can get passive aggressive for a moment - it would be nice if you could all contribute. Comment, send photos, get interactive. If you were there, sound off. If you have pictures you’d like to see added - email them to me. Enjoy, everyone.

Friday night at the Ritz, Wilma and Dick Triconi hosted a wonderful engagement party for their son, Doug and his lovely fiancee, Cara. I haven’t had that much fun in a very long time. Cara is originally from Calgary, and her parents flew down from the Great White North for the occasion. Simply put - they had no idea what they were in for. But Camp friends met Concord friends met relatives and the evening was a great success.

But the soiree was not without its scandalous elements! Not to take anything away from Doug, but at 2 a.m. that very morning at Mohegan Sun - Al and Rachel got engaged! No one even really knew they were dating! So congrats to you crazy kids as well. They gave me their blessing to blogify their formerly secret love. And before you ask me which trailer park they’re thinking of moving to, they were at Mohegan for Rachel’s birthday. It wasn’t hand-picked by Al as the perfect proposal place. Although let’s be honest… no one would be too shocked, budday! Double down and let it ride. Whoops! You just did.

My favorite part of the evening was the end of Doug’s speech - when he screamed “Sexual Chocolate” and dropped the microphone on the floor. The angry DJ didn’t calm down when we explained Doug’s reference (”That’s a $150 dollar mic , man!”), but the Concord contingent were howling. The “8-ball of Viagra” joke Doug aimed at a table full of his elderly relatives also met with furious laughter, as did Kingman’s tie.

See the full gallery of photos (so far) here. I installed some great new software over the weekend. You can leave comments and captions and even vote for your favorite pics. What you have to do (unfortunately) is register via the link the top of the gallery page (takes 2 seconds). Then you have the option to comment on all the individual pic pages once you’re logged in. Sorry for the extra hoop to jump through, but it doesn’t take long and you only have to do it once.

I realized that in all the excitement I’m a complete spaz and didn’t get a single good photo of Cara, so please email me all your snaps - there were plenty of Pye In The Face readers in attendance with cameras, so don’t hold back. I am talking to you, Stacey, Rachel and Mary Beth. Let’s get a fun gallery together with lots of captions and comments which I can then forward to the happy couple. I need your help, kids. EMAIL me your pics!

I have to leave early to get to Triconi’s engagement party tonight, and I’ve a mountain of work to get through beforehand. So the Quizzlet will be delayed until some point over the weekend. A thousand pardons, and I’ll leave you with something to keep you busy in the meantime. Here’s me dipping your pacifier in gin:

1. Are you afraid to die?

2. If you had your way, would you rather die because of a disease or instantaneously?

3. It’s your last day alive and you know it. How will you spend your last 24 hours?

4. Describe your funeral or wake.

5. How would you want your remains to be put to rest?

Pretty morbid, I know. But a sad story I heard last night got me thinking about the happy hunting ground a little bit, so I’m running with it. Post your answers in comments, and don’t die over the weekend.

Do you like what you read here everyday? Am I on your favorites menu? Does your employer inadvertently pay you to laugh at dead hooker jokes? Have you preempted an important conference call for Friday’s Quizzlet? Then click some of the ads you see in the left hand column every once in a while. Shameless.

Liken it to throwing a rupee at a Calcutta beggar who has just beaten his Grandmother unrecognizable for your entertainment. It pays for hosting. If you want to make an omlette, you have to beat a few East Indian senior citizens unmercifully.

A very good of mine is getting married this summer, and his engagement party is this Friday night at the Ritz here in Boston. He flew in from L.A. last night and called me as I was walking home from work. “You’re here!” I said when I answered the phone. “Yeah man. I’m just standing on Boston Common killing some time,” he replied. I started to laugh.

“Dude, I’m walking through Boston common right now. Where are you exactly?” Dougie quickly told me and I cut off of the sidewalk, over a grassy hill and spotted him right away. We were on opposite sides of a large patch of grass, just staring at eachother and pacing back and forth. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the scene at the end of Wall Street, where Bud and Gordon are doing the exact same thing in the middle of Central Park. Well, apparently Doug had the same idea, because he immediately broke into full Gecko mode:

“I took you in… a NOBODY. I opened the doors for you… showed you how the system works… the value of information… how to get it. Fulham oil, Brant resources, geodynamics and this is how you fucking pay me back you cockroach“.

My gut still hurts from all the laughing I did last night. Congratulations, big guy! We’re going to have so much fun Friday night it should be illegal. In fact, I’m almost certain it is illegal. Forget I said anything. (Dave whistles, walks away innocently looking into the sky, and… scene).

Revenge of the Sith opens today, and I felt a quick little furry nod was in order. The last time I thought the last-ever-Star-Wars-movie was opening, it was 1983 and my family was waiting to see Return of the Jedi in Ottawa, Ontario. My father bought a cute little Wicket the Ewok button for Janet, which some enterprising guy was selling to the people standing in line. He was selling buttons - not Janet. Just wanted to make that as clear as a Dagobah pond.

Now, 22 years later, I’m spending this holiest of days sweating through work like Jabba on a treadmill. Yet I’ll still find the time to make several bad Star Wars jokes, eh? View the entire Ewok PhotoShop contest here.

It’s an exciting and somewhat scary time at my place of work. We’re beyond busy - with a pipeline that’s fixin’ to burst. Needless to say, I’ve had little time this week to write entries at night. I usually scribble or come up with an idea in the evening, and then post it or quickly write it up the next day. I try to blog about blogging as little as possible - so I hope you’ll bear with me today as I continue to try and keep my head above water here in “the mines”.

Then I have to cut my work day short and run home to clean my apartment because my building is being appraised tomorrow. So I can likely add “apartment hunting” to the stress docket within the next few months. But I’ll cross that security deposit when I come to it. Still - inspiration may yet strike me today, and I could waste 15 minutes writing about fruitflies, midgets, Christopher Walken or a bicycle I had when I was five. Stay tuned.

Saturday night Art and I were walking down Salem Street when I was approached by a young lad of 14 I recognized as one of my little neighbor’s best buddies. “Excuse me sir, can I ask you a question?” Considering our proximity to Martignetti’s, I knew exactly what that question was going to be. “I don’t like the sounds of this, kid” I replied.

I looked down at the slick little bastard in the Jay-Z T-shirt and felt like I was looking at myself, 16 years ago. But it would have been a Public Enemy shirt. Then he popped the question - “Can you get me a six-pack of Smirnoff Ice, please?” I looked down at him and broke into a smile.

I don’t know what struck me as more humorous - the fact he’d ordered such a girly beverage, or the fact that I actually considered buying it for him, if only for a second. If it somehow got back to her that I’d bought booze for one of her son’s friends there’d be a brick through my window faster than you can say, brick. “Listen, I know one of your buddy’s mothers - so I really can’t help you out.” I didn’t stich my little neighbor up and actually use his name, but apparently Jay-Z took my word for it. He said that was “cool” and then retreated to a side street like greased lightning.

Had you told me I’d shut a kid down in that sort of situation today - back when I was 14 - I’d have told you you were crazy. That I’d never be such a buzz-ripping stiff. Then again, I would have also told you that “Rebel Without A Pause” was the greatest song ever recorded.

Those of you who read Pye In The Face don’t need to be told about my search engine optimization fetish. So occasionally I mention a website here simply to have it indexed by the major search engines - because their spiders love me and visit often. So bear with me, kids. Plus, I’m writing to you from the roofdeck and I may be suffering hypothermia-induced dementia right now. You never really know with my frequent roofdeckery.

If you’ve ever been outside on your laptop, say on a roofdeck for instance, you may have had trouble seeing your lcd screen because of the sun glare. Well your worries are over! If you like to work on your notebook computer outside and are looking for a laptop screen sun shade, please visit the all new LaptopScreenShades.com!

Appetizer: Whose intelligence do you find intimidating?
Definitely the artificial I, Robot/Terminator variety. I’m not easily intimidated by other, lesser humans. So luckily I’ll be long dead before the robots come. But heed my warning future generations - they will come.

Soup: Name something you’ve done that surprised yourself.
I had a mediocre party last weekend. That’s definitely never happened before. I thought I was immune to the bad party - I’ve been throwing killer benders since I was 16. It wasn’t an awful soiree. Everyone there had a good time. But it was certainly sub-par by my standards and it’s been bothering me. Sure, the weather really kicked it in the schnutz, but I thought my magical par-tay powers would somehow transcend Mother Nature. Mother Nature to David: “Grow the fuck up”.

Salad: List 3 people whom you have only “met” online, but consider good friends.
Three? People can actually have up to three online friends that they’ve never met? Here’s where my much bemoaned nerdery gets a hall pass. I have been blessed with many friends - but I’ve been in the same room with all of them. Thank God it’s not as bad as I’d originally thought. Although I did get awfully excited last night when I went to see Kingdom of Heaven with Art & Monster, and we stumbled across the Boston premiere of Return of the Sith. But with Lenny Clarke and Darth Vader in the same lobby - can you really blame me?

Main Course: Where is the dirtiest place you’ve ever been?
What is dirty? Is dirty a public restroom in downtown Newark? Is dirty a tasty martini with olive brine added instead of vermouth? Is dirty having to replace your red rubber ball gag due to excessive teeth mark induced disintegration? I don’t rightly know. One can only keep striving for the truth.

Dessert: What is the best example of “perfection” that you can think of?
I had to preempt the laugh of a child, Surfer Rosa and Saganaki for Vida Guerra’s hindquarters. Aristotle once said, “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work”. Well WORK… Work it girl! OK - I’ve quoted a RuPaul song. That’s akin to saying “Candyman” three times in front of a mirror - but instead of getting murdered by a black ghost, you just go gay. Uncannily, the antidote just happens to be Vida’s tush. That was a close one.

And we were laughing our asses off the whole time…

“Comedian Dave Chappelle has checked himself into a mental health facility in South Africa and has remained there since late April, according to a source close to the situation. The same source denies rumors of drug abuse. Other sources have also told EW that the future of Chappelle’s Show — the hit Comedy Central series that was entering its third season — is more uncertain than the network has suggested.”

Get well, Dave. Here’s hoping Wayne Brady has to choke a bitch again, real soon.

There’s a new craze amongst teenagers in England which is apparently influenced by American Shows like Jackass, Viva La Bam, etc. “Happy Slapping” has become all the rage amongst British yutes, and it’s a lot more sinister than it sounds. Here’s what a male 16 year old “slapper” (I have to make the sex distinction to avoid confusion with another popular definition of that word) had to say in defense of his new found hobby:

“Even though it might be quite painful (for the victim) and you obviously feel quite sorry for them because they’re injured or hurt or whatever and they’ve done nothing to deserve it, it’s still funny because it’s like seeing the sketch on TV.” Wicked funny, Niles.

What these little bastards do is akin to what we call swarming here in North America. A group of kids run up on, surround and then slap the shit out of unsuspecting bystanders - while one or two others record the assault on their camera phones. If that weren’t bad enough, some of the lower-level bottomfeeding British cable channels then compile these beatings into hour-long television shows. A concerned English blogger compiled some particularly violent excerpts. “I dug up quite a bit and hacked them together into a streaming media file. It’s not for the squeemish, these kids are clearly criminals“.

Jackass was all about a group of lifelong friends playing pranks on or subsequently beating the everloving Christ out of eachother - not ‘jumping in‘ random strangers on the street. It was their cameraderie which made the show so much fun to watch. Happy Slapping is frigging twisted - violent attacks can scar people for years - I know. I sincerely hope that the Old Bill puts the kaibosh on this ridiculous practice like yesterday. Please mark this moment on your calendars as the first time I officially rolled my eyes and muttered: “Kids today”.