Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

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

Archives for August 2006

Wednesday Wadio: The Weturn!


in Wednesday Wadio

You asked for it back, and you’ve got it, babies. But before I strike out on new musical homages to my favorite songs, past and present, I’m going to give all the writing I’ve already done a new coat of paint – in the form of video additions. Below you’ll find liks to some of my favorite Wednesday Wadios from the past year, now with handy dandy video additions. Hear them, watch them, love them for all times. And with no further adue…

– The Doves – There Goes the Fear: The video for this song kind of sucks, so I’m including an awesome performance from Glastonbury 2004 instead.

– The Pogues – The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn: No proper video exists. This is a performance from Irish TV in the mid-eighties after which the host unsuccessfully tries to interview the eternally-shitfaced Shane MacGowan.

– Lush – Deluxe: Ripped from someone’s old 120 Minutes tape, the fire at the beginning brought back a wave of memories. Not for epileptics.

– Ed O.G. & the Bulldogz – I Got to Have it: Unequivocable proof that YT is the best website in human history. What a great find. An edited version I’ve never heard with some grimy Boston scenery and probably the worst choreography in… human history.

– The Smiths – Bigmouth Strikes Again: I think this is from Top of the Pops, so it would have been 1986. An excellent live perfomance from a seminal band.

– The Tragically Hip – Nautical Disaster: Live in Detroit at The Fox Theatre on September 18, 2004. This is a clip from the fan produced DVD released through hipfans.com. Gord Downie at his insane best.

So waise a glass to a new ewa of Wednesday Wadio!

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Bon Voyage, Bruno.


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Everyone recognizes Bruno Kirby. A great character actor, he started working back in 1971 and had a long and memorable career. He died today from leukemia complications, and I felt obliged to give him a little tip of the hat, through the power of YouTube. Here he is arguing with Pacino and Madsen over Cadillacs in Donnie Brasco prior to being shot in the head and chopped up by Johnny Depp in a basement. Memories.

The list of flicks goes on – City Slickers, The Freshman, Spinal Tap and most noteably Godfather Part 2. Kirby was also on the uber popular Entourage this year, playing the movie producer that Dom stole the Shrek doll from. I’m glad he was able to fit in one last high profile job before his sad and untimely demise at 57. Read a better obit here.

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Splittin’ Skulls In Wellfleet Was A Rite Of Passage.


in Uncategorized

Who else is going to the Frank Black show at the Beachcomber this Friday night? Let me know and we can all meet up beforehand at the, uh, Beachcomber I’d imagine. It’s either that, a dirty seagull nest or a sand dune.

Some biggish things are afoot here at PITF. First out of the gate, tomorrow will mark the return of Wednesday Wadio! I was sorry to see it go due to Radio.Blog’s bandwidth issues, but see no reason not to keep it moving using YouTube. Just about very music video imaginable is available on YouTube, and it doesn’t sap away my juice. So look for that, and when applicable I will include links to downloadable MP3s you can fire on to your desktop or iPod. No sense spreading the sonic gospel if the only place you can hear new music is by watching grainy, choppy videos online.

Also, Blogger is finally launching a categorization feature, which will allow you to, for example, click the Wadio category and see every single one of them I’ve ever written on one easy page. Also up for categorization – Quizzlet’s, Quotelets, Tall Tales, concert stories, etc. It’s a good way for people to find or revisit the 2+ years of content I have collecting dust in the database. It will also be good for SEO and site indexing.

It’s also high time for a redesign. While I’ve hacked into this template quite a bit (note my cute little face within the colored dots above, fundamentally it’s one of the standard blogger ones available to everybody. I’d like to spend a little money and have something completely unique created for PITF from scratch. If you know any good designers with Blogger template experience, send them my way. So I’ll be breathing some new life into the old girl, which she sorely needs, and I hope you’ll stay riveted to my silliness like it were a rickshaw/SUV collision.

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I’m Just Not That Prone To Eating Healthy.


in Consumables

When the Pork Ass Challenge sputtered out, only a week before it was due to end on July 4th, I’d lost a reasonably exciting 10 pounds. In the meantime, I’ve packed 7 back on, and am currently having a fat day. Meaning my pants feel tight and I spent a good chunk of the morning crying whilst being coaxed out of a bathroom stall.

I have some social engagements over the next couple months, at which I’d like to appear a heck of a lot more svelt than I do now. My thoughts again turn to healthy ways to get that little bulge down. No, the other little bulge. I conquered the first one a long time ago when I taught myself to picture Jessica Tandy in that scene from Batteries Not Included where she’s bending over the little cheeseburger robot naked and covered in olive oil. Works better than thinking about baseball.

So I’m standing in the Au Bon Pain, staring at the yogurt, fruit cups, salads etc – and I realize I think I’d rather frigging starve myself. I honestly think it would be easier for me just to not eat, or subsist solely on shakes of some sort, than get through a bunch of watermelon or a rice cake. DVS and I hit the Sports Grille Friday night for some wing dings, buffalo tasties and my beloved poppers. It was heavenly. I look at a pineapple slice and I’d rather lick the razor I was threatening to slash myself with back in said bathroom stall.

So what’s the solution? Exercise obviously. It’s a simple equation – eat less, burn more, lose weight. But I can’t help but wonder, and I’ll be Googling this in a minute – is there, or has there ever been, a mayonnaise diet? That’d work for me.

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GoonBlog On MySpace.


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What do NHL players and 13 year old girls have in common? Ideally, not a whole heck of a lot. But then again, who am I to judge Russian arranged marriages? Regardless, there happen to be a rinkload of NHL players and fans on MySpace, and we decided we’d throw in our helmet and make a GoonBlog MySpace Page!

The reception has been terrific. They like us. They really like us. We already have 54 friends including Sidney Crosby, Ogie Ogilthorpe, Todd Bertuzzi and Ray Borque. If you’re a GB fan and MySpace user – please add us to your stable of impressionable underage debutantes.

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Monday’s Quotelet: Later Crusader.


in

Nigel’s trip to the Beer Festival went a bit pear-shaped when his St. George waistcoat had him mistaken for a crusader – before being whisked off for emergency sensitivity training.
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Happy Mondays And Will Ferrell.


in

I love the Happy Mondays. I take crap for it sometimes (Nate) but I friggin’ love them, man. The news feed on my Squidoo lens is firing up reports that they’ve secretly been recording an album all summer. With Sean’s new exposure thanks to the Gorillaz, and Bez’s media-darling status since winning Celebrity Big Brother last year, these pill-popping punks are poised for a comeback. Which will suck. But a boy can dare to dream, can’t he? Let me sleep a little longer.

Happy Mondays' Shaun Ryder On Storage Hunters, Collecting Tat And Why He Wants To Make A TV Series With Alan McGee

It’s also imperative on this Friday afternoon that you comprehensively review the 10 Best Will Ferrell Skits of all time. Why? Because I am this close to raping you.

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Friday’s Quizzlet: Euphamism For Way Too Much Free Time.


in Monday's Quotelet

Appetizer: Name an actor or actress you think is totally underappreciated.
John Dunsworth who plays Mr. Lahey on Trailer Park Boys is an exceptional actor. In addition to the best drunk impersonation I’ve seen since Foster Brooks, some of the show’s most touching moments have focused on his multi-layered, tragic character. He’s been acting on the Canadian scene since 1987, and worked as a granite hauler, casting agent and cab driver prior. Now, he spends most of his time playing bridge, sailing and making shit analogies.

Soup: Impress us by using a big word in a sentence.
Quizzlet, I don’t think you fully realize the potential consequences of erudite vernacular when utilized irrespective of necessity. Now frig off.



Salad: What is something inanimate that you’ve given a name to (i.e pet rock)?
I have little names for everything, and a lot of fun completely bastardizing the English language. My big thing these days is to tag ‘let’ on to things that are small, cute or silly. My sister and I call eachother ‘tardlets’. My friend’s daughter is ‘Grifflet’. I made up a word and an associated site for silly euphamisms called Friglets. It’s a sad statelet of affairs.

Main Course: What color would best represent your personality and why?
Cobalt blue is my favorite color. It represents my personality because it is calm, strong and completely non-commital. Am I cobalt? Am I blue? Will I die alone?

Dessert: Fill in the blanks: ______ is so _______.
Hansel is so hot right now. Admit it. It’s the first thing you thought of too.

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Say A Prayer For Surf Boy. Wherever He Is.


in Movies

“For the past eight years, I haven’t been able to get the character of Max Fischer out of my head. My favorite film is Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, and it also happens to be the director’s best film, encompassing his pathos, full of quirks and details, and soaring on a blend of faith, hope, and love. It’s got his best protagonist, the truest story, and the most genuine emotion of all his films.” – Pajiba

I recently watched Rushmore for the first time in a couple of years, and then read the above article today, so I decided to mention it. My point is this – if you think you like movies, and you haven’t seen Rushmore, do yourself a favor. Jesus, come over to my place and I’ll let you borrow the Criterion version. I’m a Max Fisher evangelist today, and you have just been saved.

I envy Max for a number of reasons. He has the courage to follow his dreams, and sticks his neck out in the name of his “art” no matter what the consequences. Unfortunately, his entire universe is about to collapse because he’s just too damn old to remain at Rushmore: a private high school he has been attending for the past six years.

“You guys have it real easy. I never had it like this where I grew up. But I send my kids here because the fact is you go to one of the best schools in the country: Rushmore. Now, for some of you it doesn’t matter. You were born rich and your going to stay rich. But here’s my advice to the rest of you: Take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down. Just remember, they can buy anything but they can’t buy backbone. Don’t let them forget it. Thank you.” – Herman Blume (Bill Murray)

Max has started, or is a member of, every club or extracurricular activity at the school. With the exception of fencing, however, these are limited to things like stamp-collecting and bee-keeping – not sports. The montage where we see Max chairing all of these various societies, while 60’s mod rock plays in the background, sets a theme for the rest of the movie. Max feels he “belongs” at Rushmore because he can manipulate it’s universe. The real world terrifies Max. “Well that’s OK,” he tells the headmaster when his poor grades are brought up, “I’ll just take a post-grad year.” When the headmaster replies that they don’t offer a post-grad year at Rushmore, Max realizes he is about to be thrown to the wolves.

“Dear Max, I am sorry to say that I have secretly found out that Mr. Blume is having an affair with Miss Cross. My first suspicions came when I saw them Frenching in front of our house. And then I knew for sure when they went skinny dipping in Mr. Blume’s swimming pool, giving each other handjobs while you were taking a nap on the front porch.” – Dirk Calloway

It’s no accident this movie has developed a massive cult following. Wes Anderson has created a group of characters so complex and addictively interesting that you can’t help getting caught up in their dilemmas. There’s Magnus, the bullying one-eared Scotsman who admires Max as much as he abuses him. Mr. Blume, the apathetic millionaire who would rather spend time with a 15-yr-old than his horrifically unsympathetic family. Rosemary, the grieving widow who becomes caught in a perceived love-triangle between Max and Blume – Even the bit players in this movie (Margaret Yang, Max’s father, Dirk) will keep your attention and force you to empathize with their various situations.

Rushmore is in good company on my list of favorite movies. Goodfellas, Blade Runner, Raiders of the Lost Ark – do you see what I’m getting at here? It’s a monumental piece of filmmaking, and you have got to see it as close to immediately as you can get. You’ll thank me.

“Sic transit gloria. Glory fades. I’m Max Fischer“.

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The H Is O.


in

Some quick endorsements: >> Only one apartment left to fill. If you have anyone in mind, forward the link. It’s a great pad. >> Aubs is selling 2 tickets to a reggae concert at the BOA pavilion on August 19th. Email me if you’re interested. I’m sure as hell not, ya lazy bloodclot. The closest I get to reggae is one particular ska song which is on my all time top 10 favorites list – Ghost Town by the Specials. And the theme song for Cops which I watch so frequently I can also probably be considered a little special.

It’s only fitting that I write something about the intense heat today, as it’s forecast to go up to a near record-breaking 100+ degrees on this fine Wednesday. The heat is on, little babies. And Boston is like an egg that’s been cracked on a griddle. Which has then been placed on the surface of the sun. I assume by a rather bored division of NASA, but I’m not really sure how this analogy ends. Let’s just end it.

The heat is taxing. Draining. I ran up and down the floors of my building 7 times yesterday, showing potential tenants the open apartments and roofdeck. When I crawled into bed to watch Saxondale last night, I quickly fell into the deepest sleep I’ve had in a long time. And it was murder getting up this morning. I still feel like I ran the Boston Marathon yesterday, and maybe even crapped down my leg like that woman from a few years back. Nah, I had white pants on and would have noticed.

Stay cool, people. Drink lots of fluids and lay off dairy. Huddle under AC units, even if they give you dry eyes or sore throats and remember the immortal words of Walter Winchell – “It’s a sure sign of summer if the chair gets up when you do.”

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