“You’re a teacher?” “Part time.”
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcYtyDnLHho[/youtube]
Come on now. How fucking awesome does this look?
The Indy 4 Teaser Trailer Debuts Thursday Morning
According to AICN, the long awaited, highly anticipated, masturbated over, exhaustively discussed “teaser trailer” for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will debut Thursday on ABC’s Good Morning America and make its way to Yahoo movies, the official site, and theaters shortly thereafter. The teaser is also rumored to be playing in front of this weekend’s big release, The Spiderwick Chronicles.
Teaser trailers are usually only made for big-budget and popularly themed movies. Their purpose is less to tell the audience about a movie’s content than simply to let them know that the movie is coming up in the near future, and to add to the hype of the upcoming release. Teaser trailers are often made while the film is still in production or being edited and as a result they may feature scenes or alternate versions of scenes that are not in the finished film. Teaser trailers today are increasingly focused on internet downloading and the convention circuit. For example, here is my teaser for an upcoming puppy movie currently in post-production entitled “Octopus Attack”.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2UFUzDNTvM[/youtube]
I need to do a couple of re-shoots, particularly the scene where Shep lays cable when he’s supposed to be running in fear from the beast, but look for it to debut on Veekend Video. Also look for me to be locked up soon by Animal Cops Detroit.
Monday’s Quotelet: The Scheider House Rules
Never again would Roy leave a bottle of A1 teetering precariously near the Sea Monkey tank.
Veekend Video: We Want the Lunch
Operation Puppy has gone off so far without a hitch. Shep and Rhuby seem very much at home very fast. Poops and peeps are happening almost exclusively outside or on their mats and they have slept all the way through the night three times without messing their crate or trying to wake me up. This may be because every night before bed we play “Chuckwagon” where I run around the house and they chase me like little bats out of hell.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqpt5qEWeFA[/youtube]
Feeding time happens 3 times a day and they each get 1/3 of a cup of kibble for a grand total of one cup daily. Obviously, this is always a very important event for a pup so we decided to film lunch time on Sunday. I inexplicably started singing a related song to the tune of P-Funk, and hence another VV was born.
Shepherd and Rhubarb Pye Move in Tomorrow!
There won’t be much activity on the blog tomorrow, as I am spending the majority of the day shopping for, setting up for and then going to meet – the puppies! Yes, Shep and Rhuby will be official members of the Pye clan by about 7pm. Here is a photo of Shep taken by the breeder this evening…
He has grown into quite the handsome little weasel, eh? This time tomorrow, their crates will be in my room, my kitchen will – or be about to – smell like shit, Boss will be having a coronary on a piece of tall furniture and no shoes will be safe. So now help me enjoy Rhubarb’s lovely face while it’s still a great idea and not yet a reason I’m praying for death in the fetal position while trying to sleep…
What a pair! I’m incredibly excited and I know all of the hard work will be worth it. They’ll make sure I’m early to bed, early to rise and living a structured and routine life – which can be a challenge for your old pal Dave sometimes. I will also be training them to bite me on the nose anytime I refer to myself in the third person. There will undoubtedly be lots of puppy-related content popping up on here over the weekend, so stay tuned – and perhaps say a small prayer.
Give me Back my Mills Hall Sweatshirt!
When I first got back from England in 1999, I dated a girl I went to high school with for a little while. One night while visiting her apartment I left my Mills Hall sweatshirt in her room (hey now,) and we stopped hanging out in the biblical sense a few days later. Eventually realizing where my prized shirt had gone, I called her up and asked if I could come get it. No times ever worked for her, or she’d tell me how much she loved it and could she keep it, etc. etc. I saw her many times over the next 7 years and every time I’d ask about the shirt. “Are you still going on about that shirt? I love it!” But I never would let up – it meant a lot to me.
Here is the only picture I have of me wearing it. Mills Hall in the early 90s was the only all-male dorm at the University of Guelph and we were a very proud and misbehaved bunch. I met one of my very best friends while living there, and I still keep in touch with loads of the old crew. Last week I was asked to be in one of their wedding parties this summer. It’s an ongoing bond and the closest thing to a good fraternity (and there were several fraternities at the school) that Guelph had going for it. Long story short, we all had those sweatshirts, the dorm is now co-ed without any sort of culture like we brought to it and if you’ve since lost it – that’s it. It’s gone.
I ran into the young lady in question at a wedding over the summer and said hello to her quickly. A few days later she emailed me to ask why I’d given her such a dirty look. I told her I didn’t remember giving her one, and certainly didn’t mean to and that I was sorry. She wrote back: “You’re still mad about that stupid sweatshirt, aren’t you?” I told her I wasn’t mad, but that I wished I still had it and that I’d pursued it a lot harder before she got married and threw it away. “I wore it last week” she replied.
It took her several months, but when I got home from Florida Sunday night I had a missed parcel slip at the door and I immediately wondered if she’d actually, finally sent me the sweatshirt back. I just returned from the post office, looked at the return to sender address and began doing a little jig in my front hallway. It’s in perfect condition and I’m wearing it as I type. I am ecstatic, I’m going to forward this post to all my old Mills buddies and to she who knows who she is – THANK YOU!
Rare Archival Silliness
I don’t have a Wadio in me tonight, but I’ve gone and done a little something that will allow you to procrastinate at least equally as long. Have a look at the main navigation tabs at the tip top of the page and you’ll see a new one – “Archives“. If you’ve been with me for a while I have made available literally all of the content from the many incarnations this site has gone through over the years. Have a gander and a giggle, talk amongst yourselves and I’ll get back to invoicing.
Bromfield Street Revisited… Again
I wish I could bottle whatever unlikely element got into my weary system today. Up at 7:30 and closing down work for the day as soon as I finish this post for an early night. Two more days like this one and I might just get myself caught up with work. I almost just laughed when I read that last sentence back.
The Boston stop-over on the way back from Florida was professionally successful and socially silly to boot. I have uploaded a revelrous gallery you can peruse should you feel brave with photos from Friday night appearing near the bottom. Budweiser apparently serves towers of beer, which I figured must hold at least the equivalent of a 12 pack, and we took down a few like antelope on the Serengeti at my old homestead – Sidebar. We then moved on to another staple, Silvertone, and proved to ourselves and the civilians in attendence little more than that we should never reproduce.
Saturday night was little Bella‘s 7th birthday party at the new Hard Rock Cafe (good riddance, Rack) and yet another excuse to fire (down) harpoons like a Japanese whaling vessel. Then Sunday I headed back to Ottawa by way of Philadelphia and collapsed in my bed sometime around 10pm. I’m quite sad that the Patriots lost the SuperBowl, but to be honest I don’t think I realized it until sometime this morning. These days, 2 straight nights on the razz wipe me out both physically and mentally for the better part of a week.
I am back home, getting back to normal and doing all the things I’ve neglected for the last 5 weeks like laundry, eating food I prepare myself and not sleeping on a pull-out couch left over from a Spanish Inquisition torture galleon. I pick up the puppies on Saturday and obviously have no idea the type of mayhem I am in for. Life, however, is good. And home is definitely not a relative term to me anymore.
Monday’s Quotelet: Suffer Little Democrats
Obama slept a little sounder knowing he had the celibate homosexual vegetarian musician vote locked up.
Another Odyssey Ends
I’m home, I’m safe, I’m a little dehydrated – but I’m so very happy that January is over and my life is returning to some degree of normalcy. I look forward to kicking off the hilarity of regular blog posting but I have to head to Kingston for some important errands. In the meantime, please enjoy this piece I am creating for a client about some of the horrible things which have occurred in Valentine’s Day History. I’m back, kids. Lock up your daughters, liquor and maybe a couple of the dogs, too.
The Home Stretch Smells Terrible
Coming to you live from the Doubletree Hilton at 400 Soldiers Field Road in Boston – I have escaped the clutches of Florida and am slowly picking my way back to Ottawa. I stupidly booked my flight back Sunday night to coincide with the Superbowl, so I’m very proud of that. Still, when I cross the threshold of my front door and begin a several hour berating by a small orange cat who’s been waiting for me for a month, I’ll be a very happy chappy. And I can always watch the highlights.
A few days later I collect the wee baby weasels, Rhubarb and Shep. Have a look at the latest puppy gallery updates for some heart-wrenching cutie-pant photos fresh from the breeder. Although life will begin revolving around the little guys, punctuated frequently by overwhelming doodie smells, I am thoroughly looking forward to fatherhood. And I’ll be gosh darned if I leave the province for good long time. I may sneak out for some fun in Beantown this weekend prior to departure, so get at me, dawgs.
Monday’s Quotelet: Wouldn’t You Like to Be Indy Too?
“No time for love, Dr. Pepper!”
There Will Be Milkshakes
As I believe I’ve said before somewhere, I love this time of year because all of the movies nominated for Oscars, SAGs or Golden Globes end up online, long before they have been released on DVD. This is because they are released as “screeners” to the members of the various organizations who vote for the winners. As I am spending the majority of my time as a trailer-bound caregiver, I can’t say I feel too bad about maybe or maybe not downloading them all for my own amusement. That having been sorta said, There Will be Blood is the best movie I have seen in years.
That’s quite a statement, I know. Let me back it up a bit. I love period pieces and the turn of the century oil boom has been lacking for a treatment. Daniel Day Lewis and PTA are two of my favorite artisans and together they’ve made magic. It’s an amazing, beautiful, smelly, dirty universe they’ve created. And the score, although it has just been disqualified for an Oscar for a few silly reasons, will have you snapping your fingernails off on the armrest. So, basically, I wanted to write about it today, but there’s no shortage of reviews or stories about it online – so what do discuss? And it’s no fair getting too specific as you risk spoiling the movie for others. When I searched to see what clips were available on YouTube, I found a send up of the “milkshake scene”, so I’m going to talk about that.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCCdZmHk5Fk[/youtube]
Daniel Plainview doesn’t like Eli Sunday. And it’s hard to blame him, even though by the conclusion of the movie Daniel is no bargain himself. The last time they meet, Eli asks Daniel for money he feels he is owed for a land lease / oil deal they made many years before. Plainview explains why Eli will never see the money because he sucked all the oil off of Eli’s land without actually ever having had to physically drill on it. He uses milkshakes as an analogy. It is one of the most electrifying scenes I’ve ever enjoyed.
“Drainage! Drainage, Eli! Drained dry, you boy! If you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and I have a straw and my straw reaches across the room and starts to drink your milkshake. I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!”
The last sentence is followed by a violent slurping sound that Day-Lewis should win the oscar for based on alone. Some cheeky bugger has edited the audio together using the song “Milkshake” by Kelis – and it made me laugh. So there you have it. No Country for Old Men is an excellent movie as well, but TWBB gets my vote for the oscar… for the next five years. Go see it. If you’re a male you will love it. If you’re a female, I’m sure there’s a ticket or two left for Juno or Atonement. Here is the proper version of the scene.
Update: It’s always somewhat defeating when someone else has already done something you want to do… better.
Wednesday Wadio: Stan Rogers’ ‘Barrett’s Privateers’
“God damn them all! I was told, we’d cruise the seas for American gold
We’d fire no guns! Shed no tears!
But I’m a broken man on a Halifax pier
The last of Barrett’s Privateers”
– Stan Rogers’ Barrett’s Privateers
Jonothan Richman came to Guelph in 1994 and I went to see him at the almighty Albion hotel for what ended up being one of my favorite concerts of all time. The chap who opened up for him, and I wish I could remember his name, did a jaw-dropping acapella version of Stan Roger’s Barrett’s Privateers that will stay with me forever. This incredible song grabbed me by the short and curlies right away, and after hearing it in the car the other day on one of my Dad’s CDs I knew I had to write about it. Every version of this song is acapella, actually, as that is how Rogers intended it, and here is a very grainy video of him singing it around a kitchen table from a documentary entitled One Warm Line which you can watch in its entirety by clicking the link.
Rogers was killed in an airliner fire on June 2, 1983 when he was exactly my age, 34 years young. There are unsubstantiated claims that he made it off of the Air Canada flight on the ground in Cincinnati but succumbed to smoke inhalation after going back in to rescue other passengers. Like that story, Rogers’ music immediately gets under your skin and if you’re Canadian the subject matter – primarily ye olde maritime sailing culture based – is uniquely of this country and stands to provide a wonderful history lesson. I had no idea, for example, that there was such a thing as a Canadian pirate which is a loose way to describe Privateers. But I’m not going to regurgitate everything I’ve just read. You won’t find a better explication of the song and the history behind it than Dan Conlin’s:
“There was no Elcid Barrett. There was no Antelope sloop and there wasn’t even a town of Sherbrooke in the year of 1778. Stan Rogers basically made up an imaginary privateer to carry a 60s anti-war theme in a traditional folk setting. Having said all that, many of the details, ranging from the type of cannons mentioned to the letter of marque reference, are very authentic.”
Back in the golden years of sailing, once you were on a ship you were on a ship, and as part of the crew you were doomed to follow orders and obey regardless of how you felt about missions that were called on the go – lest you walked the plank or spent the rest of the long voyage eating rats in the hold. And many ‘conscripts’ were downright lied to about their intended purpose. Barrett’s Privateers tells the story of a naive young Nova Scotian who boarded a ship under the promise they would fly under a legal English charter (letter of marque) and inconvenience the burgeoning American navy by by stealing cargo. But Barrett had other ideas, and the song goes on to describe the mental anguish felt by the ‘broken’ protagonist when he finally makes it back to his Halifax pier.
The song is available for purchase on Amazon, and I encourage anyone who owns an album by the Decemberists to check out the late, great Stan Rogers in greater detail. There is also a Facebook petition devoted to getting Stan a star on the Canadian walk of fame and it’s good to see I’m not the only “younger” Canuck spreading the word about this great musician and his ongoing influence.