Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

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

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Red Sox Tickets And Blogs.


in

Alright so I’m trying to get another Squidoo lens spidered. So what? I’ve been working on this one a lot – chock full o’ content and probably one of the biggest lenses out there. So please have a look at my new Red Sox Tickets page. Then rub yourself. Repeat.

It’s shaping up to be a nice little weekend. A few laughs with the coworkers tonight, and a party at the Shit Disturber’s in Charlestown tomorrow. And I’m sure you can guess what I’ll be filling the rest of the time with. That’s right – furious Squidoo lens building. I have a problem.

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It’s Funny Because They’re Only Acting Drunk. Right?


in Heartwarming


Maxim has just released a “Greatest Drinkers of all time list, and I thoroughly endorse their choices. “E.T. is No. 9 on the list, while Bluto (John Belushi) from “Animal House” is one spot ahead of him.” Blutowski is an obvious choice, but how many of us would have considered the scene from E.T. where he sneaks downstairs and drinks the shit out of a case of beer, causing poor Elliot to experience the same buzz while he’s at school? He kisses the young girl, lets the frogs loose, gets an OUI on his Big Wheel, beats a homeless person to death, etc.

But it gets better, deeper, liquorder: “Other top movie drinkers include The Waco Kid (Gene Wilder) from “Blazing Saddles, who comes in just ahead of the McKenzie Brothers (Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas) in “Strange Brew,” and just behind Coach Buttermaker (Walter Matthau) of “The Bad News Bears.” Kudos for remembering the Waco kid and the McKenzie’s. The list just became bloggable.

But where the heck is Arthur, I asked myself. At #2, of course. And the #1 movie booze bag of all time? Frank the Tank. I think Arthur should have won the top spot, hands down. But still a well complied and humorous little collection of souses.

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Everybody’s #1 At Something.


in Television

Unfortunately, it’s not “sleeping with Angelina Jolie” or “crapping $100 bills” today. Rather, my silly little Trailer Park Boys Squidoo lens has reached #1 in the top 100 – out of several hundred thousand. It’s kind of a big deal. Here’s where the screenshot for posterity comes in. In your fucking face, ‘Grandmothers Rule’:

I need some Squidoo methadone, stat. Methadoo.

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Wednesday Wadio: Bubble’s ‘Liquor And Whores’.


in Television, Wednesday Wadio

“Oh I’m fucking excited alright! There are probably all kinds of record company people there and I’m hoping if I sing some of my songs they might want to sign me to a record deal and I could become a big Country & Western star. Liquor and Whores is always a big hit down at the legion so you never know!” – Bubbles

Before the launch of the Trailer Park Boys 5th Season this time last year, the three main actors – Rob Wells (Ricky), John Paul Tremblay (Julian) and Mike Smith (Bubbles) did a nationwide promotional tour of Canada. At a radio station in Ontario, Bubbles offered to sing a song in the middle of an interview and it quickly became a cult classic. That resulting diddy is the focus of Radio Pye today, you lucky people.

“Liquor and Whores” is really one for the ages. The protagonist meets a girl while he’s “drinkin’ at the Legion” and the conversation quickly turns to marriage. Speedy courtships aside, our hero warns that before the nuptuals take place, there’s something she really needs to know about him. Listen to the song to discover the shocking secret, and please try not to faint.

You can also watch Conky sing the tune in a truly disturbing Flash movie if you’ve got that much free time. Forget the booze and the loose women – If you’re a fan of cigarrettes, dope, baloney or mustard you’re in the right place. The Legion, apparently.

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My Body Is A Temple. Of Doom.


in

My beloved sister just sent this image to me, as she knows that nothing touches my heart quite like the underground Thuggee religion. Touches, tears from my chest and ignites, to be exact. A sincere and heartfelt happy Valentine’s day to all of my readers – real and imagined. The love, and narcissism, conquers all.

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Squidoo For Me, And You, And You.


in

I was a Squidoo beta tester, so I got to stake claim on a few pretty good lens topics. In the interest of getting them indexed by search engines, I’m going to share them with you now. Please click through and learn a little bit more about marketing guru Seth Godin‘s latest project.

Boston, Massachusetts: This lens features a map, a few links, an RSS feed and some other tidbits about our fair city of Boston. I hope to spend some time on this and really turn it in to a great resource. Perhaps one-day people will pay me to post their links there. Dare to dream.

Hockey Fights: This lens is designed to go hand-in-hand with, and drive traffic to, the revered and almighty GoonBlog. GB is quite popular, but DVS and I haven’t quite found the revenue stream yet. Every little bit helps.

Pixies: This is just a labor of love and the lens on which I’ve spent the most time so far. Pretty long list of links, and I found a Rolling Stone RSS feed that often has relevant info. I think it will catch a lot of fanboy traffic one day.

Happy Mondays: Another musical-related tribute to one of my favorite bands. As the Mondays fade farther into history, their fansites diminish and I wanted to set up a permanent time capsule via Squidoo. Not much competition here – should corner the traffic market.

Company Culture: This is the first one I built 3 months ago, and I’m not quite sure where I’m going with it yet. I have the domain cultureforge.com which I think is really cool and I want to develop it into an HR-related blog. I just put the cart before the horse in this case.

The Rat Pack: Rat Pack history is a bit of a hobby of mine, so I thought I was cut out to run their lens. This will be quite detailed – breaking down links for each of the 5 main pack members as well as providing detailed discographies and bios.

Eric Bana: I’ve been a fan of this guy for about 5 years, and am very happy at his recent Hollywood successes and his amazing performance in Munich. I wanted to do a lens on someone who isn’t yet flooded all over the net – so here’s a little Bana fo yo ass.

Robert DeNiro: You know I had to fire up a lens for my boy Bobby D. More of the same here – links to everything I’ll be able to find. I expect this one will generate a lot of traffic do the lack of good DeNiro fansites on the web.

SNL: This will be my homage to Saturday Night Live. Another informational resource that should be easy to compile and maintain. The focus here may be to sell those “Best of” DVDs that are so popular right now. Like Hansel.

Dog Sweater Patterns: This lens will supplement and drive traffic to DogGoneKnit.com. In a perfect world. In a perfect world, however, I wouldn’t have the obsession with developing this site that I currently endure.

Search Engine Marketing: I’ll be compiling a list of the SEM related sites and tools which I use on a daily basis. I am also helping to develop an SEM blog, so this will help to drive traffic and vice-versa.

Trailer Park Boys: This guilty pleasure of mine is in no danger of receding, especially with the feature film being released this coming summer. How much related crap is out there on the web? I dunno, but I’m going to find out.

And there you have it. Keep an eye out for Squidoo – it’s bound to become a Google favorite, which in turn will trickle the traffic, and the love, down to my ridiculous, hair-brained schemes.

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Shark The Herald Angels Sing: Farewell To Benchley.


in

“Peter Benchley, whose novel Jaws terrorized millions of swimmers even as the author himself became an advocate for the conservation of sharks, has died, his widow said Sunday. Benchley was 65.”

Jaws was the second DVD I ever bothered to purchase (My first was Jurassic Park – a gift from Hegarty) so my first digital video forays involved an inordinate of humans being snacked on by scary monsters. No gay cowboys to speak of. Benchley wasn’t entirely happy with many of Spielberg’s choices – he saw Redford, Newman and McQueen in the roles of Brody, Hooper and Quint – but ended up being very satisfied with the finished result. The difficulty of the production is legendary, and most who worked on the film think it’s a miracle that it was received as well as it was. It’s ongoing popularity is just as amazing.

Thank you, Peter, for penning the tale that would lead to one of my favorite flicks of all time. Thanks not so much for Jaws 4, in which a dreadlocked Mario Van Peebles ran around doing a bad accent for two hours sounding something like Sean John with a speech impediment.

“Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies / Farewell and adieu you ladies of Spain. / For we received orders for to sail back to Boston / And soon never more will we see you again.” – Quint.

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How The West Was Won. Or Beaten To Death.


in

Cocky rap star Kanye West is calling for a revised edition of the Bible, because he thinks he should be a character in it.

The Jesus Walks hitmaker, who picked up three Grammy Awards last night, feels sure he’d be “a griot” (West African storyteller) in a modern Bible.

“I changed the sound of music more than one time… For all those reasons, I’d be a part of the Bible. I’m definitely in the history books already.”

Kanye. Buddy. That’s just fucking ridiculous. Please die in a backstage rap awards show knife fight during which you’re stabbed with your own broken pair of giant sunglasses or starched collar immediately.

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Friday’s Quizzlet: Marky Mark And The Drunky Bunch.


in Monday's Quotelet

Appetizer: What was a class you took that was a total waste of time?
It’s all good practice. Although I imagine silk screen printing with Mr. Fratto could have been put to better use across the hall in the auto shop. This one time, I mistook my engine’s dipstick for a fondue spear.

Soup: Who is the tallest person you know?
Marky Mark Tonizzo. The guy makes me look like a dwarf infant with polio. The Richard Simmons hairdo adds another good foot, too. The guy can, however, make a hell of a Pilly Packer.

Salad: What’s your favorite midnight snack?
Ambien.

Main Course: Have you ever found money somewhere?
I usually find 10s and 5s in my pockets after heavy nights out on the razz. That’s 1.5 rocks of crack, if anybody’s keeping track. Can you guess how I know whether or not I stumbled into Chinatown the hazy night before? By the bye, I hope this Boston Interior Designer site gets indexed soon.

Dessert: Where would you like to retire?
My parent’s place on the Rideau. But they constantly warn me they’ll have to sell it and move into nursing homes some day. So I am hoping I become rich very soon so I can buy it and let them live there. But honestly – if their boat had brake lines, I would have cut them last summer.

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This Fence Is Hurting My Ass.


in

I will settle for the new ‘middle-of-the-road’ over the former Canadian Government, anyday. But then, I will settle for a 3-day-old piece of rodent-family roadkill covered in liquified batshit over the former Canadian Government, anyday. Go, Harper.

“Canada’s new Conservative government is condemning the violence over incendiary editorial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, while also advising that freedom of expression be used responsibly.”

How is this refreshing? Thanks for asking. Paul Martin’s response would have been somewhere along the lines of: “Come to dis country, our completely non-dongeeerous rioting friends – just show a hand-drawn cartoon of yourself for hhhhhI.D. at de bordaire – and show dose hhhhhAmerican cawksawkeeers dat eeef dey make fun of Muhammed, dey make fun of Canada!” Or something.

I will miss the Pinko Panther. Did I just coin a phrase there? That’s a good one. It’s still OK to make fun of white, French Canadians right? Just checking. I love our little talks. No more politics, David. There’s a good lad.

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Wadio Pwops: Taz Sounds Off On Lush.


in Musical

Taz hasn’t chimed in for a long, long while. I love the way the man writes, and his knowledge of 80s/90s indie rock makes me look like a Menudo fan, so I wanted to share. I added a few hyperlinks for the uninitiated:

“Imagine my delight as I had my first proper shufty of the year at The PyeMan’s magnificent Blog (been on holiday in Thailand for 3 weeks folks, so that explains the neglect of this otherwise essential source of info for the Hamid Zeitgeist…) when I saw that 4AD post-Pixies Great White Hopes, LUSH came into the focus of the red hot laserbeam of impeccable taste that is Pye In The Face!

It warmed the cockles of my retro-indie loving heart! Took me back to days as a black denim 501s, trenchcoat and suede brogue wearing grad student in the early 90s and the late late nights wallowing in Lush’s dreamy soundscapes from the ‘Scar’ mini-LP and their first 12″ EP featuring De-Luxe, Thoughtforms, etc. Shoegazing was indeed a much maligned sub-genre of a great time in underground Brit popular music. The pioneers were the peerless My Bloody Valentine and the groundbreaking dronesters-par-excellence Spacemen 3 but the torch was then manfully carried into pastures newer and poppier by Lush, Pale Saints, Chapterhouse, The Telescopes, Slowdive, Catherine Wheel and many many more.

Some fell by the wayside, some enjoyed a modicum of success… ALL were interesting and worthy of both fiscal and emotional investment! These were heady times for guitar-driven bittersweet bedsitland indie-rock, and like Dave, my iPod still has a corner occupied by classic albums by the above, plus the other subsequent bands who kept the dream alive like Spiritualized and Low.

The great thing is, Shoegazing has now morphed into ‘Newgazing’. Check out my favourite exponents of this artform for the enlightened, NYC’s very own Ambulance Ltd. Their debut album is magnificent in it’s own right but will have you clued-up indie-kids digging out your old Lush and MBV albums with a wave of nostalgia. Respect to you PyeMan… once again your cultural barometer is giving all the right readings and the calibration is faultless! De-Luxe indeed…Taz, Frankfurt.”

There are worse things to have in your inbox first thing in the morning, like animated elf porn. Wait – did I say “worse”? Good to hear from you, homesnake!

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Wednesday Wadio: The Beta Band’s ‘Dry The Rain’.


in Wednesday Wadio

“Repeatedly described as shambolic stoners in the press, as if their music was the result of some serendipitous sensimilia incident rather than hardwork and talent, their importance was consistently exaggerated while their talent was dismissed. You think the trumpet at the end of “Dry The Rain” was an accident?” – Stylus

I’m cycling this diddy back through the lineup. It’s been live on Radio Pye for a while now, but I’ve never written anything up on it. Is this a cop out? Nah – It’s a lot harder to write about something than it is to simply fire it up on a server. Besides, it’s long overdue and practically buried now with over 50 songs and 6 months worth of tuneage jammed into my little corner of the ether.

Most of you probably know Dry The Rain as ‘the song from High Fidelity‘. You remember – John Cusack makes a claim to his record store co-workers that he can sell multiple copies of a song immediately, just by placing it on the store’s sound system. “I am now going to sell five copies of The Three EPs by The Beta Band.” All of the patrons start bobbing their heads to the music like Romero zombies before lining up at the cash register to start their unhealthy obsessions with The Betas.

I met a girl recently who told me a story about spending a night drinking with the Betas here in Boston at Bukowskis. The band hasn’t recorded together in a couple of years, and I never got to see them live, but her description of the silly fat little Scottish troupe had me laughing – she thought they were completely winding her up until finally someone else recognized them too. They were like the Wizard of Oz and Phil Spector, rolled into one anonymous lump behind a lush wall of sound – so complex that it takes 100 listens to catch all the nuances. Dry the Rain reminds me of There Goes the Fear in that respect. I would have therefore bought them around 657 rounds. Another song I just cannot get tired of.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsbR2dEmHGc[/youtube]

“The Beta Band’s “Dry the Rain” achieves a level of pop euphoria rarely reached since, well, “Oh! Sweet Nuthin” by the Velvet Underground.” Audio-Ideas

If you can catch the cowbell, washboard and rain stick by your first listen, you’ve probably also noticed that it’s about 3 separate songs jammed into one. First the drums pick up intensity about 2 minutes in, turning it from groovy to downright danceable. Then, for the last 3 minutes, it completely changes pitch and a new sing-song chorus assures you “I will be your light” and rounds the masterpiece out. If you’ve never listened to me before, listen to me today – listen to this fucking song.

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Lifestyle Changes Are Retarded.


in Heartwarming

There’s that famous story about the little Russian boy who gets all kinds of overzealous with the wolf sighting claims. I feel a bit like like that panicky, potato-eating pest right about now – because I’m about to do it again. Yes, folks, I’m announcing some immediate and most unfortunate lifestyle changes.

It snowballed. It was just too much packed into one weekend. Thursday I went out for beers after paintball. Friday I went to a birthday party. Saturday I was invited to a co-worker’s day BBQ at his new house in the burbs, and then last minute was invited to Central Square for someone else’s going away party that evening. Sunday morning someone poured me in the direction of North Station for an early Bruins game before sufficiently Superbowl Sundaying the shit out of myself until about 10pm. I woke up yesterday with a sore throat that looked like a python vivisection, and called in sick. Not good.

If you take my list of weekend activities and look at them each separately, it could all come across as good clean fun. I held a baby. I rooted for the home team. I played with a dog. I went undefeated in a sporting event. I cooked burgers, ribs and steak for 10 people. I saw some folks I hadn’t seen in nearly a decade. But you have to understand, with the exception of the first 5 minutes of my being in the same room with the baby, all of these events were soaked with enough booze to make Courtney Love stop and suddenly scream “Now just hold the fuck on for a minute here people“.

I have had a great life, and my friends are the most important things in my silly existence. Many would kill to run in the circles I’ve developed over the years. But I can’t keep up anymore. I’m going to be that creepy guy who comes to the party and doesn’t drink, making everybody else extremely uncomfortable. I may also be employed – which is really where this whole diatribe stems from.

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