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A Concord Sabbatical.


in

I went out to C-Town on the spur of the moment Friday night, and stayed until late Sunday. I didn’t click a mouse, drink anything other than seltzer water, worry about work or otherwise obsess for about 36 hours – and it was lovely. I abandoned any additional zany St. Patrick’s day related plans, after the debaucle that was Thursday night, and I decided to get all ‘small-towny’ for the remainder of the weekend.

I lived in Concord from 88-95 and have developed a real affinity with the place. To this day, I like to try and get out around once a month – Many of my friends still live in town and there’s always people to see and places to stay. It’s amazing how much fun hiking, dog-walking and bonfire-building can actually be. City living must be getting to me after 5 years.

I guess I’m feeling more and more like it’s time for me to stop bathing, move into a secluded cabin in the woods and start writing my manifesto. The accompanying letter bombs and anthrax Fed-Exes will come in due time.

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Friday’s Quizzlet: Hit Me With Your Best Shot.


in Monday's Quotelet

Here is what I found when I sought the quizzlet this morning:

“This week’s Friday’s Feast is cancelled due to my having a terrible sore throat, fever, and headache. Come back next week for Feast 40!”

What a friggin’ wimp. Anyway, the last time I started asking myself questions, I was strapped to a mattress and placed under observation for three days. So I invite you, dear reader, to supply me with quizzlet questions today. Post a comment, and I’ll get back to you.

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File Under Fuck, Yeah!: Digable Planets Reunite.


in

Nate just hipped me to the fact that the Dig Plans are back, baby. I spent many nights in my gazebo in the summer of ’92 rocking their first album – and was also one of the few people who also bought and enjoyed the follow up, Blowout Comb. If you’re unfamiliar, picture ‘hip-hop-meets-that-weird-kid-in-your-class-that-used-to-eat-paste’.

The ticky ticky buzz the sun winks the sky,
I fumble through my fuzz and buzz mr. i .
Tell him scoop the beats in the flying saucer kit,
meet me at the port with the nickel bags and shit.

I shouldn’t be as excited as I am. But I am.

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Kiss Me. I’m 1/10th Irish On My Mother’s Side.


in Heartwarming

I’m seeing the green shirts, and the leprechaun hats, and the inflatable Guinness pints and I’m thinkin’ that my first St. Patrick’s Day as a civilian in four years is going to be quite the greenish gasser. There are few better places to be on this wondrous day. You’ve got Belfast, and then Dublin, Boston and New York with Chicago rounding out the top five – in very particular order. But I have a little shamrock in my craw today, as I always do on March 17th, and it stems from the fact that everyone who has ever so much as touched a U2 cassette will be running around maniacally professing their dodgy Irish heritage. I want a shillelagh and I want it now.

The last four years I have come out of retirement to work the door at Tiernan’s and have thoroughly enjoyed it. But I have to take an entire day off to do so and I’m also starting to feel more and more like Sgt. Roger Murtaugh. I’m too old for this shit. Regardless, there’s no place I’d rather be on St. Pat’s and I’ll be dropping in after work for a couple hours. Also, be sure to check out the magnificent dancing leprechaun I’ve added to their website to mark this delightful day of days. Dee-lightful.

In working those four St. Patrick’s Days, I learned a few important lessons. Cleaning up trampled cabbage at the end of the night is not something to look forward to. Large inflatable leprechaun hats lose a lot of their charm once they’ve been on your living room wall for a week. Know when to duck. But most memorably I’ve learned that people with questionable links to Ireland like use being Irish as an excuse to act like a complete cunt. So for all of you who have a half Irish grandparent who died before you were born, but will be running around today like you’re Brendan bloody Gleeson on mescaline, I have a few important points I’d like you to remember:

1. You don’t have an “Irish Temper”. You’re simply an asshole who’s never been further outside of the United States than Niagara Falls. The American side.

2. Your red hair is as likely due to your parents having had sex in a front of a hotel television set playing a Carrot Top HBO special than any smidgen of Irish heritage. You were born in Methuen and your father is Jewish.

3. The fact that you’ll get red-faced tonight after 3 pints has nothing to do with “the Irish in you”. It’s called an alcohol flush and it means you’re either a piss-head, a diabetic or an Asian. Rarely all three at once. Another 2 pints and you’ll be punching out your boss, so it’s probably time to head home. I saw it happen and then broke it up two years ago.

4. St. Paddy’s is more about savoring a Guinness and listening to some traditional music with friends – and less about shotgunning a sixy of Natty Lite before putting your head through a plate glass window in the financial district. I wish I were kidding, but I’ve definitely seen some confusion surrounding this point in the past.

Have a great, safe time tonight everybody. And one last word of advice – The parade doesn’t actually start until Sunday. Marching down West Broadway at 4 a.m. tomorrow with your pants around your ankles is likely to get you PC’ed. Regardless of whether or not you’re carrying a baton.

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The Kitten Had Two Faces.


in

Deuce, the two faced kitten who was born last week in Florida, has died. And I don’t mean she was prone to back-stabbing or gossip – “Pepper left a huge turd in the litterbox last week and didn’t bury it. But don’t tell Snowball you heard that from me.” No, I mean the baby cat literally had four eyes and two noses. All of her internal organs were intact, and the local vet fully expected Deuce to live, but she’s gone to that big scratching post in the sky and nobody knows exactly why.

The kitten was nursing from it’s mother teats with the left mouth, but would occasionally try and get the right one open. So it sounds to me like the poor little bugger might have had two brains to boot. She was due for an MRI next week, but unfortunately we’ll never know what was happening in her little furry head. Godspeed, Deuce, and I hope you and Bubba have lots to talk about.

“Then this one time, Muffin sprayed all over the living room couch and I was the one who caught the spray-bottle beat-down. I swear to God, if she takes my window spot near the birdfeeder one more time – it’s fucking on.”

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The Proof Is In The Server Logs.


in Pye in the Face

An important part of my real job involves analyzing client server logs in order to find out exactly who has been visiting a website, why and from where. It’s easy to examine URLs and search strings to determine what people were typing into Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. when they accidentally stumbled across your site. Here are some of my recent favorite queries which led folks to find Pye In The Face. Those poor, unsuspecting bastards.

  • garth brooks french whore
  • black wolf the dragon master
  • amanda beard doing it
  • girl tea bagged
  • traci lords facial
  • hottie gotti
  • prisoners in australia ‘milking’ redback spiders
  • paris hilton genetalia photo
  • go home and get your fucking shine box
  • ebony coochie gallery
  • grooveasaurus

Kinda almost makes me wanna re-evaluate just what it is I’m accomplishing on this site. If you want to see what context any of these phrases were used in on the site, either by myself or within user comments, copy and paste them into the search bar on your left. Then, might I suggest a shower?

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How A Blog Is Like A Puppy.


in Pye in the Face

Well that’s just super. Friendster has started hosting free blogs just like Google does on blogger.com. Thousands more useless wastes of webspace have just been encouraged and will be started up, written in thrice and then abandoned for all time. The blog scrapheap is growing alarmingly tall. It’s tough to keep one afloat, even if you are capable of stringing a few sentences together. Many times when I click through to check out a blog that catches my eye, I find it hasn’t been written in for weeks or even months. The graveyard is chock full o’ bones, buddies.

Starting a blog is kinda like adopting a puppy – you have to know what you’re getting into before making the commitment. Don’t get a puppy if you live in a small apartment in the city and are home less than six hours a day. Likewise, don’t start a blog if you watch the Daily Show instead of network news or have more than one Anne Hathaway DVD in your personal collection. I’d really like to see the next 16 year old girl who starts a blog about Hillary Duff and then abandons it after a week forced to crap on a newspaper whilst being beaten with a rolled up newspaper. On DVD.

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Revel In My PS Prowess: Cuban Boat Revelry.


in

About 6 months or so ago, I was invited to a Cuban-themed party by a few friends at some swanky Boston club I wouldn’t have patronized if they had free Golden Tee. I looked the event up online and it quickly became apparent that the reason my friends wanted to hit this bash was that as part of a promotion they were giving away copious amounts of Cuban rum. And the mystery was solved.

After I declined, and then received several emails accusing me of being an unadventurous, boring bar snob, I whipped up this photo in retaliation. It depicts Bobby and Monster enjoying a day out with some Cuban boat refugees. Julian from Trailer Park Boys said it best when asked once how he was going to get a party together quickly : “Easy. Free Liquor“. Truer words were never spoken. But I revile trendy bars and it was a Tuesday night. If that makes me a bar snob, I’m content to sip Cuba Libres solo at the Applebee’s on route 9.

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Friday’s Quizzlet: Pogue Mahone, Joan.


in Monday's Quotelet

Appetizer: Where do you go when you want to relax?
Nowadays, my apartment. But there have been two times in my life where I’ve had party-tastic roomates who nearly drove me insane. The first was five years ago up on Hanover Street, and the second was just recently. But my latest malevolence has moved on to Southie, and my apartment is back to being it’s inner-sanctum-self. Having to worry about when and if you’re going to be able to sleep, and who you’re going to find on your couch when you get home at night, is like being cut off at the knees. A man’s home is his castle! Or at least a modest serfdom.

Soup: Tell about something that made you laugh this week.
An Anglophile is defined as “An admirer of England and things English”. In terms of the suffix “phile” it’s among the more favorable classifications out there, Michael Jackson. So I was thrilled 6 months ago when I discovered this site. I’ve been downloading English television shows like it’s my job and I can’t get enough. I’ve watched all 5 seasons of Most Haunted, most of the Big Brothers and my latest fascination is Brat Camp. What happens is, truly awful little English teenage bastards are sent by their exasperated parents to a special camp in the wilds of Utah. They go from living in their ‘posh’ houses and screaming in their mother’s faces, to being up to their waists in snow and at the mercy of a group of ex-Marines and cowboys. It’s hilarious to watch these spoiled bastards get whipped into civility, but the show has a lot of heart, too. Hopefully they’ll port it to BBC America.

Salad: What is your favorite texture?
The last time I went around touching things for a lark, I wound up using cigarettes as currency for about six months. I’d love to say “lush velvet”, but the term “cotton thong” just keeps fighting it’s way to the surface.

Main Course: You’re publishing your autobiography. What’s the first sentence?
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, now is the winter I get hooked on Creme De Menthe.” Or how about “I am a sick man … I am a spiteful man… are you gonna eat that?” Maybe “Call me Ishmael. But my friends call me Joan”. All written entirely in purple crayon.

Dessert: Do you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? If so, how?
I’ve worked the door at Tiernans the last 5 years, but told them I was through when they asked me to do it again next week. Now you’re wondering – what am I going to do with my first free St. Patrick’s day in half a decade? Why, go to Tiernans, of course. As a civilian. And Sunday I’m headed to Emily’s for a gathering in the morning before hitting the Southie Parade. A very happy pogue mahone to us all!

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I’ll Keep The Reality Television Rant Short.


in

John was the most promising and talented contestant on The Apprentice this year. The show’s ultimate prize is a job with Donald Trump, right? To think that Trump chose to keep Chris over John, when the race was so close, is beyond me. Good luck having that 21-year-old sniveling hot-head in charge of one of your hotels. John’s worst quality was that he got a little too cocky, and I think that’s what The Donald really took exception to. Because he holds the patent.

On to The Contender. Frankly I was cringing as it started – but in reality (snicker) it’s an amazingly awesome show. NBC is plucking all the right heart strings with this one. You see the boxers, their families, where they come from, what they hope to gain, you know one of them blows his brains out after shooting wraps… and for the last 15 minutes of every episode, the week’s resolution is that they get into a ring and beat the Christ out of eachother. I enjoyed the show, thought the final bout was a lock (but would still be fun to watch), and then POW – total upset to boot. Forget the boardroom – this is the best reality television show EVAH. Yeah, I said it.

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Who Are These People, And How Can We Kill More Of Them?


in Musical

Thankfully, I haven’t been to a funeral in about 5 years. Nor have I ever attended a service where anything other than choir or organ music was heard. In Europe, however, apparently it’s all the rage to play your favorite contemporary pop hits prior to your eulogy and then again as you’re being carried out of the church and put into a hearse. I can think of many songs that would be dismally appropriate for a funeral. ‘Asleep‘ by the Smiths. ‘The Next Life‘ by Suede. ‘Fiddler’s Green‘ even – but fucking Highway to Hell? Oh, it gets worse.

“Music can be very personal, indeed it often helps create a sense of identity. Wanting to share your most treasured musical gem with those you’re leaving behind is the perfect way to sign off and leave a lasting impression.”

That quote makes perfect sense, so I am forced to assume that there have been a rash of deaths recently among German headbangers and English teenage girls. Robbie William’s Angels is the number one choice among Brits, while Germans prefer AC/DC and Metallica. The Italians and Spaniards opt for classical music, while Norway’s funeral marches are often fueled by Viva Las Vegas. Jesus, take me now. And then pump There Goes The Fear into the church. Any song that begins with the line “Out of here” definitely suits.

I am curious, dear readers – What song would you want played at your funeral?

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God And I Can Finally Agree On Something.


in

“When Jesus died for your sins he wore a crown of thorns, not a lobster bib“.

God and I have agreed to disagree many times over the last few years. Usually when he appears to me in my dreams and encourages me to purchase a semi-automatic rifle and shoot up an Arby’s. Obviously I haven’t flipped my wig to that extent. The Big Montana is frickin’ delicious.

But we’re getting close to a compromise, me and God. I absolutely hate seafood and apparently so does the big guy. God Hates Shrimp is a website devoted to the Bible’s many clues regarding our heavenly father’s position on aquatic life, and I encourage all of you to read it. Snacking on crustaceans is apparently akin to adultery, murder, coveting and buggery on the sin-o-meter.

You’d think that someone who took the time and effort to invent 40,000 different species of fish and sealife would be a more supportive parent. You’d think such an obvious parody of conservatives would be a lot less funny (see my thoughts on Jon Stewart). But well done, my falafel-eating friends. Credit where credit is due. Make sure you look at the T-Shirt page, too. Pinch the tail and suck the head, sinners.

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Somebody Get That Kid Some Pants.


in

I think that 6″4 is the perfect height, and I’m honored for being picked – by genetics, L. Ron Hubbard, Allah or whomever – to be part of such a wonderful club. You tower over 75% of the population, but thankfully don’t classify as freakishly tall. Basketball is a professional option, you get to put the star on top of the Christmas tree, it’s easy to forage for honeycomb and bird eggs – basically the pros far outweigh the cons. That is unless you’re shopping for trousers.

Saturday afternoon a friend and I went out for an early dinner but stopped at the mall beforehand since we were in the neighborhood. I had put some cash aside for new pants (as you do) and immediately ran into Filene’s to start what I knew from experience would be a long, arduous and disappointing process. You see, in addition to my long inseam (ladies?) I also have wide hips – size 38 to be exact. People who are my weight and height don’t usually have size 38 hips – I guess I just have to blame my pesky pelvis for that. So finding pants that fit – which don’t also look like I stole them from Mr. Creosote – is nothing less than an odyssey.

While I tried on pair after pair, my lovely assistant whipped around the store grabbing potentials to try on. Size 38 pants, off the rack, always have inseams of either 32 (too short) or 34 (too long). There are never 33 inseams to speak of, so I have to hunt high and low until I find a short one that’s a little too long, or a long one that’s a little too short. I came away with 4 new pairs that are varying degrees of ill-fitting, but passable. Just in case any of you were still wondering why I’m not a fashion model by now. Shaq has an easier time buying clothes.

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The Downward Spiral. Way Downward.


in Heartwarming

Some people age well, and some people just slowly fall apart. I came across these mugshots last night as I was procrastinating/feverishly perusing for similarly twisted content. They follow a young woman’s courtship with the NYPD from 1983 – 1997. In the first photo, she looks like a legwarmer wearing young co-ed, right out of a John Hughes movie of the era. In the last photo, she looks like Dana Plato. Had she been exhumed.

In addition to this poor girl’s slippery slope, these photos can serve as a time capsule of sorts. In photo 4, circa 1984, she’s got a sweet Deb from Napoleon Dynamite haircut happening. And the very next photo is really the beginning of the end – the Linda Ronstadt look. Photos 8 and 9 I like to call the ‘frontseat crack money blowjob’ phase – and by number 10, judging from the Wendy O’ Williams hairdo, it looks as though those blowjobs had moved to the alley beside CBGB’s.

Now, I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume that this woman was a prostitute. My powers of deduction defy the mind, my dear Watson. I say ‘was’ because if her rapid decline has continued at the same rate as depicted in this series of photos, she’s now a sun-dried tomato on a salad at the Brooklyn Au Bon Pain. A sad montage which should be hung in classrooms all over the continent.

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