Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

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

He Wears Short Shorts. And Is A Twat.


in

There’s a new fad sweeping the city of Boston and I’m going to need a little help from my readers in order to ever fully hope to fathom it. I’m talking about college age men, or slightly thereafter, walking around outside in 40 degree weather with shorts on. Cargo shorts usually, which end just above the knee and contain lots of interesting, and I’m sure integral, pockets. Without meaning to sound harsh, please kill yourselves.

Let’s say we’ve been in the middle of a cold snap, and then suddenly the temperature rises five points one sunny afternoon. These little bastards run home to change and come out in full force – inappropriate shorts just a’ blazing. I’m taking the time to write about this not because it offends me or because I’m concerned for their immune system or anything. It’s simply one of the most retarded things I’ve ever seen. It has to be the most uncomfortable and useless fad since the fucking corset.

Enthralled, annoyed and disturbed at the same time, this journalist looked for more re-re instances of this silliness online. Here’s what I found:

– A related discussion featuring some Canadian twat who says he wears the shorts just to see people’s shocked expressions. Wow – that is so punk rock.

– The Senior VP of HR at Microsoft wears shorts in winter. And eats concentrated orange juice cans full of bacon fat by the vanload, apparently.

– Someone visiting Brussels was so alarmed by the sight of shorts wearers that they snapped a picture and blogged it. Personally, I would have been more concerned with the man standing off to the right with his hands down the front of his pants – who also seems to be ‘enjoying’ the exposed flesh.

– A local Boston blogger originally from California also shares my bewilderment: There’s always the crazy guy who wears shorts all winter (I’m sure just to stand out–people call him the “shorts guy”). First of all, I’m glad you get to help pick the nicknames, cause that one is world class. Secondly, of course he does it to stand out. He was probably raised in a closet by an uncle, and digitally bum raped multiple times on poker night.

This article is taking a sharp turn for the worst. Just stop wearing the shorts in winter people. Fauxhawks and bad lower-back tattoos serve the same purpose, and don’t lead to pnemonia.

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Good Luck With The Crashing Night Guilt.


in

Did anyone else think that Crash was an exceptionally mediocre film? I just finished watching it and I may never bother to sit through the Oscars again. I am fairly good at explication, but just what is the goddamned theme supposed to be anyway? All races are capable of racism? I already knew that. Predjeduces may be innacurate? Prejeduces may be extremely fucking accurate? Terence Howard looks like he uses a crimping iron? The movie should have been called “Guilt”.

I also watched Good Night and Good Luck last night. As much of a fan as I am of historical and biographical movies, I was tempted to paint one of my bedroom walls halfway through. So I could watch it dry instead. I need films that have a little something extra in order to be fully entertained. Like “Ernest Goes To…” tacked on to the beginning of the title.

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Wednesday Wadio: Pogues’ Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn


in Wednesday Wadio

Interviewer: What’s your poison these days?
Shane: I like wine, and I drink Peach Schnapps. It’s only 21 percent.
Interviewer: That sweet stuff’ll rot your teeth.
Shane: I haven’t got any teeth. – Playboy

Sick Bed is my very favorite Pogues song, and I listen to it constantly. I had the distinct and unlikely pleasure of seeing them last night at the Orpheum here in Boston. I say unlikely, because anyone who knows anything about Shane McGowan is well aware of his severe drink problem, and the fact that he comes close to death as casually as you or I flick off a lightswitch. When I heard they were touring this year, I figured it was without Shane (as they did from 91-to 2001) so imagine my pleasant surprise. It was a truly great time.

In Irish mythology, Cuchulainn “is taken ill when he is attacked in a dream by two women with horsewhips (he lay asleep in his sickbed for a year as a result)”. That’s kinda hot, especially if they feed you whiskey in your hospital of choice. Horsewhips aside, not only is this song catchy, rocking and pleasing to the ear – it tells a crazy story about a man who, among other things, pisses himself, gets thrown out of a bar, has his head kicked in and then vomits in a church. Shane is a little hard to understand at times, and you can read the full lyrics here:

When you pissed yourself in Frankfurt and got syph down in Cologne
And you heard the rattling death trains as you lay there all alone
Frank Ryan bought you whiskey in a brothel in Madrid
And you decked some fucking blackshirt who was cursing all the Yids
At the sick bed of Cuchulainn we’ll kneel and say a prayer
And the ghosts are rattling at the door and the devil’s in the chair

Anti-semitism, venerial disease and whorehouses – now that sounds like a Saturday night. Here’s Shane himself talking about the ditty from his book “A Drink With Shane McGowan“: “It’s about how every old dosser you meet on the street has got a history. He’s got a history of probably fighting in a couple world wars, maybe the Spanish Civil War.” And how did the book come to be? Glad you asked: “It’s a bunch of interviews that she did while I was drunk. I said a lot of things about people that I wouldn’t have said if I hadn’t been drunk and talking to my wife. But what’s done is done, and I think it’s a good book.” While we’re at it, here’s a great collection of drinking references in Pogues songs.

You can listen to the song for yourself by clicking Radio Pye to your left. The pictures you see were taken by myself last night during and after the show, and I’ve also uploaded a few video clips of which the audio and picture isn’t too bad. If you’re a fan, check them out. First off is their rousing performance of Sick Bed, during which I swear I felt the Orpheum’s balcony shifting with the weight of drunken, dancing Irishmen. The twat you can hear singing along is none other than yours truly:

I also got clips of Lonely Pair of Brown Eyes, Fairytale of New York and you can even enjoy watching Shane shoot a hat that is thrown at him like it’s a clay pigeon. From the size of the whiskey bottle you can see him take a pull off of in the Fairytale clip, skeet was probably only one of many foreign objects he saw floating past him on stage last night. And as it happens, I’ll only stop listening to the Pogues when pink elephants fookin’ fly. I’m thrilled I can now cross “See the Pogues Live” off my list. And throwing up in a church.

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The Play And The Pogues.


in Musical

In about 15 minutes I have to rush back to the North End for a 5pm play practice. Our first performance is Sunday at 2pm, and there’s precious little time left to work out the many kinks. It is very time consuming, and I’ll be glad when it’s all said and done a week from tonight, but it’s been a fun experience. Again, if you need tickets – email me. They are going fast and Sunday’s shows are nearly sold out. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday – done. Get on it.

I’m ducking out around 1/2 way through the second act to sneak back up to the Orpheum to see the mighty Pogues who are on tour with Shane McGowan for the first time in 15 years. Apparently someone in Ireland has finally figured out how to reanimate dead tissue. I am insanely excited, and will give you a full update and a related Wadio tomorrow.

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Oh Long Johnson. Oh Don Piano.


in

Sorry for the lack of any posts today. Blogger was down. I am chiming in now because I’ve been laughing about this video all day and I want to share. I think it’s from America’s Funniest Home Videos or something, and it shows a variety of talking cats. They don’t really talk, but they mimic human voices and it’s really freaky and hilarious. Make sure you watch it all the way through, as the black cat at the end is the best part. Oh I eyes ya.

UPDATE: Here’s another great cat-related video. The theme here seems to be attacking infants, which is always a treat.

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