Hat tip to Moynihan for this one.
Christmas Comes Early For David.
Q: What’s the status of the Pixies? Still enjoying the reunion?
A: We just got back from Japan. That was the last gig on the books. At one point during the last show, I was teasing Kim [Deal] about something, and she flipped me off. She was just fooling around, but I thought she was serious. It was the first time that’d happened the whole time, and I thought, ”Oh, man, she’s mad at me. It’s over.”
Q: You recording a new album?
A: Yeah, but I need to write some good songs. These Pixies have gotten a little uppity. They’re like, ”What if it’s not as good as the old records?”
Very happy to read this Globe interview with Frank Black today. But I’ll believe it when I see it, as will we all. And then, of course, some of you have lives.
Wednesday Wadio: The Pogues "Fairytale Of New York".
“…it’s a gorgeous song no matter why you observe Christmas or even if you celebrate something else… is not only the most beautiful, but the best Christmas song humanity has ever made. May it endure.” – Stylus
I am really slammed today but wanted to get this out there. This entire Wadio entry will be comprised completely of quotes and links, and you can enjoy my snide remarks again tomorrow.
“The Pogues re-released their classic Christmas hit ‘Fairytale of New York’ on Warners on 19th December 2005. The song, featuring the late Kirsty McColl was voted the best Christmas song ever in a poll by TV station VH1 last year, beating Band Aid, Wham and Slade to the top spot.”
“The band will be donating proceeds from the record to the homeless charity Crisis At Christmas and the Justice For Kirsty Campaign. Set up by the late singer’s mother Jean, the fund has enabled the family to fight the long legal battle for justice following the tragic death of their daughter, killed by a powerboat whilst on holiday with her children. Almost five years on from her untimely death on 18th December 2000, no person has been made accountable to the satisfaction of her family and friends.”
“MacGowan and the sadly departed MacColl sing all over each other, slurring words and tossing insults (she’s an “old slut on junkâ€, he’s a “cheap lousy faggotâ€). You could easily dismiss it as merely dysfunctional and assume I’m saying it is the greatest Christmas song of all time because I am a cynical bastard and I think Christmas sucks and is all about squabbling with the family and getting loaded. But you’d be wrong.”
“This is a couple clearly more comfortable slinging profanity than admitting sentiment. And then they sing “The boys of the NYPD Choir are singing ‘Galway Bay’ / And the bells are ringing out on Christmas Day†again, and it’s still oddly uplifting when you consider how little those two things mean to most of us (but not to them, of course), and then the song goes off into the air.”
And I got tickets to the Boston show, bitches.
Painful, Painful Nerdery.
When people want to know about certain things, they talk to me. As if I were Mad Max and they were a desperate villager who needed to find a truck to haul gasoline. But it’s not quite as cool as post-apocolyptic gang warfare-related advice – when all they’re asking you is to tell them what movies you recently went to by yourself before masturbating yourself to sleep whilst crying.
“I’m greatly looking forward to King Kong and A Scanner Darkly, which is an animated version of a Philip K. Dick book,” said Dave Pye, senior account manager with a Boston-based search engine marketing firm. “Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report are all great geek movies based on Dick’s work, and I hope the trend continues.”
Still, it’s very nice to be an authority on something. Maybe I can work my way up to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.
Fumigating Neverland.
When I moved in to my current apartment, it was September 2000 and I was 26 years old. I had a sweet job, a building which was always full of young girls, a fraternity-esque social life and the interior decorating to match. It was cheesy, but it was OK to be cheesy. It was expected – and I was in good, cheesy company. But as Seamus left in September for new horizons in Hartford, I am now the very last of the old guard.
The years have flown past, and I’ve never updated my decor. Sitting in my room now, I see the signed flag of St. George I received when I left the Hinds Head in 1998. An original operational 1977 Han Solo blaster. A remote controlled R2D2 which is even older. A map of Northern Ireland printed on Irish linen I got in Belfast in 2001. Goldfinger, Casino, Die Hard 3 and A Bronx Tale (way to go Lillo by the way,) posters. My skydiving certificate. Multiple DeNiro, Sinatra and Frank Black 8x10s. Unframed photographs that are taped to the walls including my football team group shots that are all curled up at the edges and need to be preserved as they may still impress girls. A creative writing award I won in 1991 that definitely never will. A boomerrang I got in Australia and a wooden machete I got in South Africa. And there’s a few shitloads more.
Let me just say what you’re all thinking – My bedroom looks like the Chinese curio shop in Gremlins, if it were managed by a 12-year-old homosexual.
My Canadian houseguests have been delayed, and I’ve spent the evening boxing up the majority of this juvenile crap and moving it into the basement. I won’t part with it – some of it is actually pretty cool, but it’s time to move my epicenter, my bedroom, into 2006. I’m not a pack-ratting hermit by nature, and it’s just been a matter of getting to a tipping point to send me over the edge towards serious redecoration. And, dare I say it, adulthood. Thankfully, it just happened.
Yesterday Kyle and I went to a lovely annual Christmas party up in Marblehead that I have not attended in 4 years. Several of the guests were induviduals from the aforementioned job with their little children, and subsequent lives, in tow. Towards the end we met a 63-year-old mortgage broker who proceeded to tell me how nice I was and that she wanted to set me up with a young girl she knows in Beacon Hill. She asked for my business card. On the way home, Kyle told me that the woman was just going to try and sell me property. I realized he was right – because if you didn’t know me, all gussied up and being extremely polite at a posh Christmas party, you’d think I really fucking had it together.
The scene switches, and my latest hypothetical lady love is staring up at a magazine cutout of Al Pacino in Serpico as I whisper sweet nothings in her ear. And… scene. I’m framing the autographed Trailer Park Boys glossy and leaving it where it is, and the football photos are also getting framed and can stay, but look out world – Peter Pan is growing up and redecorating.
Incidentally, the Bob and Doug Mackenzie action figures are also staying. And here you thought I’d completely lost my shit.