Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

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

Canada Day, Up Canada Way…


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… a great song by a truly great Canadian. And I thought of the title tonight because I’ll be heading up to the Great White North for Canada Day – which is this Friday, July 1st. The song is rivaled only by Bud the Spud and Little Wawa in terms of ruling the entire repetoire. Have a look here if you want to play it alone on the guitar in an air-conditioned room whilst slathering yourself in poutine and maple syrup. That might just be the only way to help my American friends grasp the true essence of Canadiana, get arrested for indecency or whichever comes first.

With songs like Give Me Cold, Cold Beer, The Hockey Song, The Bars of Vancouver, “Wop” May, The Man in the Moon is a Newfie, She Don’t Speak English and Snowmobile Song rounding out the catalog – I know I’ve probably peaked your interest in Stompin’ Tom Connors. Now, mine is always peaked – which is why I’ve learned the hard way not to go outside in tight shorts – so I did a few searches for recent news on old Tom.


The Canadian version of the upcoming Live 8 concerts takes place in Barrie, Ontario on July 2nd, and will bring a sudden influx of over 35,000 people into the community. But starving Africans aren’t the real draw, as the line-up includes a veritable who’s-who of Canadian rock icons. Not so fast, Celine. While Barenaked Ladies, Bruce Cockburn and Bryan Adams don’t exactly have me rubbing my snowballs with glee – the show closes with Our Lady Peace, The Tragically Hip and Neil fucking Young! I used to spend a lot of time in Barrie and know it pretty well. And for that reason I can honestly say it would take Neil Young to get me to go back. Actually, a hand-written note from Neil himself. Actually a hand jo… I don’t much care for Barrie.

A DJ in Ottawa has made the news this week by raising such a stink over that fact that Stompin’ Tom was not included in this roster of Canada’s finest that it has cost him his job: “A true Canadian icon like Stompin’ Tom, it’s unbelievable this guy’s been overlooked. I made a vow to play non-stop Stompin’ Tom until Bob Geldof put ‘The Stomper’ on the bill.” Since the station only had one Connors song in its library, Big Joe Mufferaw, Brown played it six times in a row until he could get a colleague to rush out and buy more Connors CDs.

Put the fuckin’ Stomper on the Bill, eh? You don’t like Mondays, Geldof? Well I don’t think you’ll like gettin’ gooned by the fuckin’ Stomper much neither. Fuck’s sakes (and scene). Ottawa DJ Jeff Brown – Pye in the Face salutes you, buddy.

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Damn You, Blogger. Damn You All To Hell.


in Pye in the Face

A WordPress migration looms ever closer on the horizon. Google’s shares have soared to $300 this week – while one of their flagship properties, Blogger, has continued to sniff furry little mice nuts:

“The launch of Blogger Images required a bit of new code that is causing some users annoying layout problems. Before launch, the templates passed our tests but because of the open nature of Blogger templates, we weren’t sure which kinds of template modifications were going to be affected. We’re hammering out the solution now and we’ll update our help site with some workarounds today.”

And I’m hammering out a batch to the latest Victoria’s Secret catalog. But where is the progress? I mean, besides all over my T-shirt? I’ve been watching the evolution of Blogger since the guy who created it sold it to Google, and it’s being run (into the ground) by a bunch of kids. I should have packed up and moved last summer when I got industrious and almost pulled the trigger one long and sober Saturday night. But I couldn’t get the comments to transfer properly, and I lost my nerve. So if you’ve been wondering why my text has been looking like Camryn Manheim jacknifed onto it off a telephone pole – now you know. Bear with me.

There are as of yet undiscovered tribes in the heart of the Peruvian jungle who’ve developed better content management systems than Blogger. And I wished I’d joined them months ago. Although my head would now likely be very tiny and hanging on someone’s belt.

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Monday’s Quotelet: Puppa Duppa.


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As it’s his birthday, our old roving photo-hound friend, Gary, is the subject of today’s Quotelet. Here he is during his Epixome rounds with the lovely Houston Rockets Power Dancers (cheerleaders). Send him your best, your jibes and your best jibes. I never told you this, but I’m extremely impressed with the way you saw that flailing business and massive debt through to the level of success/trim you’ve reached today. So yeah – fuck you, birthday buddy.


“Houston? We have a massive erection.”

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The Deep Clean. The Deeper Burn.


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Martin the Mouth was a long-haired and shaggy East Londoner who used to hang out at the Hind’s Head of Bray in the late 90’s. Everytime he came in, he’d try and recruit me for his deep kitchen cleaning business. While there was no other way I’d have rather spent my one day off a week, the notion of spending 12 hours scrubbing through years of muck within derelict kitchens around London frightened me worse than spotted dick.

“Cah mon Dave, me old China! – 20 pound an houwa, and only one day a week!” He was incessant. So finally I asked our chef, Gus, what a “deep cleaning” entailed. “All surfaces and equipment, mate. You don’t want none o’ that. Never mind with that Martin twat leadin’ the bleedin’ charge”. So that pretty much settled it – I would continue to spend my days off at the Hobgoblin in Maidenhead, and not deep cleaning grimy meat slicers from Windsor to Blackpoole.

Yesterday I wanted to do something productive that did not involve my laptop or the sun (I got seared again on Saturday), so I settled on a task I’d been avoiding for months – nay – over a year. It had been a good 365 days at least since I’d last deep cleaned my shower and bathtub. I stocked up at CVS with every related corrosive chemical known to mankind, cleared away all of my roomate’s girly shampoos/scented oils, and stepped sheepishly into the terrible tub.

Long story short – I scrubbed away for over 2 hours and the facility now glistens with nobility. But I simply cannot move today. My back, arms, chest – all stiff as a board. I walked to work today like a pre-oil Tin Man. However, I can now take a shower without having to worry about contracting West Nile.

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Friday’s Quizzlet: The Digital Cable Dilemma.


in Monday's Quotelet

Appetizer: What time do you usually wake up each day?
I wake up at 8:50. That may sound ‘late as all heck’ to some people, but I stay at the office until 8pm on average – so don’t envy me too much. Also feel free not to envy the fact that I share my bed with a cat 91% of the time. The good news is I can stay up later than the average Joe and still get a fair amount of sleep. Although I do spend that extra time watching British TV. With a cat.

Soup: When was the last time you bought groceries?
During my brief stint on the Atkin’s diet I hit the Golden Goose in the North End and bought enough salami and American cheese to constipate Jabba the Hutt. I buy food on a ‘need-to-eat’ basis and don’t keep much in the house. Which, as you can imagine, results in one of the unhealthiest diets known to man. So now, in addition to sharing Jabba’s gastrointestinal traits – I’m also beginning to look like him. “Me yarga. Milona na di kato?”

Salad: How many books have you read so far this year?
I haven’t. Not a single one – and I’m embarassed. I could write a book based on the first half of this year though. It would be entitled “How to Hook-up Digital Cable and Tivo in Your Bedroom and Never Read a Book Again”. I see a theme developing this week. And a severe lull in brain activity from watching 2 episodes of Big Brother every night this week.

Main Course: What is something you consider to be very elegant?
I was recently interviewed by the Boston Globe for an article being written about Boston bloggers (it runs on July 3rd and believe me – I’ll link to it for you). I work near the Public Garden, so I decided to walk over and take the call there. As I strolled around speaking to the woman interviewing me I noticed an area on the pond’s shore that had been fenced off. A large sign read “Swan Nesting Area” and a huge white (you guessed it) Swan sat on her nest, her head nuzzled in her breast to fend off a light rain that had started. I thought that looked quite elegant. Anyone know any good Swan jokes?

Dessert: Who taught you how to drive?
When I was 15, my father took me to the CCHS parking lot and told me to let it rip. I drove around in circles, spun out in the snow and basically had the time of my life. I don’t think I’d ever driven a car up until that point. I have some friends who’d racked up DUIs by the age of 15, but I was a late bloomer. My mother and an auxillary cop driving instructor fine-tuned my driving skills in the weeks prior to my test, and frequent blog contributor “The Len” taught me how to drive a stick over near White’s Pond a year later. So, so hot.

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