Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor
Leveraging low-hanging synergies outside the vertical fruit box since 1999.
My friend and associate, Atlanta’s Boston Blogger (that’s a bit of an oxymoron, isn’t it?) just sent me a link to Fenway Park’s Webcam. You have to refresh it manually, but it works. Very cool stuff.
I’ll admit it – I am a peripheral, fairweather baseball fan. But if the Sox are doing well, I start watching. Last night’s game against the Yankees was amazing. Here we go – I hope they don’t break our hearts again. Who am I kidding?
I met my new roomates, Mardi and Betsy, for drinks at Tiernans last night. Where they then proceeded to tell me an interesting story about my cat, Boss.
Choosing new roomates is a very stressful process, to say the least. Luckily, apartments in the North End of Boston are in high demand – so there’s never any shortage of willing candidates. But once they’re in you want to be as hospitable as possible, for a while anyway, as they settle in and get used to everything. This is made infinitely more difficult, however, if your pet frequently vomits in their room.
I’m going to keep this piece about my cat short, as I would actually like to sleep with a woman again some day. But I’ll say this. Boss has puked in Betsy’s shoes. Twice. Maybe this is a sign of affection in the cat kingdom. But I feed him, and he’s never done it to me. He’s actually in her room right now, perhaps waiting for her to come home and take of her shoes.
When I visited South Africa in 97, we were encouraged by our host to always check our shoes for scorpions before we slid our feet into them. But this… this is on a whole ‘nother level.
Appetizer: How are you today?
Fine, thanks. Fair to middlin’. Not too shabby. Hanging in there. Can’t complain. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Dreaming up new ways to torture prostitutes before I kill them.
Soup: Name 3 television shows you watch on a regular basis.
Trailer Park Boys (shocking), Blackadder and Saturday Night Live. TPB I have discussed to death on here, so I’ll spare you – just this one time. Blackadder is a brilliant Britcom from the eighties which launched the career of Rowan Atkinson – more commonly known as Mr. Bean. Bean is predominantly physical comedy, a’la Chaplain or Keaton, wheras Blackadder is sharp, biting, dry, verbal humor all the way. I admire the way in which Atkinson was able to create such a polar opposite character in Mr. Bean – and have great success Stateside, but I wish more Americans knew about Blackadder. BBC America airs it regularly and I always TiVo it.
SNL has never had a bad season as far as I’m concerned. If I hear one more person say “It’s not funny anymore” I may go postal. Granted the early eighties were touch-and-go at times. They said the show was dead circa 1990 when Lovitz and Carvey left… enter Mike Meyers, Spade, Rock, etc. They said it was dead circa 95 when Farley and Sandler left… enter Will Farrell, Norm Macdonald and Colin Quinn. Just have a little faith and the show always bounces back.
The biggest rebuilding year for SNL was 1985. The ratings had gotten so bad that Lorne Michaels swapped out the entire cast cast when NBC insisted on pulling the plug for good otherwise. Goodbye Anthony Michael Hall and Terry Sweeney – hello Mr. Hartman. The rest is history. Thanks, Phil.
Salad: What’s the scariest weather situation you’ve experienced?
A blizzard in 1990. Driving back from a ski trip in Killington with Jason and Aaron Thelen. Jason took over driving from his father who was having a hard time seeing through the snow. We would have pulled over, but we were on 128 with no exits in sight. Jason is behind the wheel about 2 minutes before he loses control of the Dodge Caravan which does a 360 over 2 lanes of traffic. Looking out the window of a spinning car, that you happen to be in, is really fecked up. Try and imagine it for a second. The car stopped rotating in the exact direction it had been in when it started – and we just kept movin on down the road like the friggin’ idiots that we were.
Main Course: If you could wake up tomorrow in another country, where would you want to be?
Too many variables here. I could wake up in a dumpster in Fiji, or a luxury hotel suite in Russia. Do I have a way home? Am I hallucinating? Was I partying on the Rolling Stones’ private jet the night before, or was teleportation part of my Hogwarts 5th year final exam? Is Hermione in the dumpster with me? Please say yes.
Dessert: What do you usually wear to sleep?
Seamus Britt.
What the hell is going on here? Forget about the Poltergeist curse – three of the founding members of the Ramones have all died untimely deaths in the last three years. First Joey (49), then Dee Dee (49) and today Johnny (55)!
The lights have come up on the Blitzkrieg Bop. Rock n’ Roll Radio is off the air. It’s low tide on Rockaway Beach. Tragic. I’m done.
I’ve always hated my crummy domain name. It’s actually a subdomain, hence the annoying dot between David and Pye that’s been confusing and throwing people off for 5 years. The clunky and hard-to-remember david.pye.com has gone the way of the dodo, and you’re now loving life at:
I have redirects in place at the old site that should automatically send you here, but that site will close down in a few months – so update your bookmarks!
I’ll also archive the old, grey site somewhere in the background too. But from now on, the blog will only be updated here at the new site. Why the change? I accidentally let davepye.com expire last month, and it was quickly snapped up by a woman in Florida whose husband shares my name. I emailed her in a panic and pleaded with her to give it back to me. I fully expected her to ask me for an extortionate, cyber-squatter sort of amount for it’s return, but she took pity on me and sold it back for the $20 she’d spent to register it. Thank you, Kimberly Pye. You’re a doll.
Anyhew, I took it as a sign, bit the bullet and moved everything over to the new domain last night. I hope you enjoy it, and I know it’ll be easier to remember. My email will be changing accordingly too, from david@pye.com to dave@davepye.com – so please update that info as well.
I hate moving day. Welcome to the new digs.
