Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

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

Keep Piling it on, God.


in Animalistic

My Mother’s cancer has returned and I am moving to Florida for at least a month while she has surgery to see her through and take care of my Dad until she recoups. If it hasn’t spread to her lymph nodes she won’t require chemo and they’ll spend the rest of the winter there. It could be a quick procedure and our fingers are crossed.

On a lighter note, Shepherd, the puppy I was to give a home to in mid-February, died last night of something called “Fading Puppy Syndrome”. I am absolutely gutted and am even less interested in writing than I have been the last week since I got the news about Mom. Some cracks are starting to appear in the ‘rock’ – but I shall return, readers.

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Happy Birthday, Chairman


in Musical

“You only live once, and the way I live, once is enough.”

Although I’ve always been tickled that I share a birthday with Larry Bird, Tom Waits and Aaron Carter simply being born under the same astrological sign as Frank Sinatra is among my greatest joys in life. Francis Albert Sinatra was born 92 years ago today in Hoboken, New Jersey, and the world would never be quite the same. We’ll consider this today’s Wednesday Wadio Part Deux. After a long review, this was the most personally enjoyable (and seasonal) Frank clip that I came across. Enjoy – and tip a glass of Jack Daniels with 3 cubes of ice towards the heavens tonight.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E19PzsLRMNY[/youtube]

“I’m gonna live till I die.”

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Wednesday Wadio: Morrissey’s ‘Jack the Ripper’


in Musical, Wednesday Wadio

I felt is was high time to devote some wadio writing to the almighty Moz who has been keeping me in excellent music since I first discovered the Smiths while listening to Chris Shepherd’s old Saturday night radio show on CFNY in 1987. Sadly, I started listening to the seminal Manchester band only a year before their demise, and as such never got to see them live, but Morrissey went on to put out an amazing solo catalog – and at 48 years of age there is no end in site. I saw him solo at Great Woods during the Kill Uncle tour in 1990, and caught his Smiths’ co-writer Johnny Marr play with The The at the Orpheum in 1991 – it was the best I could do as a postmortem and not a shabby accomplishment as both shows were phenomenal. I’ll have to give Matt Johnson similar attention here soon.

Due to the depth of his solo work it was a hard choice to choose one song to focus on and the final decision came down to what had a good showing on YouTube. I originally wanted to cover “The Loop” which is a noteworthy B-side that he plays regularly in concert, but the cell phone snippets I found certainly wouldn’t win over any new fans from my readership. I tried my luck with “Why Don’t You Find Out for Yourself” but had a similar problem. It would have been easy enough to use one of his many proper music videos I suppose, but none of the singles are personal favorites. Except maybe this one. I eventually found a decent live capture of “Jack the Ripper” from a recent L.A. show and we’re gonna run with it.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrCfciQ2H8E[/youtube]

I first heard this song on the World of Morrissey CD which was a mix of mid-nineties singles and B-sides. It got hours of playtime during my residence in Mills Hall and it instantly reminded me of those days the moment I heard it today. Due to the title, it’s not very hard to explicate the lyrics. The protagonist seems to be Jack the Ripper himself, and he seems to feel sorry for the women of the night he encounters. Until he vivisects them, of course.

Oh, you look so tired… Mouth slack and wide.
Ill-housed and ill-advised.
Your face is as mean as your life has been.

Jack goes on to tell the prostitute in question that he wants her… and is definitely gonna get her. Unfortunately for the 18 (+/-) actual Whitechapel murder victims of 1888, Jack wasn’t just talking about getting his German helmet waxed. But let’s not let that get in the way of enjoying this soaring tune and it’s almost funky rhythm. It’s definitely a dark ditty, but it still manages to be quite catchy in spite of the subject matter. If you’re not familiar with Morrissey this is less than the tip of the iceberg, and if you are JTR is a gem you’ve likely overlooked thus far.

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Major Friggin’ Disconnect


in

Somehow in spite of my jalopy laptop, long weekend trip and intermittent as frick internet connection I hast doth returned. Getting to Toronto in a car from here usually takes 3 hours. It took 7 on Friday night and 5 the other way on Sunday. I managed to pick the worst Canadian winter in a decade and a half, literally, to relocate to the countryside and it’s doing my head in. Dead network card in the laptop, and now that I managed to hook up an old desktop to keep me working – the internet connection drops out for hours on a whim. So there’s my excuse for my MIAness. Let’s see if I can catch up for the week so far in 5 minutes or less.

Veekend Video: Mitch continues to moisten undergarments everywhere with his latest ad campaign. See you at the Best Buddy X-Mas party, where I’ll be selling spare undergarments at the “captive audience” price of $40:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT1qt4A7xxc[/youtube]

Quotelet: The only photos I’m remotely interested in showing you are the first three official production stills hot off the press for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I was going to link to them here – alas I just found out the studio demanded AICN take them down. Oh well, here’s a photo of one of the temple miniatures made for the film instead. And Karen Allen‘s (Marion Ravenwood) knitwear store which is located in Great Barrington, MA. Good heavens she is looking lovely for 55. It seems like only yesterday I was a 7-year-old watching her nude scene in Animal House whilst rubbing myself in the pants.

Wadio: The only sweet dulcet tones you need to hear today are those of your heartstrings plucking… as you check out 11 new photos of my puppy, Shepherd Pye! He had his dew claws yanked on Friday and is apparently fat, healthy and cantankerous. I’m all for gender-neutrality,but I’ll have to speak to the breeder about the pink pussywillow and snow white blanket backdrop. Shep will be drinking mineral water and collecting Joan Crawford postcards before he’s housebroken.

A Few More Notes:

  • I like the new Foo Fighter’s song (the road to ruin one) and I’m relieved as I’ve been thoroughly uninterested in everything since “Learn to Fly”.
  • You know it’s 2007 (and possibly End of Days) when CNN spends the entire day discussing the fact that Romney’s Western faith might hurt him in the election – free campaign advice: start wearing a bhirka.
  • I have killed 11 mice so far in my effort to rid our garage and the Winchester of vermin. Don’t bother with the traditional wooden traps. There are these new fangled plastic ones that force mice to lift a flap to access the bait – so gone are the days of stolen cheese lumps and unsprung traps.
  • I posted my Amazon wish list in the sidebar in case anyone wants to get me something for my birthday (tomorrow) or Christmas. Call it gift-insurance, Blade Runner begging or DVD on bended knee if you like. On a related note, I have just realized that there is nothing more obnoxious than posting your Amazon wish list in your sidebar.

Thanks for your patience, kids. Missing a day on here truly bothers me and I’m striving to get PITF back to the level of activity it enjoyed this time last year. I encourage you all to comment and participate in the Quizzlets once again. I’m one year older tomorrow, but short of freezing to death in a ditch in my Charger-coffin the blog will be around for a long time to come.

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