Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

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

Friday’s Quizzlet: Beam Me Up, Simon


in Friday's Quizzlet, Monday's Quotelet

Appetizer: When was the last time you were surprised?
I don’t really remember anything majorly surprisingly important. The last six months have been a bit of a trail. How about a couple of baby ones from yesterday? I am surprised at how good the new Radiohead album is. I have been listening to it non-stop for the last 24 waking hours. I was also very pleasantly surprised to learn that Simon Pegg has been cast as Scotty in the upcoming re-imagined Star Trek movies due to be released in late 2008. Scotty of the Dead, if you like. Kirk: “Scotty! I need more power. If you can’t charge the dilithium crystals and get us away from the Romulan fleet – we’re all doomed!” Scotty: “Yeaaaaaah… It’s not looking good, mate. Winchester?”

Soup: Fill in the blanks: My eyes are ____, but I wish they were ____.
My eyes are brown, but I wish they were x-ray capable and that I was standing outside Cate Blanchett’s house watching her take a shower on the 3rd floor whilst smearing Cheez Whiz on my naked chest and crying. You see why I hate these fill in the blanks questions? Because everyone always says the exact same thing.

Salad: If you were a Beanie Baby, what would you look like and what would your name be?
I don’t know much about Beanie Babies, so I had to do a little research prior to answering this question. OK – I am struggling a bit with this one. How about a dirty looking bird with plague spots all over it named “Poxy the Pidgeon? Or a new spin on the tie-dyed “Garcia the Bear” called “Pigpen the Dead from a Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage… Bear”? I am in the wrong line of work.

Main Course: Name two things you consistently do that you consider to be healthy habits.
I drink a ton of water everyday. At least 3 liters on average. I also make sure I eat a salad every night at dinner. The exercising is definitely not “consistent” per se, unfortunately. Other than those, it’s all liquor, beef jerky and unprotected sodomy over here.

Dessert: What brand of toothpaste are you using these days? Do you like it? Why or why not?
I don’t think we’re especially supposed to like the taste of toothpaste, are we? Brushing your teeth is a critical component of a reasonable personal hygiene regimen – not a fucking Pop Rocks and Coke party. It helps a little if you think of the process as self-flagellation… like the fat bald monk in The Name of the Rose. It kinda friggin’ sucks, but you have to keep it up daily or you’re going to hell, the dentist or both. How about some new flavors to make brushing a true act of churchy self-sacrifice? Body of Christ Blue Stripe – now with extra fluoride and glass.

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Wednesday Wadio: Radiohead’s “Nude”


in Musical, Wednesday Wadio

In a word, wow. I was so, so ready for a new Radiohead album. It’s been at least 3 years since the last one which I could never really get into. Upon first listen of In Rainbows at 2 o’clock this morning, however, I knew I was in the room with something very special. If you haven’t already heard, read this article about how the band has made the album available only as a download, and that they ask fans to pay them what they think it is worth. You can enter in $20, $10 – I know one cheeky bastard who entered $0 – and then you’re taken to the download page. Nobody knew they were even recording a new album, let alone releasing it in such an innovative and original way until just a few days ago. Amazing story.

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

“Nude” was the first song I heard off the new album a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve included a live version of incredible quality in this post. I use the word “spooky” quite a bit in my Wadio posts, and this one is going to be no exception. Maybe I just dig spooky music. It begins with a spooky baseline and rimshot combination as Thom Yorke’s eerie, distant vocals creep in and a guitar starts to pick away in time. It grabbed me from the first 10 seconds I heard it and has so many subtle and sophisticated chord changes that it’s not going to get old anytime soon. By the time the second guitar comes in and starts playing chords the volume has increased significantly and I’ll be goddamned if you’re not seriously digging it. Have a look and a listen:

After a day of spins, we can say this is the record we wanted them to make – or at least, it’s the middle-of-the-record we wanted them to make; everything from “Nude” through “Reckoner” is warm, organic, and instant classic. Less paranoid – or focused on paranoia – than recent past. – StereoGum

Friend and PITF denizen, Taz, sent me an excited email from Munich after I wrote to him last night to find out what he thought. Always one for a creative and thoughtful response, he did not disappoint:

“Loving ‘In Rainbows’… basically a masterpiece… simply not one bum note… 3 years in the making… and the perfection shows… to be honest on first listen to the splintery fractured guitar-fueled plaintive Yorke vocal hysteria at the end of ‘Bodysnatchers’ I knew I was in for something special… Hail to the Download Thieves! A magnificent addition to the rock pantheon.”

If you’d like the MP3 for the song, Nude, if my remote woodland satellite internet connection ever stabilizes I am going to offer it here for download for a few days as I want to get the word out and spread a little love. And because the album version gets me so excited that I want to stuff a large, slimy piece of salted pork down the front of my camoflage shorts. Hey, whatever floats your boat, right? Soak it all in and if you want the entire record you can pay for it – whatever amount you want – and then download it from the In Rainbows website. Music website StereoGum has a very active thread where fans are sounding off in large about what they think of the album. Yes, I was so ready for this.

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Notes from the North


in Canadiana

I’m feeling terse today. Succinct. Extremely bullety. It’s a good morning for a brain dump. A blog blathering. Should I just give ‘er? I’ll give ‘er…

– The GPS system, called TeleNav, that I have on my new BlackBerry 8800 is astoundingly accurate and full-featured. I did not expect it nor realize that the phone came with it – but I use it all the time and it kicks touchas. $10 a month.
– My baby mamma still is not pregnant with wee Shepherd. This puts my puppy acquisition date back until at least March. I don’t want to – but I may look elsewhere for a pooch. I was so looking forward to having the wee ‘un with me while I’m alone during the winter.
– I found a treadmill of all things in the garage and I wheelbarrowed it over to the main house and plugged ‘er in. It works, and I’ve set up a spare TV and DVD player in front of it so I’ll have a nice winter hamster wheel.
– My client roster is growing by leaps and bounds – 5 new contracts last month alone – and I have been interviewing local people to help me. I found a great writer and a sharp marketing whiz via the Canadian version of CraigsList and we’re having a meeting in Kingston Thursday.
– I updated Cornett’s wedding gallery with about 40 more pictures so be sure to check it out. If only to see the adorable wee flower girl, Olivia.
– I have ordered several books on Canadian History to read over the snowy months, as I moved to Massachusetts when I was 12 and never learned any at the high school level. The fact that I moved to Concord didn’t help matter much – we kinda had our hands full in the old history department.
– My keyboard popped it’s V and B keys the other day for no apparent reason whatsoever. I’m starting to think Poltergeist – tis the season. Luckily there are no pubescent girls in the house or we’d really see the crockery flying off the walls. As I am an enormous fan of the CTRL+V paste shortcut, this is driving me batty. They won’t re-attach and I am gonna have to shell out for a new keyboard. Frig.

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Friday’s Quizzlet: Cocky Corellians are Interesting


in Friday's Quizzlet

Appetizer: On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you look forward to your birthday?
As you get older, you really stop caring. You start to look forward to not having anyone mark the occasion as much as you used to tearing the paper off a Han Solo figure. Click that link, by the way. I found that in my Grandmother’s closet while cleaning out her house this summer and it’s in pristine condition and worth about $500 on eBay because of the bilingual packaging and the fact that it’s the original 1977 model with the big head before they redid it to look like Harrison Ford. So yeah, birthdays. Don’t really care that much anymore.

Soup: What is one word you don’t like the sound, spelling, or meaning of?
There are three words that have recently made it on to my peeve list, and this is as good a time as any to mention them. The first word isn’t really a word. It’s “Hmmmm…” after you answer a question someone has asked you. As in “Yes, that is how I feel about this political issue, thank you for asking” followed by a “Hmmmm…” from the inquisitor. It’s patronizing, regardless of what the topic of conversation is – and it drives me around the bend. The second word is used in the exact same way and circumstance. “Interesting”. Both are cop outs used by people that think they don’t like what you’ve just told them, and want you to know it, but have no mental ammo to back anything they take issue with up. Fuck off, all of you. The third word that I hate is “passionate”. “What are you passionate about?” What kills me is that people think this is such a cerebral, first date sort of a question. “What are you passionate about?” “Paying the check and getting the hell away from you, you hideous witch.”

Salad: Do you wear sunglasses when you’re outside? If so, what does your current pair look like?
I have a nice pair which I keep in my car, and about 4 other passable, gas-station P.O.S. pairs that I take with me as I’m very prone to losing them. As I’m not currently… Elton John… my sunglasses look like sunglasses.

Main Course: If you were to write a book, to whom would you dedicate it?
Probably my Mother, who has been telling me I was born to be a children’s author for years. I took a stab at developing an idea online a few years ago, and I’m still not sure it’s a bad one. For now it sits neglected on the web amongst the bones of 30 other half-baked ideas. It tends to get a lot of traffic at Halloween, though. Probably by parents trying to scare their kids straight because they think I’m on hard drugs for basing a kids’ character on Frank Sinatra.

Dessert: Name a beverage that you enjoy.
I’m drinking a lot more milk these days. In Canada, they sell milk in bags that you then bring home and plop into a plastic holder with a handle. Then you snip one of the top corners off using a little magnet knife kept stuck to the fridge. Every Canadian household has one, and mine is yellow. It’s cheaper, you get more and I love it. Look at the big bones on Dave, everyone.

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