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The Road House Curse


in Movies

Dalton: So, you play pretty good for a blind white boy.
Cody: Yeah, and I thought you’d be bigger.

The 1989 movie Road House has always held a special place in my heart. Even moreso after I started working at bars in various capacities and found I could put a lot of Dalton’s Zen-like bouncing and shithead-management principles into practical use. “Expect the unexpected. Take it outside. Be nice.” Whoever wrote that movie obviously spent a fair amount of time in that dirty business themselves. Hopefully with shorter hair and looser blue jeans.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z0CngDuHcc[/youtube]

The cast of Road House is having a rough week. First the ever-so-awesome Jeff Healey dies Monday of pancreatic cancer at the tender age of 41, and now Patrick Swayze is reportedly close to death suffering from the exact same thing. It’s beyond uncanny and Kelly Lynch better watch her breathtaking Roadhouse heiney. Because we’ve seen this sort of thing before, kids.

lynch-roadhouse

Is everyone familiar with Poltergeist? It’s the exceptionally scary movie that Spielberg made in 1981 and an eerie series of events befell many of the people associated with the both original and subsequent sequels. And I’m not talking about nasty clowns, a pool full of corpses or a TV on the fritz. Here is a quick run down and upon some new research today it’s even worse than I remembered.

  1. She didn’t have a lot of screen time in the movie (“What’s happening? WHAT’S HAPPENING?!“), but Dominique Dunne who played the older sister, was strangled to death by her boyfriend just 5 months after production wrapped, kicking off the creepiness that would become known as the Poltergeist Curse. She was 22. During the fight she had with her boyfriend that ended in her death, a friend inside Dunne’s house turned up the Poltergeist soundtrack to drown out the noise of the two yelling outside.
  2. Heather O’Rourke, the actress who played Carol Anne (“They’re heeeeeere!”) died during the making of part 3 in 1988 from acute bowel obstruction. She was only 12 years old.
  3. Most famous for his role as “Chief” in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest, Will Sampson had a large role in part 2 and died from kidney failure shortly after in 1987 at 53 years of age.
  4. Perhaps the most detestable character of the series, the old preacher who turns out to be a walking spook, was played by Julian Beck. He died of stomach cancer in 1985. In all fairness he was 60 years old and is a bit of a stretch for curse victim consideration, but he did croak only weeks after filming had ended.

These four occurrences are just the tip of the iceberg, and there is no better account of the curse than Wikipedia’s if you’d like to learn more. Wild, wild stuff, Ed. Maybe at this point we should be calling it the Poltergeist Reuinion.

In keeping with my Roadhouse Curse theory, here are some facts to back up my hypothesis.

  1. Jeff Healey died very young earlier this week.
  2. Patrick Swayze is apparently at death’s door as I type.
  3. In 1994 Chris Collins, who played a troublesome patron who offered to let folks fondle his wife for $20, died of a cerebral haemmorage.
  4. Kelly Lynch is best friends with Sheryl Crow. Jesus.
  5. Red West appeared in 16 Elvis Presley movies.
  6. Sunshine Parker died of pnemonia in 1999.
  7. Kevin Tighe appeared in 1995’s Jade. Shudder.
  8. UPDATE: We lost Patrick.

The horror. The horror. Roger Hewlett, Terry Funk and Sam Elliot had better renew their life insurance policies because we’re obviously in for a really long and terrible… curse… here. No need to thank me, it’s what I’m here for. And I’m pulling for you, Patrick.

Dalton: If somebody gets in your face and calls you a cocksucker, I want you to be nice. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won’t walk, walk him. But be nice. If you can’t walk him, one of the others will help you, and you’ll both be nice. I want you to remember that it’s a job. It’s nothing personal.
Steve: Being called a cocksucker isn’t personal?
Dalton: No. It’s two nouns combined to elicit a prescribed response.
Steve: What if somebody calls my mama a whore?
Dalton: Is she?

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Wednesday Wadio: Neil Young’s Cinnamon Girl


in Musical, Wednesday Wadio

It’s hard to believe this song only reached #55 on Billboard’s 100 when it debuted in 1970. Especially since it was up against such classics as “I Think I Love You” by the Partridge Family and “Everything is Beautiful” by Ray Stevens. Oh well, we can appreciate it fully in retrospect. My favorite element is the one note guitar solo which you can see in this video at 2:07 and again at 3:00.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBS3B2cZcFM[/youtube]

We wouldn’t see the one-note solo reach such great heights again until Joey Santiago brought it back in the late 80’s – but that was because he didn’t know how to play the guitar. So what exactly was Neil’s excuse? My first guess would be – drugs – but there are many theories as to the inspiration and genesis of the song. Here are a few I gathered together:

  • Young has never said who the Cinnamon Girl is. He prefers to leave lyric interpretations to the listener.
  • This song got Young in trouble with his wife. He had to explain that the Cinnamon Girl was just a person he came across while touring.
  • The liner notes in “Decade” say he wrote this song about a girl he saw walking down the street playing finger cymbals.
  • There was a music club in the 60’s called Cinnamon Cinder. It was featured in an Time magazine article about teenage nightclubs in the early 60’s. It has always seemed obvious to me that it was about the girls that would hang out at that club.
  • I think that the real “Cinnamon Girl” was a young, attractive Native American, Latina or Pacific Islander woman with dark tan (read: more or less cinnamon-colored) skin and long black hair.
  • This song was known to be a song for Pamela Courson… also known as Pam Morrison. I know this because I read it in a book about the Doors.
  • Neil was rated as one of the ten best lead guitarists in a recent magazine and it listed this song as THE essential Neil solo. That had to be a joke, because this solo is the same note played over and over.
  • Neil Young had a very high fever when he wrote this song and just picked up his guitar and wrote a song. He talks about it on an episode of Conan O’ Brien its not a very big secret.chigurh wildeyes

What? No space aliens were involved? Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Cinnamon Girl, anyone? Didn’t think so. This song rocks, grooves, bashes and batters its way through to the end, and even if you don’t consider yourself a classic rock fan, watching the video is worth it just to see where the Coen Brothers got their inspiration for Anton Chigurh’s haircut.

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JV On Dogs


in Animalistic

There are very few things JV isn’t an expert on. Just ask him if you don’t believe me. He left a great comment regarding my puppy training article that a lot of you won’t see unless you backtrack and sniff around, so I am going to repost it here as a main article. His advice is funny, blunt and accurate…

“Caesar (Dog Whisperer) is the man. Pretty simple message every show. A little common sense, a lot of exercise & dominance cures all. As a dude who goes to the city’s biggest yuppie dog park and watches many a disobedient dog/stupid handler I suggest 2 commands must be taught in order for you to not be an idiot yuppie dog owner:

1-COME, If your dog doesn’t come 100% of the time when you call it you’re an idiot. Shep should also respond to a whistle command to come or at least get a bearing on you. fastest way to train this command? Find a dog treat they luv and never give it to them – ever – unless they are properly executing the command. Dogs should only be rewarded with things they want (treats, effection) when they are doing what they’re supposed to. Only idiots give there young dogs rewards for being cute or soiling your home… at least during their prime training months.

2-NO, If you can’t get your dog to immediately stop whatever its doing, freeze in its tracks and look back at you waiting for the green light you’re an idiot.

I say “you’re an idiot” because the dog obviously only knows what you teach it and without these 2 commands hard wired there’s a good chance it will do something stupid i.e. somehow put itself in harms way… which is your fault. The next commands for non-idiot dog handlers are sit, down, stay, heel and lick the peanut butter off my…

If you can get your dog to walk beside or behind you and mirror your movements off-leash you will be a dog master. Nothing is more gratifying than having your dog listen to you because as you eventually marry and have kids the dog will eventually be the only one listening to you.”

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Puppy Updates and Pictures


in Animalistic

Are you sick of hearing me talk about my wee pups yet? If so, I can hardly blame you. I swear I will stop as soon as I get about $500 in PetSmart gift cards in the mail. As that isn’t going to happen, you’ll have to humor me. I’ll keep it short.

There’s a couple of new galleries live if you’d like to look in on Winter in Portland or my most recent puppy pics. They are growing like weeds, picking up a good portion of what I’m trying to teach them, as I pick up good portions of doodie, and I cannot wait until it gets warmer so I can take them outside more frequently. Boston Terriers have such thin coats that I can only take them out once or twice a day for very short periods of time. That’s it for me this evening. Stay tuned for a quizzlet tomorrow and a healthy dose of home pup videos over the weekend.

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Puppy Training Truths


in Animalistic

Janet and I have never had a dog before. It’s not that we didn’t like them, it’s that my father vehemently hated canines so we became cat people by default. The first time I ever learned the word “shit” was probably due to the frequency with which Gord referred to my Grandmother’s dog, Buffy, as a “four-legged shit maker”. Our lack of a dog was never an issue for the younger Pyes. We had hamsters, gerbils, sea monkeys, hermit crabs, fish, guinea pigs and a whole herd of cats. A dog was not missed and I’ve discussed this at length before.

Our decision to get not one but two dogs was made rather quickly around a trailer park propane fire in the midst of a white wine fueled evening in Florida. I’ve never second-guessed the decision and I’m pretty sure my sister hasn’t either. We’ve both read multiple books in preparation and she will be taking over Rhuby-rearing duties from me when she moves up here, permanently, in two weeks. So if that cat wasn’t officially out of the bag in Boston – it is now. I love Rhuby as much as I love Shep. She’s clever, obedient and loveable. But I am looking forward to some one-on-one time with Shep because their training is definitely suffering for two reasons which are very clear to me.

It is extremely difficult to train two puppies at once. The moment you focus your attention on one animal over the other, the odd-dog-out immediately begins doing everything in its puppy power to get that attention back. This can include biting the haunches of the other dog as you’re attempting to work, crying loudly if separated and worrying the other dog so it becomes completely distracted, leaving a huge steaming poo pyramid that would make Imhotep jealous right next to where you’re crouched and attempting to focus, etc. And imagine trying to teach them their names if they are always together. It’s a literal shit show and I don’t want to fall behind.

It is extremely difficult to train puppies when it is 10 below. I had optimistically planned, since I work from home, to have Shep and Rhuby fully house trained by the second week. No such luck. They start shivering like methodone patients as soon as I open the door on the worst Canadian winter in 15 years. And as we live on a lake there is usually a huge gust blowing up the lawn that sounds like the Kraken approaching the house. I’ve gotten Shep to pee on the side deck, which I have cleared off and put puppy pads out on, a couple of times now but Rhuby wants none of it. I think if it were nice outside they’d be chomping at the bit to get out there as often as possible and the toilet training would be all but complete. I may invest in a couple of dog sweaters the next time I am in town.

It’s not all a nightmare – The pups are excelling in several areas. They have never woken me up at night. I think this is due to the fact that they are sleeping together in the same crate, although I have bought two and plan to switch them soon. They have never wet the crate during an overnight confinement. They are respectful of the cat and do not chase it around the way I feared they would. 90% of the pee and 75% of the poo released in the kitchen is done so on the approved puppy pads. They have learned “leave it” and can usually be corrected easily when biting something they shouldn’t be.

I have created a “No-No Can” which was a tip from both a book and my breeder. It’s a Chunky Soup can with the label boiled off, filled with my loose change collection and sealed up with duct tape. It’s noisy as an MF and upon shaking it the puppies immediately stop whatever naughtiness they are perpetuating. I don’t show them the can so they don’t associate the noise with me. “Me chew baby gate, me hear loud sound. Me no chew baby gate, sound go away”. It’s that simple and it works.

So that’s my life as a puppy care giver. I enjoy it but I’m definitely concerned about their training progress. Friday night I was in Best Buy and picked up season one of the Dog Whisperer. Amazing stuff. I certainly welcome all non-Cesar comments and advice too!

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Shepherd and Rhubarb Pye Move in Tomorrow!


in Animalistic

There won’t be much activity on the blog tomorrow, as I am spending the majority of the day shopping for, setting up for and then going to meet – the puppies! Yes, Shep and Rhuby will be official members of the Pye clan by about 7pm. Here is a photo of Shep taken by the breeder this evening…

shepherd85

He has grown into quite the handsome little weasel, eh? This time tomorrow, their crates will be in my room, my kitchen will – or be about to – smell like shit, Boss will be having a coronary on a piece of tall furniture and no shoes will be safe. So now help me enjoy Rhubarb’s lovely face while it’s still a great idea and not yet a reason I’m praying for death in the fetal position while trying to sleep…

rhubarb

What a pair! I’m incredibly excited and I know all of the hard work will be worth it. They’ll make sure I’m early to bed, early to rise and living a structured and routine life – which can be a challenge for your old pal Dave sometimes. I will also be training them to bite me on the nose anytime I refer to myself in the third person. There will undoubtedly be lots of puppy-related content popping up on here over the weekend, so stay tuned – and perhaps say a small prayer.

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Give me Back my Mills Hall Sweatshirt!


in Reminiscent

When I first got back from England in 1999, I dated a girl I went to high school with for a little while. One night while visiting her apartment I left my Mills Hall sweatshirt in her room (hey now,) and we stopped hanging out in the biblical sense a few days later. Eventually realizing where my prized shirt had gone, I called her up and asked if I could come get it. No times ever worked for her, or she’d tell me how much she loved it and could she keep it, etc. etc. I saw her many times over the next 7 years and every time I’d ask about the shirt. “Are you still going on about that shirt? I love it!” But I never would let up – it meant a lot to me.

mills-hall-sweatshirt

Here is the only picture I have of me wearing it. Mills Hall in the early 90s was the only all-male dorm at the University of Guelph and we were a very proud and misbehaved bunch. I met one of my very best friends while living there, and I still keep in touch with loads of the old crew. Last week I was asked to be in one of their wedding parties this summer. It’s an ongoing bond and the closest thing to a good fraternity (and there were several fraternities at the school) that Guelph had going for it. Long story short, we all had those sweatshirts, the dorm is now co-ed without any sort of culture like we brought to it and if you’ve since lost it – that’s it. It’s gone.

I ran into the young lady in question at a wedding over the summer and said hello to her quickly. A few days later she emailed me to ask why I’d given her such a dirty look. I told her I didn’t remember giving her one, and certainly didn’t mean to and that I was sorry. She wrote back: “You’re still mad about that stupid sweatshirt, aren’t you?” I told her I wasn’t mad, but that I wished I still had it and that I’d pursued it a lot harder before she got married and threw it away. “I wore it last week” she replied.

It took her several months, but when I got home from Florida Sunday night I had a missed parcel slip at the door and I immediately wondered if she’d actually, finally sent me the sweatshirt back. I just returned from the post office, looked at the return to sender address and began doing a little jig in my front hallway. It’s in perfect condition and I’m wearing it as I type. I am ecstatic, I’m going to forward this post to all my old Mills buddies and to she who knows who she is – THANK YOU!

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Rare Archival Silliness


in Heartwarming, Reminiscent

I don’t have a Wadio in me tonight, but I’ve gone and done a little something that will allow you to procrastinate at least equally as long. Have a look at the main navigation tabs at the tip top of the page and you’ll see a new one – “Archives“. If you’ve been with me for a while I have made available literally all of the content from the many incarnations this site has gone through over the years. Have a gander and a giggle, talk amongst yourselves and I’ll get back to invoicing.

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Bromfield Street Revisited… Again


in Heartwarming

I wish I could bottle whatever unlikely element got into my weary system today. Up at 7:30 and closing down work for the day as soon as I finish this post for an early night. Two more days like this one and I might just get myself caught up with work. I almost just laughed when I read that last sentence back.

The Boston stop-over on the way back from Florida was professionally successful and socially silly to boot. I have uploaded a revelrous gallery you can peruse should you feel brave with photos from Friday night appearing near the bottom. Budweiser apparently serves towers of beer, which I figured must hold at least the equivalent of a 12 pack, and we took down a few like antelope on the Serengeti at my old homestead – Sidebar. We then moved on to another staple, Silvertone, and proved to ourselves and the civilians in attendence little more than that we should never reproduce.

group-boston-bw

Saturday night was little Bella‘s 7th birthday party at the new Hard Rock Cafe (good riddance, Rack) and yet another excuse to fire (down) harpoons like a Japanese whaling vessel. Then Sunday I headed back to Ottawa by way of Philadelphia and collapsed in my bed sometime around 10pm. I’m quite sad that the Patriots lost the SuperBowl, but to be honest I don’t think I realized it until sometime this morning. These days, 2 straight nights on the razz wipe me out both physically and mentally for the better part of a week.

I am back home, getting back to normal and doing all the things I’ve neglected for the last 5 weeks like laundry, eating food I prepare myself and not sleeping on a pull-out couch left over from a Spanish Inquisition torture galleon. I pick up the puppies on Saturday and obviously have no idea the type of mayhem I am in for. Life, however, is good. And home is definitely not a relative term to me anymore.

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The Home Stretch Smells Terrible


in Animalistic, Travels

Coming to you live from the Doubletree Hilton at 400 Soldiers Field Road in Boston – I have escaped the clutches of Florida and am slowly picking my way back to Ottawa. I stupidly booked my flight back Sunday night to coincide with the Superbowl, so I’m very proud of that. Still, when I cross the threshold of my front door and begin a several hour berating by a small orange cat who’s been waiting for me for a month, I’ll be a very happy chappy. And I can always watch the highlights.

Boston Terrier Puppy

A few days later I collect the wee baby weasels, Rhubarb and Shep. Have a look at the latest puppy gallery updates for some heart-wrenching cutie-pant photos fresh from the breeder. Although life will begin revolving around the little guys, punctuated frequently by overwhelming doodie smells, I am thoroughly looking forward to fatherhood. And I’ll be gosh darned if I leave the province for good long time. I may sneak out for some fun in Beantown this weekend prior to departure, so get at me, dawgs.

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