Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor
Leveraging low-hanging synergies outside the vertical fruit box since 1999.
Impatient Democratic detractors felt vindicated last week when the President finally snatched and then ate a baby at an Air Force Base in Germany.There was an action/drama/comedy – an adramedy, if you will, on TV in Canada when I was growing up called The Beachcombers. The late Bruno Gerussi headed up the cast of the popular show whose 19-year and 324 episode lifespan became the longest in Canadian television history. Here is a quick synopsis of the show: “The adventures of a professional lumber salvager and his friends in Gibson, British Columbia, Canada.” How they managed to stretch that premise for 2 decades, I’ll never know. No, wait. I remember now: “The format focused on physical action–boat chases, storms, rising tides, various rites of passage, a long-distance swim, taming a wild dog, a vision quest, but violence was largely confined to experiences with physical objects which break up or blow up or somehow threaten the characters.” Awesome. And for my Canadian friends who haven’t seen a photo of Relic in a while, enjoy.
OK – That was quite the tangent. Regardless, PITF reader and fellow Tiernan’s refugee Greg sent me this photo from his camera phone last night. It’s a very low-budget poster for the upcoming Frank Black show at The Beachcomber bar in Wellfleet. Many of my friends have been talking about this, and it’s probably already sold out. Still, I’m going to give it a go and see if I can get down there. Who’s with me? I saw Frank Black at a tiny bar in London, Ontario in 1996 and it was one of the best I’ve ever seen. I’m a goin’.
And let’s talk about this poster for a second. It’s Frank Black, not your buddy from college who’s a stockbroker during the week. What’s with the student council 8×11 ‘poster’? Vote for Allison. The handwriting looks like the author was riding in the back of a biplane distributing these from the sky like communist propaganda leaflets. And maybe use a photo that doesn’t make him look like Peter Lorre with dysentery next time. Greg, where the heck did you see this?
When will it sink in? Like a shot of Jameson’s topped with Bailey’s into a 2/3 pint of Guinness, I keep waiting for the other car bomb to drop. At least we have our memories – 6 years and hundreds of laughs, songs, fights. And hours before Liam, Susan and company turned out the light and set the alarm for the very last time, we had one last hurrah in the old place. Now you may think I’m being overdramatic – but anyone who knows me also knows I’m handling this remarkably well. With the exception of the whole “climb into a bell tower with a high powered WWII bolt-action rifle” thing that happened on Saturday, of course.
I remember the first time I ever entered Tiernan’s – it was St. Patrick’s Day 2000 and I had just been offered a great new job. My soon-to-be CEO, a friend of the owners, snuck me in through the kitchen door as a thrall of people waited outside to get in. So basically, the first time I ever drank there I was already a VIP. A great day in every way, shape and waitress – and from the giddy-up I was hooked. I also remember the day that company folded, a year later, and I again walked into the pub only this time not quite so jovial. Having already heard the news, owner Liam looked at the bartender and said “Dave Pye does not pay for drinks in this bar tonight!” What a guy. What a place.
Then there was the time I brought my father there, and without hesitation Susan paid for our lunch and made me look like a king when I went for my wallet. Then they presented my Dad with a shirt, hat and one of Liam‘s CDs which he wore/listened to for the rest of the day. She would also do that sort of thing when she knew I was bringing clients and friends there, all in the best interests of (I’m assuming) one of her favorite regulars. That’s what makes a great pub, that’s what I miss most about UK English/Irish bars and that’s why I’m likely bell-tower-bound at least once more before all the spit and sawdust has cleared.
See the full gallery from Friday night here. There are so many other great/horrifying stories from the wreckage – The post-St.Patrick’s Day parties, the celebs who dropped in, my silly benders and the subsequent damage, waterfights, Christmas stockings, booth conversations, New Year’s Eves… And the people I will sorely miss from down through the years – Freddy, Kenny, Brian, Pistol Pete Massa, Kim, Greg, Emily, Joanna, Linda, Edwina, Nick and the Wyndham crew, all the Gemmers, Davy Jones, Steve, Martine, Johnny Mac, Danny x2, Brownie and of course Susan and Liam themselves. Thanks for a great ride, everyone. Feel free to leave your memories in the comments below. It’s time to take the side door out to Franklin Street and get some Gatorade on the way home. Turn out the light and set the alarm. I’m too shitfaced and sad to remember the code.
I am in absolute shock right now. You heard it here first, folks – Tiernans is closing forever. Take a moment to digest that, if you’re someone who cares, and then try this on for size – today is their very last. I had a message on my phone from one of the waitresses and just listened to it as I was walking to work this morning. I don’t have to tell anyone who knows me how much I have enjoyed this pub over the last 6 years. I have had hundreds of fun-filled nights there, and the building and staff have held a special place in my liver. I am gutted. I’ve lost my clubhouse.
I started working the door on weekends there in about 2000, and did so on and off for the next 4 years. 4 rowdy, cabbage-filled St. Patrick’s Days in a row. I built the website, hung my own Christmas stocking every year and had many, many, nay – many parties for my friends on the premesis. It is a truly sad day.
The San Francisco location will remain open for business, and life will go on. Perhaps this is a sign from the ghost of Brendan Behan that it is time to slow it all down. I was planning on staying in and behaving myself this weekend, but obviously that strategy has just been sadly and violently pre-empted. Obviously, they’re not going to take all the food and booze with them to California, so it could get interesting. If you’re a fan of the place and have nothing planned for this evening – join me at the wake on Franklin and Broad.
There is a man named Bill who lives 3 houses down from my parents on the Rideau Canal. The level of neighborliness he displayed this past Saturday was absolutely remarkable. Which means worthy of remark. Which means I am now going to remark upon it.
Our dock is collapsible, and every fall it is dismantled section by section and brought into shore. Sometime over the course of the winter, one of the sections disappeared off our property. There are several theories. My father is convinced that two snowmobilers threw ropes over it and pulled away in the middle of the night. The neighbors, however, noticed no footprints on our property or near the water at any time. My mother, Janet and I are more prone to believe the section was washed away by accident, as the canal never actually froze last winter – but my father is sticking to his guns. So I am taking this opportunity to put out an APB for, as I hope the media will begin calling them, the “Amphibious skidoo sectional dock section thieves”. Sometimes people don’t want a whole dock. There’s obviously a terrific niche on the black market for this sort of thing.
My father fashioned a ramp to take the place of the missing section prior to our arrival and was able to secure one section of the dock successfully. The wind was ferocious on Saturday, and the water very choppy as a result. Our boat wasn’t in the water yet, and we decided we’d need one to properly construct the dock. So my father said simply “I’m going for a boat” and disappeared into the woods. About 10 minutes later, the sound of an outboard drew our attention to Dad and Bill coming around the bend towards us in a little fishing craft.
We hadn’t seen Bill yet this trip, and after pleasantries were exchanged he jumped out of the boat with no shoes on – straight on to a pile of razor-sharp zebra mussels. The grimace on his face made me want to cry, even though I’d already stepped on a bunch of them. As the boat bobbed around like a rubber ducky in a hot tub, we realized we’d need to secure it before we continued. We docked the boat and Bill walked, nay limped, all the way back to his house to get an anchor. Then he proceeded to guide our team of 5 in the proper way to piece it all together while my father drifted in the boat which we eventually anchored to a nearby rock.
My Dad is a bit ill at the moment, and we weren’t the handiest crew to ever visit the Portland shore, so Bill’s unexpected help was beyond a Godsend. After over an hour of standing tiptoe in the lake, diving for lost wrenches, whacking our naked torsos against galvanized metal we finally got the bastard in place. When we offered Bill a drink for his troubles, he scurried home quickly, claiming he was horribly hung over and had almost lost his cottage the night before in a poker game – adding to the deed’s legendary status. Well done, Bill. We appreciate it.
Mike, Jo, Mark, Janet and I got back from our most recent trip to the Great White North last evening, and although I spent the vast majority of the time doing chores around my parents place – it was still a welcome rest. I could do without the zebra mussel cuts from putting in the dock and boatlift, and I have more mosquito bites than a Calcutta streaker. This, however, is the cost of getting wild in the Ontario woods. Or at least sitting around in a nice house with the AC cranked. The most ‘roughing it’ I think we did was probably having the DVD remote malfunction.
Other gallery moments worthy of note – Gordo chair-dancing to Stompin’ Tom Conners, The technicolor Canadian Maple Leaf photo ops, rockin’ at Remy’s in Westport, campfire chicanery and an arsenal of missles that would make Kim Jong Il himself jealous. Enjoy!
I mentioned my friend Art’s new travel blog a while back. It had a false start, went down for a week or so, but it’s been back up and he’s doing a great job maintaining it while keeping it very interesting. Art has a penchant for running into famous, or at least extremely interesting people, and he tells two sorta related stories in one of his new posts. As it includes snippets of our reckless youth together, I thought I’d link to it and give him a little exposure at the same time. I’ve told the same horrific Inka story here before, but it’s worth another gander from two different perspectives. And my version includes horror movie worthy answering machine sound clips that are a must-cringe.
Moynihan and his much better half arrive from Sweden this afternoon, and this evening is sure to be a doozy. It will be a girlish giggle fueled night of old-friend-I-haven’t-seen-in-a-year-revelry before the long drive we’re all making up to the motherland tomorrow night. If you’re downtown and you care, give me a call.
Wee Madeline is in full effect rollin’ in her hooptie, making plans to throw back some breast milk and holla at her peeps down at the spot. I assume the spot is a maternity center of some kind. Maddy G. is my friend Tanya’s bebe, and these photos she sent me this morning are definitely worthy of some early Quotelet action. Be gentle. She’s only 1.
Shave and a Haircut, and the associated response, “two bits”, is a simple musical couplet sometimes used at the end of a musical performance. the tune became associated with a profane insult in some Latin American countries, particularly Mexico. Whistling the tune or using a car horn to play it is considered highly offensive. The insult is “chinga a tu puta madre,” “go fuck your whore of a mother.”
I was walking home recently, through the Financial District late on a Thursday night, when I came across a pack of wild bachelorette creatures. They’re all the same: dolled up, inappropriately drunk and leading around an invariably heavyset friend in a veil – all of them chewing on little plastic penis straws. They’re also all overly pleased with themselves and completely devoid of any self-awareness as if they invented this pre-marriage ritual and have the keys to the city or something. At least men are prone to renting hotel suites so their antics can’t readily be traced back to them. That’s what I’ve been told, anyway. Maybe there was one exception. Alright two.
Regardless, I assure you, nobody that didn’t gain 30 pounds living in a freshman dorm with Cindy fucking cares that it’s Cindy’s bachelorette party. Ever.
Especially not anyone working on the 5th floor of a Boston office building trying to conduct business at the ungodly stag/stagette party hour of 5pm on a Monday evening. A few times a week, some silly local party bus drives around and around my block blasting the ‘shave and a haircut’ beat on their insanely loud horn. They come up Boylston to Tremont, turn right, make another right at the 7-11, head back around that block to Boylston and then do it all over again. Again and again, without pause. It is excrutiating, excessive, and I think if I were on that bus immersed in the revelry, I’d still walk up to the driver and ask: “Are you frigging autistic, or what?“
Back to my riveting tale. One of the young friends stopped two scruffy-looking forty-something dudes in the middle of the sidewalk ahead of me and threw out her arms: “Guess what dudes? Where you headed? Bachelorette party!” They just snickered and walked around her. I burst out laughing and had to cross the street. My weeks of auto-horn torment suddenly somehow vindicated. Or maybe I just wish she’d asked me.
I can see the pond in the public gardens and the swan boats seem to be taunting me today. They’re having a cool dip, with exotic women from countries all over the world sitting in their laps, and I’m stapled to a desk writing emails about search engine optimization. Here comes another. See how he grins in my direction, rubbing in the fact that I have to remain indoors for another 3 hours, while he bobs around in duck doody and medical waste.
Here comes another one. Happy bird, I envy you. Even with a dirty bandaid stuck to your rudder, you’re still floating free while I read emails like a veal. Come to me soon, July 4th weekend, so I can escape to the great Northern woods, if only for a moment.
The wedding wasn’t a wash. We persevered in spite of the torrential rain and monstrous mud puddles, and the happy couple had a terrific time – as did all of the revelers. I have a new appreciation for red wine and coke, rock candy and Tad. Paying large for a hotel room and then sleeping on the floor of someone else’s while the blanket thief lurks kind of sucks though. I won’t lie.
Enjoy the gallery and your new life together! I am glad you asked me to be there, and I appreciate the offer to name your first born after me – regardless of gender. One love… one life… one thing uh, I believe the children are our future.
