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Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

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

Search Results for: davepye

A Man Without A Country.

by admin on January 23, 2006
in

Today Canada is in the process of electing (by all poll indications) the first Conservative government in over 12 years. I elect not to talk about politics too much on this blog (see what I did there?) but it’s no secret whom I’d be voting for were I still living within the borders of the Great White North. There’s a special place in my imagined hell for Carolyn Parrish, Paul Martin and the rest of the thoughtless backhanded critics who’ve been tarnishing relations left and right. And by thoughtless, I of course simply mean I want to see them all die in a hotel fire.

That having been said, I’m probably whistling Dixie here (or maybe whistling Dundas) because none of my American readers know the first friggin’ thing about Canadian politics anyway – and this is one of the reasons I like Stephen Harper so much. He loves him some Yanks, and all the embarrasing anti-American commentary coming out of Parliament for the last decade is hopefully at an end. I am an Ameridan and I cannot vote in either country at the present time. I want the kids to play nice, as I’m torn between them like a gay cowboy with kids. The only thing most Americans can tell you about Canada as of late are the ridiculous statements they’ve heard from her pinkish politicians. And that they never lock their doors and have all been taught to stalk and kill polar bears with whalebone hunting knives.

Most Yanks, bless them, will also be able to tell you that Canada is up North somewhere and there are apparently lots of fish, trees and French people. Listen, my fellow (sorta) Americans – stop wondering whether or not you’re going to see a sasquatch the next time you visit downtown Toronto, and read up on what’s happening there today. It’s about to get very interesting for the first time in painfully polite ages.

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Monday’s Quotelet: Run You Liberal Dogs, Run.

by admin on January 23, 2006
in


After 12 years in power, Monday’s election saw Paul Martin’s Liberal Party scrambling for last minute vote-getters. We will have to wait until tomorrow to see if new mascot ‘Lucky the Healthcare Greyhound’ made much of a difference.

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Friday’s Quizzlet: Raiders Of The Lost Room Key.

by admin on January 20, 2006
in Monday's Quotelet

Appetizer: About how many times per day do you check your email?
I have Outlook set to send/receive every 3 minutes or so. Technically, this amounts to about 480 email checks per day. If you throw Hotmail, GMail and Yahoo into the equation, I usually have time to fire down a bag of Doritos while sleeping for 3 hours, too.

Soup: If you could collect something really valuable, what would it be?
I think there’s a big future in custom made cockroach jewelry. But ideally, if we were referring to like an artifact or something, it would be one that both had great value but also held people in its presence in awe. The Shroud of Turin, Jack Ruby‘s pistol, etc. Alternately, if Sotheby’s felt comfortable with me having the ability to conquer the world, I think the Lost Ark of the Covenant would make an excellent ottoman.

Salad: Write a sentence using the letters of your favorite beverage.
Really, Ethel – talk softly in Nana’s apartment!

Main Course: If you could be on a game show, which one would it be?
I have always been able to hold my own at Jepoardy. Once time, back at Uni, I was in a hotel room full of friends getting ready to go to Oktoberfest in Kitchener Waterloo. The show was on TV, and I answered every single question correct for an entire round. It’s good I got proving my intelligence out of the way early, because by 9pm I’d forgotten my room number/how not to pee on myself.

Dessert: Name 3 computer programs you would hate to be without.
Outlook, Excel, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.

{ 3 Comments }

Wednesday Wadio: Strange Advance’s ‘We Run’.

by admin on January 17, 2006
in Wednesday Wadio

One of the reasons I try and keep this site afloat every week is that you never know who is watching, and who is going to pop up. My site in this format has been around 1.5 years now, and has a Google PR of 5/10 which is above average. So I get a lot of search engine traffic for a lot of the strange topics I’ve covered. Once in a while, I get a cool comment or email from someone who stumbled into this shit show by accident. Yesterday, however, I got the best email yet.

Drew Arnott fronted a Canadian synth band called Strange Advance in the eighties, and I featured their song “We Run” as one of my top 10 favorites from that decade – in an article that still pulls a lot of natural search engine traffic, and is one of my favorites. Here is what I wrote about the song that I chose as #4 back in October 2004:

Bryan Adams wasn’t the only Canuck rocking out hardcore in the eighties. Darryl Kromm sounds almost as if he’s fighting back vomit during the entire song, but I like the 2nd synthesizer that comes in mid way, and the eerie high-pitched “hayaaa hayaaa” vocals that get layered in at the end. I don’t know much about this band, and I don’t think anyone does, but I love this song. And Bryan Adams.

Drew actually emailed me yesterday to correct one of my ‘facts’:

On the one hand, I’m glad you liked ‘We Run’. On the other hand, I’m not sure I feel good about setting the record straight. In fact it was I who sounded like being on the verge of vomiting. Darryl is a much better singer and knows the value of Gravol. I was down at Bryan Adams studio the other day. He’s rarely in town, but if I see him I’ll pass on your kind words.

Will Bryan Adams become a Pye In The Face fan? Absolutely not. But this is still a very cool development, and I am glad that Drew reached out. He wrote me again this morning after I inquired about what he’d been up to, and how happy I was that new Canadian bands are making a dent in the American market (Sloan is opening for the Stones, for example):

Well, we’re not up to much. Had a couple of offers to tour but Darryl isn’t into it. I have a studio and I write and produce local artists. This year I’ve gotta get off my ass and actually put something out! Someone offered me a deal and I guess I’d better do something about it. Thanks again for the kind words re: We Run. One of my favourite things about it is the strings. Michael Kamen (Pink Floyd etc) played them. He actually brought in a string section but when we got back to Canada, I preferred the rough tracks he laid down on the Fairlight. Nice to see so many great Canadian bands happening out there. A while ago, I saw Stars, Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene all in one month. Pretty hot.

So it looks like Drew may be on the verge of a comeback. Strange Advance won’t be touring any time soon, but it’s still nice to know they’re out there. Somewhere. Still strange and still advancing. I have added the song to Radio Pye and you can hear this classic for yourself by clicking the ZAP button on the left.

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Monday’s Quotelet: Mom, What’s Wrong With Kitty?

by admin on January 16, 2006
in


Chernobyl’s once-thriving pet industry faced many challenges in the early nineties.

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Monday’s Quotelet: Turn Your Head And Coffee.

by admin on January 9, 2006
in
I like my women like I like my coffee – sewn into a burlap sack and thrown across the shoulders of an Argentinian.
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You Can’t Handle The Tooth.

by admin on January 7, 2006
in

I thought I was out of the woods with this whole dentistry dilemma. However, I’m here at the office friggin’ partying and moving stuff around and assembling new furniture, and in my ultimate wisdom I thought it would be a good idea to eat a Jolly Rancher. My new crown popped off like a dandelion head, and my Saturday night has taken a turn for the even worse.

Can I just go back to having to work on Saturday night, without the Medieval torture aspect? And I just ordered a calzone, too. Just as long as no one shows up wearing chainmail and intending to burn my genitals off with a hot piece of iron.

{ 5 Comments }

Foggy Odyssey Photos.

by admin on January 4, 2006
in Pye in the Face

If I learned one thing from looking at the XMas photos I got from my sister today, it’s that I am a prime candidate for a face tuck. Regardless, my love/hate relationship with the gym is my problem. These photos are still keepers. Keep a lookout for Mamma Pye loving all the attention in the North End, an impromptu Guelph reunion getting all kinds of boozy in Burlington, Billy Frasier restraining me in an attempt to keep me from getting rolled by 6 teenagers and a chick, and a cat that only looks weirder than my hairline.

A grand time, and I wish I could get up there more than once a year. They say it’s easier to get into the NHL than it is to get an advertising job in Toronto. Still, Hal Gill has a job, eh?

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Reppin’ C-Town To The Fullest.

by admin on December 30, 2005
in



Finally, C-Town gets their props in the form of Wedding pictures from Doug and Cara’s ceremony out in Whistler. Big up, big up. If you’ll remember, my camera mysteriously broke and no one else bothered to send me any snaps. Wicked thanks, by the way. Here is a little sample, and there is another one in the gallery here. Doug is a lucky guy. Cara is… um… lovely.

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New Year’s Eve Ripcord.

by admin on December 30, 2005
in Heartwarming

My plans were just canceled for me – long story – and I’m pulling the ripcord as I do every year and just going to Sidebar. If you’re wandering, lost and alone, without any plans – please join us. I will be attending a little suaree at 80s Katie’s beforehand, but will ultimately end up singing Danny Boy somewhere in the Combat Zone and possibly even getting contact burns around my mouth.

The details as I understand them are a $60 fee to get in with champagne and food supplied. There’s a DJ I think, and 2 separate groups holding ‘parties’ – neither of which can manage to fill the place. Sometimes stumbling into a big room full of people you don’t know and making some new friends is a lot fun. Sometimes, it leads to social diseases. Regardless – I’m going. I’m pulling the cord and just committing. I will definitely enjoy not seeing you there as you do something far more interesting.

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Monday’s Quotelet: Hare Today, Hippo Tomorrow.

by admin on December 28, 2005
in
I don’t have the energy for Wadio today, and half of you aren’t even working. So let’s move up the quotelet we didn’t have on Monday, and get right on with our young lives.


Casting issues would eventually shut down Disney’s 2007 update of “The Tortoise and the Hare”.

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Actually, Matthew Perry Has Always Frightened Me.

by admin on December 27, 2005
in

Has rap gotten extraordinarily awful, or have I just gotten old? It’s a question which has plagued me for years. I’ve even written about on this very website. There’s nothing about bling, oversized baseball hats, expensive cars or beats that sound like they were made on a rusty Speak N Spell that appeal to me. “I’m a player, a smoker, a deadly loan broker!” If a rap song doesn’t contain a creative sample I wonder, how much of this is dumb luck or crack debts being repayed? And it kills me – because I used to be a huge hippedy hopper, albeit a subtle one. So where’s the real disconnect?

There’s still a slim enough chance that some of you haven’t seen this that I feel comfortable pointing it out. And I read a great quote written about the silly short that makes me feel a little closer to some answers.

“People aren’t forwarding this video because it’s a parody of what’s bad about rap; they’re sending it around because it’s an ode to what can be great about it. Instead of aurguring a new day for SNL, maybe it points up what’s missing in mainstream rap is an awareness that it’s OK to be goofy.”

The greatest moment’s in rap’s golden age were all silly – sometimes intentionally. The first big rap hit of all time featured fairies, keopectate and woody chicken. Phife busted off on your couch and made it Seaman’s furniture. Biz Markie picked boogers like it was his job. Is this what I miss so much? Can I not truly enjoy a rap song anymore unless someone rhymes “birthdays” with “worst days”?

Hip hop the hippie to the hippie the hip hip hop, a you dont stop the rock it to the bang bang the boogie say up jumped the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie the beat, indeed.

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I Do So Love The English Newspapers.

by admin on December 22, 2005
in


Hat tip to Moynihan for this one.

{ 5 Comments }

Fumigating Neverland.

by admin on December 20, 2005
in Reminiscent

When I moved in to my current apartment, it was September 2000 and I was 26 years old. I had a sweet job, a building which was always full of young girls, a fraternity-esque social life and the interior decorating to match. It was cheesy, but it was OK to be cheesy. It was expected – and I was in good, cheesy company. But as Seamus left in September for new horizons in Hartford, I am now the very last of the old guard.

The years have flown past, and I’ve never updated my decor. Sitting in my room now, I see the signed flag of St. George I received when I left the Hinds Head in 1998. An original operational 1977 Han Solo blaster. A remote controlled R2D2 which is even older. A map of Northern Ireland printed on Irish linen I got in Belfast in 2001. Goldfinger, Casino, Die Hard 3 and A Bronx Tale (way to go Lillo by the way,) posters. My skydiving certificate. Multiple DeNiro, Sinatra and Frank Black 8x10s. Unframed photographs that are taped to the walls including my football team group shots that are all curled up at the edges and need to be preserved as they may still impress girls. A creative writing award I won in 1991 that definitely never will. A boomerrang I got in Australia and a wooden machete I got in South Africa. And there’s a few shitloads more.

Let me just say what you’re all thinking – My bedroom looks like the Chinese curio shop in Gremlins, if it were managed by a 12-year-old homosexual.

My Canadian houseguests have been delayed, and I’ve spent the evening boxing up the majority of this juvenile crap and moving it into the basement. I won’t part with it – some of it is actually pretty cool, but it’s time to move my epicenter, my bedroom, into 2006. I’m not a pack-ratting hermit by nature, and it’s just been a matter of getting to a tipping point to send me over the edge towards serious redecoration. And, dare I say it, adulthood. Thankfully, it just happened.

Yesterday Kyle and I went to a lovely annual Christmas party up in Marblehead that I have not attended in 4 years. Several of the guests were induviduals from the aforementioned job with their little children, and subsequent lives, in tow. Towards the end we met a 63-year-old mortgage broker who proceeded to tell me how nice I was and that she wanted to set me up with a young girl she knows in Beacon Hill. She asked for my business card. On the way home, Kyle told me that the woman was just going to try and sell me property. I realized he was right – because if you didn’t know me, all gussied up and being extremely polite at a posh Christmas party, you’d think I really fucking had it together.

The scene switches, and my latest hypothetical lady love is staring up at a magazine cutout of Al Pacino in Serpico as I whisper sweet nothings in her ear. And… scene. I’m framing the autographed Trailer Park Boys glossy and leaving it where it is, and the football photos are also getting framed and can stay, but look out world – Peter Pan is growing up and redecorating.

Incidentally, the Bob and Doug Mackenzie action figures are also staying. And here you thought I’d completely lost my shit.

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Monday’s Quotelet: From Russia With Cub.

by admin on December 19, 2005
in

Bogdan’s grandmother wondered how he intended to feed the rescued cubs, but was grateful for his Christmas gift – the rare French scent, “L’eau du Catnip”.
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