Still loved as much as he was on the day he died, Chris Farley has been given a star on the hollywood walk of fame. I wrote about Farley 4 years ago – and the bit still holds water – so I won’t retread too much of it here. Regardless of his excesses, Farley was, during his time on Earth, the funniest man on it. I’ve never been more saddened by a celebrity death. He is sorely missed.
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The Rolling Stone. And The Moss.
This will be the first weekend in what seems like an eternity that I will a) be in Boston, and b) not have anything remotely resembling ‘plans’. I’ve been looking forward to it – as my apartment could use a once-over before the next imminent changing of the guard, and I have several building manager-related Schneiderish tasks that need my attention. I only wish I had a Miss Romano to compliment the handlebar ‘stache.
As the weekend creeps closer, however, I’m starting to wish I had something tangible to do. I’m not saying I feel like traveling somewhere again – not at all. But a tabula rasa of a weekend, even in the midst of the most hectic summer in history, still seems a bit depressing. So here’s what I’m going to do – I’m going to make it the most productive fucking weekend of my relatively young life so far.
I’m going to get up early on Saturday and head straight to the Beanstock Company for legal drug-induced energy. I’m going to sweep, mop, spackle, paint and re-arrange. I’m going to throw away a ton of crap I’ve been hanging on to like a sad, sentimental packrat. I’m going to spend a couple hours on the roof and keep this tan going. I’m going to go for a run. At night – I’m going to put my figurative nerd cap on (which I imagine would have a Deep Space Nine logo on it somewhere) and work on some of my websites – Goonblog in particular is doing really well traffic-wise and has already been linked to from 4 prominent hockey sites that have noticed it. Then Sunday I’m going to wake up and do it all over again.
So there’s my weekend laid out like marzipan. The somber, sober, salacious Schneider.
Thirty One Flavors. And They All Taste Like Bourbon.
Jeepers, I almost forgot – a special little someone has a special little birthday today. It’s been a fun beer, humor and indie rock fueled 17 year ride, Mike – and I’m glad the Swedes haven’t lynched you yet (although they’ve certainly come close a time or two).
An eerie picture of the both of us up at the lake this past Friday night may set the stage for the next couple of decades: Out-of-doors, mind a million miles from work, cold and double-fisting. Have a good one, pal-o-mine.
Wednesday Wadio: Tragically Hip’s ‘Bobcaygeon’.
On “Bobcaygeon,” the highlight of this album and possibly the Hip’s best song ever, Downie’s enigmatic lyrics paint a picture that accumulates detail with every listen. – Amazon
You can never predict what will inspire my choice for the Wadio from one week to the next – this time around, it was as simple as a fireside conversation with an old friend about his dock sales route. “Last week I went up through Napanee, stopped in Belleville, made a run down towards Trenton and then right back up to Bobcaygeon“. I smiled and looked over at Moynihan, as I knew exactly what he was thinking – That’s the town they mention in that Hip song!
The Tragically Hip’s lineup has remained absolutely unchanged since 1983 when they started slugging away on the Ontario club circuit – and they’ve grown over the past 22 years to become the undisputed and revered godfathers of Canadian rock. My history with the Hip has been love/hate (read about it here). I have seen them live four times and their lead singer, Gord Downie, solo twice. I have grown slowly to love this band over two decades, and like Marmite – most people either love them or hate them.
Bobcaygeon is one of their more readily digestible dittys, and was once described by Downie as a “cop love song”. The song weaves the tale of a man who hates his job and spends every waking hour longing to return to the arms of his significant other, and opens with two of my favorite lines ever: I left your house this morning about a quarter after nine / coulda been the Willie Nelson, coulda been the wine. Ah yes, Lovemaking – country-style. I wonder which one of them was holding the fly-swatter.
In the video, Gord is a Toronto horseback cop (not to be confused with RCMP), and his girlfriend is Native American. But the actual lyrics never get this specific, which is why I hate literal interpretations and music vids in general: Drove back to town this morning with working on my mind / I thought of maybe quitting / thought of leaving it behind / went back to bed this morning / and as I’m pulling down the blind / the sky was dull and hypothetical / and falling one cloud at a time.
Sounds like someone needs to pay a hasty visit to Monster.com. As the song progresses, the protagonist is involved in breaking up what sounds like a white power rally (which is probably why the woman is portrayed as ethnic in the video): In the middle of that riot / couldn’t get you off my mind. He then returns home to the rural paradise that is Bobcaygeon, Ontario and resumes brooding/liquoring.
I love this song. The lyrics are simple – yet deep and engaging. The acoustic guitar is rustic and scratchy and the bassline dances around like a crazy person. As it slowly builds momentum towards the creshendo of the incident in Toronto, you learn volumes about this man and the remorse he has for his lot in life. Afterall, behind every suicidal cop, there’s an indigenous woman.
The Legend of Don Dicisco.
Favorite Concord son, Goody, is spearheading an environmentally-friendly festival next month aimed at raising a little awareness – and a lot more money – so I wanted to give him a shout out. He’s been pouring his heart and soul into this for months now and, if I’m not getting my next wedding dates mixed up, I will be headed up with some other C-town legends to show some support – Wells, Maclean and Bryant are also involved. I’ll be twirling around with devil sticks whilst snacking on free-range chicken and organic goat cheese. I’ll be slathering my filthy, unkempt armpits with patchouli and clearing chambers on a 10 foot binger. I’ll be… passing the mic to Mike now:
The Legend of Don Dicisco is a one day art/music/ecology/energy/food festival that aims to illustrate the importance of contiguous habitat and contiguous thought. The event will raise money for a farm conservation project of the Vermont Land Trust and Audubon Vermont’s Environmental Education Program. The Legend includes a dozen artists exhibiting their work, six bands, a team of ecologists delivering talks/walks/demonstrations, working alternative energy displays and a celebratory feast comprised of foods from local farms. The Legend will take place Saturday September 17th at the Green Mountain Audubon Center in Huntington. Notable participants include Bernd Heinrich, Susan Morse, Robert Spear, VINS, NECI, Sunweaver, Chelsie Bush, Michael Rothschild, Abigail Pratt, Seth Jarvis, Gordon Stone, Paul Asbell, Jon Fishman.
Tickets are available through the Flynn Regional Box Office and may be purchased at http://www.flynntix.org or by calling 1-802-86-FLYNN.
For a full description of the event please visit: http://www.legend2005.org or contact Legend director Michael Goodwin at michael@legend2005.org or (802)234-9415.
Monday’s Quotelet: Tastes Like Chicken.
Their international market share threatened by Japanese Bukkake, Indonesian niche pornography began pushing the envelope.
No Rest For The Wicked.
Janet and I are headed up to Portland again tonight to see the parents – this time with Mike and Joanna in tow. JJV may even make an appearance. If someone asked me if I was sick of all the traveling I have had to do this summer, I wouldn’t give them some predictable, sarcastic answer. Not at all. Rather, I’d simply snatch up a blunt soup spoon and detatch one of their ears for them. Talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you some outdoorsy topics as I’m looking forward to the woods:
1. Have you ever been camping? If yes, do you go often? If not, why not?
2. Are you an outdoorsy person, or would you rather stay inside the comfort of your house? Why?
3. Which do you prefer, hot weather or cold weather? Why/why not? How do you cope with each?
Pre-Nuptual Newport Naughtiness.
I’ll get to posting photos and deep thoughts on Triconi’s wedding eventually – on that note, please send me photos of the actual Saturday service if you were there as my camera malfunctioned for exactly 24 hours for some very strange reason and I missed out. To keep your gallery appetite whetted in the meantime, I proudly present a selection of ridiculous pics from Chris’ bachelor party in Newport three weekends ago.
Eighteen holes of golf, a fifteen man party-bus, a thousand dollar-a-night Mohegan Sun suite. Well done to brother Matt, the organizer, and here’s hoping everyone forgets my Ketel One induced towel-clad antics by the time the wedding rolls around next month. Enjoy.
Monday’s Quotelet: Does Whatever A Spider Can.
After another home loss to the Sox, a suicidal Yankees fan momentarily forgets that Peter Parker has season tickets.
You Know How To Whistler, Don’t You?
Jason and I are packing up and getting ready to ship out to Dougie’s wedding at 5am tomorrow morning. I stopped by the dry cleaner’s on the way home to get my suit – only to find out that this afternoon’s North End explosions had rendered it evacuated. So either I’ll be buying a suit out in Whistler, or attending the nuptuals in my Big Country T-shirt. And you all know how much I’d like that.
I will likely check in and do some Kerouac-esque road-blogging from British Colombia, but until then I’ll leave you with a fun meme. Don’t hurt yourselves:
Name three people (famous or personal friends) and the custom ringtones you’ve either set for them on your phone, or would if you could.
The Pixies Are My Girlfriend.
Today started out pretty flipping rotten. The usual Sunday bout of insomnia stretched on until 4 a.m. – and a beeping hallway fire alarm battery compounded the problem. I awoke at 9 with little sleep and a lot less patience. When I got to work and discovered that our Exchange server was down, and we had no access to the internet or email, I looked a certain coworker up and down and wondered if his head would fit in the mail tube. Luckily it didn’t.
Then, in the midst of trying to ram a business card holder up my own nostril, I got an email from a friend confirming a rumor I’d heard a week ago and then completely forgotten about – The Pixies were playing a ‘secret’ gig at the tiny Paradise, and 300 tickets had already gone on sale that morning which subsequently sold out in seconds. It seems the band needed some extra footage for a live DVD which is in the works, and the show had been kept under wraps because space was even more limited than usual due to all the video equipment required. I briefly cruised Craig’s List looking for tickets/love and gave up when I saw absolutely zippy del nada. And anyway, I’ve seen the band 5 times in the last year and a half and figured I could sit this one out.
Then, around 3pm, I spoke to Moynihan who told me his brother Jeff was going down and I got the sultry damp Pixies itch (or Pixitch,) all over again. It was a special, mini-show with a small amount of civilians and the rest of the crowd made up of industry people and Pixies’ family members. I’d heard enough – and immediately my fanatical dormant fanboy alter-ego took the controls and I posted feverishly on CL proclaiming my willingness to pay a silly amount of cash for a ticket. I was on the phone with a fairweather fan named Matt less than an hour later. Money talks, and hipsters who wait in line overnight can walk/fuck right off.
I was only able to get one ticket, and as I sat in T’s pub by myself killing time before the show I felt very odd. But – it was what it was – and I knew I was lucky to be there at all. About 10 minutes after I sat down at the bar, David Lovering came in with a friend and stood right beside me. I met David on the street before I saw The Pixies at The Paradise in 1988 and it was as if things had suddenly come full circle. I approached him very calmly, shook his hand and wished him a great show. He was extremely nice and after speaking with him I walked over to the Paradise and headed inside. Albeit with the skippy fricking gait of a 12-year-old girl who’d just met Aaron Carter.
It was an incredibly cool scene inside – more like a TV show taping than a concert. I walked in and immediately located Jeff and his girlfriend. 10 minutes after I got there, the show started up and raged on unabated for almost 2 hours. I’ll go into more detail when I get the photos developed (I bought a disposable for the occasion). We were literally 7 feet from the stage with cameras on mechanical arms flying all around us and the house lights up full-tilt. I hadn’t been at such an intimate Pixies concert since 16 years prior when I stood in the exact same spot in the exact same building having the exact same hissy.
So I like the Pixies a whole hell of a lot, but it could be worse. Some folks substitute drugs, porn, prostitutes or a delightful mixture of all three in the absence of a signifigant other. If The Pixies are my substitute, that really ain’t so bad. The little tart has been putting out a lot lately.
See an ongoing discussion of the show here.
Monday’s Quotelet: Don’t Make Me Cut You, Chucha!
Competitions during the Honduras Women’s Prison Beauty Pageant included talent, swimsuit and vaginal smuggling.
Friday’s Quizzlet: Crowded House Of Pain.
Appetizer: Briefly describe your living room.
You can have a look for yourself right here. Note the mugshot of a young Sinatra (it’s the same photo you can see on the wall of Tony Soprano’s office) then there’s the singing Dean Martin doll, the Tragically Hip tour pster over the fireplace, way too many DVDs, The Bullitt poster to the left of the fridge, a James Dean, a DeNiro and finally Tony from Big Country strumming away on the television. The middle of the big white couch is where I write the majority of my entries here – so welcome to my world. And if you want to see what the place looks like when the Concord or Welland boys come to visit, we can do that too.
Soup: List 3 things you’d like to accomplish before the end of 2005.
I’d like to complete all of the half-finished websites I have ‘in development’. A friend recently called me a ‘fanatical collector of domain names’ and she’s right – but there’s a few good ideas lurking amongst all the false starts, and I need to focus them into some revenue streams. But likely I’ll just start building filthy clown porn sites because according to my server logs, that’s an unexploited niche. Picture a red rubber nose that can also be repurposed as a ball gag, and you’ll see where I’m going with this/throw up.
Salad: When you’re online, what do you spend the most time doing?
Managing PPC accounts, checking on client rankings, hunting for custom made jewelry and looking for that perfect Boston Interior Designer. Nate sent me this site today where people combine band names. I submitted my own this morning and we’ll see if it gets published. “Pack it up, pack it in, let me rock it like the Finns…“
Main Course: What would the title of your autobiography be?
“Pull the Trigger”. I need to stop spinning my wheels about so many things in my life. I am getting better. I’ve pulled the trigger a few times recently. And if you’re giggling about the potential for euphamisms here, Punch the Clown instead.
Dessert: What time do you usually go to bed?
Far too late. If I don’t get 7 hours, I’m luggage. And I’ll never learn. But I have a sleeping disorder and many episodes of the brilliant Rescue Me to catch up on. If anyone has a bottle of sleeping pills they’re not using, properly and responsibly dispose of them by sending them directly to me.
The English Mental Patient.
You all remember Taz, don’t you? Here’s a lovely little joke I found from him in my inbox this morning. I’m a bit strapped for time today, so please have a giggle and talk amongst yourselves. I will get to the Quizzlet eventually.
A bloke is in a queue at the Supermarket when he notices that the rather dishy blonde behind him has just raised her hand and smiled hello to him.
He is rather taken aback that such a looker would be waving to him, and although familiar he can’t place where he might know her from, so he says, “Sorry… do you know me?” She replies “I may be mistaken, but I thought you might be the father of one of my children!”
His mind shoots back to the one and only time he has been unfaithful. “Christ!” He says, “Are you that stripogram from my stag night that I shagged on the snooker table in front of all my mates whilst your mate whipped me with some wet celery and stuck a cucumber up my arse!?”
“No.” she replies coldly,”I’m your son’s English Teacher.”
Twinkle, Twinkle Littlest Bar.
Downtown Crossing’s infamous Littlest Bar is closing its grimy doors after 60 years of service to Boston’s booze-bags. To make way for, you guessed it, detestable yuppie condos. Gentrification usually isn’t a bad thing, as far as I’m concerned. I’d rather live in close proximity to Biff and Buffy than crackheads and hookers any day of the week. Especially after my well publicized incident with a crackhead hooker. And by ‘any day’ I’m referring to Saturdays – because that’s when their rates go up.
But now we’re talking about the demolition of a stagger-inducing institution. A lowly liquored landmark loved by lots of lushes. I’ve written about this wonderful and historic establishment before, and there’s also a gallery of photos from Jim’s b-day that were taken onsite. My first date with a former girlfriend took place at the Littlest. I took Triconi there the night before his engagement party. I’m seriously bummed. If you have any memories of the Littlest that don’t include Monster necking with a sea donkey, please share them in the comments below. Good night, sweet pub.