Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor
Leveraging low-hanging synergies outside the vertical fruit box since 1999.
And then GoonBlog got mentioned in the frigging New York Times. They require you to register and login, so I’ve posted the best part of the article over at GB for easy reference. Big congratulations to my not-so-secret GB partner in crime, and PITF favorite, Detroit Velvet Smooth who does the majority of the writing and heavy lifting over there. You’re famous, you bastard.
Shoot, Pass, Punch, Get Published.
Well raise my rent. Or the roof. Who ever thought you’d see a title like that here on PITF? Unfortunately, Gary Puppa is in most of the photos too. For example – please marvel as Fat Joe (aka Joey Crack) represents with Gary (aka Gazza, aka Hairdoo) backstage at the Toyota Center in Houston. Gary obviously taught him how to throw up Burlington crips signs, and the publicity will undoubtedly lead to scores of wannabe Eminem fist fights in front of Emma’s Back Porch.
Anyway, Puppa – most recently of the dispicable and sacreligious Christmas Eve in Toronto fame – owns a pretty cool company which allows him to work for the NBA. You may remember three years ago when he was snapped bothering Beyonce. Then there was the time Nikki Hilton tried to goose him behind one of the beer carts. And how can I forget that party where Saget tried to scoop Pupp’s peeler? Always the trooper, he was back again this year, and he’s sent me a gallery‘s worth of new hip-hopping-hob-knobbing pics. Also of note, Gazza mugging with DMC and Mike Jones.
I want to quickly point out that Gary actually asked me to go with him, and I want to give him a quick shout-out and thanks. Houston is like my second home. If Joey Crack and I didn’t currently have mad beef, I would have been there with Timberlands on. And what’s up with Ronald McDonald? I thought Chris Penn died last month. Also in attendance – Nelly, George Clinton and you’ll even see Ice Cube messin’ around and gettin’ a triple-double. Peep dis.
PITF is back on the air after the regular Christmas foray to the Great White North. My mother, sister and I made it to the Toronto area in record time Friday – about 8 hours. I slept the entire time due to heavy imbibing the night before at the Bruins game. Needless to say I was not popular in that little Outback, but the only person I really hurt was myself. Trust me.
That disgrace of an evening was followed quickly by Friday spent at the Rude Native with Puppa, Billy, Janet, JJV, and Mark. Pictures and more details will follow when Janet dumps her camera – but to be perfectly honest, I may keep it pretty vague. Between trying to encourage a snowball induced donnybrook with kids young enough to be my offspring after the bars closed, and then conking out on Gary’s couch while a party carried on around me, I’m not too proud of that whole pm. But you guys made my trip coming out to Burlington last minute like that, and Gaz was a great host. Seriously, thank you all and you’re still my boys.
Saturday and Sunday were spent with various groups of family and my always adorable little cousins. Seth schooled me at Monopoly and Thomas massacred me at Madden 2006. I showed up at the Yankee Swap with a Curb Your Enthusiasm DVD box set, and left with some small skinny candles. And what makes all of this even more embarassing is that I can’t continue to blame alcohol – as my crippled self happily accepted to be the driver that night.
Today was a nightmare, but it was far worse for a few others. Probably the worst Toronto to Boston drive in memory. And there has been probably 50 of them over the course of my lifetime so far. A late start. 2 hour wait at the border. Stopped at the border and questioned due to Janet’s recent greencard replacement. Snowstorm. Really crowded highways full of Steve McQueen clones, appartently. One more load of wash and I can finally sleep. Happy belated holidays to us, everyone. And by happy holidays, I mean someone please come over to the North End immediately and euthanize me.
The usual source of the quizzlets is once again sucking hind tit, self-admittedly using “leftover” questions this week – all of which I’ve answered before here on PITF. So I’m thinking up my own. It’s relevant, it’s hep, it’s seasonal and it’s interactive. Although it is late in the day, and many have you have already mentally checked out for the weekend, play along if you please. And if not, go pork a wreath.
Top Five Holiday Songs EVAH.
5. The Chipmunk Song – The Chipmunks: Human counterpart “Dave” encourages Alvin and the rest of his little rodent gang to wish for more peace and love, and less hula hoops, during the holiday season. It’s catchy, and ever so frigging creepy at the same time. Here’s a Flash parody that will immediately make you want to bathe.
4. Little Drummer Boy – David Bowie and Bing Crosby: On his yearly Christmas special in 1977, Bing asked Bowie, whom he’d never heard of but had been advised was big with ‘the kids’, to join him for this classic duet. Crosby died a month later, and nobody saw this until after his death which added to the already oozing sentimentality. Personally, I’m glad that Bing got one last chance to prove that he could entertain children just as well as he could beat them. I kid Bing. He was awesome.
3. Christmas in Hollis – Run DMC: During their 80s heyday, the guys put together this yuletide hip-hop single that was the first and last of its kind. Here’s the thing – it’s surprisingly a very, very good tune. I loved it as a kid, and it holds up well over time. I buy into the fact that Santa visits the hood as regularly as he does any other neighborhood. I don’t buy into the fact that collard greens should be served with Christmas dinner or that the pre-religious Run would have returned Santa’s wallet.
2. Baby, It’s Cold Outside – Dean Martin: If you know me, you know of my eternal love of Dino. That having been prefaced, this song could have easily been called I Know you Don’t Want to Fuck me, but it’s Really Frigging Cold Outside. Listen to Dean coax his ladyfriend into staying for “one cigarette more” due to the raging elements that await her outside. The raging erection is most definitely inside, and Dean’s going to be dammed if he lets his folly leave before there’s egg nog all over her green sweater. In all seriousness, this is a cute classic that I always pull out this time of year.
1. Fairytale of New York – The Pogues: I’ll say it – This is hands down the best Christmas song that has ever been written. Shane MacGowan and the late Kirsty MacColl trade sentiments and then jabs in a booze-soaked yuletide slugfest. Any song that can bring me to tears every year, which also rhymes ‘maggot’ with ‘faggot‘, has something just a little special going on. This year marks the 5th anniversary of Kirsty’s tragic death, and the single is being re-released with all proceeds going to her charity. There is also a documentary about the strange story behind the song airing on the BBC next week. The best of the best, this song will be featured on Radio Pye next week for the uninitiated.
PITF favorite Mean Art Green’s severely cool friend Cindy visited from Vancouver for work a couple of weeks ago, and he asked me to show her around. I’d never met Cindy, but we were fast friends and collectively had a very silly week together – the crescendo of which was a Bruins game with Detroit Velvet Smooth and Clarkey in tow. Long story short, we took some neat photos with her wide-angle lens, and I’ve added them to the gallery here.
While we’re on the subject of hockey, I am trying to organize a crew to go and see the LockMonsters take on the Providence Bruins this Saturday evening in Lowell. Any takers can feel free to comment or email me. Revelry will ensue during and afterwards. You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted Lowell’s nightlife. Or crack. Is there really a need for a differentiation there?
I sat down to write something brilliant and inspired last night to post today – and Blogger was down for maintenance. So you’re getting table scraps on this lovely Thursday, I’m afraid. Work has been beyond hectic lately, but I am determined to “keep ‘er goin” on PITF or die trying. Here are a few questions I’ve been mulling over this week. Feel free to answer me, or otherwise extrapolate:
– In client services, is it normal to have to react to so many things that you never get a chance to be proactive and head problems off at the pass before they ever become problems?
– Why do self-professed ‘dog people’ always hate cats, and yet ‘cat people’ just prefer cats to dogs? And is everyone’s gay-dar currently going off like a three alarm fire having just observed me asking that question?
– Do movie studios not realize that placing unskippable trailers at the beginning of DVDs defeats the purpose of having bought the DVD in the first place? Does actually leaving one’s apartment on a Saturday also defeat that purpose?
– Do the homeless have no strategy whatsoever? If I am asked for money, and am assured in the same breath that it is for food only – and I then offer to buy them some food instead – and then they get angry – does it then make sense to give me the same line of crap the next day, or even when I am on my way back home that very same afternoon? The homeless gameplan as I understand it is… actually I’ll save that for it’s own article.
I’ve added about 40 more photos from that wonderful Whistler weekend. Still no shots of the ceremony, so if you have some please send them my way. I’m talking to you, Heiss. There are a lot of similar shots, only more of the Concord kids than the Bauercrest this time around. Also, be sure to check out photos of JT and I bumming around Vancouver the day after the festivities, as well as PITF favorite (and current quotelet champion) Graeme with a meth-head on his lap. Albeit a hot one.
Have I mentioned how glad I am that this summer is over? I saw a leaf fall today. I shed a tear, and my wallet sighed audibly.
PITF favorite Gary Puppa has been in Colorado pitching his innovative services to various NBA teams – and just sent me a couple of photos from an All-Star Game party he snuck through a kitchen ventilation shaft to attend. I’m only kidding, of course. Gary was obviously invited. The other attendees only thought he’d snuck in. After the misunderstanding was cleared up, and the rest of the guests realized Gary was indeed supposed to be there, they immediately asked him if he still talked to Corey Haim.
Method Man (a.k.a ‘Meth’ a.k.a ‘Johnny Blaze’) seemed to take to Puppa (a.k.a ‘Pupp’ a.k.a ‘Corey Feldman after a bender’) like he was a box of White Owls. The fast new friends were later seen observing a moment of silence for ODB before swapping do-rags. I find it fascinating that although these photos were taken 2 minutes apart, Meth has managed to change his entire wardrobe about 8 times. So, so fly.
And just when Gary thought the evening couldn’t get any fawnkier, Redman burst onto the scene like a glaucoma patient’s capillary. While the ‘Funk Dr. Spock’ gave the camera the NYC salute, Meth took a swig of his Motorola and called Ghostface on a Budweiser. Great pics, buddy. When’s the release date for the first Pu-Tang Clan album?