Plastic Paddy’s Wake (and Bake)

 

To celebrate the occasion of St. Padraig’s Day (specifically the 73 people arrest at UMass Amherst’s “Blarney Blowout” this past weekend), I’ve taken an old traditional Irish song and updated for the dudebro crowd. You’re welcome.

five by five hundred

(to the tune of “Finnegan’s Wake”)

Plastic Paddy lived on Linden Street,
A mutt with a tinge of Irish blood.
His North Shore accent wicked sweet
and in his life, smoked too much bud.
So he had a sort of a tipplin’ way
With a love for jäger bombs he was born.
And to help him get to class each day:
Sambuca in his Dunkies ev’ry morn.

CHORUS:
Chug, Chug, Chug, bro, let’s do shots
’til you hit the floor and your stomach aches.
Dudebro, it’s a rager here
At Plastic Paddy’s wake and bake!

One night he shotgunned too much beer.
His head felt heavy, which made him shake.
He fell from the second floor balcony
And they gathered around to help him wake.
They moved him to the futon
where they slapped him twice upside the head.
Someone panicked, “Call the cops!”
when they felt for sure that…

View original post 169 more words

The Origins of Pumpkin Beer

New post on Five By Five Hundred about the secret history of that wretched poison that people actually pretend to like. Ugh.

five by five hundred

It was nearing sundown on that late autumn evening, and soon the frost would settle in for the long winter months. Mordecai Willington III was tending to the last of his crops, surveying the remaining gourds that littered his field in a tangled mess of pulp and vine, like a spider’s web in orange, brown, and yellow, speckled with flecks of green. It was the end of the harvest season, and though his yield had been high this year, he wasn’t selling as strongly as he had hoped. Soon the gourds would go to waste, buried beneath the snow along the cold Atlantic coast. Without the money he had hoped to make, his family would be forced to ration their goods until the spring.

Mordecai was gathering the final fresh gourds when a blinding white flashed across the field. It was radiant and burned without pain, as if God Himself…

View original post 642 more words

1UP

Here’s a little poem I wrote for my friends’ wedding. I had the EMT-video game-heart metaphor early on (because it fits them), but it took me forever to actually nail the thing down. I tried so many different approaches, but I’m pretty happy with the final product (and more importantly, so were they!)

five by five hundred

For Adam & Debbie

An extra heart can save a life,
or offer one more try to beat
the dungeon-level boss, and
empower you with fireballs,

laser blasts, or some kind of
flying raccoon costume. But
sometimes it’s a superpowered
fusion reaction, forging two

disparate lives into one united
future that can overcome the
obstacles and enemies of every
wild world they will discover,

a love-fueled level-up that
far outlasts any star-powered
invulnerability and guarantees
a game that never ends.

Plus maybe an extra flying
raccoon costume, just in case.

View original post

T3h Intarnetz! Jokez!

A quick, fun piece on Five By Five Hundred today, fleshing out a tweet I made the other day that I thought was particularly clever. That’s all!

“The Book of Sega Genesis” on FiveByFiveHundred.com

Domestic Terrorism In Brightly Packaged Haikus

I had bigger plans for this that I might revisit when not under deadline (I got back from NYC around 2am last night so UGH), but I was thinking about the idea of “selling fear” and, well, just kind of went with it for this week’s Five By Five Hundred post. So here it is!

“Selling Fear” on FiveByFiveHundred.com

The Art of Rock N Roll

Many people overlook the nuanced art of rock n roll, both within the songs*, and within the performance itself. Consider then: the set list. A good set list (or track listing**, for that matter) is a thing of beauty, complete with its own narrative arc of musical peaks and valleys that carry the audience through a complete cathartic hour-long rock n roll experience.

But I realize that it’s an art form that not many have mastered. And so this week on Five by Five Hundred, I’ve offered my assistance in a very public format. So you’re welcome, Aspiring Rock Stars. Go forth, and make rock!

“Set List For A Washed Up Rock N Roll Band” on FiveByFiveHundred.com

*Perhaps another day I shall blog at length about the importance of the narrative arc in song arrangements as well, in which case I’ll be mostly using Weezer’s Blue Album as a perfect example.

**Foo Fighters’ “The Colours & the Shapes” has the best non-concept album track listing ever. I’ll fight you on it.

The Vindow Viper Is Coming

Busy week here at Thom Dunn industries (when is it now?) so I’ve shared an older piece for this week’s Five By Five Hundred post. This one’s inspired by a really terrible episode of the 80s GI JOE cartoon, and a homeless guy named Joe who lives in New Haven. Joe walks around New Haven with a bucket and a mop, and he offers to clean the windows on your building or your car in exchange for food or money. He firmly believes in working for his pay, and refuses to beg for money or take handouts from strangers — because, if his story is to be believed, Joe used to be a drug dealer and a rapist and was thrown off the top of the New Haven Coliseum in a turf war and somehow survived through the graciousness of some mysterious benefactor who paid his medical bills and now he feels that he has to spend the rest of his life making up for his past mistakes.

Or at least that’s what he says. So I wrote this little piece about him; obviously it’s a comedy.

“Viper” on FiveByFiveHundred.com