Everything's More Fun In Pigtails!

Summer Vacation....

"Tune in, groove on, bust out."

Why, hello there. It's been a while, my lovelies. Apparently I decided to take a blog summer vacation. Who knew? I don't know why, but I just haven't been in the zone or inspired to sit down and take the time to write much outside of a Bar Tuesday review (and I even have two of those I haven't gotten to yet!). On the one hand, I have been keeping pretty busy this summer, which is always a good and fun thing because we know that will all change when fall TV starts, but on the other hand I fear my summer vacation may turn into a fall one, then winter....

I don't know, maybe I'm just getting old and crotchety and I'll be back here posting away as soon as September hits. Or maybe it's because I'm getting old and outgrowing all of it. I'm going to be 35 next month and I am not looking forward to it. That is OLD, y'all. I'm going to be out of the target 18-34 demographic! NO! Does this mean I'm going to have to start watching Diagnosis Murder repeats? I REFUSE.

Ahem.

Anyway, as I was saying, things have changed since I started my blog way back in January of 2003. Things have happened, life has happened and I have been happy to go through a lot of it with you guys. Maybe that's what will keep me coming back. However, I'm not in my 20's anymore - I initially set up a blog just to keep myself in the habit of writing. I had been out of it a little bit and wanted to keep at it to keep my writing "muscles" toned. The practice helped me in developing a stronger voice in my writing and my blog found me a lot of fantastic friends. This is another reason that I may come back and hang around more often, although I now have other ways of keeping in touch with them. As my age keeps creeping, life keeps happening to and all around me - friends are married and having babies and chnaging careers and going back to school and all kinds of things. Our priorities and wants and needs in life evolve, mine included. Perhaps the need to write just to write has gone away for me - maybe there's more important and other things for me right now. Maybe they're waiting in Brooklyn. Who knows? One can hope for more, right?

I guess what all of this senseless rambling is trying to say is, "Hi. I'm here checking in, but who knows how long I'll keep checking in for. I'll probably take most of the summer off, but before I do, here's a highlight of some things I've been up to instead of being here." Wow, I should have just said that from the get-go.

So lete's do this - the highlights of my adventures since my last entry. Shall we?

- Connecticon. PEOPLE, Connecticon was an AMAZING event. As I probably mentioned before, Paul and I are going to be having our own public access variety show so we have started filming some of our adventures for it. A friend of ours works at the convention center in Hartford, Connecticut and told us all about this anime/comic convention that she worked last year. Paul and I thought it sounded like the perfect place to film some stuff, and it was beyond our wildest dreams. The convention ran from Friday-Sunday and after going on the Sunday, we had wished that we had gone to the whole thing. We were there for almost 6 hours just fascinated by everyone and everything. It was the best. We need to go to more of it next year. And we need to go to the furry convention in October that someone told us about. But I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. First, let's start with the ensembles. We heard that people dressed in all kinds of costumes and such for it, but my brother pooh-poohed my idea of wearing my Wonder Woman costume (Next year!), so we opted to just dress in bright, fun outfits. Paul pulled one of his thrift store finds from the other public access show that we guest hosted, thinking he would stick out a little, but as we found out, we were pretty underdressed. Anyhoo, here's what we wore:



To give you a partial understanding as to why we felt underdressed when we got there, here is a woman who I quickly became obsessed with and stalked for a good half hour before approaching her:



She was AWESOME. She was also the one who gave us the tip about the Furry Convention, which is something I simply need to be at. I wonder if I can get a monkey head for it. Anyway, there was so much to do and see at the convention. First, there were the people themselves. You really didn't even need to do anything more than just hang out with the people. They were all so nice, too. There were a lot of people with "free hugs" signs and impromptu song & dance parties were breaking out everywhere you went. I believe that Paul and I joined into a dance to a Pokemon-related song, but I'm still not sure. We enjoyed whatever it was. Aside from that, there were video game rooms, dice, card and board game tables, larp-related swordfighting tournaments, etc. There was also a huge shopping area with vendors selling all sorts of things and another room upstairs where artists were selling their stuff. You could get drawings commissioned, so Paul took advantage of that after seeing one of the examples shown on one table. So here, for only $10, is a personal sketch of Paul sitting on the toilet:



What is better than that?

Well, I would imagine some video clips would work out better. We ended up taking about 45 minutes of footage, but here's a 4 minute teaser video I made to whet people's appetite for the full show. Enjoy:



Oh, Connecticon - we love you.

- Dating in the Dark - People, I am obsessed. Have you seen this show? If not, get thee to abc.com immediately and watch it there. I LOVE IT. It's so ridiculous but I got sucked right in. If you haven't heard about it, it's a dating show that features 3 girls and 3 guys each episode who go on a series of dates in a room that is completely black. They can't see ANYTHING. After 3 days, each person gets to pick one person to see lit up. After they see what the chose person looks like, then they decide to either meet that person upstairs on an outdoor balcony to go on another date after the show is done or else walk out the front door. Here's what I love - when someone is waiting anxiously on the balcony for their desired mate to come out and meet them they can look right down and watch the person leave out the front door if they are not interested. So you've got this poor guy up on the balcony all excited and then you see the girl wheeling her suitcase right the hell out of there and not look back. It's so great. What's even better is watching the reactions of the people when they finally see the others in the light. They only light one person at a time, so the other is left in the dark to react and we get to watch them all mentally say, "Yeeesh!" Then they go back and shit talk with the other contestants. It's so great, just watch. Guilty, guilty pleasure. Mondays at 10!

- THIS. I have already requested one for my birthday. That is a must have item if I've ever seen one.

- Still revisiting movies from my youth from time to time, and I just watched Purple Rain. That movie? SUCKS. Oh my God. I think I'd only seen the TV edit when I was younger and I didn't remember most of it. I just remembered the lake part and clips that were in the music videos from the movie. But seriously, why is that movie so bad? Do people know this? Are they distracted by the good music? Because that is the only good thing about it. Now I love me some Morris Day, but are we supposed to believe that he is a straight man in that movie? And what purpose does Jerome serve on stage? Honestly, watch the performance of The Bird and tell me why Jerome is there. Give the guy a tambourine or something. But the acting? Oh my God. And the horrible message!!! So Prince - wait, "THE KID" - sorry, so The Kid watches his father beat the shit out of his mother all the time and then he hits his girlfriend on MORE THAN ONE OCCASION and both women stay with them? And The Kid never even apologizes? That shit is messed up. Appolonia should have stomped on his tiny ass with one of his high heels. I can't even imagine what Under the Cherry Moon is like. I don't even want to know. All I know is that this movie does not stand up at ALL. It's so bad. The music, however, does hold up. How can it not? Although I had no idea what Darling Nikki was about when I was listening to the LP in 1984. That's probably best, since I was 10. Buy the album, skip the movie.

- Tinted Windows!! The guys, or as I like to call them, "James Iha, the drummer from Cheap Trick, the guitarist from Fountains of Wayne, and Taylor Hanson on lead vocals" are doing a couple of shows this summer and one of them happened to be in Boston on Monday, so you know I was there. After the first week of indecision about some of it, the whole album completely grew on me and is just so good. They've got an 80's retro power-pop thing going on and I like it. The funny thing about seeing them live is that it looks like a bunch of dads who invited the neighborhood kid to come and sing with them while they jam. Still - they sounded really good, and it was really cool to see Mr. Iha play. As always, pictures:





You can't really see in those two pictures, but Taylor's ass was unbelievable that night. He's usually hiding it behind keyboards or not wearing jeans like this or something, but it was mesmerizing. I tried to crop it out of another picture but it still doesn't do it justice and just makes me look majorly creepy:



Maybe a video clip I took will show it off better. Taylor's looking fine, and that's James Iha to his right:



I also love the novelty of Taylor telling me that I'm his Cha Cha. I don't know what that means, but I want to be his cha cha. IF he gets rid of that stupid tiny Nonytail. Yuck.


So that's some of what's been happening here. What's been going on in your neck of the woods?

Oh, Billie Joe

Monday night I got to see Green Day again and they still rank as being one of the best live bands I have ever seen. Definitely top 3. Their shows are amazing. They played for almost 2 1/2 hours and every person in the whole arena was on their feet the entire time. Bille Joe wanted us to clap along a certain way? EVERY SINGLE PERSON was doing it. I've never seen anything like it. SO much fun. I turn into a maniac at their concerts and I have no idea why. Some little Punky Pam comes out out nowhere and I am ROCKING OUT like there's no tomorrow.

Of course, it wouldn't be me going somewhere in public if there wasn't a jackass moment. On our way in, we passed by the tour bus setup with all people posing for pictures in front of it. Everyone was standing in front of it, just smiling happily like this boy:



Aww - his parents are taking him to Green Day! Joe and I were people watching before the show and we were surprised by the mix of the crowd. There were the teeny-boppers who looked like Hot Topic threw up on them, there were the random frat guys, young couples on dates, guys who looked like they hadn't left the basement in months, creepy older guys who looked like they got lost on their way to a Quiet Riot show, sweet older couples who made us aww, and then there were quite a few parents and their kids. Most of the parents seemed to be just as much of fans as the kids, which was nice. And also made us feel old. Especially since Billie Joe has been one of my celebrity boyfriends since 1994, before many of those kids were born. Wah waah. Also? College Pam, her perm, and her love for Billie Joe broadcast in the school newspaper:



Oh my God. Someone just please shoot me now. And, as you can see, the jackassery continues because did anyone really think that I was just going to stand in front of the bus all nice like the rest of the folks?



[sigh] It's a wonder any of my friends go places with me anymore. Anyway, the tour still has a bunch of dates left, so if they come to your area I HIGHLY recommend it. And give Tour Bus Billie Joe a kiss for me!

Yes, Please.

I have many pictures to post from last weekend's trip to FINALLY meet my friend Shelly and visit The Mall of America while I was at it, but not enough time tonight - stay tuned for that later this week. In the meantime, here are 2 things that both made me announce, "Yes, please," this weekend:

1. THIS:



There really is nothing more to say to that. Yes, please, INDEED. Damn.

2. Billie Joe looking fine-as-wine in the new Green Day video. As a bonus, I love this song as well:

Green Day - "21 Guns" - HD

Gavin & Joey In Boston 4/24/09

Oh, those DeGraw boys - how I love them so. Gavin's spring tour made a stop in Boston on Friday night and we were one of the lucky select cities to also have the bonus of Joey as one of the opening acts. I always say, the only thing better than one DeGraw is two. Lucy, Paul and David joined me at the show, but seriously people - I get in THE ZONE and pay very little attention to anything/anyone else. THE ZONE!

Anyhoo, we were lucky enough to be in the 21+ group so we could wait inside the lounge part of the concert hall before the doors opened while the 18-20s waited in line outside. This meant we also got to go in to the club first, so I scored a sweet front row position. And the thing I love most about this club is that there is no security pit, so I was leaning up against the stage. I actually sat my purse on it for most of the show. I loved it so much. See? Being an old lady does pay off sometimes. Just wait until I can start getting senior discounts and shit - watch out world!

ANYway - Joey opened the show with an acoustic set. I've never seen him do an acoustic show and I loved it. It was just Joey and his pal Andy Clayburn (who you may remember from my trip to the National Underground in February) on guitars and it was really cool. Joey sounded incredible, and it was a great way to start the show. Here are some pictures I grabbed:







And my favorite, the Joey smirking at me picture:



Here's a short clip from 2 songs that I took a little bit of video of (you can totally hear Joey's A&E voice coming out when he sings all low):



I had run into Joey in the bar before the show and we talked about him coming back to Boston as a headliner in a few weeks, so I'll get more/better pics and video then.

After Joey's set, the "official" opening act came on, a band called honeyhoney. I had never heard of them before, but I fell in love immediately. It's just a girl and a guy, and she plays the banjo and fiddle and he plays guitar and bass drum. They were fantastic. Lucy and I were laughing during the set because the guy in the band was literally 2 feet in front of us. It was so awkward. We couldn't look at him! In any case, you should totally check them out. I bought their album immediately when I got home. Here's Suzanne, the lead singer:



I didn't really get video of them because I was loving it so much that I didn't even think to, but here's their video of my favorite song from them at the moment:



After honeyhoney, it was time for Gavin. This tour is a bit different to go along with the feel of his new album. It's very stripped down with a lot of acoustic stuff going on. It was a whole new feel and I loved every single minute of it. Here's a little video taste of what went down:



I love him looking at my camera at the 1:49 mark. Anyway, here are some pictures I took during the show:







This next one is my favorite from this show:



LOVE that.

Here's a few more from the encore:







Now, onto my favorite song and picture from the night. First, I have been waiting to hear Gavin perform his song Glass for years now. He finally recorded it for this album, so I figured it was finally time for me to hear it live. I hadn't even prepared properly when he just busted right into it for the second song of the night, hence me not having my camera ready and not getting part of the first verse on video. In any case, here is the rest of it:



Man, I love that song.

Now onto my favorite picture from the whole night, me and Gavin:



He teased me a little for seeing me getting down during the show, but he loved that I was having such a great time. Oh Gavin, I always do, I always do.

Now when can I do it again?

Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego?

I don't know, but here I am!! Where the hell have I been? Sorry, sorry! I've got an extended post coming, but no time tonight, so I'll just leave you with this:



That's the first single and video for Tinted Windows, the "supergroup" with James Iha, a guy from Cheap Trick, someone from Fountains of Wayne and Mr. Taylor Hanson on lead vocals. That still makes no sense to me. Anyway, as you can see, Taylor is clearly dressing for me now. Good boy. Also? Very catchy tune.

Their album came out today and I gave it a listen on my way to and from work and aside from about 2 bum songs, it's pretty good. Very power-poppy and different. At first, I was looking at the album from the standpoint of the Taylor Hanson scholar that I am, so I was all, "Hmmm. He clearly didn't have a big hand in writing these songs because he's not playing to all of his vocal strengths." (People, I could write a dissertation on him - remember when he called me? Oh my God.) But once I got all of that out of my system, I just started listening to the tunes from an unbiased standpoint and most of them were quite catchy and fun. The album isn't going to change anyone's life, but it's a fun listen. I'm missing the patented Taylor moans and shouts of "come on!" that pepper most Hanson records, but in return I do get him dressing for me and singing a song called Cha Cha. It's no moaning, but I'll take it.

Oh, Gavin

It's all about what happens after the 4:49 mark when they post the footage before the interview started. "You want me to point my groin this way?" Love it.br>

Huh?

People, I still don't know what to think of this a week after hearing about it. Tinted Windows is a new band formed by James Iha from the Smashing Pumpkins and it also has someone from Cheap Trick, someone from Fountains of Wayne, and TAYLOR HANSON as the lead singer. I am so confused. Now there is this video teaser:



Taylor is dressing for me, but I still don't know what to make of all of this. What say you?

The Perfect Pick-Me-Up After Being Sick For 3 Days

Stumbling upon this video in my bookmarks and reliving the magic all over again, especially the split at the 2:13 mark:



When I first found this video a few months ago, I watched it every day for about a week. Now I remember why.

Just what I needed - I feel better already.

Double DeGraws: Making Up For The Fact That We Almost Died In Hartford

Last Friday David and I headed to Hartford to go see the DeGraw boys in concert. It's not often that Joey opens for Gavin, so the double feature was a special treat for me. Since Hartford is about a two hour drive, we decided to book a hotel room because I knew I wouldn't feel like driving home if we were out late, which I planned to be. The rates were good at most of the hotels, so we just grabbed a room at a Days Inn that was about a mile away from the venue. Y'all - now I know why the rates were so cheap. David and I spent most of the night saying to each other, "We're going to die in Hartford tonight."

For those who have never been to Connecticut, it is generally a really pretty and nice state. Hartford, however, is disgusting. There's really no other way to put it. It's nasty. The last time I was in Hartford, I ended up having to get a tetanus shot a few days later. Seriously. (I had cut my foot somewhere on the filthy streets of Hartford.) Anyway, Connecticut traffic can get a little clogged in the late afternoon, so David and I decided to both take the afternoon off from work and head down to the city early to avoid any of that mess. Surely we could find all kinds of things to do in the city, right? Eh, not so much. Sure, we could have gone shopping for CAT BOOTS:



WTF??? Can you get tabby boots? I am intrigued by the dingo boots, but cat boots????

Creeps.

Anyway, in lieu of cat boot shopping, we decided to just drive around the city and see where that took us. It...was scary. We almost ran over the same rabid-looking chihuahua TWICE, and the rest of the time we bemoaned the fact that our wills weren't ready yet, which was a shame because we were pretty sure we were going to die. Then we went to McDonald's for dinner and I was about to use the restroom until I saw a sketchy-looking woman wandering around the whole restaurant openly scratching her hoo-ha through her filthy sweatpants. She was just scratching that thing for days. Then she headed into the bathroom, so that was enough for me in terms of any need to use that bathroom EVER. Instead, we headed next door to the only other happening place around, VIP. VIP, of course, stands for Very Intimate Pleasures. I assumed it was a sex shop, while David thought it was a strip club, which led to both of us wondering what we would do if it were a strip club.

DAVID: How do titty bars work? Do they just come up to you?

PAM: I don't know, I've never been to one! What happens in the movies?

Because clearly, everything you see in the movies is totally true to life. Anyway, lucky for us I was right and VIP ended up being a sex shop, and it was gigantic. We wandered around for a while and then headed back to the hotel, where I noticed an odd looking stain on the rug in our room:



Is that a face? And is it made out of blood? What is that? Does he know Bedface? And still, and most importantly, IS THAT BLOOD??

Instead of pondering the horrors that could have taken place in our room, we busied ourselves getting ready and, doing things like taking a time out in the random chair in the corner:



Reading The Bible:



Wrapping a towel on your head and singing into the hair dryer:



And building pillow forts:



You know, the usual things you do to get ready. We then headed out to the show, and all of the thoughts of impending death drifted away as soon as I the first of the DeGraws hit the stage. Joey opened the show, sounding terrific yet sporting a new Freddie Mercury-inspired mustache. He had the mustache when I saw him at the bar a couple of weeks ago, but I just figured it was a fluke. Apparently, not. So now Joey looks a little like a child molester:



Okay, maybe he looks more than a little like one.





Eh, no matter, because he put on a great show. Here's a clip from my favorite Joey song:



After Joey's set, there was the little matter during intermission of some drunk girls who wandered off trying to reclaim their spots in the crowd near me, but people had taken them. This prompted one drunk girl to start pushing up against the new people that were standing there, trying to get them to move. It ended with drunk girl being removed by security and having to stand in the back for the concert, but there was a brief moment in the middle where I turned into a completely different person when one of her drunken pushes sent two people flying into me and led to me knocking into other people. I may have shoved the girl hard and yelled something along the lines of, "STOP IT, YOU STUPID BITCH!!!" That may have happened and David may have loved every minute of it. Moral of the story: don't mess with me while I am waiting for Gavin to take the stage. Speaking of which, shortly thereafter, he did take the stage, and all was right in the world again:







By the way, this was my first night using my new fancy camera and I love it to death. Especially when it captures Gavin shooting at me:



I love that.

The sound is also better in the videos - here's a clip from a non-album track that I have a live version of and love, but have never seen Gavin perform, so I was quite excited when he did. I mean, how can you not love a good ol' fashioned drinking song?



Here's a couple more of my favorite shots from that night:





And a montage of clips from a bunch of songs, including my favorite clip at about the 1:53 mark when Gavin is singing Proud Mary and shaking his ass. When he starts doing the train-rolling arm motions at 2:35? Pure bliss for me:



Oh, Gavin - how I have missed your shows. Now I'm going to be in withdrawal since there aren't any coming up anytime soon. But hey, at least I have lived to see the next one since David and I weren't so sure about that when we returned to the hotel to crash and were met with the soothing and dulcet tones of people drag racing outside.

PAM: What is going on right now?

DAVID: Are we going to die?

PAM: Who drag races anymore?

DAVID: People in Hartford since there's nothing else to do besides go to VIP and shop for cat boots.

PAM: What is this, Tokyo Drift? Are they Days Inn Drifting?

DAVID: Help!

Ah, but we made it and were quite happy to make our way into the nicer parts of Connecticut the next day, where there were homemade chocolate shops and such. Plus, I'd still go to Hartford any day to see a great concert like that. Double DeGraws makes everything better, even Days Inn Drifting.

I *HEART* Bootleggers

Because even though these aren't the highest quality on earth, they'll get me through until the DVD comes out. Or until I see this again in the theater, which, let's be honest, will be soon. Paul and I went to see it for the second time tonight and cried together because we are 10 year-old girls. Anyhoo - here's where we get excited the most:



That one is Paul's favorite. I do love it very much myself, but my heart belongs to Scream, aka the new Bet On It:



...And now that's stuck in my head again. Dammit!