Everything's More Fun In Pigtails!

2009 MTV VMA Aftermath & Why I Wasn't Blogging It

Y'all? I can't even hire my TiVo to babysit the VMAs for one night while I go out and do something because it just lets Kanye out to just do whatever his stupidly-shaved head's ass is going to do. GAH. I was all, "Ooh, I have concert tickets for that night, I'll just record the show and watch it the next day - no biggie. It sucked the last few years, so I'm sure I won't miss much." Then I get an ominous text from my brother telling me to wait until I see what Kanye has pulled, but giving me no specifics. I knew it had to be bad, because it actually caused my brother to type "omg" for the first time in his existence. He is 36 years old. ANYWAY - I found out about the Kanye mess when I got home last night and then watched the show tonight and found out that it was actually enjoyable. How did that happen? Well played, MTV. Well played. Since I wasn't around to liveblog, I'm just going to be lazy and give you my thoughts after watching the show tonight and then I'll tell you why I wasn't home last night to see it - here's a hint - it involves a Blind love of mine. Shall we?

- Should I just get the Kanye thing out of the way first so we can move on? Anyone who has read any of my award recaps knows that I do not hide my hatred of Kanye. I've never liked his ass and never will. I'm sure he's talented musically, but nowhere close to the degree that he believes he is. To me, he's the Spencer Pratt of music - he just needs to shut up and go away. Kanye's actually worse because he has success so he can do things like go on stage and be an asshole on TV and ruin and excited 19 year-old's moment. And dear Kanye - Taylor outsells your ass so get lost. Beyonce was all class at the end when she brought her back. Go ahead, girl. And MTV really should have learned its lesson about even inviting Kanye back after he complains about not winning things all the time and vows to boycott. Idle threats! DO IT. PLEASE. Okay, I'm done. Now, on to the other business....

- MJ tribute opening - Madonna looked quite lovely, didn't sound so British and was pretty classy. But still - nothing can top my excitement for Scream with Janet coming out. I LOVE that video. Once again I say, go ahead, girl.

- Russell Brand. I have nothing to say about him actually since I fast-forwarded through every word he said. From what I hear, he wasn't really funny anyway. What's that sound my TiVo makes? Be-coop!

- Taylor Swift on the F train - I was on that exact train one week earlier and no fun dance party broke out. Damn. It's nice to see she's sounding better live, though. Go ahead, girl. (I know, I will stop. Why can't I stop saying that? I don't ever say it. Maybe it's in my head from someone saying it at the salon the other day.)

- Oh, Green Day - you can even get J. Lo on her feet and dancing. Also? I rock that song in Rock Band. Just saying.

- I think it's time to talk about Lady GaGa. I...I have no idea. She's mental, right? That red outfit she accepted her award in? Even Bjork would be like, "No thanks." But let's talk about why they randomly wheeled out a dancer in a wheelchair during her performance while GaGa walked with an arm brace for about 30 seconds. What am I missing? Why are there cripples in the dance number? I just sat there during the whole song saying, "I have no idea what is happening right now." The weird thing is that I really liked the whole thing, I just am so confused. Help me.

- Okay, so I don't really want to admit this shit, but that extended trailer for New Moon looked goooood. Damn. And Robert Pattinson? DAYAM. Totally reminded me of why I have a cardboard cutout of him in my room, watching me sleep. Ahem.

- Beyonce, Beyonce, Beyonce. I liked everything but looking at your ladybits. Seriously, it was like porn when she was dipping it low and grinding. Lower those leg cuts, missy!

- When did Chris Hardwick become the lead singer of Muse?

- What was up with Tyson Ritter of The All-American Rejects covered in glitter when they jumped in with the house band? Is he trying to be a Twilight vampire and sparkling in the light? He looked ridiculous, and he's usually ridiculously hot. Get it together, Ritter.

- And finally, I'm happy to see that Eminem is FINALLY lightening up. Maybe he can give Kanye some tips. Nah, he was never even 1/4 as bad as him.

So those were some thoughts on what I remembered. Barring any events that pop up, I should be here with you on Sunday live-blogging the Emmys, so make sure you come by for that and let me know what you think. I'm VERY excited for NPH. And if Ben wins for Lost.

__________________________________

Now - why wasn't I home for the VMAs last night? Why, because I was at the American Idols Tour seeing Blindy. He was honestly the reason I went - remember, not so much musically but just because I love his awkward, adorable blind ass. I want him to be my best friend. Paul? Not so much:



But we had fun the rest of the night (except for me almost vomiting during Adam Lambert's set. Ugh.) and were quite happy to find that we weren't the oldest people there without children by a long shot. Yay, we're not creeps!



...Or are we since we went outside by the buses after the show? If so, then we were 3 of MANY creeps out there, almost all without kids so I felt better. Most were there for Adam (again, gross):



Paul wanted me to get a picture of him for him and I tried to resist, saying my camera was going to get herpes, but I took the risk. I do have to admit that he seemed like a vey nice guy and not as pompous as he was on the show. Still, gross. He was gyrating during the show and making me sick. Not in front of the kids, Lambert. We also caught glimpses of Anoop:



Matt:



Allison:



Megan, who I didn't get a picture of, but who was gorgeous, and Mr. Danny Gokey, who won my prize of best singer of the night. Seriously, he blew the roof off the joint. Cute, too:



Kris, Lil and Matt hadn't come out by the time we left, but we didn't care because I was only back there for one person and one person only. BLINDY. And he didn't disappoint me. He and his mom came out and she walked him around - he took his time going down the line of people and she would hand him things to sign and guide his hand to give out many of the high fives people were asking for. Oh, Blindy.



The only bad part about the whole "waiting by the bus" thing was that all of the idols were behind a half stone wall and there were so many people out there that if you were more than 3 people back you couldn't get near them. They just came out and signed stuff, so there was no opportunity to have your picture taken with them. But do you think that would stop me from trying to get my picture with my Scotty? Oh, no. I would find a way, even if it was an unconventional shot. I enlisted the help of Paul, who called to Blindy to look his way and smile. Blindy obliged, and now I have this:



Yay!

In the immortal words of one Mariah Carey: "If you believe in yourself enough and know what you want, you're gonna make it happen." Go ahead, girl (SORRY!!! No more!)

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?

Woodward Madness!

Last Friday Lucy Woodward came up to do a show in Boston, which is always a fun treat for me since her NYC shows are usually so crazy that I don't get a chance to talk to her for very long. Boston shows give us more of a chance to hang. This time around we battled with Red Sox traffic, which is always a good time. I may have been calling many, many people jackasses. And Massholes. Anyhoo, we still made it to the show on time and Lucy was rocking as usual. Sadly, because of the traffic situation for everyone, the show started late so Lucy had to cut a couple of songs from her set. Even so, she sang one of her fun new songs that we requested, so we were thrilled. Paul and I took turns manning the merch table during the show so we could go up front for some songs. Joining Lucy on the bill that night were the lovely and talented Rachel Platten and Toby Lightman. Here's a shot of Toby from the show:



I've seen Lucy play with both ladies before and they are really good. I didn't get a picture of Rachel, but she's a cute little thing, as you can see from this picture of The Professor blatantly checking her out as she walked by mid-pose:



Hee! Love it.

Since this was a Lucy Woodward show, I donned some kicking shoes for the occasion:



Lucy rocked some black boots, but I won the battle this time. After the show, we went across the hall to a bar and grabbed a drink with La Lucy. It was so much fun - she dished about what Randy Jackson is really like and performed the Single Ladies dance after Paul told her that he hurt his back from doing it the night before at karaoke. Paul turned to me at that moment and whispered, "I'm obsessed." It was awesome. After a while, it was time to make our way home so we said our goodbyes and took some pictures before we went, which led to The Greatest Picture I Have Seen In a Long, Long Time. But first, here are the others:







And then this happened:



LOVE it. A classy singer who is also super-fun and drops f-bombs left and right and poses for silly pictures like that? That is my kind of girl. Lucy rocks, y'all.

NYC Mayhem With 2 Lucys and 3 Boys - Oh Lordy

Two weeks ago (I KNOW, I am such a bad updater lately) I went on a NYC jaunt with Lucy, Paul, David and Joe to go see Lucy Woodward play her last NYC show before she moves to L.A. in May. I knew I was in for a trip when we were reuniting the crew from a crazy trip last summer, and adding Lucy to the mix just made it sound even better. As is custom with us, our trip started off classy as always with this being the first picture that I took:



Yep, that's Joe peeing in the shadow of a building in a random office park that we found right off the highway. "I can't wait anymore!" Oh, Joe. As you can see, this was shaping up to be quite the trip. I'm actually going to make this pretty much a picture and video diary of the trip because there are many, many pictures and some fun videos from it all, including me getting thrown off a mechanical bull. Oh, yes. Click below to see them all after the jump.

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.

Some Sunday Retro Videos For My Young Friends

You know, sometimes it gets sad when I'm hanging out with my younger friends and I find out that they have never heard songs like Photograph by Def Leppard or Home Sweet Home by Motley Crue. (Paul: "I only know the Carrie Underwood version.") What makes these things even worse is that this means that my friends have never seen the music videos for these songs, and that's just not right. Photograph with the whole Marilyn Monroe thing and the 2-armed drummer? Classic. Then there is the girl who almost shows her boobs in the Home Sweet Home video until it cuts to Tommy Lee's mock expression of shock. Ah, youth and growing up watching MTV non-stop. Anyway, in honor of my young friends, here's a good way to kill a few minutes on a lazy Sunday:

Available Today!

Did y'all get your copy of Free today?



It's very stripped down and mellow, quite different from the first two albums with a whole new vibe. Of course, it's still fantastic and you can really hear Gavin's voice shine through. Plus, it's my favorite album cover of his so far because it reminds me of one of my favorite pictures that I've ever taken of him:



Just a boy and his instrument and his love of music. I love it.

Download These Fo Sho': Glass, Lover Be Strong, Free & Indian Summer