March 30 '06

Can we talk about Billy Joel for a sec?

Hey! Get back here! I'm serious. Last night I pulled out an old 'best of' cd of his I hadn't listened to in a while and it was So Greeeeeeeeat.

Listen to "Angry Young Man" and tell me the guy's not a good songwriter...and unlike some songs that have super long, awesome intros but then tend to poop out and I end up turning them off halfway through (Bittersweet Symphony, I Need A Lover) this one jes gits better:

There's a place in the world for the angry young man

With his working class ties and his radical plans

He refuses to bend he refuses to crawl

And he's always at home with his back to the wall

And he's proud of his scars and the battles he's lost

And he struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross

And he likes to be known as the angry young man

WORD. Take that, Bruce.

Wooooof! Dems faaaahghtin' words. Honestly, though, "Only the Good Die Young"? C'MON!

Father Dillon devoted an entire sermon to that song. It was The DaVinci Code of it's day. After mass, my dad immediately located my sister's copy of The Stranger and deposited it into the trash can...Billy Joel was right up there with Judy Blume and Bea Arthur as paragons of evil.

Mr. Joel's ban didn't last more than one summer, though, he and Steve Martin* got let out of the dog house after a while.

I saw him in concert 4 times during highschool, rushed the stage every time and I always got on. Totally Courtney Coxed. Did it with Rod Stewart, too. Siiiiigh, those were the days...

Anyway, I was flying down the road to it yesterday, singing along and having a good ol' time and when I picked up the kids, one of whom is preparing or his first communion, I ....turned it off. I was listening, dad.

*My dad himself brought a copy of “A Wild and Crazy Guy” into our home, on Christmas morning no less. He’s seen Mr. Martin on television and thought he was hilarious, and went and bought the album for his kids.  Of course, all my older brothers had heard it already and just sat there in supreme agony, waiting for the inevitable s***storm...sure enough, the bit about the cat comes on...ohfercryin' I can barely think about it without blushing...my dad turned shades of purple I don't think had even been discovered yet, yanked the record off the turntable and snapped it in half.

March 29'06

So ML reminded mo of this creepy stalker song, by large-headed country wonder Randy Travis:

What in the world are you plannin’ to do

When a man comes over just to visit with you

And I’m on the porch with a 2' x 2'

Tell me what'Il you do about me

You can call your lawyer, you can call the fuzz

You can sound the alarm, wake the neighbors up

Ain't no way to stop a man in love

What'Il you do about me

Yeah, I'd say that definitely qualifies...of course, I think even Enrique Iglesias could handle a 2x2-wielding Randy Travis...

March 28 '06

Later that day...

'member those broken links? Well, they're fixed. However, in my supreme lack of computer know-how, I accidentally deleted everything in "red carpet rants". oops.

Why Katie, didn't you back them up?

Of course not. What do you take me for?

Oh well. Only ten months 'til the next awards season.

March 28 '06

Still workin' on that broken links problem. OK, not really. I actually forgot all about it, and Mike reminded me last night.

His actual words were "Your site is terrible."

Wha?? From my own spouse, no less.

"What do you mean it's terrible?" I asked, concerned. (Again, not really. I have a lazy streak wider than the river Jordan, and consider a review of "terrible"... well, acceptable.)

"The archives are totally messsed up. Half the links are broken and none of them are in the right order."

"That's my thing," I told him. "It's quirky; it makes me stand out."

"Dirty hair and bad breath make people stand out, too," he said.

Honestly, I have no idea what point he was trying to make. What does my dirty hair have to do with anything? That Mike, he makes no sense at all sometimes. I wasn't really listening anyway, by then I had my nose buried in my new Entertainment Weekly.

The incredible Susan Loken won her second consecutive More Marathon on Sunday....way to go, Susan!

March 26 '06

Oooch, this gray sky...it maeks meh wont ta crrrawl bahck n' bead...

Enough with the Scottish accent. Took the littles to "Annie" yesterday. I've seen this show several times, and this particular production was not the best...the pacing was really slow. The kids liked it, though.

OK...There are condos going up where a funeral home used to be on 50th street. Yeeek shriekity ding dong, call me cracked but I would not want to live in one o' those things, what with Marley's ghost rattling around all night and everything.

And on the radio, the song "Escape", by Enrique Iglesias. Got me to thinking, what are the top five creepiest stalker songs?*

*Songs intended for radio play; musical theater doesn't count.

5) "Escape"

"You can run you can hide but you can't escape my love..." ewww, but it is set to boppy dance-club music and sung by the biggest pussy this side of James Blunt (sorry, Blunt fans, but another list is coming soon, Eunuchs with Guitars; I wish I had as much testosterone as Sara McGlaughlin and just when I thought David Grey was a lock for number one, along comes Blunt.) anyway, it is sung by Enrique, who any woman worth her salt could surely take down if it got to that point.

4) The Jayhawks' "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me":

"I'm gonna make you love me, I'm gonna dry your tears... And we're gonna stay together for a million years..."

Back off!! Why is she crying, anyway, is she in a dank hole in your basement, rubbing lotion on her skin? Who doesn't expect the next line of this song to be "I'm gonna stick you in the freezer...right next to my mom..."

3) Allanis Morisette's "You Oughta Know"

Now this gal is scary. The live version is even more unsettling, she absolutely sounds like she could go slice and dice as soon as she finishes her Vodka.

2) Glen Campbell, "Witchita Lineman"

"and the Witchita Lineman....is still on the line...."

...which is where I'll stay, listening in on your phone conversations until I finally climb down and shove you into the trunk of my Tercel...

1) The Police "Every Breath You Take"

A totally obvious choice, but c'mon. It wins by a mile, not just for the lyrics but Sting totally sounds the part, too.

March 25, '06

Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers were stupendous. I was a little worried that on a Thursday night they wouldn't draw much of a crowd, but the place was packed and rockin'. I stayed in the balcony most of the night, the view from up there is great and the bar is never too crowded, plus Fran and Kenny came with us and Kenny just had foot surgery, and didn't want to get his paw stepped on. Don't blame him.

If you're looking for a great way to spend a weekend, I really cannot stress how fantastic this is....Circus Mexicus happens twice a year, I've been once, Miguel 3 or 4 times, and you just shouldn't live out your whole life never having gone. You can even bring your kids, it's an all-ages show on the beach, complete with taco and beer stands. It's kind of like Lollapalooza, except fun.

March 23 '06

M'favorite band plays TONIGHT at the Fine Line. See you there.

March 22 '06

I'm sitting across the breakfast table from my four-year-old daughter, whose face looks like raw hamburger courtesy of her brother, who gave her a whitewash with a ball of ice last night.

Now, I'm a firm believer in the whitewash, it's a rite of passage all kids raised in Minnesota need to experience. The dearth of snow this year up until two weeks ago meant none have been had around here all winter, and Finny is an eight- year-old boy, who doesn't understand that days-old March snow is dangerously glass-like.

Hence, hamburger face.

She came running into the house screaming, blood pouring out of her lips, he came running in behind her and straight up to his room before I could send him there.

She's fine, of course, it just looks bad.

I went upstairs to assure Finny that I knew it was just an accident (to be fair, they were engaged in a mutually agreed upon snowball fight, it's not like he ambushed her) and he had written on his bedroom wall with a pencil, "Molly hates me and I don't blame her."

He's taken to writing down his James-at-Fifteen like thoughts on his walls. The other day he came tearing into the tv room, tripped and did a pratfall that Dick Van Dyke would've been jealous of; I couldn't help it, I laughed.

Before you go thinking I'm all heartless, understand he's constantly flying willy-nilly into rooms and tripping, his theory being, "Run now, look later".

I'm only human, it looked funny, and I knew he wasn't really hurt. But he got mad at my stifled giggles, stomped up to his room and wrote, again on his wall, "Mom likes it when I get hert".

I felt terrible and later, when he had calmed down, I asked him why he wrote it. He said sort of sheepishly, "I tried to erase it but I couldn't."

Back when I was little, I was in awe of my sister Mary Louise (of Casual Sundays With Mr. Curry fame, or as I have taken to calling it, Tuesdays with Morrie) because she had painted her bedroom walls with beautiful scenes from various nursery rhymes. Now, she was (still is) an exceptional talent, and could've made a living painting murals even then, at age eleven.

Inspired by her, I asked my mom if I could paint stuff on my walls, too. Mom figured she couldn't very well say no to me since she let Mary do it, lest I end up with an eating disorder or something. I shared a room with Margy at the time, though, so I was only allowed to do one wall in fairness to her.

Well. I had none of Mary L's prodigy-ness, and proceeded to paint giant heads all over the white plaster. I was trying to copy the Don Martin characters from my brother Joe's MAD magazines, which I routinely snuck out of his room...the result was an entire wall of floating, severed heads rendered in black paint. Mary Louise's room was like stepping into a fairy tale, mine, the stuff of nightmares.

My mom told me it was wonderful, and wall-papered our bedroom soon afterward.

March 21 '06

Hey lookit this.

Batten down the hatches, another Hubbell girl is throwing her brain out into the blogoshpere....that's right, Casual Sundays with Mr. Curry is the brand spankitty new blog of my sister Mary Louise. She's smart, funny as a rubber crutch on an icy dreiveway, a better artist than me by a mile (that scribble at the top of her blog was not done by her) and my biggest cheerleader in life, other than maybe Mike. We love her.

And the name of her blog makes even less sense than mine.

Back. I actually wrote this last night. Like you care.

It's 7:38 pm, kitchen is all cleaned up and Molly's in bed. So is Meg, who came home from school with a fever. sighhhhhhh.

So Meg needs Borax and alka-seltzer for some science experiment at school and I've got a jones to make an exotic recipe I found on the internet that needs some weird ingredient, adobe peppers in adobo sauce or something, I don't even remember what exactly it was.

So I go to the grocery store armed with my list, I can't find the adobe sauce to save my life, (all right, I'm exaggerating, if the alternative to finding it were actually death, I probably would've looked a little harder) so I ask some fellow who works there and he looks up from his crate of paper plates or whatever he's unpacking and he says, "It's behind the pharmacy," and I say, "Huh?" so he gets up and walks me over to the shelf and I literally don't see it until it is practically squirting me in the eye. But that's how popular this weird 'eye-of-newt' ingredient is, it's kept by the pharmacy in case there are still people who use that sort of thing as medicine, I guess.

"Oh, ha ha, there it is, if it were a snake it woulda bit me," I say, but he's not around anymore to appreciate my great wit, he's gone back to his plates.

Next on my list is Borax.

I defy anyone born after 1922 to know what Borax is. Meg's science book assured me I could find it in any large grocery store.

I once again have to flag down a store employee, and when I asked him where the Borax is, he flags down the same guy who helped me find the adobe/adobo whatever sauce, who looks up and when he sees it's me, is visibly annoyed. We look around for a while and he's explaining to me in his "I'm so annoyed" voice that they probably don't have it, since no one has requested Borax since the stagecoach left town.

"Nope, we don't have it," he says, and I say thanks for helping me look, and I had to suppress the urge to ask him if they had any yak meat or laudanum in stock.

When I get to the checkout, I've got in my basket adobe peppers in adobo sauce, an onion, tobasco, cilantro, tortilla chips and alka-seltzer. Hell of an evening planned.

Over the checkout area is this giant sign that says, "We promise to do everything we can to give you a delightful shopping experience."

Delightful?

Now, I don't like grocery shopping for the most part, in fact I hate it. I especially hate shopping at Cub. I crumple under the pressure of having my groceries hurtling toward me down that conveyor belt, unable to bag them fast enough to appease whatever crabapple is breathing down my neck. Plus the bags are too damn small.

Shopping at Byerly's or Lunds is certainly less painful, until you get the final tally, which is what keeps me going back to Cub.

The point is, grocery shopping is sucky at best; "delightful" is not a word that can ever, ever be used to describe it.

In order for it to be delightful all the food has to be free and already prepared into meals, Mary Poppins has to be there to take care of Molly while I shop, the carry-out boys have to be Russell Crowe clones under the delusion that they love me and they must give me a piggy-back ride to my car after mixing me a complimentary dirty martini. That would be delightful.

OK, another order of bidness: my sister-in-law Heidi, (my brother Joe's wife)who underwent a double mastectomy for the big "C" 5 years ago while preggers with their sixth child Vince (Vince made it through with flying colors; he's a total sports fanatic, I don't know if marinading in anesthesia had anything to so with that, but seriously, it's almost freaky what a sports nut the kid is) is doing the Avon Breast Cancer walk. Here's the link, send her some sponsorship dough. DO IT.

March 17 '06

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

B'gorrah, we're all Irish today, so pin on a shamrock and raise a pint.

Just got the kidlets off to school, they got a no uniform day today, and they spent all morning rooting around for appropriate St. Patrick's day wear. The big kids scooped up all the good stuff, the screaming green sportcoat, the two green t-shirts we own, the shamrock tie daddy's had since college, leaving Molly with a green plastic hula skirt. She pulls it off, mostly because she channelled her inner Sara J. Parker and accessorized perfectly. Green beads, a shamrock pin, green bow in her hair...

I'll be enjoying the folk song stylings of Leprechaun tonight at the Dubliner, gonna try to squeeze in a few other places as well.

March 15, '06

I live in a house divided.

What do you do when your belief system doesn't match up with that of your spouse or even with your young child?

We still go about our daily business, and on the surface, we're nice to each other. We pretend it doesn't matter that at our cores, we are wildly different people and that fate has thrown us together to form a "family".

We pretend it's easy to continue on in peace and harmony, and that our souls aren't being slowly crushed by the silent, heavy weight of our disagreement.

We smile, we bake cookies, we play Monopoly, all the while secretely judging and keeping our true feelings about each other hidden deep in the darkest corners of our hearts; yet in the heat of the moment, how quickly those same feelings fly off the tips of our tongues in hateful, fiery diatribes.

American Idol has done this to us.

Mike wants Katharine McPhee.

I want Taylor.

Finbar wants Chris.

Molly just wants to stay up late and Meg is just trying to keep the peace.

Chris rocked it last night, he did, and truth be told, he makes my naughties tingle.

Any other year, Kathryn would've and should've won.

But there's something so organically magical about Taylor...he just makes me so happy.

I know there are 11 weeks left, and it's anyone's game, it really is...I love the fact that there are so many potential champions this year, a real horserace.

The question is, come May, when the fifth American Idol is crowned and the McCollow's are re-enacting the last scene from West Side Story, who will be there to help me pick up the pieces of my shattered home? Simon?

March 12 '06

So I'm back home, always good to get home, but it was such a nice trip. The nicest I've ever had, in fact, the weather was very cooperative. 75 and sunny every day, cool enough at night for a sweatshirt, never had to turn on the ac. Spent mornings at the pool, afternoons at the beach, fished, sailed and grilled yummy dinners every night. Came home to a mess of a house.

Certain people in my life who shall remain nameless (rhymes with "my pamily") enjoy calling me a 'neat freak'. I object to this lable, as I believe my mission of eradicating all traces of dirt and bacterium, whether real or imagined, from my home is a noble cause, and perhaps it is their perverse indifference to said offenders that is freakish. At any rate, I usually clean my house within an inch of its life before leaving town, so that I may have the pleasure of being greeted with a pleasant living environment upon my return.

Didn't do it this time, not because of any time constraints, but because I wanted to test myself and just see if it was even possible for me to leave baskets of dirty laundry and toothpaste globs in the sink and still sleep at night. I slept at night, just fine in fact, but coming home to the mess was so depressing, I learned my lesson; next time I'll clean. This is me, I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it, for better or worse.

In a fit of frustration my young son once shrieked at me while I vacuumed during Sponge Bob or something, "Why does everything have to be clean all the time?" and the real answer will shock no one who reads this blog regularly:

It makes the voices quiet.

(I kid. The voices are never quiet.)

I've always been this way, though, even when I was a kid. I used to clean the house all the time and I told my mom when I grew up, I wanted to be a maid. Our house was a force to be reckoned with for a Felix-type, too. Eleven people under one roof, 10 of whom were decidedly not neat freaks? C'mon.

Once, when dad was out of town working on a story, I snuck into his office and cleaned the snot out of it, cleaned his desk completely off and set it all up like the desk of my fantasies: a blotter, a small jar of pens, a clock, a phone. Dad got home, took one look and went white. He kneeled down and said to me, "Thanks, Katie, that was really nice. Don't ever do it again."

Another time, I invited Sue Hall to sleep over, and I woke her up at three a.m. and made her help me clean our kitchen. I told her it was a surprise for my mom. After two hours of hauling trash and scrubbing the floor, I let her go back to sleep, but I just sat there 'til dawn, admiring my handiwork. It never once occured to me that this sort of behavior was maybe why I wasn't the most popular girl at school.

Even pregnant with Meg, JP took one look at me wiping down a table top for the third time and remarked, "Just think...soon Katie will have her own baby to clean up after."

Ok, I realize I didn't touch on the boys of American Idol.

My thoughts:

Chris, Elliot, and Taylor have pulled away from the pack. I was SHOCKED the throwbacky Sam-Cookeish black kid was sent home, he was great, especially when baby faced Kevin, who's voice sounds like an annoying, lisp-riddled honk, or when no-better-than-your-average- boy-band-singer Ace still fouls up my screen or Bucky the redneck, who's fine enough for a backwoods honky tonk but not American Idol is still there.

March '07

My dear friend Melanie's mother Donna has published her first book! BUY IT BUY IT BUY IT.

March 07 '06

Ewwwwwwwww I am so completely grossed out at Simon Cowell's bald-faced lust for poor little naive Kellie Pickler I think I need to shower!

"You are what is known as a naughty little minx."

Ummm...WHAT???? Simon, darling, you better be damn thankful Kellie's dad is already in jail, 'cuz I'm guessin' if her heard that he'd wind up with an even longer sentence. Jiminy. And then he looked at her over his enormous cup of coca-cola like she was standing there in garters, heels and nothing else. AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

Later overheard in Kellie P's hotel room:

"You just strap it on, dahhling, it's no big deal..."

"Omigawd, Saaahmin, are you sure this'll get me to the fahnal two?"

"It worked for Clay Aiken, now didn't it?"

ewwwwwwwwww. Sorry. Really and truly, I'm sorry for that.

Nanny McPhee and Mandisa were the best tonight. Mike thinks Kellie Pickler has jumped the shark with her whole "Huh? Aahve never seen cell phones before" small town girl shtick, I think the phrase "jumped the shark" has jumped the shark and needs to be retired.

Kirby Puckett...I ain't got the words.

March 2 '06

Five minutes ago, I was standing in the dark with my son, looking up at a sky full of stars with my toes dipped into the Gulf of Mexico. Life is good...

The travelling was decent, the, kids did great. I sat with Finny and Molly and Mike and Meg sat across the aisle. We forgot to bring any movies, so that was out, but it was fine anyway, we played hangman and made up word finds and sodukus and what have you, and finally Molly passed out with her head in my lap and Buffett on the ipod. Finny also put his head down and, explaining that they were sweaty, peeled off his socks. Half-hearing this, Molly popped up and yelled blearily, "Hey, I want one!"

Ah, to be the youngest...she spends 99% of her time making sure she's not getting shafted.

Love, love love the ocean. Have to put Molly to bed now.

March 1 '06

Got this this morning:

Dear Katie:

"...a Brokeback Mountain rump roast."!!!!

That's awful!!!

Love, Mom

Now, my mom's a great cook, but I take umbrage with her passing judgement on a rump roast she has not tasted and I haven't even cooked yet.

Earlier on March 1 '06

We're all done with strep, hip hip hooooray! OK, I say that, now watch Molly wake up with it tomorrow.

Thank God for American Idol, helping me get over the hump of my olympics withdrawal. Last night was the girls, and they all sort of blew. Maybe that's too strong, but it was just a bore of a show. The best were mediocre and the wrost made my ears hurt and bored me at the same time. Some of these girls need to be told to quit it with the "legs out wide and I'm kind of crouching" stance. They tend to do it when they're really straining to hit a note, as if the sight of them squatting like they're about to have a baby in the middle of a rice field will distract the audience from the fact they'd need a ladder to get up that high. Plus Simon and Paula have seriously jumped the shark.

Paula's always been a complete idiot, but this season it's like she's taking stupid pills. She can't even complete a sentence.

"When you've got it, you've got...you're an amazing...regardless...you're a star." Huh. Lucid.

And Simon has blown his wad in compliments and insults alike. When he's not telling people they're the best singer he's heard in five seasons, he's making up some weird analogy in order to tell you you stink.

"You remind me of a seal trapped in a jar of peanut butter."

"It's like I'm watching a midget trying to be an astronaut."

??????

Countin' it down to the Oscars...not goin' to any parties, I hate oscar parties, where everyone dresses up and eats Lord of the Onion Rings or Good Night and Ground Chuck burgers or something and talks too much and I can't really watch the show like I want to. My relationship with Hollywood is complex and strange and a lot like a schoolgirl crush, complete with moods swinging from desperate love to deep, blinding hatred and just like in eighth grade when I locked myself in my room so I could be alone with my Rocky 3 poster, I need to be alone with my Oscars.

And just like with a schoolgirl crush who ignores me, I'll say terrible things about it to anyone who'll listen in the hopes of crushing it's self-esteem into a runny paste.

Nope, party away, ye revelers, but come Sunday night it'll just be me, the tv, a bottle of tequila and a Brokeback Mountain rump roast.

© Katie McCollow, 2006