Obligitory Michael Jackson post

Well, really, I don't know what to say. I'm not sad, exactly, but I do find the entire thing completely unbelievable in an I-can't-wrap-my-head-around-this way. Michael Jackson is one of those iconic celebrities you expect to always be there.

Just like everyone else today, I'm contemplating the influence MJ had on my youth and musical tastes. I'm not going to lie to you: Growing up I was a pretty big fan. I remember having both this poster and his Bad/Pepsi poster hanging up in my room. I own Thriller on both vinyl and cassette. (And, Lord help me, remember thinking he looked quite foxy on the album cover in that white suit and with that tiger.) I remember clearly the first time I saw the video for Thriller; watching with my brother, terrified and mesmerized at the same time. Perhaps my love of zombies comes from that moment.

And let's take a second to talk about the dancing. Linda over at NPR has a really good write up about Michael Jackson's performance on Motown 25, which I am really too young to remember properly, although I feel confident that I "watched" it with the rest of my family. Think, for a second, what an impact the Moonwalk made on dancing. For that matter, think about the impact of all Michael's moves have made on dancing. I'm pretty sure modern day popping and locking is heavily influenced by him. I mean, look at this video for "Smooth Criminal" (which I can remember boggling my mind the first time I saw it -- was it a movie? TV special? What was that lean thing?) and marvel:



All of this is not to forget all of his later sideshow behaviors, plastic surgeries and misdemeanors. I'm not excusing or forgetting any of that. Sars sort of says it very well, as she always does. Thing is, despite all of that, I like his music very much, and growing up (prior to his forays into facial reconstruction and alleged child molestation) I enjoyed being entertained by him.

Sometimes you just got to rock out to "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," yanno?

Look what I just did —

I up and changed my template.

I'm having mixed feelings about this. The sidebar links are way too small for my liking. I feel like the lighter blues are hard to see. And there's an awful lot of...brown going on here.

This all came about because I was trying to figure out how to put a link to older posts at the bottom of my page — which if you scroll down to the bottom of my page, you can see I still haven't figured out how to do. Coding smarties, help a girl out! — and I decided to do something a wee bit drastic. This is a template I've had forever, leftover from my now defunct Photo Fiction blog. The woman who designed it, Miss Zoot, no longer designs templates, but I remember she had a similar theme to this one, but in sweet red and maroon colors. What I wouldn't give for that template now.

ANYWAY, I'm trying this out for a few days. I still have the old template all tucked away for posterity, so it may come back. But Lordy, that green had been around for a long time. A change of some sort had to happen. What I DO love about this template, is the rad borders around photos. Check it:


(photo of Melissa Lynch, from my brother's show Skin Deep)

See? Love that.

Anyway, we'll see how long this template lasts. If you spot any good looking templates in your travels, send them my way.

And oh, you guys. I have so much I've been meaning to post about. But silly me, I foolishly thought that no longer being in grad school meant I would have free time. Instead it means that I now have a billion people I must socialize with because I was ignoring them the entire time I was being studious. I promise you all: A real update soon.

Just when you thought I was done with academic nonsense...

Bugger, bugger, bugger. Totally spaced on the fact that I agreed to present my paper from the Who Conference at the Rosemont Grad Conference. Which is, um, this Saturday.

Normally this wouldn't be such a terrible or awful thing, except: (1) I have eleventy frillion things going on this weekend, including Midsummer Ritual, Tree and Al's going away party, and going home to Lebanon for the annual Father's Day Hersey Park Trip. (2) I am waaaay behind in my revisions of the paper for the book. Which was due a few weeks ago. What can I say? I'm pulling a Doc. ANYWAY, the book people know it's late and that I'm still working on it and whatnot, but Sarah wants to read the paper well before Saturday and offer suggestions for further rewrites, which hahahahahaha, I love her optimism.

All of this is putting it plainly to me that I do not want to pursue a PhD any time in the near future as I loathe this style of writing. Doc and I had a conversation about it a month or two ago where I asked him if he enjoyed academic writing. He enthusiastically responded that he did. No, not me. I have the worst time wrapping my head around it. I like to be able to have style and flair and an easy conversational tone in my writing. Working on this rewrite puts me right back into the same struggle I had when I initially wrote the paper and it's entirely frustrating. I feel stagnant and lost and unable to articulate myself properly; it's just maddening. I tried to express this to the Doc and he seemed to understand what I was going through and offered me a number of suggestions. He also reminded me that he's been an academic writer for a long time and that it doesn't come to you over night. Still, working on this makes me want to claw at my skin in despair.

ANYWAY, for those that missed the Welsh version, I will be presenting my paper again at Rosemont this Saturday, time TBA. I'm almost more nervous about presenting it this time around because I will actually know people and have to face them afterward, plus I don't want to disappoint Sarah. But if I blow major chunks, I am comforted that I will have a party to attend afterward that will have alcohol to comfort me, not to mention a super-cute little lady to cheer me.

In the meantime, my car is in the shop. I need to get a haircut. I'd like to shop for some new ritual attire. I have my final(!) dentist appointment tomorrow. I'm going to see the New York Dolls on Thursday. I have, like, 14 blog updates to do to recap recent adventures to Llama-palooza, going to see Cinematic Titanic (OMG, hilarious, amazing and made my life), and Six Flags. Stay tuned.

I can't help being angry when I'm furious

Earlier this week, I engaged in some obsessive behavior. I was home alone on Monday night, and instead of doing something productive, I watched a marathon of Black Books. And after the marathon of Black Books, I engaged in further obsessive behavior by listening to the commentary for several episodes, including the series 2 finale episode, which had me laughing so hard I couldn't breathe.

This led to me once again becoming all moony over the genius and hotness of Dylan Moran. As one LisRock will attest, the man is sex on legs. And you know what? I don't have a boyfriend, nor do I have any prospects for a boyfriend; so what if I indulge in a little celebrity fantasy with a hot snarky Irishman? Don't judge me.

So come Tuesday, I was listening to some of his standup bits and thinking, damn, I'd love to see him perform. I mean, come on:




Right? So I do a search and I found a website and then looked up information on tours. And all I come up with is this show, which, as much as I love London, is no help to me right now. Ces't La Vie. I forgot about it and moved on with my life.

Until about 20 minutes ago, at 11:30pm when my brother calls me. To tell me that he just met Dylan Moran. In Philadelphia. At the Troc. Where he was performing. Tonight.

"I shook his hand," my brother told me. "I don't think I'll be washing my hand for awhile."

Of course my first question was WHY DID YOU NOT TAKE ME WITH YOU?! For which my brother did not really have an answer.

See, it's times like this I feel like the Universe is trying to tell me things and I was just clueless. I mean, really, what are the odds that I go on a Black Books/Dylan Moran kick and two days later he's in town? If I had dug a little deeper, I could have found out he was currently touring, doing a show, gone, and met him my damn self. Instead, I gave up after the first snag and missed out. I was a quitter, I guess. I come from a long line of quitters. It's amazing I'm here at all. But then, there's the guilty party of my brother, who, I would like to point out again, did not take me.

"Kate, he was so cool," Tom told me. "I told him I directed Mark Doherty's play, Trad and then we had, like, a thing."

It was then that I made my brother promise me that he was going to track down Dylan Moran's agent and get Mr. Moran to star in one of his shows. And then I could take lots of pretty pictures of Dylan and die a happy woman.

My brother was pretty star struck himself, telling me "I'm 99.9% heterosexual, but I would totally go gay for Dylan Moran."

"Tom," I replied. "I am heterosexual and I can't believe you didn't take me to see Dylan Moran."

"I got a poster at the show. You could look at it, I guess."

I would like to reiterate, for those of you that just joined us, that after everything I've done for my brother – photography, rides, fetching, carrying, coding websites, making brochures, supporting him at every turn – let the record show that he did not take me with him to meet Dylan Moran. Instead he called me to gloat. Piss midget.

Please oh please oh please...

I've sent out several emails this morning. Most seem to go like this:

Hello, I was wondering if you currently offer, or plan to soon offer, adult classes. I'm in my late 20s and I used to dance when I was younger. Now that I'm finished with college and graduate school, I'm desperate to return to dancing! I am aware that there are several schools that do offer adult instruction, however most would be an hour or more commute for me, and I am looking for something a little closer. [School Name] would be a good match for me, both with location and considering the school's rich history and tradition. Thanks so much!

Why is it that all the Irish Dance Schools that teach adults are in Bucks County? Common! I wanna do this again! This would (1) satisfy my longing to get back to dancing, (2) help me shed some of these damn pounds already, since I find regular exercise to be incredibly boring, and (3) put me back in touch with some heritage and culture.

One major con though: $$$$$. I forgot how damned expensive this is. One place costs $500 a year for classes alone. That doesn't include shoes (roughly $200) or dress (eleventy thousand dollars). And that's not taking into consideration competition fees and whatnot (if I'm good enough to compete again).

Still, I have my fingers crossed, and ask you to keep yours crossed too.

An endearing moment from Gary

The Scene: Living room, midnightish, watching the Tonight Show with Conan.

The Set-up: A commercial for I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Outta Here! featuring Heidi Pratt crying on camera and announcer saying something like, "Don't cry, Heidi, it's only your second night in the jungle!"

Gary: "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Outta Here?" This is a show?

Me: Yeah. Although the term "celebrity" is used pretty loosely. Like, the biggest celebrity on that show right now is Lou Diamond Philips.

Gary: And Heidi Klum.

Me: ...What?

Gary: Heidi Klum. On the commercial.

Me: That...wasn't Heidi Klum.

Gary: It's not? I didn't think it looked like her, but it's the only Heidi I know that's famous.

Me: Heeee!

I am so, so thankful that Gary has no idea who those Hills/Laguna Beach people are. The fact that I know who those vapid, useless, famewhores are makes me cry inside each day. But seeing as my old roommate, Mike, watched those shows all the time claiming the girls were "hot," I sadly have way too much of my brain space devoted to knowledge of these people and their continued existence in pop culture.

The Vote of the People

Sarah advised me that Bartleby Snopes has a call for photos for their next issue. So I'm going to submit. But I need your help, because I don't know what to submit. I have about eleventy thousand photos, most of them portraits, interestingly enough. Also, I'm sort of unsure about what those Bartleby Snopes kids are looking for. Their first issue doesn't give me much to go from. Are they looking for more artsy? Sweet? Standalone photography art? So I'm going to ask you for your help. We're taking a poll here, people.

I've sifted through my Flickr, and come up with these 30. I've tried to find the ones most versatile, but feel free to look through and find others if your favorites aren't in here. Please vote in the comments!
Phew. Please vote early, vote often, and vote awesome. (FYI, there's no limit to the number I can submit, but I obviously want to submit my best work. You can list several, if you like.)


VOTING IS NOW CLOSED.

Thanks, everyone, for your help. I submitted something like 10 shots this morning and now we wait.

In the meantime, my brain is cooking. Looking over this lit journal made me miss working on Woodcrest all those years ago. I can't put my finger on it, exactly, but there's something so special and and exciting about working on a creative publication like this. I think I'd like to do it again. Anyone know of any lit journals that are looking for help? Anyone want to start a lit journal with me?


UPDATE

Well, that didn't take long. Not 10 minutes after I submitted, I got an enthusiastic email and it seems they will be using several of my shots. WOOT! Thanks for all of your help and advice!