Sticky, Sweet, & A Little Overdressed

Happy birthday, ! I’m so grateful for your friendship after all this time. I hope you have the beautiful day you deserve, and that the year ahead holds wonderful surprises and joy.

When I saw Michael Moore speak a few weeks ago, he made several references to sharing his work with other people, as in, “I don’t care if you photocopy this book and pass it out to friends — just get people to read it!” (He was talking about his new book, “Will They Ever Trust Us Again? Letters From the War Zone” but he made the same kinds of comments about other of his works.) Moore also has free rental programs for the video, and he and his distributor have been allowing public access channels to broadcast it for free. (Here’s a fairly negative article about the plans underway in Nashville to do just that.)

In that spirit, I came across a site that has downloadable copies of Fahrenheit 9/11 so anyone can see the movie if they just download it.

Taken from Video ETA’s newsletter:

I can imagine that there’s nothing worse than working on a movie and then an outside event, which you have no control over, makes your script obsolete. That was precisely the case for the Farrelly brothers when the Red Sox clinched the World Series on Wednesday night.

The Farrelly brothers are in the middle of filming Fever Pitch for Fox about a woman, played by Drew Barrymore, who falls in love with a crazed Red Sox fan played by Jimmy Fallon. The original story was set in the midst of the 2004 Red Sox season and banked on the 85 years of futility to continue. The ending showed the perseverance of love as their relationship survives yet another heartbreaking post-season loss to the Yankees.

When the Red Sox won game 4 of the American League Championship series, the Farrellys brought the writers back in to work an alternate ending in case the improbable comeback became reality. In September, the production filmed at a couple Red Sox games in Fenway Park and figured their location shooting was over.

But, those with excellent vision might have caught a brief moment of filmmaking during Fox TV’s coverage of the the post-game celebration. Jimmy Fallon, who is a die-hard Sox fan in real life, had charged onto the field to help celebrate the World Series victory and passionately embraced an unknown (at that time) woman in the midst of the revelry.

Later, the woman was identified as Drew Barrymore and rumors of a romance began to surface on the Internet. In actuality, the Farrellys brought a skeleton production crew to St. Louis for Game 4 and the actual post-game celebration will make its way into the movie that is scheduled to hit theaters next October.

Country singer Gary Allan’s wife shot and killed herself a few days ago.

http://www.countryweekly.com/stories/scene.cfm?instanceid=62624
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/10013406.htm
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1026gary-allan26-ON.html
http://www.netmusiccountdown.com/inc/news_article.php?id=6720

And how weird that I haven’t seen any local coverage of this, considering that they’re residents of Hendersonville. You’d think the City Paper would have something on it. (Maybe it was on the local news, but here’s where I admit that I didn’t work out this morning or yesterday morning, so I wouldn’t have seen it.)

I know folks who’ve had songs cut by Gary Allan, and I’ve heard he’s a decent guy. Sucks to think of him and his 6 (!) kids dealing with this.

Ever since my dad started pressuring me to go to this past weekend’s family wedding in Baltimore — and the pressure started back in August — I’ve been meaning to dig out my saved copy of this email exchange and post it for you all to read and for me to re-read. Because it’s one of the things that makes me realize how much I’m going to miss my dad. I’ll post more about the wedding itself later.

Back in October 1998, I found a web site called Familypoint.com that was supposed to be a virtual meeting place for extended families. I set up a site for my family and mentioned it to my parents just before they attended a family wedding in Baltimore so they could spread the word about it to everyone. One of my cousins who is roughly my age found my personal web site through a series of links from the Familypoint.com site and was apparently shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that I’m bi and poly.

Her father, my uncle, promptly sent me a nasty email about it. (more…)

Looking for a job as a spammer?

OK! I’m off to see Michael Moore at the Gaylord Entertainment Center. Whee!

And, unlike most memes, actually reveals something about me. I think it reveals that I’m a goofy Hall & Oates fan, if nothing else.

Choose a band/or artist and answer only in song TITLES by that band:
Daryl Hall & John Oates

Are you female or male:
All American Girl

Describe yourself:
Someone Like You

How do some people feel about you:
The Woman Comes And Goes

How do you feel about yourself:
Halfway There

Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend:
The Girl Who Used To Be

Describe your current girlfriend/boyfriend:
What’s Important To Me

Describe where you want to be:
Pleasure Beach

Describe what you want to be:
Rich Girl

Describe how you live:
Head Above Water

Describe how you love:
Don’t Hold Back Your Love

Share a few words of wisdom:
Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid

Bands // Song Titles brought to you by BZOINK!

(Quick aside: Happy birthday, !)

Great news! I pre-qualified for a mortgage this morning at a good rate for a decent sum of money (relative to what I thought I’d be able to borrow). I now have six months to find a home and be locked in at this rate.

The not-so-thrilling part is that, well, I won’t even have the teensy downpayment saved up until sometime next spring, which will leave little time to close on a house. But it’s not impossible, not by any means.

The other not-so-thrilling part is, you know that fairly decent sum of money I can borrow? Well, that plus my teensy downpayment adds up to what 250-square-foot cardboard houses are selling for in the parts of town I want to live in.

But I’m optimistic. I know that real estate agents know things that most folks don’t about what’s available and how to get it cheaper, and we haven’t even begun talking to agents yet. I’m betting that will be reassuring. And one advantage of having to wait four or five months to save up my downpayment is that we can take our time and look around.

Of course, it also means we can’t act quickly if we find our dream home, but what are the odds of our dream home being made of cardboard anyway?

Anyway. Yay! I think it’s promising, even if the plan has a few quirks. What’s life without quirks?

Had a bizarre little dream yesterday morning. I saw and as little girls, maybe 8 years old, ice skating. kept skating round and round in little circles, and she said she was trying to see if she could make a circle of ice fall through like in the cartoons. , on the other hand, was skating very carefully and deliberately as if she were forming hypotheses about technique and then testing them one by one. Right before I woke from the dream, said “I don’t know what I’m doing; I just want to go fast.”

We don’t plan to do much with it right away, but in case anyone is interested, I created a new journal at in which and I eventually plan to post songwriting biz updates. In case anyone is interested.

She’s here! She’s finally here!

Hot off the presses, here are some pictures of Bopper, the newest addition to our kitty family.

It wasn’t easy meeting five cats, some of whom are more than four times your size!
http://www.honeybowtie.com/kate/kitties/images/bopper_faceoff_10042004.jpg

But how could anyone resist Her Royal Cuteness?
http://www.honeybowtie.com/kate/kitties/images/bopper_fromabove_10042004.jpg

After many hours, everyone kept their distance, but Bopper was still very curious.
http://www.honeybowtie.com/kate/kitties/images/bopper_profile_10042004.jpg

Now she’s finally relaxing after a long, scary day of meeting five huge cats:
http://www.honeybowtie.com/kate/kitties/images/bopper_relaxing_10042004.jpg

Edit: Here’s another one, too adorable not to share:
http://www.honeybowtie.com/kate/kitties/images/bopper_ninjapose_10042004.jpg

I wonder how much lipstick the average woman ends up ingesting in a year.

Every time I see that meme with all the “would you… go out with me? let me kiss you? etc” questions and how it ends with “would you come pick me up at 3 AM…”, I get an earworm of the Ryan Adams’ song “Come Pick Me Up.” I love that song, but with that simple melody repeating so many times through the chorus, it’s a damn sticky earworm.

Come pick me up
Take me out
Fuck me up
Steal my records
Screw all my friends
They’re all full of shit
With a smile on your face
And then do it again
I wish you would

Having bad luck with DVDs lately! I rented “Outfoxed” last night, and it wouldn’t play. (This is, unfortunately, not an unusual scenario with our DVD player, which is the DVD-ROM drive in Karsten’s 4-year old G4). Then I got up nice and early to watch “Bad Santa” on my own since Karsten isn’t interested in it (he stays up late to watch movies alone; I get up early), and it won’t play. I’m sure I’m not missing much on “Bad Santa,” but I’m still bummed about “Outfoxed.”

We need a new DVD player.

I was flipping radio stations while driving home this evening and came across “Live Like You Were Dying” so I stopped and listened for a while. Man! Not only does that song pack a particularly powerful punch in my life at the moment, what with my dad’s situation, but it’s just airtight, musically and lyrically. Great production, great performance by Tim McGraw. I felt overcome with envy. So that got me thinking about other songs I wish I’d written, and I decided to start listing them. After all, I can always refer to this list when I need inspiration.

I also decided to limit the list to songs which were probably written in Nashville, and probably intended for the country market, since that’s where we’re aiming and I sometimes find it so stifling that it’ll be a good reminder to see a list of great songs that stayed within the “safe” limits of country radio acceptability.

So this is the beginning of it…

Live Like You Were Dying
(James Nichols / Craig Wiseman)

I Hope You Dance
(Mark Sanders / Tia Sillers)

A Little Past Little Rock
(James Brown / Brett Jones / Tony Lane)

You’ll Think Of Me
(Darrell Brown / Ty Lacy / Dennis Matkosky)

Bring On The Rain
(Helen Darling / Billy Montana)

[Edit: additions since original post]
Every Light In The House
(Kent Robbins)