Category: kat

Oy, I’ve been sooooooo sick

I had some flu-like something that kicked my ass for well over ten days and you didn’t even send flowers.  Thanks for the love.

I emerged briefly to go to the grocery store one week day, thinking I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew in the middle of the day as I staggered around unshowered and confused.  Ha! I ran into a distant relative who was shockingly well put together for a trip to BiLo, as well as a former teacher from elementary school AND a high school boyfriend.  GREAT!

When I ran out of Sprite the next time, I decided to try Ingle’s in my pajamas since BiLo was too much of a social hotspot.  And I ran into a Crank County Daredevil (were you wearing eyeliner at the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon?) and a Hollywood Vampire just as I walked in the door at the good ol’ Ingle’s.  Superduper!  I smell funny, I look like hell and I’ve been wearing the same clothes for days so it’s a perfect social opportunity!

 I’m better now.  Finally have enough energy to get around to paying bills, doing laundry and bitching on my blog.  It’s not too late to send those flowers.

that really hot guy at the crank county shows

So there’s this guy that I consider ridiculously hot, and he shows up at most of the Crank County shows.  I’ve never seen him in the light of day or anywhere else I wander, but in dimly lit bars surrounded by flailing drunks, he’s hot.

At the CCD/Luxury Pushers/Automanic show, he ended up shirtless…and I was like “heh heh heh heh heh…”  Seeing as I was  smashed into a herd of good-looking, strong, sweaty shirtless men, it might be hard to pick just one out.  Ah, but there was one.

At Stella Blue on Friday, he was chatting with some chicks post-show.  And I looked at him.  And he looked at me, or at something near me, but for ego’s sake, I’m going to go with the idea that he was looking at me.  And I looked at him some more, assessing if the chicks were chicks he was “with” or just chicks he was with…like, I was with some guys, but I wasn’t “with” any of the guys, know what I mean?  I’m so glad you and I can have these deep conversations.

Anyway.  I know that he knows some of the guys I was hangin’ with, as earlier in the evening they’d shared a man-hug (one armed, usually involves some slapping on the back or shoulder while trying not to spill the beer).  But I don’t know him.

I am not shy.  I blurt out all kinds of things to all kinds of people (hello, I’m telling you all this deep stuff, I’m not good at self-editing) all the time.  For all the Jager in Stella, I couldn’t have walked over there and said anything to him on Friday.  Don’t know why.  And at Fred’s, he was close by at the end of the night, too, but nary a word could I blurt.
I think maybe possibly part of the allure is the unknown.  All I know for now is that we like the same band, and that he’s hot.  If I know real things about him, it could all fall apart and what’s the fun in that?  He might still live with his mom, or maybe he has fifteen kids that he pays no child support for, or perhaps he has an extra nipple on the side of his neck—all these things would shatter the illusion of hotness!

This is extra especially on my mind this evening since the last local CCD show for a while is about to get underway at The Orange Peel as they open for the Misfits, and I’m here at home.  I’ve got a huge project at work at dawn tomorrow, and Minime, of course, has school, so I’m at home, missing out on something.  Or missing out on nothing.  He could be gay!  He could be celibate.  He could be a celibate gay who lives at home with mom saving money to remove the nipple on his neck!

So I guess I’ll just sulk, I’ll pout, I’ll whine…and keep my fingers cross that we cross paths in the light of day (please God, let it be on a day I look good, not on a day I look like something the dog barfed up on the couch).  And on that day, I’ll have something good to say.

I Love “Valley Girl”

I had to shake off the drama of Brokeback Mountain and Butterfly Effect, so Netflix bestowed Valley Girl upon me this weekend.  I love this movie.  It’s one of my all time favorites, ever.  Young Nicholas Cage: he’s a punk, he’s furry and he’s ever so hot. So Hott.

It’s a corny movie, predictable, but the soundtrack is tons of fun.  The Plimsouls are in the movie several times as the Hollywood bar band in the dive that Randy and Fred frequent, so you hear several of their ditties.  “I Melt With You” by Modern English figures heavily into this movie; long before it was a Burger King commercial, kids, this was music I liked ever so much.

Where is my Nicholas Cage, my punk Randy, ready to punch out the prom king in my honor?  I’m waiting.  Sigh.

Soccer: We All Need A Kick In the Grass

Ok, I signed up.  I did it.  I paid my money to sign up for adult recreational soccer.  I started playing soccer when I was five, often the only girl on the team, and I’ve really missed the game.

I haven’t played at all since the fateful day I broke my arm playing FreakinSoccer at the indoor soccer center years ago.  I remember it well—splayed out on the field with Referee Bob telling me to stand up, shake it off, I’d be ok… Ooooo but the pain in my arm was not just in my wrist; it was in my brain and in my stomach and in my teeth, everywhere, sickening.

And indeed, I’d managed to break both bones in my lower arm.  My cast was purple and went up to my shoulder.  When it was time to get my second shorter cast, unfortunately, the gauze from the first cast had grown into my hand (if you look closely, you can see the scarred pattern of the gauze on my right hand) so I ended up in a brace to let the gauze wound heal.  Yuck.

I haven’t played at all since then.  I gave up soccer, took up running, which I’m not particularly good at in the competitive sense, being slooooooooooooow as I am, but I can usually go for longer runs than the gazelles I know.  Thanks to two foot fractures in the last year, running hasn’t been too high on my list of favorite things to do, but I’m still plugging along.

I miss soccer, though.   I miss sweaty men with strong soccer-playing legs, I miss making the play that makes the crowd cheer.  I miss bantering with my goalie, playing a good defense.

I’m a little nervous since I’m ridiculously out of practice, but like all things, I could put it off forever, so I’m just doing it.  If I make an ass of myself, I’m sure I’ll have fun in the process.  Ashevillians, you can still sign up through tomorrow:  https://www.youthleaguesusa.com/abysa/adult/07-08/AdultRec.html

A Possum Tale. Tail. Tale.

I have an alarming number of pets.  They keep showing up at my house and I’m helpless to stop it, so I just name them, neuter them, collar them and feed them.

With the alarming number of pets comes a collection of dead animal offerings from both the cats and the dogs.  They bring me gifts.  Snicklefritz was recently ambitious enough to carry his offering of a dead mole all the way in through the cat window in my office to the living room, quite a long trek, but he wanted to show it off.  Over the years, I’ve been presented with rabbits, birds, mice, moles, rats, squirrels, possums, chipmunks and a few things I couldn’t readily identify.

I’m not overly squeamish, since in most cases, the deceased creature in question is pretty much still intact, just a little, errr, rigid.  Praise the pet (“oooo thank you so much for bringing me a mouse.  ooooo yes, yay.) and dispose o’ the carcass when the pet isn’t looking.

When I woke up yesterday and went out to feed the dogs on the back porch, I spied a possum in the yard by the swing-set, a possum who was not playing possum and had gone on to that great possum crossing in the sky. 

I wanted to get rid of Mister Possum before the kids got up, so I decided the right thing to do would be to toss him into my neighbor’s yard (I am so popular in my neighborhood).  My neighbor has a densely wooded area in their backyard that they don’t use at all, handy for carcass tossing.

I traipse out in the yard in my pajamas and ginormous fuzzy blue slippers.  First, I poke Mister Possum with my slipper to make sure he really is no longer of this world, and he is not of this world, he is on the spiritual plane o’ possums.  And then I go to grab his tail to frisbee him over the fence.

 And.

And.

And.

And…his tail comes off in my hand!  Ohhhhhhhhh myyyyyyy godddddddddddddd ok now I’m squeamish I have a possum tail in my hand and a dead possum on the ground aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack what have I done to deserve this oh the possum tail is cold it’s collllllllld ack ack ack ack ack!

I took a deep breath—not a good idea in hindsight, because the possum really smelled bad.  I threw the tail over the fence and did a little dance of revulsion.  After that, I stared at the possum, afraid to pick it up because if its head came off in my hand, I would officially spew chunks.

One of my dogs, Julie Beans, must’ve known I was in need of an answer.  She brought me a big stick.  Aha!  I took the stick from Julie Beans,  found another big stick and made myself some carcass tongs.  I tonged the carcass with the sticks just like a bowl of that house salad at Olive Garden, and then I chucked the possum and possum tongs over the fence.

Just a run of the mill Saturday morning at my house.  How was your weekend?

Best Bruises Ever

From last weekend’s sweaty, flailing mosh pit at the Crank County show, I still have quite a few huge bruises.  Generally, if you’re the sober one in the pit, somehow all the rubbery, bouncy drunks fall on you–they leave unscathed, you leave looking like you’ve been beaten with a lead pipe.

I have a huge bruise on each arm.  I have a bruise on my left shoulder.  I have a bruise on my right boob, and I remember the exact moment of it, because after that smashing blow to the cleavage, I had to request that the gent in question stop heaving himself into my decolletage with such force.  He complied, thank goodness, or I might have a matched set of cleavage bruises today.

I’m not complaining, mind you.  I could’ve moved out of the crazy action and into a tamer zone at any time, but I chose to stay in and had a really great time.

The collection of bruises got me thinking about bruises from shows past, and the best bruise ever.  The runner up bruise(s) come from a Vic Crown show at Stella Blue where I threw myself in the pit not so much to rock out but as sort of a referee.  Someone was going to get hurt if someone (someone sober) didn’t yank the drunk people up off the floor…so that’s what I was doing when I got nailed by some airborne flailing guy.  The next morning, my right arm was purple from the shoulder all the way down to the elbow; it was so horrific I had to hide it at work to avoid the inevitable questions.

The winning Best Bruise of All Time comes from a Ramones show that I went to in Atlanta with Barton and Wiley (Barton, by the way, has gone on to do some good musical things of his own).  Where were we?  Some warehouse of a venue.  Social Distortion opened, and very few people seemed interested in them, but I sure was, so I went down front and there I stayed, front and center, hand on the security rail that kept us off the stage. 

And then the Ramones came on, and suddenly that vast warehouse was full of people, all of them pushing forward, all of them wanting my spot in particular.  I absolutely lost Barton and Wiley in the crush of people.  There was one guy determined to pull me loose from the security rail so he could have my spot; he kept reaching around me and trying to yank me backward.  So I bit him, and he stopped.  My shirt was halfway off, but I wasn’t letting go to adjust it.  If I ended up topless, I was going to be topless front and center during the Ramones’ set.

People were crowd surfing all over the place.  It was so packed in there, crowd surfing was easy to do, there were no holes to fall in, just people everywhere.  One doofus got pushed all the way to the front, and he kicked me in the head.  I pushed him along, and he was back moments later, carried by the crowd, and he nailed me in the ear.  Last but not least, on his final pass through the front, he nailed me in the back so hard that I hit the security gate, momentarily losing my breath.

After the requisite post-show meal of waffles, I drove us back to Swannanoa.  Wiley and Barton slept.   I crashed fully clothed as soon as we got back, dead tired.

When I woke up the next morning and pulled off the remains of my shirt and the tatters that were once a decent bra, my back sang out a painful tune.  I approached the mirror, looked over my shoulder and saw in living color, angry purple, the perfect imprint of a Doc Marten on my back; I would guess it to be a size 10.  Best Bruise Ever.

Rawk on!!

Kat is So Hott

Hott with two t’s, hell yeah!

This fine evening, let’s reflect upon the latest offering from Kid Rock, So Hott.

Normally, I am not a Kid Rock fan.  I know his music when I hear it, and I don’t dislike it, but I’ve never been moved to buy anything of his.  I don’t turn Kid Rock off when he comes on the radio, but I also don’t normally turn it up either.

Then along comes So Hott off his upcoming release Rock n Roll Jesus.  Oh me oh my…some reviewers of this little ditty have called this song lyrically weak.  I, however, deem it to be straight to the point and pretty darn great–I shan’t print the lyrics here, just know that the language has to be edited for radio play–and we all know that my opinion is the only one that matters in all things.

This song is nassssssssssssssty.  Everything about it will inspire women from all walks of life to climb up on a table and twirl their undies over their heads.  It makes me want to install a stripper pole in my house because I’m so hott.  Actually, I’m hottt, with three t’s.  The more t’s the better.  The guitar riff absolutely grinds, backed by percussion that slams the message home: so hott.

The first time I heard the song I was driving down I-40.  I had to pull over so I could roll around on the hood of my car like in a Whitesnake video with So Hott blaring out of my speakers.  This week, I have to take my car into the body shop to remove the buttock-shaped dents in the hood.

While this song is not a masterpiece to go down forever as work of art, it certainly works its own brand of magic.  Musical Viagra…what could be sweeter than that on a Friday night?

So I was probably the last person on earth to get around to…

…renting Brokeback Mountain.  I knew the premise from all the hype.   Gay cowboys in love. 

I put in the DVD last night and started folding laundry, doubting I’d be interested at all…and before I knew it, I was boohooing with mismatched socks in my hands.

Why don’t you people warn me about these things?  It was so sad! It was so depressing!  Two people wasting their lives away, refusing to live out their dreams.  And then it was too late for them, no more second chances.  And then I’m crying all through the last 15 minutes of the movie.  Oh my god, when he finds their shirts in the closet from the first summer on Brokeback, I was a mess, just wailing.

The point here would be twofold: first, why don’t you people warn me not to rent this crap when I’m moody?!?  Send me a freakin’ email and say “Kat, Brokeback will rip your guts out right now.  Rent The Cable Guy instead.”  Second, go and love somebody with all your heart and soul right nowwwwwwwwwww I’m so aloooooooooooooooooooone.  Booohoooooooooooooo………………..

Let me pull myself together long enough to point out that I watched The Butterfly Effect last week, and no one warned me on that one either.  Horribly upsetting, horribly depressing, ack!!  The whole point of the movie is that life would’ve been better for everyone if he’d just died in the womb?  What the hell kind of entertainment is that?

Just another Friday night in Ashevegas

Friday night was fun, ya’ll!  Where were ya?  All the hot action was going down at Fred’s Speakeasy with a crazy lineup of Automanic, Luxury Pushers and Crank County Daredevils.  Thanks to my bro being fashionably late as always, I missed most of Automanic’s set.  Luxury Pushers were super cool (hunt ’em down on myspace) although I really wanted to give their guitarist a blood transfusion and a peanut butter sandwich; I could pick my teeth with that boy…but any band that opens their set with a few lines from “America” by Neil Diamond is ok in my book.

The crowd was happy as hell it was Friday, friendly and mostly drunk.  There was dancing and flailing for Luxury Pushers, which if you know Asheville’s music scene like I do, is insane–seldom will Ashevillians get up and show love to the headlining band, nevermind the opening bands. 

The bathroom at Fred’s is haunted.  My sis in law announced this to me early in the evening.  My own investigation led me to the same conclusion, so don’t pee alone in the Speakeasy ladies room.  One of the employees overheard us talking and threw in her own two cents of agreement.

By the time Crank County got rolling, the crowd that was drunk for Luxury Pushers was now wasted, but still friendly.  A mosh pit formed in front of the band, and for reasons I can’t understand, the men of the pit felt it best that they pull their shirts off.  Heh heh heh, ok, let me jump in there.  Makin’ friends with shirtless sweaty men, yeah.  One of my new friends felt compelled to give me random shoulder massages between songs.  Had I not been feeling a gentle Jager buzz, I probably would’ve punched him in the nose—no one touches the Katster without permission, especially when I don’t even know your name, but as I mentioned, it was a really friendly crowd, so I was going with the flow.  Good gawd it was hot, and I shouted out to my bro that I needed water, but he dissed me entirely!

Crank County put on their usual high octane show, but because the “stage” at Fred’s is just a corner of the room, the band is on the same level with the audience.  Audience members from the mosh pit are spilling over into the band, singing spontaneous backup vocals, good stuff.  By the time they rolled into their ass-kicking cover of GnR’s “It’s So Easy,” they’d just given up control of the vocals to the crowd entirely.  It was awesome, really fun.

Post show, we weren’t eager to leave Fred’s, we were having too much fun.  Bro, Sis in Law, and two super hottie rock stars from local bands were hanging with me at the bar.  I’m drinking water (thank god for water, thank you anonymous super hottie rock star for getting me water) and high five-ing my mosh pit brothers as they amble off into the night—some of them have located their shirts, some of them are wandering away without one.  We’re all just chillin’, shootin’ the shit.  It’s time for Fred’s to start closing up shop, so we hijack the super hottie rock stars in my brother’s vehicle, the BroMobile, and take our soiree to Denny’s.

Denny’s around 3 AM is a very strange place.  They have security guards in place to keep the peace should a brawl over maple syrup break out.  Everyone else in the place looked pretty cranky and tired, but our table was rowdy and happy—and maybe a little too loud, it’s hard to judge how loud you’re talking when your ears are ringing. 

Food at that late/early hour is good.  Any food at that hour is good…except, apparently, for the bacon (“oh my god, I think I might puke, that bacon is horrible, try it, no, really try it.  I think it’s raw, taste it.”) and some mysterious pancakes of evil (“I didn’t order pancakes.  Why are there pancakes here?”).  My bro redeemed himself for being late and letting me dehydrate at Fred’s by paying for my chow.

We drove our first super hottie rock star home and left him with his box of Satan’s pancakes of the damned…and as we were chauffering our second super hottie rock star home, that’s when the full belly sleepiness started washing over me and I couldn’t sit up straight. 

I was dropped off at home, locked the door behind me and started to strip on my way to the washer to deposit the funky laundry.  The smell of cigarette smoke and the sweat of mosh pit men was pretty gross; I had to wash the clothes immediately.  I wanted a shower, but couldn’t make it another step, collapsing on my bed, instantly asleep.  Good fun, good times, just another Friday night in Ashevegas.