Blink Kitty Love

THE NEIGHBORS

So, here we are, the weather's nice, we're out in the universe playing some basketball, zooming around parks and we're people watching.  And not just so we avoid running into them.  They (possibly you) are interesting.  And so related songs are coming to the top of our playlists.  Drop a few more in the comment slot.  Let's make a crowd of 'em.  Or share your favorite place to people watch.  If the weather's ooky, we take a break to watch the clouds and the people, sitting at the counter at the local Starbucks.

 

Heard Joan Jett sing this live, fell instantly in love with a song we've always scorned and shoved in the too fluffy for us bucket with "People Who Need People".  No more.  No one has ever made the random person standing next to you sound cooler than Ms. Jett.  

Tinker (riding a skate deck or drinking a green tea lemonade) won the latest park circuit race so she gets to claim it as her entry in the pool.

"I am no better and neither are you
We're all the same whatever we do
You love me you hate me
You know me and then
Still can't figure out the scene I'm in
I am everyday people" 

"Everyday People" Joan Jett and The Blackhearts

 

TK (bike, green tea latte, cookie), often a bit on the grim side

"And you're shouting at me
I'm relying on your common decency
So far it hasn't surfaced
But I'm sure it exists
It just takes a while to travel
From your head to your fists"

 

"People Are People"  Depeche Mode

 

Ty (scooter that pulled up lame with a flat he claims, iced vanilla latte), cheerfully optimistic, always curious

"Are all the different people
And all their different minds
And different ways
It would take a lifetime to explain" 

"Different People"  No Doubt

 

Tammy (roller blades, orange mango smoothy --we try to tell her it's not lunch), in a mellow mood  

"But I picture us standing there
Staying away from time
Just watching it like a river
As it slowly washes by"

"Pictures of People Taking Pictures"   Jack Johnson

A CONCERT WE AGREE ON

Joan Jett (Happy Birthday!) is trying to reclaim the verb "to rock" for rock and rollers*. This is a cause we can support.  So we've stopped using it as a general description of cool things and begun using it as a very specific description of the wonder of Joan Jett.  She so capital R-O-C-K-S rocks, her concert was awesome and now we have a lot of songs to look up, listen to and download.  And a t-shirt and maybe a hoodie to buy.  

Joan Jett at the York Fair, September 13th, 2011.  Jett made us laugh, sing, shout, smile and dance.  And looked like she was having a blast the whole time.  One of the best parties we've been to:  we had a great time, everyone around us had fun and the music continued excellent all night.  Joan Jett rocks enough to personify the verb and can do it again in our vicinity any time she wants. Please.  

 

And the songs we can't get out of our head?  Here goes:

 

Ty   mood: pushing the speed limit

"Hold tight (hold tight) hold tight for the ride of your life
And the lovers go by so fast
Here it comes, here it comes feel it comin’
Backlash backlash backlash"

"Backlash" Joan Jett and The Blackhearts

 

Tinker  mood:  singing it loud because it's fun, darn it

"Talking's fine
If you got the time
But i ain't got the time to spare
Yeah"

"Do You Want To Touch Me (Oh Yeah)"  Joan Jett and The Blackhearts

 

TK  mood:  can't pick one and won't admit to either

"Ah, now I don't hardly know her 
But I think I could love her
Crimson and clover"

"Crimson and Clover"  Joan Jett and The Blackhearts

"I love playing with fire
And I don't wanna get burned
I love playing with fire
And I don't think I'll ever learn"

"I Love Playing With Fire"  Joan Jett and The Blackhearts

 

Tammy   mood:  too many moods (aside:  you can say that again)  (also:  please don't) (and yes:  talking to self, I know)

"Can't stay at home, can't stay at school
Old folks say, ya poor little fool
Down the street i'm the girl next door
I'm the fox you've been waiting for"

"Cherry Bomb"  Joan Jett  

*and we quote Ms. Jett, from a Jackson Free Press interview by Neola Young:  

"We use "rock" as a verb, and everybody's rockin'. Everybody's rockin', and they're rockin' the dress, and they're rockin' this. I'll tell ya, for me, it's kinda sickening. Rock means nothing. It doesn't hold what it used to hold in the '70s. It's a dead word.

How can you influence taking back the word, what it means? 
I don't know. I don't think you can. It's just, you just have to go out and do it and hope that you get people to notice and go, "OK. That's what rock means." You know, everything comes and goes in a cycle, and soon enough the word will fall out of favor, and there'll be another word used and then the word "rock," "rock 'n' roll," "rock star" will take back the original meaning."

 

And a few more pictures:

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Thank you Joan Jett!

FOURTH OF JULY GOMEZ

First, don't blow yourselves up.  No matter how easy the acquisition of roadside fireworks seems, no matter how tempting the application of flame to fuse appears.  Try the iFireworks app instead.

And thanks to "Love You Like A Love Song," Selena Gomez's new 80's inspired video with a kick ass karaoke flair, we're going to acquire our second Selena Gomez album.  And see Monte Carlo*.  Don't scoff.  Don't think of her as just a Disney dreamette or Bieber arm candy.  She's funny, sharp and has increased her singing + performing skill set at a tire squealing, engine revving pace that has been impressive to watch.  And we figure if enough money ends up in the Selena Gomez opening weekend pool, she can pull a Will Smith and start kicking aliens off the planet next Fourth of July -- we seem to need that now that the zombie tide is ebbing a bit (we hope, although you wouldn't be able to tell from the t-shirt world).  

So our Selena Gomez favorite moments:

TK  mood:  can't get enough wizarding

Selena Gomez as Alex Russo (WIzards of Waverly Place) saves the world, her boyfriends and/or her brothers every darn time.   And makes us laugh.  And drop things.

"Magic"  Selena Gomez

 

Tinker:  mood:  mischief, costumes + lightsabers

"I, I love you like a love song, baby
I, I love you like a love song, baby

And I keep hittin' re-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat"

"Love You Like A Love Song" Selena Gomez and the Scene

 

Ty  mood:  babysitting the nieces and watching the Princess Protection Program

More onscreen saving the girl heroism from Selena Gomez, plus princesses.  The nieces love princesses.  And creepy skeleton animals with bows (make a note of that t-shirt designers, there will be a need for Christmas presents.)

"One and The Same" Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato

 

Tammy    mood:  can't stop her feet from dancing

"And it's not like I'm hurting anyone
But I can't confess my rock, my rock and roll ways"

"Rock God"  Selena Gomez and The Scene

 

*The official Blink Kitty Love stance:  There's room enough in summer for both action movies and charming comic fluff.  And we'll be rocking our Rebellious Stripes shirt because patriotism never goes out of style, although we're tired of politicians absconding with it for questionable purposes.  

 

DANCING

What gets us on the dance floor...

 

Tinker   mood:  still in the game

"Pick your body up and drop it on the floor 
Let the rhythm change your world on the floor" 

On The Floor Jennifer Lopez (featuring Pitbull)

"See the sunlight, we ain't stopping
Keep on dancing till the world ends"

Till The World Ends   Britney Spears 

 

Ty   mood:  on the guest list

"It’s a game
That she plays
She can win with her eyes closed"

"Dirty Dancer" Enrique Iglesias (featuring Usher)

 

Tammy   mood:  all night

"Hey baby girl what you doin tonight
I wanna see what you got in store"

Hey Baby (Drop It To The Floor)  PitBull (featuring T-Pain)

 

TK  mood:  not (and maybe wearing a monkey mask)

"I just wanna lay in my bed
Don't feel like picking up my phone
So leave a message at the tone"

The Lazy Song "Bruno Mars"

FRIDAY: ARE WE THERE YET?

We're* in love.  We're always in love on Friday because we always have The Cure in our heads telling us so.  And soon, we'll have a t-shirt telling the world.

This week's Shirt o' The Week can be found at Threadless, which tempted us further by putting it on sale for $14 since Valentine's Day is near (it's a love shirt).  They are also offering (we're not sure for how long) 20% off if you buy from a mobile device.

Spent last weekend keeping up with one of our favorite winter events, ESPN's The X-Games.  Some excellent snowboarding (Note: we don't care about snowmobiling, how about some more women's events, Tinker is frowning in your direction, ESPN.)  So our Superstar crush of the week shout out (that's what we're calling it this week anyway) goes to Kelly Clark, for the first ever frontside 1080 in the women's superpipe.  Golden.

 

 

*Any use of the word "we" with the phrase "in love" does not include TK (he prefers the Thursday options), who is trying to be clever for the Bitchin Kitchen's anti Valentine challenge.

Roses are red, violets are blue

We're animated, why aren't you...

 

Cheers!

 

Breaking news (insisted on by Tammy and because we won't collectively be in mood:  valentine again for two years or so), tonight's shirt.woot is worth a shout out for traditionalists (and because we love the usually more cynical but always worth the view art of BootsBoots):

 

PROHIBITIONS

Shirt o' The Week:  We are amused by this Regan Smith Clarke manifesto t-shirt.  And we want to start collecting $50 from people, starting with Seth Rogen, The Green Hornet's writer and Seth Rogen, The Green Hornet's executive producer.  We figure Seth Rogen, the actor, did the best he could with the material he was given.  So drop that $100 in the pizza fund, Mr. Rogen, and we might forgive you.  Especially if someone has the sense to release the original TV series on DVD.  We didn't consider Green Hornet a total loss: Jay Chou had the easy charm and physical grace we like to see in our heroic crime fighters so we might consider taking a chance on a Kato spinoff.  

Speaking of easy charm + physical grace, our local Blockbuster is closing down so we wandered through looking for bargains.  And guess which movie star had the most movies on the wall:  Jackie Chan.  Movies we love (Drunken Master), movies we've never heard of (Gorgeous) and so many of each kind.  Wow.  See, Mr. Rogen, if you want to know how to do action, funny and (we guess you were going for) manly and bromantic -- watch the Rush Hours and take notes.  

Video:  P!nk is always out there taking video chances and we love her for it. So while her latest isn't as much fun as some of her others*, "F**kin' Perfect" is our video tip for the week.  Pass it along. 

 

* Our favorite (and the one we quote most) is So What.  "I'm still a rock star/I've got my rock moves" is how we summon our superpowers.  You?

 

 

NEW CRUSH + SHIRT O' THE WEEK

The Crush:  Nadia G of Bitchin Kitchen.  Yes, she rocks the kitchen, our world and makes burgers that look like this (graphic lifted from her site):

 

And so you don't miss us too much, we're going to do a shirt o' the week.  Remember, none of you are kicking into the pizza fund regularly so you won't be seeing fancy, expensive shirts, but we think the sites we frequent give value for money.  And make great shirts.

The Shirt:  So this week, it's cmdixon2 at Goodjoe with The Last Straw.  We'd like to wear it when we hit the movies over the weekend, but we'll have to wait for a couple of weeks to do that.  We're still hitting the movies though.  Which movies?  Tammy's opting for Black Swan and popcorn, Ty and Tinker are excited about The Fighter and munching on Reese's Pieces and TK, well, honestly, TK's seen Tron: Legacy too too many times (although we did hear a rumor he'd been spotted tearing up at a Tangled screening or two -- and not just during the dying parts.)  TK's snack of choice:  whatever's leftover in his jacket pocket from the last time.  We don't ask to share.

The Last Straw:  

 

And have you seen Joan Jett in The Eyeliners' "Destroy" video?  It's one of our 2010 favorite moments. 

Happy New Year.  Stay safe.  We wish you good times + good friends.

VMA VIDEOS (AND WE GO ON HIATUS)

Hello all.  VMA time has rolled around and we love nothing (that isn't edible or Ahmad Jamal's "Jeff") as much as we love a good music video.

 

Here are our favorites:

 

Tammy   mood:  dance with me

"Baby let me love you downnn
There’s so many ways to love ya
Baby I can break you downnn
There’s so many ways to love ya"

"OMG"  Usher (feat.  will.i.am)

 

TK     mood:  feeling like drawing on the walls and/or fighting armed giant squirrels

"People moving all the time inside a perfect straight line
Don't you wanna curve away?"

"Strawberry Swing"  Coldplay

 

Ty    mood:  new cities, new adventures (and willing to collaborate with Alicia Keys any time)

"In New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
Theres nothing you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York"

"Empire State Of Mind"  Jay-Z & Alicia Keys

 

Tinker     mood:  shredding her way across the universe/into your heart, old school

"but it was not your fault but mine
and it was your heart on the line"

"Little Lion Man"  Mumford & Sons

 

And yes, as danceable and often as we find Katy Perry and Lady Gaga on our iPod and in our ears, "Telephone" and "California Gurls", the videos, are not for us.  "Teenage Dream", that we one we like.

 

So do you have any big plans for the Fall?  We're taking a break from the band.  Ty and Tinker are going off to separate schools; Tammy's fronting a jazz band on a long swing of a tour and TK's house sitting for her while maintaining the usual level of shenaniganing.  So thanks for all your visits and we hope you enjoyed your views to the world the way Blink Kitty Love sees it.

 

We'd also like to give a shout out to two of our biggest fans, Kristyn Burtt of The Web Files and many other adventures who is always willing to talk cheeseburger (and we have video proof) and Sandra Payne of Purse Dog TV who has moved onto other projects (making a short film is the current one, we believe) after a year of producing The Web Files (and who also feeds + houses the band mascot @tuffycat, one of the coolest cats we know.)  Thanks!

 

And if you find yourself missing us, well, mention it to Santa (or one of his elves) and maybe something can be arranged.  Or follow @mdnightmaverick in case we sneak back on an impulse (we do verge on the impulsive).  Have a good night, always.

BEATLES MANIACS (AT LEAST FOR A HARD DAY'S NIGHT)

The only band our official mascot and Twitter peep @tuffycat loves more than us is The Beatles.  Can't really knock a guy for that.  So instead we've started a round the table, pass the saspirilla, tweetnip and pretzels conversations about our favorite things Beatle (or post Beatle).  Join in.  We'll let Tuffy start us off: 

 
 

Tammy  mood:  serious (or even silly sometimes) love songs always

Movie choice:  A Hard's Day's Night because it's just a slice of perfect

"I give her all my love
That's all I do
And if you saw my love
You'd love her too
I love her"

"And I Love Her"   The Beatles

"I can wait another day, until I call you
You've only got my heart on a string and everything a' flutter
But another lonely night might take forever
We've only got each other to blame, it's all the same to me love"

"No More Lonely Nights"  Paul McCartney

TK  mood:  Team Drum

Movie:  Help.  Because, and we quote, "These things happen."

"I'd ask my friends to come and see 
An octopus' garden with me 
I'd like to be under the sea 
In an octopus' garden in the shade." 

"Octopus's Garden"  The Beatles

"Gotta pay your dues
If you wanna sing the blues
And you know it don't come easy.
You don't have to shout
Or leap about
You can even play them easy."

"It Don't Come Easy"  Ringo Starr

Tinker:  mood:  smiling

Movie:  Life of Brian because it's always good to have friends and fun side projects and laughter

"Somewhere in her smile she knows 
That I don't need no other lover 
Something in her style that shows me" 

"Something"  The Beatles

"Fab! Like this all over, you said to me.
Fab! And you really got a hold on me.
Fab! Long time ago, when we was fab." 

"When We Was Fab"  George Harrison

Ty  mood:  in a different neighborhood and thinking maybe it's all about the performance

Movie choice:  Quadrophenia for its raw energy

"Everybody calls me the quiet one
You can see but you can't hear me
Everybody calls me the quiet one
You can try but you can't get near me"

"The Real Me"   The Who

"When everything feels all over
When everybody seems unkind
I'll give you a four leaf clover
Take all the worry out of your mind"

"Let My Love Open the Door"  Pete Townshend

MALADIES OF MELODY

Yes, we might be a bit run down, there's too much clutter, no one's in the mood for pizza or can stand to be in the same room and we can't agree on anything to watch.  Yes, the heat might be getting to us, but we hope maybe it's just the fever talking.  So here's a few songs to suit our mood.

TK    mood:  sometimes, it's all part of a scheme for world domination

"Try as hard as you can
I tried as hard I could
To make you see
How important it is for me"

"Shake the Disease"  Depeche Mode

Tinker   mood:  dance it off.

"I wanna jump but I'm afraid I'll fall

I wanna holler but the joint's too small"

"Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu"  Johnny Rivers

Tammy   mood:  sometimes you know who you caught it from

"I make up one more lame excuse 
Why can't come out tonight 
I'm not trying to cut you loose 
I just need some time"

"Lovesick"  The Jonas Brothers

Ty   mood:  this is only a temporary glitch in my plans

"All night hearing voices telling me that
I should get some sleep
Because tomorrow might be good
For something" 

"I'm Not Crazy"  Matchbox 20