Who's Your Daddy.

That's a statement. A declarative sentence. Get into it: He is.




Coming back for more adventures this Saturday, August 27. And, yes, BBCAmerica HD finally came to my house. Oh, I'm giddy.

My Name is Inigo Montoya...

...you love my music. Prepare for a great night!

My husband is awesome. He saw Patti LuPone with me on Broadway. He saw my pain when I couldn't see said diva with her greatest male counterpart, Mandy Patinkin, in Chicago. So, he thought: I must fix this. And, fix it he did.

On March 31, 2012, I get to see Mandy Patinkin live in concert in my very own city. I don't have to drive to St. Louis or Chicago or make the trip to the Great White Way (although that would be fabulous). I have to get in the car and drive seven minutes east. Maybe ten minutes if the traffic is heavy.

I am SO EXCITED.

I love Mandy Patinkin! You may only know him as Inigo Montoya, but he is also one of the greatest singers of these times. He originated the character of Che in Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice's Evita, and he sings a helluva Sondheim. Check out some of the CD's I've linked below, and think of me grinning from ear to ear as I enjoy Mr. Patinkin in the balcony seven months from now...he better not cancel.

• Dress Casual
• Oscar & Steve
• Evita
• Grandma Doralee Patinkin's Holiday Cookbook--YES! He can cook, too! (Or at least sponsor an amalgamation of his grandmother's recipes, so they can get published.)

I'm About to Watch...WHAT???

To the Mat. It's about wrestling. It has a cheesy love triangle. It's an original made for TV movie...on CMT. Yet, I'll still record and watch, cause THIS GUY is in it:





Oh, Ricky Schroder. How BBB!'s sister franchise, the 80's Preservation Society, misses thee. Your 30 second cameo in Get Him to the Greek was the best surprise in recent movie memory. Now if we could only get you on the small screen more often. This CMT telefilm just won't cut it. Why don't others realize the talent you possess in your furrowed brow and clear blue eyes? Your 80s teen sensation heyday may be long gone, but your turn in NYPD Blue over a decade ago showed you still had grit. Your guest appearances on Scrubs as a male nurse were priceless, and the only ones we re-watch (well...besides the MJF ones, of course). "It"'s still there! Don't let this cheesy CMT schmaltz fool you, Hollywood. Rick(y) still has a wealth of talent that needs to be tapped. Now if I could just get him to hire me as his publicist.

Do It To Me One More Time

As soon as Smallville wrapped up its series run in late May, I started re-watching the show on DVD. As most of you may know, I've had a love-hate relationship with the show the last few years. I was so hyped to get caught up on DVD then watch the show live. However, when I got to watching the super series "live," it took on a whole new excruating spot on my weekly TV line-up. The CW did the show an inustice by putting weeks, sometimes months, between new episodes. I would lose track of major plot lines, but even more devasting was the face that I lost interest. Re-watching the show I'm enjoying it even more than I remembered. I'm on season 6 (pretty good for starting the last week of May)--the writer's strike season--and I don't remember enjoying seasons 4 and 5 the first time around as much as I did this second time. I think when I get to re-watch seasons 7-10, I'll appreciate them even more, too. And, thus leads us to today's quandary...

Do I buy the complete Smallville series when it comes out on November 29 (hmmm...someone's 9th wedding anniversary...)?

PROS:

• I'll have a stunning complete boxed set, but akin to my stunning complete boxed set of Gibson-Gibley Girls.


• The extras in the set are soooo pretty.


• I don't have seasons 8-10 on DVD.


• I could sell season 1-7 used to try to make a little coin to go toward the new shiny set.


• There's an awesome 90 minute featurette spanning the entire series with cast interviews.

CONS:

• IT'S NOT AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY.


• I already have seasons 1-7.


• The cover art for season 10 is hella better than the complete series art.
  
  

Flux Copasitor Fluxing to 1990

Remember Tommy Page? Anyone...anyone? Well, guess what? I DO! (Of course I do. If you thought I wouldn't then SHAME on you.) Do you still own Tommy Page's hit album, Paintings in My Mind (co-produced by New Kid on the Block Donnie Walhberg, and with Jordan Knight on backing vocals) on CASSETTE? I DO! Did you make your two-year-old daughter listen to Tommy Page today after her nap and sing along with the tracks to serenade her? I DID! (And, let me tell you how oddly fascinated I was to find out I still remembered over 90% of the lyrics. How does my brain store those away yet cannot remember the names of students I had just 10 weeks ago???)

Yes, folks, Tommy Page is alive and well at BBB!!! I've put an old stereo/record/cassette set in my daughter's room (vintage, y'know, with teal & pink tones), and I kinda love that I still own the Tommy Page cassette. (I also own THREE cassettes by MMC favorites, The Party. They were the hip MMCers before that Justin and J.C. took over.) One of my absolute favorite episodes of Full House is when Mr. Page shows up and sings to D.J. for her birthday. Cause who couldn't that happen to? I mean, he was no Jordan or Joe, but they were way too busy to show up to birthdays, so Tommy was happy to step in. Heck, I would've taken him at my 12th birfday.

Tommy Page DOES have an official website, and I highly encourage you check it out. I'm also seriously considering upgrading my cassette to CD...or maybe I'll just download from iTunes. When I told my cousin I had been serenading the bigger bairn with Tommy Page, she replied that she had forgotten he existed. Shame. Get into some sweet, chaste early 90s pop via Tommy. You won't be sorry. ;)

#10

In my opinion, he's the biggest Cubs fan that ever lived. Sure I grew up watching Harry Carey on WGN, but I became a true Cubs fan listening to Ron Santo on WGN Radio. He lived and died with the Cubs. He was unabashed and unashamed of his die-hard, unwavering love for this Chicago team. He made me a better Cubs fan, too: if Ron can get through years of ups and downs as a Cubs fan, then so could I. And when we won? Oh my gosh, such joy you never heard come through the airwaves. It wouldn't matter if we were in the middle of a 10 game winning streak, either: his joy would still be just as pure as picking up a win after a wicked losing stretch.

Yesterday, a statue was unveiled outside of Wrigley for this awesome Cubs player, fan, and announcer. It's still bittersweet that our Ron isn't in the Baseball Hall of Fame, but deep down he probably wasn't too fussed about it. He just wanted to watch Cubs ball and help other children and adults with diabetes, the disease he was afflicted with that took both of his limbs. Even through his struggles with diabetes, he seemed like and upbeat, always look-on-the-bright-side-of-life kinda guy. He was a true original.

Our wonderful son was born on December 2, 2010, just hours before Ron left this plane for a far better one on December 3. Do I have high and mighty dreams that one day our lil man will take up Ron's missing space at 3rd base? Sure I do. But what would be even cooler is if our son could share the same unbridled enthusiasm for Cubs baseball that Ronny did. Hey, maybe we could even get to hear our kid announce a game from Ron's old booth seat. Now THAT might be even better.

FIVE!!!

BingBongBoom!!! is FIVE! We missed our anniversary date by a few days, but that's what happens when you're still in a post-Sir Paul glow, driving to Missouri, and wrangling two beautiful children.

A lot has happened in FIVE years. FIVE years ago...

• I'd never seen an episode of Smallville or Gibley Gibson Girls.


• I hadn't seen Patti LuPone on Broadway.


• Was over 60 books ago. I've done some good readin', for a teacher and mum of two! :)


• I still watched Food Network everyday, but now I've cashed in my FN stock to Cooking Channel stock, cause it's so much more cutting edge (and still shows Julia Child).


• I was committed to blogging daily, but now I'm happy with once every couple of weeks. (Hey, it's the QUALITY, not the QUANTITY.)


• Doctor Who was a minor blip on my radar, but within the last few years it has become a MAJOR storm, constantly churning and making new waves in my entertainment-driven banter.


• I had never read a graphic novel. (Red Son was my first...of course it had to be Superman.)


• It was merely a dream to see Paul McCartney live in concert. (Yes, I'm still on about that.)


• I thought maybe kids might be in my future, but I had no idea I'd get two completely wonderful, awesome, fun children...within 18 months of each other.

There's been so much more, but there are too many fabulous things to list. One thing is for sure: I love writing this blog. There might be two or three people who actually read this, but I love keeping track of the little things that strike me as funny, important, pivotal, and what-have-you. So, as long as there's just one person out there still reading, I'm still writing. :)

You'd Think That People Would've Had Enough of PAUL McCARTNEY

But last night I looked around me and saw it wasn't so.

Last night. LAST. NIGHT. I had the privilege of seeing Paul McCartney live in concert at Wrigley Field. My companion? My amazing husband. It was a night I'll never forget.

You hear the name Paul McCartney, and sometimes it's hard to grasp all that it encompasses. It was too much for my mind to realize that I was going to actually SEE and HEAR Paul McCartney. Even as we sat in our (awesome) seats waiting for the show to begin, it still didn't quite seem real. I was going to see a Beatle, a living legend. I was going to see one of the four men who single-handedly changed the scope of pop music for ALL time. I was going to see the man that my Aunt Carla swooned over in her youth, the man my former manager and friend, Bill, ran to the record store for whenever a new Beatles single came out, the man whose group and personal song catalogs my awesome father-in-law has carefully collected and memorized over the last five decades. This is one of the few people alive who isn't a meer musician but a musical genius.

I wasn't prepared for my reaction when he and his band struck the opening chord to the Beatles classic All My Lovin'. My breath was stolen from my lungs, I slumped back in my seat, and tears started streaming down my face. Because I was sad? Maybe a little (because I couldn't see John, Paul, George, & Ringo perform this themselves). But because I was so overwhelmed at this music coming alive before me. Paul's band is, in my opinion, the top backing band in the music business. I've seen them on TV before and could tell they were good, but I had no idea HOW good. So good, in fact, that good is a dirty, low word to describe them. Lets try mind-numblingly awesome to describe them instead. The music scourged through me, went through every fiber of my being, adding extra minutes of joy to my life. And, THAT'S why tears began coursing down my chubby cheeks.

I screamed, stomped, and clapped like nobody's business through Band on the Run and Live & Let Die. I supplied horrible harmony to I Will, and when Blackbird quickly, yet quietly, followed the tears came again. Two of my all-time favorites back-to-back was too much to keep my already heady emotions in check. (Click HERE for the full setlist. You'll be jealous.) His anecdotes were sweetly told, name-dropping tales of yesterday (no pun intended): about that time watching Hendrix live with Clapton or those times plucking Bach out lightly on guitars with his friend, George. Old songs became new again: it was as if I was hearing Something for the first time. After starting out with just Paul on a ukelele and swelling into a full-on magnificent masterpiece with that amazing band breathing new life into it, Something became new and even more beautiful that maybe even Harrison could've imagined. Or Helter Skelter, which I thought I didn't care that much for, until it was played in all its phrenetic, trippy glory under the Chicago sky VERY loudly.

I hope I never forget this night. I hope I tell my grandchildren about, and they get so sick of the story they roll their eyes and say, "Not again!!!" I already practiced the story today with my daughter. When I woke her up, sleep still caking her eyes, I said, "Mummy and Daddy saw a man named Paul last night. He sang to us, and it was wonderful."

She said, "Paul?"

"Yes," I said. "Paul.