fan girl

i had a total fan girl moment today and it was sort of embarrassing, but ultimately awesome.

i was standing behind the counter at work and a lady came up and started asking my coworker about getting some tshirts made (we have a heat press and can make shirts with transfers while they shop). while she stood there i thought to myself, "you know, that looks like.....naaaaw, why would SHE be here?" but as soon as i heard her voice, i knew it WAS her.

"is your name kerri?"

this is the point where my mouth just overtook all my common sense and i started getting all silly. i wasn't even thinking about how i totally just interrupted their conversation. as she answered yes, all i could think was THIS IS KERRI KENNY-SILVER from my favorite show in the whole wide world standing in my store!!!



you may know her as kerri, the only female member of the 90s comedy sketch show "the state" (<3<3<3!!!!!) or as trudy wiegel from the show "reno 911." i told her that "the state" was my favorite show of all time, and that i had actually seen her play a show with her old band "cake like" several years ago at the club that was just down the street from where we were. she was super nice and kept calling me names like "sweetie." she was in town shooting a movie and i had absolutely no idea. as if it wasn't enough to blow my mind that she was randomly standing in front of me, she went on to tell me and my co-worker that the reason she was picking out the tshirts she wanted was because her dad was the voice of the characters: sonny the coco puffs bird, count chocula, and lion-o from thunder cats!!! WOW! mind. officially. blown.

i tried to quietly tell another co-worker who she was and why i was so excited, and he thought it would be funny to embarrass me by yelling out in the store, "OK, WHICH ONE OF YOU IS FROM THE STATE! THIS GIRL IS A HUGE FAN AND SHE'S TOO EMBARASSED TO ADMIT IT!" kerri just laughed because she knew damn well i admitted it, over and over and over. then she sweetly asked, "do you have a camera on you?" and we went over to the joke and gag section (which makes perfect sense when you're taking a picture with a comedian, duh) to take a photo together.



THAT MADE MY DAY!

and so did knowing that in exactly one year, i will be the wife of the cutest boy in the whole world :D

"when the monkees come to town, then we'll go see the monkees!" -tape recording of 4-year-old erin

the monkees were the first band i ever loved. their 20th anniversary in the eighties coincided perfectly with my formative years as a child, and tv stations were showing reruns of the show. watching it as an adult is a totally different experience because you catch things that obviously weren't intended to be picked up on as a younger audience. its easy to be 5 or 50 and still be amused at the show.







i "borrowed" my mom's old vinyl records and quickly acquired a crush on not one member, not two, but the entire band (what can i say? i've always been boy crazy and i've always obviously had good taste in men). peter ("i'm the dummy, micky. i'm always the dummy") has been my favorite for as long as i can remember.





my cousins beth and amy grew up with the same exposure to the band and the same love for them instilled at an early age. thank goodness for our moms and their record collections! as we grew up we forgot about our love for the monkees for a few years but it was reignited again around the age of 12 and today its stronger than ever. amy already has a monkees tattoo and i'm trying to find something i like enough so that i can get one of my own. i think it comes as a surprise when any of us admit that the monkees are our favorite band of all time. people usually don't see it coming, like, at all. i'm glad its something special the three of us share, though.







we've seen the monkees in their current lineup (micky, davy and peter) at least 4 times. we've seen peter solo with his other band (shoe suede blues) 3 or 4 times. we saw micky solo a few times, and we saw micky with davy once. on their current 45th (!!!) anniversary tour they are not coming to cleveland, so the three of us are using beth's 30th birthday this weekend as an excuse for a roadtrip to go see them 2.5 hours away. i'm very excited! they're so much a part of my life and my relationship with my two best friends that i'm sure it will make me cry. the only thing that would ever make it better would be seeing all 4 monkees on the same stage, which i'm sure will never happen. but a girl can dream, can't she??? you might call me a daydream believer. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!




my top 5 monkees songs (in no particular order):

1. you just may be the one


2. the kind of girl i could love


3. let's dance on


4. star collector


5. 99 pounds

happy fathers day!

happy fathers day to the man who made me 1/2 of who i am today!

a guy with a real sense of style,


(dad's college graduation photo)



a love of music,


(that's dad on the left, goofing off at a wedding)

great taste in women,







a wonderful sense of humor,


(that's us, baking my mom a birthday cake with my dad's underwear on our head)




(mustache party: l-r me, my cousin beth, dad, mom)

an appreciation for hot cars,


(that' dad in the middle with his cute wave, surrounded by my uncle bob on the left and my uncle frank on the right)



and an all-around swell guy who raised quite a family :)


(me, mom and dad - why do i look like i only have one eye?!?!)


(mom, dad and me - matching outfits)


(portrait studio time!)


(dad, my brother mike, me)

HAPPY FATHERS DAY!!!

new blog feature: scrapbook a go-go!

one look at my blog and its obvious that i collect stuff. but what you may not know is that i've been collecting junk for a looong time. when i was 12 i started a collage on my wall of pictures and papers and other things that were important to me. my mom, being as sensible as she is, suggested, "why don't you keep your things in one of those photo album scrapbooks? that way your things won't get ruined when you tape them up on the wall."

like a predictable preteen, i told her that was the stupidest idea i ever heard, then turned around and put all my things in a photo album scrapbook so they wouldn't get ruined. the album quickly took on a life of its own -- not just photos but anything i thought was funny, amusing, sentimental or memorable for whatever reason. old photos. found grocery lists. funny labels. one scrapbook soon turned into over a dozen, with each volume clearly representing periods of my life. i'm still adding to them to this day.

i'm not sure if anyone enjoys when i do the "inside hotel hot trash" posts because i don't usually get too many comments on them, but i thought this might be a fun new thing to try. if not, at least i get the chance to pull out the old books and relive some (bizarre) memories.

i imagine myself introducing this all epic-like, like the king of cartoons. time for some SCRAPBOOK A GO-GO!



as a bonus for my first installment, here's two pages out of different books.



A. our summertime friends from THE summer, danny and dale. my cousin beth and i used to like cutting out word bubbles from the sunday comics and taping them to photos. i have no idea where danny got that cowboy-ish hat, or why dale was wearing an army helmet.
B. foil star. not sure of the significance.
C. a cartoon i drew poking fun at how tre cool from green day used the phrase "let my hair down sometimes" in an interview when he was talking about getting wild
D. a note my brother chris wrote to the easter bunny when he was little, requesting all his personal information PLUS ten autographs ("hi easter bunny could you leave your phone number, address and zip code please and 10 signed papers")
E. an old photo of beth and i at a birthday party of hers with gift wrappers tied around our heads like cool kids



A. photo of me (on right in red and white dress, circa age 2) and my cousin beth (circa age 3) at one of my birthday parties. that is clancy the clown in the background, a cousin on my mom's side who did a stint as a professional clown.
B. ticket stub from ringling brothers and barnum and bailey circus
C. movie stub from the jackass 2 movie that i saw in pittsburgh
D. vintage sticker for nerds candy
E. quote from a lady i used to work with that i wrote on a price ticket so i wouldn't forget it ("whoop-de-do is NOT the way of the lord!")
F. ticket stub from kennywood's phantom fright night

photo dump

here are some things i've been collecting while i've been ignoring all of you. oops!

guitar wolf in detroit, michigan:











cute cats:






pogo is all "oh HAY mom! here i am!"

recent junkin scores:




an abnormally awesome day at the flea market for me...allow me to break it down further


retro 80s lips phone: $2
plastic hillbilly statue: .25


vintage 8-track player: $5
ceramic big-eyed poodle: $1


velvet willie nelson (!!!): $4








ed gein wood splinters from buildings on his property: $1
quite possibly the best flea market score EVER. even if they weren't real, its still so ridiculous its great.


i got this awesome old photo from a picker. its huge. i love all the homemade instruments, like the tin cans and the sax made out of plastic tubing or whatever.




meet fink the mink. josh and i have been into taxidermy lately, but we started out with the real beginners stuff: shark in a jar, small fruit bat incased in lucite, alligator head, baby alligator, etc. this is our first bigger piece and we got him for a sweet deal. welcome to hotel hot trash, fink the mink!!!