adventures in petting a dophin a.k.a. meeting someone famous

the other day i was reading a blog about someone's brush with a famous musician. that got me thinking about some of the famous (and "famous") people i've met. several years ago my cousin beth and i coined a term for meeting someone famous.

backstory: when we were younger, my family went on a trip to sea world and my cousin beth came with me. near the exit, there was an exhibit where you could stop and put your hand in the tank to pet a dolphin. my parents were ready to leave, but my younger brother chris insisted he needed to pet a dolphin before we could go. he waited patiently for one to swim near his hand, and my parents waited impatiently to go home. when they finally told him he had to leave, chris started crying.

"but i want to pet a dolphin! it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!" something about a red-faced 9-year-old sobbing over the missed opportunity to pet a dolphin struck us as deliciously hilarious. thus, when we wanted to talk in code about a run-in with a celebrity, we called it "petting a dolphin" because it was our version of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

anyway.

here are some of my favorite instances of petting a dolphin. some are actually impressive to me, while others stand out because of ridiculous situations i got myself into just to have this memento. i've never been one to meet celebrities and ask for autographs...i like to have the memories to look back on. what am i gonna do with a piece of paper? give me a photo any day.

*disclaimer: i apologize for the fact that i'm awkwardly unphotogenic and that this is more photos of me in one place than you ever wanted to see in your lifetime*

have you petted any dolphins lately??

lemmy (motorhead)
[my ultimate dolphin!!!]


? (? and the mysterians)


corey feldman


andre "mr. rhythm" williams


dj fontana (elvis' drummer and "the first drummer of rock'n'roll")


nobunny
[it's kinda weird when your friends become superstars, but i guess he's pretty "famous" these days!]


kerri kenny-silver (the state/reno 911)
[the state is my favorite show in the WORLD!]


jeff magnum (the dead boys)










the sweet inspirations (elvis' backup singers)


paul revere (paul revere and the raiders)


michael ian black (the state/wet hot american summer/stella)


michael showalter (the state/wet hot american summer/stella)


pauly shore


wanda jackson "the queen of rockabilly"


jesco white "the dancing outlaw"


david wain (the state/wet hot american summer/stella)


handsome dick manitoba (the dictators)


roy loney and cyril jordon (flamin groovies)


paul-z (zero boys)


the great gaylord


guitar wolf


peter tork (the monkees)
[my favorite monkee!]




rivers cuomo (weezer)


peter noone (herman's hermits)


tre cool (green day)


flo and eddie (the turtles)


melvin davis "the detroit soul ambassador"


gob
[i could fill a whole scrapbook of photos with these guys -- this isn't even all of them]


















i would be happy to tell stories about any of these photos :)

tell me about dolphins you've petted! better yet, do a post like this and link it in the comments!

why do mustaches make everything funnier?

the dapper squirrel from my last post reminds me that i never posted about what happened on christmas.

i have an aunt, uncle and cousins who live in wyoming. when we did a gift exchange with them this year, my aunt also sent along a package of mustaches and asked us to take a family photo to send to them. my family gathered in the basement to take our pictures, which was hilarious enough on its own, but then things started snowballing out of control. the next thing i knew, my cousin wanted to show off how she could match a mustache to her sweater. my faux-niece, who is usually scared of facial hair, allowed us to put one on her and sat there looking quite distinguished. i was so busy laughing at her that i didn't notice my brothers has started to stick the mustaches around the room on the various taxidermy. suddenly it was, "erin, look!" "erin, LOOK AT THIS!" and i was laughing so hard i was crying.


(this one KILLS ME every time i look at josh...he's slightly cross-eyed AND his mustache is so crooked its falling off and he didn't even bother to fix it...ha!!! not to mention the fact that my dad is wearing a mustache on top of his mustache, lol)

happy squirrel appreciation day

its ironic that today is squirrel appreciation day when josh and i just brought this handsome gentleman home to the ryan arms yesterday.



"what's that you say, sonny? i'm a little hard of hearing."

weekend

i had a nice relaxed weekend, although it was over much too soon. on friday josh and i spent a little free time junkin. i didn't find much except for some old tiger beat and 16 magazines with the monkees in them, but we still had fun looking around.



i met this cute little guy in one of the antique shops. i love when places have shop cats! i wish we had one at the toy store.













this life-size statue (probably out of a church) was pretty cool to see sitting among a bunch of junk in a shop.



we really wanted this taxidermy bobcat but he was a bit out of our price range!



jocko was just chillin in one of the rooms of an antique store. i sorta liked him but sorta wanted to get away from him. fast.





we ate lunch at this little mexican restaurant because it looked ridiculous. it wasn't too good.



in the evening i went with josh to get a tattoo. he got a wolfman portrait from the same guy who did my little richard one. here is a better photo of my tattoo now that its all healed.



i finally managed to get a photo of our new house with snow!



saturday i worked all day, and today was a lazy day filled with coffee, slippers, and chores around the house. hope you had a nice weekend as well!

hot trash!

in case you didn't know, i do a weekly radio show on a college station here in cleveland. every tuesday nite, i get run of the airwaves for two hours and i get to play whatever i feel like hearing. mostly i play a lot of rock'n'roll in its various forms: punk, rockabilly, garage, etc. i also like a lot of vintage soul and r&b, and sometimes i'll even throw a little surf or blues on.

everyone who works up at the station does their show on a volunteer basis, which is fine in most cases because its obvious we're some of the biggest music nerds in the city. i have been doing my show (called hot trash) for the past 7 years. feel free to tune in some tuesday nite or follow me on facebook! our station can be streamed live online by going to www.wcsb.org/listen no matter where in the world you live, or you can tune in locally in cleveland by going to 89.3fm.

my facebook page can be found at https://www.facebook.com/hottrash.

here is some fan art made by some of my awesome listeners!



by josh!


by johnny m!


by josh!


by johnny rattail!


by lucky!

ooooooh my soul

check out my newest tattoo!



as seen on his album cover, here:




i feel 100% sassier already.

thanks to trevor moment at atom bomb tattoos.

happy birthday elvis!

happy birthday, e! elvis would have been 77 years old today.



i can't wait til josh and i go on our honeymoon in a few months cuz we're going to memphis and i can't WAIT go back to graceland! it will be my third visit :)