by Katie McCollow

It’s weird, how the whole ‘sports bug’ never bit me, since I come from a family of athletes and fans and married a fellow, who, when not actually being a coach, is being a super-fan.

I mean, he doesn’t paint his face or wear wigs or yell crudely in public (all things I do with some regularity, come to that) but he derives a great deal of pleasure from the watching of, talking about, dissecting, anticipating and participating in sports.

This is actually me at the Veronica Mars movie

I root for teams or athletes in which I’m personally invested—my kids, nieces and nephews, family members and close friends, my husband of course, you get the picture.

I love that you love sports, I just don’t have a natural sports brain.  I mean sure, I love the Olympics, but who doesn’t? That doesn’t even count.

I wish it were different–I think of myself as a lover of fun things and it certainly seems like sports fans are having fun, with the exception of everyone in Minnesota every football season, so what’s the problem? I have made concerted efforts over the years to try—to watch hard, to get into it, become an expert fan, and it just doesn’t take.

Wait, what is happening?

If I admitted that, I’d get “Well isn’t your husband the coach?”

Uh, yeah, but I spent the whole game trying to keep my toddler from eating his own poop and my four-year-old from melting down because she’s up two hours past her bedtime. Isn’t your husband a lawyer? Do you know all the intricate shit about his job?

I can say with certainty that no one has ever asked my husband how to get a soft edge by using a scumble or whether or not a filbert is better than a flat brush because I am an artist.

But the thing is, I know it’s weird, I know enough sports-spouses who do know tons of stuff about it all, and I’m the one with the defect.

I admit it!

So again, friends, I support your love of all things sportsy! I hope whatever contest is happening now, things are all going your way and if you made a bet or something, you make a crap-load of cabbage.

Don’t spend it all in one place.

Barry Manilow is 72 years old today. Happy Birthday, Barry! I don’t rate calling myself a Fanilow, since I’ve never even seen you live, but I do love that you write the songs that make the whole world sing.

This is Barry Manilow, right?

For a while in the nineties and early oughts, it was fashionable to pretend Barry wasn’t amazing and he was the butt of many a joke by ‘cool’ people.

Thankfully, those days are a thing of the past and we can all sing our damn happy hearts out without a trace of irony when “Mandy” comes on in the car. Or in the house, because you put it on on purpose. 

You, when Weekend in New England comes on

Four Other People or Things That Survived Decade-Plus Long Backlashes and Bounced Back to Beloved Status (Entertainment edition): 

John Denver

I grew up listening to Mr. Denver; my mother had every one of his albums. Loved loved looooved him, but when I hit high school I abandoned ship.

As mentioned previously, I’d already planted my flag as a Parrot Head and painted rainbows on my nails, and the fact that my brothers played hockey was pretty much my only redeeming quality. Admitting I liked John Denver would hardly have acted as a life raft.

Then he died in ’97, and everyone was forced to admit that he was fantastic, even those jerks who didn’t invite him to participate in “We Are The World”, even though he was trying to shine a light on world hunger before it was cool.

RESPECT

The first year we were married, I put on John Denver’s Greatest Hits and my new husband’s knee-jerk reaction was to make fun. Then he laid down on the couch and surrendered, explaining that he didn’t know all the songs were “sing-a-long favorites”. Damn right they are.

John Stamos

Don’t act like you didn’t hate on him for a loooong time after Full House, you did. But then you got old and hideous and he got soooo…I mean that new show of his isn’t even funny and I watch it anyway.

Do I even need to say anything?

Calista Flockhart

Remember when she was on Ally McBeal, and then Brothers and Sisters you guys I really mean Jane Fonda but I don’t want everyone to get mad at me you guys she apologized! A lot, and I believe she’s sincere and I think Grace and Frankie is funny and omigod please don’t yell at me.

This instead of Jane Fonda? Don’t yell at me!

The Breakfast Club

John brought this up not too long ago, and the timing was perfect because I had just re-watched this with my youngest, who was just finishing up ninth grade.

I saw this on a first date with a boy when I was in tenth grade. We both loved it, but because of the jokes and the clothes and the actors and the soundtrack, not the message, which went right over our heads.

In fact, after it was over, another girl who went to our school and was in the grade above me, stopped me in the lobby and told me if I told anyone I saw her there with the boy who’d escorted her, she’d make life uncomfortable for me.

Did I turn to my date and marvel at the irony, that this older, cooler girl basically threatened me if I blabbed she had gone out in public with someone she felt was beneath her, to see a movie about how we’re all the same inside and all feel lost and scared and that our common enemy should be those who seek to label and divide us and not each other?

(Editor: Wait, I always thought The Breakfast Club was about the madness of nuclear war. Wheat????)

Of course not. I promised her I wouldn’t tell and then went home and told all my friends.

Anyway, re-watching that movie in my twenties, I didn’t think it held up. Awful and cheesy, I thought…then I had kids, and see it as the absolute masterpiece that it is.

Love

(Editor’s 2nd Note: The idea that Susie B. opened up site this a.m. waiting to read a certain writer begrudgingly give props to a serial traveler/offensive fouler who should probably be playing tight end for the Broncos and that instead she got Katie’s fantastic prose, well, I feel just like the dude in the photo above).