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This shirt was a gift from my friend Christine Doré given the semester that we worked together, she serving as my teaching assistant in my sections of WMS:100 at Western Michigan University (for that story: GO HERE and dial back).Often I would give gifts to the TAs and they would give gifts to me, especially after the Fall semester, given the proximity of Christmas.
I feel free to confess this now: I had a crush on Katie Holmes (in so far as anyone can have a crush on someone he has never met and has only seen playing another character in a television show).
I watched DAWSON'S CREEK primarily because Katie Holmes was amazingly smart, cool, and beautiful: in sum, adorable. And DAWSON was clearly an IDIOT, which is the quick summary of that show: "Dawson's Creek: a show about how stupid Dawson is and how not stupid Pacey is (and a few other characters and their stories)." Great show if you like episodic, sudsy-style weekly melodrama for teens with a hip vibe and smart mouthed teensters spouting rapid fire dialogue for which the WB became well known (see my other faves such as Gilmore Girls, Felicity, Veronica Mars, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
ANYWAY.............................
So there was this whole Winona Ryder thing in which she had allegedly shop-lifted from a Saks store in Beverly Hills. She was taken into custody and was found to be in possession of items she had not paid for and addictive narcotics for which she did not have a prescription. An L.A. gift shop owner started a fun T-shirt campaign with these "Free Winona" T-shirts.
I had been discussing with Christine how I wanted a "Free Winona" T-shirt but had missed out on getting one right around the time that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes started seeing each other (and soon got married). So, Christine got me this "Free Katie" T-shirt (which is around 2005).
Lo and behold, there's a FREE KATIE website.
Yes, I was also surprised. But why should I be?
There was a whole campaign to "free Katie" for the clutches of culty evil and "love." And there's many fan sites and blogs and images and a wealth of material at the touch of the fingertips on the keypad.
There's everything on the Internet. It's a good thing Al Gore invented it.
Funny, also, this:
Awkward! Katie Holmes is left embarrassed after she meets fans wearing 'Free Katie' T-shirts
Apparently, there are other styles of "Free Katie" shirts as seen in that article from 2012.
My crush on Katie Holmes is now just a distant memory as falling in love with my wife and getting married has changed everything. I still think Katie Holmes is attractive, smart, cool, and bad at choosing men for relationships. But the ardent crush on her TV persona (or any of her movie personas) faded long ago.
Still, the shirt is funny. Or at least, I think it's funny.
RESOURCES ABOUT FREE WINONA
HIP NEW RALLYING CRY: "Free Winona!"
FREE WINONA TUMBLR
I used to keep a top ten list of celebrity women that I found most attractive and with whom I would most like to "spend time" if I had the opportunity (which I never would). I don't really keep this list anymore now that I am married. My wife trumps all such lists. And I am not just saying that because I know I should say it. I actually mean it. But given that this blog is about making lists, I have decided to share the top ten list of women who had most often held places on this list, but in an effort to de-emphasize this list, I will list horizontally rather than vertically: Ashley Judd, Lauren Graham, Katie Holmes, Eliza Dushku, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sadé, Erykah Badu, Susan Sarandon, Morena Baccarin, and Gong Li.
Do you sense a theme here? All these women (except Sarandon) share one common trait. Others had made the list in years past: Diane Sawyer, Tia Carrere, Gillian Anderson, Elizabeth McGovern, Joni Mitchell, Suzanne Vega, Kate Bush, MIA, Dana Delaney, Polly Draper and others. Winona Ryder made the list at some point. And when Alanis Morrisette sung about being jilted, I wondered if I could be the kind of guy that would make her happy. Going farther back, my attractions are peopled with women such as Julie Newmar and Yvonne Craig (as both will be featured in an upcoming blog post). There were others, such as
Ava Gardner, Jennifer Jones, Susan Dey, Jane Seymour, Barbara Bach, Raquel Welch, Lara Parker, Diana Rigg, and Maureen McCormick.
But I do not actively keep this list anymore. I can acknowledge that Zoe Saldana is super awesome as Uhura; I am not immune. But the passion of the interest has changed since I fell heels over head for my wife and got married. But I can still appreciate beauty in a kind of distanced and abstract way.
On a somewhat unrelated note yet related to this blog: Yesterday, my wife told me it was National T-shirt Day/ I can find no confirmation this using Al Gore's Internet. Puzzling that.
- chris tower - 1306.22 - 8:58
