NKOTB(itches)

Yesterday, I pulled my car out of the garage of my very adult job, wearing my adult clothes, carrying my adult purse ready to go home to my adult life. I pushed the radio knob in waiting for whatever music to fill whatever station I left it on at 8:50 a.m. To my surprise, New Kids On The Block was coming out of my speakers. Whoa- whoa- whoa - whoa- hangin' tough. I looked up and into the mirror hoping to catch the decade in a laugh line. It was indeed 2008. I let a small smile pass across my lips and rolled down my window a bit. Suddenly, I was 16 years-old.

I'll admit something here and ONLY here. Well, okay, it's not really news to most of my friends but I was a HUGE NKOTB fan. HUGE. Like 10 times in concert huge. Like 267 (but still not the 293 of Duran Duran when I was eleven) pictures adorning my walls that i ripped out of magazines like Bop and Teen Beat that I always told the guy at the magazine shop I was buying "for my younger sister." NKOTB was my dirt dirty dirty secret and I was not alone. My bestfriend also joined me in this scandal and together we probably spent thousands scoring good seats to their shows and gas money to get there. We were among the few NKOTB fans that could actually drive to their concerts. An elite group and something one should not be proud of.

I liked Donnie Wahlberg. What could I say; I had a thing for bad boys. She was a huge Joey McIntyre fan which I found a bit worse because he just looked so young despite being a year older than us. Maybe she was onto something, he aged a helluva lot better than Donnie. However, she was a huge Richie Sambroa fan and have you seen how he's lookin' lately? Egotz!

So, here I was, 34 years-old, married, thinking about the whole baby thing. Sixteen years old was more than half my life ago. And all these memories started flooding back. All the ridiculousness of my teenage years. All the money spent. All the time spent. All the screaming and singing along to songs. All of it just the right stuff. Ahhh, you knew I was going to find some way to work that in. It is me we're talking about here.

I thought back to my funniest NKOTB experience. The concert where we ended up helping security collect gifts for the band from the fans who tried to approach the closer rows but got turned away. How all three of us held large black hefty bags that got fuller throughout the concert. And then, how we made off with them running back to the car with our loot to see what these crazy bitches were bestowing on our guys. It was kinda sad. The cards, the letters, the heartfelt poetry, the poorly constructed missives about how fans visited their hometowns. Requests for autographs, tons of gummi bears, Mets hats, Red Sox hats, pictures, stuffed animals. We divided the loot by the guy we liked. Kristen got all Joey's gifts, I got Donnie's and Jen got Jon's. All is fair in love and looting.

The story always makes me laugh.

But, then reality came crashing down. Why are they playing NKOTB? And why do I now think this is the shittiest music to ever hit airwaves. Some friends would say my musical tastes have not evolved that much. It is true, the New Kids on the Block are back together reuniting (torturing) us one last time so that people like me could play their CDs for their kids and hopefully breathe some life back into the NKOTB craze. No thanks. Once was enough guys. I mean, really, who is going to be your fan base now. Even your youngest fans are well into their 20s and hoped you had moved onto bigger and better things. Come on, Donnie, what about that booming movie career, the Sixth Sense and Saw II. You were about to grasp the brass ring like your brother. The once Marky Mark of the former Funky Bunch who once autographed a picture for me when he played Playland signing it, "Lisa, How's Greace" when i was unable to attend because I was in GreEce, has movie roles coming out of his ass. And here you are ready to break it down NKOTB style in 2008. Have some self respect, would ya? Fade into obscurity with some dignity, man. You'll more than likely never reach the level of stardom you had. Instead you're just making jokes of yourselves and forcing your wives to raise your kids while you're out on the road entertaining 10 year-olds and their moms.

Then before I could switch out of my rage-a-hol mode, they played the new NKOTB song and I bet it's going to shoot straight to number one in strip clubs everywhere. Suddenly, it all made sense.

Back to the Juno soundtrack.