Coming out of the Boy Band Closet: I heart N.K.O.T.B

In my tween and teen years, I was obsessed with the New Kids on the Block. If you don't remember Joe, Jordan, Jon, Donnie and Danny, they were (and are) an American “boy band” that peaked in the late 80s/ early 90s with a popularity at the time that was compared to the success of The Beatles a generation before. New Kids were the perfect formula of good-looking boys and easy to memorize song lyrics, and I fell fast. A friend introduced me to the phenomena. I went to her house for a sleepover and came back a different girl. We had watched the VHS popumentaries "Hangin' Tough" and "Hangin' Tough Live" about thirty times that weekend. When I got home, I think my mom thought I was on drugs, because when I'd left for the weekend, I had lots of interests; when I came back, there was only one. And there would only be one, for years to come.

A few weeks later, I visited my god-sister Kelly's house. She had apparently already known about New Kids "forever". I hadn't been over in months, so it was a shock to step into her bedroom and find the walls completely covered with New Kids. There was no blank space. She had created New Kids on the Block wallpaper with posters.

Not to be outdone as their biggest new fan, I came home and began a project that over several years, and with the help of my best friend, Julie, would become a bigger and better shrine than Kelly's. I papered my bedroom walls with thousands of pictures of the group, not settling for covering the space in large posters but cutting out every tiny picture of them from Bop, Big Bopper and Teen Beat, framing in the larger posters, and covering the light switch, electrical sockets and moldings. I bought every shameless promotional item, from the bedspread and sheets to the shoelaces and basically blew the weekly allowances I should have saved for my college education. It was like kismet between my hormone enraged body and their amazing marketing machine.

Not many people knew about my "New Kids thing", except Julie and a few other friends. I rarely had friends over because I didn't want them to see my room. For some reason, at my school, no one wanted to admit they liked New Kids. I remember being harassed one day in English class by a group of boys because of a small Joe button attached to my purse. Julie experienced similar backlash at school, so we began talking in code around others and saved the gushing for after school at my house.

As much as we loved them, Julie and I were normal girls from normal families. Our moms were not the types to drive us to other states to see them perform, or take us in the middle of the night to stake out their tour bus or hotel entrances. Thus, we only went to the few concerts that came to our town and only dreamed that we could be the groupies we read about in Teen Beat. I always wanted to be a writer, so I started a New Kids story, which grew to nearly 500 pages long. It was about winning a contest to go on a cruise with them, something they did for fans in real life but I could never have afforded had opportunity presented itself. Thankfully, my embarrassment isn't complete, as I never finished the story. I finally got a real boyfriend and started living instead of fantasizing.

Twenty years later, I realize there shouldn't have been shame in being a blockhead. Lots of girls were New Kids fans (even if they didn't admit it), as evidenced by their album sales. But now here comes the hard part of the confession, of my "coming out" if you will...I'm still a blockhead.

If you're not up on your New Kids trivia, you're probably picturing me wearing a twenty-year old tee-shirt and dancing to Step-by-Step in my bedroom. But if you're a little with it, you'll know that they're back. After going their separate ways in 1994, they reunited to release a new album in 2008 called "The Block" and started touring again. And despite myself, I've fallen again. What's worse, I'm a grownup with money, so it's much easier afford the concerts, tee-shirts and music downloads.

Last October, Julie and I went to their sold-out comeback concert, ready to relive our teenage years. When we got to the Palace, we bought tee-shirts and changed into them in the bathroom before finding our seats. At long last, brand new tee-shirts that would actually fit us! We purchased Property of Jon Knight (Julie) and Property of Donnie Wahlberg (me) shirts for $40 each. Yikes.

Whoever stocked the tee-shirts at the venue was apparently re-living the past too, because the tee-shirt sizes were almost comical. Size large felt almost obscene on our grownup chests, stretching the fonts of their names to extra large grande. But five minutes into the concert, I could have been naked for all I would have noticed. We had third row seats and had the time of our lives being thirteen again. Part of it was reliving memories and part of it was experiencing that long-forgotten rush of hormones that allows you to do things you wouldn't normally do. You know the hormone rush I mean. It's the one that compels women to scream at the top of their lungs, at men they don't know, things that they wouldn't whisper in bed to their husbands. (You may have seen this rare phenomenon in action at bachelorette parties and strip clubs after 1AM when the shots have kicked in.)

We had such a good time at the concert that when the summer tour came back around in June, we decided we had waited long enough to meet them and would go all out and pay the extra money for a Meet & Greet, something we wouldn't have been able to do back in the day. I lost 20 pounds and wore my Donnie tee-shirt again, mostly so I didn't have to shell out the money for a new one. I won't give a detailed account of the entire day waiting around to meet the group, but I will tell you two important things we learned:

1. Some girls will spend a lot of money to feel special. We met girls who are thousands of dollars in debt from following the tour across the country. They do this for different reasons - some to show their love, some in hopes the guys will recognize them as friends, some to forget about troubles in their own lives, and some because they have the free time and had money to indulge when they first started out.

2. There's a lot of negotiating and quick, school yard picks in line. Ten girls meet the five guys at a time. We learned you don't want to go in with a group where all the girls like the same guy because that means no one gets satisfactory face time with their man. Also, two girls to a guy means each girl can take a side of him during the picturing taking. Standing directly next to your man is highly prized for the purposes of cropping out the other people from the picture later, for your Facebook or Twitter profile pic. There was lots of scrambling to find two Joe girls, two Donnie girls, two Jordan girls, etc. There was also a lot of "I don't want to go in with another Jordan/Donnie/Joe/Jon/Danny girl who is prettier than me."

Once we had our groups figured out, there was a lot of waiting in the rain - and a bit of drama. Donnie almost didn't make the meet & greet due to weather and deplaning issues. And then we got the breaking news, spreading like wildfire from Perez Hilton via the concert-goers with smart phones, that Michael Jackson was dead.

It was finally our turn. We went in, and there they were in 3D. It was overwhelming. Twenty years of frenzied fandom - flashbacks of cutting all those pictures, all the rolls of tape we went through, all the lyrics I'd memorized, all the pages of my story fluttering through my mind... It went so fast. They were making up time because Donnie had arrived late, so each group had maybe 30 seconds. The other "Donnie girl" in my group, Ela from Canada, went over to him right away. In the 20 or more meet and greets she'd done, she hadn't gotten a chance to tell Donnie everything she needed to say, and she claimed this was her last one. I waited patiently while she showed him her homemade tee-shirt and handed him a letter smuggled in under her shirt. While I waited, I turned to Danny and Jon and said hi to them. Neither said anything back, but then, they had their Danny and Jon girls. I gathered that my Donnie tee-shirt announced that I wasn't waiting to talk to them. I turned back to see Ela still talking to Donnie -- and something else. Two barbie dolls, who had called themselves Jordan girls, were now claiming Donnie hugs! I was new to the rules, but I was pretty sure this was a meet & greet crime!

Suddenly, they were arranging us for the group photos. I was maneuvered two spots away from Donnie, the interlopers crushing around him, and then it was over and they were ushering us away. I turned to Ela and mouthed to her "But I didn't even get to say hello." I'd waited years, through all that time when we thought they'd never come back.

Ela and I had gotten to know each other in line and she recognized a fellow fan's plight. Ela pushed her way back over to Donnie and said loudly, "Donnie, this girl has waited 20 years to meet you."

A bodyguard was brushing against my arm, herding me toward the exit. But then I saw Donnie make a motion at him, and suddenly, I was nudged back and Donnie was hugging me. And hugging me. It seemed to go on forever. Everyone else was gone, and I was still there, hugging and being hugged. It made everything worth it. All the money I'd spent. All the times I'd been teased for being a fan.

I heard the bodyguard say "Okay, let's go", and I started to pull away. Amazingly, Donnie was still hugging. I let myself sink back into it, and this time, when the bodyguard touched my shoulder to pull me away, I pulled my face from the crook of Donnie's neck to declare, "If he's not letting go, I'm not letting go." The hug lasted another 10 seconds or so, when we finally released each other and I was escorted away. It's a blur, but I'm pretty sure I never said a word to him.

It was the best concert ever, and we hadn't even actually gone to the concert yet. Our seats were in the fifth row, but there was an empty space in the front against the stage. We made friends with a security guard who let us move up during the opening acts. We'd met them and now we had first row seats. Couldn't get much better than that! I've been to many concerts and I've never felt the kind of energy I feel at a New Kids concert. The screams simply don't compare. At any other concert, there are usually people there who just happened to get tickets, people who like one or two songs from the new album or who only like the band's old stuff. At a New Kids concert, it's thousands of me's.

Sitting in the parking lot later, waiting to get out of the traffic jam to get back to Julie's house, we rambled on about our favorite parts of the show while listening to "The Block". Julie felt we'd met all of our goals, and this was a great way to end things. We had closure. I agreed with her, except now, in some small way, I understood why those girls I'd previously dismissed as crazy followed them across the nation. Why they went to concert after concert; paid for meet & greet after meet & greet. It was a rush. I kept wondering if maybe it could get even better. Maybe next time, I could actually speak to one of them. I could choke out a hello or something. Maybe I could make Donnie smile or laugh! Get an autograph! My tendency to stay at the poker table too long, to buy back into a cash game over and over, was rearing its ugly head in my New Kids world. Damn my addictive personality.

Aside from the two concerts and the m&g, what's really gotten me hooked again is that the guys themselves seem much more accessible this time around. Once when I waited eagerly for a fan club newsletter in the mail or a few seconds of concert footage during the New Kids on the Block Saturday morning cartoon, now I only need look as far as their official website or sign on to Twitter. The marketing machine that exploited them back in the day is no more, but the boys did learn a few tricks. They've joined the social networking arena with ease -- five guys can cover a lot of virtual ground, between their blogs, tweets and contests.

And now comes the cruise to the Bahamas. They did one last year, and now this May, they're sailing again. And guess who's going? Beach parties, meet & greets, concerts - oh my! A chance to live the story I wrote when I was thirteen years old.

What does my husband think about all of this? Well, in practical terms (with regard to the cruise), he gets seasick and will never cruise with me, which is something I really enjoy doing. So this is an opportunity for me to be on a boat, in a safe environment, with entertainment I know I will like and fellow passengers with whom I have a lot in common. Does it matter that I don't know anyone else on the boat? I'll make friends. With regard to the other stuff, I think he looks at me as kind of a geek. He likes his computer games, his motorcycle stuff...his hobbies. I think he accepts this as my geeky hobby. Everyone has one, don't they? Am I any different than the people who save up their money to go to Graceland? (And come on, most people agree that Elvis isn't even alive.) I'm pretty sure my husband tries not to be embarrassed by it, but he might be a little. Luckily, he knows I love him more than all of the New Kids put together. For as many fantasies I had about meeting New Kids, I had more about getting married someday to a man who would accept me for who I am.

As for me, I'm trying to keep control of myself now that they're back, monetarily and mentally. (And it seems they might be back to stay - there are rumors of another album underway.) I might understand why girls follow the New Kids around the world, but I don't have to get carried away myself. I'm not going to the pre-cruise concert in Miami. I'm not going to the concert in June in Windsor, even if they will only be a stone's throw away. I'm not letting myself listen to Donnie's Friday evening DJ show on Cherrytree radio. I only check Twitter posts every few weeks, and I no longer respond to their posts (though I did for a bit right after the concert - Jordan plays a twenty questions game that's hard to resist). I don't enter the contests (even when I was really tempted by the "Weekend with Donnie" one).

It's like gambling. I draw out what money I need and leave my ATM card at home. I'm policing myself. Sad that I have to, but at least I understand my weaknesses.

And now you know my weakness, too. I'm a blockhead. A big old geeky blockhead.

Enjoy your laugh.

Or maybe, just maybe, you will join me out here in the light.

David's Dream Bubble - Part III

On the heels of my most recent post about our haunted house, I thought I'd follow with a short story written in college that might keep you in a creepy mood. Written for a creative writing class in 1999, the assignment was to begin with the teacher-supplied line: "When the man looked in the mirror, the small beady eyes of a rat looked back" and spin an original story from there. Despite the gnawing desire to update aspects of my writing, I'm going to leave it as-is to allow you to enjoy the tone I now recognize as from my "angsty" and "student workshoppy" phase. Here is Part III of III:

The coffee was strong and too hot, but David drank it when his mother insisted. She was telling him that he needed sleep. The coffee, she said, would not keep him awake. She had carefully chosen the right kind. His head was hurting and she could tell. 

It was Midnight, but his mother was straightening his house. David decided to go to sleep. He climbed into his bed and slept a long, dreamless sleep. When he awoke, the sun was shining through a crack beneath his window shade. He did not hear any sounds from the depths of the house and determined that his mother had left. When he entered the kitchen, the linoleum had been scrubbed clean and his dishes were stacked neatly within the cabinets. On the table were blue place mats. They were like the ones at his mother’s house. 

David dallied as long as possible in the kitchen. He inspected his cupboards and refrigerator. There were frozen, homemade soups in the icebox. He placed one of the plastic containers in the microwave and thought about brushing his teeth. His fear of the bathroom, he decided, was real. He thought about the bathroom as he brewed coffee, drank it, and rinsed the cup. He set the clean mug and soup bowl in the empty dishwasher. 

His eyes were normal in the mirror. The walls were empty. He heard only the usual sounds of the bathroom. When he was in the shower, David noticed the smells. He could smell the soap before he had picked it up and before he had wet it. The shampoo in its bottle made his nostrils flair. The toilet water, too, had a strong odor. It smelled like he was sick and heaving over it—-but he was in the shower and the lid was closed.

[Can I dream in the daylight?]

He sat on the couch with his too-long hair drenched and clinging to his face in wet chunks. He was shuddering and naked. He was cold and he had left the towel in the bathroom. His strong, callused hands were trembling on his thighs. David considered calling his mother. He picked up the phone, dialed, and then easily replaced the receiver. She would not understand.

[Who dreams all the time?]

The door was knocking. He could hear it, but he could not move. David was tired, and he was unclothed on the living room floor. The carpet itched his nose. He was too nervous to scratch it. After some time of sitting, he had decided that even his bedroom, next to the bathroom, was unsafe. It was almost dark in the room, lit only by the yellow streetlights outside. David was unsure how long he had been on the floor. He heard a key crunch into the lock and the soft sound of the door push open. He heard his mother thank someone, probably his landlord from next door.

She was bending over him and he could smell the artificial flowers dabbed on her neck. He heard her nails click the buttons as she dialed the phone. David didn’t care what she thought now. She had placed a warm, brown blanket over him and he was comfortable. He pulled the corner of it under his head and his nose ceased to itch. The knock of her thick heels on the kitchen floor, and then the soundless foot vibrations to follow, told David his mother was nearing the back of the house. She was using his bathroom. He considered calling out to her. She would be afraid of a place where she could smell and see and think and hear like she was in a dream. If she doesn’t come running out in fear, he thought, does that mean my bathroom is just a bathroom?

The washcloth was rough and hot. She had wet it and rung it out before placing it against his forehead. His mother seemed impatient. She was waiting for someone. She had not spoken when she came out of the bathroom, but he knew she had been in there a long time. 

David sat on his bed. He wanted to protest when his mother was packing his clothes, but he did not. He wanted to ask her what she had seen in the bathroom, but she was unusually silent, and he did not want to disturb her. When the moving people came, they took his couch and lamps. They pulled the carpet from the wood floor. He watched his mother direct traffic and thought about all the strangers walking over his floors. He chewed his fingernails and the skin on the sides of them.

He slowly unpacked his belongings in his bedroom at his mother’s house. He unwrapped a shoe from wrinkled newspaper. She had wrapped everything. It was dark, and his mother was asleep in her bedroom. He could hear her deep, calm breathing through the wall. He could not remember what it was like to sleep like that. He decided to ready himself for bed, but he could not find his toothbrush. He flipped through the boxes on the floor. All were empty. As he sat on the edge of the bed, David found that he had not unpacked his shampoo, his razor, or his soap. There were no bathroom supplies. 

He realized his mother had forgotten to pack in the bathroom.

Enough - poetry by guest author Renee Anderson

When is enough really enough?
when you feel broken and empty inside
when you have nowhere to go
when you have no more tears to shed

Can anyone really live this way?
you hate to go home
in a room full of people you stand alone
your heart yearns for more
all you see is emptiness

When you are told that you are loved - but it's hollow
you can hear the words but no action is given
the need you crave is never met
you replace one addiction with another
until you are just a shell

Standing alone
I want so much more than I have
I have so much more than I need
If life was simpler I would be set
My wants carry over into obsessions
My thoughts take control of my head
If I could just take a step back
Maybe just maybe I wouldn't feel alone

How?
how do I control the rage
how do I control the beasts inside
how do I let these feelings out before they become my life

I wish
sometimes I wish I could go back in time
to a worry-free feeling of bliss
to lack responsibilities
to lack wants
to start over or end it all

Renee has been writing poetry to let out her emotions since she was 9yrs old. For Renee, writing is just another way to express who she is deep inside. As "Chief Dribbler" on this blog, I'd like to add that I'm thrilled to bring Renee's poetry to Minddribbles and encourage all of my friends who enjoy writing either poetry or prose to submit their words for display on this blog to sendtojenn@yahoo.com. I'd love to read whatever has dribbled from your mind, in any format!

David's Dream Bubble - Part I

On the heels of my most recent post about our haunted house, I thought I'd follow with a short story written in college that might keep you in a creepy mood. Written for a creative writing class in 1999, the assignment was to begin with the teacher-supplied line: "When the man looked in the mirror, the small beady eyes of a rat looked back" and spin an original story from there. Despite the gnawing desire to update aspects of my writing, I'm going to leave it as-is to allow you to enjoy the tone I now recognize as from my "angsty" and "student workshoppy" phase. Here is Part I of III:

When the man looked into the mirror, the small beady eyes of a rat looked back.


[I am dreaming]

He rubbed rough knuckles into his eyes and, blinking, looked into the mirror. The face was his. A long, narrow nose still jutted oddly from beneath wild eyebrows. His chin was still a hard square and his tight skin, as usual, was pale and unshaven. Cheekbones, wide and pronounced, dominated his slender face. They were two 25 cent gum balls unnaturally buried beneath his stretched cheeks. His round cheekbones were familiar. They had always been there.

Framed between his hairy brows and bulging cheekbones were the new eyes. They were black and glassy. His eye sockets and lids had adapted to their size. In a different context, in a smaller face, the eyes may have gone unnoticed. In his large face, they were impossibly small.

[I must be dreaming]

David would not panic. His rat eyes flicked about the bathroom. They worked well. The bathroom was drawn with crisp, clear lines. The tiles above the wash basin were thousands of pressed grains. He could count each particle that formed them. From across the bathroom, the grooves of a soap bar in its shower dish were clearly defined. David could not tell if his fingers were broken or if the doorknob evaded his reach, but he failed his first attempt to exit the bathroom. His fingers were useless sticks of butter. His arms were useless rubber pencils.

The door opened. He stepped from the false bathroom light to the lamp-lit hallway. It was foggy. It was under water. David realized he was seeing with his own eyes. As his gaze traveled over the white walls and hung photographs, he did not detect the cat slipping around his legs and into the bathroom. When he reached the living room, he scanned for changes. He studied the black couch, the lamps and the coffee table. He did not notice the motionless rustle of the draperies or see the cold air seep through the window cracks. When he had crossed from the bathroom to the hall, he had awoken from whatever dream he had dreamt.

The phone was ringing. David melted into his couch and pulled the phone onto his lap. It was his mother.

[I just had the strangest dream…]

His voice was nervous and she offered to come over. The thought made his head ache, but he agreed.

She bustled in the doorway with a brown bag of groceries. Each light was clicked as she walked. David was annoyed by the invasion of his mother and the light she inflicted upon the house. He took her bag to the kitchen and placed it on the counter anyway. She was immediately unpacking it and making coffee. She told him he looked tired. His eyes, she said, were red.

He could hear the sound of his mother opening and closing his cupboards as he walked down the hallway. He could see her mouth twitch and her brow crease as she discovered their contents. He could hear her unpack broccoli and apples and bottles of vitamins—things he did not have or want. He decided he would take a shower. He would forget about his dream.

Mandolyn's Masquerade - Prologue

Want to know if Mandolyn's Masquerade is the right book for your young reader? Here's a quick taste:

Once, many years ago, when there were more undiscovered lands than found, and dragons and unicorns were not merely creatures of myth, there was a far-off land, now long-forgotten, filled with many kings and many queens. The greatest of all the kings in this land was King Gerome of Bhellington. His enchanted castle, built of strong stones by strong honest hands, perched so high atop the hill on which it stood that wispy white clouds drifted around the peaks of its three tallest towers. Vivid flowers of every hue brightened the castle's stony visage, and trickled down the hillside to the warm homes of the hardworking villagers who lived below. The villagers' tiny, well-kept cottages scattered from the castle like colorful dots as far as the eye could see, connected by tidy little dirt roads that were carved into the lush countryside.

Oh yes -- Bhellington Castle was built as nobly as the members of the royal family who lived there. However, the most envied treasure of the Bhellington family was not the magnificent castle, or even its honored king. No -- the greatest treasure of the land was Princess Mandolyn, whose grace and charm captured the heart of the kingdom and all who knew her.

Indeed, Princess Mandolyn was quite the apple of her father's eye. Even though she was dressed and groomed as handsomely as her mother, the lovely Queen Tealina, Mandolyn's strong chin and warm hazel eyes made her look remarkably like King Gerome in female guise. Despite the striking similarity between them, however, Princess Mandolyn looked every inch a princess, and a lovely one at that. A sparkling tiara sparkled upon her gleaming gold tresses, which floated gracefully down her back to curl gently at her royal waist, encircled with velvet ropes and sashes meant to match all her fine gowns. Precious rubies and sapphires winked from her wrists and fingers, but these glistening jewels paled in comparison with her great natural beauty.

Every daydreaming girl in the kingdom wished that she could be the princess, coveting her beauty and riches, while every handsome prince in the realm wished her for his bride.

Mandolyn's Masquerade is available for purchase at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble's online store. I recommend this book for ages 10 and up, though I know younger advanced readers have been able to read it without difficulty. I believe in pushing children to read above their vocabulary and grade levels to become stronger readers, and wrote it with that goal, so there will certainly be words they don't understand and likely will need to look up, especially the "old-timey" words that are reflective of the time period. The illustrations by artist KC Bath are there for your younger readers, as this work is meant to be a "companion book", enjoyed together with parents and siblings of all ages. There's something for everyone in this fairy tale!