NKOTB, in the haus!

this is quite possibly one of the most embarrassing finds in my pile-o-junk. yours truly, back in the day, used to be one hell of a new kids on the block fan. in fact, the first official concert that i ever attended was the n.k.o.t.b. for what i think was my 9th birthday (my 8th birthday was a teenage mutant ninja turtles party...but that is another story). i believe that the concert t-shirt is still hanging in the closet of 'my room' at my mom's house, in tatters because i wore it as much as possible. i still have tapes somewhere and when i was a kid, i would watch their videos everyday after school with my nanny (she bought me the concert tickets - she was awesome!). my friends and i would have sleepovers and listen to "please don't go girl" over and over and determined who loved joey more based on who cried first and hardest. yeah, it was sick. i had a lunchbox at one point but believe it got trashed a few years back. i also, somewhere, still have a brand new pair of n.k.o.t.b. socks that i never dared to wear. by the time my grandmother gave them to me, i was heartbroken by donny's complete disregard for the welfare of the band and it was all his delinquent fault that they broke up!

joey was my favorite. how was i to know that years later he would turn out kind of fugly looking and his voice would suck? when i found out he'd started a solo career i was appalled. but weren't we all? oh, how i loved him.

cut me a break here - i was 9 years old! i also loved color me badd, boyz II men, and a bunch of other best-forgotten pop stars. may i never go back. but because i enjoy the element of cheez, i still think fondly of those days. in college i reprised my new kids obsession by dressing up as one of the boys for the new college drag show along with a few other chicks. i think i was supposed to be jordan, but i can't remember now. all i know is that the hipsters ate that shit up. i also realized, by watching the old videos again to emulate their dance moves, that if new kids debuted today everyone would think they were flamingly gay and that they only dress badly because they enjoy irony and kitsch. unfortunately, they came out in the late 80s so there is really no excuse for them.