The day was January 10, 1990. It was the day that I met two of the New Kids on the Block.
I was a freshman in high school. I was chubby, had a huge mound of bangs on the front of my head, wore vests over t-shirts and rolled up my ripped jeans in a tight roll. A total goddess among women. I was constantly listening to them, watching them, my room was truly wallpapered with posters of them. I was a tad obsessed.
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| My whole room looked like this. It helped to cover up the blue flowery walls. |
One of our moms was kind enough to drive us there and tag along. (I have to pause here and give props to all of our parents for enduring us through this phase. They had to put up with screaming girls screaming - not only their own girls, but also the thousands of other girls at the concerts that they were forced to sit through. Way to go moms and dads!) Exciting things began happening right away. As we were driving into the city, we just happened to end up right behind their tour bus. How did we know it was their tour bus? Because we had seen it over and over on the VHS tape that they had sold that was full of backstage antics, the "real them" and music videos - we had the whole thing memorized.
And there was the bus....right in front of us. And we were breathing in it's exhaust and squealing. We followed the bus to the parking lot of the arena where the concert was being held and waited for them to come out. There was already a group of other eligible pre-teen to teen girls there waiting for the same thing, chanting their names. There was movement on the bus and then out came....their security guard. He was on the video too, so we knew him by name - Biscuit. We waited some more and decided they were never coming out, so we went to our main destination, the mall.
I don't remember what my friends were wearing, but I distinctly remember my ensemble for the day because I had so carefully planned it out. Black pants, tight-rolled of course; black button-down short-sleeved shirt, most likely men's; off-white brocade vest; black patent leather (plastic) mens-style shoes; atop my head and neatly behind the mound of bangs sat a black hat much like the ones that they were known to wear. Over the whole ensemble, because it was January and I live in Wisconsin, was a full-length down-filled acid-washed jean jacket. Honestly, I'm not sure if that made things better or worse.
Walking up one hallway, we heard a girl squeal in the distance. It was a sign. The call of the teen girl fan. Someone was there. We looked at each other and raced toward the call. All of the sudden there was a group of girls (How did so many convince their parents to let them take the day off of school?) and coming out of the store was a tall man in a black leather coat and following him was Joe McIntyre. We stood there, mouths probably hanging open, as he walked past us, smiled when we said "Hi" and continued on, followed by the gaggle of girls. His blue eyes were enhanced by the turquoise blue jacket and hat he wore. I was never his biggest fan - I didn't like the cutsey ones, I liked the bad boys - but I remember how dang blue his eyes were. We stood there for a couple of minutes and then started bouncing around. "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!" We were sure there had to be more than one of them there, so we continued our quest.
Another squeal, another direction change, and there was Jordan Knight coming out of another store, bodyguard in tow. The inevitable group of girls surrounded him for a little while, but they were still kind enough to let him get on with his browsing. Again - we just stood there in stunned silence as he walked right past us, so close that I could smell his leather jacket. Why didn't we say anything? I have no freaking idea. We decided to keep walking around to see who else we could find.
Eventually, we ended up seeing Jordan again. He and his counterpart were headed to the end of the hall about 25 yards ahead of us and they were about to go downstairs. We sped up. We didn't want the opportunity to pass us by again, but nobody else was saying anything. He was going to get away when I heard myself say, "Jordan!" Me - the introvert - go figure. He stopped (probably rolling his eyes), and turned around. Oh crap, what do I do now? I remembered that I had been carrying around a manila envelope of drawings that I had done of each of them in hopes of getting them signed. We caught up to him and I asked him for his autograph. His bodyguard said no, said he was in a hurry and had to go, but Jordan said, "No, it's okay." My Knight (pun intended) in shining armor was so enamoured by my beauty that he was making time for me! I quickly found the picture that I had sketched of him and pulled it out. He chuckled (for good reason - seriously) and asked for my name then signed the picture (with the Sharpie I was so kind to supply) "To Becca, Love always, Jordan Knight" Oh. my. god. LOVE ALWAYS!! I took the marker from him, our fingers touched. Gah! I should have hugged him, I should have said "Thanks for the best birthday gift ever," to get the obligatory Happy Birthday response from him, I should have asked to have my picture taken with him, but instead I pulled out my Instamatic camera and snapped this picture:
I thanked him and he went on his way. Yup. That was our amazing encounter. What my friends were doing this whole time, I have no idea. I think they were just standing behind me watching the whole episode unfold. They worshipped my newly-signed sketch for a little while and we moved on again.
We were hungry, so we went up to the food court, which unlike most malls is actually located on the second and third floors. We were milling about trying to find just the right mall food to eat (Sbarro? Orange Julius?) when we noticed the turquoise ensemble sported by Joe. Ack! I wasn't ready for that. He was eating a gyro and I didn't really want to bother him, but the chance might pass again and my friends were pushing me to go up, so I did...and I was denied. I asked for an autograph, but his bodyguard refused and gave me some pre-printed photo of all of them with their pre-printed signatures on it. Lame. I said thanks anyway and asked if I could take his picture, which he agreed to (you know thinking about it, I don't think I ever heard him mutter a word), and I snapped this one:
And that was it. We stayed a while longer, but none of the other guys showed up. After talking to some of the mall employees, it turns out that they had been there a little earlier. Drat! The tour bus was a decoy! We had heard through the grapevine that they were staying at a hotel just a couple of blocks away, so we headed there. Sure enough, another group of girls was hanging out outside the doors. We just walked right in and got into the elevator. Was there security? Did they figure we were just hotel guests? It's a mystery to me. Anyway, we headed up a few floors, got out of the elevator, and across the atrium and up a floor, we saw the back of Danny's head as he walked into his room. Meh. It was just Danny. We decided to get out of there before we got into trouble.
Finally the time for the concert came. We had nosebleed seats, but ended up running into some girls from our school and proceeded to tell them everything that happened. The whole section of people, complete strangers, wanted to hear the whole story of how we met them. The concert went on into the wee hours of the night and we went home. Unfortunately I lost the sharpie that Jordan had used somewhere in the arena. I was gonna frame that thing too...
I took my autographed sketch to school with me the next day. I was tired, but I was on cloud nine. I had no photos to show yet because they were taken on a camera with film and we didn't have instant gratification like we do now. We were the most popular girls in that school that day. Even the teachers were happy for us (though I'm amazed we didn't get into trouble for skipping school). I remember one of the most popular girls in the school saying, "I don't even like New Kids, and I think that's pretty cool." I cared about stuff like that back then - especially since I was just a freshman who got picked on quite a bit.
My mom was kind enough to take the film to be processed at a one-hour photo place about a half-hour away while I was at school so they'd be ready for me when I got home. Photographic evidence that it actually happened! I didn't forge any signatures, I actually saw them. Those went to school with me the next day, were framed immediately after that, and hung on my bedroom wall right next to my signed sketch.
And there you have it - my brush with fame followed by my own 15 minutes of fame in our small town high school. *Bows*
I don't think I'll be attending the concert this summer. Though I think it would be fun to get together with all of my friends who were also into them back then and go to another concert...it's just not the same if we're not screaming and crying at every pelvic thrust because we're lusting over them and thinking that every song is just for us, you know? (Especially not for the ticket prices that they'll be asking.) Sure, I'd still probably remember all the dance moves and sing along and bounce around with all of the other thirty-somethings, but maybe I can do that at my upcoming 20-year high school reunion instead. (Gulp)
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