The Horror of Man Boobs and Jell-O

Sometimes, I witness things so horrible, that I am afraid that I will be struck blind and stupid. Sometimes, I witness something so awful that it makes me wonder why the people responsible for it are still employed. I have wondered this a lot in the past eight or so years, but until today, it never occurred to me that I was a rank amateur because it never occurred to me that someone in the music industry thought it was a good idea to bring back New Kids On The Block, with the original members and then let them shoot a video with them in it. Then again, I thought that Supply Side Economics had been completely discredited under Reagan.

For those of you who are, blissfully, not conversant with the NKOTB, I will enlighten you.
It was the late 80’s. Madonna had just writhed on the scene. Frankie went to Hollywood and relaxed and didn’t do it, although he wanted to go to it. Duran Duran sang about women and snakes. MTV was new and only had 10 videos. Punk and New Wave were what all my friends listened to. Disco had been put out of its misery by The Clash. We were not afraid to admit we hated strobes and disco balls anymore.

In fashion, women wore suits with enough padding to make football players envious. Hairspray companies were the surge market on Wall Street, with every teenage girl who ever passed by a mall ratting up her hair, poofing out her bangs, and shellacking them into place with enough Aqua Net to create a chasm in the ozone layer.

On the opposite end of the spectrum were the preppies who felt secure enough in their coolness to wear pastel, Izod polo shirts with the collars turned up and did not fear being pummeled or having their manhood questioned.

We pretended highschool was like The Breakfast Club.

Reagan was in the White House talking tough and forgetting that perhaps stating that we had launched nuclear warheads was not the wisest course of action.

It was the golden age of boy bands. Latinos already knew about boy bands as they had been tortured by Menudo for several years. Luis Miguel and Ricky Martin both graduated from Menudo when their voices cracked and dropped a couple of notes. I digress. One of the first and biggest boy bands in the US was New Kids on the Block. Prepubescent girls and boys waited to see them with a frenzy not seen since the Beatles walked down the steps and onto the tarmac. The “novel” thing about boy bands was that they danced a little routine with each song. How lovely.

There is a certain truth about people approaching middle age who cling to the glories of highschool and teenaged success. This truth is that they are sad because none of the rest of their life has ever measured up to those years in their lives that most of the rest of us hated. There is another certain truth, there is nothing more pathetic than someone approaching middle age who tries to recapture teenaged glory.

What is truly horrifying is when an entire boy band is convinced they can turn the clock back 25 years and reclaim their former triumph. When your six pack has been replaced by a sack of Jell-O, it is probably not a good idea for you to do your own dancing. When it is hard to distinguish the man boobs from the woman boobs in your video, perhaps you should have edited that part out.

No, dear friends, you can’t turn back the clock. Fortunately, though, you can rip back your knitting to find the place where it all went wrong and try to start again. Too bad that can’t help The New Kids on the Block.