**Note to reader: I’ve known Chance forever. (We were in first grade together.) He was the catalyst for what is now known as The Great Debate. He was also the reason I had to issue my first retraction on this website.
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Lincee Bell -
So I think it was you who told me the New Kids on the Block were doing a reunion tour. And did you say you were going to go to their concert?
See video below, which purports to be a new New Kids song. But I’m not 100% that it’s real. It may be a joke, in which case, it’s very well done. These guys never break character, laugh, or wink to acknowledge that what they are doing is ridiculous. But I’m almost sure that one of them is Marky Mark’s brother. I don’t recognize the other guys, but they are definitely d-bags…and if I recall correctly from the little round pictures you pinned on your jacket when we were in junior high, the New Kids were all textbook d-bags.
So this may be for real. In which case, there’s no excuse for this video.
Youth is a defense for all sorts of otherwise indefensible behavior. Becoming rich and famous as a teenager by following the instructions of some twisted record producer may excuse Hangin’ Tough (which you inexplicably put on that CD you made me.) And between 1989 and 1991, those tools no doubt bedded a lot of groupies who would have otherwise been way out of their league. Some may consider that a defense in itself. But these guys are all at least 33 years old now.
To be fair, I’ve considered that this may be a sort of sacrifice. Perhaps they’re aware of the total deficit of dignity in their actions, but they have families to feed. They likely missed a lot of school and probably weren’t acquiring other marketable job skills or financial management training during their fifteen minutes of fame. But ask yourself: as a child today, would you rather: (a) scrape by financially and tell your friends “my dad sells shoes, but he used to be famous and he’s really good friends with Mark Wahlberg’s brother.” (No way Mark Wahlberg himself goes anywhere near these d-bags); or (b) live much more comfortably, but have to explain that your dad is one of the guys
in this video.
Even thinking it might have been a spoof (I’m still praying it is), I had to cover my eyes at times. And I promise you I couldn’t stay in my chair because I was so uncomfortable watching grown men act this way. Finally, after this insupportable bit where all five guys sang a one-line solo, I just had to turn it off or lurch. I turned it off.
I know I’m particularly sensitive to people behaving shamelessly (see my allergy to reality TV except for reading recaps of the The Bachelor on your website.) And I know you have a higher tolerance for shameless behavior (see your website dedicated in part to The Bachelor.) Plus, I’m aware that you liked the New Kids on the Block in junior high (see pins on your junior high jacket), which is excused because of your youth (see above–youth as a defense to being a New Kid on the Block.)
But this video is breathtaking. And I don’t think you’ll be able to watch it all either. But have a look and let me know if it’s really the New Kids. If you get all the way through the video, you should see your doctor to find out what’s wrong with your gag reflex. And if you make it through an entire concert without having a spew or at least having to look away, you have a gift. Absolutely nothing will turn your stomach. And you owe it to the world to consider a career change making use of your gift: perhaps surgery, proctology, CIA interrogations, sewage treatment.
Love,
Chance
Was at the Mall of America last week during a layover, and guess who was performing, LIVE?! NKOTB. Seriously. Most of the fans were in their late 20s, but it wasn’t super-crowded or anything. I didn’t hear them sing that song, but I talked to the crew - apparently they DO have some new songs.
Made it through the whole thing…don’t know what that makes me…and I guess it’s wrong that I could identify most all of the dance moves by name…and I guess it’s wrong that the shoulder pads initiated a skip down memory lane…lincee…you know there are still clothes at the house that would work for their upcoming tour…maybe we should give wardrobe a call…
I’m a little embarrassed b/c you informed me that this is an OLD video. Oh well. It’s still terrible. And the fact that I didn’t recognize it was them back then is only further proof that I was never a New Kids fan. You remember the rules in junior high. Girls: you were only cool if you had at least three New Kids on the Block pictures pinned to your clothing. Boys: if you knew one New Kids song or failed to make fun of them any time they were mentioned, you were subject to an immediate and severe *ss-kicking by all of your former male friends.
Girls - you were REALLY cool if you had a pin the size of Saturn on your junior high jacket. Remember those extra large pins with your favorite band member on it?
That song was even better live back in 1989.
I think they are more in their 40’s now!
I LOVED it!! What a trip down memory lane!! I forgot what good performers they were. Give them a break, it was the late 80s. A lot of things were questionable back then - clothes, dance moves, etc. At least their music was clean which is a far cry from a lot of the songs out there today that easily influence the youth.
Lincee, glad to hear you are a New Kids fan! I CAN-NOT wait for the concert here in H-town. Should be a blast! If you have not purchased the “Best Of NKOTB” off of iTunes yet, please do so immediately. Your co-workers will appreciate every minute.
Lincee,
Please tell Chance that my intramural basketball team in college (circa 2002) was named NKOTB - we had matching red tank tops with black lettering…once a fan, always a fan.
seriously chance? how could you ever think that was in this decade? are you stuck in a time warp?
That was such an awesome flashback. You know that video was SO cool back in the day! But Chance, really….how could you possible not realize that was totally dated?! Your lack of faith in the taste of semi-grown women everywhere scares me a little!
Chance,
If you were smart YOU would attend the NKOTB concert in Houston. It will be all 27-40 year old women. Myself included. It’s going to be a single guy’s dream! My brother can’t wait!
He has a point.
To be sure he has this right reference for comparison, Chance must watch David Hasselhoff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgX-hiQdfFw
(Nice overalls, and nice American flag shirt…)
(Don’t hassel the hoff).
It’s sad that I’m now 27 and, after watching this video, still get that girly-crush feeling when I see Jordan! HA!!
I’m with Chance all the way! I used to lie to my friends and say that I loved NKOTB so that I would not be tortured and laughed at. While this video may be old I still think that it is a shame that they are back together. Donnie Walberg should have other things to do. He is the only one that has done anything that would be an improvement. Jordan as I recall was last seen on Surreal Life…enough said!
So Chance I am one woman in my thirties that agrees 100% with you that they weren’t good then and OMG why do it again!!!!
Fun trip down memory lane!! And Betsy, I was at MOA that day, too!! Didn’t get the see them though. . .
I freaked friends of mine out the other day because I actually knew Joey’s birthday (including year). . . that was fun!
I can’t believe I sat through the whole video and I can’t believe it was almost four and a half minutes long…I knew the song but never saw the video before. That was quite painful. Were they pretending to read a movie script towards the end? and what was up with the overalls?
I haven’t laughed that hard in quite a while! I can’t imagine why this video seemed like a good idea to them…even back in the ’80’s.
#15 - Denise - I hear you! Back in the day I said I liked them because all of my friends did. One of my friends made us spend upmteen hours writing letters we never sent to our favorite New Kid. Mine was Joey, but only because he was closest to me in age. Being the complete sheep I am, I even bought a poster of them at Blockbuster and put it up on my wall for exactly one month. Then the backlash started, and I promptly took it down and threw it away.
I still wonder to this day what my friend did with her NKOTB sleeping bag, trash can, toothbrush, trading cards, notebooks, shirts, pins, pencils, backpack, posters, hats, tapes, and thousands of copies of Teen Beat and Tiger magazines bearing their faces.
Myself, I kept the one tape I owned, but I was much more into the likes of Gloria Estefan, Debbie Gibson, Michael Jackson, and um…Milli Vanilli. Blerg….
Hey I am going to the reunion concert as well, and don’t think I didn’t log on the second they were released (because I did). I loved them, but I hadn’t seen that video probably since it was released. I have to say…the hair, the outfits…so tragically 80’s but also so before their time. That video
Sorry, computer freak out, but that video takes me back, and I still think they are adorable. if you ask me it’s no different than NSYNC in Bye Bye Bye…our kids will be saying the same things aobut JT in 10+ years. I’m just saying.
That was MY favorite NKOTB song! I love it!
If you want to be scared by a video…watch this NKTOB one!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25qiZy7vmqY
I loved that video. It was a great trip down memory lane. Cheesy yes, but fun. Now their new vidoe (thanks #23) that was painful to watch. Somehow the “cheesy-ness” was Ok back in the 80’s, now not so much. I still heart Jordan.
Well, this just made me happy!!! I remember it well. . summer, 1990, waiting outside of Hastings Records in Barton Creek Mall (in Austin); my BFF, Liz and I were the first ones in line to but the new “Step By Step” CD. Lincee. . you’ll love this. . .we actually wrote a rap about NKOTB and won a contest here in Austin. . we were guest DJs on the radio for a week!! Fun stuff!! I heart NKOTB! And I think my guy, Jon(athan) aged the best. . still super H.O.T.
Ok… maybe I’m dense. What does Chance not get here? Does he not remember this video? It’s not a spoof, it’s the real video. Not of the “new” NKOTB… it’s when they were teenagers. Does he think those kids look 40? um, no.
So was he trying to be funny?
Or is he just so out of it that he doesn’t remember this?
Maybe I don’t get his joke?
Anyway, I thought it was totally fun to watch, even though I was a little too old to be a real NKOTB fan then. I was a Friday Night Videos fan though. And if you remember THAT, you’re old too.
OH GOD! That new video is painful #23. What’s the male version of a cougar? Seriously they have got to be 20 years older than all those girls frolicking in bikinis. Its embarassing. Why couldn’t they just make a tasteful video? the song isn’t half bad.
I still have the Step By Step AND Hangin’ Tough Live VHS tapes. SO WHAT??!!!!!!
/
Love them as much now as I did when I got part of their sweat towel after a concert in 1990 or so… Crazy, huh!?!
Thanks, Chance, for the flashback!
Rachel #23-is it just me or does Donnie look like a school janitor or like he’s on work-release from the half-way house? I showed my daugher (age 11) the new video because she loves that song, and then the old one of “Step by Step” and she laughed.
#23…isn’t that the perviest video? Talk about having your midlfe crisis with your four BFFs!
The video ruined the song for me…I kind of liked it until I got the visual, lol. I was picturing “older, but wiser” New Kids, chilling with a only slighly faded beauty of appropriate age
Instead, it was all Skankfest.
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