How times have changed

The other night, as I wrote my story for the NKOTB and US submission, I realized just how many amazing times I've had because of New Kids. I write this, not to brag or rub it in anyone's face, but it's important to me that you know that despite everything that's happened to me the last three years, I still don't take a single moment for granted.

I remember my first taste of Face Time in April 2009. I remember every minute of that whole day, right down to the fact that Donnie was wearing the "Butter Coat" (the leather was as soft as buttah!). When I first shared my story from that day, I wrote about every little detail from the time it began (the night before) until well after we returned home late (early?) that night (the next morning?). I had waited twenty-one years for the moment when I would first meet a New Kid and I didn't want to lose a single memory.

I met more of the guys later that spring when I went to New York for the Today Show and again over the summer when I had my first and only 5* in Denver. Since then I've gotten the chance to talk to them a few more times, each time being more special and personal than the last. And you've probably noticed that I don't share the details anymore. Much of my reluctance is because I don't want to appear egotistical about the time I've been fortunate enough to get with them. The last thing I want is for someone to feel like I'm rubbing anything in their face. I've been there and I wouldn't wish that feeling on anyone. But honestly, the biggest reason I don't share much about my time with them is because it's my time with them.

They're my moments.

They're what I see when I close my eyes and think back to certain cities or circumstances. They're the voices I hear when my mind can't shut down at night. They're the happy place I retreat to when life's just too crazy to deal with. 

I still remember every detail of every encounter and I've written them all down (as if they'll ever disappear from my head), but instead of sharing them now, I want to hold them close to me. It's like a secret nobody else knows. We live in a world full of public timelines and oversharing of personal information on a constant  basis. Thanks to Twitter, Facebook and Google, we get immediate play-by-plays of the lives of everyone we know. Isn't it nice to have a few secrets now and again?

What the hell is WRONG with people?

I've had my share of mistakes, broken friendships and hurt feelings. I've made the wrong choices plenty of times in my life, but never...NEVER...have I INTENTIONALLY set out to do it.

I live with my heart on my sleeve and I love easily. I also open myself up to people without much question. Tonight, I realized that was a mistake. Because I am genuine and I come from a mindset of truth, I forget that not everyone else does. I take for granted that everyone I meet has no agendas or hidden propaganda. No one is out to get me or use me to get something. That's what I tell myself.

Tonight I learned otherwise.

I learned that not all Blockheads are good people. That some Blockheads are two-faced and will stab you in the back as soon as look at you the minute they get what they want. They'll talk shit about you, tell others things you told them in confidence and will use your vulnerabilities to get something they seek. They'll steal, they'll lie, they'll cheat, they'll manipulate. They'll do whatever it takes to get their hands on whatever it is they need from you.

Luckily, I was alerted to this person before she got much from me. All she got was a few good facetime stories. Whatever she sought wasn't gotten. I do pity her, though. Apparently she has several accounts, and based on what those accounts have tweeted, each matches a different face she wears. It's a shame really, because she's a beautiful woman. And the side of herself she showed me was good at being sweet and concerned.

I'd say I was a fool, but I wasn't. I believed what she told me. I believed what I saw. She was the fool -- she chose to cross ME. More importantly, she chose to cross my best friend. And people...if there's one way to piss me off, it's to fuck with Ann Marie.

People get ONE chance with me. ONE. Apologies don't mean much to me without action and I refuse to forget things. That's not to say I dwell on the past - I just don't choose to make the same mistake twice. Those who choose to? Good luck.

Me? I'm done.

The Dark Place

April 16, 1994

The drive to Kansas City from Des Moines felt like it took only a few minutes, but in reality, we left town at 3am, only to arrive at Memorial Hall around 7. We circled the arena and were hell bent on being able to meet our favorite band, New Kids on the Block. Having not been to a show in almost 3 years, we went off what we knew: the location and our determination.

When we arrived, there wasn't a soul to be found near this tiny venue. Having sold out stadiums & huge arenas, we were shocked at the size of this tiny auditorium, but encouraged that maybe it would just be more intimate....like an MTV-Unplugged show. We were a bit perplexed at the lack of equipment trucks and the absence of tour buses, but it was still early, afterall.

We decided to kill some time shopping and eventually made our way back to the arena around 4. Finally the trucks had arrived and had been setting up for some time it seemed. A few handfuls of girls waited around by the doors & on the front steps of the arena. There were a few girls talking to someone who I later found out was the choreographer for the tour. We talked to him for a few minutes ourselves. We wandered around a bit, hoping for a glimpse...some scrap of evidence that our boys were there, but other than seeing a woman someone said was Danny's girlfriend, we didn't see much.

Hours went by and we finally filed into the auditorium. If you could even call it that. It was more like a converted high school gymnasium. There *may* have been 1,500 people there. We'd gotten the last seats for the show, which were in the VERY back row. We could literally sit on the back of our chairs and rest against the outer walls of the auditorium.

But we were THERE, dammit! We were seeing our boys in just a few minutes! I don't honestly remember who opened the show, or if anyone opened the show. We were too anxious to see the guys. Finally, the lights went down...and the curtain went up...

....oh my GOD!!!

We squealed and screamed and shouted and hollered with everyone else in the auditorium. We scrambled to find who was standing where so we could zero in on our favorite (at the time, we were both Jon girls). Mic stand! Mic stand! Mic stand! Mic stand! Mic st...wait. No...1, 2, 3, 4.....

Joey.

Danny.

Donnie.

Jordan.

What. The. Fuck?

We scanned again and again, finally looking at each other with tears in our eyes. Where the hell is Jon? We went from ecstatic to stoic in a split second. We slid from the backs of our chairs into them and sat there with our heads in our hands. What happened??

This isn't New Kids on the Block! There's only FOUR mic stands. There's FIVE members!

I couldn't tell you what was sung that night or what was said. I only remember what the guys looked like because it was what everybody wore those days: flannel. All I remember was the heartache of knowing that our boy band was missing a member. OUR member. Jordan finally explained later that Jon had fallen off his horse, Shakespeare, and was recovering. He was fine, but wasn't able to perform at that time.  We were crushed. I wish I could tell you that the show went on and it was wonderful, but I can't. It was horrible. The sound was bad, the songs were iffy, at best. But I can't tell you if that had more to do with the group or its missing member.

By 1994, Bop and Teen Beat weren't covering stories on New Kids anymore, so we hadn't heard a thing. Internet was still a thing of the future so we had no way of knowing what had happened or what was to come. We were totally in the dark, but we knew one thing. It would never be the same as what it was. We were twenty now and not only did this whole thing signify the end of our favorite group, we knew it closed the door on our youth. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

We drove home that night, depressed and heartbroken. For years, we blocked this out of our heads and tried to only remember when the group was at its best. I couldn't even listen to "Face the Music" because it was such a raw memory for me. To this day, I still refer to this as "The Dark Place."

Nobody owes you shit

I will preface this blog with the disclaimer that I know that I have been afforded some pretty great opportunities where our guys are concerned. I will never forget those times, nor do I take them for granted. That being said, I will also never expect them to give anything to me. They owe me nothing.

And guess what?

They don't owe you anything either.

Someone vomited an RT into my Twitter timeline today where someone said they hoped Jordan's bus crashes. Why? Because he didn't take a minute to take a picture with her last night.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Sadly, this isn't the first time I've heard of something like this happening: People getting pissed because they don't get the attention they desire. I've seen it at concerts, after parties, tv tapings and on the cruise.

I understand the need for validation and the desire to feel appreciated. I do. What I don't understand is the warped mindset that these guys are at our disposal - to be at our beck and call 100% of their time. This is their job - not their lives. While I know they take it seriously, please try, for a moment, to realize that they give FAR more to us than most musicians. Take Backstreet Boys, for instant. Isn't their Meet and Greet behind a gate? For VIP with Bon Jovi, you don't even get to MEET them. You're paying $700 for good seats and the chance at Richie Sambora flicking a guitar pick at you. Woo.

I had a conversation with an acquaintance last month who was talking about someone who'd seen Joe at the Miami airport after the cruise. The woman had asked for a picture and he made a remark alluding to the fact that he was "off the clock." The woman was disappointed (understandably so) and my acquaintance was relaying the story. "She paid for time with him, why did he refuse her?" was the general gist of the conversation between my friend and I that day. I tried to put it in perspective. "No. She paid for a cruise. On that cruise, there are events where she may see him, meet him or interact with him. She did not, however, pay for time before or after that cruise where she might run into him. He doesn't owe her or anyone else anything once he left that boat." (The girl at the airport and I have recently talked and she clarified that she was understanding of the situation with Joe. The affect of the conversation was my friend's opinion of the situation.)

Bottom line is, we can be hopeful, but to go into a situation with expectations is just asking for disappointment. Just because we buy concert tickets or splurge for VIP at an after-party, it doesn't guarantee that we're going to have even an exchanged glance with the guys. Everything we do is a choice - we can choose to spend the money on 5* or we can choose not to. We can choose to be at a concert (or six) or choose to stay home. We can also choose to act graciously and maturely when our expectations aren't met. Or, you can choose to act like a spoiled six year old when you don't get what you want.

What's it gonna be?

It ends here.

I debated on writing this blog. My mind tells me that it doesn't need to be written, but my heart tells me otherwise.

When we realized that the cruise was going to happen for us, we decided to keep it a secret from our girls who were going. We wanted to surprise them! Inadvertently, it also meant keeping it a secret from our girls who WEREN'T going, too. It was NEVER our intention to hurt feelings or betray trusts. In fact, it was just the opposite - we wanted to make our girls smile and be happy and I kept a trust by keeping my mouth shut about going. I knew if I acted anything other than disappointed about not going that it would be discovered that we were going. I am deeply sorry to those people who felt betrayed by our secret. It was not our intention to make anyone feel that way.

That being said, it wasn't (and still isn't) anyone's business that we were there, how it happened or how we kept it a secret. I'm not obliged to tell anyone anything about my life or the secrets I want to keep close to my heart. I have a right to privacy; we all do.

Again, I'm sorry that people felt hurt by our actions to keep this a surprise, but I still wouldn't have done anything differently. The looks on our girls' faces when they discovered we were there were priceless and I wouldn't have traded that for anything in the world.

So while those of you who got upset and ended your friendships with us were at home stewing and being pissed, we were having fun. We were living it up and passing on messages of your love to the guys who brought us together. I hold no hard feelings for those I lost because of this cruise. I'm sorry that you do.

I won't be making phone calls to those who cut me loose. I won't be emailing or begging forgiveness. I won't be addressing the texts or BBM's I got. Your decision to end our friendship is on your shoulders, not mine. I will miss you and I will cherish the times we had together, but the rest of it? That choice was yours. In the end, you're the one losing out and I'm sorry for you.

And in the words of one of my favorite people: "Look at where we are, girl! Nothin' else matters."

This? Is the last I'll say about it. This subject is closed.

Cruise control

When you're on a long roadtrip, the best thing you can do is stock up on sodas & beef jerky, slip into the right lane and set your cruise control. Exit when you need to, rest when you're tired and drive at the speed you're comfortable at.

That's where I'm at: the right lane, cruising comfortably.

When the reunion was announced in 2008, I was prepared to get in my car and race to my destination, see what I came to see and then return home. That's not what happened.

What happened was I realized how much I missed "road trips." And my friends. And the guys. So when 2009 hit, I decided I was going to get in that left lane (with my besties, of course) and ride like the wind. And ride, we did. We sped to destination after destination, city to city, resting only when we were so exhausted we couldn't keep our eyes open. Starbucks and Twizzlers fueled us, most days. Other days, it was sheer adrenaline...almost like being on the autobahn. Not that I've ever been to Germany, but...anyway..what was I saying? Oh yeah. Speeding down the highway.

When the end of Full Service came about, I welcomed a bit of a rest stop. I didn't want the trip to end, of course, but the turtle crawl of life was a welcome reprieve. Caught up on sleep and much of my debt. And common sense took over for me and many of us. We realized that while the tour was over, the reunion wasn't (like so many of us had feared) and we could sit back and reevaluate what we really wanted out of this ride.

After 6,000 miles in 2009 (no, I'm not exaggerating), I personally came to the decision in 2010 that I wasn't going to do it again. Not that much, anyway. I just didn't have it in me. Some of the fans were starting to get on my nerves and even a couple of the guys tended to push my buttons a little bit at times, too. I was wearing out. So when the "CasiNO Tour" was announced, I didn't get excited. They weren't hitting cities nearby and honestly? I was tired of traveling all over the damn country for them. Then a friend pointed out that Hammond, Indiana was actually just across the state line from Chicago.

Well, shit.

There went that.

But..we kept it in perspective and only did the three shows in Hammond. Okay, yes, so we did three shows and technically, that's probably kinda crazy, but when you considered that when we did three shows the year before, we drove 3,000 miles and this time we were only driving about 600 or so for this one, we really weren't doing so bad.

And other than the trip to NYC for the Joe/Eman show in October, I stuck to my guns about not going nuts in 2010.

Now that our guys have announced this joint tour with BSB, while I don't want the ride to end, I'm not all that rushed about getting back on the highway. Did I buy tickets this morning? Yes. One pair. For ONE show. I'm entertaining the thought of a second show in another city, but if we don't get them, I'm not going to be sad.

I gotta be honest, the view from the right lane is peaceful. And I don't have the same road rage I had when we first decided to pack up the car. I like the pace on cruise control.