Ain't No Party Like A New Kids' Party 'Cause A New Kids' Party Don't Stop

There is being a fan. And then there is being a New Kids fan.

I don't really know when I went crazy. Maybe when I was in fourth grade and went to my first New Kids concert. Maybe the first time I was in GA watching them in Mannheim, Germany. I still swear that Donnie looked right at us. Maybe it was the first night that I slept on my New Kids sheets or when my shop project in 6th grade was a wooden NKOTB sign. Whenever it was, it was never as fun as it is now.

I love that we're adults this time around. I love that we're going crazy because we want to, not because hormones are dictating our actions. I love that last weekend in Vegas was one of the most fun times that I have ever had.

For the first time, I really let go. I did. I let the frenzy truly overtake me and let myself enjoy the ride. It was like being filled up with warmth and love and fun and life. I wasn't worried about trying to meet the guys. I've never met them and am not worried about whether or not I ever do. I wasn't worried about how I looked or what I was wearing. Sure, I looked amazing, but it didn't matter. I wasn't worried about anything because I was just there to have a good time and enjoy myself and my friends.

I think, for the first time, I really understood being a fan. Don't get me wrong, I've always been a fan, always loved being a fan, and always loved meeting other fans. But, I understood it for the first time. I understood the freedom of just letting go of the safety bar and throwing your hands up at the top of the rollercoaster. For that, I am so grateful.

This Is It

We knew Michael Jackson was shaping history as he was doing it. His influence on music began when he was a child and continued throughout his life until he had molded pop music into what we know it to be today. There are few pop artisits who don't claim him as an insipiration, few performers who don't look to capture audiences the way that he did. And I would bet that there are even fewer people who would say that he hasn't touched their lives in some way or another, whether through his music, his performances, or his philanthropic endeavors.

While controversy surrounded the latter part of his life, This Is It gives us a glimpse into the artist that millions grew up with, respected, and loved, and the man that I hope and believe he truly was. I was so moved by the documentary. Seeing it through the eyes of the dancers that got a chance to work with him, that had all of their years of dedication to dance culmniate in this magical experience, broke my heart. To have that ultimate experience as a dancer, to work with one of the most amazing movers that we have ever seen, it took my breath away.

Watching Michael create the show as the musicians, dancers, and crew lived it, rehearsed it, learned it, that was incredible. It was watching a genius in action. Michael Jackson knew music, he knew dance, and he knew how to put on a show. He knew what a song should sound like before it had been arranged. He felt the music in his body before choreography was created. He could sense what an audience would want before they even filled the seats. He was a true master of his art and we were lucky to bear witness to it.

Thank You and Goodnight

Leaving Las Vegas after my last live show of the reunion/Full Service tour, I thought that we could all use a break. I thought it would be a good thing to have some time away from the five guys from Boston. I thought my NKOTBFFs and I would benefit from taking a break from the craziness. I thought I could pack up the New Kids love and put it away. I thought I could go back to "real" life. I thought that the feelings would fade like they did in 1994. I thought I could let go and stop tweeting. I thought I could stop listening to Summertime, Cover Girl, Don't Give Up On Me, Call It What You Want, Put It On My Tab, Full Service, Close To You, Stare At You, Sexify My Love, Girls, Never Let You Go, Since You Walked Into My Life, and You Got The Flavor over and over again. I thought I could give all of the poor souls in my life who don't like New Kids a break from the mania.

I thought wrong.

The feelings...and craziness...are growing exponentially. Don't get me wrong, my wallet relishes the rest. But, my heart...my heart. I don't know if I ever loved them more than I do right now, today. They have brought so much to us this year and I don't know if there is a big enough way to thank them for it. How do you thank someone for bringing back your childhood? How do you thank someone for being your first "love"? How do you thank someone for giving you something to look forward to when most of the looking has been around at what we've lost this year? How do you thank someone for bringing old friends back into your life? How do you thank someone for the many new friends they've given you? How do you thank someone for all of the laughter, sometimes at their expense, that they've provided? How do you thank someone for letting you love them with all of the craziness and insanity that you posess? How do you thank someone for feeding that mania? How do you thank someone for giving so much, so much more than they will ever know, to you?

Maybe you just say, "thank you." Thank you, New Kids, for giving me an incredible year. Or maybe you say it in videos. Thank you, Donnie, for encouraging me to go wild. Maybe it's in a book. Thank you, Joe, for giving me the opportunity to give to someone in need. Maybe thank you is in a captioned TwitPic. Thank you, Jordan, for all of your facial expressions. Maybe you say it with each step on a treadmill. Thank you, Danny, for caring enough to remind me to stay healthy and take care of myself. Maybe it's in a chant. Thank you, Jon, because you truly are a freakin' pimp.

Maybe that's how you say it.

I say it with a party. I say it with friends gathered around the tv to watch the web cast of the Dallas concert. I say it with food and wine. I say it with time spent together enjoying what brought us together. I say it with every drop of love that I have for my NKOTBFFs. I say it with every moment that I get to spend with these amazing women. And I truly cannot say it enough.

We Got This

I'm sitting here in a mixture of exhaustion and emotion, trying to put all of my thoughts about this weekend together into something cohesive and comprehensible. Needless to say, it's pretty hard.

I got to experience the New Kids On The Block reunion one more time. In Vegas. The anticipation alone made it worth it. But, the show, it was incredible. The best concert I've ever seen. Ever. From the start, it looked like it was going to be fun. From the moment Jordan messed up the lyrics to Full Service, I knew we were in for a night of laughs. And laugh we did, right down to the last seconds of no one knowing who was singing what in Step By Step. The show was loose, fun, warm, and fantastic. It felt less like slick pop stars performing heavily rehearsed songs and choreography and more like brothers and sisters and cousins playing around at a family reunion. It was relaxed and happy with nothing to prove and nowhere else anyone would have rather been.

These guys never cease to amaze me. Joe with his smooth showmanship and unending personality. Jordan with his perfection and his cool. Danny with his strength, solidarity, and his breakdancing skills. Jon with his sweet shyness and exposed emotion. Donnie, oh Donnie, with his raw passion and heartbreaking charisma. Donnie stole my heart all over again.

Just over a year after they announced their reunion, here we are, at the end of the ride. What a sweet ride it has been. They gave us an amazing year. They gave us shows and fun nights out. They gave us new music and new friends. They gave us memories that will be cherished for the rest of our lives. They gave us peeks back into our youth and opened up our hearts to feeling young again. They gave us laughter and love to last forever.

I feel like I have been living in a pop culture bubble for the past fifteen months. There has been nothing relevant except for NKOTB. There have been no men but these five. There has been no music but New Kids On The Block, Hangin' Tough, Step By Step, Face The Music, and The Block (with a little Michael Jackson thrown in here and there). There have been no friends but the NKOTBFFs. Nothing else has mattered and that was fine with me.

But now it's time to let go a little more, to let go enough to release the grip completely and come back down to Earth. It's time to start listening to some new music. Or some old music. It's time to put the NKOTB videos back in their cases and back on the shelf. It's time to put that credit card away for actual emergencies...not the "I HAVE to go to another show" kind. It's time to reconnect with the non-NKOTB friends. It might even be time to start dating...or paying attention to your husband...again.

My love for the New Kids never faded and it was fun to find that out. It was touching to know that so many of us shared that love and that they still loved us in return. It's been a year full of love - youthful, warm, happy, sparkly love - and that love will always be there. Safely tucked away. Waiting. For whatever's next.

Step One: We Can Have Lots of Fun

Last night, as a kick off to the Irvine/Vegas countdown, five of us got together - me, my NKOTBFF, Nikki, Robin, and Davie. We got together to laugh, have some cocktails, watch the old videos, and enjoy each other's company. I don't think any of us expected to have so much fun. Who would have thought, all those years ago, that we would be back, hanging out with our girlfriends and obsessing over the New Kids On The Block all over again? This time with booze and dirty talk.

I know I have said quite a lot about how much fun this reunion ride has been for me. Well, last night just cemented it. I don't think we stopped laughing all night. Whether it was over what to put on a sign or what to say at the meet and greet or the horrible Boston dialects in the cartoon, we were rolling on the floor all night. We took LOLQuizzes and drunk dialed the New Kids. I'm not sure I've ever had as much fun as I did last night, sitting on my living room floor with my NKOTBFFs. Fun sure is cheap.

I think that's what has been the best part of this ride. Of course the concerts are great, but there's so much free fun to be had, too. It's so easy to get caught up in trying to go to as many shows as you can that it's also easy to forget how much fun it is before the show. It is so fun amping yourself up and just going crazy junior high style. It's fun to stay in on a Thursday night and watch old videos with your friends. In truth, those are the memories that are going to be with me forever, the times we were sitting on the living room floor, laughing until we cried.

I am so happy to have found four NKOTBFFs to share this ride with. Robin - the first fellow New Kids fan that I met as an adult, the one who I shared those first moments of the reunion with, the one who reminded me how to go crazy and that I had to. Davie - the quiet one who always has something brewing underneath. Nikki - the one person who might have a dirtier mind than I do. Lindsay - my enabler, my anchor, my NKOTBFF. How lucky am I to have these four women in my life for this ride? How cosmically planned must it have been for the five of us to come together the way we did? How grateful am I that we have all let go and are allowing ourselves to really have fun? I am so blessed.

Soundtrack of a Generation

When I heard about the passing of Michael Jackson, I thought, "I don't know a world without him in it." He was already a legend when I was born. I remember watching "Moonwalker" on the weekends and trying to recreate that lean in "Smooth Criminal" and landing on my face every time. I remember falling in love with "Rock With You" because it was my junior high crush's favorite Michael Jackson song. I remember really loving "Will You Be There" when it was in "Free Willy". I remember the "Black Or White" video with it's banned version and Macaulay Culkin. I remember being in high school when Michael and Janet got together and recorded "Scream" - the TV didn't seem large enough for both icons. I remember when he dubbed himself the King Of Pop and I remember him being right. His voice has permeated every phase of my life.

Someone described Michael Jackson's music as "the soundtrack of a generation". That is nothing short of the truth. I don't think that there is a person on Earth who has not heard of him or his music. His music and dance moves have influenced almost every pop artist in the industry. Strains of "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'"are heard in R&B chart toppers and Fall Out Boy covers "Beat It" on their most recent album. Usher and Chris Brown put their own spin on dance moves that Michael Jackson created. "Thriller" transformed music videos from simply an accompaniment to a song into an art form all their own.

He has shaped pop music and culture with his own hand. The white socks, fedora, and silver glove are iconic. The Moonwalk is a signature. Michael Jackson was a genius whose talent will surely be missed.

NKOTBFFs

Do you remember your New Kids On The Block friends? The girls who were just as obsessed as you were. The girls who had just as many posters on their walls. The girls who didn't care that the only music you wanted to listen to was New Kids' because that was the only music that they wanted to listen to as well. The ones you went to the concerts with. The ones that also had replaced their Ken dolls with the Jordan/Donnie/Joey/Jon/Danny doll when you played Barbies. The girls that hung on with you at the end. The NKOTBFFs.

Some of them may have disappeared over the years. Maybe they don't like the New Kids any more. Or maybe they went to one concert and that was enough for them. Others may still be right there with you. Maybe you're still going to concerts together or listening to The Block over glasses of wine. Then there are the others, the ones who have come into your life just now, for this. Maybe you met them on Twitter or standing for general admission at one of the shows. As for me, I got lucky.

I met Lindsay when she was in high school. I was in college and roommates with her older sister, Megan, at the time. Megan and I got along great, but there was always a special bond between Lindsay and me. When she would come up on weekends and spend the night with us, Lindsay and I could gab for hours. It was usually about N'Sync or Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera or whoever was hot at the time. We even went to Wango Tango together. But, after I graduated college, we didn't really see each other aside from bumping into each other at random birthdays or going away parties.

Then came April 18, 2009, the night of the show at the Hollywood Palladium. My Facebook status had been updated to say, "Traci Mueller is singing la la la la la la Tonight." Lindsay commented back, "Are you going?" and it was all over.

For the last few months, we have spent countless hours on the phone discussing every DDub tweet, oohing and aahing over every picture and YouTube video, analyzing the New Kids place in pop culture, and laughing about how absolutely crazy we have come to find ourselves. It's a friendship unlike any that I ever expected to find at this place in my life. I mean, really, who thought that they'd be nursing a celebrity crush this huge past the age of...well, at least early twenties? Sure, I have great friends, amazing friends, actually. But none of them quite understand this new New Kids love that I have.

Lindsay gets me...and it, this whole reunion ride. There is no possible way that it would have been quite this fun had she not come back into my life. Who else would I have done drive-bys of the rehearsal space with? Who else would call me, drunk from the bar, to talk about the New Kids? Who else could I count on to keep me updated with all of the latest websites, blogs, online radio stations, and YouTube videos? Who else would tolerate my constant tweets/Facebook messages/texts regarding all things New Kids? Who else would assure me that I have not totally lost my mind, or at least assure me that if I have lost my mind, then so have she and thousands of others? Lindsay is right there with me, doing things she never expected to be doing and LOVING it!

Who are your NKOTBFFs? The girls who don't laugh at you when you say that you want to cry when...? The girls that still listen to The Right Stuff, Please Don't Go Girl, Popsicle, and I Wanna Be Loved By You? The girls that have toured the country almost as much as the guys? The girls that are as die hard as you are and just as unafraid to admit it? Take a look, appreciate them, love the second chance we've been given. This time is short and I'm so glad that I've gotten to share it with Lindsay.