98°: Not Just Another Shitty Boy Band

With the boy band having gone the way of the bell-bottom, the question is, will Backstreet be back (again), and will it be alright? After all, the bell made a resurgence, started by my sister when she started making her own pants in the eighth grade. I had no idea she was such a trendsetter, but I should have known the same would happen when she started sporting J. Crew. With the magazine coming to the house and myself in need of cheap, somewhat cool t-shirts, I bought the now-classic J. Crew mirror tees, where it said J. Crew on the front and werC .J on the back so that it only appears the right way in a mirror, hence the term mirror tee. Anyway, I distinctly recall people making cracks at these shirts saying, "What the hell's J. Crew," and "Why is it reversed on the back, that's corny." Yes, this was back when people still called things corny. Not that it doesn't persist to this day, it's simply not as prevalent as it once was. I mean, if they wanted to make cracks, it should have been about the fact that I had the same shirt in white, grey (or is it gray), and red. Incidentally, when my house was robbed on Christmas one year, one of the selected items deemed worthy for pilfering was said shirt in white - only in white. Given my propensity for pit stains, I would consider this a poor choice, but then, if I were robbing someone, I would opt for jewelry and expensive electronics over some cheap t-shirts and a couple of Tommy Hilfiger sweaters. I should thank them, I guess, since it let me restock my wardrobe with J. Crew sweaters instead. Robbery is such a strange violation. And on Christmas. Poetic bastards.

Back on Backstreet, I almost forgot they had released an album just two years ago, but my memory's not that incomplete. Still, it's not the boy band anymore, but the American Idol pop star that dominates things. I don't even listen to the radio, but if it should come on, I swear it is always the same damn Elliot Yamin song. Who am I kidding, though, I actually kind of like it. I don't remember where I was the first time I witnessed the video, except that it was somewhere that involved a cable television (read: not my house), and, for all that I thought I wanted to change the channel, I watched every moment. Seriously, though, Backstreet owned shit when I was in middle school. Every pen pal I had for French class (and there were several since I was a bastard and never wrote back and, quite logically, would be given a new one), coincidentally none of which were actually from France or a French-speaking country, would write to me "Etc. etc. I like Backstreet Boy, etc., etc." Backstreet continued their dominant reign into my high school years, before 'Nsync took over and even chumps like O-Town, who had hits like Liquid Dreams - about having wet dreams of famous women - and All or Nothing - a song so classy it was played at my senior prom and, yes, I can't deny dancing to it as it is immortalized on the delightful prom video compiled and handed out. I guess I can't leave out 98° since I alluded to them in my title, but that was really only so that I could mention how hot and awful today's weather was only, even though it was ridiculously warm, I found it somehow bearable. Anyway, the only significant thing about 98° as far as I'm concerned was that Nick Lachey allegedly once dated this substitute I had in the ninth grade: Ms. Playa (pronounced ply-uh), and by allegedly I mean according to her. I swear it was spelled just like that although I'll grant you it might sound more suspicious than when a girl name Shithead ( and I am not making this up) told me her name was pronounced "Shi-theed"…if you say so shithead. One thing about Ms. Playa: she was a total babe.

As usual I've jabbered on and forgotten what the hell I even started this post for, but I need to make some amendment to my last. Today I witnessed a McDonald's billboard that said "I crave a #1" and featured a picture of two attractive, twenty-something blonde females being showered in, allegedly, lemonade, one with eyes closed, mouth open, hands raised in that defensive "no-don't-splash-me" pose, the other the same except for her hands at her sides in that sort of forcibly relaxed manner to put it oxymoronically. Obviously the part about the lemonade isn't true…I don't remember if McDonald's even carries lemonade and, if so, probably only pink lemonade, but everything else, totally true…at least the part about what the billboard said. Anyway, that's enough for tonight, I think I've gotta go #4. BAD.