Michael Bolton, And The Lost Loves Of My Life

Michael Bolton

My sister has been lying to everyone for years. And not a little lie either, but a giant-humongous-terrible-life-changing LIE. Like finding out that that Coke is actually Pepsi or that fingernail polish and toenail polish are the same thing!  You see the girl has a deep dark secret and I, being so sweet and sisterly, am about to share this secret with the world.

The girl that most of you believe is wholesome, kind, and a tad aloof is really a closet--and I mean closet in the doors locked, lights out, headphones on kind of way--FAN. My sister’s very first true teenage love was Michael Bolton. Yes folks, Michael Bolton. She loved the mullet of fine, slightly-balding ringlets and the southern rasp, and if she happens to hear the melody of 'Georgia On My Mind' to this day you can forget any chance there might have been of sanity in her eyes. The tears will come, and they will come aplenty, pelting her cheeks with little blue trickles until she must must must grab that Kleenex because those are Bolton tears.

Wham!

Lucky for me, I have no “closet” loves. I love them out in the open like the true dorkette I am. Glee recently did an episode about all the songs we all secretly love titled 'Guilty Pleasures.' It was fabulous, of course, because Glee is fabulous (I’m not biased or anything). The first song on the list was 'Wake Me Up Before You Go Go' and the damn thing brought me to tears (albeit, cooler tears than my sister's; Wham tears for gosh sakes). You see, I’m not a closet Wham fan, I’m an in your face nothing is better kind of Wham fan.

When I was little my BFF Jeanette and I would stay up all night watching Night Tracks on TBS praying for a glimpse of 'Careless Whisper.' We would watch George race down the boardwalk in his little white shorts and lust in the way ten year old girls lust. I imagined George was my guy. (Why I was drooling for, according to the video, a lying cheating scumbag is excellent fodder for my current shrink, but that’s another story.)

River Phoenix

George Michael, aka Georgy Michelle (hey I was ten and those Night Tracks video info bubbles faded away fast). I thought his name really was Georgy Michelle so I would fall asleep imagining myself marrying Georgy Michelle when I grew up. But something inside of me must have known he was gay because I also imagined myself throwing red cowgirl boots at him while we were fighting at the beach (also excellent fodder for the shrink) and that we would break up, staying friends of course, and then I would steal my sister’s husband, aka River Phoenix (I know, truly sick), but that wouldn’t last because River and my sister were building a summer house in the mountains and he needed to help her with the baby pigs they were raising. Forgive me, I was ten and, by the way, my ten year old brain didn’t know about sex. I didn’t know about sex until I picked up a copy of Anne Rice’s Exit To Eden when I was seventeen (I was a slow learner).

Kirk Cameron

My true love back then was Kirk Cameron; we would meet, he would fall madly in love with me, and I would debate with Georgy whether or not I should give him a shot. Truthfully, I loved Kirk for years. I taped every episode of Growing Pains and I bought every Teen Beat I could find. My bedroom walls were lined with posters of him. Kirk in leather, Kirk smiling, Kirk drinking water. I was pathetic like most teenage girls.

Kirk and Chelsea

Celebrity heartthrobs are safe. You can dream, but they don’t break your heart until they marry Chelsea Noble and Growing Pains gets cancelled.

We all have strange loves in our lives. Perhaps they are real or maybe they are our childhood fantasies, but they shape us and help us in ways they will never know. All the Ricky Nelsons, and Justin Beibers of the world help us to feel safe and free and in control of love. So next time you feel yourself starting to secretly hum a little Bolton, remember that first loves, whether they are in the closet, out of the closet, or on our TV screens are important and meaningful and no one needs a shrink to tell them that.