Where Muses Live

Okay, bare with me here folks…I’m having an attack of oddity this morning…I got into NKOTB back in Oct. 10, 1989 seeing them in a teen magazine at Fry’s Grocery store in Phoenix, Arizona. Saw Joe’s photo and I was hooked. Now for 20 years I thought I was late to the New Kids fandom. I had very few friends while growing up and the few fans I did find were quiet, reserved, overly shy and didn’t talk much. I was teased for like the band. I was even bullied physically when I thought I could trust someone to get me the Step By Step album (which I found it was a bootleg and the three girls beat me up afterward). I ran home crying and screaming in fear to get away.

Nearly a year before, in the Autumn of 1988, my family and I left New Orleans, Louisiana for Phoenix, Arizona. In mid October, a month after being in Arizona, I come to find that New Kids were filming the You Got It (The Right Stuff) music video at Lafayette Cemetery. When the video played on MTV I screamed a loud realizing the exact path in which they took was where I was nearly a month before.

In 1991, New Kids did a mall tour to promote the cartoon series by ABC. I was there on a basic shopping trip with my parents to Dillard’s at Paradise Valley mall at 1:50pm in the early Autumn. I had not heard of or saw the advertisement for it until I walked into the store seeing the poster display right at the door. I squealed a loud and noticed the time. I was too late. The show had just ended nearly 20mins before I arrived. However, as I passed the ad, something caught my eye to the right in the woman’s clothing department.

Three oddly dressed men nearly thirty feet away from the main aisle were in between round racks of clothing staring at me. I took a step, looked to my right again and saw what I figured years later was Joe, whispering to Donnie at his right. I turned my head back toward them a second later and they were gone. Their terrible excuse for disguises did not work. From right to left: Donnie, Joe and Jordan are my guesses still to this day.

Then there’s the terrible news about the last tour cause of Jon’s anxiety. That damn People mag article I didn’t not believe for a second. It was rushed and fake. I knew something was up. The sad part to this for me was, my mother had bought tickets for the show in Phoenix in April or May 1994, but within two days after receiving the tickets I heard on the news the concert and tour was canceled. I cried my eyes out for two hours straight.

After all that in which I missed, came close to (swing and a miss, ya know), I dropped everything to do with the band up until 2001, but then again, I never left that love for the band in a soulful way. So, today I find the music video You Got It (The Right Stuff) was filmed on November 14, 1989. This made me realize I was never late to the New Kids Blockhead party after all. I was nearly right on time or a bit fashionably late with seconds to spare.

Now, from all that I remember in every detail possible as though it were yesterday, I’ve come to realize something even deeper. Psychologically I’ve clutched onto something that kept me alive. I had worked so hard, in a quiet manner, to experience the band in person, that unbeknownced to me, I had prepared my mind for a greater adventure into the psyche in which I write novels. The dates in which I mentioned above are all connected to time periods of my novels and character(s) interactions. There is no shame at all in realizing where and how my muses stepped into my mind or how they orchestrated the inner workings of my writings. Every single author has their muses in which they gravitate to regularly. For myself, however, I am one of those peculiar people who remembers exact locations, dates, times, and other details and then mixes it all up like a well cured stew and serves it to the world. It may take years to cure, but it will be well worth the hard work.

Coming to realize all of this, I feel liberated. I feel at peace mentally and spiritually. Comfortable in the fact that my muses, will never leave me as long as I love myself and realize where they came from, when they stepped into my heart and made a home there.

Now, back to writing book 2 “Soul’s Little Lie: Broken Roses”.