"Phantom Ships, Lost at Sea"

In 2001, I traveled to Philadelphia with my two good friends to see the sold out 'NSYNC "Celebrity" concert tour. We somehow won tickets to the backstage soundcheck, and were able to stalk our pop idols upclose. Looking back now, the highlight was really having BBMak as the opening act. The front man wore a tight, slightly translucent, patterned purple shirt, and that's about all I remember. The magic lay in the combination of these two boy groups. They were young and handsome, and there's always that girlish dream to win one or more of their hearts to incur the jealousy of millions of other girls around the world.

The show was loud, and we were seated far, but we still had a lot of fun. They sang their timeless tunes, "Back Here," then "Still on Your Side," and my personal favorite, "Ghost of You and Me". Haunting. I think I might have cried to that at several points in my life. Don't judge; I was 17 and imbued with violent emotions. The stadium was filled with tweens and their unfortunate parents, so we were playing the part of the tweens by screaming our heads off. There aren't a lot of places where we could have acted with such abandon and with minimal judgment.

A few months later, right before we left for college, my friend and I decided to get on line at the Union Square Virgin Megastore to get our BBMak CDs signed by the band. At that point, I had never been in such close proximity to anyone from whom I'd want an autograph. At the table, I breezed past the blond one, then past the frontman, and lastly paused at the third, brunette one: Ste McNally. He took his time with the autograph and asked me to repeat my name. There was a shyness and a sincerity about him that his other two bandmates did not seem to possess. And of course, there was the British accent. AND, his name was the longer part of the name of their band, without which, they would be known as "BBM: Bowel Bowel Movements". AND AND, he sings most of the difficult, high-pitched parts of the songs. Somehow, all this made a deep enough impression on me to have some lasting effects.



I didn't consider him conventionally handsome, but it's amazing how a combination of qualities can conquer any initial judgment on aesthetics. When I was young, sweetness of personality and intelligence went far beyond the mediocrity of someone's looks. As I grew older, just being sweet wasn't enough anymore; there had to be charisma, or what passed as charisma in college. Wit, sarcasm, unconventional pranks-pulling all worked to make someone who's a potential 0 become a 1, so to speak. A good example is Jack Nicholson. So sexy, and yet, how?

Exhibit A:

Boooooo. He's physically symmetric (when his mouth is closed; his teeth are not centered), and should trigger all sorts of coos and purrs, but no. NO. He is batshit crazy, and that erases any potential to see him as a viable male with whom to do sexytime.

Exhibit B:

Huzzah. Look at that devilish grin, that cigarette dangling raffishly off his lips, those teasing eyes. No, it doesn't take youth, or abs of steel, or a full head of hair to be attractive. I once thought that it was because of a certain je ne sais quoi that attracted me to J. Nich, but actually, I can point out the exact reasons: he's his own man, his own brand of crazy, he is successful at being his own brand of crazy, he seems naughty, he seems like a LOT of fun, and most of all, at the end of life, when all the dalliances flash before your eyes, he seems like he would stand out like no other. But of course, he's not the kind of person with whom I would consider spending my life. There's consequence-free fun, and then there's meaningful living.

Exhibit C:

Ah, c'est parfait.