why? maybe just because i never post shit like this

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[the fonts are all messed up in this post--god, i hate blogger sometimes]

so i met my colleagues for dinner tonight in the break room as usual, and john showed up on this casual friday in a trendy striped T which looked so great on him that i was moved to say, "oh my god, you're so 'tommy kirk circa 1962'!" (a compliment he not only got, but was inordinately pleased by).

which established the topic for tonight's dinner conversation: who were your formative childhood crushes?

it was a subject i hadn't thought about for years, but once the question was asked, they came back to me almost instantly, each and every one.

and so, without further ado, allow me to present for your delectation, commentary and ridicule, the boys that made me squirmy way back before my balls had even dropped:

1. rick nelson


my first crush--i first became aware of him when i was maybe four or five, and would thereafter sit each week glued to the television, completely oblivious of ozzie, harriet and brother david, coming alive only when ricky graced the screen.

tell me--has a more beautiful, more talented boy ever fuckin' lived? (and don't even start with the zac efron, because i'll have to hurt you.)

2. billy gray


while he couldn't hold a candle to ricky, bud from father knows best still managed to give me that fluttery, squishy feeling in my four-year-old kishkas that i didn't understand but so looked forward to each and every week.

and, for that matter, so did

3. bobby diamond


premise of the show: lonely single rancher adopts troubled teenage boy--i mean, what's not to love?

4. tony dow

leave it to beaver was another of the favored shows of my youth (although mostly in reruns), and i didn't care if it was the young wally who turned up when the show came on each week


or the grown-up one

either way, i was mush.

5. don grady


what can i say--i loved me some robby.


ok, enough tv--let's move on to the big screen.

6. james macarthur


one of my beloved grandmother's all-time favorite movies was spencer's mountain, and as much as i loved henry fonda and maureen o'hara, and no matter how many times i sat through this movie with her, i could never tear my seven-year-old eyes away from the luscious clayboy long enough to appreciate them.

7. tommy kirk


i can't remember which disney movie i saw tommy in first, but it doesn't really matter--from that first frame of film, i knew we were destined to be together.


and last in our parade of objects of my youthful lust, but far from least,



yeah, so i was once in love with a cartoon character. eat me--i was seven.

* * * * *

so there you have it: the full panoply of my prepubescent obsessions. enjoy (or not).

whatever--to close this post we're gonna go full-circle, back to where it all began:



so, tell me--who were yours?