I Love Erasure...any problem with that?
It was 20 years ago this month that I realized that I really didn't give a crap if dudes found out about my dirty little secrets. It also coincides with the anniversary of meeting the author of this blog...Jennifro. We have been somewhat best friends ever since. I say "somewhat" because guys aren't "supposed" to have "girl" friends when they grow up and get married, right? I even know a wife that won't let her husband drive alone in the car with another woman.
You see, shortly after meeting Jen and becoming fast friends, I came over one night in a leotard and ended up prancing around lip synching to a Madonna song, "Dress You Up" in front of her roommates and one of mine. Go ahead, think what you like, I know how I got there, know what I suppressed for years and am not embarrassed in the least anymore. I grew up with a single mother and didn't watch football games on tv or do much of those macho guy things that other fellas do. I spent my time learning how to brush a woman's hair gently, give puppy dog kisses and finding out what true love was all about. I guess that's why all my best friends were named Lori, Kim, Carrie, Stacey and Bridgette.
In high school, I loved Adam & the Ants, Joy Division and The Smiths. I never stood against the wall at dances or nightclubs and was always up for going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show with my brother, Paul, at midnight on the weekends. In my opinion, no one has every truly lived unless they have been to a midnight showing of Tim Curry's cult classic!
I think I wanted to be like other high school guys and talk about basketball, boobs, and the next keg party...for about 3 seconds! For some reason, none of that interested me. Don't get me wrong, I love Women and have never had a homosexual thought in my entire life. I just didn't feel like talking about it...my mom taught me to NEVER kiss and tell. I started to realize by about age 17 that I was a little bit different than the other guys. I grew embarrassed and started to try and hide my secret love of what some may deem as feminine, gay or metrosexual. That all changed when I went off to college. I found out that there were people just like me and I shouldn't be ashamed about what I liked.
We went dancing every Wednesday night at Plastique nightclub, had homemade ice-cream parties and wore out at least three OMD mix tapes. In October of 1988, I looked across the street and spied the most beautiful curly-haired woman I had ever seen! Within the week, we had befriended her and the other two "Vegas Chicks." It would take me one hundred paragraphs to write about the rest of college life and then the last 18 years. But alas, this is about my love of Erasure, so I will keep it to our late night talks about everything and nothing. Most of the time until 3 or 4 in the morning, just like a bunch of girls. Giving each other endless compliments and listening tirelessly to Depeche Mode, Duran Duran and of course, Erasure.
Now, would it surprise you that I still love Erasure? They came in concert recently and I stood in line for two hours to get them to sign my copy of their new dvd and we danced that night to Andy Bell and Vince Clark in his tutu. I guess you can call me a metrosexual? I still care deeply about the way I look, get my eyebrows waxed once a month, use a Norelco body groomer, love Broadway shows, played a pirate with eye make-up recently, and my favorite director is Baz Luhrmann, (Moulin Rouge, Strictly Ballroom). I'm proud of it, don't care about what others think and the best compliment I ever got was from a group of gay guys I was partying with once..."You're the funnest straight dude we have ever met!" The only sucky part now...is that it's still taboo to have a girl for my "BFF!"
17 comments:
Best post ever. And being a metrosexual is not an embarrasment. He just needs to embrace it like my brother who alwyas looks nice, smells great, and loves to use a lable maker. I too, LOVE Erasure! Power to the male best friends. We are all jealous!
Amen Brotha! I'm with you on A LOT of those things. I'm actually surprised how alike we really are. I think growing up with four sisters made me the same way. Which is very similar to you. I freakin love Erasure and any other 80's band that will make me dance like a fruitcake in the club on thursday nights. I too kind of thought it was weird that i've never been SUPER into sports like other dudes were. But like you said, for some guys that just doesn't float their boat. I wouldn't change anything about my likes and dislikes. It was actually you that made me shocked to hear that Moulin Rouge was one of your favorite movies about 7 years back. I thought "Are you serious? that's surprising". I decided to watch it and freakin LOVED IT! To this day girls either think it's really HOT that i know all the words to the songs or really "PREEEETTY". HAHAHA! Just goes to show that a lot of kids run off thinking their gay just because they like a few feminine things; When in reality they're probably completely normal. Just different than your typical "brute" male.Good post dude. I really related a lot to it. I tip my hat off to ya Mr. Egg.
Oh and P.S. I like "The Notebook" Waaaayyyyy more than i like to admit.
Don't we just LOOOOVE the men in our lives?
What a fantastic post!!! I used to listen to ALL that music and loved it! I loved Depeche Mode, Erasure, Sinead O'Connor, OMD etc...
I'm with you, I wouldn't have hung out with the sporty girls in high school because sports didn't interest me in the least. I'm sure it works the same way with the dudes.
Also, I too require "real" relationships, it sounds like you're not content sitting on the perimeters of friendship, you like to jump in and be a friend, and expose your soul.
I feel like the men in my life (family, friends) have a lot of women around them and that they love, enjoy and appreciate them.
I love you Eggy! I'm so glad that you walked across the street to the curly haired chick at the Richmond Apartments and introduced yourself...it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship for ALL of us.
E...Good Job man! I admire you as a person and think you are one of the coolest guys out there. I remember back in high school going to the record store and purchasing Modern English and Erasure tapes and going home and rocking out to Erasure for hours. There are only a couple of bands out there that I know the words to most of their songs and Erasure is one of them. I agree with Mitch that being raised with four sisters helps you understand and cope with your feminine side and just because we like things like Moulin Rouge or in my case Anne of Green Gables it does not make us gay. One of my favorite people in the world is my uncle Mert. To this day he still sports turquoise and pink shirts with sperry top siders. Never in my life did I think he was anything besides a cool guy that had a different style of dress. I just wiki'd the word metrosexual cause that word is getting a lot of play these days and come to find out I believe most dudes fall into this category. I do to an extent minus the money but that is where you come in...:)
All in all we are all good dudes who love their wives, our children and our God and as long as we follow what we are taught in church we should be able to do want we want to feel good about ourselves even if it is dressing up in eye make up and dancing around to Chains of Love....Peace out!!!
Oooh a guest blogger! Love it!
The other day I was wondering who "Eggy" was.. Family or friend, so I'm grateful to finally know now. He is a good looking guy, and I LOVE the metro-sexual look on Men. Who doesn't????
My first reaction to the post was man am I old when I saw the picture of Erasure. THEY ARE OLD MEN! Holy Crap! Then, listening to the music makes me want to have an 80's music day... I think I just might. :)
One of the hardest choices to make was back in 6th grade.. OMD and Thompson Twins were touring together and they came to Utah on a sunday. I was so sad. I would pay almost anything to have seen that concert on any other day...
Jennifer- I'm glad you had a guest blogger. Such fun.. ~ And your brother Mitch just made my day with his love for the Notebook....
I just went to a wedding where the groom had a "Best Lady" instead of a Best Man. So maybe things are changing...
Great post Eggy! That was really fun to read! I too love Erasure, and believe it or not they are still one of the most played on my ipod. They are great. I can also appreciate any metrosexual, I wouldn’t say it’s a bad thing at all. You are the ones that look nice, smell nice, and usually treat females nice because you probably have more girl friends than guy friends. I love it.
I will never forget meeting you that day in Jenn’s apartment when I was about five. YOU were the one that painted my toenails… very fitting for this post :)
You proved that you should either:
A) guest post more often
B) start your own blog
Kermit the Frog once wrote a book called "It's not easy being green". Well, I should write a blog called "It's not easy being married to a metrosexual" (I currently do not have a blog, but admire and enjoy all of you that do...) Why you ask? The handsome guest blogger is MY man. I love the guy as do all the ladies at his work, grocery store, dry cleaning etc etc., but he is hard to keep up with. He is neat, clean, well groomed (thanks Norelco), an impeccable dresser (he gets his work clothes from a custom boutique for men in Georgetown), is kind to children, an incredible father, can ride a mean skateboard as well as being very athletic (but definitely not a jock), is up to date on all movies and music, has a fun sense of humor and is ALWAYS the life of the party and is successful at work, church and play.
I, on the other hand, had a baby 2 1/2 months ago and am chubby, out of fashion and usually shop at Target and Marshalls for my clothes when I can get out of the house. I would rather go to sleep than watch or go to a movie. Eggy gets a haircut every two weeks and I can go months without one. His eyebrows can definitely look better than mine. We are even when it comes to music although he would say differently. My P blessing basically said "marry Eggy and you will be happy", so I did and life is blliss. He is the love of my life and I thank Jennifro for letting him guest blog. It is fun to share him with the public. My four darling boys and I adore him and now you can too!!
Here is to 20 more years with Eggy and Jennifro. We met 20 years ago this month at October Chi Tri pledge. Time flies when you are having fun!! (o:
Awesome. Rad. So Jen, are you invited guest bloggers now? Are you the next Arianna Huffington for families?
Me again.. I would love to see a flashback picture of you all back in the college days when you met. You, Nick, Eggy, Angie, I know you have one... Come on... Bring it out to share!
Hello to Mr. Eggy! I like Erasure too, but I am a little further back on the time line. It was nice to get a little more info on you, since we see you comment on Jennifer's blog and I knew that you were a very close friend. (She posted a birthday tribute to you, but not some of the family members, you must be very important!) What a treat to find out more about you and your wife did a beautiful comment on you also. I always say, "Be who you are and the rest doesn't really matter." Thanks for the glimpse in your world and again, hello! -Suzanne
Do you love me more if I let you know that I was a Chi Tri also? Good times!!
Are you kidding me!!! Way to go sista! Got a one black, two black, eyes like shoe black, Chi Tri to the bone! What year did you pledge?
And if I may. This will forever go down as one of my very favorite posts from my very sweet friend. Eric is one of a kind (compliment) and together he and Anjie are the best, most loyal friends anyone could ever ask for. I am a lucky girl.
"Somewhere in my wicked, miserable past....I must have done something good."
--Sound of Music
"All you need is love!"
--Moulin Rouge
I am a little late on the posting. But i do want to give a shout out to Eric. I love guys that smell good, dress good, and wear pastels. I can imagine you have some of that in your closet somewhere. the Anthony boys still have all there collectable Michael Jordans in their closets taking up lots of space and they are in tip top condition. even the boxes. They have all sorts, red, blue, baby blue, patten leather Jordans. I LOVE it. But better than all of this they all still love women. GO, all you men who can admit to liking gay bands, boy bands, cute shoes, great cologne and chick flicks. And Go again for not letting it get to your heads and being overboard metrosexual by having a monthly membership at the local spray tan, zoom whitening and pedicure and manicure shop, and if any of you do have that then cancel at least a couple of those memberships!!
jekkkk
Oh and can we forget when we would be called "buttface", butthead', butnuggett, freakin idiot" and things of that sort when we would touch mitch's hair in high school. Or how about john having mom round brush his bangs all through high school?
I find it odd to think that this has been a favorite post. The comments from everyone have just been great.
What ever all you guys do,(and I don't presume to know all of it), that keeps you special, just keep it up. I love all of you.
Next to Jen and Nick getting married( well, and my other kids) I was most happy when Anji and Eric got hitched. I wanted everyone in that group to stay friends. I adore Eric, but I gotta say, I love that Anji. She is definately a favorite of mine.
Anji,you can say you are chubby and a total mommie right now, but I'll tell you the truth, the best is yet to come. You guys won't believe how fun the
40's and 50's will be. You'll have the time and energy then to get back to the pre-baby look and feel. Start practicing by spending some of Eggy's money, tomorrow. Hit the MAC counter, the shoe section at Macy's and any little expensive boutique where they can dress you to the "nines". A new pair of shoes,a new tube of lipstick and a new top make us all happy, husbands included.
All you commentors are great people. Dad and I are so lucky to have you all in our lives.
MOM
Karen, You are so nice. Whatever happened to Jennifer?!? JUST KIDDING!! Eric and I love the Vegas family like our own. I can remember sweet Mitch as a toddler (can you make him change his blog pic. It is scary and belongs in a scene in the HF). Don't worry about me. I will shop til I drop soon enough. I just need a few more weeks on the ole treadmill. Finn is a wonderful baby and I wouldn't change a thing.
It was fun to read all the comments. Jayne, you are right. He should start his own blog. He has lots to share and then I could guest blog occasionally as I definitely think I have lots to share as well (1-800....)Hee hee.
P.S. Jek, I loved your second comment. The inner workings of the Vegas (notice how I do not use your last name...to protect the innocent)family always give me a chuckle. (o;
Bye for now.
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