Now I know at least one woman out there who read that title and probably sighed, "oh no." But have no fear, this post has nothing to do with my early sexually-based uncomfortable silences, i mean experiences. Instead, this is the second installment of "things i tore off of my childhood wall" or "gutted memories" for short. I'm fine. Really.

And, the theme of today's post is, fittingly, firsts. With every first comes a story. And i'm going to share some of those today.

The first first we have is my first college football game (left). Fittingly, it took place at the Big House in Ann Arbor. I can't see the date on it, but i imagine i was probably in middle school. My parents brainwashed me early and often. GO Blue. See, it worked. The only memory i have of this game is sitting in the end zone wearing a humongous inflatable football helmet. In my mind, I remember looking absolutely adorable.

The ticket in the middle is my first Broadway play: Les Miserables. It's a misnomer. It is an absolutely brilliant musical. When they sang "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables" my brother and I wept like 6-year-old's who just had their Halloween candy taken away.

If only all of my firsts were as, um, benign as those two. Which brings us to my first concert: Sheryl Crow. Now, I still maintain that her music was fun and catchy and she could really wear the hell out of a pair of jeans. And she was a elementary school music teacher for god's sake. Sadly, I attended this Concert of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood's travelling pants with . . . . drumroll please . . . . my brother's girlfriend at the time . . . and . . . wait for it . . . . its super good . . . our mothers. Plural. That means there was a 1 to 1 mom to non-mom ratio. I was a baaaad boy (that might have to be my new blog tag-line). We probably went for ice cream afterward. I am such a loser. Additionally, the date reads 1995, which means i didn't go to my first concert til i was a junior in high school. I try telling people that i didn't really grow up with music as a part of my life . . .
*tangent. One of the main reasons that music was not a large part of my childhood was that the bands of that time had really scary names (i am not making this up). Bands like "The Grateful Dead," "KISS" (the costumes supported my theory), and "Led Zeppelin." I figured that bands with names like that must play some sort of scary crazy heavy metal music that I would not possibly like. So I didn't listen. Only later in life did i listen to these bands and realize my unbelievably embarrassing and misguided mistake. I am fortunes fool. end tangent*
. . . and for the most part its true. Who needs electric guitars when you have an almost uncanny ability to be able to transform any Transformer without even reading the instructions.
























What you can almost make out in this second picture are tickets to my first basketball game on the top: Celtics vs. Spurs at the original Boston Garden, and tickets to my first baseball game: Cubs vs. Padres at Wrigley. I remember the score was 4 to 1 Padres. Poor Cubies.

I actually was big Spurs fan growing up after being teased mercilessly by my brother that I had to choose teams to root for and stick with them instead of just liking whomever was winning championships at the time (A practice my cousin Ezra still does: ahem. Yankees and Lakers fan from upstate NY ahem ahem) Sorry, I have a cough. (No i don't, i'm just making fun of my cousin). No really, its a cough. (It's not.) Really. Anyways, I did what any reasonable kid from Western Mass does and choose my teams by color. Raiders and Spurs. Silver and Black all the way. I still like both of those teams (well, it's hard to support the clustercuss that is the Raiders--but i do my best). As I explored the world outside the 413 area code, I realized that most normal humans choose sports teams geographically, and since then I have re-adopted my home MA teams. Those who know me, know that I am a huge baseball fan these days and I even worked for the Red Sox for a number of seasons taking pictures for Fanfoto. Many of those people would be surprised to know that my first baseball game was in high school (in Chicago mind you) and I didn't see my first Red Sox game until college. Like fine wine, I get better with age. I even make sure to listen to crazy sounding bands these days (Lady Ga-Ga [love her], Arctic Monkeys, Death Cab for Cutie), because I will not be fooled again.

Lastly. I leave you with this. My first (and only) girlie-poster.























"Hold that Tiger" indeed. I won this gem at Old Orchard Beach, an old school amusement park in Maine near where I went to summer camp. Ms. Tiger has hung in the top left corner of my wall for about 15 years, more recently obscured by Get Well cards, Absolut ads, and a few stolen hotel signs that were tacked on top of it. Ms. Tiger was the beginning of something special for me. And for that I am entirely grateful, from the bottom of my . . . um . . . from my core.
To conclude, the ultimate irony is that Ms. Tiger is not "my type" at all. And, while I see her obvious poster appeal (or rather appeals), I'm not really that attracted to her, and don't remember ever thinking that she was that hot (i mean, even in the 80's I knew that that g-string was a mistake). She represented my rebellion, and for a kid who went to a Sheryl Crow concert with his mom at age 16, I needed every piece of rebellion I could muster.