Happy 50th Birthday to Joey McIntyre

and also happy new year to the rest of us.

Today is Joey McIntyre’s 50th birthday, and you either know who he is or you don’t. I spend a lot of time with people twenty years younger than I am, so I know for sure that my references (Jordan Catalano’s choker, the episode of BH 90210 where Donna catches Felice cheating, among other building blocks of my personhood) go flying over millions of people’s heads. Whoops! I’m old! But it’s okay, because Joey McIntyre is older. I wrote about seeing Joey in concert as an adult (it used to be on the Tin House website, but isn’t anymore! Sad! Will put it somewhere again someday!), but the truth is, I could write a thousand essays about Joey and it would never truly be enough. Here is a picture of me and Joey from 2007.

Look at his eyes! They look fake! Who has eyes that blue? Look at my H + M tunic! I loved it so much! Look at my bangs! Look at me angling my face away from him because I couldn’t handle what was happening! Look at his shiny shirt! Look at his vest! Look at his fedora! Once, about five years ago, I almost ran him over on Central Park West. He looked at me through the windshield and I gasped and he looked away, like, ugh, just leave me alone. So I did. (Instead of, what, actually running him over? That would have been something.)

Have you seen the TikToks where people prank their mothers by telling them their favorite celebrity is dead? I know—intellectually—that these are in horrible taste, and yet! I love them! I can’t get enough! The Jon Bon Jovi moms, the Oprah moms, the Jennifer Aniston moms, the Mary J. Blige moms, the Bruno Mars moms. The reactions—swearing, screaming, NO NO NO NO NO—are so pure. If someone pranked me, it would be Joey McIntyre, and I would burst into tears immediately, without even pausing to think about it first. There is something, too, about this being done to middle aged women—we who feel things so deeply, but who are always doing everything for everyone else—that really touches a nerve. These women are usually in their family’s kitchen, taking care of everyone home for the holidays, and then you tell them that Jon Bon Jovi is dead? It’s too much. Maybe that’s why the reactions are so big—we’re all just frayed edges, ready to catch fire.

I guess what I like about those videos isn’t the pranking, which is momentarily cruel, but the knowledge that these reactions are genuine, and coming from some guttural space that the Moms might not even expect. These celebrities will die, and these Moms will not be present—it’s not the same as a family member, or a friend, or a spouse—these are not deaths they will witness. These Moms will not be holding Jon Bon Jovi’s hand, but they will mourn him all the same. I guess the more I think about it, the older I get, the more real I think that love is—love from afar.

Surprise! This started being about Joey but now it’s about Joey and also my dad. I really did not have Grief Blogger on my 2022 To Do list, but here we are.

My dad was in the New York Times this week, alongside all the other people who died this year. In the print edition, his photo is right next to the woman who invented the Scrunchie, and just above Coolio. I am still getting notes from people about him, offering condolences, and my mother and I are planning his memorial service, which will be on his 80th birthday. 80 sounds both young and old to me—not truly ancient, like those 112 year olds you see on television, and not a tragedy, a life cut down in its prime. My dad really wanted to be 80. And now Joey is 50! My dad knew so much about Joey McIntyre, though I think he spent more time thinking about Donnie Wahlberg, who after all did an incredible job as Duddits in the truly bonkers adaptation of Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher. Duddits became one of my nicknames for my dad. I can see him now, arms raised over his head, declaring “I Duddits!”

This is Donnie as Duddits. Red Sox jacket actor’s own, one must assume.

I guess what I want to say, at the end of the year, to all of you kind readers, is this: thank you for being here. I really thought this Substack was going to be lighthearted book tour fun, but it’s become something else entirely, and you are all so kind to me. Thank you for reading, and your sweet comments and emails. I read them all. This year really threw me for a loop, and I am still thrown. I’ll be on my book tour for Very Good Hats in early January, and I just finished the first draft of my screenplay adaptation of This Time Tomorrow, so I’m working, just working while limping. Working while wounded, or maybe just while adjusting to this new world that I’m in. I’m glad Joey McIntyre and Jon Bon Jovi are in it too. Jon Bon Jovi and my dad have the same birthday! March 2. A couple of nice Pisces men. Anyway! Happy to be in the swirl of life with all of you. I hope you have a happy new year, and a healthy 2023.

Yours, with love,

Emma