Hi Darling Ones,

Last night I had a dream about watching a pornographic version of Bell Biv DeVoe’s “Poison” video with my mom, sisters, niblings, and Hanif Abdurraqib. What makes this odd is I do not remember what the “Poison” video looks like. I refuse to go look, on principle.

This dream is why I’ve been listing to New Edition today. Obviously.

I loved New Edition as a kid and that loyalty is why I never feel for New Kids on the Block. I liked the other kids, so much so that the first concert I ever paid my own money to see was Bell Biv DeVoe with Keith Sweat and Johnny Gill as openers.

As I was listening to “Cool it Now,” a video I do remember, and was in awe of brains. Mine specifically.

The stroke may have stolen my balance, the calmness inside my head, and my ability to walk, but I still know the “Cool it Now” raps by heart. Yes, both of them.

Then, as one does with songs they loved when they were 12, I tried to figure out what the song is about. Bobby falling in love with a girl. Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, and Mike telling him to cool it, take it at her pace or risk losing the girl who is right on time. The Bobby’s all, “If I love the girl, who cares who you like?”

Why must he cool it? Because they don’t like her or is he moving too fast for her?

OR is this song the first in that weird little spate of pro-abstinence AIDS-awareness adjacent pop tunes like Jermaine Stewart’s “We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off” and Janet Jackson’s “Let’s Wait Awhile”? Mid-80s was early AIDS awareness time, right? I figure it must have been if I was working at an AIDS project in Eau Claire, WI by 1994.

That’s how my mind is wandering today.

#TeamNewEdition for life,
Jodi