Back off BSB!!!

No, I didn't have a typo incident mistaking PSB for what I wrote. I really do mean back off BSB! What is BSB might you ask? Why, it is a 5 member group that has had an international presence for the past 10 years in Asia. It is responsible for making my auditory enjoyment of my surroundings a little more unpleasant than it would normally be if I didn't have them around.

Yes, yes. I am talking about the Backstreet Boys.

Seriously, I can't seem to escape them. Their musical stylings have followed me throughout Asia. I'm not kidding. Don't laugh. They sorta creep up on me when I least expect it. I'm savoring the spicy pepperoni in my American Classic pizza from Pizza Hut and all of a sudden, BAM! It hits me. "Backstreet's back, alright! BAMP-BAM-BAMP-BAMP-BAMP!" I'm listening to the Backstreet Boys, again. And then I promptly start to pound my head on the table, eventually in perfect rhythm with the annoyingly catchy pop back beat.

I go to a DVD shop and am flipping through all of the brand new, still in theaters titles and then I will hear something strangely familiar in the background. This eventually gets louder and louder until it is resonating in my head - "I'll never break your heart. I'll never make you cry...." ARGH! Inevitably I wind up stopping my DVD bin flipping on a movie title like, White Chicks or Strangeheart or, gasp, Crash or some other stupid shitty movie. At that moment I absently mindedly pick up the movie and put it into my stack, so yes, we own these movies. The Backstreet Boys actually deaden all of my senses at the same time so I have absolutely no discretion or taste from the first recognized lyric to the very last note. Or, in the case they are on a loop, until I temporarily regain some shred of composure and flee the store.

The last example I can bear to tell you was when I was in the middle of freaking nowhere. There was a large speaker in a field for the call to prayer. When it wasn't being used to gather the devout, guess what it was used for? Yup. Unfortunately. Sigh, "I don't care who you are, where you're from, don't care what you do as long as you love me." I am sorry to say that I don't really have an Indo memory divorced from that tune. It was one of the first things I heard when I came to from my surgery!

KEEEEE-RIST (christ, but drawn out in that exasperated way)!

After I came back home from Indonesia they just released their "As Long As You Love Me" single, so I got to hear it at home incessantly as well. Also mirrored was one question asked by Indo-gals on both sides of the Pacific, "which Backstreet Boy do you pretend you pillow is at night?" This was the question that I have been asked most frequently by Indonesian girls from the ages 12 to 24.

So far I have encountered their lovesick pining in Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Thailand, China, Tibet (hee, hee - that one IS for the PSB), Mongolia, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. So, like, everywhere I have been in Asia. I can't shake them. I know all of the words to the songs and not because I want to. I am being stalked by new releases (which are only released overseas) and greatest hits albums.

If I ever were to meet AJ, Brian, Kevin, Howie and Nick (yes, I know their names), I don't even know what I would say. I would probably just start crying. Not out of reverence and/or girlish glee but for their constant and irritating infiltration of my Asia experiences.

And then I would slap them.