Teen Dream

Last Thursday I saw Shaun Cassidy on the way to work. I was on the way to work, he was getting out of his SUV on Little Santa Monica in Beverly Hills. This made me very happy.

Shaun Cassidy was my first teen idol. I wasn't exactly a teen yet, but you know what I mean. My bedroom was absolutely plastered with posters of the guy. I cut articles out of 16 Magazine and trimmed pages from Tiger Beat. I had a locket, a t-shirt, and even a pair of khaki bellbottoms with his face emblazoned on them. I have a Hardy Boys record case for my 45s which gets ooohs and aaahs whenever I take it out to my DJ gigs. I had (still have) the first three albums, each one with my name and address scrawled across the gatefold in crayon.

I also have the October 1977 edition of Dynamite featuring a cover story on the Hardy Boys (my friend Pam preferred Parker Stevenson... whatever) and the January 1978 edition of Dynamite with both Shaun Cassidy and CHEWBACCA on the cover. They were proclaimed "Top Stars of the Year!" (My love for journalism must have come from this.)

I won a poetry contest when I was 8 and the local paper came to do a little human interest story on me. It featured a picture of me sitting on my bed, with my cat Fluffy in my lap, and my Walls of Shaun behind me.

I had, however, moved on when he was covering David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel." Although, in retrospect, that was pretty cool considering that most people listening to him still were girls who wore braces and had never heard of Bowie.

But they say you never forget your first love... and I never forgot mine. I had a boyfriend who wandered around India for a year, and he would check in on me about once a month on a questionable phone line while most likely under a tin roof of a shanty from somewhere, inevitably at 4am or so California time. I would wake up (sorta) and ask two questions: "Where are you?" and "How's you hair?" Don't ask my why this was important to me, I don't exactly know myself. One time his answers were: " Jaisalmer" and "Kind of a shag." I think I squealed. He later told me that he had almost said "Kind of like Shaun Cassidy's" but he didn't want me to get all nuts during the few moments we had on the phone.

I don't exactly understand it, but I still have a sense of loyalty towards my Shaun. Every once in a while I'd get some news of him: producing a movie, writing, on Broadway... He had something to do with that cheerleading softcore "Bring It On," because my brother in law was on the crew and got me an autograph. He's written for TV shows like "The Agency" and "Cold Case" and even created my favorite ill-fated series ever, "American Gothic." (I still have videotapes of that show.)

So Shaun being in LA... Me being in LA... it was only a matter of time. It was one of the few instances I've been glad for gridlock in Beverly Hills. The other time was when I saw George Clooney, but that's a story for another day...