My boy crazy gene has kicked in again but alas, no boys are around to take advantage of this. (Which is probably a good thing on both sides.) To cope with this, I’d like to expand this blog a branch and cover all of my celebrity crushes.
I’m taking this article waaaaay back in the day, back to 1995. Before my guy type was permanently set in stone.
I was thirteen, in honors classes, and just starting to make my way towards being an angry teenager. Kurt Cobain had been dead for over a year, I was spending time with people who listened to music that wasn’t on the top 40 list, and MTV had finally captured my full attention when I didn’t have to study.
It was also MTV who introduced me to what would become my longest rock star crush: James Iha.
Bullet With Butterfly Wings premiered, and I got a full view of this:
Hi. Hot Asian guitarist with eyeshadow? Yes, please. Owns a dog? Added bonus. Sometimes wears glasses? *swoon* *face plant*
This was the very first time I found myself incredibly attracted to someone who was Asian who didn’t look like they’d tag “azn pryde” to a wall and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I tried to get as much information as I could about him in those early days, and most of it was little bits and pieces I found in magazines and clips played on MTV. Mind you, this was when AOL was still a single digit version – if they were at five point something I’d be very surprised – so I didn’t have the ability to just google him to see what came up.
If you want to really take it back, I think I used Alta Vista for my first internet search on him.
The pieces I found were extremely promising. Not only was he a hot guitarist with a dog, but he was also a second generation Japanese-American (just like me!). He was born in Elk Grove, IL, which is right next to my birthplace of Arlington Heights. I felt like we were meant to be, that the stars had aligned, and that it would only be a matter of me graduating college before we’d settle down.
When his solo album came out, I had my mom drive me to a store so I could pick up a copy. It was the first thing I heard in the morning when my alarm went off.
If that’s not stalkerish enough for you, I had this piece of info that sealed the deal: a friend of my parents is a cousin of Anna Sui, the fashion designer.
James Iha was good friends with Miss Sui and even did a little turn down the catwalk for one of her collections in the late 90′s.
Seriously, you guys. We just needed someone to make the introduction and I’d be a happy girl. We’d have a loft, practice guitar together, and raise dogs. I wouldn’t even need to change my initials. And he’d [im]patiently wait for me as I finished getting dressed.
Almost fifteen years later, I still have a soft spot for Mr. Iha. He’s gone and bleached his hair and he’s in a band with one of the Hansen kids, but you know what? It was my first rock star love. And you never forget the first one.
