Hangin’ Rough

You sick bastard.

You like to watch as yet another celebrity is torn down from his pedestal, don’t you? You’re giddy as a cheerleader on PCP when misfortune befalls the mighty. You enjoy it when the money train derails, scattering emotional cargo all over The National Enquirer.

You secretly relish Michael Jackson‘s one-man carnival. You eat it up when slurring Wes Scantlin has a Miller Lite meltdown or Kobe “no means yes” Bryant preps for his perp walk on Headline News. Admit it.

Your idolatry is second only to your jealousy. That’s why hilarity swells for you at the thought of Martha Stewart teaching the ladies of Cell Block 7 how to make napkin rings out of bedsprings in exchange for cartons of Lucky Strikes. It gives you perverse satisfaction, doesn’t it?

Yeah, me too.

Which is why I was at Danny’s Bar and Grill on a Wednesday night, inside a strip mall where the tide of Home Depots and Pier 1 Imports breaks before drifting into the open prairie of eastern Kansas. This is where I’d find my Jordan Knight in rusted armor.

In his prime, Knight was the lead singer for the biggest musical albatross to coil around the neck of mankind in the 1980s. You remember the New Kids On The Block. A collection of Boston heartthrobs who single-handedly melted the polar caps, depleted the ozone layer and killed off most of the Japanese Crested Ibis population on the sheer volume of the squealing they elicited from 13-year-old girls.

The shrieking girls. The arena tours. The pillowcases and posters and T-shirts and trading cards with Joey, Danny, Donnie, Jonathan and Jordan splashed all over.

The New Kids, like the Third Reich, had a short reign, but it still managed to become the biggest boy band ever, if you don’t count those four limeys from Liverpool. NKOTB had more Top Ten singles than you could shake a gold-plated, diamond-encrusted stick. In 1991, the group topped the Forbes list of America’s highest-paid entertainers.

Then fate intervened. Years passed. A few days before he found himself in front of 150 sorostitutes and housewives at Danny’s in Overland Park, Jordan Knight played a show at a bowling alley in Sioux City, Iowa.

Next on Fox: When New Kids Get Old IV!

Donnie Wahlberg is an actor. Danny Wood is a producer. Jonathan Knight is in real estate. Joey McIntyre is an actor and musician. And Jordan Knight? He’s still hanging tough. He was perhaps the most talented of the lot, the only one to score a platinum single on his own (1999’s “Give It to You”). But now Knight is preparing to suckle his last drops from the teat of fame. He will release a remix album of New Kids hits this spring.

I smelled blood in the water. But the crowd picked up only pheromones. The people at Danny’s didn’t care about Knight circa 2004. They wanted a nostalgia trip. A blast from the past. And they got it. Sort of.

“Jor-dan! Jor-dan! Jor-dan!” came the chants. The shrieks. The squeals from paralegals reverted to pubescents.

But this wasn’t the teenager they had worshipped. Knight, still handsome, strutted and swaggered onstage, playing his part in the fantasy. But even as he danced ably for a florist, he looked like a lethargic robot stuck in molasses compared with his former self. He dutifully sang the hits — “Please Don’t Go, Girl,” “Step by Step,” “The Right Stuff” — but the voice that once could undo bra straps sounded like a 33-year-old man trying to sound like a 17-year-old.

Luckily, he didn’t sing much. He left that task to the crowd and chimed in whenever inspiration struck or the clamoring masses lost focus. “Hangin’ Tough” passed without Knight singing a single word. He was dancing, arm-waving eye candy grinning like a lobotomized chimpanzee.

Little separated Jordan Knight from karaoke night. And there was no sport in the spectacle for me. It was sad. Sadder than the casino has-beens; at least Glen Campbell has longevity on his side.

But the crowd didn’t care. And maybe Knight didn’t, either. He doesn’t need the money. He must still adore seeing those sweaty smiles and sparkling eyes holding the moment in heated reverence.

It was noble, in the same way that self-immolation is noble. And for $12, the fans got their money’s worth.