My First Love

Christ, how I loved Kristy McNichol when I was a kid.

Love is an angel disguised as lust. Come on now, try and understand...

This wasn't anything so dismissive as "puppy love". I must have been about seven years old when I discovered her in The Pirate Movie, and I knew what I fucking wanted...

I wanted Kristy McNichol.

I might not have known what I would technically do once I had her. But I had a deep, primal feeling that I would figure it out.

I'm not sure what prompted me, recently, to bump "The Pirate Movie" up on my Netflix queue. But I did, and I watched it again, after many years.

This is one of those movies that I saw a million times as a kid, every time it played on cable. I had no idea it was a critical and financial bomb. I just found it utterly captivating.

A strange concept, in hindsight. A sort of modernized spoof on Gilbert & Sullivan's comic opera The Pirates of Penzance. With songs lifted directly from the opera (with partially revised lyrics), mixed in with original, modern-styled pop songs...

The combination of music styles is jarring and incongruous, but I didn't notice it as a kid. On a class trip, we went to see a production of The Pirates of Penzance, and I was actually confused because they didn't perform any of the pop songs...
Of course, watching it again, I remembered what a volatile crush I harbored for Kristy McNichol. She is completely fucking adorable in the movie—regardless of what anyone says about the movie. She exudes the aura of the prettiest girl next door.

There was a girl in my 4th grade class named "Carrie" who looked like her. I had the worst crush on her. But I was just an Average Frustrated Chump back in the 4th grade. I had no pick up artist techniques. I didn't know how to open sets, or neg, or display high value, or kiss-close. You've got to understand, this was the 80s...