Friday, July 15, 2011

Dave Loves Herb Alpert!

Trumpeter Herb Alpert was my
earliest gay celebrity crush.

My dad had all of his records, so it was bound to be either Herb or one of the guys from Peter, Paul & Mary. But somehow, Peter and Paul never quite did it for me. It might have been the facial hair. I was very picky even back then.

Herb Alpert was hot, and not just because he invoked visions of matadors and "The Dating Game."



Herb was so hot, that he inspired me to take up the trumpet in grade school. We had a very musical school system back then, and every student was expected to play something. Not necessarily the musical instrument played by their first celebrity crush, but something.

I ended up playing the trumpet in a talent contest, in a solo performance where I infamously flubbed the last few notes of "If I Were a Rich Man" (which I'd gotten out of the Herb Alpert songbook). I tried a couple of times more before giving up and walking off the stage humiliated, with the intention of killing myself right then and there at the tender age of 12.

Anyway, what killed my career as a star trumpeter was braces. I tried, but man, all that metal did not mix with trumpeting. Ow. I still sometimes think about taking it up once again. Now that the braces are off.

Dave - San Francisco, CA
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Herb Alpert - Live at Montreux 1996Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass Greatest HitsHERB ALPERT 16X20 COLOR PHOTO

Inspired by the "Born This Way Blog" - BornThisWayBlog.com

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting, Paul! There's a longer version of this on my blog, to those who might be interested.

the island guy said...

That's cute :)

AAllen said...

That's strange, because I too was a fan of Herb Alpert, even though I knew it wasn't the popular rock music played on the radio, and I was vaguely aware that some people could call it elevator music. (In fact, I spotted one of his songs as Muzak in a supermarket scene in a movie in the 1970s.) I too wanted to play trumpet, but my mom quashed that dream quickly. I still regret not taking up piano.

I never had a crush on Herb, but this explains a lot.