Heros

If someone told me that, right this minute, Justin Bieber was signing autoigraphs at White Oaks Mall, I wouldn't care at all. I wouldn't feel any urge to go meet him or talk to him or even see him. I wouldn't even be filled with a hatred for him and want to go just to hate him in person. That news would have no effect on me at all and I would continue my day as previously planned. I have absolutely no opinion on him as a person or a performer and his presence in my city would mean nothing.

If someone told the little girls I coached at gymnastics Zone that Justin Bieber was at White Oaks Mall signing autographs, they would shit themselves. They would shit themselves, then change, then force their mothers, coach, or whatever adult they could find to take them to the Biebs imediamente.

If someone told me that Patti LuPone was at White Oaks Mall, right now, spitting on people dreams, I would shit myself. Then I would clean that up, drive myself to the mall and cry all over her assistants while she stood nearby (she doesn't seem like a "I love me fans" type).

 I used to think that I was above the celebrity-obsession that is so prevalent in America. I don't buy gossip magazines, I've never watched a reality show about some celebrity's everyday life, and Ive never understood the big deal with autographs. Then I realized that it isn't that the rest of the world is celebrity obsessed and I'm not, it's just that I have different heros than most people and everyone is gaga for their own heros (there's a hint at another one of my heros).

Although Robert Pattinson would barely make me look up from my coffee, I know that there are plenty of obscure seemingly unimportant people in the world that I wouldn't even be able to speak to in real sentances (i.e. Aaron Tveitt- I brokenly asked him for a picture, was turned down, and ended up taking a super blurry picture of the side of his head because I was shaking so terribly (Aaron Tveit is a Broadway actor (no one has heard of him))).

I'm pretty sure if other members of Classic Brian saw the creator of The Wire on the street, they would yell quotes form his show at him until they elicited at least some kind of reponse from him. In our own way, we are all giddy little fan girls, it's just that they don't make magazines about my heros.

So what is it that makes humans so suceptable to this kind of ridiculousness? I would say that I am just a sucker for raw talent and that I like to see these people in person to prove that they are real people and not perfectly engineered robots. However, I don't have any desire to meet Mark Zuckerberg. He is undeniably talented and powerful, but he has no effect on me as a person.

I suppose that it has to do with our hidden or not so hidden desires. For example, I have always dreamed of being a fierce braodway performer, so those people seem like gods to me. The ultimate that I will never reach. Super versions of my local theater friends. Maybe Conor has secretly always wanted to write a kickass drama series and The Wire is his idea of writing perfection.

Whatever it is that makes us willingly to pay or break laws or travel just to spend 3 minutes in the presence of another human, it seems to be universal.

People I would quit my summer job to meet:

Patti LuPone
Lady Gaga
Alec Baldwin
Amy Poehler
Robert Downey Jr.
Conan O'Brien
Bill Hader
Will Arnett
Ian McKellan

There are more, I just can't think of them right now.

-Mada