What I Said To A Celebrity

Most of the time I have no awe of celebrities. They wreck their lives like the rest of us. They just have bigger budgets and thus bigger bills when they have to clean up the mess from racist jokes, soliciting prostitute, DUIs, drug rehab, mental instability, divorces, and tax evasion.

They make the same mistakes as anyone else, only in High Definition.

Us Weekly and People magazine seems like a royal waste time to me—literally. I vote that we leave Prince William and Kate Middleton alone and focus on clean drinking water and human trafficking instead.

These quasi-tabloids give people to exercise their voyeuristic muscles. For most of us, real life consists of utilities bills and Halloween parties, not jetsetting to the French Riviera or invitations to Elton John’s birthday party. We watch movies; we don’t star in them.

Of course, I’m making a generalization. Some celebrities strike me as decent, hard-working, compassionate people. The Cardinals just won the World Series, and Albert Pujols, probably one of the greatest baseball players of all time, sponsors a baseball camp in his native Dominican Republic every year. Bono has long served as an advocate for various philanthropic and humanitarian endeavors in several countries in Africa.

Like the rest of humanity, celebrities are a mixed bag.

I have a short list of those with whom I might enjoy hanging out:

· Justin Timberlake
· Johnny Depp
· Jack Black
· Kristen Wiig
· James McAvoy
· Joseph Gordon-Levitt
· Kate Winslett

I like the movies that they have made, and I’d like to believe that the roles they have chosen say something about who they are off-set. I could be wrong. Maybe they’re all selfish, superficial people with a veneer of wealth of sophistication. After I broke up with Megan Fox, they all stopped asking me to hang out. I have no way of knowing now.

I do know that this headline is a waste of time:

Fur Real? Taylor Swift Wears Another Crazy Cat Shirt

Confession: I was a tad starstruck once.

damien riceI went and saw Damien Rice at the Belcourt Theater in 2003, the year he released “O,” his debut album as a solo artist.

After the show, he had gone outside to smoke a cigarette, rolled by hand of course, and was signing people’s posters and ticket stubs with the other.

I waited until he looked my way and blurted out this revelation:

“Your songs make me cry.”

“Thanks, mate,” he said.

I was sincere, and though I have no awe of celebrities, saying something so disgustingly sentimental—and vulnerable—to a stranger still makes me cringe. I cringe, but I have no regrets.

If I do meet a celebrity, I don’t want to say or do anything that would reinforce any superiority complex. I may not have dated January Jones or gotten wasted and run a very expensive sports car into a fire hydrant, but my dearth of accomplishments in the Intimate Relationships With Sex Icons and Public Intoxication arenas has no effect whatsoever on the significance of my life.

Yet, I want to give heartfelt compliments whether or not the recipient has appeared on Oprah.

Celebrity worship distracts us from pursuing deeper authenticity. You and I are celebrities too, but no one knows it yet. Maybe God does.

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