Starstruck

While I don’t understand the fascination some people have with celebrities I certainly suffer from it. And I have no idea why. Intellectually, I know that they are just another person just like me. They have successes and failures, dreams and nightmares. They have to eat, sleep, and poop just like everybody else, but they’re also different. They have to worry about complete strangers walking up to them to tell them how wonderful they are or how shitty. Some even stalk and threaten celebs or their loved ones. They can’t simply make new friends or date someone new without the underlying fear of what their motivation might be. Knowing these things doesn’t inspire me to leave them alone but quite the opposite. I want to give them a big hug and tell them it’ll be OK which is a paradox I can’t seem to reconcile.

My first celebrity encounter was with David Hasselhof. By encounter I mean he stood waving, I swear mostly at me directly, from the top of a Toys R Us at its grand opening event. I stood among the dozens of families that assembled to see Knight Rider. I felt a confusing excitement like looking forward to the lollipop at the end of a visit to the dentist but any exhilaration I felt evaporated into the warm, sunny air when I realized that the only view I’d be getting of the Hof was from the lowly parking lot 50 feet below. The VIP access where kids were able to purchase a ticket to meet the man wasn’t in our budget as the funds were reserved for things like food which was not my decision. Given the opportunity I’d choose a meet and greet with an eighties icon over food any day. I still would.

I didn’t actually get to meet David Hasselhof, but my friends didn’t need to know that. The facts laid out by me were that I was driven to the event where the Hof was appearing, I saw him, and no his talking car KITT wasn’t there. What was he like? Tall, very tall. What did we talk about? Oh, you know, the show, the car, nothing much. Part of the allure of meeting a celebrity at that point in my life was how much social currency I enjoyed. Telling tales about someone famous was far more interesting than listening to the goings-on in my 12-year-old life which involved stories about disappointing packed lunch sandwiches or inappropriately time math class erections.

There was less of a chance to meet a celebrity living in Canada and even less in a blue-collar city like Hamilton. Hamilton was a failing steel town in the eighties and while my stepfather lost his steelworker job the mills kept radiating their pungent stench for miles around. I met no celebrities in Hamilton, I just wanted to share how bad it smelled.

About an hour away from Steeltown was the bright lights and big city of Toronto where a group of comic actors sowed their career seeds. It was the early eighties era of television sketch comedy where groups of comics acted out a series of short scenes jumping in and out of character trying to make the audience, and their counterparts, laugh. It was especially funny when the actors broke character in hysterical laughter. In Toronto, the cast of Second City TV (SCTV) ruled the airwaves. The crew included Eugene Levy, Catherine O’hara, Martin Short, Rick Moranis, Harold Ramis, Joe Flaherty, and my personal favorite, John Candy.

I cried when John Candy died and I have no idea why. I was 22-years-old and I sat there thinking I don’t know this man. I’ve never met him or anyone close to him. He was just a funny guy in movies. He never made me pancakes so big he used a snow shovel to flip them. He never sang polka in my living room nor did he coach a bobsledding team from Jamaica. But still, there I was, crying as if I lost a member of my family. He did make me laugh. He made me laugh a lot. And I know it’s crazy but I miss him. I miss a complete stranger.

In my late teens, I was obsessed with a rapper called KRS-One. His lyrics were smart and he forcefully shouted every word as if he were angry at the world. I was angry at the world like any other teen so his voice was almost soothing for me. After his close friend was shot and killed, KRS-One turned his music into activism with his hit Stop the Violence which became a movement of the same name. I was drawn to his voice and music and it played continuously for years in my Walkman knock-off headphones. He opened my eyes to the New York hip hop scene which was the entire hip hop scene at the time and I felt connected to him. A decade later when I was in my mid-twenties, KRS-One performed at a small local club in Ottawa to where I’d moved a year prior. The club was packed with people who did not look like me. I am a 5’8’ white man and they were not. I didn’t care. The air was electric as he performed his latest hit Step Into a World and I danced to the music in a style, now as a parent, I recognize as ‘toddler shaking a doll.’ It didn’t matter, KRS-One was a few feet away from me. After the show, I walked backstage nodding my head confidently to the bouncer as if I belonged there, and made my way to where the performers were. I extended my hand to KRS-One who shook it with a warm smile. I wanted to tell him how much his music meant to me. I wanted to say I’ve been following his music for years, had all his albums, and he taught me how to think critically when it came to racism. I wanted him to know that he changed my life for the better. What I said instead was “Are you selling teeshirts?”

KRS-One snickered as he said “Nah, man.” I collected myself extending my hand once more and he took it. I leaned in and said “you’ve made me want to be a better person for years. Thank you.” It was corny, but his eyes lit up and he took me in closer to say his signature “Word!” and continued with “Thanks, man, that means a lot.” He was as genuine and sincere as his music. I stood still for a moment, realizing my admiring gaze might be nearing ‘creepy staring contest’ territory. I waved goodbye and skipped away as if I were a 12-year-old girl who just got a pony for her birthday.

Years later, Cuba Gooding Jr. was in town filming a movie. He wanted to train a local boxing gym and found one I happened to co-own. My Partner let me know Cuba was coming in to train and asked if I wanted to stick around to keep the gym open late for him. I may have peed in excitement a little and jumped at the opportunity. He moved smoothly in the boxing rings as I pretended to work on my laptop. I was giddy with excitement to be so close to a veritable Hollywood movie star. He eventually came over to me and I introduced myself. He shook my hand and replied, “I’m Cuba.” which confused me. We both knew who he was but maybe he wanted to be polite or possibly he thought I’d been living under a large rock... on Mars.. for the past thirty years. I wanted him to like me but I’m not sure why. I struggled to say anything but felt the overwhelming need to speak. It’s a difficult thing to talk to someone who you’ve watched in blockbuster movies and has no idea who you are. To bring up any specific roles was to appear obsessed. To not mention anything I felt might be an insult. These thoughts added to the growing mountain of anxiety which left only one memory of his entire career which was his infamous line “SHOW ME THE MONEY!” from Jerry Maguire. No, I did not blurt out “show me the money.” Instead, I sheepishly said “I love your work,” to which he replied “thanks, man.” And that was it. I suppose I could’ve asked about his many pivotal roles like Boyz n the Hood, As Good as It Gets or Men of Honor. I could’ve asked about the actors he’s worked with, what it’s like being a celebrity but I was a stranger. I think I’d be weirded out if a stranger asked me questions about my work and life but it’d never come up.

A new phenomenon has emerged out of a new medium; podcasts. Podcasts are an on-demand radio show and I fully acknowledge that making any reference to radio ages me appropriately. For those of you under the age of thirty, radio is technology from the late 1800’s that sends and receives sound waves through the air mostly to people’s cars where they were forced to listen to other people’s music playlists and local weather forecasts. At first video killed the radio stars but the internet finished them off. At first, I used podcasts to discover music like I did with Avicii’s Levels podcast (yes someone else’s playlist but he’s a celebrity so it’s OK) but my discovering Tim Ferris led me down a different road. I’d listen during my 90-minute commute to work and my hour-long workout in the morning. I’d sometimes even plug in as I performed menial tasks around the house. Podcasts are recorded in such a way that makes the listener feel that we’re in the same room almost a part of the conversation. Before I knew it, I was listening to one person’s voice in deep conversations for hours upon hours over the course of months and years. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that I began to believe that I knew Tim personally, that we were friends. It SHOULDN’T have come as a surprise but it did. The same happened with Rich Roll and Aubrey Marcus when I discovered their podcasts and the same celebrity principle applies. I’m a complete stranger to them even if I know I understand much of which they express and share. I’ve imagined running into Tim Ferriss, perhaps I found myself on the same elevator with him wondering what I would say but more importantly why I would want to say anything. Don’t do it, Rob! Just get off on your floor!

I want to tell them their work meant something to me. We all do but they must hear it all the time. When does affirmation turn into harassment? At what point do they stop caring? I’m not suggesting they don’t necessarily appreciate it but after hearing the same thing over and over even being interrupted during meals must get annoying. I was recognized at dinner once. I’d spoken at a local college about entrepreneurship and a few weeks later a young man approached my table at a restaurant to tell me how much my talk meant to him. This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to celebrity status and since it was the first of its kind I couldn't wipe the smile from my face for a week after. OK, fine a month. FINE! Mucg longer. Anyway, I thanked him sincerely and he went on his way.

For years I was obsessed with boxing. I owned a boxing club, trained to box, and consumed as many matches as I could. Boxers are very easy to approach. Of course, there are the Floyd Mayweathers, Oscar De La Hoyas, and the rest of the top 1% but everyone else is just another guy you can walk up to and say hello. Whenever I attended a big fight live I’d show up at the public weigh-ins where all the fighters showed up and walked among the crowd. I was welcomed warmly by one of my all-time favorites Arturo Gatti, Mickey Ward, Lennox Lewis, Shane Mosley, and more. Each one of them were more than happy to take photos, chat about boxing and life. They were less like how I thought celebrities ought to be than how the rest of us can be.

In 2016, I was moving away from the glitz and glamor of downtown Ottawa to a quiet neighborhood. It was sunny day in June and I shuffled back and forth stuffing items the movers had left behind into my car. Before I pulled out of my parking lot I checked my social media feeds like any other completely normal, not obsessed human does before pulling out of a parking lot. In my feed that day I read the announcement that Muhammad Ali had died. My mind visualized everything I’d read and watched about him. How when he was young he waited outside a restaurant in the freezing cold to ask a then famous fighter for an autograph and when the opportunity presented itself the boxer refused. Ali vowed to never deny a fan an autograph and even though he became so famous his face so recognizable in the world second only to Jesus, he kept his word the best he could. I watched in the theatre of my mind his beautiful movements in the ring and his winning every time he was expected to lose.

He wasn’t a celebrity. Celebrity was a side effect of his willingness to be himself in the face of oppression and later his undaunting ability to bring people together. Celebrity was a tool he used to help people such as talking a man out of committing suicide and traveling to Iraq to negotiate freeing American hostages. This was the second and last time I cried for the death of someone I did not know. And I didn’t just cry, I sobbed into an ugly, snotty puddle of grief and sadness. I felt as though the world had lost someone irreplaceable because it had. I lost someone irreplaceable that day even if we’d never met.

What is it about celebs? Why do I want their love? Does celebrity make me feel less than I could be? Am I not at the top? Is there a top? Isn’t it usually cold at the top? And social media only makes me love them more. I watch Ryan Reynolds mobilize an entire city to find a stolen dog, then Dwayne Johnson treating an entire school to the movies, and Shaq paying for a stranger’s engagement ring. Where did these angels come from?

I feel the need to reciprocate in the close friendship that’s blossomed in my mind. And no, I don’t think it’s weird. I’m open to these one-sided relationships as long as they don’t get weird. As long I can keep my heart rate down. As long as I keep my mouth from blathering on about their work if I meet them. Still, I’d like to say thank you and a heartfelt “I love your work” to my close celebrity friends from me, an imperfect stranger.