My Summer of B-List Celebrity Encounters, Part 5

There's no easy way to put this, so I'm just going to say it:  This video is going to make me look a little… crazy.  It's going to make Randy look a little crazy too.  But I'm not crazy, I swear.  The jury is still out on Randy, but I can only speak for myself, and I'm pretty sure that I'm mostly sane. 

I know that the internet is quick to judge - and judge harshly - and as such, if something is less than flattering, perhaps one should not post it.  But here it is anyways.  My hope is that you will have some understanding that we were partially hamming up the crazy a little bit for the camera.  There is some genuine crazy in there as well, for sure, but I'm going to chalk most of it up to either a late night after a long drive, or an early morning after very little sleep (depending on which moment of craziness you are judging at the time).

Either way, here it is, so please… be gentle.

My Summer of B-List Celebrity Encounters, Part 5 (Prologue)

I'm not going to lie.  This post was supposed to be much better than this.  You see, this week's celebrity encounter doesn't just exist as a few poorly strung together sentences describing the lacklustre memories of a man that obviously doesn't get out very much.  No, this week's encounter was captured on video.  Glorious high definition video.

It was my full intention to have that footage edited together into a riveting narrative, and posted here, without so much as a single word to describe it.  Just the title of the post, and the video embedded within to do all the talking.  I even purposefully saved this entry until last in order to make sure I had the necessary time to do so.

But the problem is that I do not possess this footage.  It is currently stored under the watchful eye of one Randal Tiberius Sneep. And I wanted it to be a surprise.  So, rather than say 'hey, I have a bunch of week nights with nothing better to do coming up, why don't you give me that footage and I'll edit it together' I instead tried to drop more subtle hints like 'man, I'd really like to see that footage some time and see how lame we were.'  In hopes that I could get the footage from him, without tipping my hat to the fact that I was editing it as well.

The problem is, I was blinded by my desire to have this post be a surprise.  I mean, obviously he knew I would be writing about this encounter, having been along for the ride with me.  But I was hoping to completely blindside him with a finished video rather than the usual write up.  What I did not consider, was that having something - anything - was better than nothing at all.  And if I had just taken the time to really try to get the footage from him, I would have something to post today, even if it was less of a surprise than originally planned.  Instead I still have the full benefit of a surprise, but nothing to show for it.

I made one last ditch attempt to get the footage last night, dropping the ruse, and basically asking flat out to get my hands on it, in hopes that if I plugged away late into the night and perhaps even this morning, it would still be a complete surprise that I was able to put something together so quickly and have it posted today.  But that fell through, and now, instead, I'm left with this.  The written word.

Sorry.

But, I am not going to give up hope.  I think after reading this, Randy will be very proactive in trying to get the footage into my hands, and I will make it my pledge to you fine people, that this time next week, I will have that video piece edited together, and posted right here.  So, I won't spoil the story of this celebrity encounter now, with a half-assed, heart-not-fully-in-it write up, when hopefully* the footage we shot is good enough to tell the story.  The surprise may be completely spoiled, but the tale… well, as you can probably already tell from this epic tease, that is a story for another day.

*I say hopefully, because for all I know the footage is completely unusable.  In which case, I ain't posting a second of it...

My Summer of B-List* Celebrity Encounters, Part 4

I'd like to think that I don't get caught up in all the allure of celebrity.  That I don't really get starstruck.  That everyone is just another human being, no more or less special than the rest of us.

I'd like to think that.

Obviously this latest series of blog entries has you undoubtedly saying to yourself "Ya, right, this dude is practically a celebrity stalker…"

And I guess I can't deny it.  Because I was pretty excited to meet Russell Crowe.

Russell Crowe?  Surely you jest…  But let me assure you, my dear, blog-reading faithful: I never joke about Russell Crowe.  Ok, that was a joke… but I'm not joking about having had a chance to meet him. That said, before we get into that, I've gone and gotten a head of myself already.  Let's take this back a few steps first.

I'm not a huge Russell Crowe fan.  I loved Gladiator (what red-blooded man didn't?) and L.A. Confidential.  And he's always solid in the many great movies that he has been in (The Insider, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, etc…) and even the 'lesser' fare (like The Quick and the Dead, which I am actually very fond of) . So, I can't deny that he's a very good actor.  But good actors aren't always great people.  I'm not saying he kicks puppies or laughs at the elderly when they fall down or anything, but he still doesn't really strike me as first ballot Man Crush Hall of Fame material.

So, while I like to think that I am impervious to the phenomenon that is celebrity culture - tabloids, paparazzi, TMZ, Entertainment Tonight… all that stuff -   I still found myself as giddy as a fan boy at the Skywalker Ranch at the prospect of meeting this actor that I really had very little actual interest in.

Ok, I'll spare you the suspense.  I didn't actually meet him.  In case you don't know the back story, the television show that my sister works on was having him on as a guest star during the week that I was in town visiting her, so I figured that crossing paths with Maximus Decimus Meridius was an outside possibility.  I didn't get my hopes up, and I really wasn't that disappointed when it didn't happen.  But still, when I thought about how cool of a picture it might be to post on Facebook, I was a little excited.

And that's what I'm conflicted about.  What is the allure of celebrity?  If I don't really have an interest in Russell Crowe, shouldn't I care less whether I shake his hand or stand next to him while he fakes a smile and someone takes our picture?  I can't figure out what the actual draw is, but it's undeniably there.

I guess it doesn't matter, at the end of the day, because I didn't meet him anyways.  That said, if I was semi-excited to get a picture with a guy that I didn't have any vested interest in, then you would imagine the thrill I would feel to get my picture with a genuine Man Crush.  But of course, that is a story for another day.

(*Yes, I know Russell Crowe is a true A-List Celebrity, and therefore the title of this blog is misleading, but I didn't actually meet him, so I decided to stick with my already established convention.)