Fifteen Minutes (and Sixteen Hundred Words) of Fame

Our society is inordinately obsessed with celebrities. The trials and tribulations of Brad Pitt and the epic sluttery of Paris Hilton are, for one reason or another, more intriguing than crap like international relations and the government. These topics are in fact so boring that I probably lost a few readers just by mentioning them. Sorry. You can come back now… I promise not to talk about them again. I think I read somewhere that people like to read about the exploits of the rich and morally inept (judging!) as a sort of replacement for the tales of polytheistic hijinks of ancient Greece and Rome. Whether that’s true or not, that sentence has fleshed out this introductory paragraph quite nicely.

As I’ve never been to California, my celebrity exposure has been limited to occasionally clicking past one of the shamelessly numerous celebrity reality shows on VH1. Accidentally, of course. What follows is my personal, real-life experience with people of varying degrees of fame, presented in a hopefully humorous narrative for your amusement.

When I was seventeen, a certain famous magician came to my city, and my family and I went to a show. I won’t use his name because I fear retaliation for certain aspects of the show that I may or may not reveal. Aw, who’m I kidding? Of course I’ll write about them. For the purposes of this tale, I’m gonna come up with a nickname to ease my pronoun burden. He shares a name with a well-known Dickens novel, but we’ll call him Cavid. Cavid Dopperfield. Yeah, I think we’re on the same page here.

The show was progressing nicely. The objects were disappearing, the audience was oohing and aahing at all the appropriate points, the underwear swapping went off without a hitch - yeah, that was a weird trick – it was altogether a good show. Then came time for the Big Trick. The Show Stopper. Cavid was gonna disappear somethin’, and he was gonna disappear somethin’ BIG. An event of this magnitude calls for dramatic, theme-appropriate music, so the sound guy cued up Cher’s “Do You Believe In Life After Love?” Come on! I can think of at least five songs off the top of my head that have the word ‘magic’ in the title alone. Appalling lack of creativity, sound guy. Hey- I just did some research and it turns out Cavid was going through a nasty breakup with a certain supermodel around that time… so maybe I was just mocking his personal vindication theme song. Whoops. You go, girl. Stay strong. All you need is you.

In order to choose the lucky audience participants, we played musical beach balls: whoever was holding one when Cher stopped wailing got to be in the trick. Apparently they made some announcement about having to be eighteen years old to participate, but I, erm, didn’t hear that. Anyway, a million years later the song ended, my dad awesomely set me up to end with a ball, and I was told to head onstage. Obviously. This wouldn’t be much of a story otherwise. My quick thinking ensured my place in the trick – a magical lackey asked how old I was as I climbed the stairs, to which I suavely replied, “Sev-eighteen!” Smooth, Lis. Smooth.

Dopp had us all sit on some presumably magical bleachers behind him. He then asked my (and some other guy’s, an unimportant detail) name and gave us flashlights so we could waggle them like idiots to prove that we were still behind the curtain they then drew around all thirteen of us. After that, Dopp levitated us. We heard a low buzzing noise and then we were suddenly backstage, twenty minutes later!

No, that’s not what happened at all. Truth be told I am a little scared of some sort of Magicians’ Alliance coming after me. But really, what are they going to do? Pretend to cut me in half and then pull quarters from my ears? And Dopp is such a sham I feel this exposure is long overdue. Nothing you couldn’t figure out if you thought about it, keeping in mind the basics of physics, conservation of matter and being a total tool.

Where was I before my fear made me lie to you good people? Oh, yeah. So what’s-his-face and I are waving our flashlights stupidly while the curtain closes around us and our fellow ball-catchers. As soon as we are hidden from sight, two beings who I can only assume were magical ninjas come from behind us and begin herding us out the back of the stands into (gasp!) the big empty space behind the curtain-covered bleachers. They took over our flashlight-waggling duties while we all stumbled to an area backstage to watch a VHS tape of what the audience would see. Eventually the man himself (not to be confused with the Man) came back and we got to meet him. Woo.

Magicians have a certain mystique about them. For me, it’s the frustration of not knowing how they do their tricks. Now that was dead. Not that I really expected to be disappeared, but come on. Couldn’t we have incorporated a trap door or some strategically placed mirrors or something? That said, Cavid Dopperfield is quite tall and almost comically thin- like a shorter, normally proportioned person who has been taffy-pulled. He also sports a Swayze-esque mane of (probably dyed) hair that I’m sure is the envy of other magicians and clearly the pinnacle of Aquanet technology.
He inducted us into the Guild of Magic Trick Participants, in the ‘Shut the Hell Up’ chapter. I let my membership lapse within fifteen minutes of orientation, which must be some sort of record. We had our photos autographed like good little how’d-he-do-thats (anyone? anyone?) and were then ushered out to our confused, waiting families. Debunked magic trick and autographed photo in one night? Not bad, not bad at all.

NEXT! I saw Elijah Wood in London’s Heathrow airport on the way home from my semester in Cambridge. I’m guessing he was there for the London premiere of The Lord of the Rings, but I’ll never know for sure. I wish there was more to this story, but I only saw him for a second before the crowd shifted and he was lost to my view behind someone’s knees.

He’s very short is all I’m saying here.

Moving on. Much to the delight of many of my friends, I live near Reggie Miller. We’re practically neighbors and all but best friends. Er, were best friends. Until I flipped him off.

My sister Laura and I were leaving the neighborhood one night. As we came up on Reggie’s house, I noticed a car on the road. Ordinarily this in itself would not throw me. Cars frequently appear on the road; it is their natural habitat. The fact that this car was sideways in the road blocking both lanes is what gave me pause. He’s lucky I had my headlights on and was looking out the front windshield and know how to work the brake or we could have had a seriously ill-advised game of chicken on our hands. And judging by the size of his (Excursion/Navigator/insert euphemistic gas guzzling SUV name here), he would have won easily. I implicitly conceded defeat and slowed down to allow him to creep backwards into a driveway across the street. As I zipped around this mystery stranger’s grill, I flipped him off and somewhat less-than-politely enumerated my concerns about his driving ability, two unfortunate and rarely-used habits lingering from my commuting days.

Now before I go on, allow me two explanatory digressions. First of all, the speed limit on this road is significantly faster than the standard Reggie-gawker speed of 3.5 miles per hour. As my mother is fond of shouting, the speed limit is 45, not ‘stop and look at Reggie’s house.’ Second of all, I am not usually so explicit in my hand gestures. I’ve only flipped off one stranger before, and that was an old man in a Buick. Long story. I generally prefer shouts and have recently come into my own in the horn-honking arena. I was just in a hurry and feeling particularly animated, I guess.

So after my display, we continued down the road. Laura turned to determine the cause of this car’s bizarre behavior. The verdict was that the mystery car was not a typical gawker, as they are rarely allowed within the iron gates where this car was currently heading. Oops. I have just flipped off Reggie Miller, albeit in the dark of the night through heavily tinted windows, because he was waiting for the sprinklers to turn so he wouldn’t get water spots on his car, a personality trait which sort of makes me glad I did it.

Now, to you naysayers who I know are out there, no- I didn’t actually see the man. In fact, I’ve never seen him in person, nor would I be very likely to recognize him. I live in Indiana and don’t like basketball, but I haven’t been tossed out yet. I’m a curiosity, I know. But the members of my family who have had CRSs (Confirmed Reggie Sightings) tell me that he always appears in a large black SUV. That plus deductive reasoning equals I flipped off Reggie Miller. And I’m sure he’s seen and heard worse at games but this is MY story and I’ll focus on what I want.

Well, that pretty much sums up my limited experience with the glitterati. Not very impressive, now that I look at it. Though for all I know, there could be many more meetings. I am amazingly bad at recognizing people. My life could be lousy with unrecognized celebrity encounters and I would have no idea. Case in point: two of the three encounters documented here had to be pointed out to me by others. (I figured out Dopperfield on my own, thank you very much).

Our society may not have gods and goddesses to gossip about, but there are always modern parallels. Tara Reid, the goddess of “accidental” silicone exposure; Ashlee Simpson, the demigoddess of GERD; and Tom Cruise, god of the Batshit Insanity, all residing happily together atop Mount Tabloydus, occasionally descending to give me something to blog about. Thanks, guys. Keep up the crazy.