Hey all! I’m experimenting with multi-part series this week, and today’s the first of a three-part post on the art of the meet and greet. After kicking off with a little cultural theory of the fan/celeb “relationship”, I’ll follow up with a little exploration of what it might feel like to be at the receiving end of the star gaze, and provide some practical tips for navigating a planned or spontaneous Meet and Greet without losing your dignity or earning a restraining order–the sort of guide I wish I’d had as I stood in line to meet my first celebrity, many, many years ago. I hope you enjoy! Continue reading
Category Archives: Shoe Suede Blues
“Just look over your shoulder, guess who’ll be standing by the toaster at the continental breakfast…” (Shoe Suede Blues, Bay City, MI, September 8, 2012)
It’s been a damn bizarre year, and this weekend upped the ante to another level. It didn’t dawn on me the day I was going to be in for when I was sitting at the hotel breakfast buffet Saturday morning and saw shoe suede blues wander in and make a beeline for the coffee, then sit down at the table next to us. No… it took Peter Tork wandering in 20 minutes later to grab a bowl of granola before I fully realized I had landed once again on Planet Bizarro.*
I could try to write a concert review, or a set list, or about every anal detail of the meet and greet, but all that stuff feels a bit too raw right now, and in any case I was a little too distracted to take notes. Let’s just say that it was one of the best shows I’ve been to in my life, and by far the most meaningful. So I’m just going to rattle off some ambient feelings that are echoing through my noggin. Continue reading
Gazpacho, Grief, and Gratitude
Once upon a time (2000), in a land (yahoogroup) called Long_Title, there lived four Frodis Femmes.
There was Cin, the ringleader, and Mich, the warrior, and Camille, the mystic (and your humble author), and Anissa, the sweetheart. The four of us had our own quirks and damage from various geek girl adolescent traumas, but beyond all odds we were brought together by a shared affection for a half-forgotten 60s boy band. We wrote fanfiction and went to concerts together and snarked on the guys’ eccentricities mercilessly (though always from a place of love). More importantly we became friends despite (or perhaps because of) our wildly divergent personalities.
But life, as it has a way of doing, got in the way after a few years as early-20s gave way to mid-20s. While we all stayed friends, we drifted apart a bit as we chased our own personal and romantic dreams. There were marriages and graduate degrees and careers to be created, and I like to think that each of us drew strength and writing skills from our time as postmodern self-aware Mary Sue kickers of fanfic villain butts as we figured out how to be heroes to ourselves.
That said, there’s a difference between growing stronger and growing harder. For reasons I’ll skip, I spent my whole life driven to be a success. Not to achieve fame or fortune, but to develop my talents to their utmost in the service of others, to make sure my life mattered. In service of that goal, I became a librarian. Then I wrote a scholarly paper. And then that paper was selected to be presented at a conference in Cleveland—the geographic center of the other Frodis Femmes. (I live a few states away).
There were a few tentative plans to meet up while I was in town, but nothing definite. And then, the week before my trip, my life went chaotic. While most of the issues had been sorted by the time I arrived in Cleveland, I was a basket case and there were still a few balls up in the air. Between that and the fact that logistics had never been finalized, I/we cancelled the meetup. It was an awkward time for all of us, and there’d be other chances, after all. At least, that’s what I told myself at the time.
Fast forward a couple years, to early 2012. For obvious reasons, the four of us started talking more in early march, and there was some tentative discussion of going to a Shoe Suede Blues show later in the year. Anissa was particularly enthusiastic. I didn’t commit one way or the other, as I was well into my Ph.D and didn’t know if more important things to my career would be going on.
On May 12, 2012, Anissa died in her sleep at the age of 36. As an occasionally wise man once said; “Boy, Dumbass me”.
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