Celebrity? Where?!

Status and popularity have always meant very little to me. In my personal life, if I liked a person, I liked a person and that was that. They were my friend. If I didn't, I didn't and I had no cares about their personal lives and rumors about them, just because they might be "popular." I never knew the high school gossip that was going around because, basically, if we weren't friends, I didn't care what was, or supposedly was, going on with you.

So I suppose because of this mentality, I never understood the hype around tabloids and why paparazzi are so obsessive about chasing celebrities down for the money shot. I always wondered who could possibly care about watching Matt Damon walk down the street with a Coke in his hand.

I said wondered.

This was before I met my first D-List celebrity, Davy Jones. I didn't even care about The Monkees until I knew they were going to be in my hometown the summer that I was 18. Then suddenly, I needed to prepare for his arrival by listening to songs that I always knew, but didn't realize I knew. I needed to watch his cameo on Brady Bunch: The Movie. I needed to be ready to send my vibes to him so when he sang "Girl.... look what you've done to me...." he knew from stage that he was singing it just to me... um, even if he was 55 when I was 18. Details, details.

That summer, The Monkees came, they sang, they left the stage, like performers do. My boyfriend (husband now), his sister and I enjoyed the show, went back to their house and hung out... then we decided to drive back to the stage to see if they had left yet. Lo and behold, their buses were still there, so we decided to stand by a gate to see what we could see.

And wouldn't you know, Davy Jones came walking out, all 4'2 of him, in a smoking jacket and leisure pants and greeted about 15 of us who were waving at him. My boyfriend guided me towards the gate, since I am all of 5'1 and he is 6'4, so I could see him and I gave Davy my ticket to sign. The Sister spoke to him. Yes. She spoke to him and he spoke back. I believe that's a conversation? Davy never saw me, because he had to look over my head to see The Sister. So while they spoke, I reached out my right hand and... wait for it.... touched Davy Jones's hand.

*sigh*

He gave me my signed ticket, I turned around and I screamed.

For a 55-year-old D-List celebrity who I didn't care about two weeks before that day, I screamed like I had just seen something rise from the dead. Only happier.

So, though I don't support at all what the paparazzi do to celebrities, I get the public's obsession with tabloids. I, personally, have an obsession with celebrity news on E! and the occasional check on TMZ.com, which has recently died down. I was much more sensible when I was a teenager and didn't care about them. Now when I hear that a celebrity is in town, I go out of my way to make sure I'm in the vicinity.