Not Just Un-Famous Fan Letters

I write fan letters but I've never written one to anyone famous. Does that make sense?

Lemme explain.

I never wrote a fan letter to an actor or singer because I thought, "Well, plenty of people are writing those people. What about everyone else?"

So, I wrote letters to people like the customer service representative who took care of a problem for me, or my insurance agent (which reminds me, I need to send a letter to the adjuster that looked at our car). I even wrote a fan letter to a police officer who gave me a ticket for having a busted headlight.

I think that's a good example of a good un-famous fan letter.

In that letter I wrote something along the lines that she had a pretty thankless job, especially that part of it. That I was sure most people thought along the lines that she was just being a pill issuing the ticket and she might get comments like, "Why are you out here messing with me? Shouldn't you be catching real criminals and actually protecting people like me?" But the truth is she was protecting me. If I have a headlight out, I need to be told about it. Unfortunately, however, loads of people aren't motivated to fix things like that unless there is a penalty for not having done so. The ticket makes us fix the problem right away because we're afraid of getting another ticket. If I didn't fix that headlight and the other failed, I'd be in really big trouble. So, even though it didn't seem like it, she was protecting me and I appreciated her doing her job so well.

I try to send out letters like this on a regular basis, especially to people like that police officer because they really do important work and they really don't get much in the way of recognition for it. Sometimes you have to hunt for a person or team to thank them but I'm sure people have to hunt down addresses to which they send their fan letters for actors, etc. So, it can't be that different.

Now, I love movies. Comedies, dramas, action movies, sci-fi, whatever, I'm just a huge film fan and I get what I call star crushes. I'll find an actor or actress that impresses me and I'll pretty much go through their body of work and also find out quite a bit about their background.

I watch their films and, if I can find them, even episodes of TV series in which they've appeared. I just like watching them play different roles and am generally pleased to see them wearing these different skins so effortlessly.

For some strange reason, reading about their lives prior to their careers is interesting to me and not creepy so I do it. I have no explanation really.

Maybe I think that before they became professional actors, they were out there living without a script. They weren't pretending, they were doing and I think that the doing part of their lives can sometimes be seen in the way they act later on.

I'm not sure that's logical or makes any sense at all but it's just how I feel about it.

Anyway, I recently developed a star crush on Jonathan Rhys Meyers and it has shifted my world view. I was reading about his past, which is very colorful, but also read a few quotes attributed to him. One of which was:

"It's not about money, fame, people knowing you. It's not even about enjoying yourself and being happy. It's about achieving something that's brilliant, creating something that's brilliant, for other people. For yourself, you're always going to be unsatisfied, but if somebody comes up to me and says, 'That was a brilliant part, and I really, really got it'. That's essentially it."

I thought about that. I also thought about another Jonathan: Jonathan Brandis.

I'm going to seemingly veer off topic right now but, trust me, it's related. Please bear with me.

Ahem.

I have asthma and have had asthma since childhood. Very early on I became disgruntled with how the media portrays asthma. For example: The Goonies. It's a brilliant film and I loved it but I cried at the end and here's why.

Goonies Ending

The end of that movie showed something that made me so angry. I've put a youtube clip here. It's in German and cuts off right as it gets to the part about which I'm speaking but I'm hoping it'll still remind people. Skip to the end of the little clip and you'll see Sean Astin's character fumble for his inhaler. The part that's cut out is him pausing, looking at it for a moment and then throwing it over his shoulder in a sort of, "I don't need this crutch anymore." way.

That's generally the way I saw asthma portrayed in the movies. I remember getting upset once that my asthma was bothering me and deciding that I would just get over it, like the kids in the movies did. It was all in my head, right? I had a very bad day that day because, like an idiot, I threw away my medicine.

Then I watched Sidekicks, starring Chuck Norris and Jonathan Brandis. It was a pretty typical karate kid clone with an asthmatic kid as the main character. However, the main character had asthma the way I had asthma. He didn't wheeze as he was breathing in, he coughed and struggled to expel air. The portrayal of asthma caught me with the first attack as his teacher says something like, "Don't fight it, Barry. Just let it happen." (Which sounds oddly pervy out of context....hmm.) Anyway...

That movie also made me cry but not out of anger and frustration at having someone, once again, show me a caricature of myself. I cried because after watching the scene I plugged in below I felt like someone else understood.

Sidekicks Scene

Just in case you can't view it, it essentially shows the main character going into an attack and throwing away his inhaler in frustration and anger. He yells, "I will beat you!" I'd felt that. Like the movies and shows I'd seen were telling me that I was supposed to be able to overcome my asthma somehow.

Then Barry, the main character, has a daydream/hallucination about being tortured by an evil man who uses twisting chains to crush his lungs. Barry says at one point I think, "I can't breathe!" and the torturer replies, "What do you care, Shrimp? You sound like a bagpipe when you do anyway."

Asthma isn't a joke or a punch line. It's a potentially fatal disease that makes it difficult if not impossible to breathe and these incredibly frightening attacks can occur without notice. I live with the fact that someone could dump some kind of cleaning solution into the vents of my office building (that's happened) or step onto an elevator with a perfume to which I'm allergic (also happened) and send me into an asthmatic attack that will land me in the hospital (um, yeah, the end result of both of those scenarios).

Consistently kids with asthma in movies are portrayed as nerds who really aren't sick but hide behind inhalers rather than get involved in anything too dangerous or scary. The opposite is true.

An asthma attack impairs your ability to breathe. Water boarding is considered torture because the fear of drowning, of not being able to breathe, is so very primal. Kids with asthma face this terrifying situation knowing the best way to get through it is to remain calm and "let it happen". Yet entertainers continue to portray kids with asthma as dorky, nervous, and even cowardly.

Watching Sidekicks, which showed a kid struggling with the disease, and with the isolation and inactivity having the disease had created, was incredible. I loved the fact that in the final scenes, when Barry is at the martial arts competition and Chuck Norris miraculously joins his team (it's a cheese fest of a movie) one of those scenes begins with him sitting on the sidelines and taking a hit off his inhaler. His asthma didn't magically go away. His medicine was treated like a crutch but not one behind which Barry hid, rather one that he had to learn to use properly in order to allow him to accomplish the things his disease made difficult.

I know the acting is dodgy and the storyline cheesy but I still love that movie because it made me feel good about myself. It made me feel like it was okay that I had asthma and that my asthma wasn't just in my head. As long as I believed it was just something in my head, I felt like every time I had trouble breathing or had to use my inhaler or had an attack that I was somehow failing.

I would love to write Jonathan Brandis a letter and tell him that. I would really love to let him know how important a movie he probably only thought of as dodgy and cheesy, was to me as a kid. I can't though.

Jonathan Brandis committed suicide in late 2003 at the age of 27. Thing was, I've seen films he did as an older actor. He was good. I mean, really good.

He had a decent sized role in Ride With The Devil, one of my favorite films of all time. If you watch that movie now you see it's an all around who's who of current 'it' actors and he was incredible in it.

He stood up with then less well-known or completely un-known actors: Tobey Maguire, Jeffrey Wright, Skeet Ulrich, James Caviezel, Simon Baker, Mark Ruffalo, & Tom Wilkinson, all of them being directed by Ang-freaking-Lee (I think that's officially how you're supposed to say his name) and there was Jonathan Brandis being fan-freaking-tastic.

Oh yeah, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers (you thought I forgot about him, didn't you?) he was in that movie as well.

Jonathan Brandis was, without question, a talented actor. I knew that but I never told him.

I mean, he has a line in that movie: "Yeah, sounds like real good dirt to me." You'd think that line would be funny but he managed to make it downright poignant.

I don't presume to think that if I'd written Jonathan Brandis a fan letter as a child or later as an adult it would have somehow given him an added incentive to live. I have no idea what might have caused him to make that decision. But after reading what Jonathan Rhys Meyers had to say, I think his one time co-star, Jonathan Brandis, deserved to know how his work affected me. I thought he was a great actor and I now know that I shouldn't have assumed someone else would tell him that.

To that end, I hereby officially remove my fan letter restrictions and will start sending letters to the famous as well as the un-famous (not infamous). I think that I'll start with Mr. Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Hmmm.

Anyone have an address for the man?

How Hillary Clinton Ruined My Life

When I was 15 I was a finalist in an "oral essay" competition. It was one of the strangest competitions in which I have ever been involved.

It was essentially a speech competition, except you didn't perform the speech. You recorded it on tape and sent it off. The end result was you would get these unexpected phone calls. "Hi. You've won at such-and-such level and are progressing to the next round." It was oddly disconnected and didn't seem real.

Then one day, someone calls up and says, "You're a finalist in the State Championship. Please be at such-and-such hotel in Alexandria at such-and-such time on such-and-such date." If you're me, you hang up feeling a bit dazed and shouting, "Ma!"

I also clearly remember the paperwork that arrived later saying to bring "formal attire". I borrowed a dress from a friend that didn't fit well and still turned out to look hopelessly shabby next to the other girls. I also remember telling myself I was kind of like Meg from Little Women and that actually making me feel better.

I had no hope at all of winning. They started reading off the top six places and I remember chanting in my head, "Please let me place. Please." I lost hope when they got to second place and it wasn't me. I started consoling myself. "At least you made it to State. It doesn't matter that you didn't place. You made it to State. Cat never made it to State." (Cat was my older sister who also did Speech & with whom I had a younger sibling's borderline obsessive need to beat.)

They announced the winner and I tried very hard to plaster a genuine smile on my face as I clapped politely for whoever it was. No one moved at the finalists' table. I remember looking up and down the table and wondering why whoever it was didn't get up already. Then District Four grabbed my hands and said, "They're waiting for you. Get up!"

The audience laughed. My Dad said that the surprise on my face made it really obvious that I hadn't known I'd won. I got up and nearly screamed because there was a freaking marine standing behind me to escort me to the stage. I got to the stage and realized I'd forgotten my speech and ran back to get it. When I arrived at the podium the plan had been to give me something and THEN have me give my speech but I marched right up and gave the speech immediately.

I was so nervous my hand was shaking violently. I mean, up and down a few inches each time. The stage was pretty make-shift and my shaking actually set things vibrating along the table but I gave the speech and the longer I spoke the less I shook. My voice, amazingly, didn't shake but came out clear and strong just like I'd rehearsed. That has always amazed me.

As soon as I'd finished the speech I tried to get off the stage and back to my seat. The presenter made a joke about not running away and then gave me a trophy so large; if I still had it I'd probably be using it for a hat wrack. I tried to get down again. Nope. They had a plaque for me.

Then there was some kind of memorial award for my school. Then I finally thought I was going to get to sit down and they handed me the best and most mind blowing award of the night: A trip to the finals in Washington D.C.

Wow.

That night I couldn't sleep. My Dad was preaching the next morning and we had made no plans to stay. That fact alone really hammers in that, not only did I not think it was possible I'd win, but neither did my parents. The winner was supposed to attend an event the next morning but we had no plans for that eventuality. It was decided that I would hitch a ride with a couple there who were also from my home town and Dad left me alone in the hotel room.

I remember that night so clearly. As I said, I couldn't sleep. I'd never been in a hotel room by myself, and I'd never been in one so very nice. The floor I was on was two stories higher than the tallest building in my entire hometown. I had two windows and one had a window seat. I had a coffee maker and a desk and STATIONARY. I turned on VH1 on the TV and I remember that Bang and Blame by REM and Take A Bow by Madonna played extremely often that night. To this day, either of those songs has the ability to transport me back in time to that sleepless night.

I just sat in the window seat, drinking coffee and watching the twinkling lights along the river trying to figure out what had just happened. I had the packet they'd given me at the ceremony with the information about the trip and I kept looking over the tickets and the itinerary wondering when it would hit. I just couldn't believe it.

The trip was a bit of a whirlwind. I felt an instant connection with the guy from Kentucky who, because I was from Louisiana, I was always seated near. We went to dinners, speeches, museums... This is the trip during which I met President Clinton.

The contest was run by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and held during some kind of National get-together of theirs. President Clinton was giving a speech at one of the events and was understandably nervous. This was before the intern and the lying and one of his biggest black marks was still the accusation of draft dodging. He wasn't exactly popular with the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

I remember we kids, one from each state and territory so 54 of us in all, were sent to this large banquet room area. There were security people everywhere and a secret service agent gave a little speech about what to do and how to act so as not to appear a threat to the President. Nerve wracking.

Kentucky and I were talking when I swear a piece of the wall near the ceiling just opened up. I could see the vague outline of a head and shoulders and was a little freaked out.

I finally decided to approach one of the guys in suits. I think I said something like, "Um, hi. Can I ask you a question real quick?" He said yes, so I continued with, "The guy up there? (I pointed) He's with you right?"

The suit chuckled and said yes. I sighed and went back to the group my mind freed of visions of assassination attempts.

President Clinton arrived.

Tada!

I wasn't exactly a fan of his. It had nothing to do with him running for or being President but something to do with some stuff that went down in his Arkansas administration that adversely affected members of my extended family.

So, when everyone crushed in to shake hands, I didn't fight to get close enough. I didn't walk away or anything but I let myself get sort of bumped back. It didn't matter to me so why struggle. But then he said, "Okay, did I miss anyone."

And there was Kentucky, being all nice. "You missed Louisiana."

Clinton smiled at me. The man really is charming.

"Well, that's not very neighborly of me is it?" He said and stepped over and shook my hand.

He said a few more things and then talked about how kids like us were the future of America. Yada yada yada. We'd heard variations of that speech all week.

I'm sure America is very grateful that I am an analyst for a software company and Kentucky is a rowing coach. I mean, we're happy with our lives but that stuff about us being the future of America seems to have been overkill in my humble opinion. I mean, sheesh. All we did was write a nice speech. Anyway, doesn't matter.

Clinton went off to give his speech.

Mr. Gordon, the guy with the unenviable job of leading us kids around D.C. by the nose, took us to a place where we could watch.

I don't remember what the speech was about. I remember that several members of the audience booed when he took the stage and I remember feeling indignant that they had. I am still a firm believer in showing respect for the elected President of the country, apparently even when I think he cheated my family. It's not about respecting the man so much as respecting the office he holds.

Anyway, I was distracted from the speech by spotting another person standing off in the sidelines listening to it. Hilary Clinton. I didn't meet her. I didn't get within ten feet of her but I watched her all through that speech. People had at that time told me and continue to tell me that she didn't and doesn't care about her husband: That theirs is a marriage that is more akin to a political alliance than anything else. I don't believe it.

She never appeared before that crowd. They never saw her. There was no point in her being there other than to do what she did, lend moral support. She watched from the sidelines with obvious concern for her husband, not her meal ticket.

I think that both of these political figures, "Bill & Hillary", are real people. I saw it. I saw a wife nervous about a husband facing a difficult task. I remember the strained nervous look on her face and then the smile with which she greeted him when it was over. My fifteen year old self had a little epiphany then. I thought, "They're just people." They could have been my parents.

I lost something precious that day: The ability to demonize politicians.

It's really unfair, you know. I should be able to look at some policy or another and just rant and rave about conspiracies and how evil this or that person is. Now, instead, I have to approach politics rationally and with an even temper.

Darn you Hillary Clinton and your obviously genuine affection and concern. You ruined EVERYTHING!!!

Fight Club

I was tweeting earlier today about fights. Thing is, I've a temper. I'm told that as a person of predominantly Irish decent, this is expected. I think that's stereotyping and in an unflattering way but I can't ever say anything because then I'm just proving their point about having an "Irish temper". Grrr.

Anyway, I've learned to control it.

No, really. I have.

Okay, so a coworker when she saw I was assigned as tester to a certain programmer with whom I'd never worked felt obligated to come over and warn me that he could be a prick because, as she put it, "You've got a temper and he'll push your buttons." Maybe I've said a few choice things here and there but I haven't smacked anybody, not in years.

I haven't been involved in an actual physical altercation in a decade. *pat pat*

However, I'll admit, at one time it was a little easy to goad me to blows, especially on the soccer field. I still have a scar under my left eye from a fight on the soccer field, though it is now so faint that if I wear any make up at all it's pretty much undetectable. I lost that fight. It wasn't my worst though.

The worst fight I ever had has to be the one I had with my sister the night before we went on vacation.

Shine and I shared a room and the age eleven at the time and absolutely no one could get on our respective nerves like each other. I had done something that had angered her. I can't remember what it was but I remember that she'd been nursing the grudge for days.

Shine had a smoldering temper. I had a hot temper. I'd get mad about something; scream, punch or rant and then be over it. Shine would just sit there and stew; ignoring me or giving me smoldering glares, or both.

I was a flash bang grenade. She was a crock pot.

I don't remember what I'd done to piss her off but pissed she was. She tried to get me with her psychological warfare that night. I was trying to sleep and she started making these clicking noises with her tongue. I tried to ignore her. I did.

I stuffed my pillow over my head and as far into my ears as I could manage but she just amped up the volume. She was driving me CRAZY!

I just lost it. I leaped directly from my bed on one side of the room to hers. I landed on top of her, grabbed her night shirt in my fists, pulled up her shoulders and screamed, "Just STOP IT!" directly in her face.

Shine's eyebrows went up for a second, then they went down. I went down too.

She socked me on the side of the head, mainly in the ear: her knuckles pinching the cartilage between them and the thick stony hardness of my skull. I fell off the bed and onto the floor and she was on me in seconds.

She straddled me and started punching at my face. I managed to block her pretty effectively but she got a few low velocity hits in, nothing too terrible. I hit her in the side with as much force as I could manage from flat on my back and then hit the bottom of her jaw with the heel of my palm. She bit her tongue and jerked back in reaction. It gave me just enough wiggle room to plant my right foot and roll us over with me on top.

I chose to place one knee in her gut rather than straddle. It left me more open to being rolled again but Shine had about 20 pounds on me and I was trying to inflict as much damage as fast as possible. I knew from experience that the only way I'd win was through a quick submission and retreat to mutual corners.

I tried a few blows to the face but knew her guard would be up. It was more for effect to keep her busy. Then I punched her in the breast. Shine already had small ones and though I was still flat chested, I knew they were a sensitive area. Her defenses lowered to her chest and I got a great punch into her face aiming at her nose but landing more alongside it.

Shine grabbed my long hair (always a key weakness) in a great handfull and used it in much the same way a bit is used on a horse, to pull back my head and blind me. I reached out a hand blindly toward her face hoping to aim my left fist by feel and got my right middle finger in her mouth somehow.

She bit.

HARD.

I shouted in pain which was the first noise we'd really made besides grunting after my initial eruption. Shine kept my finger locked firmly in her teeth and rolled over. She now had two hands to my one but I was still able to keep her from doing much damage. So, she grabbed my left hand with hers, sort of twisted above my head and started pounding on me with her free right. Thankfully, just having my right hand in her mouth diffused some of her momentum and the blows weren't as hard as they could have been.

That's when our Dad walked in. My poor Dad. He so very much wanted little girls with ribbons in their hair who wore pretty dresses and, I don't know, played with Barbies? Whatever it is that girly girls do, that's what he wanted.

I imagine what we must have looked like to him. Shine on top of me with my finger locked between her teeth. I had a busted lip and was bleeding slightly but she had dripped quite a bit of my and her blood onto me. Two bloody faced little girls trying to beat the ever loving crap out of each other.

My poor Dad.

He was horrified. I still remember that blank stare of utter confusion on his face when he opened the door. We had frozen in place much like cartoon characters when the open door spilled light from the hallway onto our shenanigans.

Dad yelled, "What are you DOING!?!"

We didn't have an answer. In fact, Shine hadn't even stopped biting my finger at that time.

"Get. Up!" Dad yelled in that strange 'you-are-in-so-much-trouble' punctuated way.

And she finally let go. I could feel her teeth pulling out of my skin and couldn't hold back a little yelp.

Dad took us to the bathroom and cleaned us up, threatening the whole time to find a way to leave us behind when the family left on our trip the next day.

He super glued my finger, something he and Mom had done before with small but deep cuts, and also cleaned up our mutual split lips.

I think that still ranks as my worst fight. No one, absolutely no one, has ever gone for the kill like Shine and I also found that in every other fight I've shown more restraint. For some reason, you just go for the cheap shots with siblings.

Funny thing is, years later I found a picture from that trip. It's the very next day, Shine and I have matching scabs on our lower lips, and you can see the bandage on my finger but, here's the thing, the only reason you can see it is because I've got my arm slug over her shoulder in a mutual half hug.

My Mom and Dad talk about us as kids and our crazy fights but we always got over it. Without exception, the next day it was all forgotten. Fighting never solved a problem, but somehow it still made us feel better, which makes no sense whatsoever but is absolutely 100% true.

Sometimes I think that if we could all just land a few restrained blows every once in a while we might feel a little better about losing. You know? You lost the fight but you still walked away saying, "At least I landed that sweet shot to her boob."