The concept of celebrity has always rankled me. Admittedly, some of my resentment comes from pure envy and jealousy. But most of it stems from a belief that there’s such a shallowness to it, and the shallowness pervades society, in some ways.
Some peoples’ fifteen minutes lasts longer than others’, but there’s this overriding feeling that it’s all a house built on sand, and the mystique that develops is a mere consequence of seeing someone on a big screen or on a stage and getting caught up in the “bigger than life” dynamic that makes us swoon or get weak in the knees or gives us a feeling that we’ve just seen a unicorn or something.
I think I’d like to meet Stephen Colbert, Paul McCartney, or Sheryl Crow. And, as I’ve mentioned before, Bobby Orr, who comes by his celebrity by way of being a rare breed of athlete who somehow remained humble while transforming his sport.
I don’t know what we’d talk about. It’d be some form of picking their brains. I’d have to devise a list of questions that weren’t so trite and stale that they’d want to walk away after 2 minutes.
As I’m writing this, I’m realizing that “celebrity” can also include people like John Lewis, the former civil rights leader and Congressman from Georgia. I would love to have had the honor of sitting in his presence, asking him questions worthy of the time he’d free up so we could talk.
