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call for the captain ashore, let me go home
this puts me in mind of a story.
I was doing the friday puzzle this morning and the theatre listings told me Nana Visitor'd taken over Bebe Neuwirth's role in "Chicago," a bona-fide star turn, they said or something equally promising.
so I spent the last couple hours on the TKTS line, and now Shana and I have orch seats, single P. I checked with three separate people: "there haven't been any cast changes, right?"
anyway, this puts me in mind of a story, quick before I have to shower and motor up to Times Square.
I was in her fan club, the early one in the early days of the web. they called it ENVY (get it?). they might still. We made a recipe book and we invented Star Trek food. we heard it first when she and Sid named the kid Django. I paid my dues.
so it was the summer of, 199somethingorother, I was living w/SKL et al in her folks' house while they were away, and I talked my dad into lending me the car and letting me take it up to Worcester, MA for the weekend, my first real stay-overnight Star Trek con. NV was due to be there, the ENVY crew descended from across the eastern seaboard.
and they all came in uniform, with noses stuck on and those chain earrings, and I was a little spooked, at 7 am when they banged on my hotel room door, the ENVY troupe, so we could go stand on line.
Spooked, because these people didn't know me, and I was just a fangirl in a fanclub, teetering, so easy to fall in. I could have just fallen in.
breeze through the con, because it's not important except for the bit where NV actually didn't SHOW, but at the end, midafternoon on the second day, this thing.
They did a Voyager montage on the big screen, action clips, you know how they do, with closeups and running and phaser blasts, and Janeway in that grey tank top, hammering out across the conference hall of the Worcester Hilton or Marriott or whatever, banging out to the royal Beach Boys version of Sloop John B.
It knocked me out again, later, at the end of the Sports Night ep "Sword of Orion," Danny and Rebecca in a long shot, with the tape, wandering off to the Beach Boys Sloop John B.
and it was because. Because it would have been so easy for me to fall in, then. Fall in, and then next time I'd be the one in the uniform and the nose and the Bajoran earring, I was so close already.
what's the line between being a fangirl and being obsessed? what was I so afraid of? Now, years later, after a college thesis on fan culture, am I still?
because there were TEARS in my eyes watching the montage on the big screen, and the Beach Boys singing "call for the captain ashore, let me go home, I wanna go home..."
There were TEARS in my eyes, and I beelined to the bouncer and said KICK ME OUT, send me home, I can't stay here. one more minute and I'm done for, because I love this song, this show, this culture and community, and I am TEETERING, I will FALL IN and you won't be able to get me out, KICK ME OUT, SEND ME HOME.
and he just laughed, because he thought I was crazy. But there were tears in my eyes and I pushed open the door and it was hot as hell outside and I could still hear it, "I wanna go home, let me go home, this is the worst trip I've ever been on..."
I didn't renew my membership to ENVY, though my recipe for Hasperrat's still on record somewhere, testimonial to the days when I was just that close.
Now? later? now that I've found fanfic, and you people, these people? is it better? more respectable? safer?
Did I miss something, not falling in? did I fall without looking?
So I'm off to see NV in "Chicago" tonight with Shana, who understands. Still, I have a hard time hearing "Sloop John B," and still, I'm not sure where I fit in to all this, where the competition is, why I want to be the MOST, the BEST, somewhere between that and wanting to chuckle, heh, no, that'll never be me.
And when I go to conventions now, I make sure I bring my irony with me.
I was doing the friday puzzle this morning and the theatre listings told me Nana Visitor'd taken over Bebe Neuwirth's role in "Chicago," a bona-fide star turn, they said or something equally promising.
so I spent the last couple hours on the TKTS line, and now Shana and I have orch seats, single P. I checked with three separate people: "there haven't been any cast changes, right?"
anyway, this puts me in mind of a story, quick before I have to shower and motor up to Times Square.
I was in her fan club, the early one in the early days of the web. they called it ENVY (get it?). they might still. We made a recipe book and we invented Star Trek food. we heard it first when she and Sid named the kid Django. I paid my dues.
so it was the summer of, 199somethingorother, I was living w/SKL et al in her folks' house while they were away, and I talked my dad into lending me the car and letting me take it up to Worcester, MA for the weekend, my first real stay-overnight Star Trek con. NV was due to be there, the ENVY crew descended from across the eastern seaboard.
and they all came in uniform, with noses stuck on and those chain earrings, and I was a little spooked, at 7 am when they banged on my hotel room door, the ENVY troupe, so we could go stand on line.
Spooked, because these people didn't know me, and I was just a fangirl in a fanclub, teetering, so easy to fall in. I could have just fallen in.
breeze through the con, because it's not important except for the bit where NV actually didn't SHOW, but at the end, midafternoon on the second day, this thing.
They did a Voyager montage on the big screen, action clips, you know how they do, with closeups and running and phaser blasts, and Janeway in that grey tank top, hammering out across the conference hall of the Worcester Hilton or Marriott or whatever, banging out to the royal Beach Boys version of Sloop John B.
It knocked me out again, later, at the end of the Sports Night ep "Sword of Orion," Danny and Rebecca in a long shot, with the tape, wandering off to the Beach Boys Sloop John B.
and it was because. Because it would have been so easy for me to fall in, then. Fall in, and then next time I'd be the one in the uniform and the nose and the Bajoran earring, I was so close already.
what's the line between being a fangirl and being obsessed? what was I so afraid of? Now, years later, after a college thesis on fan culture, am I still?
because there were TEARS in my eyes watching the montage on the big screen, and the Beach Boys singing "call for the captain ashore, let me go home, I wanna go home..."
There were TEARS in my eyes, and I beelined to the bouncer and said KICK ME OUT, send me home, I can't stay here. one more minute and I'm done for, because I love this song, this show, this culture and community, and I am TEETERING, I will FALL IN and you won't be able to get me out, KICK ME OUT, SEND ME HOME.
and he just laughed, because he thought I was crazy. But there were tears in my eyes and I pushed open the door and it was hot as hell outside and I could still hear it, "I wanna go home, let me go home, this is the worst trip I've ever been on..."
I didn't renew my membership to ENVY, though my recipe for Hasperrat's still on record somewhere, testimonial to the days when I was just that close.
Now? later? now that I've found fanfic, and you people, these people? is it better? more respectable? safer?
Did I miss something, not falling in? did I fall without looking?
So I'm off to see NV in "Chicago" tonight with Shana, who understands. Still, I have a hard time hearing "Sloop John B," and still, I'm not sure where I fit in to all this, where the competition is, why I want to be the MOST, the BEST, somewhere between that and wanting to chuckle, heh, no, that'll never be me.
And when I go to conventions now, I make sure I bring my irony with me.
I'm leaving this one for you while I'm gone:
We were fans. By the time I landed at Washington's National Airport, other fans had laid down their laptops and sample books, or stood with an elbow on their rolling trash carts or floor brushes to lok up at Cal Jr. on the airport television screens. A grown man with a receding gray crown of hair, jumping up from the ball field like a boy to slap hands with fans and hug his friends, his familiy, and the men on the opposite team. "Goddamn," said a score of people, shaking their heads. "Goddamn, that's something. Isn't that something?" Not a small number of eyes, including my own, were glistening. You can tell yourself: It's just sports, it's nothing real; it has nothing to do with your life, no resonance in the real world of living, dying, and struggling. And you'd be right. Then, something happens. MJ leaps! Mac swings! Flutie scores! And inside, where your body cannot kid you, something takes over and it feels real. It's not like tearing up at your wedding, sobbing at a funeral, or choking up at a child's first steps. It's closer to seeing Caesar stabbed; or watching Emily Webb in Our Town so wistfully, tearfully, exclaim in Act III, "Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anyone to realize you!" A play that rubs something real.
-- Scott Simon, Home and Away: Memoir of a Fan
Re: I'm leaving this one for you while I'm gone:
Or maybe it's just that I'm such a sucker for baseball in any form, and I have such vivid memories of 22 minutes of a silent Chris Berman on ESPN as Cal made his victory laps around Camden Yards. And here we all thought nothing could shut that man up.
Re: I'm leaving this one for you while I'm gone:
Seriously, thank you.