Whenever I have hailed local celebrities in a public place, they always seem to shrink a couple of inches. They're uncertain whether someone is there to shake their hand or punch them in the mouth, but they definitely don't want to draw attention to themselves. . . . . even in something so wishy-washy as "the opinion business" slogged out week-after-week in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch or on local PBS television. There always seems to be this film of separation, that they'll say almost anything friendly to quiet you down, keep it short, then be rid of you. I've seen local newscasters at the local Walgreens who walk away altogether before people can recognize them as customers turn around with their fingers in the air as if to ask, "haven't I seen you around someplace?"

If they're doing that to avoid potentially-angry people, I would think that their snippy behavior would only make more people angry. . . . . mainly because they're not being "real" or "truthful" on any level, as if they're "hiding something", or find themselves "too good for the likes of us". All most people really want is a crumb of acknowledgement, or company, and not to be brushed off in our ever-increasingly-impersonal society. And ignoring them only builds up the rancor, the alienation, the urge to throw a punch "and show 'em a thing or two".

So many folks have the feeling that "they're outsiders" struggling for a piece of happiness, contentment, and security. . . . . if not a transcending answer. Verily, they would die for a peek of "the inner mystery". . . . . and who would I be not to show them that the joke is "there is no mystery"? To have that heaviness lifted, to see the mechanism behind "the trick", and to be liberated from what's holding them back! We have lots of "lost souls", troubled souls rattling their chains-- and when you deal with a disturbed spirit, usually you ask what it wants. . . . . and that will relieve the psychic disturbance and dismount the tension. That's why you should always deal with people squarely, perhaps with a touch of euphemism to sand over the rough edges.

And we should ask ourselves, what is it about us that would draw this soul? Very rarely are we completely 100% innocent within a bad interaction. Are we too passive? Too aggressive? Do we have a chip on our shoulder? Or are we too needy and expect too much out of life? Usually, when we trace it back, it all makes perfect sense and it scarcely pays to blame others when we ourselves need to accept responsibility for what we can change.

One time, the singer of Metallica was sitting in a bar in Mexico when a fan came up to him and remarked that he had been at one of his very first shows. He asked if he might be able to buy the singer a beer, and the Metallica front-man agreed. The fan asked if he could sit down and the singer said "no". He gladly took the beer, but he didn't want to deal with his fans. Seeing that James Hetfield is an ornery varmint, if not a mean old drunk, it was little surprise when tempers rose and a fight broke out. Ultimately the singer had to run to his truck and high-tail out of there lest the record company have to ransom him out of a Mexican jail.

Now this situation was completely avoidable if James had only humored the fan for five or ten minutes and let that be it. Or decline the beer and express very politely that he didn't want to hang out that night and kept it down to one minute.

Even when John Lennon was assassinated by Mark David Chapman, there was a certain logic to the killer's madness. It happened because of John Lennon's notorious interview from "The Beatles" days when he pointed out that "we're bigger than Jesus". In the context of the interview, he meant to say that The Beatles were bigger with young people than Christianity and the quotation can easily be taken out of context in the cultural game of "telephone" where not everyone is "on the same page".

There was tons of outrage in conservative circles when John Lennon said that, and I see his murder as the spill-over from a decade of such tumultuous bad feeling played out years later with a terrible after-shock. If you read about Mark David Chapman's life, you would see that it played out as a marginal, pathetic tale that actually had great promise when he was a Christian youth leader who descended down into suicidal mental illness and distorted thoughts. But society does not have "a third eye" or perfect knowledge, nor can offer ideal solutions for festering social problems and an increasing lack of sane voices "to set the record straight" in our whirling kaleidoscope of postmodern imagery where you see speed, violence, and people thrown into the machine.

We pay for our sins with the lives that we lead. . . . . and it all catches up with us. Deal with it courageously or like a coward, but sooner or later we all dance with the reaper. But at least let people get a good look at you and see that you are not what they thought you were. Far better to do it this way, with honor-- with the least resistance-- and remember that I'll always sign your autograph.

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"The Day I Met Captain Kangaroo"

One of the most jolting adolescent moments of my life was when I happened to glance over and notice a gathering of people around an old, white-haired gentleman in a dark-blue suit. I looked at the card of scheduled book signings, and it turned out to be Bob Keeshan. . . . . the man who played "Captain Kangaroo on television. Personally, that show was a little bit before my time but what I remembered him for was the 1980's Saturday morning kids' show, "CBS Story-Break" which basically took popular books for young adults and turned them into cut-rate cartoons spun out of a South Korean conglomerate and fed back to we boys and girls in a Reagan-era nutritionless swill. But of course, we lil' bastards scarcely knew the difference, as the advertisers had a bonanza of our undivided attention.

Or at least some of the time. . . . .

My favorite part of the show was the opening theme. . . . . a roller-coaster ride of high-octane electric guitars and lightning bolts and robotic dinosaurs falling away with a roar and about a million other things in the junior '80s zeitgeist that would promise something so much more glorious and exciting then my drab life sitting in front of my television like a pouting, misshapen Quasimodo. Then "Captain Kangaroo" would come out, looking very impeccable and detached from all of this high-stimulation overdrive, and would cheerfully announce that morning's story. Of course, it was given either the 10:30 or 11:00 A.M slot which is the equivalent of "Siberia" for kids' shows.

But the old man was taking it fair & square; he needed the paycheck.

Part of me was actually convinced that he was "plugged in" to that super-electric world in the beginning, that he held the key to an existence somewhere that was "that intense". I was also the sort of kid who believed that you could magically drop in on "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" and find "just another day in the life" going on just like the t.v. show, that it was some kind of valid statement "of how to be". I saw a commercial for the "Super Koolaid Super Fun-House", a wild claymation world and asked my parents to buy "Koolaid" when the announcer said that you could enter the super sweepstakes to visit such a place, not understanding that they would usher you to a playpen, a table of coloring books, and a man in a "Mr. Koolaid" costume.

I know enough about the world now to understand that.

But as a shell-shocked adolescent wandering around, wondering how his magical childhood world of such abundance had been reduced to this running sore of life, it was very important for me to glance over and see that Bob Keeshan was standing there and talking like anyone else. He wasn't exalted, he wasn't god-like, he just happened to be some schmuck on t.v.

That's why I think it's very important that fans meet their idols and have the realization sink in, that there's no mystery about it.

One time I turned on MTV in a hotel room, and saw a show-- "meet your hero". And the producers arranged it so some geeky contestant got to greet Bruce Willis at a Planet Hollywood in a major city when the actor had some spare time to drop in. Well, Bruce was somewhat skeptical about this and took a seat-- seeing what he had here as he sat sideways, cradling his chin in his fingers like a man at an uncomfortable interview. The kid was so excited, he was sweating. . . . . he was shaking. . . . . he was yelling. . . . . All the while, Bruce was looking quite concerned.

In this kid's legend of Willis, he had been a bartender before he took up acting as a hard-bitten action star, muttering his lines at the perfect instant. Bruce nodded with a "yeah", a question-mark trailed on the end of his sentence as if he did not quite understand the import of this sacred connection, beginning to get worried. The kid rattled off more and more facts, and you could see Bruce becoming edgier, gradually inching away in his chair. The more he'd shrink, the louder the kid would get. . . . . sensing that his time was running out, that the moment of a transcendent eclipse between his life and Bruce's was waning into the all-too-improbable cosmos of bizarre coincidence.

Both left, neither satisfied.

Bruce went back to the solace of the bottle and the kid wandered off in the zig-zagging, disillusioned faith of the pilgrim where life is spare and unyielding like a boot to the ribs. But isn't it said that "truth comes in blows"?

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"A Big Difference Between What You See & What You Get:
Watching Interviews with **THE STARS**"