Fame or Famine

I hung up the phone slowly, turned to face my wife. In a hoarse, shocked voice, I told her: “I just spoke with Jeanne Robinson!”

This was a big deal. I have a degree in dance; at the time,my company, satorimedia, was focusing on creating performance environments using video, cameras, and technology in a way that would not, hopefully, take away from performance. And all of that was because of a few books that Jeanne had written with her husband, Spider, and which had inspired a young kid to want to make some beauty.

And not only had I just talked with her…I had talked with her because I was making arrangements to come and see her and her husband for a weekend on Gambier Island, near Vancouver. In fact, I would be staying at the very place that was a key setting in one of the books – which was owned by Anya, someone who I’d thought was fictional but who, much to my surprise, turned out to be completely real.

And how did I get to this transcendent moment (and transcendent it was, believe me; the happenings of that trip irrevocably changed and continue to change my life)?

I knew the right people. Specifically, I was active on a BBS (that’s like facebook before faces, or mySpace before space) that talked about these two. I had been polite, helpful, not scary on the BBS, and made friends. As it happens (and as always happens in any large enough group of fans) one of the people who friended me was also a friend (incognito) of Jeanne and Spider. And so, when this weekend came up (it was a fundraiser), Jeanne asked my friend “Do you know anyone who might want to come up and visit, who’s not scary, is fairly intelligent, and would help us raise the money Anya needs for her roof?”

And my friend called me.

So, in my own opinion, the way to meet a star is to get involved. Talk to other fan groups, and more than that, try to be a positive influence. I know a fellow podcaster who recently got to meet her long-term crush, Marcus from Babylon 5, at a fan convention. More than meet him, she was the Fan of Honor, which gave her all sorts of time with him in person. How did she get selected for that? Because she’s a podcaster making a positive impact on the community, and therefore people want to help her as she helps them.

That’s my best advice, Camina. The more people you know, and the more people that like you, the more chance there is that sometime when you say “Wow, I’d sure love to meet [insert star here]!” somebody will smile slyly and reply, “Really? Well, it just so happens….”

Good luck!

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