Celebrity SUCCESS-ability!

It worked! IT WORKED! LeVar Burton is following me on Twitter!

Wait, stop. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go no further until you read this post.

It's been two weeks since I wrote that entry, and I was starting to give up on the idea of hearing back from LeVar Burton or Wil Wheaton. But then Wil Wheaton tweeted this:

New post on my blog: the spambots on twitter are completely out of control.

I went to his blog and read all about how a recent change in functionality was making it impossible for him to locate his direct messages, because vicious, pornographic spambots were filling his @mentions tab with graphic invitations to do naked-type things. Because of his celebrity and his large number of followers, he was receiving an avalanche of bogus mentions and couldn't possibly sift through them to find my tiny friend request.

Aha! I thought. I'm still in with a chance! I wrote a comment on his blog post:

errin marie said...

Damn. Looks like I picked the wrong time to try and contact you via twitter. It was my first @anybody message and I was very excited about it. I'm glad I saw your tweet.

Anyway, I wrote a blog post about how I would like to be friends with you (and LeVar Burton). And then I sent you a tweet, ensuring you that I am not a crazy person.

It was not my intention to out myself as a supernerd here, but oh well. If you read my blog and decide you'd like to be digital friends, well, that would just be the coolest.

http://errinmarie.blogspot.com/2009/08/celebrity-accessibility.html

Sincerely,
Errin Marie

Unfortunately, my post was not very timely. Some fifty other people had already responded to his entry two days earlier, when he'd actually written it. You've got to be quick in this new digital age, folks.

So I waited a few days, thinking I might try again, but trying to be aware of that fine line between persistent, possible new friend, and annoying, possibly dangerous stranger.

And then Wil Wheaton's dog died. And he was wrecked by it. His blog post saddened me so thoroughly, I decided not to even write a comment below it. I didn't think some stranger's inadequate condolences could help him with his grief, so I just quietly doffed my hat to his sadness. I decided not to bother him anymore with what now seemed like a silly request for friendship.

I'd always thought I stood a better chance of hearing back from Wil Wheaton, as opposed to LeVar Burton, because of his online omnipresence and his interaction with fans via the blog. So when I realized that I'd probably not hear from Wil, I sadly gave up the idea of hearing from LeVar as well.

'Celebrity accessibility' is a joke, I said to myself, even in this digital age. I'm no closer to reaching my childhood hero than I was 25 years ago. The thought depressed me.

But then my buddy George sent me a tweet:

Hey Errin!! "Reading Rainbow is going off the air today after 26 years." Maybe NOW LeVar will have time to write you! ;)

Ha. I doubted it, but it certainly was coincidental timing.

My friend Heidi B. posted a link on Facebook to an NPR article about the end of the much-loved series:

The show's run is ending, Grant explains, because no one — not the station, not PBS, not the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — will put up the several hundred thousand dollars needed to renew the show's broadcast rights.

Grant says the funding crunch is partially to blame, but the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, he explains, which wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — like phonics and spelling.

Grant says that PBS, CPB and the Department of Education put significant funding toward programming that would teach kids how to read — but that's not what Reading Rainbow was trying to do.

"Reading Rainbow taught kids why to read," Grant says. "You know, the love of reading — [the show] encouraged kids to pick up a book and to read."

Linda Simensky, vice president for children's programming at PBS, says that when Reading Rainbow was developed in the early 1980s, it was an era when the question was: "How do we get kids to read books?"

Since then, she explains, research has shown that teaching the mechanics of reading should be the network's priority.

I posted a comment on Heidi's link:

I found that explanation kind of weak. They realized that it's better to teach kids HOW to read instead of WHY to read, and so they cut funding to one of the most popular, long-standing children's shows of all time? Don't say it wasn't an effective method of teaching literacy - I learned to love reading largely because of LeVar Burton, and every book I've picked up since those days is because he taught me to look for the adventure inside. Stupid Bush administration.

Sorry, my politics are showing. Anyway, a few days later LeVar himself posted a link to the same NPR story on Twitter. And then today - TODAY, folks, he tweeted:

Tell me... What is your favorite episode of Reading Rainbow? #ReadingRainbow

Oh my. Oh my, oh my.

I wasn't entirely sure what the #ReadingRainbow tag meant. I scrolled through Twitter's FAQ section, trying to figure out how to interpret the # symbol, but I couldn't find any text that addressed it. I figured it was just some way of signifying a topic of conversation.

Quickly I wrote back:

@levarburton, you can read about my fav episode here: http://bit.ly/CUil4 . #ReadingRainbow

Oh! I was newly excited! Maybe this #ReadingRainbow tag would allow LeVar to find my message! I bet it was a direct link to all tweets concerning Reading Rainbow, and would bypass any nudie spambot traffic. Experimentally, I clicked on the #ReadingRainbow portion of the message, to see if I was right.

Oh crap. I was right, all right, but a bunch of people had already responded. I kept clicking at the bottom of the screen to dredge up more messages. Good Lord. It looked like this post had already generated hundreds of responses, and he'd only written it 26 minutes ago!

I sighed in frustration. Then I tweeted:

Man, I don't think I have a shot with LeVar Burton. He tweeted, 'What was your fav episode of Rdng Rainbow?' About a zillion folks replied!

I shook my head sadly in defeat. And as I closed the lid on my laptop, I closed the lid on my dream as well.

Ah. It had been a long shot anyway.

I ate some lunch. I had some soup and toast. Took a shower. Got ready to leave the house for my desk shift at the belly dance studio.

Moments before leaving, I was missing my cell phone. I scoured the living room for it before remembering that I'd never unplugged it that morning. It was still charging beside my bed.

Oops. I'd had it silenced all day. It flashed at me as I unplugged it: 2 TEXT MESSAGES.

Uh oh. I hoped nobody had been trying to reach me urgently. I plopped down on the bed and scrolled through my texts.

1/2: Direct from levarburton: I thought you had learned by now how silly it is to abandon your dreams. I am now following you so that we can keep in touch!

I started. I jumped off my bed, heart racing; my hand flew to my chest. The second text message read:

2/2: Direct from levarburton: BTW I LOVED your blog. 2 days well spent. You're a good writer!

Holy crap! Holy crap, HOLY CRAP!

But wait, this can't be real, I thought. I bet it's a prank. Yeah, you know, it's probably George, just trying to wind me up. Don't get excited.*

But my heart was beating like mad. I ran to my computer and pulled up my Twitter page. With shaking hands I clicked on my Followers tab.

HOLY CRAP!

It wasn't a prank! It was the real LeVar Burton! He was following me on Twitter!

LEVAR BURTON IS FOLLOWING ME ON TWITTER!

I ran in a circle. I picked things up; I put them down. I punched the sky in jubilation. I cut an honest-to-God caper. And then I realized I was going to be late for work. I grabbed my things and ran out the door.

Who to tell? Why, everybody of course! But who to tell first? I scrambled through my purse for my phone and dialed Monte as I walked my bike up the street.

"Baby! Baby guess what?" I babbled. "LeVar Burton is following me on Twitter! Honest to God. I left my cell phone on silence all day and just now I checked it and it said I had two new messages and I thought uh oh, I hope they're not important and they were from LeVar Burton! And I thought it was George pulling one over on me but it wasn't, it was honestly LeVar Burton and now he's following me on Twitter and I wanted to tell you first but now I have to go because I am late for work and also I have to call my Dad, I love you, buh-bye."

"Dad! Dad, guess what? LeVar Burton is following me on Twitter! Honest to God. Did you read my blog? Dad, you've got to keep up with my blog, there's lots happening, there's much going on and I can't be expected to keep you up to date all the time. Anyway, go read my blog post - no, not right now Dad, I have to go - but just, read it, okay, and then you'll know what's going on. But anyway, LeVar Burton sent me a message and he said 'Don't you know by now how silly it is to abandon your dreams?' and he READ MY BLOG, Dad, and he said I was a GOOD WRITER - no, I don't have time to explain all this to Aunt Barbara now, but go read the blog and it's all in there, I gotta go, I'm late, I just had to tell you this, I love you, buh-bye."

Then I raced up the street to the belly dance studio.

"LeVar Burton is following me on Twitter!" I announced to the owner, Samar, when I reached the studio. She looked at me blankly.

"LeVar Burton," I explained. "From Reading Rainbow." And the story tumbled out once more.

"Oh my God, that's incredible!" she shrieked. And then I shrieked a little, and she shrieked again, and then we wrung our hands in a terribly girlie fashion, and it was all wonderfully exciting, to have someone to shriek with over my truly amazing news.

I couldn't wait to check all the clients into the first class, so that I could turn my attention to my blog. I greeted everyone with an extra-bright smile, and ushered them quickly (but politely) into the studio. I was absolutely bursting to tweet my news.

Samar got ready to start her class. She stuck her head out the studio door and said to me, "Hey, what's that guy's name again?"

"LeVar Burton!" I exclaimed. "You know, Reading Rainbow, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Roots: The Saga of an American Family?"

"Right!" she said brightly. "Woo hoo!" She gave me a double thumbs-up and then shut the door.

Ah, well. I admired her enthusiasm, at least.

And for the past four hours I've been trying to write this post. But it's been an awfully busy night here at the studio and people keep needing things from me. Plus, the music is ear-splittingly loud, which I normally don't mind, but it doesn't do much for my concentration.

Oh, damn. The last class is letting out and it's time for me to close up. I'll have to post this entry when I get home.

Hang in there, world! I know you're desperate to know, and shortly I'll be able to tell you:

LEVAR BURTON IS FOLLOWING ME ON TWITTER!

So suck on that, Mike Gladis! Ha HA!


*Yo George, I'm sorry for thinking you'd do me like that.

Celebrity accessibility

When I was in junior high, my friend Karly had a crush on Wil Wheaton. It was a pretty severe crush, bordering on obsession. I'm not saying that she was a stalker or anything, but at one point she did send herself flowers and address the card: To Karly, love Wil.

(It was not her proudest moment and 18 years later I'm still cringing for her. So I've taken the liberty of changing Karly's name here.)

Despite the fact that it rendered her slightly pathetic at times, I was a cheerleader for Karly's die-hard love, if only because she never doubted, not for one moment, that she would meet Wil Wheaton someday. And with the conviction of a besotted teenage girl, she knew that upon meeting him he would fall hopelessly in love with her. I had my doubts about that second part, but I still supported her. I admired her sheer force of will.

Now, these were the days before Twitter and Facebook and even email, and making direct contact with a celebrity was a virtually impossible thing to do, especially for a teenager from Connecticut. We didn't know then how much the world would change in just a few short years.

But Karly was not to be deterred. Late in our high school career she finally tracked Wil down at a Star Trek convention. Thankfully, after 6 years her furious ardor had dimmed to the level of a minor crush. She got his autograph and had her photo taken with him and she was satisfied.

But my admiration for her was renewed. Damned if that girl didn't get what she wanted, even if she had to wait a couple of years.

I myself had only a passing interest in Wil at the time. My father was a big fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and we spent more dinner hours than I'd like to recall eating off our laps in front of that show. It drove my mother crazy that we used the kitchen table more for storage than for family meals, and it drove my brother and I crazy because we had no interest in Star Trek. But any time the show was on, my father insisted that we watch it. Sometimes he would fall asleep in front of the TV and my brother or I would sneak the remote control out of his hand and change the channel. No matter how deeply my dad was snoring he would snap awake and proclaim dangerously, "I was watching that."

So I got to know the crew of the Starship Enterprise quite well. Wil Wheaton's Wesley Crusher became one of my favorite characters, in part because he was the only teenager on the show, and partly because of my appreciation for Karly and her steadfast devotion. Later on I saw Stand By Me, and by then I had to concede that Wil Wheaton was pretty cool.

A decade and a half later, someone referred me to wilwheaton.net. It was the first blog I ever saw, and I was amazed. It's like an online journal, I mused. I was struck by what a funny, regular guy Wil was. And what really surprised me were the conversations that sprung up in the blog's comments section. Fans would respond to Wil's posts, and quite often he would write back. How the world changes! I marveled. 15 years ago Karly would have sold a kidney to get in touch with Wil Wheaton, and now she could just post a comment on his blog and he would see it. And he might even write back!

So Wil Wheaton goes down in my mind's history as the first celebrity to really make himself accessible to his fans. And I quite admire him for it.

My other favorite crew member on the Starship Enterprise was Commander Geordi La Forge, played by LeVar Burton.

I have adored LeVar Burton since I was a preschooler. Reading Rainbow was my all-time favorite television show, and do you know, I don't think I've enjoyed a program so much since then. Before I could even tell time, I had a sixth sense that allowed me to abandon my play and rush inside moments before it came on the air. LeVar Burton took me into aquariums, costume shops, bakeries, pet shows and a hundred other worlds, and instilled in me a love of books that will never fade.

I wrote only two fan letters in my entire childhood, and the first one was to him*. It was written in crayon.

Sadly, I never mailed it. I think I had the idea that because my dad worked in television he'd be able to get my letter to LeVar (after all, he'd had no trouble passing my messages to Santa Claus). But Dad didn't know where to mail it either. I'm not sure what happened to that letter.

Oddly enough, it was years before I learned that LeVar Burton's first claim to fame was his role as Kunta Kinte in the TV miniseries Roots.

Growing up, we had a hard cover copy of Roots on the bookshelf in our living room. But who didn't? I developed a theory that every couple who had a child in the late seventies received a free copy of Roots when they left the hospital. All my friends' parents had a copy, but none of us knew what the book was about. I thought it was a dusty old tome about tracing your genealogy, which was my father's pet project.

But our copy of Roots was special. Inside the front cover the author Alex Haley wrote this inscription to my father:

October 6, 1976

Matthew, my brother, Kunta Kinte's family wishes the very best to you and your family!

Sincerely, Alex Haley

That was two weeks shy of a year before I was born. My father was producing a show called People Are Talking and Alex Haley was a guest. Roots had just come out and nobody knew anything about it yet.

I don't remember what convinced me to actually read the book. I think my father gave it to me for my birthday or for Christmas one year. He passed it on with such reverence, but at the time I was a little miffed that my present was something that had been sitting on our family's bookshelf my entire life.

But then I read the book, and lost myself to it. It became one of my all-time favorites. In the years since I have re-read it (or parts of it) dozens of times, but I have never been able to re-read the section where Kunta comes over on the slave ship. It was all I could do to read it once; I fought back nausea and tears the entire time.

Today, of course, I know what a treasure that book is. It holds a place of honor on my living room bookshelf now.

In 1977 the Roots TV miniseries hit the air and the greater American public became familiar with Alex Haley's story. But that was still months before I was born. I myself did not become aware of the miniseries until after I'd read the novel and subsequently studied the differences between the book and the series in an African American Literature course in college.

I was amazed to learn that LeVar Burton had portrayed Kunta Kinte on the screen. It seemed like I'd been bumping into that man my entire life, and he was still telling me wonderful stories. Butterflies-in-the-sky, boldly-going-where-no-one-has-gone-before kinds of stories.

Fast forward to the (nearly) current day. "Have you heard about this thing called Twitter?" my friend Katie asked me excitedly last year. "You can follow your friends through text messages and find out what they're doing all day!"

I didn't want to tell Katie how dumb that sounded. I couldn't foresee ever being interested in such a silly waste of time.

Katie, I formally and publicly apologize.

Of course, I'm a constant tweeter these days. I love sending out tiny highlights from my day to whomever may be reading. The challenge to be witty and informative in 140 characters is one that I just can't resist.

All the same, I keep my list of Twitter friends well-pruned. I only follow a small group of people, and among that group are only two celebrities: LeVar Burton and Wil Wheaton.

That was kind of a coincidence, to tell you the truth. Their names popped up on the right-hand side of my screen and I realized that I wanted to know what they were up to.

"I'm surprised you don't follow more celebrities on Twitter," remarked Monte, "since you love that kind of thing." He was referring to my collection of US Weekly magazines.

I shrugged. "Just because they're famous doesn't mean they're clever. I don't want to know what all those people are doing all day long."

"Is Wil Wheaties clever?" asked Monte.

"Wil Wheaton. Well, half the time he writes from the perspective of his cat. And the other half the time I can't really understand what he's saying. It's some kind of geek speak, I think. His wife seems pretty funny though.

"But that's not the point. The point is, I admire the dude for his normalcy, for making his celebrity so accessible. Did I ever tell you about my friend Karly?"

He listened gamely as I regaled him with the tale. "And LeVar Burton," I continued, "well...he was just my childhood hero. And he was Kunta friggin' Kinte, for God's sake." Monte blinked at me uncomprehendingly. "Oh, read Roots," I beseeched him. "And then we can watch the miniseries together and discuss the differences. It's only 12 hours long! We could do that in a weekend!" I called to his retreating form.

I was thinking about celebrity accessibility the other day as I walked home from dance class. I remembered that crayoned letter that I'd written to LeVar Burton. I wished I still had it; I wondered what it said. It's such a shame that I was never able to send it to him.

And it came to me, in a flash, that I could write to him again, today! In fact, I could send him a tweet! I could still let him know how much the stories he's chosen to tell with his career have meant to me.

And - hang on a minute - yes! Yes! Thanks to YouTube I can even show him my all-time favorite episode of Reading Rainbow, the one about teamwork, with the song that I'm still singing some 25 years later:

Oh my goodness, I'm going to do it, I thought. I'm going to tweet LeVar Burton and send him my fan letter.

But before I got the chance, that very afternoon in fact, I checked Twitter and read LeVar's latest post:

At The Soup doing another spot with the cast of Mad Men.

Say what now?

If you read my last blog entry you'll know that my old friend Mike has a role on Mad Men. He plays Paul Kinsey. Was LeVar Burton going to appear in a spot with Mike?

I logged onto Facebook. And sure enough, Mike's entire family had posted the clip:

"Holy shit," I said aloud.

Monte came up behind me. "Whoa, that's Gladis!" he exclaimed.

"Yeah," I said, disbelieving. "And that's LeVar Burton."

Monte studied the screen. "Which one?" he asked.

"The black guy!" I exploded. "Jesus - I'm going to make you sit down and watch an entire season of Star Trek.

"Damn that Mike," I said, shaking my head. "First he refuses to come to the junior prom with me, and now he's on TV, palling around with my childhood hero."

"Like, 16 years later," Monte calculated.

"Whatever," I sulked. "He probably never even watched Reading Rainbow. I'll bet he doesn't know the 'Teamwork' song."

"Don't be a pill," Monte admonished me.

"Sorry. I'm just jealous."

"Wait a minute. So Mike does a movie with Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson and that doesn't bother you, but you're jealous of a 30-second spot with LeVar Burton?"

"Did you not watch the 'Teamwork' clip?" I asked him.

Onscreen LeVar declared, "I'm LeVar Burton! I can do anything!"

"Yes you can, LeVar Burton," I murmured. "Yes you can."

I stood up abruptly. "I'm going to write a blog post," I said decisively. "And then I'm going to tweet it to LeVar Burton and Wil Wheaton. I'm going to test this theory of celebrity accessibility."

"Maybe Mike would introduce you," offered Monte.

"He, um, won't return my emails," I said, looking at the ground.

"So what, are you just going to ask these guys if they want to be your friends?" Monte questioned.

"Pretty much, yeah."

He clapped me on the shoulder. "Go for it, babe."

And so I have spent the last two days crafting this blog post.

All this to say:

Dear Wil Wheaton & LeVar Burton,

Would you like to be friends with me?

Sincerely,
Errin Marie

I hope they write back.


* The second fan letter was to Mariah Carey. I told her I wanted to be a singer like her when I grew up, and asked her if she was half black, like me.