One degree of Twilight Separation

I admit it: I am a Vampire Girl. Not only that but I am also absolutely and irrevocably Team Jasper. I love Jasper as a character and am anxious for Eclipse more so than I have been for any other movie. I really want and need for them to have treated Jasper’s story “properly”. I also adore and admire Jackson Rathbone as a person, what I know of him as a person anyway, and as an insanely talented  musician, actor, artist, singer and anything else he lays claim to.

May my Team Jasper cohorts forgive me but I suffered a lapse yesterday. I took a huge leap to the warm and furry side when I found myself breathing the same air as Alex Meraz. I’ve created a name for what I “suffered” yesterday. Merazmerised. And there was no suffering involved, not on my part. I found myself in need of a term that explained why I paid another small sum of money to get Alex to sign a photo, after I’d already parted with some hard-earned for the chance to stand next to him for 20 seconds and have a photo taken. Especially strange considering the other Pop Culture Icons in the room at the time.

To start at the beginning:- since we as a mad pop culture loving family decided to attend this year’s Supernova exhibition in Melbourne, it was always Alex I was most interested in seeing. I’m a completely addicted Twilight nut and proud of it. Even though the guest list also included James Marsters *sighhhh*, Karl Urban *siiigh* Gareth David Lloyd (Torchwood) *meh*  and Mary McDonnell, I wanted to see Alex. I had already decided that if I had to have a favourite Wolf, then Paul was the one. That he was played by someone like Alex was a bonus.

We were up early and left home at 6am for our three hour drive to Melbourne. Then we began queuing. The first queue was to collect tickets, the second to get in to the pavilion. The third was to purchase tickets for photos and autographs. I found the prices reasonable, considering that this is how the organisers can pay to bring out the stars.

After getting our tickets, we went in to the Q&A session with James Marsters. As I crossed in front of the front row, I heard my name and turned back to find two dear friends from Adelaide calling me. Much squeeeeing and boob-squishing hugging ensued. I hadn’t seen these ladies for two years and was so happy to see them that I could have cared less that there was an entire audience witnessing our excitement.

Then there was one of those rare *wow* moments. The guest is announced, comes out to face the crowd and your brain suddenly registers the fact that you are in the presence of awesomeness. James Marsters, a family favourite, my reason for watching Buffy. All kinds of Awesome! Gorgeous, talented, funny, (sick with a cold but what a trouper). Amazing.

I was tempted to pay for my moment with James but the lines at his table were so long, and I was already over queuing. Alex was surprisingly unoccupied so I drifted over and waited for my moment to give him my gift, two packets of Tim Tam Biscuits with a note and instructions for the Tim Tam Slam. (You can Google it) He posed for a photo with the gift and thanked me when I told him not to leave it in the sun.

My son had a wonderful FanBoy moment when he had his picture taken with James Marsters. I’m not sure I’ve seen him so happy, and lost for words, since puberty took a hold of his personality and choked the crap out of. It made the day worth every cent to see his face as he left the photo booth.

My  Twilight addicted daughter had her photo taken with Alex just before I did. She’s a fangirl in training, and her face says it all in the picture. Somehow, I managed to slip both arms round Alex and give him a hug while our pic was taken., and didn’t really take that fact in until I was handed the photo some minutes later. Danae and I both had a major *squueeee* moment as we walked away from the booth. There’s nothing like a manic fangirly squeal to bond a mother and daughter *giggle*. As well as having that gorgeous man in my arms for a few seconds, I was blown away by the smile he flashed me, and the squeeze of the hand I got as I turned back to tell him I hoped he enjoyed his gift. I could probably have died happy right then.

The next Q&A we attended was Corin Nemec, from Stargate. I enjoy the sessions because you get questions from left-field and it’s interesting to have the speaker talking about how they won roles and about pranks on set, but more so to have them delve into interesting aspects of their lives or careers that you’d never get to the truth of otherwise. Most amusing moment with Corin was also a story of Major Fangirl Fail, embarrassing for the girls involved and perhaps a lesson for the rest of us. One girl stood up to ask a question, and saying that she was probably going to sound harsh, she prefaced her question with the assurance to Corin that she and her friend loved him very much. The words barely out of her mouth, Corin told her, “You were on the tram last night. I caught the tram from here into the city and you were on it.”  To her disbelief, he proceeded to list the things she and her friend had talked about during the tram ride. I would have been devastated to find that I had missed such a golden opportunity.

Somehow, after that, I managed to lose the rest of my family for a while. I hung out with my friends while they stood at the head of Karl Urban’s line waiting for him to return from the photo booth, and became their official photographer as Anne had Karl sign her tattoo. It’s a story, but not mine to tell. One thing I can tell you. Karl Urban is even better looking in person. If only his queue had not been miles long, I might have shelled out some of my precious cash for a moment with him.

Then came the quandary. I was tempted to go and spend a moment with Corin, but he had a small line-up, and he was right next to Alex, who had no one waiting. I didn’t want Alex to think I was fickle, and I was over waiting in line. Next year, we are paying for VIP packages. No waiting for anything. Front row seats. We’re already saving. So I handed over my cash and got a photo of Alex to have him sign. His first words to me: Are you still here? His second: Where is that photo of you and me?? I’d stashed it in the car, temporarily disappointed with the look on my face. So he signed his photo, To Helen All my Love, Alex. posed for two more photos on my camera, talked with me about Jackson, who he likes very much, and squeezed my hand again. ( he didn’t mind at all that I was wearing my Team Jasper t-shirt)

I could definitely be seduced over to the Wolf Side. If only I didn’t love Jasper so much. Paul comes a very close second and so does Alex.

Twilight: Bringing friends together.

No matter what you think of the Twilight Saga, and the opinions are many and varied, even among my friends and acquaintances, good things have happened as a result of this fandom phenomonon. Acting careers have been launched or boosted. People are reading. And friendships have been forged and strengthened.

Fandom brings out the best and worst in people. The stereotypical fanatic who spends hours and hours internet stalking the object of obsession is a mere percentage of the population of any fandom. You don't have to be even slightly crazy to call yourself a fan but it certainly makes life more interesting. If you've ever witnessed a gathering of fans, especially those of a sci-fi or pop culture icon, you will realise that we're all a little nutty, but that's not like it's a bad thing. For my part, time spent with people of a like-mind is motivating, uplifting and just down-right fun.

I've heard the "psycho-social experts" claim that you can't make friends on the internet. I humbly beg to differ. I may not be in constant contact with absolutely every person on my facebook friends list, but there are two or three who share my current Twilight obsession who I can count as real friends. People I know will still be friends when the sparkle settles, because we have other shared interests, respect and empathy for each other and an understading of the lives each of us leads outside of the fandom. There are a few more who were already my friends and still are despite my tendency to relate every conversation to something Twilight-related. Before the internet, I had penpals. One or two of them are now internet pals.

I tried to avoid Twilight. Really. I had been sucked into other fandoms just by showing an interest and I didn't want to experience the Everybody's Doing It reaction again. Surely Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Dr Who were enough for one mid-life crisis. I refused to read the books, even when my eldest daughter insisted I would love them. That reversal alone should have had me reading them. It was going to the movies with my husband and another couple that delivered the sucker punch. Twilight was the only movie showing that we all wanted to see, that none of us had already seen. I left the cinema with my phone in hand, calling my daughter to thank her very much for the new obsession that I'd needed like a hole in the head! Next day I bought the first book, finished it in two days and had to wait nearly 36 hours before I could get the next one. I read all four within a week and a half, then began again and read them in a week. It would have taken less time if I hadn't had to eat, work, sleep...

Around that time, we moved into a new rental home and found ourselves with new neighbours to become acquainted with. As it happened, the neighbours on either side were already friends, and one evening, I left my house to find them all smoking out front of the nearest neighbours home. I stopped briefly to chat and heard familiar tunes playing on the other neighbours laptop. The strains of my favourite song on the Twilight soundtrack reached my ears and the rest is history. The three of us go to the movie premieres together, buy each other Twilight-related goodies and talk endlessly about the Saga. I'm sure we would have been friends anyway, but having Twilight in common was an immediate "in".

The fandom has also helped forge a bond with my pre-teen daughter. We attended Supernova ( a pop-culture convention) together in April this year and both had photos taken with Alex Meraz, who plays Paul, a member of the wolf-pack in New Moon and Eclipse. Last year it was Justin Chon, who is Eric in the Saga. Next year, please God, it might be Jackson Rathbone, the insanely talented actor who plays Jasper Cullen. If so, this 50 year-old fangirl will probably die happy.

Powderfinger

It’s official. I am ashamed to admit it but as I approach the magic 5 0, I am developing Boring Old Fart tendencies. I spent some time last night wishing I was elsewhere and that people would sit down and stop screaming in my ear. However, I console myself with the thought that no true BOF would have been at a Powderfinger concert at all, never mind being there all on her ownsome.

No longer a Powderfinger virgin, it’s a tragedy that I have come so late to the party. Yes, sadly, my first Powderfinger concert was also my last. I only took any real notice of the band earlier this year, when we had Austar connected and I discovered that leaving Max on during the day was better than radio. “Burn Your Name” made frequent appearances in the top ten @ ten programme, and I noticed a number of items of interest. The floating lanterns in the video caught my attention first, closely followed by the beautiful voice and then the gorgeous smile of lead singer Bernard Fanning. The song stuck in my head.

A few days after seeing the clip for the first time, I was at work at a local department store. Usually the in-store CD ends up annoying the heck out of me after the first repeat (it’s on an hourly rotation). This time, amongst the one or two songs that I actually can bear listening to was “Burn Your Name”. When my shift ended, I found myself in the sound department searching for the CD, titled “Golden Rule”, and actually buying it on the spot.

My kids, to my constant amazement, like my favourite music. I took them to their first big concert this year (Rob Thomas) and they have my fave albums on their Flash Drives and MP3’s, along with choices of their own. They didn’t mind too much that I was bashing the Powderfinger CD in the car; they are used to my constantly changing obsessions.

Imagine my shock-horror reaction when the band called a press conference to announce that they were doing their farewell tour! I was more than a little devastated. I’d never even seen them live.

Our large mortgage and 1.5 incomes meant that, this time, I couldn’t take the whole family with me to Rod Laver Arena for the concert. My husband, tolerant though he is, was not interested, and if I took one kid, the other would get upset… I have no best friend to rely on for moral support… so I had to attend alone.

We made a weekend of it, driving to Melbourne early on Friday and indulging in some shopping. Leaving the rest of the family in our motel room, I made my solitary way to the Arena. I found my seat four rows down from the back wall, on one side of the stadium and sat to watch the support band. It was hot and they were very loud, I was thirsty and the climb up those steps had me puffed. Boring old fart-iness crept into my mood. I sent a text to my elder daughter in Darwin, complaining about being alone. We exchanged a few messages, the band whose name I never caught left the stage, leaving a guitar feeding back through the sound system. Grumble grumble…

Before Jet took to the stage, I took myself to the ladies, not wanting to negotiate the stairs in the dark. Once back in my seat, I vowed to stay there until the end. That climb was too much to endure again. Was it only 15 years since I ran up those steps at the Aussie Open, when I worked there as a Courtesy Car Driver? My friends and I used to call the Arena “home”, back when it was the Tennis Centre, because our favourite basketball team was based there too, as well as being the favoured venue for concerts.

I’ll just note here that I enjoyed Jet, they were very good but that wasn’t why I was there.

At last, the lights go down and the atmosphere sparks with anticipation. Movement at the side of the stage has the crowd cheering, and ohmygoodness, there is a woman behind me with the harshest, most ear piercing whistle! She “whooo-hoo’s” and whistles so much that I feel like turning and punching her face in. My ears are damaged from too much loud music in my mis-spent youth and they will be buzzing after the concert ends anyway, but she is really hurting me.

Oh, the concert. That’s right. I don’t yet know the names of all of Powderfinger’s songs, so I can’t tell you what they start with. It ‘s not until the third song that I recognise anything. Even so, right from the first note, they have me in their spell. I could listen to Bernard Fanning sing forever and not get bored with his voice. Their music is exactly what I like, so I fail to understand why it took me so long to discover that fact. I’ve had 20 years to find them.

Four girls a few rows over stand up and dance, and I’m glad no one around me has followed Bernard’s suggestion. Boring Old Fart is the anti-thesis of the 50-year-old Fangirl ™ and I wish my mood would improve. I am enjoying the music but have no-one to share it with, and the ear-piercing noise behind me continues, even through the quiet acoustic guitar pieces.

He tells us again that we need to stand up and be prepared to sing along with the next song. Everyone stands, and I have to admit that my mood picks up as soon as I’m on my feet and dancing. OhMyGosh, “My Happiness”! I love that song. Now I have to admit that I didn’t know it was them. Fool. On the screens flanking the stage, I can see the crowd as the cameras pan over them, singing along, definitely the happiest looking audience I’ve seen in a while. Bernard doesn’t even have to ask them to sing, they just take up the chorus when he stops.

Two encores and we still want more. We’re not going to get it though, the house lights go up and I grab my coat and head down the stairs before I can get caught behind a crowd. I hear an announcement to the effect that the recording of tonight’s performance can be purchased outside the front doors. Technology still has the power to amaze me. I need my cash in case I have to catch a taxi, and I’m going out the back doors anyway. Regrets, I’ve had a few.

On the way home today, we stopped at Big W and bought a few more Powderfinger CD’s, which were on sale in honour of the farewell tour, plus a 2 disc version of “Golden Rule” with a live acoustic set on the second disc.

While I’m sad they are breaking up, I’m glad I got to see them at such a high point in their career. It might just rate as one of the top 5 concerts I’ve attended.