thisnthatwithatwist

Everyone, or at least every girl, has gone through the worship of teen heartthrobs. In the 1950’s Elvis made females faint from an over active pelvis, from the 60’s  we need only turn to that  classic scene of screaming girls waiting the day the Beatles landed in America. And for my generation it was members of boy bands like N*SYNC and the Backstreet Boys, or Leonardo Di Caprio. The heartthrob is the perfect boy for a first crush, he’s cute- even your mother thinks so; he’s fascinating, at least to his overly adoring fans; and most importantly you can easily pick him out because he’s the one with pictures splashed all over the teen magazines and probably covering the walls of America’s daughters with hearts that say “his name + the girls name=forever.” These men can also be rather dangerous often inducing a sort of fever or hysteria causing otherwise sane girls to do crazy things to get close to them. They will not only attempt to camp out outside of places like Madison Square Garden to get in line for tickets and try every possible idea they have to get backstage passed the so called velvet ropes to get to said heartthrobs, they become heroes to their friends and classmates for having made theses attempts. While I have indeed witnessed such actions first hand as have most of us, I have now had- by the power of the undisclosed radio station I’ve worked for- seen it from the other side. Through this station, I was handed the golden ticket, I was backstage of the concerts and front and center at the parties. I met the heartthrobs. Of course it didn’t really seem that amazing to me since now the ones the girls are screaming for are The Jonas Brothers and the cast of High School Musical (particularly the so called “so dreamy” Zac Efron.) Nothing against these people they are very nice really but, they’re human. I give them my respect because we are talking about very talented people but, well, frankly I’m older than they are and to be honest thinking of them as sexy is sort of icky and in the case of two Jonas boys, illegal.  My favorite Jonas brother in fact is the baby brother Frankie who is a child and just giggles at his big brothers’ fame. While working on an event we are not supposed to act star struck, we are supposed to be professional and not try to annoy the actor or singer. They usually start the conversation, for instance Joe Jonas asked me “Hey, do you have any idea how to get out of hear and over to ride the rides, “ before a concert at Six Flags Great Adventures. “Yeah, umm I would just go over the stage.” My job, as was the job with all interns, was to rev up the crowd, jumping like a lunatic on stage. It was great- we felt like stars, in fact every time we were in uniform we were stars to these kids. Then we would go backstage, eat at the craft services and watch the show from backstage. Sure we got to small talk the stars but it’s common knowledge that they won’t remember you the next time you do an event together. However the fans seemed to believe that we were friends with whomever they idolized and could be there ticket to the star, a falsity that we were not to point out.   It was amusing to me, walking by the screaming girls waiting to catch a glimpse of backstage and trying desperately to get back there. I remember the feeling but there is really nothing magical on the other side of the fences, just a lot of M&Ms and some tired teen age boys. I’ve been asked by star stuck girls if I’d let them in back stage and had to say with a smile that I’m really sorry but I couldn’t. Just last week I was taking pictures at a High School Musical 2 Premier party and a girl had written on her shirt “Mrs. Efron” it was adorable and I thought it was a great shot so I asked her if I could take a picture and she agreed. After I snapped it she said, “Can you please send a copy of that to Zac.” I said jokingly, “Oh sure, I have him on speed dial,” unfortunately she saw no humor in it and beamed to her friend, “oh my God Zac’s gonna see it!”I walked away with a smile on my face, for an entire summer I had played the role of a B-list Celebrity, or at the very least a celebrity once removed. Then I sighed and thought to myself, “Should I call my old friends and tell them that I really don’t think Leo got that picture of them dressed as Mr. Di Caprrio.” 

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