You live for those moments when you share a space with someone famous. Your pleasure swells with their fame and wanes with your physical distance; it deepens in intimate settings and diminishes when the famous seems too approachable. Like, you can’t decide who’s more famous – Taylor Swift or Donald Trump – but you know you had more fun seeing Donald. You met Taylor at a football game, waved at her, and she waved back. When you saw Donald at a restaurant, he was flanked by a whole team of security, and you weren’t even allowed a chance to say hello; he never looked up when you called his name either. You may not agree with much of what this guy says, but if someone asked you who’s a better fit to lead this country, you wouldn’t think twice. It wasn’t niceness that won us the Civil War.
Do you plan for such encounters? Well, great minds think alike. Also, there’s this site called celebmap.com that used to be great but is now just a dumpster fire of fake news. Nowadays, you rely on a natural hunch, and it almost never fails. Of course, having properties in prime neighborhoods in Los Angeles and New York doesn’t hurt. Thanks for that, Aunt Minnie, you joke in front of everyone who’s still listening.
Yes, yes, you know what people are thinking. They call you a celebrity chaser, a star-struck fan, a groupie, or even a paparazzo working for free. But has no one ever heard of Walter Benjamin and what his aura theory says about cult value? That no reproduced video or printed pamphlet can ever challenge the power of a celebrity’s real presence, “in time and space; its unique existence at the place where it happens to be,” much like a work of art? That our identification with the celebrity is, in fact, with the camera? And don’t get you started on John Berger and Guy Debord, please – you don’t want to sound like a victim by saying that celebrities knowingly sell a spectacular lifestyle in exchange for fame, and we give them our attention but get nothing in return. All you’re trying to say is, we all do this shit, and there’s no shame in it. You might as well borrow some aura while you can, and borrow more before the old begins to fade.
You share your stories of China only with a chosen few, for they’re meant for trained minds only. Your college mate David went there to teach – oral English of some sort. It was a small town on the border, where the townies weren’t nearly as used to seeing brown curly hair and green eyes as people in Shanghai or Beijing, though they still preferred the blond hair and blue eyes they saw in Hollywood movies from the 80s. He invited you to visit and told you white people there lived like kings and queens. After a very confusing visa application process, you finally made the trip, and he was right. You walked down the street, and a young mom asked if you’d take a picture with her painfully shy daughter. You stayed on the 20th floor of the best hotel in town and paid less than half of what a standard room at a suburban Hilton Garden Inn would cost on a Tuesday. You made friends, and they all knew you as Teacher Dawei’s American friend. David soon became Teacher Dawei to you too, and your new Chinese friends would applaud and top off your beer. They’d shout, “Teacher Dawei BEST!” and you’d raise your pint to it.
Sometimes you wondered if Teacher Dawei had become a local celebrity, but you weren’t too keen on the idea as you still remembered those days when he was teabagged on a dirty rug, and as long as you held onto those days, he’d have no aura. But your new Chinese friends greeted him with Teacher Dawei good morning while to you, they simply nodded and mumbled Hello-wa in the same rhythm as a Hawaiian Aloha to travelers who weren’t there to stay. They never attempted your name, probably because a long-ass name like Sebastian was too much for their Chinese tongues, and they couldn’t even find the right sinicized syllables to nickname you. Then you realized you craved that subtle sourness lingering in the back of your throat – you almost vomited from your parkour heartbeat when you saw Sam Smith sitting with his friends at Urth Caffe in Santa Monica, or the time Kristen Stewart asked to bum a cigarette outside Erewhon. You considered trying your luck in Beijing or Shanghai but quickly remembered you didn’t know that many Chinese stars. So you told David you were gearing up to leave; he didn’t object. He was too busy juggling three Chinese girls who all loved him for who they thought he was but also dreamed of moving to America, living in a big house with a manicured backyard, where their two mixed-race kids would run and play. In between packing, you saw a social media post from your new friend, a parent who worked in the railway system. Your phone auto-translated it into English, casually dropping the bombshell that Kim Jong Un would be making a stop at the local train station for a secret visit to Beijing. You felt a mini Jackie Chan slide down from the back of your ear and land hard on your chest. You called the front desk and told her you’d be staying for another day. She said okay, but you weren’t sure if she actually understood your request – though, to be honest, you didn’t really care.
You took a taxi to the station and found your railway buddy in the lobby. Thanks to the auto-translation tool, you managed to tell him you were curious about his post. He asked if you were an American spy. You said no, but even if you were, you wouldn’t exactly admit to it. He said, right. He gave you the lowdown on the best watching spot – without risking a run-in with the added security – in exchange for eight one-on-one English lessons for his fifteen-year-old son. He gave you a mask and told you to wear it, which felt like an extra layer of anonymity to go with the hat. You bought the cheapest ticket to go through the checkpoint, followed his instructions, and arrived at a glass-sealed mezzanine where you could see eight tracks from above, feeling like a real spy. You checked the watch, it was just past the time he mentioned. A green-skinned train with tinted windows slowly pulled in the second track to your left, letting out a subdued sigh. A team of uniforms assembled near the train, your nails clenching into palms. The world’s most mysterious, destructive, trapezoid-haired man was right in one of the compartments less than 100 yards from you, and you never felt so insubstantial. Compared to the vague silhouette that you had imagined you saw behind a certain tinted window, you were the obscure one! You’d have to shoot him with a rifle to become a little less obscure. With a cold solemnness distilling in the September Northern air, a sudden, profound wave of solitude struck your stomach, making it tremble with an odd sense of joy. You stared at the green iron snake of the geopolitical rascal for god knows how long until a plainclothes officer tapped you on the shoulder from behind and said something in Chinese. By some one-in-a-million miracle, you walked away, playing the part of a lost traveler, just relieved he didn’t notice your green eyes.
Back in the hotel, you called your railway buddy, wanting to offer money instead of lessons, but he didn’t pick up. You called David, but he spoke first, did you hear? Kai got arrested. They said it was about some social media post. You said shit, what’s wrong with this country? Hanging up the phone, you packed your suitcase and boarded the next train to Shanghai that night. You were back in your condo on Fairfax in just two days.
Do you feel guilty? Why would you. Are you a fan of Kim now? Hard to say, since you’re already a fan of every celebrity. Maybe the right question is, does it ever get tiring? Then you decide that at least you know what you love, unlike some people who only know what they hate. That makes you better than any of them. You stand up and walk out of the room. The leather couch you’ve been sitting on starts to make a leaking sound.