I think we all have them. At some stage of our life. When you're a teenager, it's an important part of growing up - learning about the intensity of one's own feelings without fear of STIs, pregnancy, or even that awful self-conscious blushing, which has to be the worst of the three evils for teenagers.
When my friend was dumped by a boyfriend-(ish) with whom she was disproportionately infatuated, I suggested she should focus on Sean Connery - I don't recall now whether that was before or after I said "Pull yourself together, woman..."
For a rational mature adult, a Celebrity Crush can provide hours of harmless entertainment. (I have just finished watching my numero uno Celebrity Crush conduct La Traviata on Artsworld). Used sensibly, Celebrity Crushes can open the door to a whole world of opportunities and, er, other minor celebrity crushes. Fall madly in lust with opera singer Christmas 1980, get into opera. Maintain that lust throughout 80s and 90s and remain into opera. Fall madly passionately in lust again with said opera singer in Autumn 2002 and, well...
When I was a teenager, we (about half my school) had a Collective Celebrity Crush on a team. That team being Manchester United. It was a wonderful shared community experience, transcending age, class and even geographical location. What was the best thing that these were real, accessible people, living, shopping worshipping and, er, drinking in our locality.
We often used to go The Cliff training ground. Armed with camera and autograph book, it was a helluva way to pass a boring day in half term. Or, even better, a Holy Day of Obligation, or Speech Day Holiday (don't ask...!).
"Hi Mark, that was a great goal you scored Saturday. Bryan, will you autograph this picture I took last time, Clayton, can I have a kiss please, Gordon, d'you remember us from Question of Sport?" All a bit teenagery and girlie, but we had a good laugh with some of them. Stand up Steve Pears, the coolest goalie, ever!
Then there was Dot and Jackie. If you ever went near Old Trafford, let alone the Cliff, in the 1980s you must have encountered Dot and Jackie and friends. Oh dear! They weren't exactly young: in fact one of them was the mother of another one. The youngest were surely in their twenties. Oh boy, did they do Celebrity Crushes Big Style. The players were terrified of them.
They would go all screechy and hysteric whenever the most minor reserve player emerged from the building. Their catch phrase was "Start panicking" As in "Start Panicking, Deiniol's coming..." I was once in the loos at OT, and saw on the wall "Dot luvs Deiniol; Jackie luvs Clayton", and I actually got a dizzy spell. I met someone called Diane at The Cliff, who was friends with someone in my class but also friends with Graeme Hogg through someone she was at college with.
At the time Graeme, and Mark Hughes and a couple other of the young players were in digs in a house a few doors from the Cliff. We all knew it. My mates and most sensible people would walk past and say "Sparky and Hedger's house". Not Dot and Jackie. One night they sat on the wall into the small hours of the morning calling "Mark! Graeme! We're waiting for you. Mark! Graeme!" Diane was quite disgusted as she told this story. And Graeme, bless him, came out to chat to them and ask them to leave...
Once I was at OT for a Reserves match. I was with my brother and a couple of friends. We were sitting happily watching the match when Dot, Jackie and friends came and sat near us. "Start panicking, Deiniol's got the ball..." ad nauseam. So we moved to the next block of seats. About fifteen minutes later, Dot Jackie etc came and sat near us again, and we moved, again, along with a handful of other people who were sat in the vicinity.
After half time, a few of us decided to sit at the other side of the tunnel, and soon Dot, Jackie etc joined us. A dozen people moved to the next block of seats. By the time the players were leaving the field, there was a mass movement of a hundred or more people changing seats to get away from Dot Jackie etc.
I think the Carrington training ground is guarded by SAS Ghurkas.
Usenet - oh Usenet. There us somebody who uses a variety of aliases and is obsessed by Cheryl Studer - a perfectly pleasant second- or third-rate retired soprano.
He uses every opportunity to post about Cheryl Studer. In German.
When the Rene Jacobs Le nozze di figaro won the Gramophone award, he posted details and a review of a Cheryl Studer Figaro. When somebody wanted advice on Beethoven's Ninth, he posted details and a review of Studer's Beethoven's Ninth. There are currently sensible intelligent threads titled "La Forza del Destino first night at the ROH, Covent Garden", "Forza: Defending the Indefensible" and "der rosenkavalier (vancouver opera)". There are multiple posts from this person advertising Cheryl Studer's Der Rosenkavalier and, presumably because Cheryl never recorded Forza, there are threads called "Aida first night at the ROH, Covent Garden" and "Aida: Defending the Indefensible"
To quote a respected rmc person:
This is just garbage from a person on rec.music.opera known variously as "Gabriel Bocanegra" or "Pineiro." He is an asshole, a troll, an antisemite, and apparently a stalker of the soprano Ch*r*l St*d*r, with whom he is obsessed. Some believe that he once worked at the Harvard School of Health, and that he has since been fired from that position.Pinheid's obsessions appear essentially to be as follows:
1. St*d*r is the greatest.
2. Any other soprano who dares to sing a role championed by St*d*r must be
brought down by gossip and innuendo.
3. James Levine is the most evil person in the world because he is Jewish,
because he leads the Metropolitan Opera, because he causes the advancement
of sopranos other than St*d*r, and because he is supposedly a sexual
deviant (at least, according to gossip and innuendo).
4. Zubin Mehta is evil because he supports the Great Satan of Zionism, but
most of all because he once fired St*d*r from a production in Munich.
5. The newsgroup rec.music.opera is a haven for Jews, homosexuals, and
people who like sopranos other than St*d*r, so it is necessary to increase
the noise level to the point where the newsgroup is essentially useless.
Please, if you should see a useless post from Pinheid in the future (they are easy to recognize, and often consist of the same tiresome reprinted review or anti-Semitic rant, over and over and over), just ignore it and don't respond to it. If you *must* respond, there is no need whatsoever to quote the entire text of it in your response. It is a waste of bandwidth and it is an irritation to those of us who believe that the world would be a much better place if Pinheid were to walk in front of an MBTA trolley.
A very good friend once suggested that I had stalker tendencies. But I have seen the real thing, and I am so many million miles removed from that...
