Monday, Jan. 01, 2007 - 9:52 PM
We were recently treated to a little tour-on-tv of Clay Aiken�s new house. It was just about what I�d expect it to be. A big comfortable house (with one or two fancypants rooms that made little sense to me�then again, *I* didn�t decorate the place!) with room to grow in, with gadgets and gizmos that a geeky boy like Clay would love.
I heard that some people on various message boards thought the house was a bit ostentatious, that the tour itself was a little tacky. One annoyed person, quoted to me, said that it was sure nice for Clay to show us what he spent our money on.
Now, that�s unfair. We want him to be successful, we want him to be happy, we want him to be comfortable, but we don�t want him to spend any money on those things?
The only thing that bothered me, apart from the Best Little Whorehouse in Raleigh living room (sorry, Clay�I just don�t see you having a chi-chi-poo-poo formal tea party any time soon), was that WRAL gave us a shot of the front of the house. I didn�t need to see that at all. I don�t need to know where he lives, or what his house looks like from the outside, because I�m never going to go looking for it. But I know there are people who would, so it scares me that they have information helping them to pinpoint his location. (And some unsavory people have revealed the area of Raleigh, even including an aerial map of the housing development. Any of you terrified by that?)
I�ve been thinking a lot lately about how celebrities have to make a lot of money, if only to pay for their safety and security. Imagine making the money you make at your job, but then having to pay, out of your pocket, the salary of another person whose job it is to kinda hang out with you all the time and keep an eye peeled for wackadoos. Imagine living in a nice, quiet neighborhood in a city that you love, wanting to have a normal life�and then one of your neighbors innocently mentions that you live on their street, then somebody tells somebody else, and before you know it, strangers are showing up at your house.
We�ve heard stories about stuff like that with Clay�s family. They didn�t know how famous he was going to be, and it didn�t occur to them until it was too late that maybe being open about where they live wasn�t a good idea.
But once you are famous, you can�t go back. Matthew McConaughey had a nice, fairly modest home in Austin for years. (You know, the one where he got busted for playing nekkid bongos?) Several people have admitted to showing up on his front lawn at all hours, yelling and banging on the door, wanting him to come out and party with them. Now that might not be a threat to his safety, but it�s certainly something that doesn�t happen to us �normal� people. No wonder he decided it would be more fun to live on the road in an airstream trailer!
So, when you�re a celebrity, you need to spend money where it counts. You need to separate yourself from everybody else. You need to hire a guy to walk beside you all the time. You need to build a big wall between yourself and the world, because the world is filled with crazy, or at least annoying, people.
And the house you live in, because you really can�t go out in the world any more, has to be a place where you can hole up for months at a time. You need to have room for people to stay with you, because you can�t have people going in and out all the time. If you want to watch a movie, you can�t go out like the rest of us, so you have to build a home theater. (and that ain�t so richy-rich to have one of those�I have friends with �movie rooms�) You can�t have what the rest of us have outside in the real world, so you have to put as much of it as you can inside the safety of your home.
When I look at Clay�s house, I�m happy that he can have all these things he wants and needs, but it also makes me a little sad for him. He�s living in a fortress. A lovely, comfortable, and fun fortress, but he�s really cut off from the world there.
Such a loving, social guy, locked away in a pretty dungeon for his own good.
There are people out there who hate him enough to hurt him. Even some who love him enough to hurt him.
People who would harass his family in the name of loving him.
People who would go through his trash.
People who would try to look in his windows in hopes of seeing something �good.�
People who are so wrapped up in themselves that they don�t realize that there�s a real live person out there whose last semblance of normalcy is being chipped away while they fail to keep their noses out of Clay�s business.
People who are jerks.
And since it�s that time of year, a time for new beginnings and fresh starts, I want to make a declaration. It�s not so much a New Year�s resolution for me, because it�s not something I need to stop doing, but I would like to say it out loud and share it with anyone who will listen.
I will never EVER do anything to contribute to that hostile environment.
I will never be a wackadoo.
I will never be someone he needs to fear.
I will never be someone who would make the world a place he didn�t want to be in�a world from which he would need to retreat.
I might not have the power to make the world better for him, but I can do my part to keep it from being worse.
Am I invading Clay�s privacy? Am I doing something that I wouldn�t want him to know I did? Am I doing something that would be detrimental to Clay? Something that contributes to the image his fans have of being raving nutjobs?
I know crazy will always be crazy, and there�s nothing I can do about that.
It�s just his garbage! He doesn�t want it! It�s worth it to have a gum wrapper that was once in his pocket.
But because there are loonies out there, I have to be that much more mindful of my actions to counteract the crazy.
Look to the left. Look to the right.
Do you see the crazy Claymate? If not...perhaps it�s YOU. ;o)
And since I�m not crazy, maybe he�ll invite me over to play pool sometime. I totally suck at it, but I look real good bent over.
::looks around::
What?
HAPPY 2007 EVERYONE!
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