I have an admission: I have a thing for celebrities. Many people would be surprised to learn that one of my guiltiest pleasures, well, shall we say my GUILTIEST pleasure is following terrible celebrity blogs and learning who is dating who and all that meaningless rabble. If you want to discuss celebrity smut, most likely I am your girl! I can gossip about something that is as completely meaningless as these lives that don’t connect with ours in an authentic way. The biggest irony is my absolute disconnect with these people and what they do that actually makes them famous since we rarely participate in pop culture outside of music. But to this, I get to connect without having real investment, like watching an episode of Friends.

Anyhow, I go through celebrity ‘phases’ where I will adore a celebrity for a little while. I adored the New Kids’ Donnie and Jon as a teenager, then there was a VERY brief Ricky Martin phase that lead to some funny bachelorette party shenanigans in my honor. After I watched The Pillow Book I became fascinated with Ewan McGregor (then he turned into Obiwan and sang in Moulin Rouge which just cemented everything). From there it was Jim from The Office (not to be confused with John Krasinski) and now I am resuming my decades old fascination with my Dan Savage. Yes, MY Dan Savage! Dan and I go way back. He is unaware, of course, but I was one of the ones way back in the day listening to his crazy radio show on 107.7 in the early nineties. I would call to ask a question from time to time, and oh, what a thrill to be waiting on the phone, the next question up… Only to get hung up on. It seemed Dan always managed to pre-answer my questions while answering the previous caller’s question so he’d let me offline before I ever had the chance. I read his column, read his books as he wrote and published them and continued to follow him.

Then the Internet happened and the world opened up. It seems like Dan is everywhere now doing his important things and because I adore Dan I suck it all up. I think he is smart and agree with him on most things he chooses to be passionate about. He says important things about marriage equality that people need to hear, he leads an honorable life (in my opinion) and he draws parallels that really illustrate his points well. He tells people they are ok, that who they are inside is ok (usually, he does have some caveats), he says ‘so what?’ to society’s perceptions and rules, he tells people to seek happiness and personal fulfillment, to enjoy life and live honestly. I listen to the lovecast, read his SLOG, bought the app, read the column and watch the show. I hated that he got an MTV show for a while because I was worried they would turn him into a Dr. Drew or something, but watching him on the show just made him nicer somehow, less grouchy and snarky. He’s still funny, snarky Dan, but now I get to see a sympathetic look on his face as he delivers his funny, sincere and sometimes biting advice.

I think I’d get along well with Dan. I’d like to have him over for dinner and I think I’d have the best night ever, outside of the silliness that ensues with my own partner night after night of course. But the reality is that there are many like me in the world who think like that, so until I become a famous advice columnist or advocate effectively for sexuality in some regard, I thought my chances to spend an evening with this person were nil. And then, last weekend I saw it. My chance to boogie down with Dan. Last Saturday night my parents just a happened to be in town and Ira Glass just happened to be in town and, well, Dan Savage lives locally, so of course he was in town too. The stars aligned and they threw a dance party the night that my parents decided to take our kids. Nights off without kids are far and few between, so it was, like, the most perfect thing ever. The event was only $10, so we went! I think this is as close as I’ll ever get to dinner with Dan.

The line went around the block, we joined in and stood for a long time when the bouncers came around to let us know that if we were holding tickets we didn’t need to wait in the line that wrapped around THREE sides of the block. We had tickets. We had made it over halfway through the line. There were a few older people like us there in the crowd, but we were definitly the old ones in the room. Everyone around us got carded except us. We were waved in. Ouch! We felt a touch silly that we waited in line so long but were thrilled when we got into the Showbox just as Dan and Ira took to the stage. I was pleasantly surprised to see Terry, Dan’s husband, there as well. (He photographs well and dances even better. We will leave it at that.) I am enough of a Dan aficionado to know that he is not a music guy. His husband, Terry, is, but he does not listen to Dan friendly music, it’s a battle in his house won by Iron Maiden, apparently. I had no idea what he would play, so predicted that Dan would share show tunes based on a few ‘Danecdotes’ (ha ha). He did not disappoint, playing Julie Andrews, Ethel Merman, Olivia Newton John… It went on and on in the most surreal dance party made up of hipsters, geeks and gays. It was FANTASTIC! Frankly, the BEST CROWD EVER. Ira was all pop with Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and pop on top of more pop, to which I was wondering where the audience for that music was. Anyhow, it was fun! Who knew Ira Glass was a booty shaker? Both Dan and Ira got down and danced on the floor, Dan threw devil horns all night long which made us laugh, and even though Bradley and I were both absolute crabby-grumpy-pants all night, I can still TOTALLY appreciate this event. And when it happens again in another ten years, hopefully Terry will be Dan’s husband on our side of the border as well as Canada, hopefully Bradley and I will be in better moods, and hopefully Ira will pick non-Disney sponsored musicians because I assure you, the Lj’s will return, and when we do, we will bring it!

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