sometimes, it's funny what or who people attach themselves to.
Such as Elvis, or Dolly Parton
In the linked story, from the New York Times Magazine:

In 1997, Ms. Parton disbanded her fan club and asked its former members to send their money to her favorite charities instead. Patric Parkey, 45, and Harrell Gabeheart, 43, of Irving, Tex., took seriously her call to give. Each year they attend charity auctions endorsed by Ms. Parton, where they bid on memorabilia to add to the collection that fills their 1,400 square-foot home — "every room, floor to ceiling, wall to wall," Mr. Parkey said. Among their greatest treasures: one of Ms. Parton's license plates, one of her wigs and a Dolly Parton pinball machine. The men are considering moving their bedroom into the garage to make room for more.
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Having photos of the star all over their house, Mr. Gabeheart said, "brings out the best in both of us."

"It's kind of hard to look at her all the time and not get closer to one another, because she teaches about family values and being supportive of one another," he added.

One weekend in December, when Ms. Parton gave three concerts at Dollywood to raise money for her nonprofit Imagination Library, which gives books to young children, Mr. Parkey and Mr. Gabeheart realized a long-held dream. They had a private visit with Ms. Parton. The meeting, which they won at a benefit auction for the Boys and Girls Club in Sevierville, Tenn., was scheduled to last five minutes but ran to about 20. They said Ms. Parton had chatted on their cell phone with their hairdresser, signed one of the porcelain dolls they make in her image and looked at photographs from their collection. "She told us, `All you need is my panties and drawers,' " Mr. Gabeheart said. "But we don't want that. That's too personal."

Mr. Parkey said he wanted Ms. Parton to know that "we're fans, but we're not hysterical fans." He added, "I didn't want her to think, `Oh, God, there's two more crazies.' "

Mr. Gabeheart looks forward to seeing her again: "I don't think we'll have a problem meeting her in the future. Because the people that are around her know who we are now."

Another fan who's known by Ms. Parton and her people is David Schmidli, 33, of Huntsville, Ala. For Mr. Schmidli, who has cerebral palsy, Ms. Parton is quite literally the alpha and omega: his mother, Jo-Ann, 72, teaches him to spell by using words drawn from Ms. Parton's song titles and lyrics. Each day he awakens at 3:30 a.m. to scour the Web for news of Ms. Parton, then feeds his German Shepherd, named Sparkles Dolly Parton, before going to his job as a tester at a computer manufacturing facility. During the holidays, he invites his co-workers home to show them his Christmas tree covered with 400 homemade ornaments, each decorated with Ms. Parton's picture.

Mr. Schmidli also sharpens his dexterity by making needlepoint tissue box covers and fly swatter covers bearing Ms. Parton's image (with angel wings). When he presents these items to her each April at the park's opening day, Mrs. Schmidli says, "She's as kind and as good as she can be."

"She looks down from on high on her float," Mrs. Schmidli said, "and she says, 'I love you, too, David.' "

Ms. Parton's status as an emblem of possibility is magnified in her hometown. "She's as big as a star can get," explained Judge Gary R. Wade, 54, of the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals. He was two years behind Ms. Parton at Sevier County High School. "If there's a kid who has any talent at all here in town," he continued, "you can point to Dolly Parton and say, `She came from here, and that means anything can happen, to anyone who works for it."

Dave Anderson, 44, special events director at Dollywood, said that Ms. Parton's fame had a similar effect on employees of the theme park. "It's exciting to say you work for Dollywood, for Dolly Parton," he said. "I've never worked for anybody that's been on `Letterman' to talk about me, even indirectly."

Most Dollywood employees have little personal contact with Ms. Parton. She makes public appearances at the park twice a year and attends private business meetings there about four times a year. But in December, for the first time since 1998, Ms. Parton posed for photographs with groups of employees.

On a rainy Friday morning, about a thousand Dollywood staffers gathered in the park's Showstreet Palace theater. When Ms. Parton bounded to center stage in five-inch heels, they erupted in cheers and applause. "What in the world you doin' out in the rain this time of mornin'?' she teased. `I know! You come out cause you're crazy. She tossed her head and laughed, pulling strands of her wig from her mouth. "And I got my hair caught in my lip gloss! Just know that I love you and I appreciate you," she said.

She stood aside as a Dollywood employee told the crowd, "You know the drill: no coats, no cameras, no bags, nothin' to be autographed." For the next hour, Ms. Parton walked back and forth between bleachers on either side of the stage, posing with groups of 10 to 30 employees at a time. When the last picture had been taken, she hollered a down-home "Thank you!" and turned on her heel with queenly efficiency; an assistant covered her shoulders with a woolen cape that billowed as she strode offstage.

For Ms. Parton's admirers, the paradoxes of her persona — artificial and authentic, ambitious and altruistic, distant and down-to-earth — hang together. And with her, they experience a kind of intimacy that is all the more powerful for being composed largely of illusion.

"A lot of times my fans don't come to see me be me," she said. "They come to see me be them. They come to hear me say what they want to hear, what they'd like to say themselves, or to say about them what they want to believe is true."

Ms. Parton evaluated these illusions in terms that were by turns critical, empathic and pragmatic: "I've often wondered if it's healthy for some of these people to depend on me that much, to where people live through you and don't live their own lives. It's like when people say, `I'm in love,' when they're really in lust. They call so many things love. I spend a lot of time thinking about stuff like that in the wee hours. But I think it's healthier for those people to have something to look forward to than to not. If they've got a show to look forward to or a record to look forward to, it might keep them from doing something bad to themselves or to somebody else. Or give 'em something more to do than just dwelling on themselves so much. I don't know. I just know I love the fans. I appreciate 'em. I love what I do. So I guess we'll all be at it for a long time to come."


Why do these people feel this closeness with people like Dolly or Elvis? Do they so lack love in their lives that this is the only kind they get? It's sad, but certainly less sad than this from Rolling Stone.

I think I've seen everything.

Yesterday, I heard a jazz version of 'Detroit Rock City,' the KISS song.

I can now die in peace.

last night, while I was baking a cake for someone I watched the reshowing of the 'Joe Millionare' program.

I can understand it'a appeal, although it's not my bag. All the girls in it remind me of my sister. Not that I don't love my sister, but 20, then 12, then 5 are too many of them.

Plus the dude was an idiot.

honey, do you know where you left the plague?

funny shit. too bad it's real.

I feel soo guilty for not updating this lately-but really, nothing has been going on. I've been working, going to the gym, had a new years party(which went well-we played marco polo in the pool, played drinka-the drinking version of jenga, exchanged x-mas gifts)...that's about it.

The only think that is going on this week is I've got a birthday party to go to( I've got a killer cake recipe ).

so I've been on vacation for the last ten days....didn't really do anything exciting though. I went and saw a couple of movies-'Adaption,' 'Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers'. They were good. I bought myself 3 DVDs-'AI', 'The Royal Tenenbaums', and 'State and Main'. I liked them all-I ended up watching 'The Royal Tenenbaums' like 5 times. I also rented 'The Slums of Beverly Hills,' which was really good. It kind of had the stink of a coming-of-age story, which I ususally dislike, but this was ok.

Tonight I'm having a party and I will be swapping gifts. I got most of my friends neon signs. They should be pleased.

whoever reads this and wants to come let me know. you're welcome to get drunk at my place. just don't puke on my nice white carpet.

I got a new music disk last week-a Sonic Youth record-it's titled "SYR-1." It's from their Sonic Youth Recordings company which is where they release their more experimental stuff. Anyways, I highly recommend this disk. I spent much of Saturday and Sunday sitting around, trying to play in the style. Came up with some cool stuff, I think. I felt like a real musician :-).

buy what inspires me here .

I went to go see Star Trek last night with my father. I understand a lot of the gripes people have with it-it is somewhat of a retelling of past Star Trek episodes/movies. I can see Rick Berman (the current head of the Star Trek legacy) going to the script fast food restaurant and telling the kid at the register, pointing to the sign behind him, that he wants one of those Khan burgers, but hold the mayo. But you know what? I think the story is a good one and worth retelling. The only thing I'm kind of disappointed about is that they were so ham fisted in foreshadowing what was going to happen next. It kind of felt like they were treating the audience as complete idiots who were totally unfamiliar with the conventions of Star Trek.

But to be honest I'm going to go see it again. Maybe next weekend.

one of the 4 college age people missing is a fellow johnny. find his site at

this site

on a side note, the machine this is hosted on is one of the machines I used during college. Superwarm fuzzies. maple.computing.csbsju.edu is the host.

oh, saw the two harry potter films. kinda embarassed to say I liked them. also saw 'Eyes Wide Shut'. That's weird, but in a pretty good way.

it's been *way* too long since I made an entry here. I've been busy-I went on vacation (just sat around my house, read books, slept) and launched a site for malt-o-meal that helps them spam more effectively. Important shit for the operation of the world.

About that meeting at St Thomas, the people I met with there say I should just apply to law school right now, that I shouldn't waste my time getting another undergraduate. I think I'm going to ignore that. The peace studies program they have sounds interesting so I'm going to at least dabble in that for a while.

an article from the christian science monitor



for all who know, the csm is a very reputable daily news magazine-it's secular, despite it's name.

this article talks about how people are focusing on living rather making a wage. kind of interesting, considering I've got a meeting at St Thomas this evening for getting the whole wheel spinning for some type of post grad stuff ( law school, I've been thinking so far )-I'm going to a meeting about evening classes. They've got a peace studies program so I've been seeing if that would be interesting at all.

"The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past."

"Requiem for a Nun," William Faulkner

currently listening to Paul McCartney/Wings---frustration for women decreasing, need for warm gooey love increasing.

I need an email with 'XOXOXO' on the bottom. That would be nice.

As bad an idea dating men would be, dating girls is almost as bad. Yesterday I went out with that girl that I met 3 or 4 weeks ago(and commented about on 10/25/02)....didn't have a better time.

While I'm not the most timely person I know, I don't fuck with people's time schedules by like hours. Unlike her. Last night, we had planned to go see '8 Mile' (which was good-kinda like 'Rocky' + 'Purple Rain') and we went to the mall of america. Well, we ended up walking past the T Mobile store and she decides that's a good time to figure out about getting a new phone. Which would be all fine and dandy had I not told her I was planning on eating dinner with my parents....anyway, that took like 45 minutes. By the time we got done with that, we went to the movie theater to buy tickets. Let it be known that we missed the 6 o'clock showing because it was time to check out the phone. Long (part of) the story short, I dropped her off at home and get back to my parents place by 11. Which sucked. I hadn't seen my Dad in 3 weeks since he had gone to Oklahoma for work.

Then again, I'm kind of pissy in general, and if she was more fun to talk to and willing to make out with me at the movie (just kidding-I didn't want to make out with her) I might have liked her more.