Random Complaint

In the brief period of my existence, I have been fortunate enough to meet a few "famous" people. The first famous person that I met was one of my all time favorite musicians, Alex Skolnick. I was nervous for two reasons. 1) because I am such a big fan, and 2) I have always heard that you should never meet people that you admire because they will end up letting you down and they'll be jerks and blah, blah, blah. Fortunately enough for me the experience could not have gone better (and I got to meet him again a few months later, again cool!). Since then I have met a few other some what famous people, and the coolest (so far) would probably be comedian David Cross. I got to meet him and he signed my copy of his book, good times. Going back to that old adage about how you shouldn't meet your heroes and what not, I think that's a load of stinky shit. If you meet someone you look up to, it's usually in a public place and more than likely they will be cordial and polite, unless they are having the worst day they've had in a while. For me, I would say that the worst place to encounter "famous" people is in the digital sense.
When I was a kid I sent a letter to Jerry Rice, when he played for the 49ers; weeks turned to months and then sure enough I had completely forget that I sent that letter. Then one day POOF! A letter from the 49ers/Jerry Rice, like 2 years later. I had no concept about how busy or important his time was, but I was happy that I got a response. About a year after that, I inspected the contents a little more and what did I notice? The photo that they sent back with his autograph was one of those printouts. It pissed me off! Fast forward about ten years or so and snail mail has been replaced by email. Now what used to take weeks, months, or years can be replied to in minutes or at the latest days. It's not even just email, you have Facebook, Myspace, and whatever other things I have forgotten. But even with that, these people still take their sweet ass time to respond to an individual. I even read on a TV personalities website that he "...doesn't respond to all messages, but reads them all..." I see that and it seems like roundabout way of saying: "Hey! I attribute all my success to you people, but I don't want to interact with you!". Lame.
My mom is not the most tech-savvy person in the world but she knows how to check her email, and she does it at least once a day. Most of these people, being as busy as they are, own the most hi tech phones and gadgets; how can you not get/read/respond to a message that someone sends you? Now, I am by all accounts not nearly as "important" as some of the people, but if some one takes the time to email, message, or call me, I find the time to respond to them. Here is a brief example; in my first semester of Grad School, I had a project that I was working on in the style of designer David Carson. Carson is a big shoot/legend in the design world. My instructor suggested that I contact him and see what kind of suggestions he could lend me. My class was on Wednesday afternoons. I emailed him that night. Three weeks later, my project was due. Going on 8 months (as of me writing this) later, no reply. Does this mean that I don't look up to David Carson anymore? Nope. In fact my view of him hasn't changed really, except for the fact that he has CONTACT information on is personal website, which is apparently useless! This incident has not made me like him less, I just happen to be a little put off by it, that's all.
Some of these people go off about how much fans mean to them but they can't respond to them. If they are that important to you, you make time to respond to them. Otherwise you're just talking out of your ass and that's when you are in trouble. On the flip side of the coin, they are just people. People who are entitled to privacy, etc... BUT to the same token, they chose to be in the lime light and in a sense, this comes with the job.