Diary of an up and coming sociopath

There comes a time in a man’s life when he has to admit that as cool as he is, as accomplished as he is, witty and brilliant though he may be, genius-like in intelligence and striding the world as a titan among men, spreading joy and fortune wherever he goes… I forget where I was going with that sentence. Wait, yes, as great as I might be, there comes a time when even I have to bow down… well, maybe not bow down. Nod. Nod my head to those who might be almost as important to the world as me. Or if not quite up there with me, certainly as important as Christ, or Buddha, or Stan Lee. Two of these such men are Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, and today I descended from the delusional fantasy world of my own construction in which I live to meet the dudes in question.

Part of the problem with meeting people you admire is that you have about 15 seconds in which they’ll acknowledge you, and you somehow have to not embarass yourself during that time. Ordinarily that isn’t be a problem. I go 15 seconds without doing something stupid all the damn time. However, when a man who has accomplished basically everything you ever dream of doing (including, in some cases, having sex with Charlotte Hatherley) places his attention on you, it becomes quite astonishingly difficult to perform even the most basic functions correctly. The time I met Douglas Coupland I spent the whole time in line going “Ohgodohgodohgod” in my head and then somehow managed to blurt out a sentence when I got there. This time I was planning to be well-prepared.

We had to queue for almost three hours, but luckily it took me about this long to figure out what I was going to say. I get the feeling that any joke you can say to someone at a signing will almost certainly have been said to them earlier in the day, unless you’re at the front of the line in which case they probably had exactly the same joke last week when they were signing in Kettering Waterstones. This is doubly difficult when the fans of the people doing the signing are the kind of line-quoting joke-stealing rabid fanboys that normally only I am. I didn’t trust my own ability to be witty so I settled on something suitably not moronic, even if I did know the answer. The alternative would’ve been ended up something along the lines of saying “Hey MAN! That’s FRIED GOLD! Like what you said in the thing! AHAHA!” and then dribbling on their shoes.

Now, I know that sounds incredibly lame right now, but what you, foolish human that you are, fail to realise is that I was deeply affected in an unexpected way by this meeting. I mean, I’ve met Celebrities before, and Artists, and never before today did my hand shake or waver, or did I go slightly weak in the knees, and frankly I was a little concerned by it until Seb admitted he had a similar reaction. The fact I got all the way to the end of a sentence and that it was actually understandable is a source of personal pride.

I said, since I can tell that you’re all wondering, “I did buy the book, but I’d rather get my Spaced DVD signed instead if that’s alright?” to Pegg and he said “yeah, no problem, mate” started to write, then realise he didn’t know my name and looked confused at the disc, then at me and I said “JAMES!” before I forgot, and all proceeded as intended. Then I got to Edgar Wright and realised I hadn’t accounted for the likelihood that I’d be addressing two people seperately so I just told him my name, got the signing, thanked him and left, and both our dignities remained intact. Nikki got her own dialogue with THE MAN when he asked for her name and she pre-empted the whole conversation by saying “er, can you make it out to Josh?” and he said “Aha. You’re not Josh.” and she said “No, it’s for a friend.” and he said like “See, I’m good at these things.” or something. HE WAS JUST LIKE IN THAT THING HE WAS IN! It’s like actually meeting Tim! Or to a lesser extent Shaun! On Josh’s DVD he crossed out “Shaun” and wrote “Josh” so that it now reads “Josh of the Dead” which he probably did for everyone, but is still cool. On my Spaced DVD Pegg wrote “Skip to the End” which is similarly great. Wright went for the more laconic “oi oi.”

So the obvious question would be, was it worth three hours of queueing in cold and semi-wet conditions? And the answer would be YES YOU INSUFFERABLE FOOL! See, Pegg called me “mate.” We’re like fucking *THIS* now. (For maximum effect, imagine that I am making the fingers-crossed motion that goes with that phrase). Seb and Rachel have their own take on the day, I’m sure, but I’ll leave it to them to elaborate on, because it’s not my place to explain for them what was undoubtedly a very personal and religious experience. (It will interlock with mine though, so if you like Blog Crossovers as I do, then get thee to their respective livejournals where there’s certainly bound to be some mention of events.) I did take some hilariously inept photos for them because clearly putting me behind a camera is a terrible idea, and if anything came out good it’s entirely down to chance. I did warn them.

After the experience had worn off, for clearly meeting such men produces a high unlike any drug (except maybe Peggocetamol, which in retrospect I just made up) we went to the Montagu Pyke for some food, then walked down to Marble Arch where they caught the Oxford Tube home. Nikki and I went to John Lewis so she could buy some wool^H^H^H^Hyarn and that about wrapped it up.

‘Course, upshot of the day is that I’m stuck with £8 worth of Shaun of the Dead adaptation that I don’t really want. They were only signing one thing because the line was taking way, way, way longer than scheduled. They weren’t really involved with the comic in any way that’d make me care enough to buy it, and comic adaptations are notoriously bollocks. I’ll keep it for the memories I’ve now externalised upon it, but in future I’ll be less of a corporate shill when it comes to signings. I have grown as a person.