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Reverse Celebrity Crush

by Ari Averbach

Most of us have a celebrity crush. She’s that one person you have been pining for since the day you saw her.

When I was younger, my celebrity crush was Anna Chlumsky, star of the saddest movie ever, My Girl. She was perfect.  I never expected to actually meet her, but I planned what I would say if I ever did. Sadly for both me and Anna, her career never really launched. I moved on to actresses like Larisa Oleynik from The Secret World of Alex Mack, and even Natalie Portman, but there was always that pang of love for my dear, sweet Anna.

When I was in college, I saw that Anna was starring in a production of Measure for Measure in a church basement in Queens. (Oy!) I took my girlfriend, warning her that I might leave her for Anna after the show. My girlfriend was fine with, even excited by, this prospect. As you might imagine, the church basement in Queens was not very big. Our seats were close enough to touch the actors at any point in the play. So, in the last scene, when beautiful, lovely Anna was in character, sobbing about something or other (I didn’t bother to pay attention to the plot because I was too darn excited!), I was able to notice that she was really crying. Like REALLY crying. Like her nose was running. And not just a little, but a whole lot. My girlfriend described it stupendously as a “rope of snot” just to help paint that picture. In character, Anna tried sucking it back in. To no avail. She then wiped it on her arm. And face. I kid you not. Boom. Crush over. I couldn’t even approach her after the show to tell her how great she was, that her performance was so real, and that I had been madly in love with her for years.

Here in Los Angeles, there are so many famous people that they develop the same sort of crush on us plebeians. This is called the Reverse Celebrity Crush.  As fate would have it, while I was hoping for Larisa to notice me at Runyon Canyon or for Natalie to gaze longingly my way while tanning on the beach in December, I got Richard Simmons. I don’t want to complain, I mean how many Reverse Celebrity Crushes do you have? But he was not my first choice. For many reasons.

It happened when I went to his class to work out. There we were, dozens of women in spandex looking for a real work out, and me. As we were stretching before class, Richard threw open the doors, screamed, and proceeded to hug and kiss each person. When he got to me, he gave me a look, and winked, as if my presence alone had melted his heart. Throughout the 90 minute workout, which was really strenuous by the way, Richard continued to shoot looks in my direction.

“He’s joking!” I kept telling myself. “Maybe he does this with all the boys!” I felt like a 12 year old girl. “Why would he like me? What makes me special? He could like anyone, but he chose me!”

At the end, drenched in sweat from his afro to his dolphin shorts, he approached. Turning to a female friend who came with me, he asked, “Is this your boyfriend?”

Hwood2 zaui“…No.”

“Good, cuz he’s mine!”

I contemplated forcing a rope of snot to come out of my nose so that this Reverse Celebrity Crush could be over. But instead, I let him swoon.

Photo by zaui, licensed under Creative Commons.

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I've Got a Crush on Regina Spektor

regina2By Richard Skeen
This piece originally appeared on Alef in Issue #1: Old Country.

Unlike most of my Jewish friends, I didn’t have a Bubbe who regaled me with stories of the “Old Country.” I loved my grandmothers, but they were modern and American (one was actually a part-time rancher!) and simply didn’t fulfill my longing for Jewish tales of sad, forbidding places that, in my mind, represented the soul of the Jewish people. I wanted a personal history full of daring escapes from menacing Cossacks, of warm borscht soup and klezmer tunes, wise old Rabbis and alien-sounding names. I wanted Russian roots to enhance my Jewishness and figured a Bubbe was the ticket.

Soon after arriving to New York City from Oregon, I found a Jewish girlfriend with Old Country Russian roots, at least on paper. While I imagined that her deep brown eyes carried generations of Lithuanian Shtetl wisdom, and her brooding moods were by-products of oppression and pogroms, the truth was a little tamer. And her mother, the Bubbe I’d hoped to score in the match, was anything but: an Upper East Side contemporary art dealer, she had little interest in things Jewish or Perestroika.

With time, my Bubbe-longing faded. But it all came back in a flash when I discovered my perfect woman – Regina Spektor. In a faux KGB hat and a wicked smile – compelling if not quite beautiful on the cover of her Soviet Kitsch album – it was love at first sight. And her music – brilliant, quirky, funny, and wise – immediately struck me as, well, as something that could only come from a Russia-to-the Bronx (with a couple of years in a New Jersey Yeshiva) soul who had serious “Old Country” cred. Part of the anti-folk scene, Spektor’s songs are full of funny language and Jewish references. She uses a heavy New York accent on some words as an ode to the City, and her lyrics on songs like Samson and Laughing With are almost Dylan-esque in their biblical knowing. I was smitten, Spektor was part Russian-Jewish temptress and part Old Country Bubbe, always easily available on my iPhone. My desires were fulfilled.

Fortunately, Spektor’s talent justifies my crush, including the frequent Facebook uploads and disproportionate presence on my play lists. And truthfully, my wife may even understand, because listening to my former-Soviet crush while I prepare Shabbas cholent is almost as good as having my very own Bubbe.

Photo by jmtimages, licensed under Creative Commons.

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