Author’s note: I’ve forgotten what I’ve said, I’m not rereading, so if I’ve forgotten to finish any sentiments, do let me know.
This blog will probably be even more incoherent than usual, due to the fact that I’m am listening to music and singing, both at ridiculous volumes. Currently Car Crash Eyes by Nemo. Now moved onto Hall & Oates…
Right, so today is my birthday! Not the day I was born 19 or 20 years ago, but rather the day that set me on the road to becoming who I am today. This entry will sound pretentious by the way, but it’s rather unavoidable. On 11/11/04, I had a day off school. It was a Thursday, if my memory serves me. I had been having some stupid teenage arguments with my new group of friends in school. I had had an “interest” in Johnny Depp since the previous summer, due mostly to seeing Pirates of the Caribbean in the US (though, oddly enough, I do remember it being a toss up between PotC and Legally Blonde 2, and I said “PotC coz Johnny Depp’s hot”. I didn’t really know I knew who he was, but there you go), and had heard trailers for his new film Finding Neverland on the radio (the first and last time I remember hearing a trailer for a film on the radio) and going through the thought process “Johnny Depp’s hot, Scottish accents are hot, worth going to see”. I should point out that for me to decide to go to the cinema was a pretty… not odd, but definitely not an everyday thing, because I hardly saw a film a year at home, never mind in the cinema. None of my family has any interest in film (well, we’ve already established that they don’t really have any interests), so we didn’t (and don’t) have a Chartbusters or Xtravision card or anything, so we’d never sit down and watch a film. I was a very sheltered 15 year old at the time, so I wouldn’t really get the bus alone that much (or socialise that much, if at all) so mix all that together and you have a pretty unusual decision for me to make.
Off I trotted to the cinema. Out I came of the cinema. In I went to the bathrooms to cry some more. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll understand that it’s a very moving one, but it was more than that. I spent the way home on the bus standing in a daze, thinking about everything and nothing. When I got home, I went into a room on my own because I knew I would start to cry again if I tried to speak. That’s all I really remember about that day. But from then on, *cliche alert* nothing has ever been the same. I suddenly realised what it was to be a good actor, I suddenly realised that there was more to a film than the faces of it, I suddenly realised that film has the awesome power to touch you and move you and make you think, and I suddenly realised that Johnny Depp was one mighty fine actor.
So, I got an Xtravision and Chartbusters card and got out a movie or two a week of his until there were none left to see. I believe the last one they had was Blow which I saw on December 8th (just checked a calendar, it would’ve been the 10th). I found out as much as I could about him and, in short, became a wee bit obsessed. And then 4 years later I lied when using the words “wee bit”. I realised what it was to be passionate about something. I’ve always loved music, always, but it’s so much a part of me that it’s not really an interest, it’s just… there. But film was my new love. I think the first director I moved onto was Tim Burton because I suppose, in a lot of senses, he was the most accessible. Everything in my life revolved around Johnny Depp, literally, everything. It feels a bit bizarre letting people who know me now in on that part of my life, because it was such a huge part of me, and I don’t think any of you know about it. Literally every syllable coming from my lips would be to do with Johnny Depp. Or “Johnny” as I used to call him, which I find extremely bizarre now. That doesn’t have much to do with anything, so I’ll move along…
I joined my first proper forum a week after I saw Finding Neverland, November 18th 2004 (which, consequently was exactly a year to the day before I saw The Libertine, my all-time favourite film, and my introduction to Rochester). I made some fantastic friends, including one who was my first “best friend”. That was a very strange time. We met up just before we went to London in July 2005 (my first time!) to the premiere of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I had thought she was a pervy old man before we met, because we were literally exactly alike, and I thought it was some child grooming expert. If something can be called a “whirlwind friendship”, that was it. We spent the whole summer together, on the phone for literally full days, not even saying that much, just staying on the phone. Once we went back to school in September, it was my house one Friday, her house the next. She was a year younger, but taught me SO much. Her family was very very very different to mine. In so many ways. Which also taught me a lot. But just generally, about life, she taught me so much. We were pretty inseparable. Looking back on it, I’m not sure if that was my doing or not. I realise now that I was an absolute utter psycho during the time we were friends. It was very difficult for me to deal with all these unlocked emotions, since I was so used to just sleepwalking through life (look I said this would sound pretentious, right? deal with it). I was also a 16 year old girl so there was that as well.
Since my mind was going a mile a minute on subjects I’d never given a second thought, I developed a crippling fear of death. At first, it had been a fear of the world ending, but I ended up being able to reassure myself that that might never happen, but then once I thought about death, it was very difficult to come to terms with, because I couldn’t say “it might never happen”; it quite clearly will. I’m not going to try to explain how absolutely petrified I was, because nothing will be able to describe the sheer panic that I constantly lived with. Trying not to think about it because once I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking it over and over and over. Obviously, throughout this time, there was the Johnny Depp obsession which helped to consume pretty much all of my time. At first, I had done the typical teenage thing of “I don’t hate his girlfriend because she’s his girlfriend, she just irritates me”, which of course makes me the bigger person. There was one specific video that I had downloaded which had an interview with, if my memory serves me, JD talking about his girlfriend, which cut to clips from some of his films with music over it. I could never make it to the end of that video because the music always made me tear up. I decided one day at a friend’s house that I’d download some of Vanessa Paradis’ music, because there were some songs on her most recent album that JD had played on/co-written. Not remembering which ones, I downloaded a little song called “When I Say”. It was “the” song. I cried. I didn’t even really listen to the lyrics, but I cried. My love affair with Vanessa Paradis began. There aren’t that many subtitled videos of her around, but there was one called “Vanessa on Johnny” that I watched, and well… it pretty much saved my life as we know it. My sanity, definitely. She is asked if the fact that he is so desirable frightens her that she will lose him. She says, no, she isn’t afraid, but even if she was, fear wouldn’t prevent it from happening anyway. Poof, fear of death gone. Why waste my life fearing something that’s gonna happen anyway, fear or no fear? I see Vanessa Paradis as my little angel. I don’t know that much about her, I love her music, but don’t really keep all that up to date with her career, and it’s difficult to know what’s going on with her and JD without intruding (I’ve made a point of never seeing any pictures of their children; invasion of their privacy is the reason I left my “home” forum), but they will always be such a huge, important part of my life. So huge. I have a lyric from When I Say immortalised (well, for as long as I live) on my neck: …your soul is in chains, how could you fly?
So what has led on from then? I “met” JD in London on July 17th 2005, which involved him standing in front of me, signing something and me NOT fainting. No eye contact, he didn’t know I existed but it was a huge thing for me not to pass out, because that’s how obsessive I was. Saw The Libertine on November 18th 2005, which became my favourite film ever, and I can’t see it changing anytime soon. It was bizarre to see a new Johnny Depp film in the cinema and yet felt eerily familiar. If you’ve not seen it, see it. I can’t talk about it, I can only gush. I absolutely love it. I had an epic fight with aforementioned best friend around New Years 2005/06 and we’ve only spoken a few times since then. It’s very much water under the bridge at this stage, but we’re simply very different people. I’ll always have a huge affection for her even though I obviously do not know her from adam at this stage, she was most definitely a huge part of my life. She taught me what it was to be a good friend by allowing me to be such a bad one and consequently learn from my mistakes. After we “broke up”, which is probably the most accurate phrase to use, I started to spend much more time with the people I hung around with in school, who ever since have been my best friends, and I love them very much. I don’t think I was capable of that before her.
So we’re onto 2006 now… I started to “self harm”, if you can call it that, nothing serious. I got my Rochester tattoo on May 20th. I met Johnny Depp on July… 4th? again, in London’s Leicester Square. I didn’t cry (untilafterwardshush), this time he made eye contact with me, smiled and said “Oh wow, The Ginger Man!” since that is what I had brought to get signed. He was supposed to be making it into a film… THOUGHT YOU’D SIGNED A CONTRACT, DEPP. WHERE’S THE MOVIE. STOP MAKING FUCKING DISNEY AND BURTON FILMS PLZKTHX. I have a huge affection for him, but come on, fuck off, make some good films. Sweeney Todd was really good, but mostly due to Helena Bonham Carter and, to a slightly lesser extent, Alan Rickman. And the fact I saw it in the Odeon in Leicester Square. What else happened in 2006? Nothing else that I can really remember… Oh, I saw Take That 3 times, but that’s just a dream come true, is all. Got my When I Say tattoo on December 22nd, since that’s Vanessa Paradis’ birthday.
2007, what happened then… oh, that was last year. Hmm… well, I changed schools at the end of 2006, miraculously passed my Leaving Cert by pretending it wasn’t going to happen and watched films instead. I figured that would help, after all, I’d applied to study film in uni. Because I want to work in film. Which I never had an interest in before 11/11/2004. Basically, I got into the course I wanted to do, went away to uni, lived away from home, didn’t go to college coz education just doesn’t fit me plusthecoursewasshit, and failed. While failing, it left me a lot of time to watch films etc.
Left me a lot of time to join my first forum in a while: the Russell Brand fansite forum at the start of January 2008. People seemed normal at first, which surprised me; if you’ve dealt with crazed Johnny Depp fans, you’d understand. Then, someone dared to speak out of turn, and they were attacked. I stuck up for the person despite only having been there for 2 or 3 days. One other person defended them. They had an msn address in their profile. I added them. We talked about what was going on on the forum, she decided I wasn’t a psycho, and invited me to join the messageboard of the exiled from the Russell Brand forum. The link lead to a message board entitled “The Mighty Boosh”, which I knew to be a comedy show.
“Oh… but I don’t like The Mighty Boosh…”
“That’s okay, we don’t really talk about it anyway.”
“Oh, okay, deadly!”
“You should watch it though, it’s very good.”
“Hmm… maybe I will…”
And the rest, as they say, is fucking history. That person was Kirsten, who I am now moving to London with next year. The same London that I have been to 8 times so far this year. I have another tattoo to the collection, stating that life is deadly because it really really is. It has a Boosh skull in it, as much as a tribute to the amazing friends I have made (which includes you Sarah, happy????? xxxx) as it is a recognition of my new found raging lust for British comedy, and TV in general, which has overtaken my desire to work in film. For the moment, anyway. The Mighty Boosh is the second coming of Johnny Depp, only I’m older, wiser, and much much much less absolutely pathelogically psychopathic now. I am so enjoying the ride, so enjoying how much they are opening me up to, which also is represented (albeit small-ly) in the tattoo in the form of the “is” being in the font of Robots in Disguise, one of my hugest musical influences in recent times. Far be it from fainting when meeting them, I actually managed to speak to them and tell them how much they mean to me semi-articulately. YES I think they may have taken out a restraining order against me, but that’s hardly the point.
I’m not really sure what the conclusion to this blog is supposed to be. I suppose, I hope it somehow explains why I have a nice mini celebration every 11th of November. Here’s to many more, including next year’s on a dark Autumn evening in London, train/bus/tube/walking home from work to our flat. That is, if this blog doesn’t lead Kirsten to join on the restraining order bandwagon…