Wherever, Whatever, Have A Nice Day

I don't really know where to start this one as I hadn't planned to write it. At all. I was talking to my brother this evening and he asked me about my writing, more specifically when I was going to write a personal blog. It's funny because my reviews have a broad audience and my viewing figures for those are going through the roof at the moment. But my personal blogs (the ones written by me that are about something and nothing) are only read by a handful of people. And yet those people are constantly asking me to write more of them.


I'm not even sure why? To me, my thoughts and feelings are distinctly average. And the people who ask for more personal blogs are people who know me quite well. I can't understand what there could be about my ramblings that these people find so infinitely entertaining.


And yet here I am writing a personal blog. And not because it was requested either, just because I felt like I wanted to.


I was sitting watching My Own Private Idaho. Kinda like this post it was unintentional. I put it on because I wanted to see the bike that Keanu Reeves' character Scott rides around on. And I just ended up sitting and watching it. And then I thought maybe I should write a blog entry about River. 

But then I thought I'd probably have to start at the beginning. And that's quite a commitment to a blog post at this time of night. But you guys asked and now you're gonna get it. Big time.

I think we should start with Star Trek, because that's really where this story began. My brother got me into Star Trek The Next Generation (or TNG if you're a Trekkie - which I openly admit I am!) when I was...I'm gonna say 11 or 12. Being that age I had the obvious crush on Wesley played by Wil Wheaton. Now anyone who knows me will tell you that when I commit to a crush, I go all out. Posters, books, magazines and most importantly I obtain EVERYTHING they've EVER done! So with Wil, one of my first purchases was Stand By Me.

Now as much as I love sweet Gordie (even to this day Stand By Me remains one of my all time favourite movies and I now follow Wil Wheaton on Twitter), I couldn't fail to notice his slightly tougher and equally hot friend Chris played by River Phoenix (remember I was the same age as they were so it's not as creepy as it sounds). Committing to my crush as only I can, I obtained everything River had done. And as he was already past the point of making new movies that wasn't a great deal. 

As I discovered River so late in his career there came a point when I had to learn of his death. And I won't lie, for a pre-teen girl with a silly crush on a movie star, it hit me bloody hard. I devoured every book about him, scoured charity shops and car boot sales for people selling old magazines that might contain articles from when he was alive. I got a copy of every one of his movies. The unlucky number for River being 13. He starred in 13 feature films before he died of a drug overdose at the tender age of 23. 

Like I said, for such a silly little girl with a stupid crush it hit me a lot harder than it should have. River's death broke my heart. If emo had been a term when I was 12, I'd have encompassed it fully during my River mourning period. I cried. A lot. Wore black. A lot. Listened to emotional music. A lot. 

And to this day it upsets me if people I know and love, take drugs. Like, REALLY upsets me. I can't explain it to them. I just have a fear I guess, of seeing them lying on a pavement, convulsing, choking on their own vomit. Dying. And no amount of "well it's only a pill" or "I only do coke every now and then" will EVER make those thoughts go away. I will never understand why they risk their life for a night of feeling free or feeling confident. And I will NEVER do it myself. 

So I suppose I'm thankful to River, for making me the kind of person who will always be 'boring' and 'stuck up', because I'd rather be that and alive, than where he is right now. 

I want to end on a slightly cheerier note - apologies, I didn't intend for this to be a depressing post - by asking a question. Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain was published in 1997. Six years after My Own Private Idaho was released. Do you think the campfire scene in Idaho provided her with some of her inspiration?

Night folks. Thanks for reading.