Every dog has his day.
As evidence, I submit the "Heroes" section of Evan's MySpace profile:
I think… I'm allowed to savor this. You would too if it was your name chillin next to Gandhi, Jesus, and Spider-Man. (I had to look up Aung San Suu Kyi).
I usually don't say much about my Star Wars writing here because A) Most folks wouldn't get what the hell I'm talking about, and B) That's what my Star Wars blog is for. But as much as I try to keep my public life separate from private, they still end up overlapping every now and then, especially on the web. I'm a long, long way from the inconspicuous writer I once wanted to be.
Honestly though, it's stuff like this "Heroes" thing that blows my mind about my work. It doesn't just blow my mind, it's sort of goes beyond comprehension to the point that it doesn't even register. I'm just a small fry in Star Wars, but nonetheless I get asked for my autograph and get fan mail on a weekly if not daily basis. Am I bragging? Shit fool, I don't know, all I know is this is my life and it's a fuckin trip. Maybe you know these things too, and know the joy of bringing intense happiness into someone else's life just by doing what you love. I know these things, I understand the causal relationship, but it still takes getting used to, and you never understand why you deserve this attention. Why me?
Don't get me wrong, I have a healthy opinion of myself and my writing. But brother, how you gonna do that to me Evan, putting me next to Jesus and Gandhi and an imaginary superhero? How do I deserve that? Why not some other Star Wars author? What does it even mean that someone likes your work that much? One person I tell I write for Star Wars and he or she tries to hold in a condescending smile; another person I tell and something in his or her eyes changes. I've given them something valuable.
"With great power comes great responsibility." I'm not a huge Spider-Man fan – my cousin was Spider-Man, and I'm a Superman/Batman cat – but I thought the first Spider-Man movie was the best comic book movie since Tim Burton's Batman. And that power/responsibility line always comes up when I'm shooting the shit with folks who have good hearts and who are or have been in positions where their actions affected the lives of many people. It's like code: say it to the right person, and something in their eyes changes. Say it to the wrong person, and it's less than meaningless.
I'm probably going to invite Evan to be my friend. That's the real test when it comes to heroes, going beyond the hype and finding out what they're like as people. The result, of course, is almost always identical and inevitable. Evan's young and straightedge, open-minded, and articulates himself intelligently. And, of course, he's a huge Star Wars fan—it's the only he could know who I am, really. I remember when I was 19 like him. Episode I: The Phantom Menace came out that year, I was in love, still in junior college, straightedge too, and had more hair. Evan was 12 years old. I remember the idea of truth mattered to me more than almost anything in the world. Some things don't change.
On my MySpace blog, I cut loose; grammar goes out the window and vulgarity gets welcomed through the front door. I talk the way I talk to my friends face to face. By contrast, my interaction with Star Wars fans on various message boards across the web is mostly PG-rated. I'm not being insincere there, it's just the softer side of me, like this is the cruder side. But someone who comes from that world to this world and sees my gutter mouth in my blog and my mad dancing skills in my photos may feel they've been at least partially deceived or/and that they now know the true me.
And that's partially true. Welcome to a new world! Ultimately, of course, only you know you and I know me, and even then there are unforgivable omissions.
In my own "Heroes" box, I've got my childhood heroes and guys who are dead. It's hard to have heroes beyond adolescence. One of my homegirls even put the answer "Myself" in that box! Cynicism abounds… telling you, times are tough. In my experience, the more you understand about a person, the more you understand that they're not flawless, and the more difficult it becomes to hold them in the highest regard, to view him or her in that traditional heroic Jesus/Superman sense. Inevitably, we find that we are superior to our heroes in too many ways that matter.
That doesn't mean they're not heroic, of course, just not omni-heroic. They still rule in that specific way we thought they did, but the ways in which they suck are just now impossible to ignore. For now. Dante and Borges are my heroes in writing, but I don't think we would be best friends, to put it mildly. However, if by some miracle I could do so, I would never, never pass up the chance to meet them and know them as they really were. Time has a way of eroding our pride and allowing us to recognize people for their greatness divorced from their failings and our own immature infatuation with perfection. That's why so many people in their mid-to-late twenties, and beyond, once again or for the first time unabashedly recognize the incomparable heroism of their own parents. At last, we are able to again recognize ourselves in them.
Will I be sad if and when Evan removes me from his Heroes list? Sure. Admiration has very few equals. But the truth is the truth. I can't undo finding him. I can pretend I never found him, but that's not healthy. You can't unlearn what you have learned. Not in this case, and maybe really never.
Yoda, you're a sneaky son of a bitch.
Anyway, thanks for this, Evan. I can never properly repay you for the gift you've given me. It's a privilege entertaining you. ~ Abel G. Peña
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