There is always one who ruins the hobby

Sometimes collecting autographs can be a depressing hobby. You work so hard for so long writing the perfect letter to your favourite celebrity only for something to ruin it for you. Many times over the years I’ve written to celebs only for them to switch to “fan mail services” which is just a nice way of saying “I can’t be bothered reading your letters anymore, here have a copy of my autograph”.
These services have always got my back up mainly because the celebrity clients that use them try to make out we are idiots. I have mentioned this before a few months ago and I won’t go into specifics but what I will say is this, if you get a letter from Studio Fan Mail there is a 99% chance your letter never made it to the celeb.
Then of course there are the other factors that can ruin it for you like spamming. Writing to celebs via a movie set or concert venue is a popular way to get the more difficult people. It’s a risk/reward type of situation and when you are rewarded sometimes it pays off big time. These via venue addresses are not out there for public display, oh sure if you look hard enough on the internet they are there but they have to be for other reasons. But that initial joy you get from first finding the right address and then sending off the letter can be destroyed when you discover someone has posted that same address for everyone to find. I’ve always been of the belief if you do the hard work to find the address then you should be rewarded for your effort. But when it’s out there for everyone, it gets hammered until it gets to a point where they no longer reply, ruining it for everyone. Of course it doesn’t always happen, but most of the time it does.
Then there are those other times, rarer than the ones previous stated but they are the ones that hurt the most; when someone who enjoys fan mail or always replies to fan mail stops because something has caused them too.  Today one of my favourite actresses Stana Katic had the respect to come online and say due to a security issue she could no longer accept fan mail. And to add to that she would not use a “fan mail service” because fans deserve the real thing.
In this case I’m lucky, I got Stana’s autograph in 2010 and its framed sitting on my desk but i know plenty who were still waiting to hear from her. I don’t know what the issue was but there are those fans that walk a very fine line and I just hope they haven’t crossed it.  Full credit to Stana though for respecting the fans enough to come out and say directly that she will no longer be replying. So many would simply stop and move on but she is so much classier than that. I just wish other celebrities would just take the same time and effort to save their fans the pain so future collectors don’t feel the same pain I have. 

A Fallen Idol

Imagine if the idol you had supported and followed for over half your life turned out to be lie. For me that nightmare has been unfolding watching one of my heroes, Lance Armstrong’s reputation be destroyed in front of the worlds media. This is a difficult post for me to write mainly because a part of me is still finding it hard to accept what’s happened. For a man who was an example of triumph over adversity he is now nothing more than a fallen idol.
I have virtually worshiped Lance since I was a little girl, at the time I was amazed at how one man could go up against some of the tallest mountains in Europe for hours on end while fighting against some of the best cyclists on the planet. But not just that I admired him for his cancer fight and his ability to come back from the brink. When I met Lance at Adelaide’s Tour Down Under back in 2009 he gave me one of his yellow “Livestrong” bands and I have not taken it off since that day. I still remember my first reaction when I met him, I was simply in awe. I never thought that I would ever meet someone with Lance’s reputation in my home town.
His work with Livestrong was legendary, and he claimed it was one of the main reasons that he came back out of retirement. The black & yellow wording is permanently intertwined with Lance and for those now associated with the charity it is now a poisoned chalice. As I write this news reports are coming through that Lance has stepped down as chairman, but it doesn’t matter. There isn’t a person out there who doesn’t know Lance created LiveStrong, he might not be a part of the charity anymore but his echo still remains.  
It’s still hard thinking back to the mass hysteria that Lance’s arrival caused in Adelaide back in 2009. The amount of people that were there waiting with me to meet him, holding everything from yellow jerseys to photos. I wonder if Lance came back to Adelaide now how many of those same people would be there to meet him.
Cycling had always been a tarnished sport, there isn’t a year that goes by where you don’t hear of someone testing positive to something but it always had seemed Lance was the shining light amongst a sea of controversy. The amount of times over the years he has said no to drugs or don’t do drugs seems like a joke now, but at the time I loved him for it. With what has happened in recent weeks it now makes it harder than ever to be able to sit there and enjoy cycling without that nagging feeling that not everyone who is racing is clean.
Of course drugs will always be around sport but this incident proves that nobody is safe and to always expect the unexpected: even your idol that you have supported no matter what could be the cheat that you so despise.

An Open letter to Viktoria

Dear Vik.

I am putting this on my blog because honestly I want the world to see it. In such a short period of time you have done what few have managed to do, and that is to bring light to so many dark places in people’s lives. I have seen the lowest points of humanity in the last few years, I’ve seen people who have barely been able to hang on, hoping just hoping to see that tiny ray of light that they need to keep going.  And you by far and away are that light that helps so many; I won’t name names but the amount of people who have told me privately what you have done for them is endless.
No-one has a bad word to say about you and all I ever hear is the same thing, your positive mindset and your ability to say the right thing when someone badly needs to hear it just proves what an incredible person you are.

I haven’t had the best time of things myself but I now look to you as someone to inspire too. I do my best to try and help others despite the little experience I have. And I just hope that I can half the impact you have had on people by just doing the small little things that matter.
People like you are rare and extremely special; the ones who genuinely care no matter if they are a friend or a stranger off the street are people who should be treasured. And the fact that you have done so much for people that I consider important just makes you even more important to me.
You are the friend that people need and the sister that some have never had.
They say certain darkness is needed to see the stars; well you are those stars, brightly shining above the heads of those who need it most. God bless you.

Love Karissa

RIP John McCarthy

The word tragedy is bandied around too often when it comes to sport.  It’s a tragedy when a team loses or when a player gets injured and is out for 12 months but in truth these things a trivial when in comparison to life itself. Today Port Adelaide AFL player John McCarthy lost his life after it’s believed he fell from a balcony while holidaying in Las Vegas. At the young age of just 22 it truly is a tragic end to the life of a guy who was just getting his AFL career back on track.
John came to Port Adelaide through the preseason draft after his chances at Collingwood had been limited. When I heard he had ended up at Port I wasn’t surprised, the club had a habit of turning players careers around with Jay Schultz and David Rodan both examples of this.
While I don’t support Port Adelaide I absolutely loved watching John play, he played all but 1 game this season and had well and truly cemented himself into the Port Adelaide side. And I could see that he was going to be an important cog in the Port machine for years to come.
I met John once at one of Port’s early training sessions this season; he was on his own warming up so I decided to go over and say hi and welcome him to Adelaide. He was genuinely appreciative of my kind words and I spent the next 15 minutes having a chat to him. What struck me then was how own to earth he was, he was willing to stand there and answer any question and sign any autograph that a little kid asked for.
 But I guess what I liked more was his positive attitude about life in general.
As football fans we can bitch and moan about how bad our team is doing, about how the umpires have done us an injustice but today’s events put that all into perspective. When we say oh well there is always next season for our teams, there is no next season for John. Time has stopped for John’s family, friends and his team mates and while life goes on for the rest of us incidents like this make you realise that tragedy can strike anyone. At 39 games Australia will never see John play football again but I know he shall never be forgotten.
Rest in Peace John, you were a genuinely lovely guy and it a pleasure just to have spoken to you once. And I send my heartfelt condolences to John’s family, his friends and to the Port Adelaide Football Club and its supporters as a whole. We as AFL fans are all grieving with you.

The Trolls claim another victim

When you grow up as part of generation Y it’s only natural that you use social media on a daily basis. Both Facebook and Twitter have become a part of the social fabric and too not use them almost seems unheard of. But sadly there will always be a dark side to using the internet and what has happened to Charlotte Dawson is just one example. I have always had the upmost respect for Charlotte, she says what she thinks and normally doesn’t hold back, you need people like her in the world because without them society would accept the crap it’s fed and not have a voice. She stuck her neck out over the last week and called out those trolls who have been causing a campaign of hate against her and for that I thought she was extremely brave. But instead of the wave dissipating the hate turned into a tsunami and not even the strongest soul would have been able to handle it.
Despite how much I love using social media such as twitter I hate the fact that so many have fallen victim to the trolls that are spawned from it. Celebrities in particular cop the brunt of it because they are in the public eye but just like everyone else they are human and deserve the same respect as everyone else. I’ve been a victim of internet bullying in the past and at the time I wasn’t sure what to do or how to get out of the situation and in the end it very nearly cost me my life.  I tried to ignore the trolls I even at one point tried to reason with them but it made no difference they are the ones who think they have all the power and I saw no way out.
Sadly when it comes to this sort of thing there is no real solution. You can try and catch these trolls, name them and shame them but as the saying goes when you cut the head off the snake 2 more grow back in its place. There are always going to be more out there lying in wait to catch you out and it doesn’t surprise me that many celebrities ignore social media or even fan mail now for fear of hate being thrown at them.
People wonder why trolls do this, why they try and hurt others from behind their keyboard. The answer is sadly very simple, because they take pleasure in seeing someone else’s pain, they love it when they see someone all but give up and enjoy the victory of a battle that was only ever one sided. But a part of me wonders if these trolls really understand the damage that they cause, if they realise that the person reading these tweets or facebook messages is dying inside.
Charlotte my heart goes out to you, what you have had to endure is truly disgusting and I hope that you will fight back and come out stronger from this hell you have been thrown into, because you are so much better than all of them put together.