Okay, here it is...
I'm lifting out pieces from the essay, and I'll delete this if anyone has any objection to it being up here. From
"Initially The Obstacles Seemed Endless..." by Wendy Wu
"...On a positive note, though, I was able to catch Morrissey outside his hotel befroe the first Hollywood Bowl show. Although I can no longer count on my own two hands the number of times I have met Morrissey, I had never introduced myself so this time I mustered enough courage to say, 'Morrissey, my name is Wendy and I've met you before...' To this he smiled and replied, 'Yes, I know.' The rest is a blur, but I'll never forget that moment when he said he remembered me--I declared eternal happiness after this. But it took only a few short days for the glow to wear off and and for me to resume my usual doom and gloom attitude, attributing his remark to the kindness of his heart."
"Despite the abrupt ending of the first NYC show at the Limelight, we were well compensated the next day in the lobby of the hotel where Morrissey was staying. Returning from a mid-day visit with David Bowie in the studio, Moz walked in with Linder. This turned out to be the perfect and ideal encounter because nobody asked for autographs or photos--we simply stood in a circle in the middle of this hotel lobby and chatted very casually. Winnie introduced us to Moz and said we had flown in from Los Angeles, to which he self-effacingly replied, 'Oh, why?' as if he felt it genuinely peculiar that one should travel such a distance to see him. Moz stood there with his jeans and tousled hair, surrounded by the nine of us. He made sure to pay a bit of attention to each of us so as not to make it seem like he addressed only the six individuals who were following the entire tour, even though it was apparent that he felt very comfortable around them. Morrissey chatted with us for a good fifteen minutes, during which I said absolutely nothing--I merely stared at my hero the entire time except for the moments when he happened to direct his gaze at me, which made me look away. Yes, dumb move, I know, but my debilitating shyness is impossible to overcome. At one point, Moz looked at me and said, 'I saw your squashed face last night,' referring to the Limelight show. To this I replied a faint 'Oh, really?' so softly that I am sure he did not even hear me. Yes, another dumb move. But he did catch me off guard. I could not believe that he had noticed me at the show--Yes, I was near the stage, but I was crammed very tightly into a small corner beneath the toppling speakers, and rubbing violently against a splintering wooden railing. Nevertheless..."
"I remember clearly the early years of being a Morrissey fan, that unforgettable pain in wanting so desperately to meet him combined with the underlying dread of its impossibility; those feelings were constant companions to my already depressed state. I thought of him every minute of the day, when I went to sleep and when I woke, when I attended classes, when I washed the dishes--every minute! I was so unhappy because it seemed to taunt me, the more I wished to meet him the more my insignificance and helplessness flashed brightly in my face."
See? She's Wendy. She's not "that Asian girl" or "that Asian chick." Not very long ago, she was one of us and she felt all the same things that many of us do. And the Morrisseytour girls feel it and no doubt, Julia Riley feels it. We are all of us in the same boat--but some of us have grabbed hold of the oars! ;-)
Tara
Travel By Thought