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You seem nice, George, but I’ll be fine without meeting you
(by Kara Krekeler - March 18, 2009)
Dear George,
I hope you don’t mind the familiar tone. I know we’ve never met, but in every interview with you that I’ve seen on TV or online, you seem like such a nice approachable guy that I figured you’d prefer it to the more formal “Mr. Clooney.” Hope you’re cool with that.
I’ve heard that you’re in town filming a movie. While I’m sure it’s just another job for you, it’s great for St. Louis. You know that we could always use a little more class and glitz here in the land of the toasted ravioli (which I highly recommend sampling before you leave town). And of course, the fact that you’re so famous brings a lot of positive — some might say frivolous — attention to the city, which is nice during these tough times.
Anyway, I just wanted to drop you a line and let you know that, even though you seem so cool, and even though I am a reporter and your work in town is certainly newsworthy, I’ll be totally OK if we don’t meet while you’re in St. Louis.
I know, I know … everybody here is going gaga over you. People lined up for hours to be an extra in your movie here and I’ve seen the “Clooney sighting” maps and look-alike contests that are being hosted by a few local media outlets. I even saw a contest to see who could write the best personal ad to snag a date with you! (As if you, one of only two men to be named People’s Sexiest Man Alive twice and one of those rare people that keeps getting better looking as you get older, would really need to read the personals to get a date! Ha!) But despite all that, I think I’ll survive if I don’t meet you.
Oh, don’t think for a second that I’m not a fan — Ocean’s Eleven is one of my favorite movies and I fondly remember watching your early work late at night in my dorm room in college (those reruns of The Facts of Life were always on Nick at Night back then). I even saw Batman and Robin on my first date with my first real boyfriend, and while I don’t think the movie had anything to do with why the relationship didn’t pan out, I think we can both agree that donning the Batsuit wasn’t your greatest career move.
I also really admire your politics. Yeah, the American people do need to know about the genocide in Darfur, and yeah, it was really stupid of California to give gay people the right to get married and then yank it away a few months later.
And as I mentioned before, you seem like a really nice guy. I remember reading a Time article a year or two ago in which you visited the writer at his house. He cooked you dinner and said you were about as genial and classy as a man could get. As I recall, the article even referred to you as one of the last true “movie stars” — somebody who would have fit in during Cary Grant’s heyday.
Heck, the only other person I can think of that could pull off that image of having just the right ratio of debonair to down-to-earth is Barack Obama, and we all know how popular he was here in St. Louis before the election!
So why am I not elbowing my way to the front of the line to meet you? Well, the thing is, I really like the image you project. As with all the seemingly nice-guy actors, athletes, musicians and writers I admire, I’m afraid that my perception of you would be irreparably damaged if I witnessed you drunkenly offering some cheesy pick-up line in a bar or shouting profanities at someone on the set of your movie. (Not that I think you’d do either of those things, of course, but just for example, right?)
Being able to enjoy a few good movies means more to me than having a story about how “I met George Clooney, and man was he a jerk!” to tell and retell, embellishing it a bit more every time. (Because we all know that celebrity-sighting stories are the fish stories of city dwellers.)
That’s not to say that I’d turn you away if you walked into my office — which is on the third floor of the Euclid Plaza Building at the corner of Delmar and Euclid, and just a stone’s throw from the hotel where you’re staying — and sat down for a chat. After all, you do seem like a really nice guy.
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