May 25, 2002
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The kid let me slide in here for a few moments before the action starts at the Midgats World’s Fair in Lagnalok–can’t have mom hogging the machine when there’s such important stuff going on.
On someone’s site here, the newsfeed was entertainment related. I saw Jewel’s name mentioned and clicked to see how she’s doing. She got hurt recently, in a fall from a horse. Broken bones.
I know people around my neighborhood who expressed satisfaction when Jewel got hurt. I don’t share their feelings, but I understand where they are coming from. Jewel treated her home state rather shabbily a few years ago. She was scheduled to play at the State Fair and pulled out at the last minute to go on tour with some big name, maybe Neil Young–I don’t recall.
I can guess at what her deepest REAL reasons were for snubbing the fair and her fellow Alaskans, and there are certainly some GOOD practical reasons, career-wise, for grabbing such an opportunity. I never saw Jewel, when she lived here, pass up a chance to be in the limelight.
Her mom and dad, Atz and Nedra Kilcher, used to play the AK State Fair every year, with a combination of folk, popular and gospel music. When she was very small, they let their little girl come on stage and add her thin voice to theirs. Then they’d send her off and get back to some serious singing–and Jewel would escape from her backstage keeper, and run back on stage.
If she didn’t think she was getting enough of the attention, cute little Jewel would do a funny little dance or lift her skirt and show her pretty panties. Maybe it was a memory of some of those moments that made it easier for her to choose the tour gig over honoring her contract to appear on that same stage where she’d played as a child. Or it could have been strictly a business decision. Only Jewel knows.
Whatever Jewel’s reasons were, she paid the cash penalty for breaking the contract, and she made a lot of Alaskans hate her. I don’t think Alaskans, as a whole, are more prone to anger or hatred than other groups, but they are a proud and chauvinistic crowd. I’m saying “they” and not “we” here, but I’m an Alaskan, too. I just don’t share all those feelings. I hope Jewel heals fast, and I applaud her plucky decision to “play hurt” now.
Transcending pain and getting on with life is something I relate to.
Comments (2)
Its good to see someone seeing the human side of celebrities – maybe she does feel embarrased about her childhood days – as you said only she will know.
Dusk
All we can ever do is make the best choices that we can, with the resources we have at the time…personally, I think that someone “looking out for #1″ is healthier than those who are always trying to please others…