Floating on Cloud 9 - Still

Yesterday was quite an incredible day for me. If you missed the blog about my thoughts and feelin's about the 10th anniversary of 9/11, check it out I'll be postin' pics to my Facebook and Twitter accounts later today.

If nothin' else, I hope you'll check out two things close to my heart for that anniversary, the Indy Project 9/11 memorial donations, and the donations for the PA United 93 memorial link (I'll add that link later, folks).

Somethin' else incredible happened to me yesterday, and I'm still flyin' on the proverbial cloud 9 as a result. If you know me at all, you know that I am a fan of the FX show Sons of Anarchy. No television program since Classic Star Trek has captured my attention and love as much as this show. (Hey, you say, what about Phantom of the Opera in all it's forms? Note that I said TELEVISION program!).

While SOA is not the be - all, end - all of my existence (and I'm waiting for the SOA to strike me with lightin' for such blasphemy!), it takes up a lot of my time. I write an ongoin' fanfic series, admin several Facebook pages devoted to the show, and post on several message boards (SOA.NET and Tignation most often, though there are others where I hang out). My motorcycle, a 1981 Yamaha Seca 750 is named Tig. So, yeah, I enjoy the show.

Thanks to this age of social networking, one is able to be more in contact with celebrities. Twitter is one of these, as is Facebook. So, I post often to the series creator, Kurt Sutter, as well to several of the actors and production staff. I've blogged about that before.

When the fourth season of SOA was ready to debut, Mr. Sutter issued a challenge/promise that if viewership increased over season three, he'd pick two twitter/blog followers to bring to sunny Californy to meet with him, his talented wife Katey Sagal (actress and singer of immense talent). Like anyone else, I thought, 'way cool, but no way will I ever win'.

Way.

I won.

Take THAT Charlie Sheen! And I didn't need Tiger Blood, either!

Considering that the man has thousands of followers, which means his timeline runs constantly, it never occurred to me that he was payin' attention to lil' ole me, except for the occasional retweet or response, which always made me 'squee' like a fangirl. Every time he'd respond to me on twitter, retweet my twit, or respond on his old FB page, I saved it in a document for posterity.

Something else I've spent time doin' when it came to my attention, was to go after the whankers sellin' bootleg SOA season 3 bootlegs on Ebay. Other things, like the rings from Season 3, an embroidery kit of the patches (includin' a full rocker patch which is a definite no - no!), and the like, I'd send to SAMCRO_BLOGGER or to him on twitter with links, so FX could deal with 'em. Every day that I reported the counterfeit DVDs, Mr. Sutter got a tweet tellin' him the number I'd reported. Usually within a couple of hours of bein' reported, the sites were taken down.

I did it because it just made sense. It angers me when people climb on someone else's coattails to make money off their blood, sweat, and tears. Plus, I learned a lot about that kind of thing during the Classic Star Trek fandom. Lincoln Enterprises, which was the late Majel Barrett Roddenberry's official Trek merchandise approval outfit, was just as fierce about protecting Gene's baby as FX is about Kurt's. Course, LE didn't have the internet to contend with.

Bootleg DVDs do not put money back in the pockets of the writers, actors, and other hard working people who make the show what it is. It's a crime to the fans who want to display their love of the show by purchasin' items that maybe they can't get due to sizin' or shippin' issues from FX.Net's website. To me, it's just wrong, and it seemed the best way I could show my appreciation for the hard work and creative effort put forth by Kurt and crew was to fight the bootleggers - David and Goliath style.

Mr. Sutter noticed. I'll let you go to his blog to read what he said. It made me cry tears of joy. Considerin' that I was cryin' yesterday because of the day, and I got drenched from an Indiana downpour, I was one wet kitty! But a happy kitty.

Before I share the link so you can read what he said about me and the other winners, I wanna say this: Thanks to SOA, I have made on line relationships with people all over the world who share a love for the show. Two of the other winners, Tina Lou and Mark Mitteer, are friends on twitter and FB. We post on each other boards often and I feel a friendship for these two, even though we've never met in person.

That's the other legacy of Sons and Sutter. Back in the days of Classic Star Trek fandom, it was a lot harder to make Trek friends - fan clubs, fanzines, and the conventions were often the only ways one could make friends- (Maybe that's the reason the US Postal service is havin' problems these days. The internet has made it easier to find people of like minds and one doesn't have to send a flurry of letters around). The joy of SOA connects us, then we find other things to bring us together.

I honestly believe that were it not for SOA, I wouldn't be blessed to have Tina Lou from across the pond as a cyber/real life friend. She has trusted me with much, and I am honored with that trust. Mark is a delightful man, he crusades for an issue close to his heart on a daily basis, and I look forward to meeting him in person. Because of SOA, we have been able to say hi, get to know each other, and become friends.

That, I think, is the true magic of SOA. It's not just the writing, or the bikes, or the actors - that's the icing on the cake. It's the coming together of individuals with like minds and interests, who first bond over their love of a television program, and continue to bond because they can.

So I'm floatin' on cloud 9, and am lookin' forward to that day when the DH and myself go to Californy to meet with this talented man, his lovely wife, and see the inner workings. I'll be hard pressed not to imitate Wayne and Garth when they met Alice Cooper and not genuflect while crying, "I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!"

So here's the link to his blog that made the announcement, and if you're not already reading his blog, you should. It's enlightening.

http://sutterink.blogspot.com/2011/09/winning.html