An 'Affair' to remember

As providence would have it, the Rick Springfield fan documentary, "An Affair of the Heart," was set to premiere the same week I was on vacation and my sister was in town. And Rick was scheduled to be in attendance for the first shows!

Once upon a time, Koop and I went to see Rick in Orlando during the "Living in Oz" Tour. We both sported signs, Mine was "You'll Always Be No. 1 With Me" and hers was "Rick, You Gorgeous Hunk." Those were the kind of memories I expected to revisit while watching the movie that followed the travails of several diehard fans. The poster sports the tagline -- "Do you remember where you were when you forgot about Rick Springfield? ... They never did."

Kind of hard to forget someone who was plastered on my walls for years and years. And on my t-shirts. And in my scrapbooks for both music and acting. ... Who I followed over various TV shows -- starting with my "General Hospital" obsession to the short-lived "The Human Target" to the syndicated tongue-in-cheek "High Tide," which once cheekily paged Rick's "GH" persona Dr. Noah Drake to liposuction in the background. And all the slick TV movies in between.

However, I knew I didn't really qualify for the kind of rabid fan I expected to see in the film -- there are fans who follow him everywhere. The special shows -- like the Rick Springfield & Friends Cruise and four-day acoustic ones in the Midwest, and the regular ones too -- like his umpteenth visit to Atlantic City. People who don't feel they've had the full experience unless they've also paid for the soundcheck and touch him in the meet-and-greet.

I've seen him maybe 20 times over the years, and figured that number would probably strike derision in the hearts of the people who would be featured in the movie. But I still wanted to see it, and about a year after its initial film festival appearance, it was finally coming to a theater near me.

It took weeks of watching the IFC Center website before tickets went on sale, but I snatched them up as soon as I saw them. And that day, as both sis and myself started showing signs of a flu bug that would knock us silly for the next few days after that, we made our way into the big city.

I snared a copy of the new CD, "Songs for the End of the World" at Best Buy because it had a couple of bonus tracks and we headed for the theater. We picked up the movie tickets and I saw a line for a meet-and-greet. It was shorter than one might expect, and when we got to the front, a security guy asked for our tickets. I presented the ones for the film. "No, not those, do you have tickets?" he asked. "Yes," I said. I showed him the movie tickets again. "No, are you supposed to be here?" "Yes," I said. I could have gone on like that all day. Fortunately, I didn't have to as he ushered us in.

Not much of a line from there either as I quickly got in Rick range. He had started the day in a New York City subway, bellowing his new song "I Hate Myself," and of course, the ol' chestnuts like "Jessie's Girl" and "Don't Talk to Strangers." I asked him how that went and he replied, "Crazy."

Not much time for formalities, so he signed my CD and we took my fourth picture with him. Then it was sis' turn. One of the ushers took the pictures for us and my iPhone chimed with a message just as she was finishing the task. "Mark's messaging you," she told Lorrie. "WHO????" Rick asked with mock outrage.

We waited until we were outside to laugh about pulling a fast one. ... And another fast one was about to come too. There was not really a line for the showing of the film, everyone was kind of just clustered in one place. Until someone from the theater decided to rope off the area starting at a motor scooter about 200 feet away. Guess who wound up first on the line?

Yep, it was me -- the 1,326th biggest Rick fan of all time!! Well, it was me for a little while because a little elderly couple pulled an even faster one. They sort of loitered to the right of the sign and then when we started to be let in, they just skipped out in front of us. I appreciated the craftiness, so I let it slide.

The theater chairs might have been a little too comfy, they were angled back so you could look up at the screen from the second row without craning your neck too badly.

Not much of a chance to fall asleep though, as the stories ranged from touching -- Rick's music helped a scared girl who had heart surgery make it through 18 months of being confined to her bed -- to funny as Rick had to (and did) win over a heavy metal crowd at an outdoor concert in Sweden -- to slightly contrived as two best friends alienate their husbands with their attachment to Rick. (All's well that ends well, though, as the two spouses get their own private audience with Rick and come away from the meeting smiling almost as much as their wives.)

The film definitely reminded me of my own concert memories -- from the first one back in 1981 in which my friend Linda and I stood on the chairs the whole time and I sang/screamed myself hoarse the night before I was supposed to give a speech in school. The second one I already mentioned; the third one, my mom drove me, sis and best friend Cheryl to Hollywood (what Rick deemed the "Hollywood Sweatatorium.") I left thinking that all Rick fans would probably have a tale or two or three to tell, even if it was something as small yet meaningful as listening to "Kristina" on the Walkman through two headphone jacks while participating in a March of Dimes' Walk-a-thon with Koop.

Rick seemed genuinely touched, both in the film and during question-and-answer afterward, by the effect he's had on people's lives. He's actually the person who probably has been transformed the most. Which was the surprise of the film and of the night.

Sis and I wound up bedridden for most of the next few days, and then Rick had to cancel some dates due to his own illness. I guess I shoulda asked if he wanted to hang and watch movies with us during the Q&A period. But it's just as well I didn't, they might have shoved us in some sequel to the film. I've since decided that the low end of the diehard Rick totem pole has its rewards.