From + The + Vault: How I Almost Got Me Beat Up Over Michelle Rodriguez

The From the Vault* was originally posted October 22, 2010 and has been lightly edited.

While a thinly veiled attempt to share my star-sighting a few weeks ago while on a trip to New York City, what happened AFTER I bumped into Michelle Rodriguez is the real story.

It goes a little something like this:

My friend, Kelly, and I were wandering around the West Village and stopped at this corner T-shirt store. After trying not to look shocked at the $65/shirt price tags and discovering the sale rack, I looked up and, who did I see but Michelle Rodriguez.  Now, I don't see myself as one who gets star-struck all that easily.  I've met famous people before - albeit mostly church folks - but still . . . I was cool when I met Desmond Tutu and John Lewis. These folks were part of social movements and worthy of speechlessness, but movie stars are just people, right?  Well apparently, this boy does get a little swoony at the sight of some.  After all, this was MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ: pilot in Avatar, revolutionary in Machete, and fighter in Girlfight and yes . . . she was even more stunning in person.  

I mean come on, you would have swooned too. 

After going back and forth in my mind about whether I should ask for a picture, I figured, what the heck . . . I went ahead and asked her.  She was very sweet and took a pic with the dorky guy at the NYC T-shirt store.  After I took the picture, I returned to the store where Kelly, was at the counter. Apparently, the shop owner saw the whole thing go down, and while I was outside, he said to Kelly, "All people are the same to me."

And then he laid into me, "Why do you want to take a picture with that lady, when - nodding at Kelly - you are with this beautiful woman?"

This dude was pissed. I mean REALLY pissed.

After an awkward moment, Kelly and I realized he thought we were married, and I was a jerky husband by chasing down other women on the street to have my picture taken with him.  Kelly and I tried to assure him that we were not married or even dating, but just friends. He did not believe us AT ALL.  During our pleading with him, he looked right at Kelly and said, "Tell me the truth. You are really not with him?"

Sure, it would have been HYSTERICAL for Kelly to have summoned up some fake tears and broke down saying, "Okay fine, he is my husband and he does this ALL the time!" But seriously, this guy looked like he was ready to kick my ass should it have turned out I had disrespected Kelly in any way.  Thankfully, Kelly chose a survival strategy by simply paying for her shirts and then we both slowly backed out of the store.

As Kelly and I laughed about the whole situation, it became obvious to both of us that this guy was protecting her.  He wanted to let Kelly know that no matter how this a-hole (me) acted, she should be the center of attention and not some movie star.  I figure he had seen men misbehaving before; he had daughters that he wanted to be treated with respect, and/or he was simply a good guy who wanted to speak out when he thought someone was being wronged.

Whatever the case, it was adorable and a reminder of our calling to speak out when we are called. I wonder how many of us pass up opportunities to do the same?

As we know, it is far too easy to look the other way, avoid getting involved, or otherwise protect our little part of the world that we perceive as stable, familiar, and under our control.  Sometimes, we must rock our worlds by trying to be a voice of justice and healing in the face of injustice and pain.  If we fail to speak out, we allow physical and emotional abuse to continue, we allow unhealthy and toxic systems to profit, and we ultimately allow our communities to erode into isolated groupings of people where personal safety and survival are more important than the common good.  In short, when we look the other way, as safe as it may make us feel, we all suffer.

So the question for each of us is, "What will we no longer turn away from?"

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On a side note, when my daughter's teacher said to her, "I see that your daddy met a movie star this week in New York"  She said with excitement in her voice, "Yeah, Elmo!"

* Over the years, I have blogged on many sites and servers, so I have lost a lot of content by moving around. Thanks to the magic of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, I can reclaim and reshare some of the ones that still hold meaning including www.reyes-chow.com, Typepad, my Moderator Blog. Some posts will also come from still available: SF Gate City Brights, The Huffington Post, and Patheos.