Happy Stalkers Day!

Not a lot of people know this but Hallmark has declared today as 'Stalkers Day'. This is a day in which we celebrate the brave men and women who have laid down their lives to stalk celebrities and in some cases normal people like you and me. They risk being made fun of by the media, as well as incarceration and life sentences in mental hospitals because they simply didn't understand that 'piss off' actually meant 'piss off.'

Celebrities like to pay lip service to their right to privacy but when it comes to status you haven't really made it until you have your own stalker. For a start you get huge amounts of publicity as the colorful tale is aired on every Network about how someone regularly entered your house and rifled through your underpants.

I am embarassed to say that as far as I know I have never had a stalker. I think it's because I never give guys a chance and I am never nice. There was one guy I dated who phoned up a year after we broke up and said he was "still kind of pissed off at the way things ended." Well Mike you shouldn't have sent that letter to me copied from a German porn mag with your and my names inserted as the protaganists. Unfortunately I did not get off on "steck deine Bratwurst in meine Scheide. Ich moechte viel Geschlechtsverkehr mit dir erleben. Oh Mike! Spiele mit meinem Klitzer bis ich explodiere!!" [note to readers it is funny to put that in the online translator - to save you time I have put the translation here: "put your sausage in my scabbard. I would like to experience a lot of sexual intercourse with you. Oh Mike! Plays with my Klitzer to me explodes!!"]

The closest I myself have got to stalking was after I'd broken up with a boyfriend who then moved in with his new girlfriend I'd sometimes phone him and if the girlfriend answered I'd put down the phone. He claimed she knew it was me but I'm not sure how since this was in the days before caller ID. In any case I'm not so sure this was really stalking as this ex-boyfriend and I were also sleeping with each other on the sly but I digress.

Stalking. I don't have the patience. So you want me to sit outside your house in a car with a pair of binoculars staring through your window. Hello! What happens if I need to go for a pee? Do I have to do it in a spare jam jar? I don't think so.

Let's get real here: Stalking is uncomfortable. Stalking is a full time job and I take my hat off to professional stalkers like Ursula Reichert-Habbishaw the 51 year-old mother of four who stalked Richard Gere by phone, fax and email around 1,000 times and showed up at his Greenwich Village office at least 6 times. Why? Because, her words “I want to be with you and share your life.” Luckily Ursula got out of any jail time by taking the next plane home to Germany.

And what about Janet Jackson's stalker Robert Gardner who stalked Janet for nine years, sent her multiple messages and showed up at random events like the 2004 trial for her brother Michael and a Saturday Night Live rehearsal. At the rehearsal, he was caught in possession of a box cutter and a knife. He did it because he believed the two were in a relationship. He finally got the message when Jackson was granted a three-year restraining order.



Hey can't a guy just pray in peace?

The wierdest one is Zack Sinclair who stalked Mel Gibson not because he fancied him but because he was obsessed with the movie The Passion of the Christ. God told the 34 year old drifter from Idaho via his dreams to stalk Mel Gibson.In 2004, he sent multiple letters to Gibson and showed up at his house and church in attempts to pray with the actor. Sinclair was sent to a secure psychiatric facility and given a maximum three-year jail sentence.

These are all great stalkers but frankly I get angry with the sort of stalkers who don't show the proper respect like trainee child psychologist Dawnette Knight who in 2004 sent threatening letters to Catherine Zeta-Jones describing how she would “cut Zeta-Jones into little pieces and feed her to the dogs.” Thankfully Knight was sentenced to three years in jail.

So okay there are a few stalkers who don't deserve to go on the honor roll but there are plenty that do. So please join me tonight at 5pm EST for a minute's silence as we honor these valiant stalkers who have gone mad in the name of love. I hope one day one of them writes a book to share their secrets. But until then I've done my best to compile a guide to Stalking if you are a beginner and want some tips.

Stalking 101

1. Always carry binoculars
2. A threat to 'put your dick through a meat grinder if you don't put it away' may not be an idle one.
3. If underwear is lying on the floor of a celebrity bedroom you are being helpful by taking it home.
4. Before an all night stalking session in your car practice holding your bladder for eight hours on a practice run or things could get smelly.
5. On no account get out of the car and pee in the bushes - this attracts unwanted attention from both the police and the local cat population.
6. Cut roses are an acceptable stalking gift. A cut off finger is not.
7. If he doesn't reply to your thousandth email he is just playing hard to get.
8. 'Piss off and don't ever darken my door again,' means 'I love you but I just don't know it yet.'
9. It is not innapropriate to ask someone to marry you who you have never even said hi to let alone kissed. It is in fact the essence of romance.
10. Celebrities enjoy getting personal gifts like cushions stuffed with your pubic hair or jewelry made from your toenail clippings - go that extra mile if you really want to get noticed.

Any more stalking tips?