I was delighted to discover Rosanne Cash was following me on Twitter. Perhaps better known in America, Johnny Cash's daughter is a star in her own right. Musically gifted, liberal and sharply intelligent, an aura of celebrity hangs around her. Proof of this is the blue tick beside her Twitter profile, the micro-blogging website's indicator of fame. I lack one myself.
Several years back I was a newbie on the site, garnering followers at a snail's pace, when late one night @rosannecash tweeted me a big "Hellooooooo, Brian!" Wow, that's Rosanne Cash, I thought, scion of the legendary Man in Black. My tweets, mundane as they were, had somehow caught her eye. Maybe I'm more interesting than I allow myself to think, I allowed myself to think. Playing it cool I replied with a simple: "Hi, Rosanne, good to meet you on here."
I told one or two friends - casually, mind you - that I had joined Twitter and that, by the way, Rosanne Cash had started to follow me. Johnny's daughter.
One Friday afternoon soon afterwards, I was swaggering down Nassau Street when my iPhone pinged. On the screen I saw my Twitter handle @bahern7. I was being mentioned in a tweet by Rosanne Cash. She was telling one of her followers how @bahern7 used a certain kind of recording truck to make records.
Wait a minute, I thought, I've never used a recording truck in my life. In fact, I've never made any records. The cloak of delusion I'd thrown round myself began to fall. Maybe I wasn't that interesting after all. I realised Rosanne had mistaken me for the Canadian record producer Brian Ahern, who worked with Johnny Cash and was once married to Emmylou Harris. The man was country-music royalty; I most certainly was not.
I could no longer live this lie with Rosanne. Swift action was called for. I would have to send her a DM - that's a direct message to the uninitiated. On Twitter, the ability to DM is available only to those who follow each other. I therefore had an exclusive method of contacting Rosanne. I opened the app on the bustling street and set to work: "Hi, Rosanne, love your tweets but I ain't the great producer!" I like to think my use of the term "I ain't" displayed my skill at relating to people of other cultures in their own vernacular, although it may simply have been sycophancy on my part.
I continued: "His daughter Shannon and I follow one another on Twitter. I do hope you won't unfollow me after this revelation." I headed towards College Green, full of anxiety. Surely, now that I was unmasked, she would just press the Unfollow button? Minutes later though, she replied: "Oh no! I'm so sorry. That's terrible when someone mistakes your identity. I won't unfollow after such a gentle correction."
I guess it's the wonder of this new media age to be strolling down the street and talking to an NYC celebrity at the same time. I'd been convinced I would be banished forever from her world. The fact I wasn't seemed proof of her good nature. Like father, like daughter.
The mystery was solved as to why she followed me in the first place. I suppose I should have copped the record-producer angle a lot earlier, but I guess I wanted to believe in my own cachet.
Anyway, true to her word, Rosanne Cash is still following me to this day.
© Brian Ahern 2015
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