Saturday, August 21, 2010

All a Twitter over Twitter

About a year after I joined Facebook Twitter came into being. I really didn't understand why anyone would want to be a part of Twitter since essentially it's just the "update status" part of Facebook.

That is, until I realized that a ton of celebrities were using Twitter including my Paula Abdul.


So I joined.

It has been awesome! Paula updates her Twitter quite often and has close to 2 million followers. And even though I've met her and spoke to her on several different occasions, I always thought it'd be cool if she'd answer a 'tweet'. That happened last November quite out of the blue, right before Thanksgiving when Paula had asked how everyone's day was going. I was at work (of course) and said how I was working but was hoping that I could leave early. Right after that I got the following back:

PaulaAbdul@drbombay76 I hope you get off early to enjoy the day! xoP
5:17 PM Nov 25th, 2009 via web in reply to drbombay76


I was in the break room with people I didn't even know but I was so excited I said, "Hey I realize we don't know each other however the coolest thing just happened and I have to show someone!" They thought it was so cool.

How is it that I still get such a thrill out of talking to Paula??! I've met her, spoke to her on Larry King Live and on the radio here in Utah and yet that was so awesome! (p.s. We did get to go home early)

I seriously thought that since there are so many people tweeting her that would be the only time but I was thankfully wrong:)
So then in March she asked what everyone was doing and I responded that I had a five-day weekend and was going to see Daniel Tosh's show. She responded:

PaulaAbdul@drbombay76 Hope it's a great five day weekend for you and have fun at the comedy show! xoP
1:36 PM Mar 5th via web in reply to drbombay76


Then just a month later she was talking about the return of "Glee", which I'm embarrassed to admit I watch, and I told her that I thought she should be a guest on the show as Coach Sue Sylvester's rival at a different school. It would be hilarious cause Sue is so evil and Paula is good and perky:) Well she responded:

PaulaAbdul@drbombay76 I would love that!! xoxo
1:34 PM Apr 13th via web in reply to drbombay76


Wow!! Three times!! I have to admit that I feel pretty honored because I've seen a lot of her other fans that whine and complain about her never talking to them. So if three times wasn't enough in May she asked what everyone's plans were for the weekend and I told her I was going to see Iron Man II:

PaulaAbdul@drbombay76 Let me know what you think! xo P
12:52 PM May 7th via web in reply to drbombay76


A couple weeks later she posted behind the scenes videos from the American Idol finale and I told her how much I liked seeing them, especially cause she had been playing around with Bret Michaels and Ruben Studdard:

PaulaAbdul@drbombay76 i'm so glad, david! xoP www.PaulaAbdul.com
1:44 PM May 27th via Twitter for iPhone in reply to drbombay76


That response was my favorite because it confirmed that she knows who I am. I know I have some weird psychological need for approval from her which I think stems from the fact that I seriously love her so much. But again, she took the time out of her millions of fans to answer me!

In June Paula said that she was going to start following her fans Twitter feeds to pay us back for following her. I saw that she had all ready started following about two hundred fans and I noticed a lot of those that hadn't been followed were whining about it and also begging her to follow them. I was embarrassed for them however I really wanted her to follow me but didn't say anything. So one night I decided to see who was following me because I noticed there were 20 people following...and wouldn't you know it, Paula was one of them! I was so happy!! When someone follows you that means you can send them private messages, so that's cool.

Around this time I started losing my voice and was bored on my break so I thought she'd think it was funny that I have a job where I use my voice but yet had none so I told her about it and....:

PaulaAbdul@drbombay76 good thing you don't need your voice to tweet! lol! xoP www.PaulaAbdul.com
9:21 PM Jun 7th via Echofon in reply to drbombay76


Paula is always tweeting trivia or quotes so a couple days later on King Kamehameha Day in Hawaii she asked if any of us knew about it. Well, I only knew about it because of an episode of "I Dream of Jeannie" that centered around it, which I told Paula about:

PaulaAbdul@drbombay76 LOL LOL LOL LOL! :))))))) xoP www.PaulaAbdul.com
3:54 PM Jun 11th via Echofon in reply to drbombay76


I loved that I made her laugh. Quite frankly, I love Paula's laugh and it was awesome to imagine it. Plus I loved that I gave her multiple LOLs.

A month later I had read that she was having an event that is about empowerment and achieving success but, of course, it's not coming to Salt Lake. I had read this right before I was going to sleep and I tweeted her telling her that I wished it would come here cause I'd so be there..and I told her to have sweet dreams:

PaulaAbdul@drbombay76 awww, thank you! same to you..sweet (tweet!) dreams! xoP www.PaulaAbdul.com
11:22 PM Jul 11th via Seesmic in reply to drbombay76


I seriously couldn't fall asleep! Paula had wished me sweet dreams!! LOL

A week later I sent her a quote ( "A man is not measured by what he does with his life but by what he does w/the lives of others.":) that reminded me of her. A little bit later she tweeted about how it was Nelson Mandela's birthday and I thought it was amazing that my quote fit him to a T. I wasn't aware it was his birthday and told her that and she said:

PaulaAbdul@drbombay76 today might be a holiday for #NelsonMandela International Mandela day? not sure, anyone know? xoP www.PaulaAbdul.com
11:44 AM Jul 18th via Seesmic in reply to drbombay76


We found out that it was, so that was fun to be learning with her.

So last night she was having trouble posting pictures of a photo shoot she had just finished and she thought maybe her tweets weren't being seen. I told her I could I see it and called her "Tweetness" cause she's always calling her fans "tweethearts" or "tweeties". She responded:

PaulaAbdul@drbombay76 thank you Dr Bombay! xoP www.PaulaAbdul.com
about 23 hours ago via web in reply to drbombay76


Of course, that gets me all excited on two levels: 1) It's Paula tweeting me for the 10th time and 2) she referred to me as my nickname 'Dr. Bombay', which is what I'm referred to in the Bewitched fandom world. I know I need to snap out of it, but I doubt it will happen cause every time I think I'm over her, she does something or says something (or wears something) that makes me love her more!

Anyway, I LOVE Twitter!! I love that it allows me to keep in touch with Paula without having to go to great lengths to do so.

I also got tweeted by Melissa Joan Hart this week because it was the premiere of her new sitcom "Melissa and Joey". I told her I hoped it was highly rated and lasted long and she retweeted my message for all her fans to see but also added "Salute!"

UPDATE (June 18, 2012):

Since this time Paula has tweeted what turns out to be many more times!

On October 9, 2010 she asked what everyone was doing for the week and here is what I told her with her response:

@PaulaAbdul you deserve it! enjoy! xoP RT : This is the first weekend I've had off in over a year cause I'm on a new schedule!

On December 29, 2010 I tweeted something to @Alyssa_Milano for the first time and realized it was my 600th and mentioned that. Right after...:

@Alyssa_Milano Hello, David.

My work was honoring National Pancake day (March 1) and so I tweeted Melissa Joan Hart about it as her favorite episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch was about Sabrina's drug-like addiction to pancakes. Here is her response:

@MellyJHart Ha!RT :Were u aware that March 1 is Nat'l Pancake Day? Thought you should know since you said the pancake episode was your fave:)

On April 26, 2011 Paris Hilton's mother, Kathy, mentioned that she was going to an event/lunch with Erin Murphy (Tabitha from Bewitched). Kathy appeared in an Eighth Season episode "TV or Not TV" as a client's daughter, Robin. I tweeted her:

Make sure to take pics so us Bewitched fans can see Tabs and Robin 2gether:)

The next day she responded:

@KathyHilton Ask Tabitha... . She might have some. XO KH

On June 29, 2011 I received word that my first book ever, The Bewitched History Book (available on Amazon right now), was going to be published. On Paula's website in the Fall of 2010 she had challenged us fans to set a goal and work it to the end. I had decided to try publishing the book and she knew I was going to do that. So I told her that my book was going to be published and she said:

PaulaAbdul DON'T MAKE ME CRY! if i start crying this early team mystery glam will find you & they'll HURT YOU! I'M ECSTATIC FOR YOU! xoP

I was so happy about this as by this time her website's messageboard had been deleted so there wasn't anyway to communicate with her but for Twitter. I was glad she knew this was happening.

On August 18, 2011, which was a Thursday and what Paula refers to as "Friday Eve," she told everyone how hers was going great and I told her mine was too as I had the next day off. That next day, later in the afternoon, I get a notification that I've got a tweet and about died when I saw it was from her:

@PaulaAbdul how's your day off? xoP

I replied:

@drbombay76 It's fine as frog hair...I'm going to go hand [I meant 'hang'] with my 5 year old nephew Mayson. He's awesome! How's your day?

I thought that would be the end of it since she has over 2 million followers but right after that I get this:

@PaulaAbdul fine as frog hair? really?? i see where this is headed... hairy frogs. guys named & 'stanky' legs. lol!

The "Dougie" and stanky legs were some jokes other fans were going on about it. But how cool! Two tweets in one day!

On September 28, 2011 I discovered that Nick Bakay, voice of Salem the Cat from Sabrina the Teenage Witch had joined Twitter. So I asked him if he had ever been to Salem, MA and he responded:

@NickBakay4real @ I haven't, despite shooting three movies in Boston in three years. I have no excuses...

I told him about the Bewitched statue of Elizabeth Montgomery there and he responded:

@NickBakay4real For real? No Dick York?

I also asked him if he was allowed to keep any of the Salem puppets and he said:

@NickBakay4real Hell no -- believe it or not, those things cost like 80K. They probably used the spare parts in Transformers 3.

On Halloween 2011 I asked Melissa Joan Hart what her favorite Halloween episode of Sabrina was. She retweeted my question and this is her response:

@MellyJHart The candy corn one is memorable!RT : Do u have a fave Sabrina Halloween episode? Mine is the one with the cast of Laugh-In.

That same week, Paula's cousin Tara, owner of a boutique store in LA called Tweak 99, lost her dog Lola. I asked Paula and Tara if there was any word of Lola and on November 5, 2011 Paula said:

@PaulaAbdul no :( not yet. thank you for asking, retweeting, etc. love you!! xoxoP

A couple hours after that they found Lola:)

On January 4, 2012 I had signed the contracts for my book and told a couple celebrities about it on Twitter, including Erin Murphy. The next day she responded:

@Erin_Murphy : wanted 2 invite u 2 check out my upcoming Bewitched book:)” Congratulations! EM

On March 29, 2012 I was watching the prior week's episode of Raising Hope and I had found that Elizabeth Montgomery's daughter, Rebecca, was the director. In the episode one of the characters was watching Bewitched ("Hippie, Hippie, Hooray") so I told Rebecca it was cool seeing her mom on there. She responded:

@RAZero Thanks. I'm glad you liked it. And, yeah, it was nice to be able to put that nod in there.

The Bewitched History Book was officially released on April 30, 2012 and Paula Abdul that day asked what everyone was doing that evening and I told her celebrating the release of the book. I had during the time in between signing the contracts and then been tweeting her the progress. She responded to this:

@PaulaAbdul CONGRATULATIONS! THANK YOU for being diligent, SO polite & an overall sweetheart. Got your DMs-SO appreciate your patience. xoP

@PaulaAbdul your hard work paid off-you deserve all your success. See what happens when you don't make excuses & focus on your goals? xoP

A little while after that I contacted Tara, her cousin, to see about sending a copy of the book to Paula for her upcoming 50th birthday (tomorrow 6/19/12) and got an address. I sent it about the third week of May and every three/four days would ask Paula if she received it. On June 13, 2012, Paula tweeted everyone thanks for the early birthday wishes and I said, "Speaking of birthdays, did you get my present?"

She privated messaged me and said:
YES I DID!!!!!!! THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH FOR THE BOOK!!!!!!! xoxoP

AND thanks for your patience AND generosity! I get so much mail. It takes time to go through it. Sending so much love! xoP

SOOOO AWESOME!!! Not only does she have my book, but the fact that she private messaged me is also great because it means that she follows my Twitter account, and out of her 2 million plus fans, she only follows 2,214:) So I feel pretty special and I'm way glad I don't have to wonder if she got it.