Jesus is Magic: the movie, the party, the new feature

 

I'm not very good with celebrities. It's not that I'm too intimidated to deal with them – in fact, it's more that I'm not intimidated enough. I treat celebrities like regular people ... but I'm not very good with regular people, either. So at some point last night, at the Jesus is Magic party at Rock Candy in Manhattan, Kat suggested we launch a new feature detailing the ways in which I screw up each and every encounter with famous people that I manage to get into. I can't think of a good title for this budding beast, so if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears. All pictures to follow are courtesy of Kat Parr; all incidents of general foolishness are courtesy of yours truly.

Is there a better place to start than a photo of me and Huey Lewis? This is immediately before I spilled his drink and he stopped short of having me physically removed from the building.
 


We should probably back up a bit.



This was ostensibly the after party for the NYC premiere of Sarah Silverman's sort-of concert film, Jesus is Magic. Silverman's career was essentially launched a couple of years ago after NBC forced Conan O'Brien to apologize for letting her tell a joke centered around an ethnic slur on his show; she's been slowly making a name for herself as sort of the young, sexy, female version of Andrew Dice Clay ever since.  Magic has been playing festivals for almost a year, and will open for reals this weekend. We wanted to promote it, because we like Sarah and we like the film. One of the publicists handling the film for Landmark originally offered our very own Robert Newton a phone interview with the star, but they haven't let him follow through. My goal for the evening was to get a quote from Sarah on the matter – not an apology, or even a semi-sincere promise to make the interview happen. Just a comment.



Kat and I introduced ourselves, and I explained the interview situation. Sarah Silverman wearily replied, "Well, that's because, for three days, I'm like going and going, and if I do one more press thing, I think I'm gonna puke." I told her we probably wouldn't *want* to interview her if vomitting was going to happen.  Sarah Silverman said something about our outfits, and how we were her "favorite kind of people." Somehow the topic of Cinematical getting bought by AOL came up. Kat told Sarah Silverman that we had little yellow running man tattoes on our necks. Sarah Silverman said, "Oh, great. Did they inject a chip your brain?" Kat and I answered in unison: "Yes."



Fully sated by that exchange, I then tried flirting with this guy. He wasn't really paying much attention to me. He explained that Sarah Silverman had gotten him stoned. "She just handed me a joint. She said some guy from High Times gave it to her," he said. I stared at him, for, like, an hour. Hopefully he was too stoned to really notice.



Eventually, Dreamy Stoner Boy pointed across the room. "Hey, is that Huey Lewis?"
Kat and I peered over. "Yeah, I think it is," she said. "Sans News." The party was pretty light on boldface names, so everyone in the place with a camera had suddenly rushed over.



It was decided that I had better go talk to him. "What do I say to Huey Lewis?" I asked. "What kind of Huey Lewis gossip is the average Cinematical reader going to demand?" I didn't get a good answer, so I just marched up to him, introduced myself, and asked if we could take his picture. He then sort of grabbed me around the waist to pull me into the shot. When it was over, I reached out to shake his hand. I don't know what happened, but my outstretched hand collided with his martini (which, apparently, wasn't a martini. But more on that later). It went flying, and somehow landed on Sarah Silverman's skirt. Huey Lewis gave me the world's dirtiest look. Sarah Silverman looked up at the cause of her sudden wetness. "Oh," she said. "It's you guys again."

Shit.

I fired off a round of apologies, and then ran to the bar to get Huey Lewis a replacement martini. As I brought it back over, Kat intercepted me. "He doesn't want a martini. He says he wasn't drinking one. He was drinking a negroni. He says he had to explain to the bartender how to make it." Dreamy Stoner Boy summed it up: "Huey Lewis is pissed."

I decided to approach him anyway. Surely he'd appreciate the effort?



Uh-uh. He stopped me before I could get a full word out. "I wasn't drinking a martini. It's fine." He started to pull out his wallet. "What do I owe you?" 
"Nothing," I said meekly. "It's an open bar." The theme to Charlie Brown started to play, and I walked, head down, back to our table. Kat, Dreamy Stoner Boy, and other revellers in the vicinity then took a moment to stare at Mr. Lewis' untouched martini, and contemplate this networking disaster. And all I could think was, "Damn it – I love Back to the Future. I should have at least complimented his contribution to that."

Another night, another celebrity disaster. Here are a few more shots:


The photographer.


Sarah Silverman and friend.



This is Cassandra. She wants to be an actress. I think Kat was giving her some kind of "audition".


If a picture ever demanded a caption...