celebrity count: up tenfold

It's finally here, the long awaited follow up to my Independent Spirit Awards experience. This week has been unbelievably busy, which has resulted in a loss of contact between me and the outside world. Ironic, how I try to reconnect myself through this incredibly isolating medium...

But right, the awards. I had an amazing time. The ISAs (Independent Spirit Awards) are held annually on the beach in Santa Monica, so I finally made it out to the ocean. It was a beautiful day-the sun was shining, there was a cool ocean breeze. The event is held in a big, very nicely decorated tent, and around it are many other sponsor tents where there is lots of food and alcohol. Once again, I was my boss' assistant, so it was my job to follow him around and answer all the radio calls for him. This also gave me great access. We spent some time in the tent watching the awards as they happened, but it was more fun hanging out in the Entertainment Weekly tent, where winners and presenters went right after they were on stage. So basically, everyone went through this tent. And basically, I met everyone.

So here we go: an official list of celebrities I talked to...
I talked with Robin Williams when my boss was thanking him for coming to the awards. He was funny, as I would have expected. Very ADHD, but funny. We then met Catalina Sandino Moreno from "Maria full of Grace" and her whole family. They were cute. I have the picture posted of me and Maggie Gyllenhaal, but that may have been the highlight of my day. She's my hero, and she's ridiculously cute. We chatted a while. I swooned. I also met Jake Gyllenhaal, but he was sort of in a hurry so I didn't say much. I told Cate Blanchett I admired her work, I talked to Elijah Wood about the movies he did as a kid, I talked with Philip Seymour Hoffman as Chad proposed a movie idea to him, and I told John Waters that my first rated 'R' movie ever was "Serial Mom," and that I am sure that has had a strong impact on my taste in film. He thought that was funny and scary. I ate breakfast with Carson Kressley of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," which was humorous. I also met David Alan Grier, David Duchovny, Jeff Bridges, Paul Giamatti, Jon Gries and Jon Heder (of Napoleon Dynamite), Tom Arnold, and I talked to Quentin Tarantino a bit more, now that we're buddies. I stood next to Kevin Bacon, but I didn't talk to him. There were more people I met, too. If you care to look at a list and pictures (many of which you can find me in the background), you can go to
http://imdb.com/features/rto/2005/gallery/ifp05-redcarpet/1
and
http://imdb.com/features/rto/2005/gallery/ifp05-show/1

So that's that. An incredible indie-celebrity filled day. People are slowly finding out about it, apparently, because I've gotten more hate emails and phone calls this week than ever before. But even I'm jealous of myself. Needless to say, Hollywood can be pretty great. Even though I get no sleep and traffic is like a sick joke, I'm having a great time.