Blind Item #9 - The Film Festival - A Reader Blind Item

Hey everybody! A somewhat frequent-ish but new (as last fall; longtime lurker, however) commenter here. When Enty asked for reader blind's, I knew I had to share mine with you. This one's a tad more salacious than the other reader blind's, but nothing that will make you overly hate humanity. And yes, for all you skeptics in the comment section, this is 100% true; there even may be video of it somewhere.

Anyhoo, I am lucky enough to have a hobby (which I want to make a actual career, but having a hell of a time getting paid gigs for it) that lets me hobnob with celebrities. Most of my interactions are pretty mundane "hey, I just met so and so type" stuff that really isn't all that interesting. But I want to share my own craziest, weirdest encounter with a celebrity. And probably show you how much of a dumb*ss I probably am.

For the past few years, every fall, I have been going to a film festival. A big film festival run by that down South independent theater chain that we all know. The one that had a HUGE PR disaster involving sexual assault and harassment and their response to it? The one that rehired the creepy editor of their in-house movie website and run that hip film distributor? That one.

Anyway, this was long before that all became public. This was about five years ago. My second time attending this festival. There was a movie playing there that year, that was a big deal for them. It is NOT a big mainstream hit. It played theatrically in big cities, but only made like five digits at the box office. It was a VOD play. But its also the kind of film that played well to the festival's target audience. The first incarnation of that hip film distributor, which had a different name back then, had picked it up from SXSW that year, and were giving it a big red carpet treatment, with three of the stars in attendance. This blind involves one of the stars.

The film's lead, we'll call CP. CP is a character actor type, talented (and friendly) guy, adept at playing creeps and nice guys. He doesn't really rank on the list in a mainstream sense, but does get a lot of leads in indie streaming/VOD type stuff, so he's on a niche list somewhere. I wish hihm more big success, which it was why it was a nice surprise to see him in a small, but sizable enough, role in that Academy Award nominated film from that permanent A+ list director we are all suspicious of, from last year.

The film's biggest name is probably AM. AM is a B/B+ dual threat comedic actor, best known for scene stealing supporting roles. When he's done leads they've bombed. But he's a great support ringer. Best know for a favorite, highly quoted and memed comedy from about fifteen years ago, give or take, in which he starred with a bunch of other comics who went on to be big A listers. It had a less satisfying sequel years later. Weirdly enough, takes place in a milieu similar to CP's last big film.

Finally, there is ER, the third star, and the subject of our blind. ER is a B-/C+ character actor who's most recently been on a couple of hit almost television shows, different almost tv "networks." He was former back in the day child actor who probably is best for his lead and/or supporting roles in a trio of cult teen comedies from about two decades ago. One he had the lead in; two were musically oriented; and two feature co-stars and bit players who would go on to A and A- list fame. ER probably could have joined them if he didn't bet his fame chips on taking the lead in a terrible (and terribly named) flop tv show in the early aughts that marked the first major effort for a production company after they made that ultra-low budget horror phenom released around the time of ER's peak fame.

So, anyway, now that I got all the hints out of the way, back to the story. So I was at this festival and in the audience for this movie. They were treating it as a party. And that party included a dare contest. There was a guy who got the film's title tattooed on his butt in front of the entire audience, for example. And there was a blind dare -- you didn't know what you werre doing until you agreed to the dare. In my idiocy, my hand shot up. I was chosen to do the blind dare.

Turned out to be innocent enough -- at first. I was dared to drink a "weinie martini" -- an unholy libation made from the juice from a can of vienna sausages (complete with a sausage garnish, like a martini olive.) When I was on stage, being interviewed about the dare as they were making it, I was asked by the host, the owner of the theater, what I thought it would entail. I learned right then and there, never give them an opening. I said I figured it was a drink someone dipped their junk in. I think you know where I am going with this now. Light bulbs went off. An offer was placed to the audience. Hands shot up.

But no one was more enthusiastic then someone sitting in the row directly in front of us.

A row of celebrities.

ER was deeply, cheerfully enthusiastic about being the junk-dipper. I can't blame him; he has the same kind of mischievious, gremlin-like energy when it comes to this stuff that i have. So, of course, he was chosen, and to his credit, he gave me the choice of shaft or balls (I went balls.) Off to the corner he went, a couple of dips and back he came with my drink.

Now I could have walked away then and there, but i'm standing in front of a packed audience full of people, and i can't just NOT do the dare, so down the hatch it went. Wasn't actually bad; a bit salty, which could have either been testicles or sausage juice, I don't know.

But, anyway, how many of the CDAN commentariat can claim to say they had a drink made from a celebrities junk?

ER--
Indie Film --
Festival--
AM--
CP--

(bonus points if you can guess which commenter I am; hint, I have three words in my handle and one is an article.)