Failure to Perform #2-4

I finally arrived inside of the Paramount Theatre, and choose my seat. It was a wonderful seat, about 10 rows up on stage left.  Not too close and not too far away.

My imaginary boyfriend of 15 years, James Franco walked out on stage to introduce the film Sal. I took a photo..

We were both very "moved"... this is what I got.

Failure to perform #2

And so I thought, oh well, he's coming out for a Q&A after the film... I can take some then!

The film was excellent. Very poignant, the last day of Sal Mineo's life.  It very succinctly illustrates what a caring man he was, down on his luck but looking up from a low point. His life cut short by random violence, potential never realized... Val Lauren was spectacular.

***Spoiler Alert*** here come failures #3-6

#3 He took the questions very seriously for the most part... He considered each answer very carefully. I could tell, because apparently he does the same thing I do when I am thinking about what I'm saying... He closed his eyes and/or looked up towards the ceiling. (at least you can kind of tell who he is here even if his eyes are closed)

Failure #3 which included a nice shot of Elvis, and a shot of part of Val Lauren... and a nice blobby photo of James' left hand. No one ever accused me of being a photographer.

And then the huge rush to the stage, and thank gosh, I was close enough to get to the stage... things are looking up!

He's working his way down, heading my direction... I'm holding my copy of Palo Alto waiting like I'm 16 years old, the year is 1957 and this man is Elvis Presley... and... then... the theater lady decides it's time for me to leave, and grabs my arm and physically pulls me away from the stage.

Failure to perform #4

At this point, I'm ready to cry. I don't know what to do... this has turned into such a farce.

Failure to Perform #1

Since the premise of this blog is my attempts to meet James Franco, that the blog exists at all is an adumbration of the fact that it never happened. While I'm seriously unhappy about the turn of events, I can also see the extreme humor in this, and I'd like to share it with the world.

I purchased the Lonestar Badge for the Austin Film Festival at a price of $115.00. I purchased this specifically with the knowledge that it would allow me to get better seats at the films. Of course the only film I truly HAD to see was Sal.. but to me it was worth it. I may never get another chance!

It took me two days to find a friend that I could browbeat into attending with me to take the pictures... but.. I finally convinced my friend David. We rented a hotel room, and planned what other films to see, and where to eat and so forth.

I was so excited I could barely sleep on Friday night, knowing that tomorrow morning I would at least be in the same general vicinity of the man who holds a key to one of the items on my bucket list.

We got up Saturday morning, I got dressed and we headed out for the 2.5 hour drive to Austin's Driskill Hotel, everything was going great! We arrived, got our packets, put on our badges and headed out to scope out the lay of the land and see our first film. "Small and Creepy" had some really good shorts, I particularly loved "Sebastian's Voodoo".

We had dinner at III Forks Restaurant, which is delicious, and then saw our second film "High Road". The premise was great, there were some kinks that needed to be worked out with that, but the premise was great. Prior to that another short called "Ronnie's Donuts" played, which was really good. What a wonderful day. At some point I checked in on twitter, and saw a photo of James and the "Red Bull" girls... so I was jealous... but it was okay... I knew he was at least in town!

Went back to the hotel to rest.

Got up the next morning, and was on a natural high. Showered, got dressed, had some breakfast and headed out for the serious stuff.

We arrived at the Paramount about 2 hours before the film's start. I was probably the 150th person in the badge line. We were broke up because the door to the Intercontinental Hotel couldn't  be blocked, and I was right there at the velvet ropes with my copy of Palo Alto in my hand when none other than James Franco himself walked out of the hotel, directly towards me. I said out loud to my friend David... "hey David, there he is".

Silently smiled while my internal theme music played as James Franco walked towards me with a small smile on his face...We never spoke, but our eyes met and I just knew he was smiling at me and me alone...

Then he walked across the street to the Driskill Bar and Grill while I mentally beat myself senseless for not having the intelligence to casually walk next to him and say "Mr. Franco, I don't want to cause a scene for you or anything, but could you possibly take a moment to sign my copy of Palo Alto Stories? I really loved it."

And that my friends, was failure to perform numero uno.

Welcome!

For the past 15 years, I've been an avid fan of the talented James Franco. Like most of his fans, I'm female and initially I became a fan because he's terribly attractive. However, because I would like to think that I'm a "deeper" person than to be a fan of someone strictly because of their genetics.. I started paying attention to his work, reading the books he's authored, watching his indie films and reading information about him on reputable websites etc.

I'm still a fan. His views on most everything coincide with mine, and if he were someone who I actually knew in my real life... I'd like to think that we'd get along famously, despite the fact that I'm just a "average chick".

For probably 99.9% of the 15 years that I've been following his career and personal life, I've wished that I could be in a position to actually meet him.

A few weeks ago, I found out that he would be premiering his movie "Sal" at the Austin Film Festival. I decided that this may be my one and only chance to meet him. So, I pooled together enough money to get a Lonestar Badge (middle ground VIP) pass to the film festival, enlisted the aid of an accomplice, and set off Saturday in hopes of accidentally running into him. (Or at the very least, getting to the front of the stage in time to get him to sign my copy of Palo Alto Stories after the Sal Q&A.

I'll be posting more soon on the results of that weekend trip, as well as any other stupid things I do to possibly put myself in a position of shaking his hand, getting a photo with him and an autograph on my well-worn copy of Palo Alto.