Day 5: My Festival Experience
Inside! Stealth celebrities, live dog collars, Nollywood classics, and barbeque. (Batteries not included.)
After logging a full six hours of sleep, the most consecutive winks I’ve managed to string together at the Festival so far, I wake up feeling more exhausted than ever. My body seems to have gotten a whiff of what a good night’s sleep smells like (wintertime chimney smoke + hot cinnamon rolls + angel earlobes), and now it’s going on strike until it gets more where that came from. I somehow override my body’s attempt to unionize and stagger from bed to shower to toaster waffles to work.
Montag, You’re It
Today Park City’s Main Street is like celebrity fun house, with random celebrities lurching out at you from every direction. Look, there’s Stew (Passing Strange) lurking in stacks of Dolly’s Book Store! And Robin Williams (World’s Greatest Dad), getting his picture taken with a fan. And Liam Neeson (Five Minutes of Heaven) promenading down the sidewalk. And Robin Williams getting his picture taken with a fan. And Bill Hader (Adventureland) waving at passersby from a balcony perch. And Robin Williams getting his picture taken with a fan.
Even when you think you've found yourself a nice, normal, corn-fed civilian, she too turns out to be a celebrity. Today we’re doing more man-on-the-street interviews, asking select passersby the question, “Where does it hurt?” We stop a young, heart-sore musician by the name of Angel Taylor, and a lovely, body-sore door-worker named Haydee Cifuantes (who gave me her blessing to name my baby after her!). Then Brandon and I approach an anonymous-seeming blond girl, who's standing off by herself at the side of the road, and manage to talk her into letting us interview her.
Evany: What’s your name?
Anonymous Young Thing: Holly Montag.
Evany: Could you spell that for me?
Holly (nee A.Y.T.): H-o-l-l-y M-o-n-t-a-g.
Evany: And what are you at the Festival for?
Holly: Just to check out a couple of movies, and go to the parties.
Evany: Nice! And what is it you do when you’re not at the Festival?
Holly: I live in L.A.
Evany: And what do you do in L.A.?
Holly: I work on a TV show for MTV.
Evany: What show?
Holly: The Hills?
Evany: What do you do for them?
Holly: I’m on the show.
Evany: REALLY? That’s exciting!
Holly: Yeah.
A Wynonna No Go
After pausing momentarily for a quickie vegetable stirfry with side of milkshake, we head down to the Music Café, thinking we’d get ourselves a dose of Wynonna. We’re over a block away still when we spot the line, which is considerably more substantial than my Judd-seeking curiosity. We try lingering at the side entrance, our Staff passes dangling provocatively, our faces drooped little-orphan-Oliver style, but not one of the door people bites.
As we’re waiting, a lady walks by with a fluffy live dog wrapped around her throat, and I fumble for my camera, but by the time I get it fired up, the vision has passed us by. I set off in hot pursuit, and the woman stops and turns, graciously posing for me as I snap a picture. When I’m done, she hands me a post card. “Tiny is BIG!” it says in a big, trademarked headline across the top, and then there’s a picture of the Tiny, posing with head cocked. “Tiny is an 8-pound mixed breed,” the postcard goes on to read, “available for: film, TV, print, runway.” Runway! Later, after visiting the provided website address, I learn that Tiny also has modeling experience.
While I’m off hobnobbing with dog models, I completely miss the arrival of Wynonna, who rolls in using the very same side door we’ve been stalking so forlornly. I just manage to catch the back of her unnaturally red head, along with a glimpse of her mindblowing tan. She is two shades beyond sanity, the all-over orange of an Earring Magic Ken doll. However those who actually make it inside the venue (a privileged group we never manage to become a part of) report back later that her face looked perfectly normal up there under the stage lights. Maybe her coloring was deliberately engineered to look human under gel light? Maybe so – anyone who actually uses the endearment “sugar lips,” which is how I overhear her address a fan, is the sort of larger-than-life person who might just dye herself a color that looks sane only on stage.
Burning Tires and Baked Beans
Later I head over to the world premiere of Nollywood Babylon, a documentary about Nigeria’s bustling low-budget movie industry. The Nigerian films themselves are impressively bananas, full of people morphing into Labradors and erupting witches, and the filmmakers behind them range from an evangelical queenpin to Da Governor, an expansive man with a crew he loves and rules with a combination of prayer, hugs, and an iron fist.
At the end of the post-screening Q&A – which features Da Governor himself, waving a Nigerian flag – the audience files out into the lobby, where everyone’s given their own copy of a Nollywood film. The DVDs are used and battered, and each film is unique. The one I’m handed is called My Sweet Heart (on the front, on the spine the title is listed as Sweeet Heart), and it’s emblazoned with pixilated photos of scowling men. It also smells very strongly of burning tires.
Later we all head to the annual Daily Insider late-night BBQ rager, where I stuff myself on a pregnancy cliché of pickles, pork, chocolate chip cookies, and baked beans late into the night. I’m also allowed to sniff many a nice person’s drink, a strange request that fazes exactly no one – a sure sign of a stellar and attractive crowd if ever there was one.
Tomorrow’s to-dos: Witness the most historical and important inauguration of my entire life, and do a load of laundry.
MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10
