Last night I went to the Memphis premier of Hustle and Flow. I’ve been friends with director Crag Brewer through the Memphis film community for a while, and I saw an early cut of the movie back in November, but I was extremely excited about the premier, as I’ve never been to anything like that before and I couldn’t be happier that someone I know is having such incredible success for a change. I have also known the guy who did the score for years, having played at the same clubs his old band Impala did back in the day, and my girlfriend dated him breifly. The pre-party was very cool (free wine and booze, of course) and the movie itself was even better on the big screen with the music attached and the sound design in full effect (as opposed to on a computer monitor, where I saw it before). Craig spoke before the movie and it was very emotional.
The after party was at Issac Hayes’ restaurant in downtown Memphis and it was hottest ticket in town. I try not to be a star fucker, but I’m so used to being on the outside that I felt like the dork who is finally invited to the cool kid’s party. It was great. The free “house wine” was Silver Oak, which is about $50 a bottle. All the stars were there, as were the mayors of Memphis and Shelby County and State Senator Steve Cohen and Justin Timberlake (who is from Memphis). Al Kapone (a Memphis rapper whose songs in the movie almost steal the show) played, and while he was doing his thing, all the people involved in the movie got up on stage with him, including John Singleton and Stephanie Allain, the producers who made the whole thing happen.
And I, a newly certified cameraphone junkie, was taking pictures the whole time while trying not to be too obnoxious about it. I got pictures of Timberlake (I didn’t see Cameron Diaz), Terrance Howard, DJ Qualls, Taryn Manning, Elise Neil, Craig Brewer, Knox Phillips (Sam Phillips son), the politicians in attendance, Al Kapone, Three Six Mafia, Jack Oblivian, the whole assembled cast and crew on stage, and an incredible shot of my girlfriend (who is very pretty) and Jody Brewer (the director’s wife, who is also very pretty) hugging with the most beautific smiles on their faces. And I managed to do all of it without pissing anybody off or looking like too much of a oaf. Visions of a huge Flickr coup were dancing in my head to the tune played by many glasses of free wine. When we got home, my girlfriend went to bed and I said “I’ll be there as soon as I post some of these photos.” As I’m flipping through the two dozen or so photos I took, I decided that one of them needed to be deleted. You can see where this is going, right? Instead of hitting the “delete selected items” button the menu I hit the “delete all items” button. I frantically punched buttons, cursed and screamed as the “Deleteing all images” message hovered on the tiny screen, but to no avail. All gone. Outta here. Zip. Zero. Nothing left. Why the hell didn’t I just go to bed and wait until this morning to post the pictures? AAARGH!
And that, my friends, is why you should never attempt to navigate complex menus while intoxicated.
-vibrotronica, a drunken idiot.