Evan in his natrual habitat - don't feed the editor!

I’m not going to get into how long it’s been since I last blogged, what the status of the project is now, yada yada. Instead, I’m going to tell you a story.

So, a few weeks ago I was in New York finalizing the edit of The Sheol Express with my two directors, Ryan and Mike (more on that later). As you can see from the picture, I was a lean mean editing machine, and heaven help you if you got in my way (at least that’s what I take away from that picture).

After 2 days of non-stop work, I needed to be released from my cage, so I convinced the powers that be that we should go out for the evening. What would a trip to New York City be after all if you didn’t go out for a night on the town? So we meandered our way over to Tribeca to sample the hearty offerings of the Ear Inn which, Ryan assured me, had the best Guinness tap in the city. A live jazz band called the Ear Regulars was playing in the foyer who, despite their schlocky pun of a name, were very good, and we squeezed past them in order to pounce on the one empty table in the back.

They simply painted over parts of the 'B' with black paint.

Although it is a bar with the requisite 21 age limit, each table is covered with a paper table cloth and the patrons are provided with tiny pails of crayons (many a spontaneous masterpiece has been drawn on the tables of the Ear, I’m sure). But, as we got to our table, we discovered a man from the table next to ours was pilfering our crayons. Perhaps ‘pilfering’ is too kind: he was taking the whole pail. Granted, we didn’t come to the Ear Inn for the crayon scribblings but still - they were our crayons.

He mumbled something - an apology, perhaps - but he was laughing as he said it and was quite obviously drunk, which somewhat negated the apology. We let him flee back to his table rather than start a bar fight over a handful of tattered crayons, sat down, and ordered. The burgers (delicious) and Guiness (best tap indeed!) arrived and we dug in. As we were stuffing ourselves, I glanced over at the Crayola-klepto’s table and noticed a girl who looked suspiciously like Kirsten Dunst.

Now the angle was such that I had to look slightly over my shoulder to see her, and since she was already facing me, it would have been painfully obvious that I was staring at her. In short, I didn’t get a good look. I nudged Ryan and whispered, “That girl looks an awful lot like Kirsten Dust.” Ryan agreed, but he couldn’t get a good look either, so we spent the rest of the evening going back and forth over whether or not it was really her. At times one of us would decisively declare, “It IS Kirsten Dunst!” before someone else would say, “No, that’s definitely not her.”

I contemplated getting up, going over, and telling her that my friend Mike wanted to kiss her upside down, but I figured that would be awkward for all parties involved, especially if it did turn out to be Kirsten Dunst, so I refrained.

Sucking face, Spiderman style.

Unfortunately, she got up and left, along with the inebriated crayon bandit, before we could get a decent look, and we were left to wonder if it really had been her. When we got back to the edit suite (read: collegiate bachelor pad) we googled the heck out of ‘Kirsten Dunst’ in an attempt to ascertain where she lived, but not even Wikipedia was much help; her personal Twitter feed was a few months out of date and provided no clues as to where her stomping grounds might be; and all of the pics that that came up on the image search were glammed-out movie star shots that looked nothing like the makeup-less girl we saw at the Ear. Sadly we concluded that it had not, in fact, been Kirsten Dunst. Celebrity sighting FAIL.

Waiting to board my plane home to Tulsa the next day, I busied myself with eating an over-priced sliver of mystery meat that vaguely resembled a hot dog while I browsed the racks of magazines. There on the cover of Glam (or Elle or Lucky or Shape or insert-your-own-throwaway-gossip-rag-here) was Kirsten Dunst’s smiling mug. I pulled it off the rack and, oblivious to the shame brought on by reading such a magazine in public, thumbed to the article in question.

It was a vapid puff piece that had everything to do with nothing, but there, buried on the third page, was a casual mention of the apartment she had recently leased in….. (drum roll please) ….. Tribeca.

Boo-yah! So it was Kirsten Dunst we saw at the Ear and it was her drunk friend who stole our crayons. Celebrity sighting WIN.

Now what does this all have to do with my script and the status of my film? I’ll get to that tomorrow.

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