SFIAAFF: Parties To Which We <i>Were</i> Invited

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SFist was thrilled to receive an invitation to opening night of the 23rd Annual San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. After the screening of the fantastic Saving Face, the action turned to the gala reception, held at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

The evening began well for SFist, for as soon as we entered to Museum, we ran into Alice Wu, director of Saving Face, which we had just seen and loved. We dropped any pretense of professionalism and begged for a picture with her, to which she graciously agreed. Please forgive our self-indulgence in posting this picture here, but Alice is just so freakin' cool we can't help it.

Thanks to Mai Le for the invitations to both the screening and party, Chris Wiggum of Larsen Associates PR for making all our SFIAAFF coverage possible, and Alice Wu for letting us fawn all over her

After we recovered from out total starfu**er moment, we went after some food and booze. SFist is totally gonna beg for tips on how to get drink sponsors from SFIAAFF, as the promotional alcohol was flowing non stop. We learned that we don't like Crown Royal , (no matter how great the bartender is, and their guys were all super cool), that Quady Winery makes a solid product, and that while Sierra Nevada Wheat Beer is pretty good, we've got the fortitude to walk away without it when the promotions guy refuses to hand it to you until you take a key ring or lapel pin. Yet another triumph of both the spirit (walking away from free beer) and the wardrobe (we're no fashion queen, but there's no cleverly ironic way to wear a pin advertising beer--if you can think of one, please let us know in the comments) for SFist.

We were taking in the sights when we spied a lovely lady in yellow chatting up our date. We shot over there to kick the bi**h's ass for moving in on our man when we realized what a bad idea this was, for we would be taking on Elizabeth Medel, mother, former employee of the Asian Art Museum, and accomplished martial artist. We settled for a picture instead of a beat-down, and moved on.

While the mood lighting at the party did nothing to help us fulfill our Vile Bodies-inspired fantasies of a career in society photography, we had a teriffic night. The crowd was great, the setting perfection, and the food and drinks plentiful and varied. We had a divine time, which was capped off as we ducked out to meet up with SFist Jackson at the Vicious Bullshit wake up the street (we couldn't let him run off to Austin for the week without one last beer). As we headed out the door, we recognized friend of SFist Paolo from his blog photos, and stopped to marvel with him at the teeny-tiny nature of the universe. So, with his parting cry of "I'm famous! I have a blog on the Internet!" ringing in our ears, we headed out of the splendor of the party and back into the Tenderloin of our usual life.