Extreme Bromance: Finding the Star

When I finished the script back in the day, I never knew if I would even make it. There is a huge difference from just writing a flick to actually making it and casting was something I didn't really think about. Except for the lead. From day one I knew who I would have star in it. In fact, I wrote it with him in mind. That man is named Ben Banks.

Ain't that a sweet slab-o-man?

We always wanted to work together on a project that was bigger than us just dicking around on a camera. Such as this classic that truly showcases our talents and the whole department:

When I finished writing the script all that time ago, I felt a little embaressed about showing him a movie that I wrote with him in mind as the lead. I mean, he starred in a movie named after him for God's sake! With a nervous pit in my stomach, I gave him in the script to read. He came back to me within a few days and not only liked the story, but was pumped to work on it. This helped me feel at ease. In some ways, it made me feel better about the project. If I could get a guy like Ben on my side, then it was a great step in the right direction. Ben Banks and I talked about the project on and off for the last two years. It was something we always wanted to do, but always felt like a pipe dream.

Enter Senior Capstone.

Over the course of my college career, I went back and forth on capstone ideas. I think One of the Good Guys (OotGG) was always the project I wanted to do, but I never thought it would happen. When the second to my last semester rolled around and I still didn't have an idea of what to do, it was my teacher Ben Braten who suggested that I work on OotGG. I thought it about it for a while and after having a talk with Mr. Banks, who agreed to commit to the project, it was on. Figured what do I have to lose? I am in college and this the best time to try to make a movie like this.

Once it was decided, Ben Banks and I started working on it. We met multiple times to talk about his character, Caleum Crow, and the motivations behind his actions. Ben gave me many great suggestions on what he wanted to bring to the character and I re-wrote aspects of the script to accommodate. Caleum was becoming Ben and Ben was becoming Caleum. To help Ben, I even wrote a detailed back story of his character's life and family. I felt that was the least I could do to help Ben get into character and for the fact that he was donating his time to a project that will probably never make any of us any cash.

Having Ben Banks on board has boosted my confidence in not only OotGG, but in my abilities as a director and writer. This has truly become a collaborative process. I look forward to working on this project more and more even though it fills me with dread. Good thing Benny is my leading man. I honestly don't think this project would work without him. 

Such a class act this guy.

Making Movies, Telling Stories

So it has been a while, but I am here to update. For the next little while I will be updating this blog for my senior capstone. The reason being is that the upper ups of our college feel that the capstones that our department (which is film) produces (we make movies) are not as good as a research paper, cutting a cadaver open or whatever the nerds in math do. I was asked, along with a number of my peers, to keep a log of what we are doing to make these projects come to fruition. This will be my personal experience of working on my senior capstone project. 

I have actually been working on my capstone, on and off, for about a year and a half. My project is a movie I wrote entitles 'One of the Good Guys.' It is a story about one man's loss of family and his journey to fill the that void. He finds this solace in a criminal organization who fulfill that family need.  The hero then begins to compromise his values to fit into this surrogate family. The premise was taken from bits of my own life and the life of my father's and the original draft was written two summers ago in about three days. As of December 15th, 2013 I have rewritten and edited the script. It is an ever changing piece of work that will, I am guessing, be worked on till the day the movie is finished.

This is just the first entry to what I believe will be a long road. It has already been pretty tough and will only get tougher. This project has stretched my limits as a student, an artist and a filmmaker, but I know it will be worth it.

Whoopsie Poopsies.

So it's been a little while. Had a pretty eventful summer. Medical problems, deck building and just general laziness. I am in my last semester of college and it will be a doozy. The main thing I gotta do, besides pass, is work on my senior capstone. Which will be a movie I wrote.

Here I am shooting the first scene.

I have to admit, I am really nervous. This is a project that is more detailed and complex than anything I have ever worked on. The excitement I'm feeling is overwhelming and is only equal to the gut-wrenching fear. This project is a big step.

With all that being said, I will try to keep up with the updates. I forgot how relaxing it is to just write about things in my past or funny experiences that happen to me. A lot of good ones happened this summer alone such as fights, hilarious junkie meetings and other things.

Stay golden.  

This golden.

Crying, ain't it a bitch?

I just had a birthday recently and am almost 30 years old. It is a bit surreal. Becoming older, I have noticed interesting things happening to me. Almost like hitting puberty all over again. Only instead of zits and awkward boners, I throw out my back doing simple tasks and get awkward boners.

They awkward as hell.

One thing I have noticed, and I will probably lose coveted "man points" and "street cred" for this, is that I cry a lot more during movies than I ever have before.

As previously stated in other posts, I use to be in a gang. While in the gang, one does not show emotion. Ever. Emotions are viewed as a sign of weakness. Even when one of the homies dies, do not cry. Being apart of these jolly group of gentlemen, I followed these rules to a 'T.' For all the years apart of them, I never cried and I never cried for the years following. One could say I was a stone cold gangsta.

You know they are hardcore when their pants are pressed. 

Years past and I left that life behind. I began to open up a bit more, but still never cried. Cut to December of 2005. I went to a movie that changed all of this. I saw Peter Jackon's King Kong. It was filled with action, suspense, and a giant gorilla punching dinosaurs. The end of the movie is what changed my life. When King Kong died, I started to cry. This shocked me. I quickly exited the theater and ran to my truck. It was there that I cried for another five whole minutes.

When I was finished, I cleaned myself up and drove home. My mind tried to comprehend what happened. Anger filled my body. I quickly suppressed this strange event and carried on with my day.

I cried three times just looking at this picture.

The following years, I began to get emotional at certain things. I would well up during some movies. Tears would stream down my face when I listened to some songs. Sometimes it felt like my body was trying to make up for all the years of not crying.

I hated it.

My wife has assured me that it is okay to cry. Crying is not bad. I know she is right, but I still hate it. The other day I was watching The Coen Brother's version of True Grit. When Rooster Cogburn had to put down Blacky after he rode it to death, I lost it. I bawled. Again, I felt stupid. I figure it is something that I will have to deal with.

I am becoming more emotional in my old age.

Pictured: Me now after listening to Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones.

Sunday Night's Alright for Fighting

This is a story that happened just recently. I was at the college working on some lame documentary project and it was getting late. After putting many hours in said lame documentary I was ready to call it a night. I saved all my progress, turned off the lights and trudged out to my truck. It was time to go home and away I went.

Driving through the town of Desert, Utah on a Sunday night is always great. There is not a lot of people out and the whole town has a hushed and quiet tone. I really enjoy it. On this night, however, things were about to get noisy.

A hive of scum and villainy.

While rushing home, I made a turn onto a street and cut off a small car. I have to admit that it was totally my fault and I was a huge dick. I could have waited literally two seconds and this whole story would not have happened, but I didn't. A huge douche was I. Now the person was behind me. Pissed.

The person was revving their engine and riding my tail. I was apologizing in my rear view. This did not help the situation and looking back, this person probably thought I was flipping them off. As we drove through town, all the while this person is continuing their dance of revving, honking and tailing. It was going to be a long ride home.

I am the cause of his pain.

After a couple minutes, I rolled up to a stop sign and did what the sign asked. The person behind me slammed on the breaks and squealed to a stop. Then I heard the door open and close. Peeking in the rear view, I saw the person, a disheveled man who looked like the actor French Stewart if French Stewart enjoyed meth for a number of years. I let out a sigh.

French Stewart told me to roll down the window. I was a bit curious, so I obliged. He had some choice words for me. Most of them involving a word that rhymes with duck. One thing that I noticed about Mr. Stewart was he smelled like alcohol. Bad. French then ordered me to step out of my truck. I told him I was not going to do that. He yelled some more. I was sick of him, so I stepped out.

Now I am a pretty big guy, so my wife tells me, and that is something I always forget. French Stewart noticed my size and took a step back, but because he was powered by alcohol he did not back down. I told him I was sorry and I did not want to fight. French Stewart did not care about things like laws and reasons and because of that he took a swing.

He looked like this, only less crazy.

 I have to admit, I was a bit shocked. French Stewart landed me square on the job and hit me a bit harder than I thought he would. I rubbed my jaw and looked at French. He knew he was in it and it was on. I straightened up and raised my fists. I stepped in and punched him square in the nose. French stumbled and fell right on his back. 

He groaned a bit and I walked over to him. I asked him if he needed help and he shook his head. I reached down and helped him up and into his car. The whole time I kept asking if he needed me to call an ambulance or a ride to the doctor. French was a bit confused, stunned and kept shaking his head. I made sure he was in all the way and closed his door. He sped away. I rubbed my jaw, which still ached a bit and walked back to my truck.

I let out a laugh and drove home. Life can be interesting.

In this story, I am played by Channing Tatum.

The Magic of New Years

I hope everyone had a great New Years Eve because I know I sure did. It started after I got off work at Barnes & Noble. I only worked 2-6:30, but I was not in the mood to be there. Reason being, I had just finished in the huge war campaign of Holiday Retail and I was shell shocked and jaded. And like a soldier returning home, they called me back into duty for the smaller battle of New Years Eve.

Once finished, I got a call from my friend, Baby Gorilla. He wanted to know if partying was in my agenda for the evening. Regretfully, I informed him that it was not and that I was going to spend the evening with my wife, drink some sparkling cider and watch movies. Boring, yes, but I did not care. I was burnt out from working and wanted to actually relax this Christmas Break. I told Baby Gorilla this and he proceeded to insult my sexuality.

Yeah yeah yeah. I love dressing up as a woman of the evening and performing sex acts on senators.

Pictured: Me

I told him to enjoy his night, be safe and only call me if something is horribly wrong.

That was my mistake.

Baby Gorilla cursed my name one more time and hung up. I hopped into my truck and sped home, blasting Jim Croce and singing loudly in joy as the holidays were over. I barely avoided some crotchety old man pulling into my complex. I yelled happy holidays. He flipped me off. All was good in the world.

I ran inside and greeted my smelly lovable dog, Honeybun, with a kiss and a pat on the head. Wifey was laying on the couch, fighting off a cold, and I kissed her head. I was so happy to see her. We chatted as she made tea and I started making dinner. She fed Honeybun and then we sat down to eat. Movies were booted up and my wife and I relaxed on the couch. Honeybun, fat from her meal, crawled up in between us and grunted her satisfaction as I pulled the blanket over her. All three of us. My little family. It was perfect.

It did not last long because the spirits hate me. A lot.

Especially the Spirit of the Buffalo. He is a dick.

My phone buzzed. I ignored it. It buzzed again reminding me that there were people outside my warm bubble. I sighed and looked at it.

Baby Gorilla: yo man i need you to come pickme up from this party ampretty drunk

I shot back: You cant get anyone else?

Baby Gorilla: hell no it newyearseve ad urvyone is partyin pick me up faggg lol

Gritting my teeth: If I do, you owe me. Big. Time.

I waited a moment as he debated owing me. Or he was just to drunk to read my text.

Baby Gorilla: kk hurry up it gettin w1ld

When I looked up from my phone, Wifey looked at me with sad, yet understanding eyes. She knew something was up. I told her that Baby Gorilla needed a ride as he was totally smashed. Wifey let out a sigh.

"Alright, but you owe me. Big."

Honeybun grunted, punctuating the seriousness of the debt I owed. I got up, got dressed and kissed the two. Away into the cold night I went. Baby Gorilla texted the directions and I drove as fast as I could. Angry as I was, I was still a bit nervous. I prayed Baby Gorilla was not hurt.

After about ten minutes of driving, I arrived to the house. It was a rager. Tons of people and music coming from inside. I parked on the street and walked into the house, letting myself in. People were drinking and having a good time.

This was how hard the party was raging.

I hated all of them.

A large noise came from a back room and I made my way there. I walked in to see Baby Gorilla on one side of the room and three other guys on the opposite. This was very familiar. A fight was about to go down. The three guys were yelling angrily at Baby Gorilla who was in turn yelling back, only he was more jovial. He was having a good time. I called to him. Baby Gorilla whipped around and smiled.

"Hey! I am glad you are here. We should get outta this shit hole."

One of the three looked at me and drunkenly asked if I knew him. I told him I did and I was here to pick him up. The guy walked over to me and told me that was a good idea as they were about to kick his ass. I assured him we would get out now. Baby Gorilla yelled he would leave, but he first had to use their restroom. The three of them looked amongst each other a bit confused. Finally, they agreed. Baby Gorilla could use the bathroom, but right after that he was out of there.

A good ol' fashion Bro-Down.

Baby Gorilla and I started out and he asked where the truck was. I told him. He nodded, thinking. I had a bad feeling. He told me to wait out at the truck and he would meet me there after he used the can. Walking out, my bad feeling got worse. When I reached the truck, I stared up at the stars and was reminded how beautiful nights like theses were.

I was whipped back into reality when I heard loud cursing and crashing from inside the house. I turned around to see Baby Gorilla laughing loudly. Carrying a Christmas tree over his shoulder like some deranged lumber jack. The three guys were behind him. Remember, all of them were very inebriated, so they stumbling around. Baby Gorilla almost fell at least three times in the short ten yards to my truck.

When he arrived, he threw the tree into the back and yelled at me to drive. I hopped in and tore ass down the road. The three guys drunkenly yelling in my rear view mirror as we drove away. Baby Gorilla was laughing the whole time. I gritted my teeth. It was twenty minutes to midnight and I was out driving around with a giant drunken hyena. This was when Baby Gorilla stopped laughing and slowly turned to me, eyes wide with a maddened glee.

"We need to got to the desert."

This is where I wanted to spend my New Years.

I was about to argue, but then thought otherwise. Baby Gorilla and I are about the same size, which is big. He, however, was fueled by alco-fuel. He won this time. I agreed and into the cold desert we went.

After about ten minutes of driving, we arrived in the moonlit frosty wasteland and parked the truck in a valley. We both stepped out into the biting cold, my breath was coming out in thick white puffs. I did not see my New Years ending in a frozen desert. Baby Gorilla grabbed the tree and threw it to the ground. Was this it? We were going to just leave the tree out here like two inept mob soldiers who do not know how to properly dispose of a body.

Baby Gorilla then revealed a bottle of lighter fluid from his jacket with a Cheshire grin. Looks like we were a step up from inept wise guys. I laughed. Baby Gorilla dosed the tree with the entire bottle. He pulled a lighter and lit a bit of paper on fire, tossed it on the tree and we watched the tree light up. Suddenly, a Coke appeared in front of me. Baby Gorilla revealed that he had stolen lighter fluid and the Coke along with the tree. He told me how he knew how much I like Coca-Cola. I thanked him. Even being a drunken mongoloid, Baby Gorilla was a good friend. I thanked him.

Watch out for the vomit

I popped the top and heard the delicious fizz. I took a sip. Even on a night so testicle shrinkingly cold, a Coke tasted delicious. I turned to Baby Gorilla, the fire light dancing across his face and asked him what happened in the house. He took a deep breath and told me that those 'assholes' got mad at him when he started to relieve himself on their carpet. When they started chasing him, he found the lighter fluid in the kitchen, along with the soda, and pocketed them on his way out.

I stared at him a bit dumbfounded.

"Happy New Years!"

It was midnight. He hugged me and told me how grateful he was for me as a friend. I was touched. He smiled, took a step back and threw up. Violently.

I sighed, "I love you too buddy."

The magic of friendship. 

Black Friday part 3: The Final Sacrifice

Driving through the night with our tunes bumping, we made it to Target. Things did not bode well when we pulled up and there was a fist fight over a parking space right in front of us. Skittles' faith in man was fading and I clutched my switchblade. After parking, again, far away, we made our way into the store. We missed the grand opening of their sale and walking through the gutted aisles of Target was like walking through some deserted war zone. Merchandise was scattered all over. Their was an eerie hush as the shoppers were in a long that wrapped throughout the entire store waited patiently to purchase their items. The three of us were distracted by the amazing Nerf section Target had. I do not remember what Nerf guns were like when I was a child, but these new ones were super awesome. They had bolt action sniper rifles, tripod mounted Gatling guns, six barreled pistols, and the amazing list goes on forever. Baby Gorilla decided if anything was coming out of this night, it was going to be a Nerf gun. I would have agreed, but that means we would have to wait in the physically impossibly long line, which means we would miss Best Buy. With tears in our eyes, we laid the Nerf guns down with empty promises to return for them. Skittles and I pulled Baby Gorilla away from the large sniper rifle he was clutching. He finally agreed and the three of us left for Best Buy. 

" Bienvenue à la Target."

The three of us away'd to Best Buy.

Best Buy had all the choice deals and was the reason for the whole night of adventuring. The line to get in was several hundred feet. We parked and decided to wait in the car for the line to die down. Baby Gorilla wanted to know why and Skittles revealed that the reason he did not want to wait was because he was cold. The holes in his pants seemed to have grown. Skittles needed pants. Fast. It was decided that we skip Best Buy for now and head to the mall where American Eagle was having their amazing pants sale. We could not continue our journey if Skittles was losing heat through the holes in his pants, so we reluctantly made our decision. 

There we are.

Quickly to the mall we drove.

Skittles parked the car and we hopped out to wait in line for the midnight opening of the mall. Skittles did a little dance to stay warm as we counted down the seconds for the doors to open. Once they did, Skittles shot out like a bullet inside and straight into American Eagle. He grabbed about seven pairs of pants, as the price was insanely good. He purchased the pants and we all took a bathroom break. Baby Gorilla and I relieved ourselves as it has been a long while and Skittles changed into a pair of his shiny new pants. We felt like new men. Reinvigorated by new pants and empty bladders. It was now time to enter into Mordor.

Back to Best Buy.

The line was down considerably when we showed back up. We got out and waited. The way to eager Best Buy employee was letting in a shoppers groups at a time. After what felt like a eternity, Eager Best Buy Employee opened the rope. The three of us took in a deep breath. Baby Gorilla wished for a Nerf gun. Skittles gripped his pants and I crossed myself with a prayer to our Virgin de Guadalupe. Into the belly of the beast we went. 

"She knows about good deals. AM I RIGHT FELLAS?!"

Inside was a madhouse. There were people everywhere. A cacophony of noise assaulted our ears. In Best Buy, the whole store is set up as one long line and we are forced in like cattle through a long, cheap electronic filled chute. I have to admit, the deals there were unbelievable. Brand new movies for two dollars, TV series for seven, brand new games for twenty. Baby Gorilla started pushing his way to the front of the chute to grab Assassin’s Creed III. Skittles and I went to find the coveted laptop. I asked another employee about where I could find the computers. The employee pointed me to a line where we had to wait. He also added that I needed a ticket. My heart sank. I inquired about said ticket. Apparently the laptop was a 'ticketed' item. These tickets were handed out to the first fifty or so people and are required to buy the ticketed items. Skittles asked if there were any left.

This is where the Best Buy employee shined.

He said that he did not know how many were left and that they may even be out. When Skittles pushed for more information, he said that we would have to wait in line, get to the end and then we would find out. To the computer line Skittles and I went. This line was hell. I assume that when one dies, is judged to eternal damnation, this is the line they wait in before they enter the infernal gates. It was not very long, but it moved very slowly. To compound the agony, the car stereo department was blaring dub-step. Loudly. My ears were being assaulted by the sounds of robots having angry sex. Hell this was. Skittles checked the time, it was twelve forty-five. We waited. And waited. Then we waited some more. Around one-thirty, I asked another employee about the situation on the laptops. I asked if any computers remained because I did not want to wait in line, get the front and then find out there would be no more of the item I wanted. The employee did not know anything. He did not tell us if there were any laptops left. He did not tell us how much longer we would have to wait. He then left. 

There is definitely dubstep playing there.

It was at this moment that I understood why people beat and/or kill people on Black Friday. The noise and the smells hammers your senses. Watching people descend into madness by resorting to physically and verbally abusing their fellow man is only funny for so long. I understand that the employees are overworked, under paid and forced to forfeit their Thanksgiving to deal with angry customers who don't want to shop. They just want to save. At this moment, I wanted to pull my knife and go on the warpath. No one was able to tell us anything of worth. I took a deep breath, calmed myself and went back to waiting in line.

Finally, at two o'clock, we got to the front of the line. Skittles and I hugged. A bearded member of the Geek Squad asked if we had a ticket. I told him that I did not and would just like to purchase the laptop so I could go home and recoup from this night of punishment. Beard-man then told us that he had good news and bad news. The good news was that there were two laptops left and I could get one. High fives all around. Then he dropped the bad news which was that since we did not have a ticket, we had to wait another hour. Reason being, the ticket system reseted every hour and I had to have a ticket to get a laptop. Another hour was what we had to wait. Another bombshell was that if anyone came up to the counter with a ticket to request said laptop, they would get it. I weeped as Skittles and I sat down at the front of the line.

This was where we met a nice young man who had the exact same problem as us only he had been at Best Buy since five that evening. We became good friends as we shared this horrible situation. I realized I still had Baby Gorilla's wallet, so I ran it to him. While walking, I saw two men fighting over a stereo system. They almost broke into fisticuffs, but it was prevented. A sick part of me wanted them to fight. I found Baby Gorilla, told him what was happenin and gave him his wallet. He showed me all the cool things he found which included the ultimate twenty-two Bond film collection on Blu-ray for our good friend Amy Blowfish. I hugged him because I may not live through the next hour and went back to the line. 

I know understand the Roman audience.

I laid down next Skittles and our new friend and waited in what was the longest hour of my life. Every time someone walked up to the counter with a ticket, both of us cringed. Luckily, no one wanted our laptops. Baby Gorilla finished his purchase and came to sit next us. The line began to grow behind us as we counted the seconds. At five minutes to three, we all stood up. Beard-man came up and like Moses parting the Red Sea, he led us to the counter. Our new friend and I skipped up to both counters and we high five'd. We got our laptops. The night was over. We won. Once it was finished, we strutted out of Best Buy into the cold air back to our car. We survived our first Black Friday and looking back it was not to bad.

"Salvation and $100 laptops await."

When we got into the car, Skittles' pants ripped and he hung his head. 

"Damn. It."