I Want To Break Your Fall

Bunch of stuff:

On Thursday night, me, Michael, VJ, Leslie, Pali, and Bri went to dinner on the river, which was where Bri was supposed to buy me my lobster wrapped in steak (or steak stuffed into lobster) for me pitching National Treasure the TV show in class. However, I told her that I had worked it out with our professor beforehand, out of the goodness of my heart, so she didn't have to pay for me (for the record, I wound up not getting a steak stuffed in lobster. Apparently that's hard to come by). At one point she pretended to eat candlewax, and I pulled out my wallet and laid out 60 american dollars, and I figured she'd say "you'll pay me 60 if I eat that?" and I'd say no, but instead she just ate it, so I had to pay her, but to get it back she had me drink a glass of olive oil. All the waiters watched, which I didn't realize until after when I asked a waiter who hadn't been serving us and I hadn't seen before where the bathroom was, and he asked me if the olive oil made me nauseas and that's why I had to go to the bathroom.

On Friday, our class was pushed back until 130, where we wrote a drama about a robot coming out of the closet to her family, which I actually like a lot. Then the actors performed our comedy script for us, which was cool, and then we all took a train to Pisa, saw the leaning tower, ate food, and then realized we had about two more hours until the next bus, so we hung out outside until it came. The next morning we woke up and went to Siena, which was aweeeesome. At one point we went to a wine museum, and they were giving free samples, and one wine was delicious; literally, the best thing I've ever drank, alcoholic or not, and I asked how much it was, thinking I'd buy a bottle. It was 25,000 euro. Not 2,500. Not 250. 25,000 Euro. I want more so badly.

Another thing I did in class the other day was write a love song about the valley of death, which I'm hoping one of the actors will compose and perform for me. It goes like this:

"I Want To Break Your Fall"

When the moon is enshrouded in the mist of my dreams

I bathe in your light to scrub myself clean

And when you climb the hills of my hopes to summits unseen

I follow you

But when you fall

Which you will

Well, then, I'll thrash and I'll scream and I'll kill

Yes, I will

Whoa-oh-oh

Well I wanna break your fall

As we're truckin' on down through the Valley of Death

I'll push all the Devil's vines aside

And kiss you in the sand lappin' up against the tide

Whoa-oh-oh

Yeah-ah-ah

Whoa-oh-oh

Yeah-ah-ah

Yes I will

And don't you know I lost you in the tornado of my fears

And I cried enough to flood the trail of tears

And I shut my eyes tight as I struggled through the years

But I lost ya, babe

Boop boop dee boop

Yeah, don't ya know I lost ya, babe

Whoa-oh-oh

Well I wanna break your fall

As we're truckin' on down through the Valley of Death

I'll push all the Devil's vines aside

And kiss you in the sand lappin' up against the tide

Whoa-oh-oh

Yeah-ah-ah

Whoa-oh-oh

Yeah-ah-ah

Yes I will

And as my throat fills with puke and my ears fill with wax

And my ass fills with shit, well I try to relax

But I imagine your face as you tumble and fall

So I can't get to sleep, nope, not even at all

'Cause you plummeted away from me, babe

Sha-la-la

Yeah, you plummeted away from me, babe

Whoa-oh-oh

Well I wanna break your fall

As we're truckin' on down through the Valley of Death

I'll push all the Devil's vines aside

And kiss you in the sand lappin' up against the tide

Whoa-oh-oh

Yeah-ah-ah

Whoa-oh-oh

Yeah-ah-ah

Yes I will

(Fade out on endless repeats of chorus)

Unlimited Feceeeeeees!!!!!

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Tuesday June 2nd

So, in the middle of the night, I totally electrocuted myself when my cell phone charger ripped out of the wall and I rolled over into it, and that kind of sucked. And by kind of, I mean it really fucking sucked, and I yelled "OW, FUCK!" really loudly and woke up my roommates.

Then, yesterday morning I pitched  my Sibling Rivalry outline to my class, which is my show idea about a recent high school graduate sharing an apartment with his brother who secretly is attending Spy School, only to find out his brother is attending the rival School of Evil Science. It went pretty well, though it looks like I'll need to turn it into an hour long show instead of a half hour, since I couldn't fit in everything I needed to in that small space (that's what she said).

Afterwards, the actors performed the horror script we wrote as a class, and then we finished writing a comedy script for them. After that, I went into town with Leslie, Pali, and Tony (all from my class). We got lunch, where apparently two sandwiches is cheaper than one coke, then gelato (I got a mix of Kiwi and Fruit Salad, which was maybe the best decision I've ever made in my life). We walked towards the river and down the side of it, just to get more of an idea of the city on foot, and came back at 7 for dinner. After dinner, a bunch of people, including myself, hung out in the lobby, which is what we usually do, and watched The Soup and then the first-ever two episodes of Lost, because a lot of people hadn't seen it. All the people who hadn't seen it kept saying "this show is stupid" while it was on, and as soon as it ended, they were trying to figure out who would buy the next episode to watch immediately.

Here are a bunch of pictures, just copy/paste:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022181&id=1358280175&l=fabc132b20

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022180&id=1358280175&l=6f286c273a

Country Prize 2: Journal of Confidential Information

Yesterday I spent the day inside, and read the script for Independence Day, and the script for Raiders of the Lost Ark. What surprised me the most, I think, is that the script for Independence Day blows my nuts, almost to Terminator Salvation levels (although at least the script for Independence Day isn't offensively bad). However, it's plain and not very well written-- My excuse for that, though, is that they probably sold the idea to Fox, since that's what Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich usually do, and then their script wasn't as important since they knew visually what they were going to do and just had to establish the order and the dialogue. It reads more like an outline than a script, anyway. And I don't really care: The movie is fucking bitchin', and that's all that matters.

Raiders, on the other hand, is incredible. Every little detail, every single punch and gun shot, is written out implicitly, and it's extremely well written. It's cool, too, because it's an early draft, and there's a lot of stuff in it that isn't in the movie (like a sequence in Shang Hai that was never even filmed but is both awesome and hilarious, if not slightly unnecessary). Both of these scripts are available on imsdb.com, if anyone cares to check them out.

Today we had class at 10, though I went a bit early to ask my teacher if it would be cool to pitch a National Treasure TV show in class, since one of the girls offered to buy anyone dinner if they'd do it. He said it was cool and he'd play along, so after we finished writing a comedy in class, I pitched "Country Prize," where Genjamin Bates is searching for a fabled prize which the Establishing Parents of our Country left transparent clues to on the back of the Bill of Rights (at "Genjamin Bates," Michael actually spit water he was sipping from out of his mouth, which is one of the funniest things I've ever seen). My idea for the second season was Country Prize 2: Journal of Confidential Information, which would follow more Genjamin Bates adventures.

I spent the rest of the day writing an outline for Sibling Rivalry, my 30 minute sitcom idea, which I finished. It still needs work, but I'll present it in class tomorrow, I guess.

More Details About Yesterday

Last night I was tired as all balls, so I'm going to try to write out some more details on my day yesterday, since I really just gave a quick summary.

We walked from campus to the Piazza San Marco (or something of that nature), which is about halfway between us and the Duomo, right on the outskirts of the actual city center. Then we turned right, walked through some outdoor market surrounding some church (you can see pictures if you follow the links in the below post), and then made our way to the river. You can climb down the wall on the side of the river if you want to sunbathe on the dam that cuts across it, so we climbed down and took a bunch of pictures (if you proportionally measured our time in each location, we probably spent the most amount of time posing for photos with a penis which someone graffiti'd on the side wall of the river-- you can also see pictures of that, too).

We got gelato at some point, and walked across Ponte Vecchio (I have no idea if that's how it's spelled, or if that's even exactly what it's called), then went to the Ufizi to take pictures with the statues (the Perseus killing Medusa is by far my favorite-- I also asked one of the dosants in Italian what it was, which made me feel awesome that I at least tried to use a little Italian). There's one statue of some dude beating the shit out of a Centaur (half-man, half-horse), and in one of my more inappropriate moments, I cured up the Centaur scene in Step Brothers, where Dale is a Centaur and he makes out with Alice, a Wood Nymph, and held it up next to the statue to see the comparison (whoever sculpted it was clearly inspired by Adam McKay's film). Then we walked around the Duomo, and back to Villa Natalia (where we live) to eat free dinner. Afterwards, most of the acting kids watched Twilight, and a bunch of us went back out, walking exactly where we walked during the day, to get gelato again by the Duomo. There, me and Tony, who have been faux-lightsaber battling with the lightsaber applications on our iPhones all around Florence, decided that we're going to buy toy lightsabers somewhere (I'm sure, somewhere in Italy, they're available), buy a boombox, cue of Duel of the Fates (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaiEHNv2g6w), and lightsaber battle up the steps leading to the top of the Duomo. So, if suddenly there ceases to be any more posts on this blog, it's likely because I'm in Italian prison for desecrating a church with a lightsaber battle (which will be worth it-- how many people can say "I went to Italian prison for desecrating a church with a lightsaber battle?"). We've already probably made a bad name for Americans by doing this with our phones on the sidewalks and bridges, all the while screaming "UNLIMITED POWERRRRR" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiCznGaex2c&feature=related), and "I'LL NEVER RULE THE UNIVERSE WITH YOU!!"

Also, I bought one of those zipper things where you lurch a round light-up frisbee upwards off of it, and it flies off into the air. It's really really really really cool, and I don't care if it makes me five years old to say so (that seems to be the big thing that guys sell on the streets at night, so you see literally dozens of them flying around in the air in the Piazzas). We rode the Merry-Go-Round, which was much more fun than you'd think, and just walked around a bit more (pictures of this should come soon, I didn't have my camera so I'm waiting for others to post them). We also passed a group of many 20 Americans, our age, drinking blatantly in the Piazza in front of the Uffizi (which is technically legal, but it was clear they were just having a party outside, and they were really loud and obnoxious, and I'm half surprised they weren't arrested, and half upset I wasn't with them).

That's about it from yesterday. Tex and I spent most of the day quoting Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and today it's raining, so I'm staying in to read scripts on imsdb.com (Independence Day first), since we have to read a feature script for class tomorrow.

Saturday

Today I woke up at 8:30. Why did I wake up at 8:30? A great fucking question. So, I went back to sleep, and woke up sometime after 10, I guess. Actually, more like 11, I think. Me, Michael, and Tex walked to the nearby deli thing to get sandwiches, which were fucking delicious (we all ordered separate things from the menu on the wall, and the old guy Georgio who works very, very, very slowly didn't listen and pretty much gave us all the same thing anyway. Not that I cared, because they were fucking delicious). Then we bummed around until 2, and then walked until about 7, from our dorms through the city to the river, up and down the river, to the Duomo and the Ufizi (or however it's pronounced) and then back. There's a statue outside the Ufizi of Perseus holding the head of Medusa, and it's pretty fucking awesome (read: very fucking awesome). Just as an aside. Then we came back, had free dinner, and walked back to the exact places we were earlier with the girls form class, for no real reason, but just because it was nice out. We got gelato, I bought for 3 euros a light up frisbee thing that flies in the air and is very very cool, and we rode a merry go round. Just got back now, at 2 AM. Some pictures are posted below (also with the two drawings I mentioned in a previous blog).

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021967&id=1358280175&l=b1cbb69ec7

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021964&id=1358280175&l=f5855fc1f1

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021963&id=1358280175&l=5f02e7b903

Drawings:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30697897&l=6b3ddef618&id=1358280175

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30697898&l=53380c4836&id=1358280175

Fridaaaaaay

We all slept in past breakfast on Friday morning, since there's very little time between breakfast and lunch anyway, and went straight to class, where we finished the horror script we were writing for the actors. We got several scripts that the networks picked up for next season, including Joel McHale's "Community" for NBC (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNrPr-UCtog) which was pretty awesome, and "V" for ABC, which I read the feature version of at The Weinstein Company and ripped apart because it was the worst script of all time, and the pilot for the show was exactly as awful. 

After class, I didn't do much of anything, in preparation for going out at night. Me, Andy, Leslie, and VJ (all writing students) played with the Vortex, but there were too many bugs, so we just came inside and hung out until dinner at 7. Then we waited about two and a half hours for Pali and Bri (also in writing) to get ready to go out, while all the acting kids left to go somewhere else, and wound up going to a bar somewhere across the Arno, which was pretty nice. After that, me, Michael, VJ and Ash (the only acting student out with us), went back to the dorms to sleep, and everyone else went out to some club. It was more or less uneventful, but pretty fun.