the first five.

Just wanted to post this so people knew what I was up to. You know, other than doing puzzles and scratching my butt. So here, you prying bastards!

The first 5 1/4 pages of that will one day be The Deposed Kings of Red Rock are at the end of this post, just beyond the elephant. Keep in mind that it's Rough-rough and the .pdf I created before, so don't kill me for lack of clarity or typographical errors.

It's funny (I an shitty sorta way) that I'm writing this for EMF 377. About this time last year I was "helping" a friend with this class. By helping I was, in actuality, helping him cheat. At the time I had myself convinced I wasn't cheating -- had myself convinced. I didn't take me this long to figure that out, but I've only been thinking of it recently because I'm putting so much into work into the same final project for this class that I put into it last year. What makes it funny in that shitty little way?

I have the same professor.

Yup. I have a hard time walking into that class, and it only gets harder when I get my assignments back with notes noting proper formatting, story pacing, plots points...well, you get the idea. This time last year I certainly mistook "helping" with "cheating." I gave him older versions of treatments for The Nightmare. But while they might be older, I certainly can't use them here for any project at Towson.

I suppose I pay the price when I feel like shit for it and can't use my own ideas.

Because I helped someone cheat.

Aaaaanywho. Lets not makes this Poutytime. I have a question. Is a non sequitur a non sequitur if you ackowledge it before you engage the audience in what was, initially, a non sequitur?

What was I talking about? Oh yeah!

First five pages right now. First Act to come soon, if only because my grade depends on it. Rough draft of script? Before 2010, perhaps?



The first five pages of The Deposed Kings of Red Rock.


Red Rock -

MNF Live Blogging by The Nick, Eamonn, Lauren and Jason

11:24

Welp! That's it! Way to go for it on 4th and goal...AT FOUR YARDS OUT!

I'm going to finish the watching the game upstairs. Hopefully Jason's whimpering won't keep me up all night....you know, once I finish crying myself to sleep.

10:48

Rocky MacIntosh just SLAMMED Michael "Must Love Dogs" Vick.

See what I did there? Yeah, I'm a genius. No, no dear. There's no need to thank me. I do it out of the kindness in my heart. And another thing. Did you know that Michael Vick had named his home when he was running his dogfighting operation? Yup. He called it "Hotel For Dogs."

Ohhhhhhhh SNAP!!

P.S. Everyone else went to bed, so I'm only updating when I have something absurd to say. Because if I do live blogging now I'm just a lame dick talking to himself on the computer.

P.P.S. I'm going to see Where The Wilds Things Are. Tomorrow. Come hell or high water. Preferably high water because it'll give me a good excuse to try out my new swimmies.

10:09

NC: Halftime. Well, I guess it could be worse....we could be watching the game while battling a case of scorching herpes.

9:39

NC: TOUCHDOWN! WOOT!

EN: And...BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE!

Jason says, "That touchdown was so pretty they're gonna give us 20 points for it."

9:33

NC: I hope Danny Smith has Irish blood running through his veins, 'cuz I'm gonna start calling him The Angry Leprechaun. But he's right; those refs blew that call harder than a Thai prostitute at a donkey show.

9:23

NC: Fumble. I don't think that was supposed to happen.

9:22

NC: Jason and Lauren are totally gay for each other.

9:09

NC: Jason says, "I don't know what's sadder, the fact that I have tits or that you're attracted to them."

9:07

EN: "MumumummMAHMAHmumum...bbbbbbb. AH!"

NC: Jason takes off his shirt. Cue my boner.

8:59

NC: Lauren put her stupid pear in my bowl of chips. I swear, some people have lost all common decency. I blame the raunchy music of 90's pop sensation Hanson.

Brian Westbrook got hurt. I also blame this on the music of 90's pop sensation Hanson.

8:56

LN: this is like a sweaty gang bang and only the Redskins were invited

8:54

LN: winningest is a stupid word. made up by stupid people, whiteys.

8:51

LN: Jason won't shut up with the effing geetar. Nick is pretending that a light saber/steady cam thing is an automatic weapon weiner thingy ma bob.

8:50

JN: Oh good, we get an opportunity to punt.

8:49-Myth Busted! Cats don't know how to use drills.

8:46

LN: I am not bashing the Redskins. I am just bashing what is taking place at this moment. Fuck.

8:45-Touchdown Eagles

JN & NC: Effing facepalm.

8:44

LN: Wow Redskins. you shit the bed already, you fucks.

8:42

LN: kickoff...your socks and pull up a chair!

8:41 - Kickoff

NC: KICKOFF! KICK ASS. Butts. Fart. Tee hee.

Tonight is a special one, for this is Mr. Eamonn Nagy's first Monday Night Football game with the Redskins. In celebration of this, the gang will be doing a live blog throughout the game. I would say that you should check back often through the evening to keep up, but you a-holes won't even read this until three weeks from now. So screw you.

The guilty parties:

Nick "BLT Hold the L&T" Colevas (NC)

Eamonn "Mini Maniac" Nagy (EN)

Jason " The Hung Jury" Nagy (JN)

Lauren "Shoepants Galore" Nagy (LN)

NC: KICKOFF!!

SUPER DUPER CEREAL

This junk is gonna be lighting fast. Ready. Steady. GO!!

UNO! From here on out all of my nerd-centric blogs will be called "Super Duper Cereal," in homage to Al Gore and Manbearpig.

DOS! We Shoot Horses should still be up and running by Halloween. I hope it will be Halloween of this year and not 2012...because that's the year the world ends...except for John Cusack.

TRES! The new American Steel record is teh sex. I don't , quite frankly, know what that friggin means, but my inner cool guy says it's all the rage with the kids these days. I don't quite know how anything but sex can be "teh sex," but what do I know?

CUATRO! I joined the rest of civilization and purchased a Wii. The idea is that the Wii fit will encourage me to exercise more. That is, I plan to use it as something of a supplement to my weight-loss plans. For example: On days I have school I have to leave at 8:00am and I have class (with breaks) until 10:00pm. Then of course comes the dreaded ride home. Therefore, I can't get my Greek ass to the gym. But if I can burn a few calories pretending to Mario playing King Koopa at tennis...well then that can't be bad, can it?

Plus it's way fun.

CINCO! A few pictures of the best kid ever. Undeniably.

Dude. Lookit' them there blue eyes! He's like Henry Fonda! But a baby. He's like a baby Henry Fonda. Except he's not an actor. So he's like a non-acting baby Henry Fonda.

Good Lord....That kid has helped change my life for the better.

SIES! My EMF partners like my film project ideas. So does my professor. So that's cool.

OCHO!! On Tuesday I turned in my Sound & Story treatment. I turned The Pogues' "Sally MacLennane" into a treatment for a short film. I hand it in and my professor goes, "Hey, the Pogues! Nice choice!" That made me feel pretty cool.

NUEVE! The Wizard of Oz came out on Blu-ray....so uh....yeah. I just wet my pants if I am not mistak -- yes, yes...I have. I have wet my pants.

That is all.

P.S. Add

The Crazy Totally Longest Blog, Part 1

In my opinion, one of the most productive (not to mention fun!) writing exercises the the Stream of Consciousness one. You know. That one where you write in a stream of...uhm....something. Or other? I don't know. Whatever.

So as I was saying, I love the stream of consciousness exercise; it's proven itself time and again to be quite fruitful for my writing. Now, I've never come upon a fresh idea for a story. I've never had some amazing breakthrough with a story in progress. Never have I unearthed some mindblowing clarity on a long lost story I gave up on years ago. So why's it so friggin awesome? Here's the rub: this exercise has been my Giant Killer. The Giant?

Writer's block. UGH.

Something about SOC gets the creative juices flowing. Not having to worry about grammar, misspellings or typos, allowing myself to be nonsensical and silly, shooting from the hip and, in the end, allowing myself just to...well, GO! There's is something so fruitful about this that it just breaks through writer's block (or, at the very least, busts a few bricks).

I'm not suffering through writer's block right now, as taking two writing courses had pretty much forced me not to (ha!). But on the way home today I felt the urge to take a few minutes to just...GO! To just friggin write something!

So here's what I'm gonna do: Come Halftime, I'm gonna start writing and I won't stop until the second half starts. I'm clearing my head until the clock hits 0:00 and then I'm just gonna go beserk. It's funny; the last time I did this publicly it was posted on my MySpace blog and my friend Scott commented that if he didn't know any better he thought I was drunk or high when I wrote what I had written. A few years later, I've had more than my fair share of drinks - and a few of those drinks lost me The Good Life -- but tonight I'm stone cold sober and ready to....

----------

GO!! ( 10:07pm)

So here's what I'm thinking for Deposed Kings: it's not about the Western, it's about race and reconstruction; think Ford's The Searchers, right? But here's the thing. Ford didn't really succeed with The Searchers in his attempt to portray racism as a terrible thing, he made Wayne, the protagonist, the racist, so you have all of these racist butts thinking their position is justified. So here's the problem: you can't be heavy handed in the approach. Clearly, the antagonists (the former confederate mercenaries) are the evil folks preventing forward progress. And clearly, Alex and his fellow townsfolk are the physical representation of a Utopian society - race, gender, age, and all that - it's all relative when it comes to society. Wow...pretty deep? or not. It's hard to get deep when you're pumped full of diet coke and worried about getting your yellw legal pads in order. Seriously....yellow legal pads. I have tons of them now. Every time we send an archived file to be "destroyed" (you know they just throw it in the dumpster) I go through it and take out all the binder clips, legal pads, paper clips and folders i can find. i save all the stuff except for the yellow legal pads for the firm. why? everything else gets re-used....no one ever uses a legal pad with three pages in it so they told me i can just take them. so i do. so now after the move i have a fartload of them in my room. i asked jason and lauren if they wanted any but they said no, their loss. i just took a sip of diet coke to eas my nerves this feels like a PG rated Hubert Selby novel. wow. who gets that joke? and how lame was it? very. whatever, you kids need to read Selby so you don't end up drug addicts. anywho

i have this idea. (well a few) for my emf 222 class but i don't know if my partners will go for them. here's the thing. in intro to film (now film/video) you're warned that you won't make your masterpiece - i heard this twice!- both times i listened. back before i fucked everything up with school a couple years ago i was well aware that i wasnt some great artist, but i was just a student. at 28, i still think that way. i still think i'm learning. so anyway, my partners have had lackluster responses to my comical ideas for short films ( all shorts are sposed about 1 minute except for the last two) They have these very serious ideas....mine are funny. lame, but funny. but the important thing is: they provide ample opportunity for execution of basic film techniques. and thats the point, right? meh.

i have to get my transcript from CSM so towson no longer thinks i'm a fuckup.

imean an educational, institutional fuckup. not like a whatareyougonnadowithyourlife kind of fuckup. meh. i'm working at it. atheism? forget it. agnosticism? psh. honestly there HAS to be a GOD if i'm still alive. there had to be a GOD. there's a reason i'm still around. sure, sure, all ya atheists will come out and say something about survival of the fittest and i'll say: look at me? ya think i'm the fittest?

and then they'll get all cute and start talking science talk so i'll quote charlie from It's Always Sunny in PA and say "what's with all the science talk" and they won't get it so/

/i'll flash a little hog and be on my way, not really caring if they like me or not because damn it it's sorta fun to be living.

(10:27)

----------

That little slash is where my alarm went off. I finished the thought. I'll be completely honest; I wish I could place that backslash so that my post-alarm verbage read:

it's sorta fun to be living.

But alas, that was not to be. It would be almost fitting, wouldn't it? I had once convinced myself I wanted to die. Had convinced myself that no one loved me, that no one cared. I had myself convinced that I was alone. Well, I still feel pretty lonely at times, considering at this point last year I was screaming as loud as I could "I'm in love! She's The One!" and yet having no faith in myself or anyone else which led down a dark road and, well...we all know how that turned out....

I've found faith. I've found God.

And so I may be lonely here on earth, but I know I'm not alone in the end.

(P.S. I cut this blog short before it became too preachy.)

Roman Polanksi: Cowardly Fuckhead

I raped a 13-year-old girl. I pled guilty to the crime. I fled the country to avoid time in prison. Thirty years later, I am a nondescript person in France. I have a typical 9/5 job.

Am I guilty of the crime?

----------

Well? Is he? Of course he is!!

Err, right?!

I Tweeted (lame!) a couple hours ago about how absolutely infuriated I was at the notion that people in the motion picture industry had jumped to the defense of Roman Polanski since his capture in Switzerland. And yes, I use the word capture. The man is a damned criminal. He has been on the lam for thirty years....

Before I continue, I point you to the FilmDrunk take on the whole situation, as it ultimately makes my point (but it's also funny). My take isn't quite as amusing as I've had much disdain for this man ever since I read about his crime. So you're reading it here, folks. This is one of the few times I'm actually taking something seriously.

In summation: Roman Polanski raped a 13-year-old-girl, Samantha Gailey. During the course of criminal proceedings, he pled down to statutory rape. He fled the United States before being sentenced. Since then, he's spent his years making movies and...well, living. His victim has since forgiven him and wished that charges be dropped. I praise her for being so forgiving.

Mr. Polanski? He continued to make films, continued to receive praise. He won a Best Director Oscar for The Pianist. Why could he not accept it at the ceremony? Duh....

Roman Polanski: He's a cowardly fuckhead.

I cannot mince words here; Polanksi was charged and convicted of a crime, pled GUILTY and then fled the United States to live in a country that would not extradite him. He is a coward. He gave videotaped evidence in a civil case so that he would not risk extradition by the U.K. to the U.S.

----------

My name is xxxx. I raped a 13-year-old girl named xxxx. She is related to a famous Hollywood director. I pled guilty to the crime. I fled the country to avoid time in prison. Thirty years later, I like to make feature films for a profit.

My victim has forgiven me.

Am I guilty of the crime?

-----------

Well? Is he guilty? Of course!!

His victim may forgive him, but he has still committed the crime. Who cares who she is or what he does, right? He raped someone and he was caught, charged and convicted of the crime.....

If you're reading this blog, you know I'm one of those wannabe Hollywood dorks. I'm one of Bill O'Reilly's Hollyweird Librulz. I'm anti-war and anti-death penalty. I think the war on drugs is stupid. I even give dumb asses like Sean Penn a pass when he acts like a complete jerk, breaking the No Smoking law in L.A. But ya know what? Sean Penn didn't rape anyone.

I really loved Martin Scorsese, Terry Gilliam, Pedro Almodovar and Darren Aronofsky before today, but at this point I can now see that these filmmakers are so entrenched in the artsy-fartsy version of reality that they can no longer distinguish between right and wrong. These are a few of the folks who have signed a sort of Free Roman Polanski petition.

Honestly, it is quite disturbing that so many filmmaking institutions have come to Polanski's defense. I've read quite a few stories on this, and it seems that only filmmakers are coming to Polanski's defense. It would be my assumption that none of these men (yeah...men) have dealt in any way with rape in their lives. God forbid any of the above film directors have daughters, nieces, or ANY family members who are raped. If they have, I'd be very surprised.

A number of female actresses and directors have defended Polanski as well. I do not honestly know how to explain this phenomenon.

And finally, we will take this into the Third Act....

------------

My name is Darren Aronofsky. I raped a 13-year-old girl, the daughter of Martin Scorsese. I pled guilty to the crime. I fled the country to avoid time in prison. Thirty years later, I like to make feature films which receive great acclaim, even an Academy Award. They also make a great profit.

Am I guilty?

----------

Yes.

May God please forgive me for being so horribly brutal, but any person who has aligned themselves with such an insipid crusade deserves to have their names inserted into such a treatment....

But if Darren Arronofsy had sex with the unwilling daughter of Martin Scorsese, what would happen? Or vice versa? Would either be so willing to cry foul at the prosecution of the rapist?

We cannot know.

----------

My name is Roman Polanski. I raped a 13-year-old girl. I pled guilty to the crime. I fled the country to avoid time in prison. Thirty years later, I like to make feature films which receive great acclaim, even an Academy Award.

So how has anything changed? From an unknown rapist to a renowned Hollywood filmmaker:

I raped your 13-year-old daughter. I pled guilty to the crime. I fled the country to avoid time in prison. Thirty years later, I am a nondescript person in France.

Am I guilty?

----------

Well?

Is he?

boring writing stuff while i watch football and the emmy's

I've finally hacked my through to a solution on hammering out the treatments of my stories in a fashion that doesn't have me creating temporary solutions that, without a doubt, wreak havoc in the scriptwriting stage - but to be more specific, the problems come when revising.

For all these years I've created unnecessary problems for myself when it came to revising my drafts and finalizing my ideas; when I would write my treatments - and subsequently my first drafts - I would half-ass it when it came to filling in holes in the story. I'm not speaking of plot holes, but rather the simple A,B,Cs of the story. For instance, when I came to a point where it went like so:

Okay. I know what I know in the next scene between these two characters, but I know I'm missing an action beat. But since I don't feel like figuring this out, so I'll just move on. .... Damn! Does this sequence fit with the rest of the story? Does this character arc even seem realistic? IS the theme clear?

These were all questions that have plagued me with every story has has made it to the revision stage. And this is only because I hated so much to bring my excitement for the story to a halt in order to focus on a seemingly minute detail (I know, right? I've previously considered the clarity of theme as a minute detail! Shame on me!).

Now, I don't think this is so much a problem that occurs that the Treatment stage, but more of something that occurs in the brainstorming/spitballing/whatevering stage. I think it's had something to do with me going directly from Idea to Treatment. That is, I never spent much time thinking about all the little details within the acts, so my treatments simply became an extended version of a simple idea, and not a more detailed and intricate execution of said idea.

Does that make sense? Probably not.

Ah, hell.

So what I'm doing this semester is hammering out a screenplay from start. A western in the style of Leone's flicks (especially Duck, You Sucker), as well as The Wild Bunch, Rio Bravo, and The Searchers. Thematically it's closest to Ford's Searchers, as it's a study of institutional racism the Old West.

The key this time around is that I started with just the vaguest of ideas of how I wanted to tell the story. I knew how it started, and I was pretty sure I knew how it wanted end. I had an idea of the main characters and the settings. I had a nice sense of the style I wanted the picture to express. And not much else...

...but I'm taking a lot of time to flesh out the little details one at a time as they come until I have a treatment created organically. The first time through it was one page. The second time it was about three. The third draft was six. I've made two attempts at the fourth run-through, but

started over because I stopped to figure out the tiny little details of just one sequence.

It feels pretty darn good.

Told ya. Boring writing stuff.

We started the swear jar. Now Eamonn's first word is less likely to be an F-bomb!

Carrot top is the joan rivers of the prop comedy world

I just realized that i like sundays a little less than i did before. But it has nothing to do with the actual game

tweet tweet like a stupid bird

Oh yeah! Two other things:

1) I have a Twitter account. I don't know why. (http://twitter.com/nickcolevas)

2) I can post from my cell phone now. This serves no practical use other than keeping a public file of all the insane/inane thoughts that spring forth from my mind. So when you see the little one or two-line blogs sprouting up with no subject line, you'll know I just came up with comedy gold....

...or not. Whatever, dude.

a bit about school and then yelling at stupid andy

I told myself that I would be confident when it came to stepping up in Film I...

...And I was. I didn't even need to up my meds (ooh, lookit me being all hip and tragic and emo, using phrases like "up my meds"). Man, I'm so super cool. I've formed my group and they both seem like cool kids so I'm psyched.

This semester's gonna be pretty badass. Making short films is gonna be good for me, but my writing courses are gonna be a blast. Between the two of them I get to write a feature length screenplay (I've done that before, but I haven't finished one in two or three years) and adapt a short story as well as a myth as a script for a short film. I'm thinking for the short story I want to adapt Gabriel Garcia Marquez' The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow.

I do have one major regret and that is that I can't use one of my scripts because...well, lets say I gave it away -- at least as far as using it at Towson is concerned. I've regretted this for a while now, but it's come full circle. We won't be seeing The Nightmare on film any time soon. Shit, for the first time I ever I feel icky when I'm reading academic integrity policies. Scratch that - I feel like a complete douchebag. People told me that I would regret it. But did I listen? Nope.

I never said I wasn't stubborn or stupid.

Aaaanywho, if any of you jerks wants to be in a few goofy short films (WHAT?! You think I'm gonna waste my serious work in a Film I class?! Pffft!), gimme a shout. Jason and Lauren said I can film in their house.. BUT ONLY IF ANDY FINISHES THE DAMN PAINTING IN THE DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM!! Oh - hmmm....lets see if this will light a fire under his bony butt....

So when we first moved in the Nagy's and I procured the services on one Andrew M. Craven to paint a portrait of Godzilla in the downstairs bathroom, which I would be using for the most part. Andy, being the champ that he is, blazed through most of it in just a few hours.

That was in May.

Now, every time we have visitors they ask, "Is that ever gonna get finished?" My mom hated it at first, but when she came to visit Sunday she goes, "You know, that would look really nice if Andrew would finish it." Is my mom a fan of Godzilla? Only time will tell.

So to you, Sir Craven! I challenge you publicly! Finish this painting by the end of September, or I shall post incriminating photos of you all over this blog - NAY! - all over Facebook! And I think we know what I'm talking about. winkwinkandydressedasababywithdirtydiaperwinkwink

Finish the painting, sir. So that I may you-know-what in peace and tranquility.

But no seriously. This semester is gonna rule.

oh, fudge!

I drove all the way up to Towson to find out that my 11:00AM class had been canceled.

I have to leave the house at 8:30 to make it up here with time to spare.

It's about an hour and forty minutes from Dares Beach to TU.

The parking garages are always full. Finding a spot is a futile endeavor.

I have to park in the overflow lot and walk 10-12 minutes to campus.

And it sucks.

I went to the Union and checked my e-mail.

I saw the e-mail from the professor noting that class had been canceled.

It arrived in my inbox at 7:29 this morning.

Do you know what time I checked my e-mail? 7:25 AM.

Know how I know that?

Cuz I looked at my clock.

And it was 7:25.

Then I turned off my computer.

When I saw the sign on the door, I just sorta chuckled...

...and muttered to myself, "Oh, fudge..."

I dunno. I think it's funny.

We Shoot Horses

Just stopping by to let everyone know that....

1) School starts Tuesday. I'm super-psyched about it. I've done a lot of soul searching in the last few months and I've come to understand that a lot of my depression, anxiety and frustration had to do with me giving up on my dream. Now that I'm back on track I seem, on a day to day basis, to be generally happier. In other words: I'm no longer angry at myself, so I don't project that anger onto others.

I'm taking two writing courses the semester, which is awesome in itself, but coupled with the fact that I've finally broken out of my writer's block (which, it turns out, really wasn't writer's block at all, but rather a mistake in how I thought about writing, but that's another blog for another day.) Long story short, these next few months are going to be very productive me me as a writer and will give me a great chance to really hammer out my ideas in preparation for filming.

And!

2) By the end of the year We Shoot Horses will be blasting your face with the most awesome awesomeness known to know man. 4RLZ. This site came from the ludicrus mind of Andrew M. Craven, so it's sure to be chock full of zombies, Vikings, Godzilla and Ghostbusters references.

I think I'm going to be responsible for blogging/ general writing/ posting pictures of my genitals.

Below is the logo for the blog Andy and I started as a joke.

Happy Birthday. Hope you have a terrific one.

Puddleduck's Learnin' Lesson #1: Oxymorons

Lesson #1: Oxymorons.

Read this.

A dive bar in the East Village? No no no no no. That's not how that works, silly goose!

Uhhh, yeah. You can't have a dive bar in the the East Village. By definition, you can't have dive bars in wealthy neighborhoods and it can't be owned by rich musicians. Hey, it very well could be a good bar...just not a dive bar.

PSH!!! Fall Out Boy? More like Fall Out JERK!!

LOLZ! LMAOZ!! See what I did there?

Yeah, that's a total burn.