Time flies...

[happenchance]

Yeah...soooooo...I haven't updated in like 3 months. This is because I've been so busy I haven't had barely any "free" kind of time, and if I did I didn't feel like writing. So, because I didn't write, there is way too much to catch up on, and because there was way too much to do, this will never be possibly complete. Hmm, yes, quite a dodge.

I'm sitting here at the Fairfield Arts Council, presumably my last day of interning, with legit nothing to do. There have been some slow times here, to be sure, but I mean I kept asking for stuff and right now I have nothing, so I'm taking advantage. So yeah, I've been interning six hours a week here this semester, doing random jobs from writing press releases/letters, to moving boxes…

…and actually, I stopped writing there, e-mailed it to myself, and now it’s December 31. Boy time does fly.

Anyways, in between that time, even more baller stuff has happened. In fact, some of THE most baller things ever. But first things first…

This semester was absolutely crazy, as was sort of predicted. I didn’t finish Maximum Carnage by the end of the summer, as hoped. No, instead the whole process took me until late November. Yeah, so that was a lotttt of work. I had Fridays off this semester, all of which (except for the last couple) were spent as my straight-up editing day for Maximum Carnage. At one point, I decided that it had to be finished before Thanksgiving, both to have it ready to show people over break, as well as to have it accomplished for my own sanity and to have time for my final papers/projects.

It came down the fun king wire, too. I was recording voices, re-recording things that got messed up and tweaking like crazy. I spent so many hours a day in the recording booth at the end, saxophones and synthesizers and guitars and whatnot putting a soundtrack to it. In the last two weeks, I put about 60 hours in per week. This is on top of my classes and internship. I was literally not eating for days, barely sleeping, both because I would work late and get up early, as well as the fact that I’d be so nervous I’d have trouble sleeping physically. Man, it was an absolute crazy time for me. In the end, after creating a somewhat funked up prototype DVD, I fixed the mistakes and had the final one in my hand at 4:45 on November 21. We had to be out by 6:00 for the Thanksgiving break, so I really cut it close.

I watched it with Mitch, Parshva, Anna, and Lori at Ashly’s house the following night I believe, and with the family on Thanksgiving. I think most people weren’t expecting it to be as much as it turned out to be, which is pretty good.

Thanksgiving break was a great chance to regroup a little bit after an unbelievable hectic few weeks. Just some general hanging out with friends. Though on the last day of break, a really awesome thing happened. I hung out with Brett Young-Fountain! One of my best friends from kindergarten whom I hadn’t seen since he moved to Missouri after 2nd grade.

We recently found each other on Facebook, and he was in CT for the first time in 15 years or so, since his dad lives in Stratford now, after living in various other states. He was in Norwalk visiting with a friend of his he goes to college in Chicago with, so he called me up and we met up for a bit. Talk about happenstance, right? It was so crazy seeing him again. And like though sooo much has changed, it was still like the same somehow.

Also over break, I got a response about an application I had sent out. Several times over my college career I’d sent my resume out to Marvel Comics, just for the hongl of it. Never had I gotten a response. This time, when I got to the question “Describe a project you’ve worked on that makes you a good candidate for Marvel” I explained the Maximum Carnage movie I did, and the nearly year’s worth of heavy work it took to make it. This time they responded within days and talked about setting up an interview.

What else this semester? Well, in general it was one of the best. Despite being constantly busy and really not having time for much random fun, I did get in a few fun weekends and stuff. It was fun living with friends again, minus some standard downsides of living with other people. The apartment was awesome (as it presumably will continue to be for the final three months) and no major fiascos.

Also, as I learned after being home, I actually got all A’s, despite being mad stressed out and overworked. Go figure, right? My first 4.0 semester and it’s the craziest one. 7 classes, too! Well, either way I’m happy about it.

One of the highlights of this semester was actually my birthday: December 1, kicking off what’s turned into an overall pretty hat month. At midnight, Tony, Steve and I took shots of Jager while playing video games, board games, etc.

I went to sleep and woke up around 10 AM or so. As it was my first true Friday off as well as my birthday, I decided to not do any work that day. Instead, I spent the morning finally playing the new Zelda for Wii. It was pretty hat, but as I was going through it I began to get like a hang over, which sunked. I played for a couple hours though, which was awesome, and made me want to play it so much more. I think I played for a couple hours more the following week, but again school and happenstance kept me from playing Zelda.

So I chongled all day, then I went out to this Chinese/Japanese restaurant as a kind of co-birthday dinner for me and Michelle, who is also born on December 1. Tony and I order sake (which of course I wasn’t even carded for). Kind of strange having a hot drink like that, but it was pretty good.

We came back and Tasha was just arriving. I went out into the parking lot to meet her since she couldn’t find a parking spot. So I hop in and we’re driving around, and then we see this guy kind of walk out into the lot. She slows…and I see it’s Mark Faticoni!! Who told me he couldn’t make it that night! Haha, I was so surprised, and it was awesome that she kicked him out of the car at the other end of the lot to keep the surprise going.

They came bearing gifts of alcohol, and we went back to the apartment and start, where I nearly ruined my night after playing a game of quarters where I was forced to drink beer by everyone. I guess the facts that A) it was beer and B) that I was drinking it so fast worked together, but I felt like cromp within like 20 minutes and was ponssed that I probably ruined the rest of my birthday.

Well, we played some Wii and I chongled with the drinking in order to recover. Luckily, I did quick enough for the night to end up being mad baller.

Well first, during this initial drinking with a lot of college friends, roommates, plus Mark and Tasha, and Zach, we started pulling some massive honk that Tasha and I had talked about since freshman year.

Being a campus nearly entirely composed of white people, Tasha and I always joked that we should get her into a group of these people, and flip out when someone says “nigger.” Haha yes. So this night, we played it out. In the early hours, we’d be playing a game and I’d just say something like “a nigga gangsta” or like “damn, nigga” and Tasha would look at me kind of funny and say “What did you say?” and I’d kind of give her an “oops” look and be like “sorry, you know I didn’t mean it like that.” It made people around me a little uncomfortable but like we’d move on. Then gradually I’d say it more and she’d get more upset, and like storm out of the room. The people around me would be like “Mark, this is why you can’t say stuff like that, what’s wrong with you.” And I’d kind of be like it’s no big deal or whatever, she knows I didn’t mean anything bad by it, I don’t know why she’s so upset.”

After a while, Zach, Mark, Tasha and I head out to a bar-my first ever! We went to Skybox, where they scrutinized the fat out of my ID upon entrance, so it was a good thing I didn’t pull any honk. The other night, though, I went out to a bar with Mitch, Parshva, and Lori and I wasn’t carded at all, meaning over Thanksgiving I probably should have tried to go out with everyone.

Anyways, back to my birthday, the bar was pretty fun. They all ordered me crazy shots and drinks and whatnot. While we were there we discussed the further plans for this joke we were playing on everyone. Were we going too far? How much longer can we do it without cracking up?

Also during this time Mark and I remembered that it was Friday…and therefore “opposite day” a la Derrick comedy’s skit. So we started talking in opposite day talk for HOURS. In fact, when we left the bar, Tasha was driving and I was giving her directions in opposite day talk, which naturally confused things, but I refused to revert. On the way back, we stopped at CVS where I was forced to escort Tasha to ponss behind a dumpster while Zach and Mark F went in. Then I was forced to stay in the car. In the end, they came out with Mentos and something in a frame for me. Turns out they stole a menu from the first bar I ever drank at and signed it with funny stuff. I was so happy. What awesome friends.

We came back to the apartment to find everyone still partying, as well as Katelyn and James and Alyssa who came to celebrate as well. We played some game with bouncing coins into an ice cube tray…while of course slipping “nigga” into the conversation. We kicked the joke up a notch and Tasha stormed out of the apartment. I’d follow her into the hallway yelling like “This is what’s wrong with YOU PEOPLE!” right before the door shut, then we would like collapse in stifled laughter, while occasionally raising our voices in mock anger to keep everyone inside convinced. Other times, she would just get away from me and talk to Mark F and Zach in character like being angry. Another time, we went into my bedroom and shut the door while yelling and like hitting the walls and making all this noise, then she came out first like angry. Tony came in to be like “Are you all right?” and I was like “Yeah,” and he was like “You gotta watch your mouth.”

Anyways, it all culminated in another “slip up” around the game table, and Tasha like got up and started saying how like I was oppressing her and how racist I was and about how this is how I repay her for coming to celebrate my birthday. Then she choked me to the floor, off my chair and we like wrestled till someone broke it up. We were trying so hard to disguise the laughter as crying and struggling, but it was mad tough.

Finally, at some point Tasha was like “I have something to say,” all serious. She then broke the news that we were kidding about her being upset, and that we’d literally planned this for YEARS. Some people were kinda mad, some were laughing almost as much as we were, and others I think didn’t know what to make of it. Either way, it was friggin awesome.

At one point then, after drinking mad stuff with Mark F, like this peach schnapps stuff as well as possible a whole bottle of mango rum between the two of us (no one else seems to know if anyone drank this, which seems more reasonable). I had to throw up, which actually felt mad bomb, then came out to drink more. Around 4 or so I think they tried to leave, which meant that we sword fought a little in the hallway, and I refused to let them go haha. Mad great birthday, I barely minded being so old.

Oh man, and also, Chuck gave me Purple Rain on DVD! Such a hat, hat movie. I’ve seen it three times already. When I went home for birthday dinner, I got the album on vinyl (with the original poster that’s now in my room at school!), a Spider-Man video game from my sister, an old ThunderCats miniature that I had been missing from the collection, and best of all, an original cel from the ThunderCats cartoon. As in, the hand drawn, hand-painted image that was used in sequence to actually produce the show. Very cool. Finally got it framed last week and it looks baller.

Around this time I heard back definitively from Marvel and set up and interview for December 7th. This turned into quite an awesome day. I went into the city, with my resume, and like a DVD of my movie and the script in case they wanted to check that shont out.

I went into the building and up to the Marvel area. The waiting room alone was incredible. They had original cels and pencil sketches from the X-Men cartoon hanging up on one wall, a lithograph signed by a bunch of Marvel artists on another, and a rack of comics on the another. While dentist offices and things often have magazines in these racks, Marvel had a whole bunch of their comics. I filled out an application while I waited to be escorted past the Spider-Man statues and into the office.

As I was led through the floor, it was like something out of a dream. The inner workings of Marvel Comics! And not only was I here, but here for an INTERVIEW! Every desk had action figures on it, or hanging, or posters or original art work, or proofs for upcoming issues. It was incredible.

Then, what I thought was to be an interview turned into a series of 5 or 6 interviews. I met with several different assistant editors from various groups, each responsible for different comics. So I met with the people that do like X-Men and Marvel Knights (Punisher, Ghost Rider, etc.), the people that do Avengers, Iron Man, etc., the trade paperbacks people, the Hulk/Mondo Marvel group, the Ultimate group. Each one I explained my same basic love for the comics, and how I spent all this time to make Maximum Carnage into a movie. It was funny…in the Avengers/Marvel Heroes office one of the editors was like “Fairfield University? Do you know Tess?” and I was like “Yes, and she’s actually Mary Jane in my movie.” Happenstance cityyyyy.

Later they took me upstairs to more like business side, where I was introduced to another guy that helps do like custom projects and other stuff. He gave me mad stuff, like trading cards, a comic that was made for the military, a greeting card, and like one of the Spider-Man reprints that goes into certain newspapers nowadays. It was cool, but overall I’d be doing lame like business type stuff there, instead of the other groups, who all said I’d be helping read and edit scripts before they are even drawn, then at various stages of production, and helping color check and all this sweet stuff.

So I left in high spirits, though it made the idea of not being chosen worse having seen how bomb the office was. I came back to be locked out of my apartment since I gave my keys to Steve to drive my car back from the train station since there was no parking. I waited for a bit, then hung out with Alison across the hall in her apartment, before deciding to hunt down Steve and Tony in the science labs.

I changed and grabbed my saxophones to head down to the Quick center for the sound check for our concert. Joel Frahm was the guest artist. I’d never heard of him, and during warm-ups he was like missing high notes and stuff and I was like “man, wtfat.” But man, that was all just warming up. He kicked major onx. In fact, the whole concert was awesome. We played my arrangement of “Peaches en Regalia” which came off better than it ever did in practice. We had the three sopranos pretty much in tune, the balance pretty good, and I was overall pleased to finally perform the song with a band.

Then a few days later, I got the best e-mail of my life. Quite simply it said “Congratulations. You have an internship at Marvel.” I was in the library computer lab cuz I had to print something out. I saw the message and had this feeling I never had before. Just like sheer happiness. This was Marvel Comics, telling me to work for them. Now they told me that how it would work was that after talking to all the offices, if one wanted me they would pick me like a draft. But, they told me I was in before they knew which department, so I take it either that wasn’t how it really went, or that at least two offices wanted me, so they were just like “yeah, you’re in, regardless.”
As the days went by, I was really hoping I wasn’t in the guy upstairs away from the editorial stuff. Then I started to think, “Man, I’ve got to stop being greedy, I’m interning at Marvel, wherever will be awesome.” Which it would be. But to make things even better, I was placed in the Marvel Knights office, which was probably my first choice, or at least top two.

So yeah, that totally rocked. Then like one weekend Zach and I went up to the Sam Ash music store in New Haven. He was checking out acoustic guitars, while I went to the saxophones. They had just gotten in a Selmer Mark VI alto sax, and as basically THE saxophone, I of course had the intention of playing it. From the time I played a Mark VI back in high school, I realized that it truly is the best saxophone ever made. Don’t ask me why they can’t, with better technology today, make an instrument better than this particular model made in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, but I’ll tell you even the top of the line Selmers (and other companies for that matter) don’t stack up to the Mark VI.

In terms of key placement and appearance, it’s kind of what all subsequent saxophones are based on, though things certainly vary a bit. In fact, the Mark VI has probably the most comfortable set-up anyways, if only slightly different. But regardless of that, the point is it is pretty in-tune for a saxophone, which naturally has some issues between octaves and things. And on top of it all, it flat out has the best tone of any instrument. Supposedly something to do with the metal that doesn’t exist any more (some left over World War II metal that gives instruments great sound).

So anyways, this particular horn was in outstanding physical shape. Very often you see Mark VI’s with almost no lacquer left, so they look like rusty pieces of cromp, even if they play bomb. I played it in the store for like 2 hours, busting out any song I could think of, putting it through the paces…soft, loud, high, low. I’ve played several Mark VI’s at various stores, and this one was even better than all of them. Middle D, always a really stuffy note, played as clearly as the C below it. This alone was something completely foreign to me on the sax. In short, it was the greatest saxophone ever…and I bought it. Actually a later Mark VI being from 1971, it blew away all the 60’s Mark VIs I’d ever tried, and looked amazing, and had the original case. So after bargaining the price down a little bit, I walked out with the ultimate saxophone.

Christmas was good. For the first time, we didn’t open presents when we first woke up, which was somewhat torturous (especially for my brother haha). We waited for my sister and her fiancé to come over, as well as my uncle, so we’d do one big thing. It was pretty hat. I got the new Beatles LOVE album (which I’m listening to again right now), controllers and Zelda for Wii (but no system due to it being impossible to find, and when you do having to be in a line for many hours before store opening), and this sweet dragon cane that hides a sword, among other gifts.

Christmas vacation has consisted of a lot of long over do, straight-up, unadulterated relaxing. Reading a lot of old and not-so-old comic books, paying close attention to the names at the front and seeing who I might be working with. Mark F got a DVD game of Deal or No Deal we played a few times. One night we played like three times, and before the third I was like “Let’s play for a real dollar” since you can do two player head to head, and see who ends up with the better deal. Anyways, of course I lost that one, and now Mark keeps MY dollar hostage. I think he even rips it a little each day. I will free you dollar!

For the next round though, I didn’t have any other dollars on me, so I was like “I’ll owe you” but he wasn’t having it. Anyways, I put something from my wallet up as wager, and this turned into at least a half hour of us taking random things out of our wallets and putting it on the table and being all dramatic and telling the story behind each one. Btw, Mark F had some reallllly hilarious stuff in there. Ask him about it sometime. Ask him. Aiight?

In the end, we didn’t even play again. But it was mad fun. As was Scene it? Music edition that got played a few times already over break. The best was when there was a question about Purple Rain once haha.

Oh, the other day I was sleeping and the phone rang. I was so tired and like tried to get up to get it. By the time I got there, it had stopped, so I went back to bed. Then it rang again. I got up quicker and answered. Tasha was on the line and was like “Mark? We have Wiis, come right now.”

BAM I threw on pants and shoes and a coat and I was out the door like lightning. I basically floored it down to Best Buy. There was this other guy in front of me going pretty fast, and in my tired/paranoid state I was thinking he was also racing to Best Buy for a Wii, so I was like determined to park quick and run in. Of course, this guy turned the opposite way, not going there, but no matter.

I ran in, and Tasha gestured to the back of the store from her register. I went back there and asked a guy and he was like “Nope, we don’t have any.” So I was like “FUNK! either Tasha got it wrong or I missed it.” So I looked by the Wii stuff…no systems. Oh, well. I went back to talk to Tasha and she was gone from her register. So I started looking around for her and then she just comes out and waves me on. Apparently there is a glass case BEHIND the video game section, and that other guy was an idiot. Inside, two Wiis.

So she walked me over to the register and I paid for that junk, and then came home and basically played Zelda all day. In fact, between that and playing sports with family that’s been the last few days pretty much.

So yeah, December = Christmas, Birthday, Wii, Mark VI, Marvel internship, as well as finally being reimbursed for my movie costs. Oh, and you can’t forget bomb grades and vacation.

So tonight is New Year’s Eve, and of course things weren’t even settled till today, but tonight should be fun. Parshva and I trekked just over the border to New York to get champagne and honk.

On the eve of 2007, it feels a little weird. Not the typical “wow, 2007?! I can’t get used to writing that! Or saying it!! WTF THIS IS CRAZY!” In fact, just the opposite. I am so used to 2007 now. Like it is the year I graduate college (which IS scary), so I’ve been seeing that on everything now for the past four years. My e-mail is all “07_mbasso” so it’s been in there. Also, my sister is getting married June ’07, so that date has been all around. I don’t know, I’m just totally down with it this year.

Also…in terms of seeing it on paper, I remember in 2003 it seemed ridiculously far. May 2007 graduation…but 2007 period! what the fat?! However, as soon as it hit 2005 (officically “the future”), 2007 has always felt right around the corner to me.

For whatever reason, 2007 is here in mere hours. 2006…what a year. Overall it was a really good one. There was some definite downsides, of course, the usual deaths and things that are terrible, but I mean 2006 involved a decade old plan to make a stop motion movie of Maximum Carnage come to fruition, and with a full-blown effort never otherwise possible, finally having an FBO, donating my hair, growing it again, the Juggernaut and its aftermath a sweet living situation at school (first the “forced single” then the apartment), the ultimate saxophone, the Wii, Marvel. Things are going right for once, and I’ve had a lot of fun. The year was rung in with a sweet bike ride around the neighborhood for crying out loud. Gosh, too many crazy things.

2007. I’m ready.