A Guido's version

I met Ryan in my former apartment in Westwood, also known as "The Cave", in the spring of 2010. Due to the obscure and depressing sadness of that house - a dusty hole that never saw the vital light of California sun - we suddenly became friends, when we realized that we had a lot in common.

Maybe it was our sheer passion for good music. Maybe it was our strong will to become, someday, creative and successful professionals in our fields. More likely, it was our shared desire of killing ourselves sometimes, if things don't go right.

I met him when he was still planning that masterpiece that will be remembered by future generations as "Turning Point". It was just a script, no actors, no budget, nothing. A script and a quite peculiar wannabe-director, at that time compulsively obsessed with online poker and insanely addicted to a stupid song called "Rub it on my titties".

Ryan and I met Tyler the day we went to see a live show of Mono, an astonishing instrumental-rock band from Japan (although some think they don't create music in Japan). Tyler was a little boy, fresh-off-the-car from Vegas. Also, I was there the first time Ryan auditioned Melanie, in a sunny afternoon in downtown Burbank. I was there when the three main characters got to meet for the very first time, in Hollywood. I saw dozens of changes in the script, I saw it growing, turning from a piece of paper into a real project. I saw Ryan freaking out multiple times, sometimes due to legitimate reasons and incidents along the way, sometimes just cos he's a f*****g weirdo.

And over the time I got to meet the rest of the crüe: Matt, the stoner-not-stoner-anymore; the mysterious yet cute Sean (which now is lost in the middle of America); and one of the most complex organisms Mother Nature ever designed: Chase Winniford. Other than that, I'm proud of having been able to connect Ryan to my good friend Jason from Phoenix; fun to think how our absurd spaghetti-western network provided Ryan the right person to deal with the sound for Turning Point.

I've been holding mics, and managed the slate board several times, with an outstanding expertise. I also acted, in the middle of the California desert, in one of the most (if not the most) important and crucial scene in the movie, as a member of Wang Bang, delivering my line with an enchanting performance. That performance will give me the opportunity to be on IMDB, quickly becoming a worldwide known Hollywood superstar.

This experience taught me a lot: the true value of friendship, the hard work and dedication necessary to give the world a product of quality, the amazing power that well coordinated teamwork can give to every project. But more than everything else, I've learned about "apple boxes", and how and when they are used in the business of magic, a.k.a. the entertainment industry.

-guido-