A Belated Goodbye to 2008

A Belated Goodbye To 2008


Over the last few weeks, I’ve been reliving some personal history—cataloguing, collecting, sifting through old work and trying to decide what is worth pursuing, what is best left at the bottom of the desk drawer, so to speak. During the sifting, I’ve revisited old blog entries, re-evaluating previous years, what we’ve achieved, what alluded us, what I failed at completely. The last few months of 2008 consisted of one royal groin-kick after another. But it wasn’t the worst year I ever slogged through.

There were definite lowlights, yeah, but highlights as well.

Gonna try an experiment—after I relive the low, I’m going to end on the high.

Ending on high notes has never been my forte, but I’m going to give it a shot.

The low, of course, some of you already know. 2008 started tricky, plateau’d, then went rapidly downhill, culminating in the hospitalization of Amy’s mom, just four days before Christmas. She was hanging stockings and fell off a small stepstool. It landed her in the emergency room with a concussion and a bruised spinal cord. After two harrowing days, she underwent surgery to fuse four vertebrae and ensure she’d walk again. In all honesty, it was a miracle that she was even breathing on her own, but she pulled through. The family spent Christmas Day with her at the hospital and New Year’s Eve with her at the rehab facility, watching Pittsburgh’s stingy fireworks clear away the last arbitrary remnants of 2008. Finally, this past Friday, she was discharged and returned home. We’ll be having the Best Family Christmas this coming Sunday, finally leaving ’08 behind.

Everything leading up to the fall—including a disastrous film shoot in early December that resulted in the end of a multi-year friendship that I’m still grieving over—came to a halt with Mary’s accident. The whole family held their breath, banded together to help each other through it. I don’t feel I did much—Amy provided the strength for the rest. In a lot of cases, I was just there.

While she spent time with her mom and sisters at the hospital, I worked on Demon Divas and the Lanes of Damnation and issue #14 of Sirens of Cinema, which had been my sole focus for most of ’08. It took a great deal of time, but Demon Divas finally started to take shape, but not until the year ticked over. Up until January 1, the movie’s structure had eluded me, and this left me sleepless and very depressed. I felt like the movie was defeating me.

Sirens met its own challenges—ones we’re not quite ready to talk about yet, though soon. We wound up with a high note of an issue, but it was a lot of work, maybe more than we’d done on any other issue. 2008 was not kind to us at the magazine. It fought us. We tried to fight back. Things didn’t end the way we hoped, but…

2009.
I woke up on January 1 and actually breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, time is an illusion, and “New Years” even more so. It’s arbitrary—the Chinese New Year ticks over in February, and let’s not even start discussing the Hebrew or Mayan calendars. But I’ve always relied on that arbitrary New Year’s Day for psychological renewal. I take a deep breath and hope for the best of the coming year. I’ve even made it a habit of staring out of our bedroom window, at the sun rising over the hills of our neighbor’s sheep pasture, and pretend that I can see good fortune on the horizon. Honestly, it’s all what you make of it, and at best it’s a psychic placebo, I know this. Doesn’t stop me from hoping.

In 2009, I started the year thinking, deliberately, about the good fortune I managed to drag with me out of the morass that became 2008. I have:

* for the first time in my adult life, a “real life” job that I not only enjoy but am actually pretty good at.

* A marriage that has survived for what will be ten years, added to a relationship that began fifteen years ago. And while we have our problems, like everyone, we’re a better partnership than ever.

* A production company that has managed to suffer through five feature films and a handful of shorts with an accompanying (more or less) positive reputation and a desire to keep trying new things with each new project.

* A family of Muppet-style good friends, blood relatives included, who have always been there for us for whatever we needed.

* A good reputation as a knowledgeable, hard-working, dependable and reasonably talented writer in a business famous for doing its best to destroy all of the above.

* A fount of projects in various stages of completion that not only mean a great deal to me to complete, but others seem to be looking forward to as well.

In 2009, we have two Cinema Wastelands to look forward to, at least one new film in the works, two past ones to release in final formats, get-togethers, parties, and, I swear, days where Amy and I do nothing but… nothing. Type-A personalities be damned.

In 2009, just thirteen days from now, I will turn 36 and become officially middle-aged, so I’m told. And while I’ve taken on the mantle of adulthood, I still don’t feel like an adult. My shadow doesn’t run away from me, and pixie dust still won’t let me fly, but I’m no closer to becoming a chartered accountant than I was when I was ten, so that has to count for something.

There are challenges ahead of me—I hope some of my damaged past friendships can be repaired. At the same time, there are still a number of psychic vampires in our midst I hope to cleanse us of. I will still expect great things of myself and others. I will still by my harshest critic and my own worst enemy.

The economy has a long way to go, but we’re just days away from ridding ourselves of the current cancerous administration and welcoming the new one—hoping beyond hope that it lives up to our high expectations. (Hey, we did our part. Just days into 2009, we helped the economy by buying a used foreign car!)

I’ve made a lot of promises to others that I have to honor. But more importantly, I made a goodly number of promises to myself, in the past month and over all the years of my life, that I’m determined to make good on now.

Sure, all of the above sounds like a cliché and it probably is. But what the hell? What are clichés for?

Cinema Wasteland Remembered

Briefly… It was another terrific Cinema Wasteland. Seriously, I almost wish Ken and Pam would put on one that sucked just to break up their record! But no, we had a vast amount of fun, made a decent amount of money and got to see our bi-annual friends and catch up with life. This trip we had a few "newbies"—Tara Cooper (who truthfully lost her Wasteland virginity in April), Tabatha Carrick, Nikki McCrea and Aaron Bernard came out to help us promote Demon Divas and the Lanes of Damnation and it was fun watching the madness unfold through their eyes. Seriously, how do you describe writer Joe Knetter ("Zombie Bukkake") without visuals? How do you explain the films of Bill Zeebub without the proper demonstrative tools? And since we had Henrique Couto with us, and his ever-present ukulele, that just added to the surrealistic nature of the weekend.

There was a last-minute snafu, however, that turned things on an interesting curve for us. Damian and Ed, the creators of the ubiquitous "Living Dead Dolls", had to cancel at the very last minute due to transportation problems. To keep from having empty spaces, Pam shuffled some of us around, putting the Teddy Scares folks in the corner usually occupied by "Living Dead Dolls" and moving us behind Art and Allana's Ultra-Violent table. So for the first time in, I believe, five years, we weren't facing the door.

Now you wouldn't think something as minor as that would be a disaster—and in truth, it wasn't. But it was a completely new perspective for us, facing the room instead of the door. Because Wasteland is one of our favorite places on Earth, we don't handle change well. Hell, we nearly wept when our directly-behind-us neighbors moved an aisle over for more space! Now where we were, we were given a bigger table and had all the space we needed to spread out (necessary, as we're behind-the-table slobs), but it was almost an alien perspective at first. I experienced instant paranoia, thinking people were sneaking up on me all weekend. Again, not a big deal except what we made of it. We were still there among the ones we loved and by 5:00 on Friday, we were used to the view, but beyond anything else, we discovered what creatures of habit we truly are.

I'm choosing to blame our Friday-night rule breaking on the new perspective, even though I should really pin the accusations on our own lack of responsibility. Friday nights we try to take things easy, get to bed at a decent hour and save our partying for Saturday. But the French Canadians—Simon, Hugo and Steve—were in the house as well, and they can drink us virtually under the table so… we slipped.

I didn't get hammered, but since my drink of choice is rum and coke, invariably, if I drink too much, the alcohol wears off faster than the caffeine. As a result, I spent much of the nocturne hours between 1:00 am and 8:00 staring at the blinking light on the smoke alarm, growing increasingly convinced that Dick Cheney was watching me. Amy and Tara fared no better. For some reason, the Holiday Inn chose to replace their downy comforters with something made either out of crinoline or old tambourines. Regardless of their composition, every move any of us made beneath those comforters would echo through the room. Madness, I tell you.

So as a result, we looked terribly hung over, minus the joyful memories of being drunk the previous night. All I wanted to do was crawl under the table and sleep, but the show must go on! And go on it must'vely.

Because of my sleep-deprived condition, I found myself reaching my maximum level of small talk quicker than usual. Perhaps the never-ending ukulele music wasn't assisting. Or perhaps it was the unusual amount of political banter surrounding me—yes, Sarah Palin is an empty-headed mannequin and John McCain is a pod person. I agree, go away—but by about 2:00 that afternoon, I was attempting to lure passersby into conversations about Proust, Billy Wilder and Marcel Marceau. I just couldn't talk about the election, torture porn or "Slaughtered Vomit Dolls" any longer. God help us all!

Oddly, because it's Wasteland, the movie and convention gods were on my side. Whenever I started to slide too far to either side of my homicide – suicide scale, someone would invariably swing by to cheer me up, whether it was Art Ettinger making another "Minutemen" joke about my name, Mike and Carrie presenting me with a genuine "Mike Watt" etched glass, or Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni giving me a personal introduction to Lamberto Bava. It's hard to have lowered spirits at Cinema Wasteland for very long.

Two other surprises were in store for me that weekend. The first was discovering that I was mentioned twice in the UK book "Zombiemania: 80 Movies to Die For", by Dr. Arnold T. Blumberg and Andrew Hershberger. The first was for writing Dead Men Walking and the other in a capsule review of The Resurrection Game. That the book is a ridiculously thorough look at zombie movies of all budgets didn't suck the wind out of my sails in the slightest. And the fact that they spelled my name as "Watts" should be more than enough proof that I am not affiliated with the writers and in no way cajoled them into including me.

The second surprise came from one of our fans and supporters and con friends who showed me a little souvenir thing he bought at Borders called "Whack-A-Zombie". It's a box that comes with a small inflatable bob bag with a zombie painted on it, so that you can slap it around to your heart's content. It also comes with a little book, a guide to zombies, zombie lore and zombie entertainment. In it, it has a short list of "the better-known" zombie novels available out there. Predictably, it includes books like "World War Z" by Max Brooks and "The Risen" by Brian Keene, but right there, at number five, is "The Resurrection Game", with my name spelled correctly. "Better known"? Thank you very much! So the authors of this little book are responsible for my tiny quarterly publisher's royalty check! I'm eternally grateful.

As usual, Sunday rolled around leaving us torn between wanting to go home and never wanting to leave. While we did achieve sleep Saturday night, we were all afflicted with a degree of hotel kennel cough, leaving us hoarse and exhausted. Amy, as we discovered, was developing a sinus infection that would chase her through the rest of the week. I just wanted to sleep for another month or so.

It took us a good hour to say our good-byes—always longer than the hellos. We got to hang out with Michael Berryman and Kane Hodder for a little bit, though, which was nice. And we made plans to try and get together with the Kishs and some of the other Wasteland crew who we've come to know and love. On the drive home, we looked back at the weekend, realizing that Tara makes a terrific personal assistant/one-woman personal support group, Henrique and Charles are a cool comedy team (that will someday result in a ukulele passing completely through Henrique's digestive tract), Tabatha and Steve are nauseatingly cute, Hugo can take a punch, Simon is hiding a very clever and very cruel streak that I hope to see come out more, and Rhonda and Kyle are more disturbed than I had even suspected. In short: another terrific Wasteland.

* * *

Don't forget, Sirens of Cinema 13 is officially available at fine stores or, more directly, from www.sirensofcinema.com It features a beautiful cover by Dave Stevens and a three-page memorial of his amazing artist. Other highlights include an exclusive look at the upcoming movie Bitch Slap, the completion of Justice Howard's Twisted Fairy Tales photo series and the first look at Demon Divas and the Lanes of Damnation. So don't miss out! You'll hate yourself. And we'll hate you more.

The Return From Wasteland

Last week, I sent out three copies of Splatter Movie: The Director’s Cut, started teaching at the Savini School of Digital Photography, wrote more of my new book, copied almost a hundred DVDs - none of that compared to the excitement of a new pending Cinema Wasteland.

Yes, this is another of those blogs that begins, "As you all know, Wasteland is our favorite show..." The Cleveland convention has always been a highlight of our year and this past April show was no exception. In fact, it was one of the best times we’d ever had, particularly as no one emailed me on Saturday to tell me that a company I was working for was no longer in business. Not losing a job first thing in the morning is a terrific way to ward off depression.

Wasteland is our "family" show. While we generally have an awesome time at every show, Wasteland is the show where we feel completely comfortable and welcome. The antithesis of the high school gym feeling you often receive at biz gatherings. If you’re a regular reader of this online screed, then you know how we feel about this show, Ken and Pam Kish the promoters, the staff, the hotel, the atmosphere, the humidity, etc. At the risk of alienating the new reader(s), I think I’ll forgo the Romper Room roster ("I saw Damien and Ed and Jill and Greg and Carrie and Mike and...) and just hit the highlights:

I somehow managed to con William Wright, one of my head writers at Sirens of Cinema, to drag his wife and young child (the amazingly friendly (clingy? Needy?) Harlan Hunter) 600 miles from Tennessee to join us in the insanity. Which was awesome. Hell, half the staff of Sirens was in attendance at this show, which was also, you know, awesome. Within seconds, Harlan had lept from mom Olivia’s arms into Amy’s, and then into Mink Stole’s. Mink’s response: "I love that fans are always giving me things at conventions."

I also loved that Mink loved the issue of Sirens containing her interview. (11, incidentally, with the Joe Jusko cover, still available through the site.) I hadn’t heard from her after what I considered to be the best interview I’d done all last year, so I was terrified I’d insulted her, etc. Turns out there was a family tragedy that kept her from responding. (What a relief!) So my terror was immediately replaced by, okay, guilt. Still, she liked the issue and that made me do the little "Happy Mink Stole Liked the Issue Dance". Not to be confused with the "Happy Wasteland Dance" and the "Happy Doughnut Dance". We do a lot of dances at Happy Cloud Pictures.

Five minutes before the dealer’s room opened on Friday, Ilsa herself, Dyanne Thorne, appeared in the doorway to introduce herself to the room and to wish everyone a terrific show. She looked amazing and that was a classy thing to do. One dealer grumbled, "Sure, that’s because she’s going to make all the money." He was summarily killed and eaten. We did the "Happy Devoured Grumpy Dealer Dance".

Sid Haig walked through the door and shook my hand instead of stabbing me in the throat with a letter opener. Not that he’s ever done this, but it always feels good when he doesn’t.

Henrique Couto arrived with a friend of his from New Jersey. Her name was Regina. She was dressed as a school girl. Eventually, she overcame her shyness and joined in on the fun. Henrique had dropped 30 pounds or so from the last time we’d seen him. He also never wore pants the entire time he was there.

Low Budget Pictures was represented this trip by Chris Seaver (genius director of Mulva 2), Travis (genius actor of Carnage for the Destroyer) and Josh (genius star of Film Crew and now legally allowed to travel within the state of Ohio once again). They yelled a lot and refused to give me a copy of Ski Wolf. No matter how much blow I hooked them up with.

We presented Tom Sullivan with the very Grendel mask he wore in Splatter Movie. He was pleased. Then he went back to constructing a seven-foot-tall manniquin of The Dread, from the film of the same name. Later, we learned he’d exchanged the Grendel mask for a taco and some duct tape. His partner, Pat Reese, stole the mask back and ate the taco.

Our executive producer, Fred Obermiller, gave us a copy of "Cinema Skin" that contained a rave review of A Feast of Flesh and two screen grabs of the ever-topless Rachelle Williams. I conned William Wright into going up to her in the bar to have her sign it. (Jeez, I can get him to do anything.) It was funny. She only slapped him twice before autographing it. He only slapped her once in return. Now they are legally married in Dubai.

Mike and Carolyn Haushalter joined us for dinner at Applebee’s on Friday, which rocked. The company and the food. As we were leaving, there were two hosts at the door talking as we left. As we passed the first one, he said, "Have a great night." The second one, thinking he was speaking to her, said "What?"

I said, "He said ’have a good night’."

She said, "Oh, no - I thought -"

"Oh, so I’m not allowed to have a good night?" I said. "Jeez, the service at this place."

She turned beet red. I did the "Happy Embarressed and Confused Applebee’s Hostess Dance".

David and Tara joined us on Saturday. They were supposed to join us Friday as well, but, fortunately, they were not killed on the way. Just delayed. We did the "Happy Still Alive David and Tara Dance" (that joke never gets old). Tara had created a Tara-sized shirt out of the Happy Cloud shirt we’d given her for Christmas. She’d snipped away almost three yards of material. Now it’s useless as a bed sheet. Jeez. Amy dragged them all over the dealer’s room to introduce them to all of our con friends. Tara met Unky Lloyd Kaufman and got all verklempt. (Tara gets star-struck during card tricks, though. She once met that guy who dresses in question marks and tries to sell you a phone book-sized tome on Free Money. It took her two hours to blink or breathe again, she was so impressed. She bought six books.) Unky Lloyd followed her around for several minutes trying to convince her to be in Troma’s new "Pornogeist". He wrote his number on the back of David’s head for her. Next week, we all drive up to New York to write our names on the side of the Troma building and then run. They’ll be awestruck by our penmanship!

Saturday night, Splatter Movie: The Director’s Cut (what I thought was the final version, but I found four bad sound cues) screened to a packed room. We were astounded at the amount of people in there. Some of them weren’t even in the movie! There were three guys in the back row talking back to the movie the whole time and were actually 93% as funny as the movie itself. Amy and I introduced the movie by saying "Not in the face," and then drinking every time we had a panic attack. It’s like "Quarters" for neurotics.

Al Tuskes, from Precinct 13, joined us for the screening and claimed to have enjoyed it immensely. He obviously wasn’t lying because he joined us for drinks afterwards. A lot of drinks. Apple Juice, ice water and bible passages.

"Bible Passages" is made with vodka.

At one point, I was talking to Regina and this dumb blonde dressed like Milia in Resident Evil came over to my table, looked at me, then took Regina’s arm and said "I HAVE to interview you for my show." Then proceded to yak at her in front of my table while I shouted "No, that’s okay. Ignore the guest and interview the attendee. Very classy, Queen of the Peroxide!" Actually, I didn’t shout the latter. But I thought it loudly. Later, said woman was found in the lobby covered in sperm and shame. I may have made that last part up too, depending on whether or not it can be construed as libel.

By Sunday, we’re usually ready to come home, but not this time. We were exhausted, from the drinking, the revelry and the corridor beer pong competition (combining man’s love of both beer and pong), but we weren’t ready to leave. But finally, we tore ourselves away. It took us over an hour to say our goodbyes - To Lixx Online, to Ken and Pam, to Charlie and Tim and Kate, to Carrie and Mike, to the Toe Tag folks, Art and Allana, Rob Lucas, Xploited, the Professor, Mary-Anne... A wonderful time was had by all. Or, at least, by us. And isn’t that what’s really important?

Best Vampire Hunter of 2007... and the winner is -

Me!

Hey, I didn't know I was even nominated, which would have been an honor in and of itself! Does that mean I beat out Kate Beckensale in Underworld 2? Or did that come out in 2006? Okay, regardless, she was a vampire hunter, but still...

Anyway, you can check out the other winners of The Horror Oscars, hosted by Desert Screams Productions, HERE.

So, to you three or four people who hated me in A Feast of Flesh, I say to you "Nyah!" To the rest of you who loved me, including me, I humbly accept this award on my behalf.

* * *

It's still snowing, the mine is still drilling, my cold continues to plague me. On the plus side, I may have conquered my insomnia. At the very least, I'm attempting to sleep it off.

Tomorrow, Amy and I head to the set of George A. Romero Presents Deadtime Stories, written and produced by our friend, Jeff Monahan. I'm shooting stills and covering the production, Amy is playing a nurse in a key scene. The first part of the shoot is at Penn State, the second at Laurel Caverns. Yep, nothing like heading underground during the winter! But check out the movie HERE. It's gonna be cool!

* * *

The new issue of Sirens of Cinema is going to press this weekend. It has a beautiful cover by Daniel Horne and features interviews with Lena Headey (Sarah Connor: The Terminator Chronicles), Mary Lambert (Pet Sematery) and a special goodbye to Malia Nurmi (aka Vampira). I mention this because I want everyone who reads this to go out and buy multiple copies, subscribe twice and force complete strangers to make purchases of their own, at gunpoint if necessary.
Sales aren't down, I just want to see who will do it. I love exercising power!

Sirens of Cinema and a free gift!

Let's see, I've pimped the new Fangoria appearance and our blatantly-positive Feast of Flesh reviews, what's next?

Oh, yes: Sirens of Cinema 10! With our swanky wrap-around cover by Holly Golightly (School Bites) celebrating 30 years of Star Wars! Also boasting interviews with Angela Bettis (May) and Kristen Kerr (Flight of the Living Dead), Julie and Lizzy Strain (Black Dahlia Movie), Debbie Rochon on The Colour from the Dark - and oodles more! Plus, the word "oodles"!

AND, we have a special treat for new subscribers: for a VERY limited time, if you pick up a subscription to Sirens of Cinema (for a ridiculously low price, click HERE) you'll receive a free DVD copy of The Splatter Movie Companion. This special DVD was created by Amy and I strictly for Sirens readers and boasts footage that cannot be seen anywhere else. (When the official DVD of Splatter Movie is finally released, this Companion featurette will NOT be included - this is the only way you'll get to see some of this footage, which ties directly into the Splatter Movie mythology.) Plus, a sneak-peek at one of the stories from the upcoming Brinke's Tales of Horror created by the late Joe D. Casey.

All this-- all the Leia goodness, the reviews, the articles--come for the nouns, stay for the verbs! Buy the consonants and the vowels come free (including "Y" for a limited time!)

Keep Sirens alive and subscribe. That way, you won't feel all sad and rejected when you go to Barnes and Noble only to discover that the issue is sold out! (And if it isn't sold out, do us a solid, willya, and move it down in front of lesser magazines like People or Time. Corporate bastards...) You'll get a year's worth of cool issues and eye-popping, suitable-for-framing covers (seriously... Joe Jusko? Mike Lilly?? How DO we do it?). And seriously, what else were you planning on doing with your money? Buying food? Didn't you eat yesterday?

So CLICK HERE and get your subscription and your free copy of The Splatter Movie Companion. This is a limited offer so strike while the fire is hot, or whatever that saying is. Or don't come crying to us when all of your friends have theirs and won't let you see them (seriously, guys - don't let them see it! It'll be our secret and we can giggle and text each other behind their backs!).

Only after you receive your subscription will you ever truly be happy...

New job, new plugs

Started a new job last week. It’s the first real office job I’ve had in a while. I have a desk with drawers for the first time—my own, not shared—a bulletin board, lots of office supplies and, again, first time ever, an inbox. Since my whole life is one giant inbox, I never thought that this simple plastic tray would become a symbol of stress for me, particularly at an office I only spend, at best, six hours a day. But it has. Particularly when a whole network of people pass by my desk and continually refill it.

That aside, the job isn’t that bad. It ain’t creative, of course, but there’s substantial computer work involved, so I get to feel relatively evolved. It’s the best money I’ve earned for a part time gig in… again, “ever” comes to mind. The hours are relatively flexible and the pressure pretty low. It isn’t working out of the house, of course, and that’s the chief drawback. Fortunately, I’m kept busy, so I don’t have a lot of time to think about all the things that aren’t getting done—writing, editing, stuff for Sirens, stuff for my PR work—while I’m trapped there. Even if there were downtime, it’s an international company, so outside emailing is not only prohibited, but impossible. So I wouldn’t be able to get anything else done there regardless.

I get to escape around 1:30-2:30 every day, but by the time I get home, I’m fried from all the brand new procedures I’m learning. Nothing I can use anywhere else, but stuff that has to fit in the great yawning skull-organ nonetheless, so it takes me a while to get back into the swing of things once I walk through the front door. To keep myself sane, I focus on the money, and remember that Amy has been doing this for us for ten years. If they make me a good full-time offer, money-equivalent, this might be where I spend my day. How I’ll get writing done, should that be the case, I’ll never know. I’ll have to work that out somehow when the time comes.

With that off my chest, I have some plugging to do:

First, Amy and I recorded some commercials for Dr. Horror’s Erotic House of Idiots—still one of the funniest Indie movies ever made. You can hear those HERE. The director and co-writer (with Brinke Stevens!), Paul Scrabo, is one of the coolest guys I've ever met in the business and this movie was a real labor of love for him--imagine having to shoot a comedy on September 11, 2001, while knowing that the world is collapsing around you! That is exactly what he, Debbie Rochon, Trent Haaga, Michael Thomas and Conrad Brooks went through on that infamous day!. If you haven't checked this movie out yet, the terrorists have truly won.

Second, I had the opportunity to visit with a quartet of guys who are making a documentary about the 40^th anniversary of Night of the Living Dead. I got to see the original Latent Image offices, where Romero and company worked their magic back in the ‘60s, and I got to stand in the very basement where young Karen Cooper (Kyra Schon) murdered her mother (played by Marilyn Eastman).Fangoria put my first piece online. There might be some print to follow later in the year.

A Feast of Flesh was officially announced by Bloody Earth Films last week. You can see the listing on their site by clicking HERE. Bloody Earth (a division of Camp Motion Pictures) will be taking Amy and I around to a few shows as guests, which will be very nice. I’ll keep everyone posted here as those come around.

Splatter Movie will have an official tie-in with Sirens of Cinema. We’re prepping a limited-edition DVD that will be offered only to subscribers. It’ll consist of a featurette and a teaser that will never be seen in this way ever again and once they’re gone, they’re gone. So if you’re dying to see some of this ridiculously gory and surreal movie, and have been putting off getting a subscription to Sirens, now’s the time to stop procrastinating. Check out the special 2^nd Anniversary Issue of Sirens of Cinema, on sale in September. More information should be up at sirensofcinema.com very soon.

That’s all that I had on my mind. I’ll try and update again over the weekend, should something fun and exciting come along.

Tippi Hedren is loose in the ducts!

Two weeks ago, Amy and I took a break from killing ourselves on the Splatter Movieset and turned towards killing ourselves to get to New Jersey in time for the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors.

Like the Chicago show, the Jersey Fango is a great time and a terrific opportunity to network and catch up with friends. Unlike the Chicago show, we don't make a lot of money and the crowds are a lot thinner. Theories abound to explain this. The best one seems to be that the fifteen Monster Manias held throughout the year and the two Chillers draw attendance away from Fango. It's not like the golden days of the early 2000's when people had money. Gas tanks must be fed and at a higher price! Otherwise, the Eldritch God Dick Cheney will awaken, rise from his subsea slumber lair and shoot us all in the face.

Anyway, we like the show, profits be damned. So, Friday morning, we drove our six-plus hours to Secaucus, arriving around 11:00 in plenty of time to set up and relax before the 2:00 early-bird entrance time. Except the second we stepped through the door, we heard from line-dwellering friends (I'll Bury You Tomorrow's Alan Rowe Kelly and Art and Alana from Ultra Violent Magazine) that Creation Entertainment, the company in charge, will be opening the doors at noon to accomodate the demand. Our three-hour window vanished before our eyes.

Check in, rush upstairs, change clothes, sponge off the road dust, rush downstairs, find the registration, find our table - hi, hi, hey, good to see you, what's happening? what the fuck did you do to your hair? Tony Timpone? Passed him in the lobby. Good to see you. Not that way, I hate that guy. Hi, just a sec, be right back.

Our table was actually in a really good spot. We were in a corner, at the rear of the room, against a wall, between a loading door, an indie company promoting a movie called Closet Space (I believe... it's been two weeks and I'm old, sue me!) and our best friends at Pop Cinema (including the incomparable Paige K. Davis, filmmaker and organ grinder monkey Henrique Couto, and my good friend of nearly 15 years, Justin (Skin Crawl) Wingenfeld). Which was just awesome.

Then, as we began setting up, we heard a terrible scratching, screeching noise. At first, we thought someone had on some sort of odd sound effects record and put on the "Birds" track. A small rain of debris fell next to us and we looked up - there was a bird's nest just inside the drop-panel ceiling, under the sprinkler. There were holes in the wall between our room and the parking lot (the whole hotel was a disaster, incidentally - crumbling ceilings and walls, stains throughout) and the birds found this just lovely. Beneath the sprinkler, on the floor behind our table, a collection of twigs, dust and powdered bird shit had accumulated.

At first, this was funny. I mean, at most shows that are NOT Cinema Wasteland, we're used to being shit on figuratively. Now we were being shit on literally. We shook our heads, hung our posters, displayed our new issues of Sirens of Cinema (on sale now wherever Sirens of Cinema is sold!), and sucked it up. The nice thing about Creation Entertainment-run shows is that the head of security, Tammy, has become a great friend of ours over the years. She's awesome. She saw the bird shit. She went ballistic. "Tell the hotel, right now, to clean this up. This is a health hazard."

Oh, yeah. Bird shit isn't healthy to breathe or be around. Yeah, the little winged rats are cute, but they're teaming with mites, fleas, all sorts of unpleasantries. And these bastards were also loud.

So I politely (yes, politely - I can be polite! Go fuck yourself!) asked the nice something-Americans behind the hotel desk to send maintenance to vacuum up the pile of disease we were sharing space with.

Sometime Saturday afternoon, after two more requests and a mention of "health code violation", a two-man team of custodians arrived with a push broom and a dust pan. Away went the now-large pile of bird debris into the garbage - a receptacle located exactly four feet away on the other side of our table.

By this time, we'd hung a sign on the wall that said "Yes, there is a bird's nest in the ceiling", having grown tired of answering the question "is someone playing a sound effects record back there or are those real birds?" The avian shrieking wasn't helping our sales, that's for sure. Every now and then, the squawking would get so loud, I'd bang on the ceiling with a poster roll, yelling at them to shut up and feeling like the grumpy old guy downstairs. It usually resulted in silence for ten to thirteen seconds. Then they'd start up again. Every third time I tried it, I'd bump one of the panels and get a face-full of nest as a reward. That was fun.

In between the bird-battles, we got the chance to catch up with fine folks like Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni, star of Argento's eagerly-awaited The Third Mother, who contributed to the new issue of Sirens; Scooter McCrae, master of weird horror like 16 Tongues and my underpaid composer; Tabitha and Mom Sharon, who run Corpses by the Bunch, who had their own woes to deal with; Anthony and Karen from East Coast Kitty. I met Stan Winston for a moment. He signed my Pumpkinhead DVD (for f/x wizard Eric Molinaris' birthday) and shook my hand before I was punched out of line, Time Bandits-style, by his After Dark handlers. We had a nice evening's dinner on Friday with Debbie Rochon, mere hours before she had to fly to Italy. Intrepid Fango editor Michael Gingold swung by (and we joined his nibs, Scooter, and about a thousand other people from evil clown movie 100 Tears for dinner on Saturday - a nice, intimate affair). We showed folks the Professor Jack and the Electric Club trailer I'd cut. We thrilled folks with some sneak footage from Splatter Movie. We drank to kill the pain caused by the incessant squawking of ceiling-dwelling sparrows.

That afternoon, one of the customers passed out in the aisle and hit his head on a table. Amy went to help him up and he latched onto her arm, wouldn't let her go. He was disoriented, had been drinking, and didn't know his own name at first. About an hour later, the paramedics from the hospital across the street finally arrived. The man, Bob, couldn't tell anyone his address or even how much he'd had to drink. Another man, who first identified himself as Bob's "handler"--then "friend", then "neighbor", then "a guy who drives him to horror shows"--just wanted to take Bob home. Bob was dehydrated and his blood pressure was through the roof. The paramedics, with Amy's help, got him into a gurney and wheeled him out of the room - almost taking Amy with them, as Bob still wouldn't let go. These are the adventures of my own personal Wonder Woman.

Saturday night was spent with our friends from Digger Films, the French Canadian film crew. Steve, Dave, Hugo and their buddies P.H., Johnny, T-Bag and Nova (these are all nick-names, of course; French Canadians all have Klingon names unpronounceable by their U.S. neighbors). T-Bag, incidentally, was not this magnificent man's real nickname. He told me, in a very noisy bar, to call him "T-Man". I didn't hear "man". So he was amazed when I replied, "You really want me to call you that?"

It got even funnier, later, when I realized my mistake. Not that I corrected it. The hilarity increased when the others discovered what "tea-bagging" actually was. I convinced the others not to tell him until they were halfway home. He was a lot bigger than I am.

(Unfortunately, he was told the truth towards the end of the evening. Somewhere along the line, we'd picked up a guy from Rhode Island who insisted there were fifty-two states in the Union: Washington D.C. and "East Virginia". As a result, I referred to him as "52" for the rest of the night. I like giving nicknames. It's a source of power. It was, of course, 52 who broke the news to T-Bag, feeling sorry for the poor, lost Frenchie. The joke was on 52, though, because T-Bag thought that was just as hilarious as the rest of us did. So there, 52!)

Sunday, I was not hung over. Miraculously. I was tired and desperately wanted to go home, but that's normal Sunday fatigue. My table was still over-run by bird mess and they seemed even louder today. Tammy had finally run down someone from Creation to witness the tragedy. Majid, the talent co-ordinator, was outraged. He demanded that housekeeping do something. Tammy insisted that I get my hotel room comped. The hotel didn't want to do either of those things. My fear was they would kill the birds, but by wildlife laws, they're not permitted to even move the nest. Finally, the same two custodians showed up with a plastic bag and draped it over the sprinkler inside the ceiling to prevent further mess.

This pissed the birds off even further. They started moving to the exposed hole in the wall, poking their beaks out and squawking at us with visible outrage. So, great, we go from lung disease to tetanus shots from beak-punctures. Yay.

I was very grumpy at this point. Irrationally, I was thinking this was a respect issue. That they'd stuck us in the corner intentionally - ha ha, wouldn't it be great if Mike and Amy got shit on all weekend? I knew this wasn't true, of course, but when you get into a pissy mind-loop, it's difficult to free yourself from it. While browsing the Pop Cinema table, an actress I don't particularly get along with, but never had anything against, appeared beside me with a ratty-looking entourage. They started heckling Chainsaw Sally, the star and director of which happen to be, of course, really good friends of mine. The actress agreed and tossed the DVD aside with derision. I smiled at her and pointed to one of her movies. "You were really good in this, by the way," I said.

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, thanks."

I pointed at another one. "And you really sucked in this."

Her jaw hit the table. I gave her a bigger smile and walked away.

Bitch.

Anyway...Majid, still outraged, took us up to see one of the heads of Creation to rectify the situation personally, even though it wasn't Creation's fault or responsibility. It was, however, Creation's show, so I thought a personal apology would be nice. With the show in full swing, though, including a couple hundred swooning middle-aged James Marsters fans, no one else from Creation could be spared. We did end up getting our hotel room comped. This vanished expense actually pushed us slightly into profit! So we spread the love and bought stuff from our vendor friends.

The highlight of Sunday was breakfast with Justin. He's my oldest "adult" friend. I've known him since 1991 and we've seen each other through some extreme highs and lows, got each other jobs, gigs, acted in each others' movies. Since he moved to New Jersey with his wife, Trinity, and Amy and I moved to the farthest reaches of PA, we don't see each other that much. Now he has a beautiful new baby (Reagan Poe), a slew of good reviews for his movie Skin Crawl, we have our company, farm, horses and dogs and cats - it's hard to find time to just sit and talk. Breakfast was cold and late but the company couldn't have been better.

The drive home, as usual, was long and painful and seemed to take forever. Sundays, regardless of the show, always suck. It's filled with goodbyes and packing and exhaustion. Sundays should be banned from conventions, as a rule.

Still, I can't say that we weren't treated really well, particularly by Majid, Tammy and her daughter Amber, and their compatriot Chris. Fangoria always hosts a good show, regardless of the turn-out, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't looking forward to next year, regardless of the wildlife. I'll just bring an umbrella next time. And possibly all of the cats.