Saturday
August 23
1:38 a.m.

Crazy week, beginning last Friday with the house closing, which went right down to the wire because of realtor and bank stupidity (the bank holding the property, their realtor and title company). Only when we threatened to spike the deal last Wednesday when they kept jerking us around did everybody suddenly get their shit together and make things happen for Friday—three days later than the initial ‘outside’ closing date we’d been given about six weeks ago. And even then, they were screwing things up until the very end.

Still, though, the deal got closed on Friday, and Pam and I are now racing against the August clock to get all our stuff out to the W. Coast of Florida in the next 7 days. Given all the stuff we’ve accumulated over the eight years we’ve been here in Miami (not to mention the stuff we’d accumulated before that), it’s gonna be tight. Plus, I’ve got jobs, Pam is backed up with work, I need to fly out to California to be interviewed for the program American Horrors for the IndiePix cable network sometime during the next eight weeks… Things are nutty and full of complications. Luckily, I turned in all my outstanding freelance gigs early, the editors all seem pleased, and I am still working through a technical writing/editing gig that should take the next several weeks. Sucks for the editing on my novel, which is stalled with seven chaps left to go, but I’m confident that once my office has been transplanted over to the other coast, I can settle in and bang out those last 50 pages or so and get the final chunk over to Frank Wales, who’s editing the draft. Reminds me, been remiss there, too. Gotta give that boy a call…

For those of you who have e-mailed me to let me know you took the bull by the horns and began FWDing out the press release (see last blog for that if you’re getting here late…), much appreciated. I know I haven’t been able to get back to all of you, but I did get a myspace bulletin or two from those of you who wanted to help out. If you are just finding out about this for the first time, please go back one blog/column, read the PR about my film being picked up to be the premiere episode for a new European cable channel, and gimme a hand getting the word out. Just repost the PR wherever you want. Send it to friends, newsgroups, your local media, anybody you can think of. Use your Facebook and Flicker and Classmates and Myspace pages to take this thing viral. I can use all the help you can give while I’m trying to keep a china cabinet’s worth of plates spinning atop bamboo sticks…

Seen the Bunker tees? This is our special print run of ‘em, in colors that aren’t gonna be available for long. I’ve signed a deal exclusively with Hollywoodlosers.com to produce them, Check ‘em out and maybe think about grabbing one for yourself, a friend for his/her birthday, Halloween, the upcoming festival season, or simply because you like creepy movies about girls kidnapped and held captive beneath your typical, suburban home in an underground cell for the purpose of torture and psychological evisceration by sadistic madmen. Or get one for your Mom’s friend the nun…or bingo crony. They’ll love one. I promise.

That’s the update for now. There is a lot more goin’ on with American Horrors (like Hart signing PuppetMaster creator and all-around good guy Kenneth J. Hall for the series, snapping up his flick The Halfway House, and more. Check out Hart’s Live Journal blog, where you can get caught up on the flurry of recent announcements and view some promo clips for the show, (as well as a clip of me talking censorship from a comic panel a *long,* long time ago). When I was thinner, had dark hair, and sight.

Hart’s blog is at:
http://bonedaddy777.livejournal.com/

Thin and dark haired??? Yeah, *long* time ago…
************************

To celebrate our pending deal with Crime Pays, Inc. to broadcast my feature film The Bunker on the European cable network IndiePix, we’re releasing a limited number of Bunker commemorative tees in stylish new colors. White on black tees will be available this fall, but for something special we went for bright and colorful (as you can see). Silk-screened on 100% pre-shrunk cotton tees, they’re not only built to last, but are also comfortable to wear during office supply-closet quickies; out to the goth clubs; and even while being Tasered by angry policemen. Blood red or vibrant yellow (check that one out under a black light at your local fetish dungeon). While the white on black tees are in progress, here is something else to tease you with. You’ll be able to get your girlfriend a Bunker baby-doll tee, (and think about how cool it’ll be to show off your better half in a skimpy top promoting a flick about a kidnapped girl who spends most of the film in her underwear) in fluorescent hot pink. Those’re coming soon, so keep an eye out.

There’s also a bonus offer if you get a tee now, so click on the images or visit:

http://www.mediasi.com/Merchant/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=bunker-tee

to get yourself some cool new attire for work, to wear back to school, to proudly display at your local Halloween horror film festival, or to send to a relative in prison. Plus, (also for a limited time), the tees are only $15. Heck, to beat that you’ve gotta go to Wal Mart, but do you really need another Dale Jr. tee-shirt or discounted New England Patriots AFC Champs tee? C’mon, really…trust me, those tees will still be on the racks in November, even cheaper, for Christmas presents for folks you really don’t care about all that much.

Thursday
August 14
5:02 a.m.

I know, it’s been a slow week for blogs, news or updates. But I’m editing the third draft of my crime novel, we just got the closing date on the house me and my wife are moving into after weeks of hassles and bullshit, and of course, there’s the stuff going on behind the scenes here with The Bunker as it gets prepped for its premiere on European cable for the IndiePix network.

Which is why I’m revisiting that announcement. I’m asking everybody to take the press release, and FWD it. I want you to FWD it to your horror-hungry friends. Your gorehound buddies. Your online community. Send it out as a Myspace bulletin, or through whatever Facebook lets you do to share info. I want you to open up the newspaper, look up the e-mail addresses for the entertainment editor, the film critic, the reviewer, anybody you can find in there, and put the info in their hands. I don’t care whether it’s the local paper in Butte, Montana or the San Francisco Chronicle. I need you to FWD it to your local TV stations. Your cable and network news stations. To The hosts of every talk show you can find. From Ellen to Oprah to Today to The View. I don’t care. Pick one, look up their e-mail, and hit them with this. Got a favorite radio station that covers entertainment, or a local talk show your mom or dad listens to? Call them up. Tell ‘em you’ve got a winner for them that nobody is covering yet, and they can get in on breaking it. Look up AP online and send it. Reuters. TMZ.

I don’t have the ten grand I need to hire some PR firm to blow the horn and shout from the highest mountains right now. I’m moving, I’m *way* extended on the dough spent on The Bunker, I’m putting together a music video shoot… No way can I lay out that kind of dough. So I need a PR firm that cares enough to push this story. That PR department is you.

You know, a couple of years ago, I was sitting at the San Diego Comic Con talking with Frank Darabont, who directed The Shawshank Redemption. We were talking about George Lucas and the big media blitz Lucas got for shooting the new Star Wars film on digital. Frank said, “Not that George needed it, but you do something in Hollywood that hasn’t been done before, the press is going to be all over it.”

What Lucas did, was take a film already guaranteed to gross a zillion dollars, and choose to shoot it on technology that he had already tested and which was brand new. Yet, *that* was big news. He could have shot that flick with a pinhole camera and it still would have been the biggesst movie of the year. He had nothing to lose, he’d seen the digital technology, he simply went ahead, because he also had all the money in the world to shoot it because it was Star Wars and people had been waiting twenty years for it.

I don’t blow my own horn very often. I’m a pretty laid back guy when it comes to my accomplishments. I’ve had my work reprinted in other countries—and banned in other countries. I’ve had critical praise heaped on my work—and had printers refuse to take my money to print it. I’ve been a featured guest at dozens of conventions, been flown to other countries to appear, lectured at colleges, had my work used by professors giving talks about the holocaust and anti-semitism, and had two screenplays produced. I’ve had some good breaks in my career, some bad breaks, and some lucky breaks. But with The Bunker, I *made* my own breaks. I directed a film without the benefit of being able to see the freaking thing. And a lot of people said it was a stunt; it couldn’t be done; it had to be a joke; said I should stick to writing prose fiction… Yeah, no shortage of naysayers when I first announced my plans.

I’ve done something that nobody’s ever done. It’s no lie, no bullshit. This film exists. Stan Wertlieb at Grindstone says it’s a heck of a film, even called me up to tell me he had to watch the thing twice and couldn’t get over it. The guy working on the sound design right now? 20+ years working for a bunch of big, Hollywood companies? Hart tells me this guy constantly forgets a blind guy is responsible because he’s blown away by it. This guy has worked with heavyweights, and yet I get on the phone with him yesterday and he tells me he is absolutely loving working on my flick, and he has really high expectations for it once people get to see it.

But it ain’t about bragging. It’s about getting some folks in the right places to pick up on the story. Fangoria. Dread Central. Hollywood Reporter. Variety. Your local paper. E! IFC. And on and on and on.

Do me a favor. Copy the press release and even pick just *one* target. Draw back your bow and fire away. I may not have ten grand to piss away at the moment, but I have people who read the blogs and buy my comics and books and have been supportive since I broke into publishing back in 1989. I need some of you to support this project now, not with cash, but with a few clicks of your mouse. That’s it. That’s all it takes. All I’m askin.

Here is the link to the official announcement:

http://www.chantingmonks.com/monks-word/index.php?p=271

Put it to good use, would’ja?

******************

Currently listening to: Gold Dust Woman by Fleetwood Mac

THE BUNKER to kick off inaugural season of Flowers on the Razorwire

LOS ANGELES, CA—Crime Pays, Inc. founder and president Hart D. Fisher has announced that longtime collaborator Joseph M. Monks’ debut feature, The Bunker, will air as the pilot episode of Fisher’s Flowers on the Razorwire television series for the Indiepix cable channel. Beginning this fall, Indiepix will broadcast the new fright showcase to 120 million households in 17 countries.

The distribution agreement with Carol Angela Davis, Inc. and Global Broadcasting & Syndication Inc., calls for 22 episodes of Flowers on the Razorwire and other horror-related programming. Production on the series is already underway, based on the 1990s comic book of the same name.

“This television distribution agreement is a major leap forward for independent American horror creators, allowing them to find a vast untapped
audience for their work. I’m looking forward to bringing quality horror product to European audiences, and I’m proud to begin that with The Bunker,” says Fisher.

Monks, an independent comics groundbreaker for the past two decades, lost his eyesight in 2002 after a long battle with diabetic retinopathy. Faced with life-changing circumstances, Monks stunned the comic book world by returning to a largely-visual medium, garnering rave reviews for his work on Zacherley’s Midnight Terrors, working with the legendary American horror host. But a return to the genre he enjoyed so much wasn’t nearly the challenge he undertook next–becoming the world’s first blind feature film director.

“Having written the screenplay for the first Flowers on the Razorwire episode, I was very familiar with the way Hart envisioned a full-on TV series,” says Monks. “So when I wrote The Bunker, I saw it taking the series to its natural next-plateau, which was a feature. Like the Tales from the Crypt: Demon Night film, it made all the sense in the world. Helming it myself might not have, but directing it was a challenge too good to pass up.”

While the film initially drew interest as a curiosity, it’s turned heads after several screenings, receiving praise from the likes of FANGORIA’s Tom Carnell, Rue Morgue, The Hacker’s Source and the Miami Herald, among others. A selection of the 2007 Halloween Horror Picture Show film festival, Monks is happy that the film has been able to stand on its own.

“The curiosity angle is nice, but now that the film is making the rounds as we look for a distribution deal and the reception it’s gotten has been so positive, this opportunity to showcase it to such a large audience is more than I could have hoped for. I’m excited about working with Hart on other episodes for the series. We’ve been in the indie trenches together a long time, so what better way to make a splash than on Indiepix?”
Broadcasting executive and founder Carol Davis says, “As we build and brand our thematic channels we are very careful about the companies
we allow to program content. Hart D. Fisher presents very unique products that are naturals for compelling content.”

For more information on The Bunker and director Joseph M. Monks, please visit:
www.sightunseenpictures.com
* * *
About Carol Angela Davis, Inc. & Global Broadcasting & Syndication, Inc.

Founded by Carol Davis, Mark Geragos and Gary Hutchins, the companies
create, aggregate and syndicate video content that is then streamed
globally on IPTV platforms, websites, search engines, cell phones, set top boxes and cable and satellite television. The companies
operate the following short and long form thematic channels: Its
About Finance, America Unleashed, ItsMyFaith, VoteAcrossAmerica.com, TheJusticeSystem.net, VisitorsNetwork, IndiePix, Comedy & Games, Total Hip Hop Television and BetterWorldUSA.tv.

************************

To celebrate our pending deal with Crime Pays, Inc. to broadcast my feature film The Bunker on the European cable network IndiePix, we’re releasing a limited number of Bunker commemorative tees in stylish new colors. White on black tees will be available this fall, but for something special we went for bright and colorful (as you can see). Silk-screened on 100% pre-shrunk cotton tees, they’re not only built to last, but are also comfortable to wear during office supply-closet quickies; out to the goth clubs; and even while being Tasered by angry policemen. Blood red or vibrant yellow (check that one out under a black light at your local fetish dungeon). While the white on black tees are in progress, here is something else to tease you with. You’ll be able to get your girlfriend a Bunker baby-doll tee, (and think about how cool it’ll be to show off your better half in a skimpy top promoting a flick about a kidnapped girl who spends most of the film in her underwear) in fluorescent hot pink. Those’re coming soon, so keep an eye out.

There’s also a bonus offer if you get a tee now, so click on the images or visit:

http://www.mediasi.com/Merchant/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=bunker-tee

to get yourself some cool new attire for work, to wear back to school, to proudly display at your local Halloween horror film festival, or to send to a relative in prison. Plus, (also for a limited time), the tees are only $15. Heck, to beat that you’ve gotta go to Wal Mart, but do you really need another Dale Jr. tee-shirt or discounted New England Patriots AFC Champs tee? C’mon, really…trust me, those tees will still be on the racks in November, even cheaper, for Christmas presents for folks you really don’t care about all that much.

Tuesday
July 29
9:29 p.m.

To celebrate our pending deal with Crime Pays, Inc. to broadcast my feature film The Bunker on the European cable network IndiePix, we’re releasing a limited number of Bunker commemorative tees in stylish new colors. White on black tees will be available this fall, but for something special we went for bright and colorful (as you can see). Silk-screened on 100% pre-shrunk cotton tees, they’re not only built to last, but are also comfortable to wear during office supply-closet quickies; out to the goth clubs; and even while being Tasered by angry policemen. Blood red or vibrant yellow (check that one out under a black light at your local fetish dungeon). While the white on black tees are in progress, here is something else to tease you with. You’ll be able to get your girlfriend a Bunker baby-doll tee, (and think about how cool it’ll be to show off your better half in a skimpy top promoting a flick about a kidnapped girl who spends most of the film in her underwear) in fluorescent hot pink. Those’re coming soon, so keep an eye out.

There’s also a bonus offer if you get a tee now, so click on the images or visit:

http://www.mediasi.com/Merchant/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=bunker-tee

to get yourself some cool new attire for work, to wear back to school, to proudly display at your local Halloween horror film festival, or to send to a relative in prison. Plus, (also for a limited time), the tees are only $15. Heck, to beat that you’ve gotta go to Wal Mart, but do you really need another Dale Jr. tee-shirt or discounted New England Patriots AFC Champs tee? C’mon, really…trust me, those tees will still be on the racks in November, even cheaper, for Christmas presents for folks you really don’t care about all that much.

Saturday
July 11
4:19 p.m.

Friday’s home inspection went relatively well. One sour note came when we discovered that a pipe and the contacts for the pump that draws well water wasn’t connected, meaning that a little back-and-forth between us and the bank/realtor needs to be done before we put in the Go Ahead with our lender, but it’s looking more and more likely that an August change of address is in the offing.

Of course, this latest whirlwind trip back and forth to Cape Coral/Ft. Myers comes at a time when I have just gotten inundated with work. I have a 17-lesson lesson plan to edit sometime during the next three weeks, I have had 40K words of fiction assignments come my way the past four weeks, and I still have eight chapters left to go on the third draft of my novel, for which I expect to be agent-shopping by the end of August. Well, that may be wistful thinking, as agent-shopping in the midst of moving, finishing up fiction assignments and this lesson plan editorial gig probably means the remainder of July is fried creatively, but we’ll see. I have six people committed to reading the draft (actually, one of my buddies is reading it as I go, probably draining the ink out of numerous red pens), so I am expecting a lot of feedback. This isn’t a horror novel, though there’s plenty of horrific stuff going on in it. It’s a very mainstream (read: marketable) mystery/thriller, with characters I would love to bring back in another book. I’m very happy with where I am at right now, so once this draft is done and I can get down to the final polish and begin hunting for somebody to sell this puppy, it’ll be another iron in the fire.

Fire’s been heating up, too. Hart has some folks very jazzed about showing The Bunker off to friends in the entertainment industry, everybody from distribution outlets to other filmmakers. Doors are multiplying, and a few knobs are starting to rattle. Now it’s up to us to slip our picks out and jimmy our way in, if not just kick a few down.

Unless of course, some open on their own. Be a nice change of pace, that. Spoke to Hart today about how, for the first time in a long time, it looks like that might happen.

Doors. To a new house, to new markets, to film work… Might not be a bad fall after all.

**************
Currently listening to: Strict Machine by Goldfrapp

Tuesday
July 8
7:47 a.m.

Up early. Grabbed a quick three hours of shuteye because I have several assignments booked, and an interesting sounding editorial gig that I will be deciding if I am gonna take probably late this afternoon, when I get a chance to review the material. Technical stuff, not adult or fiction, and the deadline is tight, only about a two-week turnaround, but we’ll see. Like I said, technical or not, sounds interesting, and if it is, then I’ll find time. It isn’t like I’m training for Beijing, so a little less sleep is a little less sleep.

Got the doc this morning, and hopefully they haven’t triple-booked the guy; a practice I despise. We’ll see how that goes. Hopefully his usual gal is on the needle, I’ve got more than 20K of fiction assignments to turn in over the next few weeks, last thing I want is my left arm bruised at the elbow.

On to moving… My assessment of this process is simple. It fucking sucks. And I’m not even talking getting the old joint cleaned out and dumping shit you don’t wanna bring to a new home. That nightmare is yet to come. Nope, I’m talking about the *simple* items, like getting your escrow check back when your contract mandates you receive it within five days and the shitty escrow attorney holds it hostage for three weeks and his bimbo assistant/office bozo makes it obvious: “If you come up here to Plantation (translation, 50 minute drive, one way, with gas $4.13 a gallon), you’ll have it faster. Otherwise, I can send it, but it might not go out today…or tomorrow…or this week…”

This latest shitbag move caused Pam and I to lose more than three hours of a business midday, the gas and tolls, hadda grab food on the way, etc. We get up to this place? Only to find out the assholes who have been dealing with us for *weeks* on this one simple issue (just send back the checks) spelled Pam’s name wrong. No kidding. This is a fucking attorney (probably an ambulance chasing dimwit who fell into escrow because it is easy to scam the system) can’t get a check printed out with the correct name, and on the letter that went with it? It is addressed to another party entirely. Yeah, glad I’m not using these assholes to sue anybody. As it stands, Pam’s mom found out there’s a bunch of lawsuits pending against this guy, or firm, or whatever the hell it is he’s running up there. Not good.

On top of that? The check isn’t a cashier’s check from the bank. It isn’t instantly-depositable paper. There will be a hold on this check until next week because it is written out of his personal trust account, according to his receptionist. Huh? What the fuck??? This sound shady to anybody else out there? *We* had to get a certified bank check, FedEx it to the escrow company, and after this guy’s been sitting on our dough for the past three weeks, we get paid with a personal trust account check? What the hell is the state of Florida doing certifying this putz to do escrow? No wonder so many people scam the system. Did I get interest back on that check? A couple of grand for nearly a month should have earned a couple of bucks. Where did that money go? This is a huge office building with all the niceties, guy in the lobby asking you to sign in, the whole front is up. Lotta dough going through this place. So the first thing I think when we split is, How many escrow checks does this guy handle? How much dough goes into his trust account, sits for weeks longer than necessary, with him keeping the interest? You think about how much escrow money is floating around on home sales, people putting anywhere from a thousand into escrow to tens of thousands, and start doing the math. I have no idea what the hell is going on up there in Plantation, but after we finally move and get the paperwork out of our hair, there’s gonna be a lot of phone calls and complaints and letters written to the folks in charge laying out just how much of a screwing we took on this one deal, which fell-through. What about the deals which drag out? What about people without the time and means to stay on these folks’ asses and force the issue? I have no doubt that our check would have been sitting up there in ‘processing’ or ‘accounting’ or wherever they were going to tell us it was being slowed up next, while it was just sitting in a personal trust account waiting for X amount of time to pass to make it worthwhile to make us go away.

Fucking scumbags. In a couple of weeks, I’ll start naming names, once we get all the paper pushed and the contact info for the people who need to be tipped off to how lousy Florida home buyers are being treated, in this shitty market, where a little effort and common sense and customer service would be helping turn the whole thing around. Us? We’d’ve been *in* our new home this coming weekend if not for a lazy, inept realtor, a bank that asked us to jump through hoops but violated state law by not providing us with receipts for our escrow checks, (despite our having proof of delivery), and a general malaise about something as simple as making sure the power was turned on for the inspector. This is the effort you put in to sell homes you are stuck with and taking billion dollars in losses on every quarter? You have a buyer who *wants* to buy, who you didn’t even need to show the property to, who made everything so easy that you were looking at a rush-closing incentive of a thousand free bucks, and you *still* manage to fuck up the deal? Yeah, that happened to us, otherwise we would be moving in this coming Friday.

You want to know who’s to blame for the real estate crunch? Idiots. The idiots who lied on their mortgage apps expecting to buy five homes and turn four of them over for a quick buck. The banks giving these retards and speculators subprime loans because they wanted the big mortgage biz but weren’t willing to do the work to see if the borrowers were viable. That’s who fucked things up, not the government, or the regulators, or the rising fuel costs. People who got greedy, expecting to make a mint turning over properties that had never even been built, banks with their heads up their asses, and realtors who sold idiots the Brooklyn Bridge and promised they could relocate it to Weehauken for a song and double their investments. And it ain’t going to be fixed until peple get smart, start taking some responsibility for their dumb decisions and stop looking to the government to bail them out, and use a little common sense going forward. Given my experience the past two and a half months? Common sense is about as uncommon as cheap coffee at Starbucks.

******************
Currently listening to: Wrapped in Plastic by Combichrist

Sunday
June 22
11:38 p.m.

Just came back in from a walk around the neighborhood with the wife and dog. First time in a couple of nights it hasn’t been raining at night, which is good. We’d been doing the walking thing for about a week, then the weather interrupted, meaning we just stuck around the house and pretty much worked thru.

One of the things I’ve been working thru on, now appears imminent. Hart has mentioned it in approved press releases, so it’s finally okay to open my mouth about it. The Bunker, my first feature film, is going to be the pilot episode of the new program American Horrors, a two-hour block of bringing-the-pain programming for Indiepix, a new European cable television network. Hart is producing the inaugural season of the show, and The Bunker will be the special premiere/kick-off episode. From that point forward, there will be half hour episodes of the Flowers on the Razorwire TV program, with special feature-length episodes (like The Bunker) scattered throughout. Needless to say, we’re all really excited about the doors this will open. Right now we’re trimming down for a PG-13 rating, meaning a lot of sound work given all the profanity; some tweaks to the visuals (even though it’s Europe, no nudity); and pretty much getting it to fit into commercial broadcast shape. Gotta figure out where the commercial breaks will go, got to work around some of the dialogue and ADR, etc. But we have a man with two decades of sound design experience (and more) working on it, and we should have a broadcast date to announce sometime in the next month and a half.

Indiepix will be available in 16 million homes, so all you Euros, start telling your friends about the upcoming launch. I want all 16 mil of you tuned in when the world’s first feature directed by a blind man puts the lie to those who doubted—those who said it couldn’t be done. We’re waving bye-bye to all the naysayers with one hand…and there’s four fingers left over if you catch my drift.

I was contacted by a German horror entertainment site this past weekend, and they want a screener. Germany. Yeah, American Horrors will be airing in Germany, how convenient for us. I was also contacted by a foreign film distributor looking for indie content to shop around in Australia and South Asia, five film markets in all. What do they want to see? The Bunker.

I wouldn’t even be mentioning this if the company behind the cable network hadn’t approved it. Usually, I’ll say nothing until it is a locked down, done deal. But this one is looking good and we’re moving forward on not just The Bunker, but possibly several other episodes, as well. Chance Meeting will also be appearing, later in the season. And Hart and I are talking about shooting some new, gritty, in-your-face episodes as well.

Keep yer fingers crossed, folks. This goes well it’ll mean a whole lot more exposure, and a lot more creative output over the next several months. I now have three scripts fully outlined, a double-episode laid out, and everything ready to go into script format the minute I get the word. Lot of interesting stuff happening right now, with a whole load of upside.

And I thought I was busy *last* week…

****************
Currently listening to: Marilyn, My Bitterness by the Cruxshadows

Friday
May 30
12:18 a.m.

Headin’ out to Ft. Myers later this afternoon, planning to spend tomorrow and possibly some of Sunday house huntin’. The time is right to get out’a Miami, much as I like it here. Concerts and clubbing here is all around, but I don’t get out as often, most of the folks I used to hang with are either wrapped up in other things or have moved away. Luckily, there is an equally healthy film scene on Florida’s Sun coast, and I plan to plug into that, especially with all the stuff going on and my involvement in the American Horrors project for European cable television. (More to come on that, especially some meaty updates on the SightUnseenPictures.com site when I can fully talk about the details).

Only problem is, for some reason, banks aren’t eager to lend to anybody to take some of these gonna-be foreclosures off peoples’ hands. Instead of working with folks with solid income who want to pick up one of these places that will be sitting, abandoned, on the banks’ loss sheets, they’re making things difficult. Seems pretty goddamned stupid to me, but Pam and I are going to try and find a place, and if we do, put in an offer. If the bank expects people to put down upwards of 25% in *this* climate, all they’re going to do is compound the housing crisis. Maybe they feel they have nothing left to lose by hanging onto a gajillion foreclosed homes, but I can’t see the logic in that given that nobody thinks the housing market is even remotely going to make a turnaround this year, and probably not until at least mid-2009.

Still, Pam and I are undaunted. We’re gonna give it a shot now and push, because I never thought I would see 3/2 homes, around 1,750 square feet of living space, double attached garage, for around $80 grand. Yeah, some of these places, built as recently as 2006 and 2007, are going for less than a hundred bills as people desperately try to get out from under bad (and greedy) decisions. Folks who thought the market would kick ass indefinitely are now saddled with four and five homes, four of them unoccupied, with hefty mortgages and paying high taxes. Properties they thought were bargains at $209K, are now being listed for $115K and sometimes a whole lot lower.

It’s time for making the jump, picking up and getting out of Miami. I’m ready, though it’ll be hard to leave a lot of things here behind.

But I can write, and direct, and make movies, just about anywhere. Soon, hopefully, those efforts will be based out of Ft. Myers or Cape Coral.

In a place we got for a steal.
**************
Shout outs and well-wishes to my buddy Al’s dad, who’s been going through a rough patch health-wise. You hang in there, big guy, between the cycle and the convertible there’s a lot of road left to cover.

**************
Currently listening to: Going to Florida by Butthole Surfers

Monday
Memorial Day
8:54 p.m.

Just got back from an interesting day out. Not quite as successful as I’d’ve liked, but certainly not the failure my last bowling outing was.

This morning, feeling that Pam and I should be doing *something* instead of just working, I made a phone call to my local AMC theatre. I wanted to know if the new Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, was available audio-described. The person I spoke to said that it was. Good. The movies aren’t far, and while this isn’t the most thrilling of prospects, (listening to a movie with a headset, hearing the action described in the lulls), I wanted to contribute to the Indy opening weekend gross. There have been a few flicks I’ve felt like this about before, none of which were available (at least, not at the time they opened) audio-described. Being that this is a long-awaited mega blockbuster, I figured I had a better than average shot.

Not willing to settle for the word of one person, I called again. This time, I asked if the theatres showing the flick (I think it was playing in four at the multiplex), were audio-equipped. Even better news. Not only were all the Indy theatres so-equipped, but every theatre at the Sunset Place cinema is. Not only for audio, either, but for the deaf, as well, with closed-captioning. Sweet. So, having gotten two employees to verify things, I went in and told Pam to get dressed–we were going out. Destination: surprise. She’d find out where we were going when we got there.

So we show up, I spring the surprise on her, she is really excited, and we go in to buy tix. The person at guest services gives us the headset, tells us how it works, and promises us that if anything is wrong, we can just come out and swap out the headset, and if it interferes, since the movie is playing every half hour, we can just wait and go into the next showing. Very accomodating. In we go.

Now, we’re sitting in the center of a crowded theatre, got our popcorn, drinks and candy, and the trailers start. Lots of trailers. The headset sound is pretty good, but no description. Now, the guy did say that the trailer would signal the start of the description, but since there were so many, and I don’t know if trailers actually get audio described, I figure, I won’t just assume something is wrong with the headset. After all, the sound is good, so it’s probably just the trailers.

Nope. No such luck. The film starts, it opens up with a big action scene, and I have *no* freaking clue what the hell is going on. The audio is playing, but it is merely the same audio being pumped on the Dolby system. Kick ass, but still non-descriptive. Pam takes the headset, slips out, and rushes to go get another one.

Strike two. She tries the other set herself at the back of the theatre. Nada. She takes it back out again. The guy checks it out. Looks to be working fine. Still, no audio-description. Aha, somebody finally realizes. The film *is* available audio-described. But this requires special software the theatre orders for each film. This AMC theatre? Has not purchased that software. So, the theatre is equipped, but not for the Indiana Jones film.

Or is it? Pam returns, and instead of getting up and leaving I figure, hell, we’re already here, I don’t want to pack up all our junk and food and pull my vest on again and leave, because it’ll disrupt everybody around us. Two hours and four minutes? Why not? I can sit through that.

Which I did. So we leave, and go to see the manager. When he comes out (this guy named Lester), he is apologetic as can be. He also informs us that it is *not* all the theatres, but only theatre number 8 that is audio-description enabled. (Nice to know for future reference). Despite the fact that I am ticked off (and now already know the ending, so why would I want to try again in a week or two?), Lester does right by us. He refunds our ticket prices and what we spent on the snack combo (this, I felt, was the clincher. It wasn’t like we could’ve returned it anyway, but still, Pam ate her M&Ms, and we both ate the popcorn, so throwing that in was, as far as I was concerned, a very nice gesture. He also did what I *did* expect him to do, which was comp us passes to use at a future date, and (besides apologizing half a dozen times at least), told us to simply call the theatre next time, ask for a manager, and they would personally read off the showtimes for theatre 8 for me. This is one of the best managers I’ve dealt with for any service in recent years. He recognized the problem, took full responsibility for the mistakes made, and more than made up to us for it. Will we go again? Yeah, I think so. I haven’t been in a movie theatre to see a film in seven years, aside from the screening of The Bunker at the Halloween Horror Picture Show last October. This was a big deal. I wanted to surprise Pam, and yeah, I did want to be part of the horde seeing the last Indiana Jones flick, before somebody ruined the ending for me. (Indy is killed in a spectacular train wreck that destroys the Crystal skull.)

No, just kidding. That doesn’t happen. I couldn’t resist. Anyway, this was a flick I would’ve been seeing opening night at any other time in my life, I figured it was worth taking the shot and giving it a listen. The folks at AMC did right by us, despite the way things turned out. I will give them another chance.

In theatre 8. When there’s something else cool to see.

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Currently listening to: Simple Man by Shinedown

Sunday
May 18
7:09 a.m.

Hasn’t been a whole helluva lot to make note of, and I’ve been busy working, so it was a blog-free week last week. We did the Mother’s Day thing out at my parents’ place in Ft. Myers, did a little house-huntin’ on Saturday afternoon (found two promising looking joints, now it’s a matter of whether or not we’ll have the time to go back and look and make a serious offer or whether or not the places are sold before we even try). Lots of good, inexpensive homes out in the area by my sis and her family and my parents. We just never seem to have enough time to go and try to cash in on the precipitous drop in housing prices. Be nice to actually get out from under the rent at the current place, but here we are, still.

The Josh Medors charity auction was a huge success, raising over ten grand for Josh and with so many creators contributing, even at the very last minute, that they still have items up for sale. For more information on that, see the last few blog entries or just hit up the Emerald City ComiCon web site to see what goodies they still have. You can also find the PayPal address to donate directly to Josh there.

On the film front, I hope to get some more packages out, and soon, to start shopping the Visions of Sarah script, which is long overdue. I still have to make some editorial changes, but we’re just about ready to start firing those out the door, along with more Bunker packages. Hart is still working on the financing for the Eurocable TV horror program, so I’ve got some possibilities ready for that, as well. I’m also beginning to seriously look around again for a second Panasonic DVX100 camera to be able to run two-camera shoots. Everything I hear about Hi Def sounds nice, but all I can see is it adding extra work. Great, you get mega clarity and you can count the eyelashes on Roy Scheider’s face when he laments about needing a bigger boat. But if you get such super clarity it looks like a freaking soap opera until you go back in and add film look, grain, manually adjust your color saturation levels…why did you shoot HD in the first place? The more film folks I talk to, the less any of them can answer that question. I remember back when CDs really took off, and how I would hear music producers talking about this perfectly clean, crisp digital sound, and how they would gleefully add hiss and pops to some tracks so it sounded like a record. Well…gee, if you needed to put the defects back in to make it sound the way you wanted…why did you bother recording it digitally in the first place? For those individual tracks, why not simply engineer it the old fashioned way, instead of adding in all that extra work and cost? I’m also reminded of many failed experiments where recorded music was used to replace orchestras on Broadway and at theatres. And virtually every time, no matter what the sound engineers did, it sounded flat and lifeless. Even when they figured it out—that the slight imperfections is what gave performances life and breadth, they couldn’t reproduce it. You can overdub Yo Yo Ma to your heart’s content, but eight overdubs still isn’t going to give you the same rich texture as eight live cellists playing in harmony. This is how I am looking at HD right now. It is the niftiest new toy in the toy box, but to use it, you have to add in imperfections and grain and add another layer of expensive work to the process, especially if your goal is to have a format that looks like film. Movies like Grindhouse and a lot of these ‘70s era horror/exploitation films indie filmmakers are trying to recreate? Down to hair caught in the film gate and scratches on the ‘print?’ Filters that exist solely to make a HD film look like it was shot on Super 16? Maybe it’s just me, but I’d rather not shoot HD if all it means is that my raw footage looks like an episode of One Life To Live and I have to pay a load of money for somebody else to come in and play with that footage to make it look like the starting point my Panasonic was giving me right out of the camera. True, I still needed to film look from the raw footage in order to give it the look I wanted. But plenty of people have sold features without it. And if I can cut at least half the process out? Well, then I’m going to. As an indie filmmaker, I don’t have $100 grand to throw at a feature. And that is *nothing* insofar as a budget in terms of today’s independent films. So if my viewers can’t count Terry West’s nose hairs in The Bunker? Gee, what a loss. I’m no Luddite, especially when it comes to film technology, but I’m not going to sweat it if people can’t super-zoom in on a character’s ring to see what year he graduated and from what high school. I just don’t find it that important. Hart is planning to shoot all the episodes of the new TV show in Hi Def because that is what the cable network wants and it is what people are clamoring for in terms of content, so that’s understandable. I’m not gonna rebel against it just because I think all this is doing is adding another position or two to the post crew in order to make this stuff look good. But for me personally? I just can’t see it.

So to speak.
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Currently listening to: In the Flat Fields by Bauhaus