New Splatter Movie review
Current mood: adored

A few short weeks ago, Fangoria posted our notification that SPLATTER MOVIE: THE DIRECTOR'S CUT is now available on DVD. Since then, we've been selling a record amount of copies - for us, anyway.

We've also received a goodly amount of requests for screeners and my favorite site in the whole world, Movies Made Me Do It, posted a new review. You can read this review HERE. Chad has been incredibly supportive of our movies and sometimes I feel like I only make movies for him. This time around, he gave us 10/10, which is the highest review we've ever gotten for anything.

Tonight, I must sleep in another room because my ego will be taking up most of the room.

12:31 AM - 1 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Shooting Coventry Lanes part 2
Current mood: indignant
Category: Life

Looking back at the shoot—which seems like having taken place months ago, rather than just a few short weeks—I'm having the same feeling as I did when it was happening: it was hectic, it was rushed and it was too short. Unlike Splatter Movie and A Feast of Flesh, where we had more time and less money, this time around, time was the precious commodity. Most of the problem was our own dumb fault. We completely misjudged the amount of time we had to shoot at King Lanes, thinking we had the entire month of August, where, in reality, where the rest of the world resides, we only had the first two weeks. So the entire script had to be boiled down to a lean eight-day shoot.

Our budget being what it was, we could only afford to bring our out-of-town people in for a single weekend. This meant that all of the "group diva" stuff, with Amy, Brinke Stevens, Debbie Rochon, Lilith Stabs and Robyn Griggs had to be shot during the first three days. With everyone involved having their own hectic schedules, we could only shoot with Debbie Saturday to Monday, Robyn had to be out at a certain time each day to accommodate a different shoot, and then there were all the other performers to think about, with their own jobs and lives to juggle around.

None of the above would have been much of a problem, truthfully, if it weren't for the fact that the five Divas (and the two main characters, Lisa (Nikki McCrea) and Taffy (Sofiya Smirnova)) had multiple costume and make-up changes to deal with. Gwendolyn, my more-or-less "sister in law" (in that she's married to Bill Homan, my closest friend in the world), had only a few days to create essentially six costumes. Eric Molinaris and his team were providing the extensive demon make-up. I had originally hoped that Don Bumgarner would be on hand to create teeth for the Divas on set, as he had done for A Feast of Flesh, but his duties at Scarehouse precluded his involvement this time around. Ultimately, as far as teeth went, Luke Miller (Splatter Movie) came through with upper and lower dentures that, in the end, just didn't fit anyone quite right. Through no fault of his own. Truth be told, had we used the teeth he'd created, we'd have had to do multiple takes and ADR so the actresses wouldn't be slurring their words. Which would have required more time that we didn't have.

Add to all this the fact that Amy and I were working with a crew entirely new to us. While we know Steve and Hugo socially, we've never worked with them or even seen them work before. And their D.P., Simon Garrity, was a complete wild card for us as we'd never even met him before. And has it been mentioned ad nauseum yet that their primary language is French, while ours isn't even English, it's "American"? This led to constant amounts of fun. They'd ask me what I wanted for the next shot, I'd tell them, then they'd go and confer in French and completely freak me out. By the end of the shoot, I was almost able to understand them. I pay attention to tone and body language, at least, so I could interpret what they were saying without actually knowing. And, apparently, I had caught on more than I knew because, in at least two instances, Steve would ask Simon or Hugo something in French and I, passing by, would answer in English. Took me by surprise too.

There were other "first time" things for us to contend with. I'm a complete novice when it comes to High Definition video, so I had to learn as I went along what their capacity was with Firestore Hard Drives versus "P2" cards, what the camera capabilities were, etc.

Amy and I are used to being the crew, along with Jeff Waltrowski, so watching these guys in motion was something to behold. For one thing, they lit like pros. So the backgrounds were always lit, multiple characters had their own key lights, etc. Now, in our defense, we were shooting on a much wider space than we're used to. On Feast and Splatter, we were usually cramming a dozen people into one tiny room. King Lanes is, of course, the size of a bowling alley! So we needed more light. Fortunately, we had more lights, including two I rented from Performance Lighting, the very place I used to rent lights from in film school.

One thing I knew right off the bat—while it would take us a while to get used to the Canadians, it would likely take longer for them to get used to us. Or, rather, the way we like to shoot. We like to call what we do, alternatively, "The McGyver School of Filmmaking" and "run and gun". When Jeff or I are behind camera, we concentrate on one thing: "get the shot". And since I do the editing, I know what I need. I'm not big on master shots and I'm not a big believer of multiple takes. It took me a while to analyze what I do. It seems lazy, but at the same time, I don't see a lot of benefit from the Stanley Kubrick school. Why do you need 187 takes of Tom Cruise rounding a corner? And while I like running lines with actors, I'm not big on rehearsal. I usually like what's invented in the moment than in the rote repetition of the lines. I like to be surprised. On the flip side of that, since I usually write the scripts, I know how they sound in my head, so I became, on this shoot at least, a "line reading director". (But as Brinke told me on the last day, "Most actors will tell you that they like getting line readings—they want to know how the director wants the line to sound." So that was comforting.)

So it was likely agony for Simon, at least, when I would veto multiple takes. "We need to make another," he'd say after every take, and, invariably, I'd ask why. Eventually, he caught on and would reply, "For sound. To make sure." Which was vague and the one thing I was most afraid of. So, inevitably, we'd "make another one." Which was fine on day one. By Day Four, we didn't really have time to "make another one." We barely had the time to make the first one!

We were also working with a lot of people who were good friends, but were first time actors. And a couple of folks we didn't know at all! It always takes me a while to find an actor's rhythm. Mostly, because I'm not that good of a director when it comes to actors. Actors frustrate me and I don't usually know how to communicate with them. Dust on a lens? I know what to do. Blown fuse or bad lamp. I know what to do or how to get around it. 'What's my motivation?' No clue how to answer. Not a lot of patience with that question either. But I forced myself. I had fifteen-plus people who needed to know what the hell was going on in front of the camera, and another dozen more who wanted to know what was going on behind it. The people in front were the scarier group for me.

Tara Cooper and Tabatha Carrick, two wonderful ladies and very good friends, were acting for more or less the first time. And both had confessed that they were terrified. Michael Barton, Gary _____ and Stephanie Bertoni were veteran actors, but we'd never worked with them before. Okay, Steph was the script supervisor on The Screening, but I didn't have that much contact with her on that show. And everybody in the movie was playing a character that could become a cartoon without much nudging. Steph's "Rochelle", in particular, is so over the top that finding a balance for her was vital. So I was learning about them as they learned about me.

In the meantime, Amy was doing her producer duties by solving an endless amount of problems beyond the camera perimeter. She was juggling travel and sleep arrangements with the make-up and costume departments, figuring out with Sandy Hall what food would be served and when, and dealing with multiple emotional breakdowns. It should be said that I love all of my female friends. I understand women a lot better, in a lot of ways, than I do men. Which is one of the reasons my scripts are so unbalanced with the amount of female-to-male characters. But I swear to god, once our ten-plus female cast got on set together, their cycles all synched simultaneously. Hell, by the end of the first weekend, I was menstrual.

There was one day in particular that blew my mind. Gwen had just gotten all the Divas and Lisa fitted into their glamour costumes and the Canadians and I were just finishing up with the "strip bowling" section (which came with its own calamities). Amy comes up to me in between set ups and tells me that she and Nikki have to run out. Suddenly, half the cast was gone! Nikki and Amy had also taken Tara and Aaron and Sandy with them. And I had no idea why.

Steve comes up, "What's next."

"Nothing."

"Sorry?"

"Amy and Nikki went shopping."

Long pause. "What?"

As it turns out, Nikki's glamour dress didn't work on her. Again – nobody's fault. Gwen didn't have enough time to fit it to her properly, so it didn't quite hang on her correctly. And since Nikki is twice Sofiya's height, she felt like a giant next to the tiny Asian girl. So, in a bout of producer professionalism, Amy took her out to get a replacement costume that would fit her and allow her to look and feel sexy. Fine. Aaron went for Nikki's emotional support. Tara went for Amy's. And Sandy drove, knowing the quickest route to the stores. Fine.

Except, none of this was explained to me. Just all of the sudden, I had no cast.

"So what do you want to do?" Steve asked me, clearly enjoying my misery as I flipped through the script, trying to find anything we could shoot so we could move on.

"Send everyone home and get drunk," I responded.

"Works for me," Steve replied.

There were a lot of little things like that. Maybe not as dire, but dump them all into a heap…

One day was like ten minutes before a first-grade play. This person didn't have the right pants, another didn't have the right underwear, another had forgotten their hat, one of the aprons was missing, another was lost. All of this, Amy had to deal with, as I tore pages out of the script haphazardly to make sure we'd be able to finish before Sunday morning.

To everyone's credit, nobody else seemed out of sorts or stressed out. I felt bad for the people who were just sitting around, waiting for us to get to them. That was always a source of pride with us—we didn't keep people waiting around. But then there'd be Steph or Brinke reading their books and waiting for their scenes. And then there was Mike Barton who spent about an hour lying half-naked on the floor, covered with fake gore, because no one told me he was ready (or if they had, I didn't listen).

Right off the bat, things went weird. Not just with the language barrier and the idea that I was somehow in over my head—all of these things contributed to our running behind schedule, continuously. The first Saturday, Jeff, playing "Brad" and also A.D., informed me: "We've got to start moving faster."

Which pissed me off. "What would you suggest?"

"I don't know. Going faster."

I didn't hit him. He was doing his job.

Strangely, the more I felt compelled to apologize for time and delay, the more people seemed to console me and tell me things were fine. Brinke was happy and said she was relaxed. Stephanie was used to much longer days on the "bigger" sets. Others were just hanging out and having a good time in between sets. The Canadians were happy because people were helping them, particularly David Cooper who was gripping in between all the set photography he was conducting. Every now and then, Amy would send someone over to make sure I was hydrating or eating. I had three people, including Amy, prepare me a plate for dinner on Sunday. So maybe this is what directing is: watching time sift away while everyone else orbits around you. Amy, as producer, had the unenviable task of existing in the middle of this sea of stress, though. And she kept as much of it as possible away from me.

For perhaps the first occasion since filming The Resurrection Game I felt the time-crunch. In Res Game, we had to shoot the 15-page climax and fight over a period of four different weekends at the American Mattress Factory because of the owner's time limits. We could only shoot while he was open, which meant six hours start to finish. The last hour of every shoot was maddening, but we knew we had free reign to return. This time around, we had to get everything done by Saturday the 9^th.

Our first Saturday, the 2^nd, was hectic and ran long. We didn't get out of there until after 10pm, shooting out the people with the least amount of time first. Sunday wasn't much better, but we did manage to wrap before 9pm that time around. Sunday was particularly stressful because of the costume changes. The Divas all start in their bowling outfits (their "white trash" costumes, as we dubbed them), moved to their glamour outfits for a couple of sections, then had to all throw themselves at our make-up department for their prosthetics, detailing, contacts and tattoos. Each stage per woman took about an hour, including the "plain" make up and particularly the glamour.

Because of limitations, we only managed to get all the Divas in a group for about four shots. Robyn was the first who had to leave, so we ended up framing her out of other sequences. My thinking was that she could be included in either a single, or a two-shot with Amy later. As we got more and more crunched for time and people started to burn out, we had to radically rethink the end fight. Nikki, as Lisa, had different stages of make up she had to go through, which would have meant more time and more delay. Ultimately, Amy, Simon and I came up with a way to keep the spirit of the Divas acting as one entity but separate characters, while still retaining the high-energy of the action that, hopefully, will work in editing. We'll see soon, won't we? By the time we started shooting that stuff, I could barely think straight.

The following weekend made the first weekend look like a vacation. We were without Tabatha, Brinke, Debbie, Henrique and Lilith and were only praying that the coverage we'd gotten with them the previous weekend would be enough. I was fairly confident, editing in my head, but I've gotten burned by myself before.

The second weekend was made doubly-complicated because it also included gore sequences. This was going to be even trickier because we couldn't get blood anywhere near the actual lanes for fear of staining the wood. I'd already talked to some digital effects artists about the possibility of digital blood in post, so I wasn't overtly worried about this restriction. But gore also equals time, particularly if you want it to look, you know, good. So a quick panic-stricken perusal of the script gave us the vital effects verses stuff we could shoot later on one of our ever-popular "garage gore days".

Things were going well Saturday. Crew call was 9am and we got our first shot off at 10:30 (which I was determined to do, even if I had to keep setting the clocks back!). Our first sequences involved two of our regulars: Bill Homan (who had to be at work by four, which meant out by two) and Stacy Bartlebaugh-Gmys (who was starring in a play and had to be out by also two). Their companion was "Mrs. Homan", Gwendolyn, who had no time constraints beyond having to take Bill to work. So, okay, say about two. We got all of their scenes done and wrapped, including a quick prosthetic, by 12:25. I was feeling pretty good about the day.

That rapidly vanished by about 10pm that night. As we were still going.

Around 8:30, Amy and I sat down with the script while everyone else ate dinner and started crossing out sequences the movie could do without. There were a number of short sequences with Nikki and Aaron's characters that were either redundant or didn't do much to forward the plot or, because of the way we had to stage scenes before and after them, just couldn't be logically blocked. I started condensing longer sequences, too, including an extended fight between Nikki and Sofiya that would not have worked either practically or, ultimately, thematically.

Then we started eliminating and redistributing lines. Then trying to figure out how to shoot action with only one of the involved parties.

By midnight, there wasn't a single person on set who wasn't fried beyond salvation. I had long since lost the ability to communicate with anyone, in English or French. At one point, I sat down with the Canadians and explained something, "Look, I'm going to ask you to shoot things a certain way and you're not going to understand why. How do you say 'trust me' in French?"

They told me. I never did say it correctly, but at least they never argued. Of course, I'd catch Hugo or Simon shooting cutaways of this or that while I was doing something else, for which I'm sure I'll be eternally grateful.

We shot the penultimate "Abby Singer" shot—an effects shot with Sofiya—and the Martini Shot with Amy and wrapped just shy of 1 am. Since my iMac cannot currently display the footage, I have no idea if we got everything we needed and will, doubtlessly, have to either return to the alley at a later date or do a very long "garage gore day" before the end of the year.

As we dragged ourselves out of the alley that night, triumphant in knowing that none of us would have to return to Kittanning on Sunday—which was a blessing for Bob and Sandy, who had to ready the alley for league inspection by 6pm that day—we retired for the evening. Or, at least, went back to Sandy's for sleep.

Coming next: what we did in between those two weekends and how the movie actually wrapped!

4:21 PM - 5 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

New shoot part 1
Current mood: awake
Category: Life

            Sunday night, shooting wrapped on Coventry Lanes. In an epic shoot, beating our own personal records by completing principal photography in just seven days—which included breaking another record by extending one shoot past twelve hours to a whopping seventeen, leaving most of us exhausted and hysterical—we emerged scathed and scarred, perhaps wiser, but likely not.

            As most of you have already doped out, Coventry Lanes is a bowling movie. It takes place in the beautiful King Lanes in Kittanning, owned by the beyond-generous and patient Bob and Sandy Hall. Bob and Sandy also went above and beyond to feed and house the majority of our 30+ cast and crew for the bulk of the seven days. Which is actually karma, in a lot of ways, because truth be told, the entire impetus of the movie was Sandy's fault.

            A few months ago, Amy and I attended a one-day comic book convention in Ohio, in the very hotel Robyn Griggs hosted her Twisted Nightmare Weekend show for two years. Robyn was also a guest at this show and, as they're want to do, she and Amy wound up in the bar for a good portion of the day. As Robyn is a veteran of soap operas—Another World, primarily—she and Amy have often tooled around with doing a web-based soap spoof and they returned to this topic again, amidst many lemon drops. As we left, Amy and I continued to outline the plot of this silly thing when we got a call from Tara Cooper, make-up artist and costumer extraordinaire. She was at her mother's place. Her mother, Sandy, was the co-owner of the aforementioned Kittanning Bowling Alley with her husband, Bob. Ever since Mothman Prophecies had been shot in Kittanning, it'd been Sandy's dream that a movie would be filmed in her alley. And this dream was expressed to us over the phone. Or, rather, over Tara's shoulder and over the phone.

            "Tell them they have to shoot in my bowling alley!" we heard.

            Now, for the last two years, Happy Cloud Pictures has been trying and failing to raise funds necessary for a larger-budgeted straight horror movie called Painmaker. It's at the top of our dream projects. It has a big concept, will require a huge effects budget and will likely involve multiple SAG actors. It's not something we can toss off in our back yard. But we like to shoot something every year. Blame our work ethic or our sense of masochism, but we like to stay busy. And since Splatter Movie continues to this moment to be requested and rejected by major distributors, we didn't have anything currently on our plate for the Summer. So by the time we got home, we had a brief outline for a fun, goofy horror comedy similar to but very different from our first DV movie, Severe Injuries.

            As children of the '80s, we're all at HCP fans of the straight-to-video horror movie. Among my personal favorites are Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-o-Rama and Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, both starring the wonderful Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer. Right before Hookers came Nightmare Sisters, which was the first time these two starred with the just as wonderful if not wonderfuler Brinke Stevens. Now: bowling alley, horror comedy—our first idea was to do either an indirect sequel or, possibly, a remake of Sorority Babes. We entertained this idea for all of four seconds until we realized we'd have to hunt down the rights, either through director Dave DeCoteau or Fred Olen Ray, whose Retromedia label was the current distributor. Add to that the fact that I'm not a fan of remakes and consider myself an intensely original individual, a rip-off—uh, I mean, homage was more keeping with my sensibilities.

            I knew what elements I wanted to include: the evil preppy girls, the outsiders, the hunks, the misunderstood hunk, and the female villains that would set all the gore and nastiness in motion. The original concept was to include the three genuine scream queens: Brinke, Michelle and Linnea, and add to them Amy and Debbie Rochon, who are often pegged as scream queens anyway, regardless of the fact that they very rarely scream in their movies. Then mix in our normal cast of zanies, perhaps bring in a number of out-of-town friends to round out the parts.

            By the end of the week, I'd banged out a first draft that contained no less than fifteen main characters, including one that would be perfect for one of the A-list horror con regulars like Michael Berryman or Kane Hodder. We sent the script around to everyone we wanted involved and… immediately, things started to collapse.

            First: our meeting with Sandy and Bob went swimmingly. They were excited. The alley was fantastic. We couldn't wait. Except for the fact that I'd inadvertently written in scenes involving a pool table and a gymnasium (hey, the bowling alley in my old neighborhood had these things and an upstairs video arcade; my assumption that all alleys had these things were valid based on the information I had at the time!), it was a perfect location. We signed the location agreement and went along our way. Completely misunderstanding one vital piece of information involving the alley's need for readiness before league play started in September. More on that in a minute.

            The script was sent out to our "scream queens" and Brinke was the first to sign on. Debbie was second. Michelle had to be tracked down. Linnea had a new management team we needed to deal with. All fine. We had two investors come through almost immediately and Amy received a decent severance package from her job of ten years following a layoff; for once we had money to play with.

            Then we contacted our SAG actor. He was on board. So we contacted SAG.

            Then one of our investors started to get itchy to get everyone signed, which meant putting pressure on the rest of our out-of-town cast.

            Then the director of photography we'd been hoping for had to back out due to his selfishly accepting a job in New Orleans on a big budget movie.

            Then one actress was on board, wanted too much money, accepted a counter offer, then realized the dates we wanted to shoot conflicted with a prior engagement.

            Then, we realized our miscommunication with Sandy and Bob. Where once we thought we had all of August, by July 3^rd, we discovered we only had until August 10. See, there are all sorts of things one has to do to get a bowling alley ready for league play. They need a lot of time to accomplish those things. Playing host to a huge team of delusional filmmakers is not on that list of needed accomplishments. Suddenly, our production time—not to mention our pre-production time—had been cut by two weeks.

            We booked flights, continued negotiations, abandoned negotiations and sought new cast members to replace the ones we didn't have after all. Our key to the five villains was getting actresses cast who were not only recognizable but also had a reputation in the indie horror world. Since we're morons, it took us a day or so to realize who our leads should be and quickly approached our good friends Lilith Stabs and (duh!) Robyn Griggs (who we had originally envisioned in a different role but worked perfectly in the one we pitched to her). What was better, with Amy, Brinke, Debbie, Robyn and Lilith, we had a mini-Severe Injuries reunion going on as well, so that was very cool.

            And during all of this, we negotiated with the Screen Actors Guild.

            Let me take some time to bitch and whine about SAG. First, when you contact them, the first thing you have to go through is listen to them lecture and degrade you for not using all SAG actors. SAG actors, don't you know, are better trained, better disciplined and all around better humans, more moral and closer to divinity, than your normal, run of the mill, unwashed heathen non-union actor. The next thing you have to do is fill out paperwork. Which we did. And faxed said forms back to them.

            Then refaxed them because our SAG rep never received them.

            Then called back to confirm they received the refax. They did.

            Two days later, a package larger than our mortgage financing appeared in the mail. Complete with a Book of Mormon-sized guide to SAG contracts.

            Keep in mind, we wanted this SAG actor for one fucking day! And he'd already agreed to it and liked the role! His price was better than we'd anticipated. We knew him personally. He was a terrifically cool guy and we wanted him to play something he'd never done before. But his Union… they don't like their members to work on piddly little projects like this. They'd much rather they not work than deign to shoot a single day on a no-budget production. Even when the no-budget production has a fucking budget.

            Sorry, sorry. The frustration flashbacks keep coming.

            Anyway, by the time we got all the paperwork filled out and finally received a return phone call from our alleged SAG rep, our actor had already booked another job. I checked; he wasn't working with our former DP. It was something different.

            At this point, I'm having panic attacks hitting me like a clock bonging the time and we haven't even started shooting yet.

            Fortunately, our flights were booked, the rest of the cast was set, our good friend and pseudo-sister-in-law Gwendolyn offered to do costumes for us, things were starting to run smoothly. Things got even better when our good French Canadian friends at Diggerfilms, Steve, Hugo and their DP Simon, offered to come down to shoot for us with their HD equipment. Suddenly, the light at the end of the tunnel was not an oncoming train! This movie might actually get made after all.

            We sat down with FX master Eric Molinaris to discuss some of the more gruesome kills needed, as well as the cool-ass demon makeup, he was all about it, even though he was in the middle of shooting his own movie, Black Sunrise. Concurrently, Jeff Waltrowski came aboard as an AD, even though he was in pre-production on It Came from Yesterday, which will be shooting in December.

            We still had a couple of parts to cast, so we held open auditions at the alley. Kittanning is about twenty miles outside of Pittsburgh. Our rationale for holding the auditions there was based on the idea that people who would schlep all the way out there for an audition would have no trouble doing so for the actual shoot.

            Out of nearly 100 applicants, four showed up. Of course, we only needed to fill three roles and liked everyone we saw. One of the four, Gary, impressed Amy and Tara so much that they insisted I write a role for him. Suddenly, our fifteen person cast grew to seventeen (I needed someone for Gary's character to talk to, so I imported Henrique Couto as well). We cast the other three in the necessary roles.

            Then panicked when one had a family emergency.

            Then panicked again when another felt that the movie's sex and nudity would damage his career as a professional stand-in. It might prevent him from ever standing in again!

            We approached another actress to fill the void. She couldn't do it. Add to that another had to drop out even closer to the start date due to an even more dire family emergency and I was waking up every morning looking at Christopher Walken in my mirror.

            I'd gotten used to taking shallow breaths and conversing with others with my head between my knees. All was good.

            Amy solved the first two absences admirably. She approached our good friend Tabatha Carrick (who runs "Corpses by the Bunch" with her mother, Sharon Titus) and asked her to take the part of "Becki-with-an-I". Tabatha, game as she was, insisted that she couldn't act and that we'd fire her within seconds of learning this on set. (She came up anyway, making the five hour drive from Baltimore.)

            The "duh" moment came when we realized that the perfect actress for the other dopy sorority girl, "Infinity", was right under our noses. We just didn't ask her because she was already slated to do make-up, hair, costuming and general assistance. But we figured, what's one more thing on the plate and asked Tara if she'd be up to playing Infinity. She was. Just as terrified as Tabatha as it turns out, but game she was.

            Our longtime partner was put into the role of Max, originally written for him, oddly enough, but slated for our SAG actor when we started reaching for the moon. Gwendolyn came on for Roxanne, again, doing double-duty. Our last male-ish associate, Jeff, was recruited for Brad.

            Then came the last family emergency—two days before shooting. The person who seemed most excited about shooting was suddenly thrust into a family nightmare and had to pull out. Our sympathies and heart went to her, but we couldn't do anything to help and we couldn't push shooting back. My mind raced. I invented a few deities and said prayers to them. Suddenly, a name popped into my brain, someone I'd worked with on The Screening many moons ago. Coincidentally enough, the better half of our original DP. I didn't know if I still had her number or email. Miraculously, I did. I called, left a message. Took a shot of the hard stuff. Wished I had remembered to commit suicide weeks ago like a rational person.

            The phone rang. It was her: Stephanie Bertoni.

            She accepted. Liked the script, pitched her salary requirements, suddenly, all was right with the world.

            Two days later, we were shooting.

7:50 PM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Ah...insomnia
Current mood: awake
Category: Life

My insomnia is back. It snuck up on me while I was sleeping. I haven't slept more than three hours in as many days. It makes the world that much more colorful and silly, except that I'm often so grumpy, I can't see the funny in it.

We've been in pre-production on the new movie, Coventry Lanes, for about a month. Which is a woefully inadequate amount of time for pre-production, considering we start shooting next Friday. During this time, we've been raising money, booking flights, arranging crew and holding auditions. I dislike auditioning. Fortunately, out of the two hundred people from all over the world who sent headshots, only four people showed up. On the other hand, we only had three roles to fill.

Two weeks later, two of the three people we cast dropped out. One guy, who had been a stand-in for a big budget movie just released featuring a comic book character who's name, in German, means "flying mouse man". He didn't want to read for one of the roles we had sides for (scandalizing Nikki McCrea but making me think, 'Awesome, if he sucks, he won't waste my time!'). We cast him in the role he did read for, then, after three weeks of careful consideration (or something), he decided to decline. The nudity was an issue. It might prevent him from standing in for some other big actor in the future.

The other declination came because of personal reasons, so I couldn't hold that against her. Another actress begged us for a role then vanished from the face of the earth. Personal reasons reared their ugly heads for numerous others - all for the same damned role! It was Splatter Movie all over again, but at least we weren't shooting at the time of the cancellations. Ultimately, we found the perfect actresses right under our noses, so the Universe was giggling at us all along.

During all of that, we wrestled with SAG, with managers, with the insanity of others and tried to prepare ourselves for working with Hi-Def for the first time. And I wrote two more drafts, lost one, rewrote it, did an entire shot list in one day and tried to learn lines for a test shoot for a completely different movie in the interim.

And come next Friday, we'll have a house full of people ready to aid us in our fifth feature. Which is just weird. We've been doing this for ten years and we've done four previous feature films. Some of which people have actually seen!

And for this one, we have all sorts of new people doing things we would usually do. We have, for instance, a costume designer on this one. And two glamour artists, including one for hair! And an art designer! And a full crew coming in from Quebec. And we'll have a crane, two cameras at our disposal and, oh yeah, a publicist! For the first time ever, I'm not doing my own publicity. I don't even know how to mentally process that one!

Still: stress. For both of us.

To help, Tara booked Amy and I appointments for massages on Wednesday. It sounded great. Until I realized, half-naked, lying on a table, beneath a sheet, in a dark room, that the masseuse would have to touch me. I don't like to be touched, particularly by people I don't know or even have just met. Strangers touching me literally makes my flesh crawl. I almost decked an old woman in a supermarket because she, after bumping me accidentally, grabbed my arm in apology. I felt her fingers all the way to the bone. Any time I get an unwelcome touch, I feel like Khan jammed a Ceti Eel in my ear (screw you; Jeff Waltrowski gets that reference).

And I let "Little Allison", as Tara calls her, know about my malfunction. Not to discourage her but to be aware that my muscles were probably not going to co-operate once she started. "Your shoulders are like bricks," she said at one point, after all of her knuckles cracked like gunshots. I sympathized. I felt like I was letting her down. I tried to relax. I couldn't think of how. Literally, I hadn't the faintest clue how to relax. So I focussed on that for a while. It took my mind off the fact that this stranger had her hands all over my back.

She started working on my internally-scarred rotator cuff and I thought she was going to get up on the table and start stomping on it.

Half an hour later, I felt like I'd been hit by a car. My shoulders felt slightly looser. Yes. But I had to go back into the room to retrieve my skin, which had scurried under the table.

This is what it's like to be me.

2:39 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Buy THE RESURRECTION GAME Novelization!
Current mood: Incredibly pleased with myself
Category: Incredibly pleased with myself Life

I ran out of copies a few months ago. iUniverse, the POD that published it -- yeah, yeah, but what's the difference between a vanity press and self-distributing your own DVD? The Print Industry is just as horrifying right now as the film industry, folks -- raised my "author's price" so I thought I'd try to save myself some dough and check out Amazon to restock.

And I came across the fine folks selling it Used and New HERE.

That The Resurrection Game novelization is a groundbreaking work of prose is a given. That it will change your life in a profound way similar to The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye or Thin Thighs in 30 Days, again, a given.

But if you're planning on purchasing a copy of this masterpiece for your very own, to display alongside your first-edition copies of Angels and Demons and Harry Potter and the Wrong Feelings for Ron, I cannot stress more strongly that you purchase either from Woodys-Books or Annabananasearch. Just scroll down to the bottom of that aforementioned page and see just how highly these folks feel about what is quite possibly the greatest novel ever written*!










(*The greatest novel ever written called "The Resurrection Game".)

Currently reading : The Resurrection Game: A yarn from the Moonweaver memoirs By Mike Watt Release date: 2002-01-15

9:02 AM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

HCP News - Fangoria NJ and Netflix!
Current mood: exanimate

Two bits of juicy news for you:

Amy Lynn Best and Mike Watt will be appearing at the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in Secaucus, New Jersey this very weekend - July 20-22. Come by, say hi and check out Splatter Movie: The Director's Cut screening Sunday Only! For more information, click HERE

In awesome other news, A Feast of Flesh, the vampire epic starring Amy Lynn Best, Stacy Bartlebaugh-Gmys and Aaron Bernard is finally available through Netflix! Distributed by the good and hearty people at Bloody Earth Films, you can now check this wonderous piece of dark cinema out for yourself. Click HERE for more info!

1:18 PM - 4 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

F’Loathing Vegas part 2: The Wedding
Current mood: sweaty
Category: Life

Having returned from Las Vegas, let me say that I am happy to be back on American soil.

I have in the works a huge, vitriolic screed against the airline industry in general and U.S. Air in particular, but I'll let that wait until later in the week. Today, I just have to tell you about the wedding.  

When last we spoke (or I wrote and you (some of you) read), I was sitting in my reasonably comfortable hotel room in the shopping-mall-slash-concentration-camp known as Circus Circus, awaiting for the time to spring to action, leaping feet first into itchy tuxedo pants and head off into hundred-degree heat to take part in the hitching of Danielle Best and Brian Kocher.  

Well, the moment came. Amy and her sisters and mother were out gallivanting during the day, getting their hair teased into submission, nails on all appendages groomed and buffed and shaved, then, later, stuffed into garments of near-taffeta, lace and other natural and unnatural fibers. The guys… well, Brian, Amy's father, Dan, and I all met in the bar for a couple of drinks. I listened while Brian talked football to the bartender. Later, we returned to our rooms. This is how guys prepare for weddings.  

The ceremony was held at "Viva Las Vegas", famous for its themed weddings and ministers who dress like Elvis. An Elvis did not preside over this particular ceremony, however, and neither was an Elvis present at the union of the preceding wedding, which was attended by upwards of one hundred Mexican-Indians crammed into the less-than-spacious-but-more-than-modest main chapel. I mention this because I'm sure people would love to hear about an Elvis-officiated wedding. Sadly, this was not the case, but I'll refer you to one Bill and Michelle Hahner of Pittsburgh, who did have an Elvis wedding. I mention this because that's what I do. I mention things.  

The actual ceremony was something of a Navy SEAL landing. Brian, best man Mike Spano and I, along with Brian's mother and her boyfriend, were shuttled off the strip and into "Downtown Las Vegas" via limousine, and awaited the arrival of the women and the father of the bride, who would be coming by second limousine. Our awaiting took place in the "Blue Hawaii" room, where "Viva Las Vegas" stores spare tuxedos for those grooms on the go. Brian and Mike smoked as they waited. I don't smoke, so I didn't. A few minutes later, a woman named either Tiffany or Britney ushered us to the back of the building and gave us our places at the gazebo, where the ceremony would take place. Then we were ushered back. That was our rehearsal. 

Four minutes later, we were ushered once again to the gazebo and barked at by a no-nonsense photographer about positioning. I took a few seconds to study a digital camera pointed at us, taking note of the various cables spooling from it and the blinking "Tape Please" icon in the viewfinder. This camera would provide streaming video to the "Viva Las Vegas" website, so that all of the Best/Kocher friends and family not present in the stifling heat could witness the holy union for themselves, courtesy of a broadband connection.  

The no-nonsense photographer picked up a remote and suddenly the traditional wedding march filled the gazebo, the little area with the wooden benches for the spectators and the rest of the parking lot a few feet away. In came Amy and Liz, as the bridesmaids, and one-year-old Haley, as the bewildered flower girl. Then came Danielle, being given away by Dan. She arrived resplendent in the gazebo. Haley then took this as her cue to stand on the train of Danielle's lovely white dress.  

Three minutes, eighteen seconds later, they were pronounced husband and wife by a smiling and speed-reading minister. Eleven minutes later, after every conceivable set of photographs that can be taken in an eleven-minute time span, we were in the Champagne Room, drinking… champagne and eating Boston Cream Cake. We toasted the couple as quickly as possible and were on our way again by Nine PM sharp. 

Another set of limousines whisked us off to the Venetian Hotel and Casino back on the Las Vegas Strip, where we tumbled into genuine gondolas, gondola'ed by genuine gondoliers. I had been under the mistaken impression that the Venice reproduction canals were inside—there might be as far as I know—but we gondola'ed around outside, as the sun set and the temperature fell to a breezy 97. I will take this time to mention that we were all still in our formalwear.

After the gondola, it was decided that we would take a brisk walk down to the Belagio (Terry Benedict's joint) to see their magnificent fountain. According to the map, the Belagio is a mere quarter inch from the Venetian. Two miles later, dodging drunken revelers, distraught bankruptees and a gauntlet of Latinos who snapped discount hooker coupons at us, we arrived bedraggled, distraught, disheveled and distressed at the Belagio. Well, not distressed. The absurdity of the situation kept us laughing. The constant drunken bellowing of "Congratulations" to Danielle (and one "Suckers!") accompanied us on our journey.

The outdoor fountain of the Belagio is glorious, though "fountain" isn't quite the appropriate description. "Controlled Geyser" is a little more accurate. Accompanying the strains of Aaron Copeland's "Appalacian Suite" (I think; over the crowd's roar, I couldn't quite make out the music entirely; it could have been "Turkey in the Straw" for all I know), jets and arcs and walls of water plumed into the air, fifty and sixty stories. Truly awe-inspiring. Particularly considering that we were in the middle of a desert.  

Exhausted and delirious, we were acutely aware that we were limo-less at the moment, and that our own hotel was many, many miles away. We debated taking a bus. The debate didn't last long, so we searched for a cab. Cab stands in Las Vegas are plentiful, but difficult to get to if you don't know the ins and outs of the Casino/Hotel system. We had to circumnavigate the Belagio—the long way around, as it turned out—to reach one. During this venture, we passed through another hooker coupon hand-out gauntlet. As usual, I politely declined each card snapped at me (the sound of these cards snapping will haunt my dreams) until we reached the end of one gauntlet. I noticed this last man because he was so unlike the previous hooker-coupon vendors. For one thing, he was tall, white and wasn't giving out hooker coupons. Instead, he held a sign that read: "Find a wife, a girlfriend, a partner – but not a whore! It's an affront to God!"

I stopped and turned to the hooker-coupon vendor next to this sanctimonious in-need-of-a-hobby and took as many hooker coupons as he'd give me. I wound up with four, including one for "Brandi" who would come "in person" to your hotel room for the low-low rate of $35.  

An aside: there are commodities which are perfectly reasonable for which to be purchased at a discount, just as there are things you would be ill-advised to pay less-than-retail. On this negative side, I would suggest avoiding things like meat, milk and prostitutes. Looking at the airbrushed model on the card in my hand and doubting very highly that she was, indeed, Brandi, my mind reeled as to what a $35 hooker would actually look like. Would she have two nostrils, for instance? And any of her own teeth, hair or fingers? And what in God's name would she do for $35 besides put you, eventually, in the hospital? Still, in light of the incongruity of anyone protesting sin in Sin City, I decided to make my stand then and there and accept my God-given (or Julio-given) hooker coupons.  

Outside the Belagio, we were lucky enough to find an unoccupied limo (Thanks Rick!) who agreed to shuttle us back to Circus Circus, allowing us use of his generous bar as well. So we returned in as much style as we came (as far as the Venetian, anyway). If you are ever seized with the urge to trot up and down the Las Vegas Strip, don't do it in formal wear. Just my two cents. 

The following day was spent at the Adventuredome, the world's largest and most-disappointing indoor theme park. That the rides are uninspiring and the price exorbitant—not to mention the dead-eyed zombie teenagers who work there, completely ambivalent to your existence and can't even be bothered to smile or even make eye contact, merely demanding your money—is not the biggest problem. It's the utter lack of humanity to be found there. Circus Circus, from my experience, is the worst of the hotels on the Strip not because it looks like it should have been condemned due to want of interest—indeed, its discrepancy is the sole of its charm—it's because there isn't a single person employed within who, unless you're feeding them a constant stream of money, could care less about you.  

There's uniformly encompassing cynicism to be found in Vegas as a whole. Everywhere you look, a sign, a video screen, a passing bus, a commercial—ads screaming for you to give them your money. The world's best slots! The world's best sluts! Magicians, stage shows, lowest minimum blackjack tables! Grand buffets! Jimmy Buffetts! Pay us! Pay us! Pay us! Vegas is a giant vacuum hose affixed to your wallet immediately upon your disembarking the plane. There are more slot machines in the airport than there are places to sit. Finding a water fountain in airport, hotel or casino is next to impossible because they want to sell you bottles of water for $3 each. But, at least in the majority of the places we visited, the people extorting from you are at least pleasant, whether you're spending money or just passing through. 

At Circus Circus, if you somehow caught on fire, you'd have to pay for extinguishing. And end up charged some sort of rescue tax. I couldn't wait to go on a four-mile hike in a tuxedo just to find someone who might smile—with me, at me, I didn't care. For a hotel whose theme is clowns and joy, it was a truly joyless experience. Nearly everyone I encountered there was miserable. If you didn't have clean towels in your room, or if the dead prostitute under the bed hadn't yet been changed, that was somehow your fault. And you'll pay accordingly. And even when you were paying, they didn't seem particularly interested in your business. They could take or leave you. And I do understand that this is the discount hotel on the Strip, a step up from a Motel 6 (which also boast their own casinos!), but I felt like I had somehow become a dissident or a person of a lower caste, unworthy of even the smallest notice, let alone a kind word. Mirthless, joyless: Circus Circus.  

Aside from a half-hearted "4-D" cartoon featuring Daffy Duck and Marvin the Martian, beautifully animated but "scripted" in the most modest of senses—and "4-D", by the way, means that water shoots at you, your seat vibrates and a very sharp metal rod will jab you in the back, corresponding (or not) to the action on screen while the polarized glasses on your face gives you something just short of a migraine—the Adventureland Dome offered very little of fun for me. I take that back—we spent a good 40 minutes in line for a 9-minute game of lazer tag with other urchins around us and that was a terrific time. Little bastards hid in the dark and just waited for me to blunder past them. I'd never played lazer tag before and definitely enjoyed the hell out of that. But $24.95 for a six-minute cartoon and a 9-minute game? Not the best value I've ever received for my money.  

The rest of Saturday was spent again wandering the Strip. We had wanted to catch the outdoor show at Treasure Island ("The Sirens of Ti"), which boasted two pirate ships, one that sinks, an elaborate water battle and songs and dances. But we arrived too late and couldn't find a place to stand on the rope and plank bridge amid the throngs of other spectators. Catching a bit of the audio, though, I don't believe we missed that much. Seeing the majestic ship "The Bull" sail up to the Sirens' ship, though, was pretty neat. 

We did get to see the lion habitat at the MGM Grand, which had been closed on Thursday for re-lioning, or something. Two unconscious great cats dozed on a glass catwalk above us as we wormed our way through the inevitable crowd. Some folks bitched that the cats were asleep, but that's primarily what lions do. What did they expect? There wasn't a nearby gazelle exhibit to loose them .. all.  

On our way to our next adventure, I paid $5 to take a picture with a parrot on my arm. I love parrots, particularly blue macaws. I'd own one if they were less than the cost of a used car and wouldn't simply make an expensive meal for one of my dogs. And I didn't mind paying the "donation" for the picture because I knew the money would go to keeping the bird alive. It looked well-cared-for and loved. It was more interested in the seed it was fed by its owner than it was in me, of course, but I didn't mind.  

A half-hour later, our mobile family pack was on Fremont Street, aka "Old Vegas", where one can find "Rouge" and "The Golden Nugget" and a Walgreens that sold water for less than $3 a bottle. And here we found the respectable sleaze we'd so been missing on the Strip. Here were the salt-of-the-Earth people playing slots with handles. There were still families clustered about, but they at least had the good sense to look intimidated and uneasy. I felt a little better—I always do with freaks around.

Fremont Street is also home to an enormous LCD canopy—the largest television screen in the world—where "Karl the Technician" interviewed people on the street in between video shows. Ten blocks long and loud, we saw a tribute to Queen and a couple of other things that, because of what happened next, I don't remember too clearly.  

For those joining us with the entertainment already in progress, I should point out that Amy and I are fond of the demon rum. We like an occasional nip and we love a good Bacchanalia. So finding a joint on Fremont Street that sold half-gallon margaritas in football-shaped mugs for $14 was a bit like dipping a monkey in champagne…whatever that means. The upshot: a half-gallon of something made from 151 Rum, Banana Schnapps and various other poisonous concoctions made Vegas so much … funnier.  

Please allow me to point out that we two are professionals when it comes to being shitfaced in dangerous cities. We're trained in street savvy, kickboxing and looking too adorable to mug. Plus, when we drink, we become incredibly witty and urbane and an absolute joy to be around. Someday, there will be statues in our honor in all the cities we did not get killed in. Oh, and when you're dehydrated, 151 rum kicks in quick.  

Okay, so I wasn't allowed to pose with the Chippendale dancers when Amy and her mom and sister were, even though the three guys were obviously way more interested in me than they were the women. I still maintain that there's a severe bias and that the half-dressed trio were threatened by my masculinity. Most right-thinking people are.

 I can't say with certainty what we did once the football was a quarter-drunk. I know we considered going into a strip club until the very nice Italian women standing outside informed us that the cover was $20 apiece. I know we played a slot machine at The Golden Nugget and ably succeeded in losing a dollar. And I know we somehow wound up, probably by bus, back on the Strip where we ended up back inside the Venetian, not to mention Treasure Island and, possibly, the Flamingo. I remember the overwhelming smell of cocoanut and the unmistakable feeling that the go-go dancers were transvestites. I know that we saw a lot of Vegas that night, if only because we were seeing double by the time we (somehow) made it back to Circus Circus.

 If we had actually been in possession of better judgment, I would say that we ate at Graveyard Breakfast at one of the restaurants against the aforementioned, but let's face it: we were out of our minds. I do recall that the food tasted better than anything I'd had to eat that day prior to the Football of Love and Joy. And I am proud to say that it stayed down the rest of the night, even when I woke up the next morning in the familiar state of "Still Drunk".

 And that, my friends, is how to properly do Vegas. Don't try this at home. Unless you live in Vegas, in which case, none of the above will be news to you.  

Coming soon: "how not to get back from Las Vegas". Or, "how to not get back from Las Vegas".

1:07 PM - 4 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

F’loathing in Las Vegas
Current mood: overstimulated
Category: Life

Well, I'm not afraid of the place, and I'm not exactly hating it, but I had to pay some homage to the Thompson title, right?

I didn't make it to the desert, the edge or otherwise, and left all drugs back home—I've been incredibly sober the last two days, but I think artificial stimulation, at this point, would cause utter mental breakdown.

We suffered through a three-hour delay at JFK—one hour waiting for the world's bitchiest flight crew and another two waiting for fucking catering! (See Debbie Rochon's rant about flying here). We were kicked repeatedly for seven hours by two restless kids and their horrifying gorgon of a mother. The Pakistani air force pilot next to us laughed each time the plane captain's voice came over the PA, to update us about the catering delay. The stewardesses were even crankier than the passengers. Finally, we landed in the Land of Utter Excess about 4am East Coast time. If just being in Vegas wasn't surreal enough, seeing it through sleep-deprived eyes was almost mystical. The shuttle to our hotel took us from one end of the Strip to the other, passing the Sphinx at the Luxor, the crowded simulated skyline of New York-New York, the beached pirate ships of Treasure Island, the lethal sliver of the MGM Grand, the colonnades of Caesar's Palace, still alive and thriving and shining in what used to be a barren desert less than a hundred years ago.

We were in Sin City for Amy's youngest sister's wedding. When I first met Danielle, she had just turned 12 and I was dressed as Dr. Frankenfurter at the Hollywood Theater in Dormont, PA. Fifteen years later, she's getting married in the City That Doesn't Regret and I've been up for twenty-five hours.

We were staying at the ass-end of the Strip, at Circus Circus. In Hunter Thompson's famous tome, Circus Circus was a gaudy, crowded haven for middle class America, reptilian travelers in hats and sandals who sat in bars and at slot machines while acrobats whirled and flew above them. The only thing that has changed, it seems, is that Circus Circus now caters to the lower middle class "economy" families and the acrobats have been moved to a small stage in an upper level of the casino. For insurance reasons, no doubt.

Circus Circus, like the rest of the hotel/casinos, is more than a mile long, with multiple levels, towers and acres of noisy, bright, flashing, beeping slot machines. There are zombies perched in front of these mechanical monsters, staring with either dead eyes as the electric images flash at the beckoning of each coin or "credit" fed it, or fixed with an intensity that seem to focus their inner will, hoping this next spin will make them a winner. It's bright, loud, hard—if there aren't slot machines, there are hallways of shops and souvenir stands. There are video game arcades for the children—those forbidden from the gaming pits—and one of the largest indoor theme parks in America. Just an hour ago, I was standing beneath a roaring roller coaster, showered by the screams of children. There's a miniature golf course a few feet to my left, a laser tag arena behind me.

You have to pass through these areas to get to the elevators that will, possibly, if you take the right one, take you to your room. The rooms here are drab, ugly, the televisions small, the wireless internet expensive—they don't want you in here. They want you out there. Spend money. Go to the buffet—gorge yourself on multiple trips or you won't get your money's worth. Sit at the no-armed flashing bandits, middle-aged women of all nationalities will bring you drinks while you sit and feed the Daleks Of Chance.

Outside, it's hot. Not East Coast hot, though. A dry, pressing heat, like standing in a microwave oven, sucking moisture from your body—you're not sweating; you're evaporating. But fortunately, you're just a few feet away from another magnificent multi-mile hotel. And inside, the average temperature is about 55 degrees Fahrenheit. You'll pass outdoor cafes, too, where the icy air conditioning spills out into the street, and you'll marvel that there aren't tornadoes forming on the stairs.

Most of the hotels are owned by the same corporation, so you can access one from another via a catwalk. You take Mandalay Bay to the Luxor to the Excalibur, moving from South Africa to Egypt to a Lego vision of medieval times. There's an M&M world down the road from New York-New York—after you pass a gauntlet of Latinos passing out stacks of coupons for discount hookers—and in M&M world, you can buy every possible, conceivable piece of merchandise with the M&M cartoon characters emblazoned. You can get virtually anything there with M&Ms on it, though, ironically, you have to search for actual M&Ms. There, at the back, on the second floor of the four-floor shop, are tubes filled with customizable M&Ms. A two-pound bag will cost you $22. Across the street, at Target, you can get two pounds for $5. But that doesn't stop parents and children from filling clear plastic sleeves to the top.

Above you, New York-New York's own roller coaster roars past a scale Statue of Liberty. The buildings, so famous in the real New York, are the hotel room towers. In the Luxor, the rooms are built into the tapering, sloping walls of the pyramid. Everywhere, everywhere, the Daleks of Chance and the zombies feeding money into the hungry slots. If you make eye-contact with the men or women in suits in any of the pit areas, they will entice you with "free" show tickets or discount meals—all you have to do is visit this hotel or that for "just" two hours or so…

I pass by a stand selling margaritas by the yard—above me is a sign advertising Carrot Top's show. Next to that, one for Criss Angel the (mind)Freak. I hope to see either of them in the hotel. Maybe throwing a punch at either of these idiots would break my trance.

There's almost too much to see. Take away the "almost". Here we are, moving as a pack, the happy family among other happy family packs, and we're in an aquarium in the center of Mandalay Bay, accessible through the casino and past the opulent hotels—and a winery where "angels" fly up to retrieve your $300+ bottle of Chardonnay.

We leave the family—I have to pick up my tuxedo at the Men's Warehouse. It's not on the Strip. It's 3.3 miles from where we are and I don't want to pay $15 for a cab. The excess around me is making my stingier by the minute. We've already splurged for an all-day bus pass. We transfer busses twice and walk half-a-mile with the setting sun burning a tunnel through the sides of our heads. The women who work there want me to try on my tuxedo. I'm a sheen of perspiration and sore feet and screaming back and walking, grumpy misery. I try on my tux. It fits. We splurge for a cab back to Circus Circus.

It takes us another half hour to navigate our way back to the rooms. We stop for directions—two carnival workers don't speak English, two others have never been to the hotel portion of Circus Circus. None of the diorama maps contain the phrase "You Are Here"—they don't want you to know. They want you to be lost. Lost people can be distracted by the lights, the sounds, the colors, the alcohol, food, carnival games, toys, Daleks Of Chance. I wish I'd grabbed one of the coupons for the discount hookers, just to say I had one.

Our room has a beautiful view of "Old Vegas". Fremont Street—past the swimming pools and whatever that Seattle Space Needle thing is that I keep forgetting to look up. I watch the news. Never once do they mention "CSI" at the scene of the murders that have happened since we arrived two days ago. They don't call that division "CSI" here, but aside from Robert Urich as Dan Tanna, "CSI" is my only point of view for Vegas. Well, that and the strips that are constantly under threat in Michael Bay and Bruckheimer movies.

Tomorrow, who knows? We want to go to Old Vegas, and stomp around where Elvis and the Rat Pack and the mob had all tread before us. I want to drink a Hurricane out of a three-foot glass and put the expense out of my mind. I want to put the cynicism to rest, forget how much of the world—how much of America—is hungry and homeless. Outside the MGM Grand, a man sits crosslegged holding a cardboard sign reading "Please Help" and "God Bless". People pass him without seeing him, watching the video billboards for Cirque Du Soleil and Cathy Griffin and the roaring of the NY-NY roller coaster. I almost don't see him either—not that I had anything to give him. I'd left my cash in the hotel room, purposefully, aiding in my resistance to ridiculous Capitalism. My proletariat back has been up all day, much to the consternation of my family.

I'm waiting now. For Amy and her mom and sisters to return from their spa treatments. For Brian, the groom, and his best man to return from another trip to… somewhere. In three hours, I'll don the hard-earned tuxedo and watch my youngest sister-in-law marry the man she loves. Later, Amy and I will join the newly-married couple and our extended family in a gondola ride inside the Venetian Hotel and Casino. Inside. The inside technology here is amazing.

3:44 PM - 4 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

HCP visits LBP
Current mood: bruised

So we've returned, bruised, battered and weary, perhaps wiser, from the wilds of Rochester, NY.

A few months ago, Amy was recruited to take part in a new movie for Low Budget Pictures, helmed by LBP's generalissimo, Chris Seaver. In a moment of madness, Chris asked me to take a part as well. Now, we've known Chris for… ever, it seems. At least since 2000 when Debbie Rochon recommended that I interview the young director/producer of a movie she appeared in called Mulva: Zombie Asskicker. Seaver's movies take place in a world completely of his own devising, populated by characters who are all neurologically damaged, emotionally arrested and prone to Tourettes-like outbursts of profanity and bizarre vocalizations. His dialogue combines Shakespearean grandeur with impenetrable hip-hop slang, usually in the same sentence. Misogynistic, time-traveling simians and prehistoric Neanderthals occupy the same high school as a motley assortment of human teenagers—some of whom are cowboys, buck-toothed lesbians, sexually-frustrated and flatulent redheads and/or Metal-loving Caucasian Native Americans.

In short, nobody else on Earth can or will make a Low Budget Pictures movie. Whether you love him or hate him (and there aren't many people who are ambivalent towards him), it must be admitted that Chris Seaver is a true auteur. He assemble