'Nother Week...Effing People

 

Another blur of a week.

First though, this was the first week the auction company did an auction without me. They asked me if I thought I should be there...I'm like, "It's not up to ME. If the new people think they have a handle on it, there you go."

Apparently there was one minor hiccup but the tech guy on the other end fixed things for them.So, as I texted Luke, "I'm FREEEEEEE".

Other than still having to shoot videos on occasion.

Work is a fucking disaster right now. Things have not been going smoothly for us--we were supposed to start working something mid-December but it didn't work out. Then it got pushed to start on 2/1 but now that's up in the air.

Thought this whole weekend I'd be working on it, but something went wrong again...now, no idea. 

It's frustrating.

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Worked this weekend on a book trailer for a friend but it's fucking ridiculous. It's an anthology but all the stories are like pre 1990, many are pre 1900. How do you find footage for that? Fuuuuck. So I made sort of a mood board video.

It's mediocre, but its a tight timeline because they just hit me with it but they want it up before the end of Stoker prelim voting--which is like 2 weeks from when they asked me.

In comparison, took me probably a solid 2 weeks of editing to do my Halloween book trailer, and probably nearly that long to do the Chiz book trailer.

Watched a little bit of the fball games, and also watched the whole Squid Games reality show which was REALLY good. Kind of shocked by how compulsively watchable it was. And infuriating at times.

Started the new Fargo season, which is also very good. I said it before and I still stand by it--Noah H is the best TV writer we have currently and it's not even close. I'm looking forward to his take on Alien in the new show...

 

 

Hijinks

 

I'd watch that Star Wars movie, AI or not.

Snowed like 5 inches up near us. Was nice, cuz we haven't seen snow in years. (we actually got like 2 inches, couple days later another 4)

Friday evening I thought--ought to get out and shoot some photos. Haven't been out in a long time. Part of me was like, "Man, you're tired. Would be so much easier to stay home and play some games."

THAT was what really got me out. I thought...that's the trap. Do it too often and you're DEFINITELY too old...I had to go out that night to prove I'm not yet too old.

Boom, we're out at the Ttory woods at 10pm. We go walking through the various trails. Incredibly, EVERY trail we took had already been walked by people. I mean, we probably walked 3 miles through that woods.

We went to the places where S Jack attacks and kills the kids(the infamous dance scene), we went to the place where the mapmaker and pal chat at the fire, we went to the trails where push-up bra was chased and killed by S Jack. We went by the Mid Clown's lair. 

Everywhere, the trails had been walked on. Like, this place must be grand central station during the day now. I have no idea how I'd shoot something during the day here.

At night though...nobody.

Shot some of these:

Was super cold, but once we got into the woods it was tolerable. We were out until about 1am. It was DARK man. The snow and moon helped a bit, but at one point we took a trail we THOUGHT was going one way and ended up a bit lost. 

Eventually we found our way back.

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FOC bookwise--starting to come together. Have a good variety of invited authors who have said yes, though none of the big home-runs yet. Only one replied--he's too busy right now but loves the idea. Still waiting for the others to get back to me.

In odd things--like 30% of these clown stories are set on or around H'ween. Like, coincidence or are they pandering to me?

Not too many good ones yet. 

And oh--one of the ladies that I wanted in the book--I'd sent her the invite and she didn't respond. Friday she sends me a story. I'm like...guess she's in. And it's pretty good too...and part of it is set on H'ween.

Funny. 

Am REALLY concerned about the cover. I want it to be amazing. Not sure whether to try my regular guy. I actually looked into another popular guy--he's done movie posters mostly, and for like some big movies--but he's also done some books.

I reached out just to get a price. Figured he'd be out of what I want to spend--I don't tend to spend more than $500 per cover. He's $1900, turns out. But he's got a big following, so part of me considers there will be free advertising there. Still, that's a lot.

Am thinking it over.

3 Day Weekend

 

Man, Frazetta's the greatest fantasy artist of all time. Sometimes I run across a painting I haven't seen in decades and it just floors me all over again.

Got the 3 day weekend, with the paid-off day for MLK.

Ended up going to a local-ish premiere for a buddy's movie. I say local-ish because it was like an hour away. Me and the Malf went. I just ended up getting an Uber. Was costly, but that way I don't have to worry about driving after I've had a couple of drinks.

Movie was at a theater chain I've never heard of, but was a cool place. Had food and liquor. We had VIP tickets so got to snag some swag--though neither wanted to carry it--plus free food ahead of time. We got some vodka drinks and shot the shit with people we knew.

Besides supporting friends, was curious to see the difference between what a $100K movie looks like compared to a $10K movie of mine looks like.

As I sort of expected, not that much. I'm not blaming anybody--the problem when you start involving unions is that a lot of your money isn't going on screen any more. Probably 85% of my budget goes up on screen. I never pay myself anything out of the budget for the countless hats I'm wearing.

But when you get SAG and the other unions...so many rules, and so many fees for various requirements. None of that shows up on screen.

The movie's decent but has zero nudity and very little gore, which kind of surprised me. A lot of off-screen killing. Other than the one-location, I wouldn't say that it screams microbudget but it's obviously very low budget. The actors seem to be having a lot of fun.

After the movie we went to the afterparty. It was at a restaurant. Saw people I haven't seen a years, talked to some other people who wanted to meet me which is always flattering. One of them I'm apparently FB friends with.

They all wanted to know what's the 411 on distribution nowadays, and man is that always a suck conversation. I don't want to be the guy who's constantly negative, but I've got nothing good to say on it right now. Distribution is fucking worse than it's been for a loooooong time, at least, paying distribution.

When I look at all my filmmaking friends from the past, only one of them is still making movies, and he's only doing it maybe once every 4 years--and he's actually more well-known than I am as a result of one H'ween movie he made that got notoriety.

It's pretty sobering.

Anyway, woke up yesterday to surprise snow. Was not aware we were ever going to get snow again, since it's been like two years since we got more than an inch. And then it kept snowing. The wife and I went out for steak dinner.

I cheated a bit this weekend after going the first week on the diet. Not sure how well it's working right now, but with these new meds I'm on, not sure if that's getting in the way. It's certainly messing my stomach up.

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Also just noticed...this March is going to be the 20th year anniversary of me starting this blog...fucking nuts.

 

 

Doctor Doctor, Give Me The News...

 

Before I forget, ever seen these? A lot of fascinating photos:

https://www.historydefined.net/must-see-photos-in-history/

Anyway, had set up a doctor's appointment last month--earliest they could get me in was this week. (with my actual doctor, not the other loser doctors)

Went in for two reasons, but the one I spoke of to them was that I've had a red mark on my lip for like three years. Sometimes it gets dark red, most of the time it's barely noticeable. Every once in a while, skin will flake there like an old callous. 

I tell my doc. He says, and I quote, "If you've had it for three years and it hasn't killed you, it's probably nothing to worry about." I laugh, because this is my exact philosophy on health. It usually takes me about three years to go see the doc about anything--I'm a "Let's wait and see if it gets better on its own" kind of guy.

So he comes over and looks...and gets a not-great expression on his face. Part frown, part contemplation. I say "That's not a look you wanna see on your doc's face, doc."

He says, "Looks like a pre-malignancy." JUST what you wanna hear, right?

He says he's going to try to freeze it off, but if it doesn't get better or it gets worse, he'll need to take a sample. 

He leaves and comes back with what looks like a 1950's blow torch. He sprays liquid nitrogen on my lip and man is that a great feeling. We chit chat for a while(remember, this is a guy I've known for like 30 years--used to be one of my subscribers at the comic store)--man, he does NOT have any good things to say about the state of our medical system.

Thinks it's got maybe 10-20 years left before the whole system collapses.He's actually writing a book on it. Told me some details, and yeah, it's some pretty stupid shit. It's pretty clear that if we don't get the politicians to stop being bought off by every corporate entity, we're pretty fucked all around. (not just regarding the drug companies)

 

 

Get Ready For The Pain

 

The diet starts tomorrow. I've spent a good five months eating whatever I want and drinking slurpees just about every day.

Time to balance that with like three months of eating right. Back to broccoli and carrots for just about every dinner. Slurpees only once a week.

And on top, this is the big week at work--at least, it will be if everything is up and running like it should be tomorrow. If it is, then every tester in the company will be waiting on me to bring the environment up to speed...no telling how long that will take.

Depends on a lot of things, and most of it's out of my control. If there are still issues, I have to work with Ops to get them to fix it, and unfortunately it's not OUR Ops that would be fixing it. Our Ops is great--guy in charge is one the smartest guys I've ever met.

THEIR Ops...ugh.

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Started diving into the clown antho I'm going to put out this year. I mentioned that, right? I just looked and don't see anything about it...

Okay--I'm putting out another horror anthology this year and it's called FOC: A Horror Anthology. (FOC is the words from my 2nd movie) However, this book has nothing to do with my movies, and I won't be contributing a story to this one.

I've been taking submissions since early December but it was very slow--figured everybody's in holiday mode, so my advertising wasn't set to hit until the first week of January. It just started hitting, and I'm getting submissions now. I've only read about five stories--first four weren't great, but the fifth is a Consider.

I've got a couple of good names that have said yes, a couple of other biggies that are considering, and another 10 or so that haven't gotten back to me at all.

 My current worry is the cover. I got two different artists to do a cover for the H'ween antho I put out so I could then decide what to put where, but it became a bone of contention with my regular artist and I'm not sure if he's pissed at me now. (not like I kept that a secret--but he saw the other guy's cover(the lettering in particular) and started accusing me of letting the other artist see HIS early versions of the cover. He thought the other guy was using a font just like the one HE used in his roughs--a font I didn't like and didn't approve, and certainly didn't show the other artist)

I mean, think about it. You show me a rough and I go, "No, don't like that font." But then I take that to the other artist and go "Hey, can you use a font like this one that I didn't like?"

And I want this cover to kick ass.

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Trying to finish up that music video, at least the editing. Once that's done, I've got a fuckton of work to do to color correct it and fix those issue with the spots on the camera's mirror.

Still trying to work on this Xmas script but I'm basically being fucked by the 2nd half of the 2nd act. I gotta figure that out, or I'm gonna write myself into a corner that I can't get out of, or come up with a script that's like 20 pages too short, and I'm only aiming for like 80 pages...

 

 

 

2023 Brief Look At Music

 

So if I had to peg the best new album I heard this year, it's hands-down Extreme's Six.

It's so crazy that after years of nothing, these guys came out of hiding to release an album where every song is good to great. No duds there...that's rare from ANY group, much less a group from the 80's.

I can't even pick a favorite song...it would be between like 8 of the songs...and the variety...go listen to X-Out followed by Beautiful Girls...it's crazy, they sound like Extreme still, but they've evolved. That's usually bad(to me) because I'm one of those dudes who wants things to stay the same while giving me new versions...

...Like, I want Def Leppard to keep putting new songs, but I don't want their sound to change. I don't want a new version of that game I love, I just want new maps. 

But somehow they did it, and bravo.

Anyway, here's Beautiful Girls to check out, then go follow that up with the other songs, most of which will rock your brain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFqttnF4gGM&list=OLAK5uy_nUyfr3BoA3s9FYJxVRGpZPZqyB-EfHe8k&index=11

Jake Shears from the Scissor Sister put out a new album, and while it's not as good as some of the SS albums, he's always good for a couple of great songs:

 

He's got the awesome Kylie Minogue doing vocals on this one:

And the other one that got heavy play from me, prolly my favorite from the album:

Another band that's been killing it for me is The Struts. Like two years ago I don't think I'd heard of them. But then I'll hear a song on the radio and be like, "This is cool", only to find out it's them.

Check out this newish one--tell me it doesn't start off like a new Billy Idol song:

3 Teeth is an industrial band I've dug for a few years--they released some bangers this year but this one was probably my favorite:

You know, I play a lot of Rocket League, and they're always adding catchy new music. Some of my favorite new ones:

Conro is always reliable:

 

Another catchy RL song from someone named Grant:


 

 Gunship's one of the best current synthwave meets industrial bands out there, and they love the 80's like I do. And hey, they put the saxman himself for this song(and video):

This one came out toward the end of the year and really caught my attention, but I've never heard of this group.

Anyway, probably the most catchy song I heard this year isn't even FROM this year...I think I heard it on Love Island.