Wednesday...some time in the United States

Aloha dear reader!

Yes, it's been a while [standard pre-amble for many a blog-post]. I must confess, I've been spending a lot of time with my other blog, but that's no reason for this blog to be jealous. It should be happy for me; I've been extending my creative energy into the world in the most productive way I can conceive [Freudian readers, please enjoy this sentence], and that has been my principle way of dealing with the various little (as well as overwhelming) life issues which have swarmed upon me and infiltrated my soul as of late.

However, since this is not an appropriate venue for expressing my issues -- even though it would really be a bargain for both of us -- I'll just stick to business here, and if you're really interested in experiencing the creative impulses of a suffering soldier who is fighting to get a grip on this thing called life, I urge you to follow my other blog. I promise, this one won't be jealous. As far as providing details of my personal struggles, that's off of the table at the moment, suffice it to say they deal with relationships and good old fashioned money.

Now for the sauce! In addition to my article which will be in an upcoming issue of Fangoria magazine, I've contributed an article and some ditties to Rue Morgue magazine. I'll keep you posted on street dates / issue numbers. As for TITO, I heard back from the Fantasia Film Festival...and they thought the acting sucked, but at least it wasn't a formal rejection. [Note to self: stop acting in your films]. But there's still hope for the project; two rejection notices are pending! In any event, that's certainly enough negative reinforcement to make working on The Making of TITO into an uninspiring chore. Still, I've got some decent material to cobble together for it, so it's still a possibility...

Currently, I've been pouring a lot of energy into yet another high-concept project [Note to self: perhaps if you created fewer "high-concept" projects and more "paint-by-the-numbers" ones, you might see an increased critical response and a modicum of money]. Anyway, this one is a sort of musical film project. I've written a series of songs which tell a metaphoric story. So far, I've workshopped and recorded several versions of the first two songs, and I'm pretty enthusiastic about continuing to develop the songs and then eventually produce a live-action / animated film to show the story.

Whelp, I guess that's about it for the news. There are other things in the planning, but since there always are, I'll just share what I've done and what I'm currently doing.

I can say Wednesday (with some difficulty)

For a person to say they're a poet seems anachronistic. I had a "professor" at Columbia College Chicago who tried to convince her class that rap was poetry. Perhaps there's some that is, but I never had any interest to spend time wading through all the "gangsta," "bitch, suck my dick," "pop a cap in yo ass" idiocy to find it. In any event, I keep journals regularly; they are comprised of story ideas, "brilliant" one-liners, snippets of dialog that may fit into one of my stories, doodles and poems. Hmm, I'm going to err on the side of "if I write poems even though I'm not in a poetry class, I'm a poet."

In any event, I believe that this fairly rambling pre-amble is just an advertisement to get you, dear reader, to pop on by my new blog. Don't worry, this one's not going anywhere -- as "the other blog" serves a different purpose from this one. This one is basically about keeping you posted on my film and writing projects, whereas the new one, called Personal Juice, is essentially a virtual version of the journals I was just describing. Anyway, check it out if you are so inclined. It is here.

All right, onto business. Progress on the TITO documentary has been slow (mostly due to having to deal with selling my dying car and buying a new one [a work in progress]). However, I just submitted TITO to the Fantastic Film Festival, which I hope accepts my little film. On Monday morning, Chris Alexander, the Editor-in-Chief of Fangoria magazine accepted my first article for Fango. And although for some reason I'm not feeling the nostalgia value of the acceptance (probably due to being pre-occupied with the car situation [and my mom's concern thereof]), I grew up reading Fangoria magazine and, in fact, had wallpapered my bedroom with the mini-posters of monsters, make-up artists, and grotesqueties that they portrayed.

In fact, when Chris read my article, he gave me the same feedback as Ogre had [reference is to an article I wrote after interviewing a childhood hero: lead singer of the band Skinny Puppy]; they both said that the articles were "fantastic." So, that's definitely good news.

Beyond that, I've been gradually molding several stories, which are in various stages of development, for future film projects -- including the biker film that I originally wrote with my late father. I've also been tinkering with some musical recordings and may spring something fairly interesting on a most-likely uninterested public in the near future.

Until then, I've got plenty of work to do, so I bid you peace and good day!