A Cthulhu Christmas

Seeing as we're producing an H.P. Lovecraft documentary, I would be remiss if I didn't direct you to...

The 9 Days Of Judgement!!

Enjoy!!

Second Verse Same As The First?

In the spirit of the holidays, I attended an elementary school "Holiday-Sing-A-Long".

No, it's not just something I do. My niece Paige asked me personally to come and, as I am quickly finding out, I can't say no to the kid.

What made this pageant a cut above the rest was not my niece singing like an angel (she did, though... along with the 100 other kids singing back up). No, this "all denominational" fest staggered the mind by offering the lost verses to the Dreidel Song.

You know the words...

I had a little dreidel,
I made it out of clay,
And when it's dry and ready,
With dreidel I shall play.

Apparently that's not all there is to the song. The next verse sees the singer making a dreidel of snow. Then soap. Then, of all things... cheese.

I had a little dreidel,
I made it out of cheese,
And when I add some pepper,
My dreidel made me sneeze.

Or something to that effect. Who knew?

This almost rivals the discovery of an honest to God giant squid. Seriously. Check it out on CNN.


Still a dreidel made of cheese is not as shocking as the truth behind Kirk & Spock. For all the sordid details check out this mash up.


Happy Holidays! For those who didn't receive it already, I have a year end comic up for all to see. It's like those tomes friends send in Christmas cards to catch you up on all the things they were too busy to call you about.

Nowadays, I guess they have blogs.

Maybe Bush Really Is That Stupid

My mother was the first to tell me there was stupidity in the air. "Bush plans to increase troops in Iraq", she all but moaned.

When I got home, I checked out the news wires. Sure enough, this Christmas present from our Commander In Chief was waiting:

Bush plans to increase size of military

You can read the article yourself either here or at some other shocked & awed news site. Allow me to point out a few salient points, however:

Top generals have expressed concern that even temporarily shipping thousands of more troops would be largely ineffective in the absence of bold new political and economic steps, and that it would leave the already stretched Army and Marines Corps even thinner once the surge ended.

They also worry that it feeds a perception that the strife and chaos in Iraq is mainly a military problem; in their view it is largely political, fed by economic distress.

Maybe "stupid" is the wrong word. "Foolish" is more like it. And "stubborn". This Administration is so hellbent on turning the failure of Iraq into a victory, just to prove their point, they are now going to add fuel to the fire... the same fuel Iraq could and should be selling to get back on its feet after we messed up the place.

Terrorists are not one dimensional men in black hats twirling their moustaches. Yes, they do evil things, but they aren't spawned without motive. Terrorism is born out of ideology. That means this is a war of ideology. Big surprise!

Any layman who reads a newspaper could see that America's going into Iraq would spawn more terrorism, a civil war and world wide hatred of American policy. But those lay people who spoke out at the time were shouted down as being "unpatriotic". Now each of these forecasts have come true... and still Bush won't listen to reason. He must think America is a baseball team he can run into the ground again.

Dare I say, try some diplomacy for once. Suck it up. Admit you were abysmally wrong and seek help from the rest of the world like we should have in the beginning... if they'll even take our calls at this point.


Oh, and on a side note... don't you moderates be fooled by John "Surge" McCain's support of this plan. Any man who sides with the neo-cons who so ravaged his reputation during the 2000 election is not to be respected.

Bava, Saxon & The Birth Of Jesus

As usual, I find the gap between blog entries grows in proportion to my slate. There's a big push from Anchor Bay to finish all the extras for the Mario Bava box set. When I say all the extras that means 3 featurettes... each one produced by yours truly.


The first two (for Black Sabbbath and Rabid Dogs) are complete. The third involved an interview with actor John Saxon.


Check out the man's IMDB listing. He's been in everything. He fought Bruce Lee (on screen). He faced off against Freddy Kreuger (again... on screen). His memories of Bava will be paired with The Girl Who Knew Too Much (aka The Evil Eye).

As the year winds down and we prepare for Christ's birthday bash (if you subscribe to that way of thinking... according to some guesses, the man was born in April. I guess the Church reckoned that being born and resurrected in the same month would boggle a few heads), I ready for 2007 and its projects...

Lovecraft: Fear Of The Unknown will continue with more interviews and a trip to Providence.

There should be an announcement of a whole slate of wyrd projects that my Lovecraft producers and I will be putting together. Trust me. They'll be for the geek in all of us.

I'll also be returning to screenwriting as I prepare Cenote for ready and willing eyes and delve into a project tentatively titled The Heartfelt Quest Of Paige Nicole.


Other friends and acquaintances should also be busy next year. Allow me to give a shout out to Geraldine Hughes. She was kind enough to grace my short film Frank? with her talent. Now she can be seen on the big, big screen in Rocky Balboa.


Filmmaker Chris Sivertson (The Lost) recently saw his feature debut sold to Anchor Bay. Chris was very helpful on the "Working With A Master" piece I did on Lucky McKee. In fact, Chris is in it. He's directing Lindsey Lohan in a thriller as we speak.

That's all the updates for now (except for this Masters Of Horror plug... look for Fair Haired Child at your local video depot -- it's the last of my 12 featurettes for Season One). Rants will come when I'm not rendering timelines. You editors know of what I speak.

Hello! My Name Is...

While I enjoy a brief reprieve from the combined forces of production and holiday madness, a belated post seemed like a good idea.

I survived the triple threat of Thanksgiving, my 38th birthday and my 20th high school reunion. All this thanks to a loving and supportive family, reasonably clean living and name tags.

Regarding class reunions... don't believe the hype! While the Carroll '86 reunion committee did a fine job, all the apprehension fell away the moment I realized I was in a room full of strangers. Outside of the small handful of classmates I still hear from, I hardly remembered a soul.

Don't get me wrong. There were charming people around the open bar (including a stunning woman from San Diego who I failed to introduce myself to -- some things haven't changed in 20 years!). Some even seemed to remember me... slightly.

I could blame the memory lapse on the Catholic school system that segregated us into Girl's Side & Boy's Side. How could I remember any of the girls when I hardly knew them to begin with? I have to stop blaming the Church at some point, though.

Nope, it's just this. In fine Proustian fashion, high school reunions awaken all the awkward tendencies of youth. Why else would a 38 year old person act like they're reliving the prom? The truth is that the people you dread seeing won't be there (or be recognizable). The girl or boy you always wish you went out with... they'll be married with children and not what you once fantasized about at all (don't worry, you won't look like you did either -- unless you've sold your soul. I'm looking at your Mr. Vanderlaag).

In the tradition of the late and witty Douglas Adams, I can now officially label high school reunions as... mostly harmless.

BTW, thanks to my fellow classmates for my "Most Hollywood" award. We'll discuss how it can be construed as an insult some other time. I know your hearts were in the right place (even if it did take a glance at the yearbook to remember who I once was).