All I could say Friday morning when the Crazy Colombian arrived at my house was: “I hate you for this.” Thanks to Danilo’s relentless traffic phobia we were leaving L.A. at 5am, which translated into the sad fact that I’d only gotten 3 hours sleep –– and that was after busting my tail all week on HNM, up late every night, up for work early every morning, and last night burning the midnight oil to pack and prepare promo materials for the fest we were about to head for. I was starting out this mad journey already feeling whipped and quartered. At least at 5 in the morning I didn’t have to look at the murderous sunlight. Not for another hour anyway. After hitting Starbucks, which opened at 4:30am –– now that’s just wrong! –– we wheeled out onto the 60 West and then roared up the empty 5 heading north. Jesus God, there it was! The hideous, life-sucking sun rising, ripping off heads and burning out eyes as it grinned wickedly at us over the Santa Clarita mountains. Goddamn that incessant light! But we certainly did miss all the traffic. Too bad we were suddenly zooming up the wrong highway and didn’t even know it. Not until a butt-numbing 5 hours later, after stopping for a Taco Bell burrito in some godforsaken backwater, did I start wondering why I hadn’t seen any signs counting down the miles to San Francisco. Of course the Crazy Colombian sitting next to me hadn’t even thought twice about where we were headed –– being that he was so enraptured with rolling down the passenger window (the wind buffeting the opening and battering my eardrums to bloody hell) in efforts to snap pictures of every little piece of farm machinery or mediocre mechanical marvel we passed. So I pulled off the highway, refuelled, and took over navigation while Danilo took over the driver’s seat. Which, let me tell you, became a nightmare in itself –– poor me trying to decipher the Rand McNally atlas, but too afraid to take my eyes off the road as Danilo gleefully burned up the freeway, one hand on the wheel and the other working his digital camera –– and then his cell phone camera! The latter igniting a compulsion to immediately send out cell phone emails of the images he’d just captured. Good grief, man! We’re lost on the 99 to Sacramento, which bypasses San Francisco completely! Keep your mind and your eyes on the task at hand, you crazed Colombian lunatic! Fortunately the AAA gods were merciful: we’d only veered a mere 45 minutes off course and didn’t have much trouble cutting across country to the 5, then the 580, and on to good ol’ San Francisco. Of course once over the Oakland Bridge and deep into the city we overshot our exit by a solid 15 minutes due to our foolhardy reliance on directions I had printed out online that were completely wrong. Danilo was now showing very scary signs of cabin fever and insisted I use his beloved camera/cell phone (by shoving it in my face) to find directions to the hotel –– right now, right now, right now! So...after one U-turn and two desperate phone calls to a single hotel operator that gave two different sets of directions we at last found our befuddled selves at the Embassy Suites hotel; here we’d be camping out for the next 3 nights with international businessman/likely CIA agent/persistent AD/dubious actor Rick Wildridge who had flown all the way in from Texas. In keeping with the theme of the trip (and Murphy’s [enervating] Law), it quite naturally took another hour for our room to be made ready –– so we munched on nuts I’d packed and had a much-needed drink. Three nights of movies and martinis had begun at last. Little did we know, however, that the hotel was about to be taken over by a foul-mouthed tribe of Haitian orphans left to run rampant by their mysteriously invisible keepers. And little did we realize that this over-priced hotel would at one point be atmospherically recalibrated to mimic the torrid heat only found in the deepest heart of Africa –– causing not only me and mine to drip sweat, but also the large sliding glass door that led out onto our room’s mini balcony. Even the air outside refused to enter our swampy digs, which we’d previously thought of as a respectable hotel room. It was no surprise my slowly boiling brain at last drove me to call the front desk and request a little air-conditioning. My effort, however, met with a less than satisfying result, but resulted in a very satisfying cathartic moment. I suddenly found myself bursting from our room and screaming at the top of my lungs –– “IT’S F#@KING HOT IN HERE!” –– the echo rattling the hotel’s central atrium and all 10 floors of the steaming Embassy Suites around 3 o’clock on Monday morning. I’m quite sure, however, my eloquent broadcast fell in futility on the unsympathetic ears of the snooty saps chained to the front desk. Ineffectual slobs!


Much earlier during the nerve-racking –– although far cooler –– portion of the evening, MY SKIN was well received at the SFIF Another Hole In The Head Film Fest hosted by the AMC Kabuki 8 Cinemas. Out of the scant questions asked the filmmakers after the block of shorts screened, two were directed at me: one about Tony’s bird-like performance and it’s enhancement by the use of speed effects, and one about “The Device”, which was used to shoot all the spinning shots. So that was nice –– and I even knew the right answers! Also, out in the lobby I was accosted by several inspired audience-types who had grand compliments for the film, and who were specifically infatuated with Tony's excellent portrayal of Death. (Kudos, Mr. Simmons.) I also set out 6 or 8 DVDs next to my promo postcards, stickers and reviews, starting a feeding frenzy amongst the horror-starved festival fanatics. The DVDs were devoured as fast as I tossed them out! The only real downside to the screening was that the video projection system hadn't been calibrated, making all the films look dull, flat, and desaturated. It was a bit gruelling watching MS knowing how much snappier it could look. And then, to add insult to injury, Michael Strode’s short, BLACK GULCH, and another called THE SILVERGLEAM WHISTLE, screened on beautiful, pristine 35mm prints. The lucky bastards! Of course they spent 10 times more green making their mini Hollywood blockbusters (not to mention their exorbitant film school tuition) than I did making my little underground MS. So such is life. And I inarguably did have a grizzly good time at the fest –– me hanging out at the Cat Club with makeup artist/director Gabe Bartalos (SKINNED DEEP) or at The Boom Boom Room, chatting with fellow filmmakers Jeffery Lando (SAVAGE ISLAND), Ashley Fester (OLD BREED), Kae Sharpe (arty filmmaker girl), Bruce Fletcher (festival programmer), and Jeff Ross (fest director). Also had a grand time burning around the city with Rick and Danilo (who at some point in the mayhem slipped off to take advantage of the gay marriage scene running rampant in the wily streets of old S.F.: see honeymoon pic right here), and sipping pricy martinis and eating pricy cheese at a hip bar and restaurant called Absinthe (which we managed to infiltrate more than once after the dinner menu had long been put to bed). Sadly, though, all good things must come to an end. (And that included Rick and Danilo’s dodgy marriage.) The drive back on Monday began with hearty farewells and then a monstrous delay due to suddenly needing gas and another Starbucks mocha; then confidently dashing back onto the highway going the wrong direction; then a couple more miles down the road being scuttled by a dullish vehicle loaded with good Samaritans trying to inform us we had a flat tire; then getting that traitorous rubber bastard changed over; then missing the proper entrance to the next highway interchange; then making a rather raucous U-turn that left the pricy rock from the mountains of China I had bought in Japan Town toppled onto its side; then at the following interchange stupidly taking the wrong direction once again! Of course we didn't realize we’d been duped by the highway system until about fifteen minutes later when we came upon signage that smugly informed us we were heading back to San Francisco one more time. Frantically zigging and zagging off the freeway, Danilo and I quickly found ourselves lost in a bizarre hilly town where no roads seemed to run parallel, and from which we were almost certain we would never escape. Danilo grew evermore panicked and kept insisting we were in a real life horror film. I adamantly agreed –– and as I buggered in and out of an unusually narrow driveway of some small spook house, I also told Danilo that because we were in a real life horror film there was no way in hell we were going to stop, get out of the car, and ask for directions. So we locked our doors and spent the next 20 minutes searching for an entrance to the freeway that would take us home to wicked, yet longed for, L.A. When we finally did get back on track it wasn't but another 20 minutes before we found ourselves crawling through what seemed like endless traffic. Ahhhhhh, the madness of it all!!!!!! The loathing!!!!! But we kept our wits –– and our lives (even after a greasy dinner at Denny’s Diner in one of the most cow-stinky truck-stop towns on the map) –– and finally, around 10pm, swerved back onto the familiar street where my tiny residence rested peacefully in the darkness. Ah, I thought, just as I had left it. Hard work this film festival stuff. I’m dragging big time today and have already lost my desire to flog the HNM beast tonight. Been slavishly busy since morning and also need to get a new tire. Naturally the puncture is in the sidewall so it can't be fixed. Damn. Going to horror film festivals is also a horrifyingly costly affair. But what the hell, my pricy Chinese rock from Japan Town looks great towering over my California bar of Euro-American booze! Think I’ll make a Russian vodka martini and drop in a Mexican jalapeno-stuffed olive from Ohio. Now that’s globalization.