George–A Zombie Intervention – review

George – A Zombie Intervention - review

Ya know, I love zombies as much, no, more than the next guy but man, I tell you what, they are starting to get like vampires – which is to say that they are overexposed. The good thing is that zombies are still pretty interesting, and there are some pretty good movies about them coming out. Alas, with vampires we are in the middle of the romantic vampire trend still so everything looks the same. Still, I think it’s time for zombies to take a bit of a break. I think it’s time they took some time off. None of this is to say that George is a bad film at all, it’s pretty ok, but it just goes to solidify my point because everyone and their uncle is making zombie pictures. If you wanna make a movie, ya start with a horror film. If you wanna make a horror film you start with zombies. Which brings us to George a fun zombie comedy that gives its gag away too early but still manages to be pretty decent.

George has a problem. He is avoiding the light, avoiding going out, and people seem to disappear around him. Fearing the worst, his sister and friends decide it’s time for an intervention. Fearing that George may secretly be a zombie and may be eating people so his friends hire an intervention specialist to aid them in their cause, though once they meet her they realize that their specialist may not be as experienced as they have been lead to believe. Needless to say George, a slacker in a robe who looks like he hasn’t seen the light in a while, is none too pleased to find himself in the middle of an intervention. He insists that he isn’t a zombie and rebuffs the attempts to plead with him to get help. Refusing to give up, the professional interventionist sets her feet and tries tact after tact but nothing seems to be getting through to him so they decide to take a break. No sooner do they break though when one by one the guests start to fall prey to accidents that out George’s true nature. But even as he starts to devour some of his friends it would seem that there may be a real killer amongst their numbers but who the real monster is is yet to be seen.

The premise for the film is actually pretty fun, and the movie is put together pretty darn well, it’s just that the story runs out before the picture does. A lot of the film is a one note joke that gets too much wear for too little cloth. There is just not enough depth here so that by the time you are nearing the conclusion you have been ready for the film to end for about fifteen minutes. Even the twists are not so much twists as obvious extensions of the story that are played for their surprise factor. Gore fans will get a kick out of the blood and the violence, which is plentiful on both accounts, but again, it is strictly because a zombie movie is supposed to be gory, and not because the movie wants to add something.

Movies like this come out all the time these days. An interesting premise with little funding and seemingly an eye on the profits but not the story. I would never be so cynical as to say that this was a film made strictly for money but it does feel like a film that was made because zombies are cool right now, and not because someone was a fan of zombies. If you can catch this on the cheap it is worth checking out but it isn’t something you will regret missing if you never catch it. The story is thin, the acting is fair, the gore is ok, but in the end it’s a feature built on a joke that is short film sized.

6 out of 10

A Book, Is A Book, Is A Book…

With the advent and infiltration of the e-reader and the tablet into the marketplace and popular culture there is a sudden rising fear with writers and readers alike that the book as a physical thing is in its last days, something that is sorta sad and funny at the same time. It isn’t sad because books are not worth saving, as it were, but sad that we are so afraid of things that are inevitable and evolutionary and may even be good in the end.

The Good -

With the adoption of the e-book and all of those supported formats we as a public are going to have SO MUCH available to us. We will have the opportunity to discover so many new writers, so many new stories, and in many ways it will be a level playing field for a time because someone like me who isn’t with a major publisher could find the same audience that someone who sells millions of books will. Now, I am sure there will come a LOT of changes in how we purchase e-books so that the lesser known and unknown authors don’t ‘clutter’ up the virtual aisles but truly, if a writer were so motivated, they could become a best seller as an independent, could gain a following, and if they are actually good, could become a household name in time. There are authors now that are doing well with just their e-books but I am not sure anyone is getting rich, though that could change. It’s a delicate balance, these e-books, in that you can’t have the price too high or people won’t buy it so you have to rely on selling a LOT of your inexpensive e-books to make your money, which is sometimes better said than done. But, better to have the opportunity, right? How many great stories and great writers were never discovered because the publishing industry were not interested in them? With the growing acceptance of self publishing authors are not bound to publishers as they once were. Heck, I think we’d all like to have someone other than ourselves and our friends pulling for us but as great as a publisher can be, they can also be an issue as well because once they decide your book is no longer marketable or relevant then they stop supporting it but you, as the author, never give up on it. If you wrote a good book it is still as relevant as it ever was, no matter how old the story may be. E-books are not perfect but they are the best chance indie writers have to make waves in a very, very big sea.

The Bad -

Books are going away. It’s inevitable. You can rage at this fact, can mourn it, or can adapt. Books are wasteful. Not all books, but my god, do we need a million copies of every book printed? Really? No. No because books are wasteful. These are not the days where you’d get a great book, read it, pass it on, and the book would live on from person to person to person. No, people just don’t read as they once did. It happens. We are working more, are busier, and have more pursuits than ever before. It isn’t just television but it’s easier than ever to discover music, art, movie-making, dance, heck everything, than it once was. So while many are watching movies, television, or playing videogames, some are not, they are doing other things that just isn’t reading. And so be it. Why some people are judged harshly because they don’t read is beyond me. We need every person with every interest and viewpoint to make up the rich tapestry of life, not just the pseudo-intellectuals who feel they are well read. BAH! But back to books. Books are wasteful. It’s just a fact. Too many books are produced at too high of a cost in manufacturing, then at too high a cost in the retail market, and unless the book hits it goes from best seller racks, to half off, to discount, to remainder, to donation, to trash and then it has to be – hopefully – recycled to start the process over again. What we need is an evolution in the book and book store industry. Books are important. Stories are crucial. But we need to stop mass producing things. We need to streamline. Make the books that are special the hardcovers, and do them in a way that make them something worthy of that honor. Make them well made, and make them collectible and if they are good books people will pay a little extra for them because they will be a form of art collection. Make paperbacks print on demand and have kiosks readily available so you can go to any bookstore – ANY! – and someone can plug in the book they want, pay for it at the kiosk or counter, and have it printed as they wait. And then have recycling stations at the store so if someone wants to get rid of their books they can return them for re-sale at a discount or can be recycled and someone can collect a refund similar to what some states do with bottle returns. Make paperbacks affordable, inexpensive, and watch them blow up again. Make a paperback five dollars or less and they’ll be huge. Make books special again. Stop mass producing, stop over-producing, and stop worrying about e-books. Not every book needs to be physically produced, that’s just a fact. Sometimes it should be an earned thing. Every story deserves to be read, it’s just that every book doesn’t need to be physically produced.

The Inevitable -

Books are going away…and it’s ok. I love books. Love them. But I love the art of books, love the design, and love books that are special. Paperbacks are great, are easy to read, but are very, very poorly made and are not made to last the test of time. It’s a shame that so many stories and books from the eighties, seventies, sixties, and well before that were lost because they were fun stories but were printed as pulp books that were not made for longevity. Paperbacks need to be easily recyclable so when they are getting worn they can be returned and recycled and kick the person a little incentive to do it…incentive toward more books. E-books are not bad. They force writers to think out of the box (out of the book, HA!) in the ways they want to present the tale. It allows them to be as creative as they want to be. It lets them add links, images, music, anything they want, but it has to serve the story. And just as it happens with self published work there will be a lot of bad out there, a lot, but if you spend a dollar on it and hate it you can delete the file. Now, I am definitely one that likes physical media, I don’t like the idea of a magic ‘cloud’ that keeps things that I purchased but unfortunately we are moving away from physical media. Again, it is inevitable. In the end what is important – the story or the medium in which we get it? E-readers are evolving SO quickly that if you don’t like them now wait, they are getting better. As someone who has a tablet and has comics and books on it, they are an amazing way to discover things and to catch up on work you weren’t able to before. I love books, as a writer I have to, but I also understand that things are changing and we can either change with things or fight them and freak out as they change. In the end it is the story we remember most, the tale, and however we get it – as a book, as a story we are told, as an e-book, as a movie – it is always that which is the most important thing of all – the tale. I don’t think books are going away for good but if we don’t find ways to better use them then we’ll risk losing them altogether and that’s the worst thing that can happen.

So, what’s your story?

Peace Through Violence And Other Lies

I decided a long, long time ago to stop blogging as a means of self discovery and self-exorcism. It’s handy, and it’s interesting, but it’s altogether too dangerous and personal. And if you know me I am not all about laying my feelings out there. Too often the tool you hand someone is then fashioned into a knife to stab you in the back, or worse, front. So it’s been a while since I really blogged much that wasn’t about the arts, writing, movies, or some other awesome nerdery.

I am breaking that, I dunno if it’s a rule so much as a personal guideline, and I am breaking it because I feel compelled to say something, if even for myself.

Since the first days of Occupy Wall Street I have watched with equal shares of confusion and pride. Confusion as to the ultimate goals and pride that my generation finally got up and did something. For too long my generation has complained and cried over a world it chose not to shape and now suddenly we are shaping it, we are imposing our will on it and that’s a good thing. Why is it a good thing? Because each generation needs to own its age. Each generation needs to take ownership of their time on earth because if you don’t someone else will leave their footprints over yours and negate the things you may have done. Wanted to do. This movement is important because it is the first time in a very, very long time when the youth have stood up for something meaningful.

Ah, but what DOES it mean?

That’s a big question and issue and one that isn’t being handled well on the side of the Occupiers or those opposed to them.

To me it seems silly to think that what began on Wall Street is now the same thing that we have in Flint or any other place because each place and each region is different. Overall it’s a stand against corporate greed and oppression, but beneath that I think things get more personal. Beneath the overall desires you get the personal stories of loss, of hardship, of anger and frustration. Beneath the surface you get to the reasons that brought everyone together and that is because someone had to stand up to a world that is asking more and more and more from workers and offering much less. We are in an era where we are told to be happy to even have a job, a dangerous thing because it allows faceless corporations run by boards to decide the course of American and world economy. How scary.

It has been a huge lesson for America as this movement has grown and pushed forward from not just days but into weeks. We have learned that we are neither used to, or ready for this sort of movement. We downright hate it because we feel like it shames us as a nation when people protest. So easily we forget the things that our nation was built on. We forget the lessons we teach in history classes of how the only way minorities and women got their voices heard was to stop allowing the status quo. How dare we get mad and outraged that people would take to the streets to peacefully protest a world they no longer agree with. My god, why have we not done this more? Why? Because the status quo hates these things. And I don’t mean the faceless corporate suits, or some other symbol, I mean that we, the general public, hates it. We hate it because we don’t like the thought that America is not only THE world power but is a sort of global Shangri La where everyone wants to be. We want to believe that we are so great that that is why people hate our nation and not because sometimes we forcibly impose our will, and worse, our culture, onto nations that don’t want it. All people may be created equal but every nation is not, and every nation is not and cannot be run as America is run. People get mad because they are shamed by the protestors and feel as if they are shaming America when, truly, they are a perfect example of WHY America is so great – they are peacefully protesting in order to get their message out. That they are there, that they ARE occupying areas does not make them and their cause right, not at all, but it makes them our torch bearers and the keepers of a flame that was lit when we first became a nation of our own.

We are learning that often we don’t like the very things that make us free, preferring to say – If you don’t like it here then leave – and not willing to stand up for those whose opinions we don’t agree with.

We are also learning that our cities are not equipped for these sorts of things. We are used to violent protests and violent occupations as seen through the prism of the television news but we are not used to it here, on our soil. And not being used to it is why we are getting police abuses of power, city mayors and councils who choose the fist to the open hand, because we don’t know how else to act. So many people don’t know what to think or how to act toward these occupiers that they become seen as pests, as nuisances, and as such they need to be dealt with that way but too many times now we have seen the people in power with their hands balled into fists, not seeing that it serves only to strengthen a cause they are striving to end.

And what do I feel about the cause?

I feel this is an important era in American history. I won’t say that the occupiers are changing the world, this nation, or even their cities, but they are reminding us what it means to be American. They are reminding us what it means to stand up for your rights. They are reminding us that our freedoms come at a cost. And finally they are reminding us that change can still happen without a gun.

What I would offer is that I think it’s time for the occupiers to look past the protests to the world beyond, a world that is truly right in front of them. I offer that these people, these brave, passionate souls begin finding ways to make their own businesses, their own corporations, their own culture to rival what is out there. I say to take that passion and invest it not into a system they no longer believe in but into building a new system. Here if Flint the movement is made up of lots of artists, and to them I say create. Create the art to change the world, the music to shape and inspire it. I say use what you have, what you can do, and the movement that has been built and use that to shape America and the world from the trenches. Take your army to the streets and change the cities. Clean them up. Take your message away from the camps and to the churches, the city council meetings, and more than anything else make it actions and not words. Occupy through change, social change, city change, culture change, change that can happen with every good act and deed you do.

If you no longer believe in a system then you neither fight it nor join it, you re-shape it.

What worries me right now is the anger and frustration coming from the movement. They have been at this for not weeks but into a month and change and they are tired, they are stressed, and they are scared for their brethren out there and what happens to them as the boot of the system comes down to stamp they and what they are doing out. I worry because the positive energy, the passion is darkening, is bittering. And I suppose why wouldn’t it? They went from sideshow, to nuisance, to traitors in a matter of weeks. An intentionally leaderless cause has become fodder for any pundit with a mic to showcase things that may never have been the initial intention of the movement. I truly hope that the hard winter months don’t further embitter these brave souls because I would hate to see what they are doing and what they have done become something negative and violent.I hate that for so many of these pundits and politicians this is still a game. This is still a matter of impudent children and little else and it is this shortsightedness that guides the violent hands we are seeing so often as a reaction to this movement.

I admire these people and while I do not agree with everything they are saying, everything they are doing, and everyone involved, I admire their courage in doing this and I remind them that they are the soldiers of a nation in a war that will not be won with guns and bombs. They are the front line against a mean future where no one stands up for anything. This goes beyond the corporate to something so much larger, and I am proud that my generation has stood up. And finally I offer that while not all of us believe in everything you are doing, and while not all of us are standing with you shoulder to shoulder that we are with you, and we are proud of all of you.

This is not the time to give in, but it is the time to redefine and to start looking at what the legacy of this movement will be, and that truly will be the hard work ahead of all of you but it’s work I look forward to seeing. So much passion, so much energy, so much talent and skill and courage should not be wasted. I hope it isn’t.

It’s the End of the Year As We Know It…

Every year around about this time I sit down and try to give my own thanks to all the people in my life and look back on the year that was. Welcome, friend, to 2011’s version.

 It’s The End of the Year As We Know It

 You know, I have been writing these little end of the year missives for a pretty fair amount of time now and I can truly and genuinely tell you that I love writing them. I love being able to take a moment to thank the people in my life who make my life something more than a countdown of days. I have always approached these as a way to tell you, as many of you as I am able, how much you mean to me and how important you are to who I am. We forget so easily the names and faces that flow through our lives but never the impact they have because the heart can register things our minds often don’t. The kind gesture of a stranger, the hug of a friend, the gentle kiss of a loved one, these things create seismic shifts in us that are felt long after they happen. It’s funny that I still remember the most random things from my school days and yet so much is lost. I recall when my Commercial Art teacher called me in for my senior evaluation after taking his class for two years and being told, with all seriousness, that I was no artist. A cruel thing to say and one that kept me from seriously doing art for at least a decade. But in the same way the good things can last as well. Can send quakes along your heart that help to make life richer, more vibrant, and more valuable.

There will never be a way to repay all of the kindnesses or all of the nastiness I have experienced in life so I am left working, day by day, to pay forward the good and to work past the bad. And I wish it was as easy as that, as easy as saying – I refuse to let these things and these people hurt me and I swear to be better today than I was yesterday – but life isn’t that simple. We are not that simple. The wisest man will always do ignorant things and the greatest monster will have moments of kindness, and that’s how it should be. We should forever be learning, forever growing, forever evolving into whatever it is we are meant to be. I have been lucky enough to have so many patient, good people in my life who are willing to suffer through my bad days and champion my good ones. I hope that I do at least that much for all of you.

I feel very lucky, and very thankful this year, more so than usual, as I have been lucky enough to release three books, do a lot of art shows, a couple conventions, and lived a dream. Lucky isn’t even a big enough word for how I feel but it’s the best one I have because the odds were against us until I was just about ready to give up on the dream of doing a horror convention in Flint and things just suddenly came together. That happens when you have a lot of support, a lot of friendship, and a lot of love backing you up. That happens when you are lucky enough to be surrounded by good people that won’t let you fall apart.

If this year served to tell me anything it was to keep dreaming. Keep dreaming not just the small things but the big things, the enormous things, the things that cast shadows far into the future. I found out that dreams, the best ones, won’t come easy, won’t come fast, and won’t come without taxing your patience and resolve but that once you achieve them things are suddenly so much sweeter. And we won’t attain every dream, we just can’t, but the ones that matter most, the ones that you sit up nights thinking about and planning, those are the ones we need to cling fast to. Those are the ones we can’t let go of too easily or we’ll forever regret it. And in dreaming, just the sheer act of dreaming we give ourselves reasons to reach higher, go farther, and to keep pushing even in the darkest of times because there is always, always hope, even in the darkness of pitch black self doubt because there is always the next day, the next time so long as we don’t give up. Because if you give up, if you give up all there is left is regret.

And of all the poisons the heart will suffer, regret may be the most potent because it is often the one we are fully in control of doling out. Regret is a poison that kills so much in us, so much of our past, so much of our future, and it takes away so much of our present that it colors everything in deep ashen hues. But life is full of regret, full of the hard choices we make for ourselves, for others, for things and dreams we cannot yet fathom. Regret is natural, is a necessary evil in a life brimming with choices. We are bound to regret things, it is how we deal with that regret and how we move forward from it that defines us. It is how we rise above the regret, or tunnel through it, that defines who we are yet to be.

And I have regrets, boy do I, but I will always, always count myself lucky to have so many amazing people in my life, whether they be close friends or acquaintances because all of you help to define me, and help me see past those many regrets and to keep reaching upwards. All of you share my passions, my joys, my failures and regrets in some small way and all of you help me move forward from all of it so I never get to high nor too low. The darkness is always there friends, is always waiting to cover us, and it will, from time to time, but together we can keep it at bay, and can keep one another in the light. Together we can are a light eternal that can cast away anything if but we stand as one.

Together we are mighty.

Together we are strong.

I leave you with a wish my friends, a simple, simple wish.

May your wisdom out-gain your need, may your love overpower your fear, and may the people around you echo your beauty but remind you where the earth is as you soar.

Thanks for everything.

Wishing you and yours the best in 2012.

I hope it is a year of living dreams for every one of you.

 

In the end only you can save yourself and no one is beyond saving.

Remember that.

 

-          Chris

 

i-Crime – Movie review

i-Crime

             Oh dear, oh dear. Sometimes you just watch a movie and wonder if the people who made it knew what it was they were making. Ya wonder if anyone ever had a moment during filming where they realized, geez, I think we’re missing our target. You know, like if you were making a thriller with an awkward subplot about getting someone accidentally pregnant. Maybe a dark horror film that had an abrupt slapstick comedy moment. You know, the sort of someone should really figure out before you send the movie out because, well, lots can be done in editing these days. i-Crime is just such a movie, a film that didn’t get the memo about tone and really missed their target audience

i-Crime is a thriller about a struggling young woman in LA who lazily wants to break into show business but isn’t sure how to do it. When an ‘internet famous’ young woman is kidnapped on camera the young woman immediately cries foul and suspects that something is fishy. Before she knows it the woman is secretly investigating the disappearance of the internet celeb for an online gossip rag and it seems that her hunch is right as the deeper she digs the more suspicious things get. As she digs though the obsessive fanbase for the celeb turns vicious, sending her death threats for questioning the disappearance. Too deep to quit though the girl finds an ally in a high school girl who also has questions about the disappearance and as they dig the truth slowly becomes uncovered and as it does, they find that the disappearance might not be as staged as they had first believed.

This is, at its core, a Lifetime movie. Why? Because it’s dated – this is a film obsessed with the ‘internet celebrity’ and with the weird era we had with Lonelygirl15 where so many people got caught up in the life of an internet girl’s videos on You Tube. This is such a weird film though because it does adult things, has the requisite ‘adult situations’ and all that yet this plays like a movie aimed at teen girls. The story is soap operatic, so melodramatic, and at times outright silly. It’s like they threw in all the adult themes to make themselves feel better. It doesn’t work though. As a Lifetime movie this works great – pretty young women in peril and investigating things that get them into trouble, a focus on lies and secret lives, and an ending that is all melodrama. Alas, this is categorized as a serious thriller and it doesn’t play like it. It doesn’t work. The whole film I added layers and depth and darkness that never appeared, though the ‘twists’, which were pretty well telegraphed (ahem, Lifetime again), did come. This just isn’t an ‘R’ rated film. It’s a TV movie dressed up to party but not really feeling it.

Some people may like the vibe of the film. The adult variety of Nancy Drew, and cool, it just didn’t work for me, or necessarily the film. The acting is a bit over the top but not awful. It’s generally filmed well, though the editing trickery is just sheer nonsense and only worked against the movie. The plot is so dated, so painfully dated that you cannot connect with the story at all. It just doesn’t work. Sadly, when you make a movie that is SO timely it has a shelf life and after it expires you have to wait for that topic to become nostalgia and we aren’t there yet. In the end what you’re left with a far from thrilling thriller that is just too made for television to be in any way effective.

4 out of 10

11-11-11 Movie review

11-11-11 Movie review

UGH!
That is my review of this film. Three letters, one word, one feeling – UGH! Man alive, I tell you what, I dragged my girlfriend to a dumpy mall an hour and a half away from where we live to see what I thought would be a creepy little movie only to be greeted with one of the dumbest movies I have seen in a while. And what makes it worse is that this is a director – Darren Lynn Bousman – who has done stuff I have liked. He has talent. He has skill. This though, this is junk. This is one of those movies you trick people into watching because you are mad at them.

The film centers around an angsty writer who recently lost his wife and son in a tragic arson perpetrated by a crazy fan (something we sorta find out in passing) and has since been on his own death trip. His publishers are desperate for his next best seller (they go to great lengths to tell you about his LEGION OF FANS but we are given no context of what SORT of writer he is – fiction, bio, thriller, horror, romance, physical books or e-books, this actually does sorta matter) but all he has on his mind (reasonably so, though we don’t know how long ago his family were murdered) is his pain and writing in his journals. After a brush with death himself he begins to get the funny feeling that something isn’t right in his life. The number 11 keeps reappearing over and over again and its shadow looms large in his mind. When he finds out his father, a very religious man, is on his death bed he flies to Barcelona to be with him (the film is set up as a countdown, starting on 11-7-11 and for the huge stuff that happens to this guy it always ends up contained to a few hours, like being in a serious car accident. You don’t even realize or understand that he was close to Spain in the film until you have to just assume as much since he flew there in no time at all). When he returns to his family home he finds out that his wheel chair bound brother has been working with their father on a new religious text and that there are things that may not want it completed. Enter the mythology of 11, which states that if you begin seeing the number regularly that you have been ‘activated’ and will begin hallucinating and seeing ‘way-finders’ who may be angels or demons, but no one is quite sure which. As danger begins to push in on the family and their home our hero’s atheism is put to the test and he must now question if what he has believed for all this time was wrong and whether he and his brother have a key part to play in a war for the future.

Annnnd, that’s about it. There’s more but the less you know the better. Not to avoid spoilers but to avoid dooming you with the mind-shattering inanity of this mess. Poorly written, soap opera acting, a plot that was cool in 1999, and enough leaps of faith and logic to make Frogger tired. This is amateur hour on full display. The film is in such a rush to get you to 11-11-11 and 11:11PM that day that you never get a genuine feel for what is at stake. The film never makes you feel empathy for the lead character that abandons his brother and father over and over again when he knows there is danger afoot, and who, in the end, would almost seem like he’d want the end of the world as miserable as he is. This film is so frustrating and so lazy, and my god, so dark (there is so much in the film that you can’t really see with the muddy way it was shot) that this becomes one of the most frustrating films you’ll encounter this year.
And sure, sure, I have seen WAY worse films in 2011, absolutely, but this had so much potential that this one stings as bad as the worst of those movies because this was someone who could have done something good. Instead he did a story that was a mix of eight other movies that were done way, way better. Literally, this feels as if it was an old script that someone grafted onto the 11-11-11 date. This is bad, folks, bad, bad, bad, and I warn you away from it and hope you can be spared the utter heights of mediocrity that this film achieves. You are warned.

4 out of 10

Reckon – a story

So here is a new story, a very RAW story in the literal sense. It was just completed today and I haven’t cleaned it up so it’s raw.
This story is a follow up to a story in RED DREAMS but should play well if you haven’t read that one.
What it is, is dark.
And I hope you dig it.

Reckon
The great tent creaked beneath the weight of the wind as it threw itself against the canvas walls. While it still wasn’t snowing yet the Winter winds clawed at the earth and the small houses and barns in the distance and howled away down the hills. The preacher kneels in the center of the tent muttering to himself and shaking his head back and forth.
“Where are you, where are you, where are you?”
Nothing answers his pleas save for the wind but even that begins to die down, leaving the chill to settle in on the lonely tent. The preacher looks up from the ground and around him where lay the bodies of five children, none moving and each covered in blood. The preacher looks down at his hands and balls them into fists.
“What more do you want? What more do you want from me? Isn’t this enough? ISN’T THIS ENOUGH?” Screaming and the wind picks up again as if mocking him and the tent pulls against its stakes. The preacher stands and looks at the wreckage that surrounds him, the bodies, the blood, the symbols, and in the corner a chair and all around him darkness. So much darkness. So many questions.
Where was he?
Where was he?
They had had a bargain, a deal, and now, now he breaks it?
Now?
The night before his big sermon?
The night before everything would change?
He looked at the children and frowned. Perhaps he had done the ritual wrong. Had done something in the wrong order. He had never tried to summon him before but he had never needed to. He had always come when called, serving his master without question but it was three months since he had appeared, three months where the man had had to lie, and fake the rituals to cleanse other children, resorting to the way he had cleansed his young cousin when they were children. He had done what he thought he had to to call the thing to him, to lure it here and into his service again but it didn’t even come for its own rituals. Something was wrong and the preacher knew it in the pit of his stomach. It was getting cold in the tent, too cold to be without a coat and hat but just as he was thinking of how he would fix things, how he could cure the three afflicted children of this town in the morning without any help and still collect the donations he thought he saw movement in the corner of the tent, by the chair. He squinted his eyes and saw nothing, though the light of the lanterns didn’t do much to illuminate that corner. As he was looking he thought he caught sight of something and leaned closer and when he did he saw his cousin, thin and drawn and covered in blood as she chewed on her hands greedily and as he watched she erupted in flames and from those flames she looked up at him and smiled.
The man moaned and clutched at himself as he rocked back on his heels. The blood on his hands was still warm and it was that warmth that shook him from his stupor. He let out a startled cry and stumbled backward away from the bodies on the floor, gasping for air as he did. He looked at the scene with new eyes, new horror and was still for a moment and his breath escaped from his mouth in small plumes. He took a step forward, then another, then another and was taken back twenty years to his childhood when he was still a child of the Lord, still raw but full of so much fire for His work. He was taken back to a similar time and a similar place – a barn in the winter and a young woman stricken by the work of Lucifer. He paused and remembered the screams, the blood, the fire and threw his hands against his face to push it all away.
That had been when he had truly met the enemy.
Had met it and, and, and…
He let out a moan and stumbled forward, pulling his hands from his face but as soon as he did he saw horror which he couldn’t have imagined and let out a howl. Standing mere feet before him were three of the children, all of them still, none of them with any signs of breath coming from them, and each revealing the terrible wounds made upon them as if revealing their sex to a lover. The scent of the blood hung in the cold air and steam rose from the gaping wounds on the young bodies, forcing the man back several steps. His mind was spinning and without knowing it he began speaking a prayer. One of the children leaned towards another and licked blood from her shoulder and smiled. The third of them reach inside the hole in its stomach and began pulling its innards out, fishing them out slowly until there was nothing left, then it licked its fingers clean.
“No, no, no, no, no, no…”
The man began shaking and sweating at once, the sweat running icy fingers down his sides and along the curves of his stomach.

”You have grown fat off of the blood of lambs, no? For a man of God it was far to easy to bring you low. And now that you’re here with me, in this cold, dead place, a hundred miles of anything but cows and shit, tell me, don’t you yearn for the flames I bring you? Don’t you crave them just a little?”
The voice from behind him, the low whisper he had come to know well over the years but it seemed different than it had in the past. The preacher stood wavering, head throbbing with his heartbeat and he surveyed what was before him – three children, two girls and one boy standing before him. Three children, which meant the other two, the twins… He felt heat from behind him and the shadow of bodies close by.
“Figuring it out now, eh? Finally? You bore me, preacher. You were fun when you were young and full of your own fire. You were fun when you actually gave a fuck but now, now you’re too old, too fat, and have less life in you than these lambs you slaughtered for me. And what would your God say to this mess you’ve made? What would It say to this blasphemy, eh, preacher?”

The man felt his face flush, though from anger or shame he would never dare to ask, but with that heat his old fire rose.
“Question me not, demon. I do the Lord’s work and his work alone. I saved these children from your sin. From your evil. I cleansed them, foul thing, as I shall now cleanse you…”
The preacher spun to face the demon, no longer afraid but that fear flooded back as he realized the horror he had made a pact with. Before him stood the twins, the Kernwyck’s, Francis and Nathan, the oldest of the children here at nineteen. They had become lazy and had grown tongues too long for their mouths, tongues that carried curse words and deception and their parents had felt it was the devil that had gotten into their heads and had been the ones to request the preacher come here. And oh, he had come, he had come almost at a run once he learned that this was a town near a gold deposit and that this town was so desperate to have the evil amongst them gone that they would donate whatever it took to have him cleanse them. He had come and what he had found was a town with too much money, and too little to do. They were located in a valley near a lake and nothing else. No towns. No travel routes. Nothing. They were going to build the town up, in time, but now, now it was a wasteland for the youth and so naturally the youth did what they do when bored and that was to get up to deviltry. So, seeing what was needed, the preacher did what he had been doing for these long years and that was to call upon someone else with expertise in deviltry to aid him in his cleansing. It had worked before, he would call the thing, it would come, it would take one, two children to the flames and the preacher would save the rest and leave town with its gratitude and its money. Clearly the thing had tired of the arrangement though and this, this was like nothing the preacher had ever seen, not even in the worst of his nightmares.
Before him stood the twins, eyes gone, clearly gouged out, though Nathan still had the remnants of one blue eye smeared along his cheek. Their cheeks had been torn open to reveal their teeth. Both were naked and clean of blood until you got to their groins, which had been torn free and from there down was thick, black blood. The preacher looked up and both boys were smiling, Francis chewing something loudly. The preacher felt his gorge rise and stepped back but as he did he felt a body behind him and turned to see the other three children had surrounded him.
“No. NO! Jesus no! We had a deal. We had a deal! What more do you want? What more do you want of me?”
“Oh but yes, preacher, yes, yes, yes. You have drank to well and too long in these crimson rivers and now it’s come time for a reckoning. Now is time to pay. And a day will come when you shall answer to us, oh yes, but now, now it’s time you answered to them!” All of the children raise their arms and pointed toward the door to the tent. The preacher turned and standing in the entrance were scores of people from the town.

“Oh God no…” Whispered the preacher.
A scream rang out from the night and Mrs. Kerwyck fainted. The preacher came out of his stupor and realized the children were lying at his feet, in a circle, and he was at the center of them, covered in their blood, the knife he’d used earlier sticking from his pocket. And there was silence in that tent and the wind died as if to listen to what would happen next. The silence lasted a minute before Mr. Kerwyck pushed himself to the front of the people and raised his lantern.
“Burn him. Burn it all. Burn it all down!” Saying this the man threw his lantern at the preacher and struck him in the legs. The lantern shattered and fire erupted along the preacher’s legs and along the straw on the ground.
The preacher looked at the people, his people, his flock, and was silent as more lanterns were thrown in around him and the tent and its contents caught fire. The man was gone, lost, surrounded in the flames by all the children he had saved, whose souls were in Heaven as he had sent their bodies to Hell, surrounded by them as they came closer with the flames.
And this was Hell.
This was Hell, alone and surrounded by your failures, alone and surrounded by yourself.
This was Hell.
This was Hell and the preacher bent his head and prayed.

MORE?
www.meepsheep.com

RED DREAMS

How We Got To Where We Went

It feels slightly pompous to act as if putting a horror convention together , a FIRST YEAR horror convention, is anything of great importance and in all honesty, it isn’t THAT important but for those of us directly involved in the long process of doing it it was, and it became our lives. As personal as this story is I really do feel though that the story, as much as can be remembered and told, of how we got to where we ended up warrants telling. At least in part.

We’ll see if you agree.

As I have said before, in older blogs, the dream of doing a convention in Flint, specifically a horror convention, is an old one for me. The dream began in the early nineties with the Fangoria WEEKEND OF HORRORS that happened in Dearborn, Michigan. They did two, and only two, of these shows in Michigan and I went to both and they really deepened my love for the genre and its creators. I loved the atmosphere of unadulterated nerdery and the way we were all embraced by the people who made these films we all loved, as well as the pure ability to get movies, posters, shirts, autographs, all of it in one place and all of it for one thing – horror. I cannot stress enough how important this atmosphere of belonging was. That set the tone for me. I wanted to be around other fans that saw horror movies and loved the story, the effects, the direction, the writing, the acting, loved all of it as much as I did. After that con I attended comic conventions, did comic cons, did a ‘zine, did a magazine, started writing, and started doing other conventions, and got into art and art shows. Every con I did, like it or not,  was always judged against the WEEKEND OF HORRORS and none lived up to it. None save the WORLD HORROR CON felt like friends met and unmet getting together and just enjoying their passions for the genre. And there are other cons, comic, anime, DIY, all manner of cons that will give the fans and people into that stuff the feeling I had at the horror con, I know they are out there, I know they exist, but my feeling had been that they were not in Michigan and certainly not in Flint.

Growing up around Flint and then moving to the downtown several years ago I was shocked at how much passion there was here for horror, Halloween, and for all things weird and creepy. It shocked me that for all the haunted houses we have in the area no one had tried to put together a horror con, something I had seriously wanted to do since the late 1990’s. It just seemed like a natch. It was funny that another spark that lit this fire was when a big horror con was set to finally come to Detroit after we had only had DIY cons put together by Michigan people. Finally a larger scale national show was coming here…until they cancelled that is because essentially the Michigan market was dead. WHAT? Really? I didn’t believe that at all and wanted to prove it, desperately. But all of those thoughts were dreams and like all the dreams I had had that were bigger than me I let the dream of a con go because I had no money, no experience, and no plan. What happened over the years though was that the dream didn’t truly die but sat dormant, waiting for me to return to it when I was ready.

At every con I did or attended I took mental notes of what I liked, didn’t like, what could be changed, should be changed, and what should be added. I don’t know how many times over the years I would complain to friends about how I would have done things differently at this show or that, going so far to tell how I would do things  in reviews of cons in this blog and others. The thing was that I had ALL these ideas but no guts (or resources) to implement them.

That all changed, as things tend to, and changed without me even noticing.

In 2005 I became heavily involved in the arts scene in downtown Flint. I worked with an arts group called the Creative Alliance, I did art shows, I helped put shows together, and I began to really get my stories out and around to people. And getting involved with Flint, with the arts, and with all these impassioned artists  it was like a great fire was lit in my heart and the world was suddenly different. We could do anything. I could do anything, if I’d just give myself a chance to do it. As my dreams returned and new ones formed I realized that it was time for me to focus more on the things I wanted to do and less on what others wanted and felt it was time to see what I could do alone so I eventually I left the arts group and began working on my own projects and art shows, working with other friends who were just as passionate about Flint as I was but who were not otherwise involved. Together we built a base for other indie art shows to build on and we did it in ways the bucked an established system and network of contacts that had existed for years. And we had our stumbling blocks, had our first huge show fall apart under the stresses of balancing friendship with a working relationship, but in the end it was the seeds of those ‘guerilla’ shows that the convention truly sprang from. It was from being around other creative people, amazing people who didn’t wait for others to do events but who did them themselves that inspired me the most. Seeing what others could do made me question why I wasn’t doing more.

So I had a network of friends I could trust, and who were as passionate as I was, I had a plan, or the seeds of one, and the last piece fell in to place early in 2011 – money. When all was said and done and I looked at my tax return I realized I would have eight hundred dollars more coming back than I had before and it was money I could do whatever I wanted with. Needless to say I was thrilled at this concept and a million thoughts formed as to what I should do with the money. All of those ideas boiled down to two in the end –
1. Go out of town to another horror convention, a big one, and try to sell some art and books.
2. Do a horror convention in Flint.

There were pros and cons to both. I really wanted to focus on my writing and art more and wanted to give myself a chance to reach a different market and different people, hoping to create a buzz that as yet hadn’t existed. I truly believe in my writing and just feel that if I can figure a way to get it out to more people then perhaps I”ll move more books and start to get my work out more. The problem though was that for the grand-ish of money I spent I would never re-coup that. I would have fun, I was sure, but I wouldn’t re-coup that money at the con which would just make me regret doing it in the first place.

With doing a convention here, sheesh, where do I begin? How do you find guests? How would we pay for guests? Travel? Venue? Promo? And would people even care if we did do one?

With both ideas what kept coming back to me was why not? Why not do one here? Why not try? Heck, time and again we or others had proven that there was a lot of interest here in the arts when people would consistently call Flint a Blue Collar town and act as if we’re all uneducated louts. Who knew what could be done here if no one tried it And so I made the choice, I would do that con, and that changed everything. I immediately confided in my girlfriend and my friends Justin and and we began spit-balling the where, when, and who of it all. We really wanted to do it that year so we focused on October, thinking that since it was February we had plenty of time to plan and put together this thing. I know, we were optimists. Next we needed to figure out WHO? The first person who came to mind was our good friend Mac, who is better known as Wolfman Mac and who we had met a few years earlier on the set of his syndicated show. (Side note, Mac is one of the nicest, most welcoming and gracious people I have ever met. I read a short piece in a Detroit free paper about his new show that mixed old B-horror films with weird horror skits and immediately tracked him down and wrote him a ‘fan’ letter, which he responded to by inviting me down to his studio to watch a taping. WHA? Ever since he has been a great friend to me and he was someone I wanted involved with this.) Mac was extremely excited by the prospect of the convention and began looking at his schedule to see when he was free. October was his busiest month but he thought the 8th looked good so we focused our attention on October 8, 2011. We had other ideas for guests but wanted to find a venue first, now that we had a date and a main attraction (initially Mac was going to do a live version of his show, something he does in Detroit and we felt he could translate here. He was going to hang out for the day then do a live show/movie to cap the event) and now we needed a venue.

By this time the group’s core was me, Geary, Justin, and our friend Steve. We had all loved horror, loved cons, and all wanted to do something like this in the area. Each of us brought something different to the table and each of us had different ways to help and promote the con. We were a really well put together team and each with our own ideas to add. I remember our first meetings where the sky was the limit. We could do anything. We just needed to figure out what we wanted to do specifically.

While we looked for a venue we learned that another Flint group was doing a horror themed event the same day as the convention and I was thrilled. They had done their event a few times and were established and we were the new kids but it seemed like it was only natural to partner up and with Mac serving as bait to link us I began an email conversation with the other group. We were immediately met with skepticism by the people in charge of the other event and with attitude and immediately they wanted more info about us, and who we were than they would give about what they were doing. I was ok with this, despite the misgivings of the others, because it just made sense to work together and not against one another.  Having two horror events on the same day, in the same city, that were not even going to acknowledge one another just seemed petty and silly. We needed to work together. This would not prove to be the case though as again and again I was rebuffed by the other group, who felt they were too far along in their planning to partner up, and finally it reached the point of childishness when they cut all ties to Mac, who knew these people and had worked with them in the past. It was felt that he had chosen sides against them. I was mortified and repulsed and was finally done and walked away from the notion of working together and we focused on our event. It might look weird not to be working together but better that than selling your soul and the soul of your event for nothing so we moved on and went back to focusing on the venue.

From early on we  knew how we wanted this to be set – vendor/guest room, and a movie room, the general layout of a convention these days. That was the plan and that was how we approached venues. I began asking friends for ideas of venue and looked at some places online and it was not easy finding spaces we could rent for $800. Now that there were four of us that were heavily involved there was talk of some of the others putting money in for a venue if the need arose so we started narrowing our focus. We came up with a spot in downtown Flint we wanted and it seemed perfect. It was a banquet/conference center and was big, looked great, and they wanted to work with us. Best of all they would work within our budget.
We were amazed and excited at once.

I sat down and fleshed out a deal with the conference center for two rooms to be combined and used as a movie room and we would use the open hallways for vending, something the booking person at the venue suggested. Great. We also were going to rent a side room and see if Tom Sullivan, a friend of Geary’s, would come and set up the entire Evil Dead museum in there. I was so excited with how easy it was to work with the conference center, how willing they were to work with us that I put the deposit down and we began soliciting other guests. Tom Sullivan signed on, as did artist Mark Bloodworth and with Mac we had a good core. We then began mulling names for our convention and logos. We really, really, REALLY wanted a clever name for the convention. We all struggled over it for a while, going through a lot of possibilities that never quite worked but the best and easiest thing was what we first came up with – Flint Horror Con. It was simple and to the point. Perfect. Next was the logo. I really thought an axe and chainsaw crossed would be awesome as a logo but while no one outright hated the idea it didn’t feel right so Steve, a really talented artist, took a crack at it and came up with two chainsaws crossed . We loved it. While we loved it though it wasn’t really right until another guy, a graphic designer friend named Marcus, took the art and added circles around the ‘saws, then added a distressed look that sold the whole thing. That was when, for us at least, it was perfect.

Now that we were really moving on some things we set up the Facebook page and started leaking info. We were stunned by the immediate response. We had never known what people would say to the notion of a Flint based horror convention but wow, so many people added us and began getting excited for the idea of what we were trying to do that it really solidified our resolve and made us really want to make this something special. So while Steve began working on the website I began nailing things down with the venue…something that would never really happen.

Everything we had agreed upon was torn apart not a few weeks later when I got a frantic and rude call that they needed to move us because they were booking the available spaces around us, they also needed to know our times, something we had not worked out yet, and when we did give them times were told that would not work – that they only rented in four hour blocks. WHAT? We had just started to discuss whether we should rent more space as we were putting the feelers out for vendors and now they were trying to move us and screw us around. We worked the times out and I took the move well enough, we all did, but it was the way they were booking around us that troubled me. The space we were gong to use for vendors, the halls, were being chewed up, as were the tables we were told we could use. Suddenly this location wasn’t so ideal. We had already announced a date and the venue and had printed up promo material so we didn’t want to pull away from that but it was becoming clear that the waters were changing. After we changed our spaces we approached the venue about more space, possibly renting the large convention hall area which we were lead to believe we might get for a little less than their cost since we had already been inconvenienced. What we were quoted was that the biggest space there could cost us anywhere from $1500 to nothing, depending on the whims of the chef, who was the last word on space rental negotiations. We had to speak to him though. Frustrated but resolute I made an appointment to meet him – two weeks away. Suddenly we were getting into April and had not been able to really move forward on things. While we were getting a lot of vendor interest in our one day show – something I felt necessary since I just don’t think Flint is ready for a two day show yet – but I didn’t want to take people’s money without things more solid on our end. It just felt wrong. The day before the meeting I got a call to re-confirm it and things were right on course…until the next day when I got a call from the booking person to cancel because the chef wasn’t available. Ok, so I made another appointment that summarily got cancelled again. Beyond frustrated I went to the property owners and sent them an email, pleading our case and building a case against the booking person, who had gone from very helpful to rude, condescending, and inconsiderate. The response we got was essentially – if you don’t have the money for the space then you will have to go somewhere else.

Money.
Money and nothing else. That was what this all came down to, like so much other stuff in Flint. Money.

After my email I got a call from the booking person, very unhappy with me and this was when things reached a head. They were very indignant and rude and I had had enough of their attitude and games and requested my deposit back. We had already discussed in our group what the plan was if things didn’t work out here and had been told from the outset by the booking person that the deposit was refundable. PHEW! Cut to the phone call and the person INSISTING they had never said that and that the deposit was not refundable going so far as to call me Christopher, as if they were my parent and scolding me. Mind you, we were six months out from this event and the deposit wasn’t refundable. What? I was outside of the downtown Flint bus terminal after just getting a pop for lunch and was starting to have a meltdown on the phone. These people didn’t really think they were going to keep my money did they? Things came to a head and we both got very angry and the contact told me they would speak to the chef and see what he said and they’d contact me later. I was fuming. Enraged. We had worked so hard on things and had begun the long work of getting the word out and getting people booked and here it was all falling apart right before our eyes. If I didn’t get the money back I felt like we were sunk. So we waited, we waited, we waited until I got a call telling me I could come pick up the deposit as soon as I was able.

VICTORY!

Now, it wasn’t a real victory but it was a start. It was a good sign. I retrieved the money, was far nicer than I had reason to be – kill ‘em with kindess, as they say – and then the real work had to begin.

Where the hell were we gonna do this thing now?

The next several months were pretty bleak ones for the con. There was still a lot of excited talk of guests we’d like to pursue (reality sets in once you begin to see appearance fees and all that) and ideas for how we could put it all together but in essence we were stalled out. Without a venue we couldn’t book vendors, and without vendor fees we couldn’t book guests, and without guests we couldn’t entice fans to come out or get sponsors. The days became months and soon the summer was on us and there was no movement. We looked into several venues but as we’d get deeper into negotiations talk would turn to money and the money was always far more than we had. Anyone we approached about sponsorship rebuffed us because no one had money. Well, not quite everyone. A college was interested, very interested, and I even met with some of their people and students hoping to get the convention there as well as a sponsorship in place. We negotiated until September when I was finally told that there were no more funds and that the convention wouldn’t work on their campus. There was one sponsor though that stood up and was almost as excited as we were and that was our friend Amy Warner from Sweet Harvest Bakery, one of the first people to really believe in us and champion us. She pledged support from the outset and stood by that and went far above what we could ever have asked at the con but in July, we were a million miles from doing a convention. The website and Facebook had not been updated save to tell people info was coming and we would go add the new people but that was it. I had gotten a lot of emails from people interested in the convention, one of them from Ken Sagoes who had played ‘Kincaid’ from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, and all of these people were interested in the convention only, what was there to say?
Uh, uh, uh…we’ll get back to you.

It got embarrassing.
I was confronted at the Motorcity Comic Con by a potential vendor who wanted an update in May and I was embarrassed that we were stuck where we were. I felt responsible. It was my big idea, my dream, and here it was floundering and by the time Summer was inching toward a close it was dying. I did my best to keep everyone together, and to keep everyone believing but the hope was running out. Kids, I am not an optimist but I play at one really well sometimes but it’s hard to hold onto hope in the face of odds that were not just overwhelming but which were becoming insurmountable. Time was against us and money was no ally. If we had money nothing would be an issue but we didn’t, we had my eight hundred bucks and a lot of high hopes and that was about it.

We had inquired at places, had emailed places, had looked into everything that made sense and we were down to few cards to play. It was the end of July and I promised myself, and the other guys, that if something didn’t give by August we would let it go. There would just not be enough time to put things together. It was suggested we let it go this year and focus on next year and I refused. We couldn’t announce, come out all guns blazing and promoting this thing then cancel and hope people cared about our next attempt. Too many people do that and it drives me crazy. It is sketchy and dishonest.  And my feeling was that if we didn’t do it this year I had other things I needed to do with the money. It was now or never.

Out of other options a friend recommended we talk to the Downtown Flint Masonic Temple. I loved the venue but had looked into the space before as a spot for my girlfriend’s surprise 30th birthday a couple years back and it was out of our price range but figured I’d ask just in case. There were not many other places to try. I sent them an email and they got back to me immediately and I set up a time to go in and meet them. The place was beautiful and they were willing to work with us on price, heck, more than that, they were willing to help sponsor and promote us, the comic paper they did there at least ( Flint Comix). Suddenly we could rent two of the floors for the con and we could afford it. I was stunned and went back to the guys to tell them we were close. We were so close. The fly in the ointment came when we learned that if we wanted to do it there we’d have to move the date. And if we moved the date we lost the guests we had but better to lose the guests and keep the event was what I figured.

I went back to the guys to plead my case. I knew it wasn’t ideal, that we would have to start over, but I felt we could do it. Steve and Justin didn’t feel like they could ride the roller coaster any longer and chose to walk away – they had other projects to work on, things to focus on, and it was time to let me and Geary see what we could do with this. I turned to two friends and asked their advice – what do I do? My friend Messy told me not to give up but to really weigh things and to get advice from someone who had dome this before. And there i was – Do I go on or let it go? My friend Charles Shaver said to me – go for it. I smiled. I went to Geary and presented the case and immediately he told me he was in and we were gonna do it. He was as confident as scared as I was and that was what I needed.

The clouds broke.

We had all lived under this horrible darkness and uncertainty for so long, the four of us, and the clouds finally broke. For two of us it was the freedom of not being saddled with an event they could no longer pour themselves into and for me and Geary, it meant we could finally see what we could do.

Things moved pretty fast after that. With the new venue confirmed, a date confirmed, and a deposit down, we had to rebuild this. We hit Facebook hard and re-announced the con and put the new date out there and now we needed to get some guests. Each of the guests we had confirmed previously couldn’t do the new date so we started looking at the in-box and lo and behold we had a lot of great local and regional people interested in coming out and being a part of this thing so we began booking. Then Mac proved again why I hold him in such high esteem. Knowing what we’d gone through for the con he felt awful not being able to be there and he called me to talk to me about it. He wanted to see what he could do. He worked his calendar like only a wolfman can and was able to find time early in the day to come out for the con. Then someone asked whether Tom Sullivan was still going to make it. Geary is friends with Tom but wasn’t having luck getting through to him so I sent Tom a message on Facebook and he immediately agreed to come out. Things were starting to turn around. I kept hitting the PR side and Geary worked guests and volunteers. As we began releasing names the vendors got interested again and we got flooded with interest for the vending. My plan of a low cost show and low cost vendor fees was paying off, now we just needed to make sure we kept OUR costs do to make it all work. We had a lot of guests interested in coming out but it all came down to money and risk and reward – if we spend X on this person will we get Y in return for that investment? Someone I was determined to book was actor Ken Sagoes, who had been a supporter and friend since our first contact and he was someone I felt we owed it to to bring out. Slowly the pieces began falling into place. While we were not getting monetary sponsors we were getting a lot of places wanting to work with us and willing to do in-kind sponsorships, which in many ways was far more valuable to us. The biggest break came in monetary support from author Heather Brewer who became our only financial backer outside of us and who, just at seeing what we were trying to do in an area she had once called home, was willing to support and encourage us. That last boost really helped create what would become Flint Horror Con 2011. She believed in us and didn’t really even know us. It was an amazing gesture and one that strengthened our resolve.

With the support we were getting there was also an overabundance of interest from artists and filmmakers and I hated turning people down, we just didn’t have space to fit everyone into the con. Thus rose Art Fear – a name that came from my landlord Joel Rash, who is damn clever for that one – and It Came From The Kiva! I began to gather all these great artists and filmmakers and asked if they would let us showcase their work at lead in events and they all graciously accepted and that allowed us to spread what was a one day con into one full day and two nights. We had always talked about doing lead in events of some sort, our indie art mentality coming into play here, and it worked, and it showed how much fun you can do if you are open to ideas in how you put these things together.

The support we found was so amazing that all of those months of work, all of those sleepless hours where we doubted the convention and ourselves was suddenly worth it. All of it. And when friend after friend volunteered to work the convention for hours and hours to help us, when the guests told us time and again how much fun they were having and how happy they were to have come out, and when the vendors told us the same everything came into focus. This was our dream but it was one shared with so many people, share BY so many people that the dream was no longer ours alone but was everyone’s who came to believe in it.

I cannot say enough how honored and lucky I feel to have the friends and support that I had and this con had as we put it together and put it on. So many people gave their time and volunteered with us, promoted us, and encouraged us that without them, without the trust of our guests and vendors, without the faith our sponsors had in us, and without the support of our friends and family this never would have happened. It was not perfect. There are things we can tweak, can improve, and given the chance we will. For now I am happy with what we did, and what we built, and am willing to leave the future to the future. A day will come to look at 2012 but it is not today and I am thankful for that. Whatever lies ahead though, I know that we can tackle it because we have already done the seemingly impossible – we lived a dream and shared it, and that’s pretty rare indeed.

Here’s to 2011!
Now gimme a sec before we talk Flint Horror Con 2012.

(My books, art, and stuff —-> MEEP!

The Long Rest

It’s a strange, scary thing to think, no, not just to think but to say – I lived a dream. It’s scary because the dreams, the  big dreams, tend to see so distant, so ethereal that at times they seem as if they are impossible. As if all they can be is a dream. I am still a couple days away from telling more of the story of how we got to the finish line of the Flint Horror Con but I can say this – I lived a dream.

I lived MY dream.

I never, ever, as a teenage kid who loved scary movies and weird stuff would ever have thought that I would not only be a part of bringing a horror convention to Flint (a block from where I live!), but would meet some of the people I admired as a kid and would get to know a few of them. Amazing. I am a pretty lucky guy.

So, anyway, more of the story is yet to come, but first, I owe everyone who believed in this dream, helped it, helped me, and who didn’t give up on what we were trying to do the biggest thanks. It took a lot of people to make this come together and I am honored to have worked with and been surrounded by such great friends.

Thanks!