2023 – Once More Into the Fray…

I have not been a big fan of the 2020’s on a global and historical level. It’s been a bit of a scary shitshow of a decade so far. On a personal level however, it’s been an invigorating period. In 2023 I managed to get closer to the kind of creative life that I prefer to live, but was elusive to me for some years. There had been flashes of projects here and there through the years; the random art exhibition or acting gig, but I was too occupied with the “rat race” to be fully engaged in my creative life until now. Settling into a new life in Riga, Latvia, I have found the time and space I need to circle back around to unfinished creative pursuits. Maybe this is just a bit of a middle-life crisis playing out to re-embrace the comix, movies and art I was obsessed with as a teenager or maybe it’s a proper second (third?, fourth?) chance to once more live that creative life I had in my twenties, whatever it is I am grateful for the opportunity.

So the year that was 2023 and what did I accomplish? First big achievement was designing a new Weaverwerx logo and website, something that had been on my mind for an embarrassingly long time. I have more plans for the logo; animation, stickers, and more. To go with this new virtual space, I also secured a dedicated physical office/studio, something I haven’t had (outside of regular jobs) in a very long time. The coffee shop or kitchen table was no longer cutting it for a workspace. I need to spread my stuff out. It’s working for me.

COMIX
I finally got back into making comix again after a thirteen year absence. I wrote and drew three new comix stories; “Burls & Gnarls”, “THAT HAT” and “RESPECTO!” and submitted them to various publishers. A British annual anthology called “UGLY MUG” included “RESPECTO!” in their seventh issue, which has also been reviewed and mentioned in a variety of podcasts and blogs. The other stories will be part of the next issue of my own zine “RELUCTANT SADIST”, which was last published in 1989 (no, really), so look for that soon!

ACTING

I registered with a few of the local casting agencies and picked up my first three paid European acting gigs this year including my first bit of ADR work on the feature film “Limonov: The Ballad of Eddie” and a great role as an 18th century professor for an upcoming episode of the German TV show “Terra X” about Laura Bassi, the the first woman to have a doctorate in science. I also had the lead role in a student film called “The Road” that I have yet to see.

ART

My artistic output last year was focused on drawing, lots of drawing, more than I’ve done in years. I also was hired to paint two murals. The first one was at an annual international art exhibition in Riga called "SurvivalKit" and the second was at the National Library of Latvia (Latvijas Nacionālā bibliotēka), both for the Latvian alternative comics publisher kuš! komikss.

FILM

I completed one music video project called “Space and Darkness” in collaboration with my friend Neil Bruce (Light B4 Sound). We have another project in the works, so stay tuned.

One final note, this post’s title is a quote from the film “The Grey” and was written by the director Joe Carnahan. Here’s the full quote that the protagonist played by Liam Neeson uses a mantra to keep going despite a bleak future, “Once more into the fray, into the last good fight I’ll ever know. Live and die on this day, live and die on this day”. That is on the wall next to my desk and will be my mantra for 2024. Never stop fighting for your creative soul.

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Blue Ridge Bloodfest - My June Pick

And so, after the usual hand wringing, I have made my June selection for my "Shine Some Light" project to fund culture that I believe in. June's selection is a horror film festival that is the brain child of a child, a young man named Ammon Winder all of 12 years of age. Full disclosure, Ammon is the son of some old friends of mine (his Mom, RoseMarie has a great blog called "Random Acts of Poverty"), so he had a head start, but his story would have won me over regardless of his connections. The Blue Ridge Bloodfest is in it's second year and will be held in Charlottesville, Va. on the weekend of August 24-26. I didn't attend last year, but I hope to be there this year. From what I see of last year's program, it looks like Ammon is programming independent filmmakers both short and feature length films. There is both a web site and a Facebook page that you can visit for updates or if you have a horror film, send it in! Currently, the fundraiser has eight days left and nearly $2,000 left to raise. Contributions start at only $10, so I encourage you to get onboard and throw the lad a tenner.

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Three years ago today, John took the train for the coast...

John Paul Verhulst was my friend and he has been dead and gone now for three years. He was only forty-five when he passed. Some of us know that it was some kind of miracle he made it as far as he did as John had a special talent for stepping on the Devil's tail. John was a rock star in search of an audience (and band for that matter). He loved his rock'n'roll music and listened to nearly everything, but above all others, there was his beloved Rolling Stones and The Doors. Whenever I randomly hear either of those bands on the radio now, I always have to nod and say, "Hello John". He listened to nearly everything, searching out the new stuff before anyone else. John was the first punk rocker in our group, inflicting the Sex Pistols on our virgin ears. Blasting The Cramps and Nina Hagen and after a viewing "The Hunger", Bauhaus, he was always on a quest to find new sounds. His intellectual curiosities were not limited to music, John was a student of history, particularly World War II, but could speak on nearly any time or place in history. He was always reading at any time of the day or night. I recall coming home at 2 am (we were roommates for a time) finding him standing in the kitchen stirring a pot of chili, punk rock shaking the walls (you did not want to be his neighbor) while reading a dog-eared copy of William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". He'd look up and flash what we all called his "Shit-Eating Grin" and he was King of the World at the moment and it was good. John was the smartest, most handsome and most worldly among us misfits. When he walked into the room, people damn well knew it. He would take lemons and make a rocket launcher out of them. He had a tendency to behave badly when confronted by authority figures. And the whole time flashing that smile.  John had the air of someone that would fall into it one day. He had too many advantages to fail. While the rest of us mortals scrambled to get through the days, John floated above it all. When gravity finally did take hold, it was vindictive and cruel and John came to Earth hard. "The Lifestyle" took it's toll in a hundred ways and left John savaged and weak. The doctors gave him six months and his "Fuck You" was to go on another three years. By the time all this terrible shit had come down, John and I had long since drifted apart. Years before, I knew that I had to let that life go and there was no room for a half measure. You were either on the train or you weren't. I had other places to go. Before the shadow came, a mutual friend called me out-of-the-blue one day and arranged for us all to get together. We had a few beers and some lunch and sat together one last time, though we didn't know it at the time and snapped a few photos to remember the moment. After that, John and I talked on the phone from time-to-time and made plans to get together again, but something always broke those plans and I never saw him again. Now, it's hard to believe that he's gone. John was a wild, complicated mutant of a man and I am proud to have known him. We were close as brothers for a time and he tattooed my soul and for that I will always remember him. I am listening to The Rolling Stones, "Exile on Main Street" and the Keith Richards' song "Happy" just came on. Hello John. Richards was his a role model and spiritual uncle for John, so quite fitting to hear that now. So, on this third, sad anniversary of my friend's departure from this world, I ask you to raise a glass for John. He was an original human being and left his mark on this old swinging sphere and he will be missed....

Miss you brother,

OK HW

Neon

At the Carolina theater for Nevermore.

Nevermore

Checking in from the Carolina Theater at the Nevermore Film Fest.

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African Mask Sketch - Bafo

I finally got back into my drawing groove tonight in no small part because of "Hugo", Marty Scorsese's love letter to George Méliés, Paris and creativity. Part of the subtext of the story concerns embracing our true nature, that a person is only full functional when the know their purpose and are exercising it. For myself, I feel the most fulfilled when I am creating things with my hands. It often seems difficult to find my way through The Noise of our modern, electronic age back to the well. It requires more and more effort to turn off this laptop and the TV and sit quietly with pen and paper or clay or whatever and just create. Tonight I got there and I am grateful. 

This is another drawing in a series I have been doing of African Masks. This one was drawn out of a book called African Art by Dennis Duerden. This is a Bafo Mask from the Cameroons. I choose it because it's scary and I like the shape. The pen I was using did not co-operate, so I may draw it again sometime in pencil so I can explore the texture as deeply as I want to.

Do yourself a favor, try and catch "Hugo" in 3-D on the big screen before it's gone.

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STAR WARS! Uncut

"Star Wars" is a huge part of my cultural mythology as it is for any self-respecting movie nerd. I saw it for the first time in May of 1977, the weekend it was released. I had been reading about it in the pages of Starlog magazine for months, so could not wait for it to come out. I remember riding my bike down to the State movie theater in downtown Eau Claire, Wisconsin on that warm Saturday to catch a matinee showing. As the lights went down in the theater, I glanced around at the scattering of the dozen or so other folks, all of us completely oblivious to the mind-blowing we were about to experience. Once that Imperial Star-cruiser rumbled down and across the screen, I knew, even as an eleven year old, that I was watching something very special. In the next week, I caught "Star Wars" another three times, but now the lines were around the block and it was playing in two of the three theaters in downtown. As the years rolled on, I could not wait for the next installment to come out. George Lucas had tapped into a universe that carried me out of my awkward teen-aged years to a place of high adventure and well, if you are reading this, then I don't need to explain it.


 
Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

Fast forward to now. After episodes one through three. After the digitally massaged reissues. After the magic and soul was sand blasted by the machine that now is LucasArts. "Star Wars" has become that old friend you occasionally run into who used to be your tightest bro, but somewhere through the years, you've drifted apart and now it's just uncomfortable to see them still wearing that Flock of Seagulls t-shirt and smoking clove cigs. Yeah, there were some good times, but it's hard to get over the sting of when they dumped you and started hanging around their new bud, Jar-Jar.



Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

"Star Wars: Uncut" made all that pain go away. Casey Pugh's concept was simple; let's remake "Star Wars" fifteen seconds at a time and everybody is invited. There was no criteria for how to remake it, other then "keep it real" and the hundreds of film makers that participated did just that. The range of creativity is astounding. The love and passion that every contributor conveys with their clips did what I would not have believed possible, they brought the magic back! God bless everyone of those furry little freaks, they gave me that feeling again. "Star Wars" is a product, a commodity, Lucas won't let us forget that. What this film does is remind us that no matter how tight the copyright laws and anti-piracy efforts, if a piece of art crosses over and enters the soul of a culture, then it belongs to us all. We own it now. It is our "Moby Dick", "Huckleberry Finn", our "Romeo and Juliet". This crazy patchwork retelling of Luke Skywalker's coming of age story brings the love back home again. If you love the original like I do, then pop some popcorn and fire up the Vimeo and be prepared to have your mind blown once again.

OK HW

Image for September 6, 2011 - The Last Picture Show

Tonight I was out doing a little shopping and went by Pembroke Mall in Virginia Beach and saw a demolition crew working hard on the back corner of the complex taking down the former Regal Cinema Eight movie theaters. There is another Regal cinema right across the street that gets all the first run films and blockbusters. The old Pembroke theaters would get the big movies after they had been out for a month and the crap horror movies and "urban" comedies and weird stuff that might play one week before disappearing.  I have no sentimental attachment to that particular movie house, it was just another charmless, corporate box, but I did see a lot of movies there. The most memorable was probably "28 Days Later", not so much because of the film itself (though it is a great film), but because some moron in the audience took a cell phone call in the middle of the movie and answered in a normal, full voiced volume that instantly drew the ire of the crowd, myself included. The clueless person kept talking, now defiant and the crowd piled on, with yells of "SHUT UP!" and "TAKE IT OUTSIDE!". The lady (I use the term loosely) finally finished her call and shouted back, "Y'all need to be shutting up!", prompting one more round of verbal abuse from the mob, before everyone quieted down and we all settled back into Danny Boyle's savage zombie epoch.

Here's an incomplete list of movies I saw at the now gone Regal Pembroke Eight:

• 28 Days Later
• Solaris
• Predators
• Inglorious Basterds
• The Mist

There were many more, but that's all that comes to mind right now.

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I Can't Wait for October 16th

I really enjoyed the first season of "Walking Dead" last year. Today, thanks' to the San Diego Comic-Con, AMC released the first trailer for season two. Looks fantastic and nothing like the comic book it was based on. Enjoy, OK HW

Image for June 2, 2011 -"The Tunnel" Movie

Recently I invested in the making of an Australian horror film called "The Tunnel". The producers came up with an innovative way to finance the film, they sold (and are still selling) frames from the finished film for one dollar each to the tune of 135,000 frames. I bought twenty-five frames, about one seconds worth. The film premiered a couple of weeks ago and now is available on DVD or as a torrent download (if you download it, support the film and buy some frames). The producers also distributed the frames to everyone who invested, so I downloaded mine and have been enjoying the sneak preview. I've posted some of the more interesting ones here. 

I enhanced this one, to try and figure out what the heck is going on. I see a pant leg and a shoe moving to the right.

This looks like a skull embedded in a rock or mud wall. I can't wait to see this movie.

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Rainy Sunday in Edinburgh

Sorry for the lack of posting. I have been Twitting (@Weaverwerx) and posted a few updates on FB. Don't have an easy way to upload photos while on the road overseas. Nearly upgraded my iPod to the latest with the built in camera and wished I had. Next trip.

This has been a fantastic trip. Dave and I have covered alot of ground in the last week-and-a-half. Hiked the full length of the Union Canal. A couple of days on the coast visiting friends in Dunbar. And now back in Edinburgh for Dead by Dawn, a must viewing for any horror fan.

I hope to post a photo or two tomorrow before we fly back Tuesday. There will be much more to follow when I get back for the big catch up.

OK HW

I'm a Mini Movie Mogul

Last night I threw twenty-five dollars in the indie film ring. There is a great web site called Kickstarter that helps artist, writers and filmmakers fund their projects. I've looked at it a couple of times before, but have never taken the plunge until last night. I found out through Twitter, about this making-of-a-horror-movie-doc called, "Hardcore Indie" that was getting down to the wire to meet their fundraising goal and decided to get off the bench and help them make it happen. I'm looking forward to seeing how their project develops! OK HW

Image for January 15, 2011

Today is a little video instead of a picture. (My castle, my rules). Here I'm stalking a Burrfish at the Marine Science Museum in Virginia Beach.

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PS

Here's a bonus image:

The Magnificent MANBORG!

I recent found this very cool trailer through a great film blog called Quiet Earth. "MANBORG" looks like all the best bits of the cheesiest 80s' Sci-Fi flicks all rolled up and ready for a Saturday night. I want to see more!

OK HW

Night Vision

"Night Vision" was my second student film made as a final project for Film Making 102 at TCC Virginia Beach. This time we had to edit and have sound. This was back in the late 1980s, so editing meant physically cutting the film and using either tape or cement splices to join the new pieces. If you made a mistake, you were screwed, especially if you were working on your only copy of the film as all the students doing this project were. There was no "undo", no easy to make digital back-up. You rolled the film back and forth in the moviola and thought very carefully about the artistic choice you were about to make because there might not be any going back. Of course it was easier to think back then because there wasn't the consistent interruptions of Facebook or e-mail or cell phones, etc. The sound was accomplished by laying down all the music and dialogue to cassette tape and playing it back while projecting the film. It was closer to performance art, then cinema.

The original story of "Night Vision" was taken from an underground comic book that I published for awhile called "Reluctant Sadist". I had a ready made story already storyboarded so that gave me a big head start for this project. I also had an advantage in my then room friend and long time friend Colin Martin as he was (still is) a gifted musician and willing to take a run at acting, so I also had a star and music composer in house. Colin played "Sam" the nightmare-suffering lead and I took on the role of "Speed", his less-than-helpful, hyperactive roommate donning the hair farm. We shot all the interiors in our apartment with the black & and white dream sequences shot in and around the abandoned waterfront warehouses (long since torn down for luxury condominiums) in downtown Norfolk, Virginia. I couldn't afford the time or money for black white film, so I hit upon the idea of shooting the dream sequences on video, then filming them off the TV screen. This also allowed me to play with the brightness and contrast to give the footage a more dream-like quality. The final touch was looping the dialogue and Colin's fantastic music. As I recall, the student audience responded very well and the teacher was thrilled. Ah, glory days....

OK HW

The Last Piece

I recently dug out some old film and video projects I did way back in the 1980s and transferred them to the digital realm. This first one, "The Last Piece" was a final project for a filmmaking 101 class I took at Tidewater Community College. Originally it was an in-camera edit and I got an A, mostly because you could actually tell what was going on. A lot of folks' films were very dark and out-of-focus. One was even completely black, but that student had dropped out, so we all speculated that maybe he was making a statement. I eventually transferred mine to video and added the soundtrack by playing "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" soundtrack and voicing all the dialogue and sound effects. I also tightened up the editing just a bit and fixed one axis crossing mistake.

I had some good help getting this thing done. My sister Shyla ran camera and my good friend John Verhulst played one the pizza duelists. I was the other. Sadly, John passed on last year much too early at the young age of 45. As far as I know, this is the only film (or video) shot of him. He was quite a wild man in his day and looked good with a gun belt on even if it was a toy. Here's to you my friend. You are missed and remembered. OK HW

 

New Kerouac Documentary

Dada Slime

The sixties were a strange time for science fiction films. Sure there were epic, mind-benders like "2001: A Space Odyssey"  and "Planet of the Apes" that took the genre up and out of the ghetto, and then there were other films like "The Green Slime". Now I have never seen "The Green Slime" unfortunately, but I have wanted too since I was a young lad flipping through the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland and saw the fantastic photos of some crazy, stout cyclopean aliens with tentacles in heated battle with spacemen. Recently I stumbled on the trailer for GS and was completely blown away by the amazing depth of absurdity and pure dadaism contained therein. Watch for yourself:

Whew! Shake it off, or don't, maybe better to just give in to the Slime and sink in letting it work it's awesome magic. I'm not sure I want to see the film now as this trailer gives me enough to imagine what the film is like and I have a feeling the actual movie can not possibly live up to the weirdness it suggests. I love the cheesy special effects and miniatures and sets and costumes and acting. The total disregard of science and the pasted together layering of spacemen battling the aliens in space the aliens marching along neither group actually interacting with the other. Finally, dig that fabulous theme song! Remember when that hit the charts, perhaps knocking the "Hey Jude" out of the #1 spot? Pop a beer. Reflect and enjoy. I give you "THE GREEN SLIME".

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ZANK will not die...

ZANK is a short animated film that I made a few years ago and features music by my pal Neil Bruce. You can watch it in it's entirety on youtube, or if you want to catch it on the big screen you're in luck if you happen to find yourself near Roanoke, Va tomorrow night (August 26th) as ZANK will be shown at The Grandin Theatre as part of their "Open Projector" night.

Long live ZANK!

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Background for "The Box"

Last month a big time Hollywood production was using NASA Langley as a location. The film, "The Box", is Richard Kelly of "Donnie Darko" fame's latest and is based on a Richard Matheson story about a couple that receive a mysterious box. There is one button on the box and instructions explaining that they will be gifted with one million dollars if they push the button, but someone they do not know will die. The film expands on that theme in ways that, for the moment, are under wraps , but what we do know is the story takes place in the 1970s and the lead character, played by James Marsden, is a NASA scientist. Richard Kelly choose NASA Langley for a location because his father worked there in the 70s as a researcher.

A call went out for extras, especially men with long hair and sideburns, so I threw my application in and landed one day of work playing a member of the press. Instantly I envisioned getting a tiny, but nevertheless, critical speaking bit and hobnobbing with the stars. I was ready for my close up.

The first taste of Hollywood was the costume fitting. On the application we had to fill-in all of our measurements, many of which I had no clue (hat size?) and had to have my wife break out the tape measure. The day of the fitting, I arrived, filled out more paperwork and was handed a suit matched to my size (sort of). It was a fine polyester relic from a simpler time and fit me like a glove, a small, rubber glove that only allowed for some breathing and movement. I joked with the costume person that I hoped my character didn't have to do any action scenes or even bend over quickly, as the suit was likely to explode at the seams. She failed to see the humor in that idea and assured me that I would probably be standing still.

For shoot day, we were warned that it could go as long as fourteen hours and with an 11 am start time that would mean up until 1 am. I arrived a little early and was glad I did as there was quite a large throng of folks there all ready for their fifteen seconds of fame. The extras were herded into a gym that was the holding area. First order of business was to check in, fill out more paperwork, get your costume, then get into the very long hair and make up line. While making my way through this obstacle course, I ran into an old friend, Tom Nuckols, who had caught the extras bug while working on the HBO series "John Adams" and jumped at the chance to further his craft when he heard about "The Box". Here's a shot of Tom and I, a picture that always makes me think, "would you buy a car from these men?". Tom said that he modeled his 70s look after Tony Orlando and I think he nailed it.

Tom had worked on "John Adams" for weeks and had played a variety of background characters. He knew the ins and outs of the extras scene and helped me navigate my way through the maze. He was through hair and make-up and sitting down eating a doughnut, while I was still trying to shimmy into my threads. I waited for a couple of hours in the hair and make-up line only to get to the end and receive no make-up and just a comb pulled through my hair. After seeing lots of other extras, especially the women, getting really cool hair-do's, I was a tad disappointed, but that's show biz.

We waited for a couple of hours before anything happened , snacking from the craft table and meeting other extras. I was surprised at the number of NASA people there, lots of closet actors on center. The first scene requiring extras, or "background" as we were referred to, was an outdoor scene showing scientist arriving at a building. Tom and loads of 'scientist' extras were herded away and not soon after it began to rain. HARD. After a couple of hours, they all came back soaking wet.

More soon....