Egg Day and Pig Farms

The Tripper gets released on the 20th. It’s a throwback to the old slasher movies which I couldn’t be happier about. With all the Saws and Hostels and freaky little ghost children running around, it’s about time somebody had the stones to pull out a slasher. That would be enough for me. Toss in Little Ronnie Reagan hacking up hippies and I’m sold.

Pig Farm comes out Wednesday. It will not be at a comic book store near you…unless you pre-ordered. Well, perhaps the bigger city stores. Earth2Comics in LA will have issues but that’s cuz the owner, Carr, is good people and I used to play poker with him. He’s also pals with Niles. But the independent publishers, anyone not DC or Marvel don’t normally get love from the comic stores. The Indy comics do all their business through pre-orders. In fact, my own local comic store isn’t carrying Pig Farm. Duh’g’s comics. It’s actually Doug’s comics but when I look at him I think Duh. I stopped in to say Hi and introduce myself several months back. I told him I’d written a comic with Niles and Jane. Then he interrupted to tell me he wouldn’t be carrying it in his store because horror comics don’t sell. Pig Farm isn’t exactly a horror comic but I was too stunned to speak for the moment. Mel was with me and just as stunned. Together we left. So, sure, maybe Doug won’t be carrying Alien Pig Farm in his store. That is fine. More than fine because at the end of the day, Doug is fat.

But Izzie is cute. Now, a few months back I promised to cut down on the Izzie pics. Understanding that back when I was childless and some of you “parental” types would send me christmas cards with pics of your slobbering children I nearly always tossed them in the can. And more than that, this is a site created for the purposes of my leaving a record of my fabulous journey to stardom. But, every once in a while we at wendago.com will spew unstoppable amounts of Izzie Rain. It will just be an understood part of life. Unavoidable. That’s just how I roll.

Easter this year fell on young Alex Lorey’s birthday. Some might tell you that his birthday fell on Easter. Untrue. Alex’s birthday is steady. Easter, however, is fickle.
I like this picture because it catches momma Elizabeth cheating. She is helping the angelic little child blow out his candles. Cheater.

We drove into Calabasas Saturday for the big Egg Day hunt. Sunday all the kids would run out into the yard to find the eggs that Jesus had hidden the night before. Yes, I jest. Jesus didn’t really hide the eggs.

That night young Izzie Rain decided to pull an all-nighter and keep her loving parents up til dawn. In six months this was perhaps the second time she’d pulled the let’s-stay-up-all-night stunt. She finally drifted off to sleep as the sun rose, at which point Mel and I collapsed with exhaustion. An hour or so later, Mel and I opened our eyes wide at the sound of CREEEEEEAAAAAK. The door was opening. But Young Izzie Rain was not escaping. Nothing as wonderful as that. No, instead it was young Alex Lorey staring into our room with a grin. A grin that said, “Welcome to my world.” No. Don’t. Please. Then Alex let out a MUHAHAHAHA. Thus Izzie Rain sat up and spoke, “Morning? Already? Cool. Let’s roll.”

Izzie Rain cannot speak yet. But if you look closely you might detect the non-verbal pleas for help.

So as I reveal an Easter morning pic of Mel and Izzie, let’s talk movies.
Grindhouse dropped 70 percent its second weekend. Disturbia looks to do 23-25 which is fine. It was a good screenplay. And the trailer looked strong. And with a PG-13 all the kiddies could get in to see it. What’s funny to me is that the current climate around Hollywood has been that horror is dead. Horror wasn’t and isn’t dead, the movies were sucking. You start slapping copycat Saw and Hostels together it’s going to show. Could we please go back to writing and making the movies we are passionate about and stop trying to fit them into a marketing portfolio or track record of recent sells. I’m a freaking redneck from Kentucky. Should I really have to explain this to the boneheads steering the ship? Disturbia is a smart thriller. It’s not a bunch of bells and whistles and neon lights. It caters to good story not what it thinks the paying audience wants to see. Rant over. For now.
Monday’s a big day though. I’m heading into LA to meet with Alex and Chris of Benderspink to pitch a TV show to Fox. Should be fun. I love the story. I love the characters and there’s never been anything like it on TV before. That, of course, is both a good and a bad thing. But I’m keeping the fingers crossed. If you’re not to busy, maybe you’d cross some fingers for me. :)

So let’s talk about Chris Lorey. He reads with a ferocious passion. He read his father’s Nightmare Academy in one night. That’s an accomplishment for a 9 year old. He’s polite. He plays World of Warcraft. His warrior is level 36. Every year he becomes more and more interesting to me. It makes me sad that one day he will go to jail having been framed for a crime his brother committed. When this happens I will be more than happy to stand in as a character witness. Of course, saying this will make me a target of the ever clever, ever evolving criminal mind of Alex Lorey.

Dean introduced young Izzie Rain to Logan Targete. I was fine with the whole thing until I saw JP slipping Logan some condoms.

So, another Easter came and went. Dean took some great pics of young Izzie Rain snatching Easter Eggs from the grass. I asked him to email so that I could post them for posterity. But he has abandoned me.

So, having been up most of the night I was tired. Although Mel swears this is a pic of me giving birth to Izzie.

Although tired, I still hand plenty of energy to blow raspberries in my daughter’s ear. The initial plan was to stay Sunday night and drive back in the morning. But in fear of young Izzie’s staying up all night again I figured it best to drive by moonlight.

We rolled into Pacific Grove during the wee hours. Bathed the creature and hit the sack.

Monday it was back to business as usual. I’ve gone out with a new spec. It went to Ghost House first. And it was a pass. There were reasons for the pass but I’m growing less and less interested in the reasons. Because it doesn’t really matter. It only takes one yes and clearly that wasn’t the yes. After that we went out to four producers. Not sure why only four. I prefer the blitz. I’ve sold one spec during my long and glorious career and that sell was the result of a blitz. Since then every spec I’ve written has been “slipped” to a handful of places at a time. I’m not sure why that is and it’s odd to me that I’ve never asked. It seems like a weak approach. “Here, we don’t feel strongly enough about this to go wide, so we’re sending it to you to see what you think.”
Three of the four have passed. They had reasons. But those reasons don’t matter. Had they wanted to make the purchase those reasons could have been quickly rewritten in a day. Perhaps they passed because the script was “slipped” to them rather than part of an industry wide blitz. There was no sense of urgency. Eh, what do I know.
We skipped sending the script over Easter but went out to four more places this weekend. No reason to worry over it. It’s now out of my hands. Either it will sell or it won’t. All I can do is keep writing and then then write some more.
And by the way, please feel free to check out eBay where my opinions are on sale three for a dollar.

So, where was I? Oh yeah, back to life as usual. Which means a walk to the ocean. It certainly is a wonderful thing to live on the ocean. And a smog free ocean at that.
My emails have increased since The Messengers came out. Back during the Jason X days I was getting several emails a week, some praising the movie, some happily offering advice, others offering hate. But most were asking “How do I break into Hollywood?” And now some of those emails have started up again. And it’s funny. I ask myself that question every day. Near as I can tell, unless you become a brand name you keep breaking into Hollywood every time you get a new job.

On the way back from the Ocean we decided to see how Izzie Rain liked the swing. Jury is still out but we feel confident she liked the swing very much.

Izzie Rain is heavy. She’s two and half feet long at the last measuring. And weighed 19 pounds. That was two weeks ago. When she was tiny we would put her in the sink so that we could go to the movies or out to dinner. But now we’re starting to worry, cuz she’s so big we’re afraid she might actually flop out onto the floor. Oh, we’re not worried that she’ll get hurt because Cylons are particularly hard to wound. But we worry that she’ll then crawl around and get into all our stuff. But don’t go shedding salty tears for us. We’ll deal with it. We all got our crosses to bear.

Sadly, Ms. Melanie threw her back out shortly after our Easter return. This turned into a trip to the Emergency room where mother got a big ol’ glowing shot of valium. Of course, this meant young Izzie Rain would be told no to boob milk for the first time ever. Young Izzie Rain did not like being told no to boob. She is amazingly stubborn. No clue where she got that.
We tried going back to formula but that was a miserable failure. She’s got a heck of a left hook. Don’t cross the girl.
Finally Mel mashed up some bananas, added some formula and that seemed to do the trick.
The following day, Mel decided to live with the pain and dropped the meds. Izzie’s back on breast milk. If there was any doubt, her mother is still an Amazon Warrior.

And I moved my office. Well, I moved my computer. If Izzie’s asleep it’s just too risky for me to sneak into her room when the muse strikes. Granted she sleeps like a rock at night. But why take the risk? And her day time naps are light to say the least. So, welcome to the living room. Sadly we are outgrowing our cute little cottage on the ocean.