Well, my ass - and the asses of my wife and daughter - are out of the fire, but our tushes are still dangling over the flames like marshmellows. I turned to my SCM investors and told them about my situation, and a handful of them are in essence buying a portion of my interest in the film to cover the cost overruns I put on my card. This will allow us to make slightly more than minimum payments through May, and during that time we'll see if we can switch our card to "low/no interest" cards for six months to get the principle down. I'm also going to look at the possibility of extending our home equity line of credit so we can make a significant payment, and see if family can help. Along the way, I've got a book advance and a tax refund to look forward to. This is going to be a HARD fucking year, and we're going to be boiling most of our food, but at least we have a chance. There's a lot more at stake here than our credit; creditors would have seized ALL income from all of my existing projects, and I just can't let that happen without a fight. If I add up all the time I spent making and promoting those 4 films, 4 novels and 1 nonfiction book, it's probably a quarter of my life. Can't allow that to happen.

In at least one sense.

Grim times here. I'll try not to bring anyone down. Our credit card debt is so massive at this point that we can no longer afford to make payments. Bankruptcy is the only solution I see, but it comes with a price tag greater than I can bear: The Slime City Massacre Co. is a joint venture and a good deal of the debt I incurred in the last six months was due to cost overruns. If we file for bankruptcy, I stand to lose all of my interest in the film. To have made a film as good as I believe this one is, that will be receiving major horror mag press in January, ahead of its February premiere (and, honestly, the film I've dreamed of making), only to wind up empty handed because I can't meet 4 months' worth of upcoming cc payments, is enough to make me cry. I can't borrow the money because that would only make things worse in the long run. I've got a tax refund coming, I've got a NYS tax incentive credit coming, and I have no doubt that I have a film sale coming. So close, but too close to the edge.

Regardless of whether or not we declare bankruptcy, I can no longer afford to pay for hosting and domain stuff for my website, so in about 2 weeks, Slimeguy.com will be no more. Just when it will serve a purpose - promoting SCM screening dates, The Frenzy Way stuff, and Desperate Souls, that garage door has got to close. Much thanks to Web Lizard Marcy Italiano for rescuing and redesigning the site a few years ago and updating it since then. Great job, Marcy. I imagine I'll set up a freebie site soon until that day wen I can afford to re-launch. 118,000 visits is pretty good, I think. One of my goals for 2010 was to be more offline, but between this and Fearzone closing, I feel like the victim of an O'Henry twist.

More upsetting to me is that I have to take Kaelin out of daycare. She only goes for 3 hrs. a day, five days a week. She loves getting dressed up for school, loves her teachers, and loves the routine. It's been great for her social developmnet. But $70 a week is something we can no longer afford. It's going to be a looooong winter.

Oh, I got a job. Following the pattern of my life, I will be working at a video store. I've worked in video stores after every film I've made, so this was fate. I start at a (not very) local Blockbuster tomorrow night. And given the state of the job situation here, I'm happy about it. Not a manager, and happy about THAT. Maybe later, I have more than enough to deal with right now. Unfortunately, very part time. But it will put food on our table.

Bright spots? A supportive wife and a daughter that is too much to handle (Right now she's saying, "Put. The candle. Back!") Two cats that we can eat when things get really bad (a joke!). A roof over our heads. And my best work - one film and two novels - ahead.

But the next six months are really, really going to suck.

I'm gonna wish everyone happy holidays now, because I don't know when I'll feel up to stopping back. May you all have a great 2010!

Season #19 of SURVIVOR may have been the best post Season 1 SURVIVOR yet. The fact that I've said the same thing about something like six seasons shows just how consistently entertaining the show has been. If you're thinking, "Wow, has SURVIVOR really been on for 19 years?" the answer is no. SURVIVOR airs two "arcs" per season, and CBS bills each one as a separate season. The show has been on for 10 years... and the best is yet to come - SURVIVOR: HEROES VS. VILLAINS, their second "All Star" production. I can't wait!

But back to Season #19: Russel was unquestionably the best player the show has ever produced, even better than Richard Hatch. He made one key mistake, though: he never should have told anyone that he made a million bucks last year. It's a sham that Natalie won a million bucks THIS year, and really shows what a bunch of babies the losing tribe were. Russel played a gaim that will probably never be matched, and he lost... and he cried. And he already has a million, and he won $100,000 voted on by viewers, and he threw a pair of sucks (presumably his) into the fire.

In the end, I really liked SHAMBO, the one person who seemed to realize it's all a game.

Great, great show.

HEROES VS. VILLAINS!!!

R.I.P. Dan O'Bannon, who was sick for much of his life. DARK STAR, ALIEN, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, DEAD & BURIED, LIFEFORCE, BLUE THUNDER, TOTAL RECALL - one of the great genre screenwriters who still never had the career he deserved. His script for ALIEN wasn't very good, and was heavily rewritten (just as BLUE THUNDER was rewritten), but the images and structure are all his. DEAD & BURIED is one of those underappreciated little gems that kind of whacks you over the head, something zombie novels and movies stopped doing a long time ago. And he will always be remembered for RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, which he wrote and directed and which outgrossed Romero's DAY OF THE DEAD and became a huge hit on VHS. The first zombie comedy? I'm not sure, but it still holds up.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/17/seiu-urges-changes-in-sen_n_395411.html

Who needs a base?

This at least supports my argument that there are some good Democrats out there fighting for the rest of us. Unfortunately, they're up against corporate Dems, all Republicans, and a chickenshit White House:


Congressional Democrats are starting to voice their anger at President Obama over the way health care legislation has been compromised, blaming him for not fighting harder.

"The president keeps listening to Rahm Emanuel," said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). "No public option, no extending Medicare to 55, no nothing, an excise tax, God!" he exclaimed about the Senate health care bill to Roll Call. "The insurance lobby is taking over."

"The White House has been useless," Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis.), the chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, told Politico. Referencing Senate delays, he said, "It's ridiculous, and the Obama administration is sitting on the sidelines. That's nonsense."

While many House Democrats have expressed anger with the Senate for the watered-down bill, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) argued that it was really Obama who let centrists take control. "Snowe? Stupak? Lieberman? Who left these people in charge?" he said. "It's time for the president to get his hands dirty. Some of us have compromised our compromised compromise. We need the president to stand up for the values our party shares. We must stop letting the tail wag the dog of this debate."

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) similarly suggested that blaming Lieberman was ignoring the real culprit -- Obama.

"This bill appears to be legislation that the president wanted in the first place, so I don't think focusing it on Lieberman really hits the truth," said Feingold. "I think they could have been higher. I certainly think a stronger bill would have been better in every respect."

As Politico's Craig Gordon noted about the president's health care maneuvering, "Time and again, [Obama] rebuffed Democrats' requests to speak up more forcefully about what he wanted -- a strategy that allowed Obama to preserve maximum flexibility to declare victory at the end of the process, no matter what the final bill looked like."

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), pointed to polling that suggests Democrats will face trouble with their base if they don't deliver a strong bill. "Thirty percent of Democrats will not come out and vote if there is no public option in the health care bill," she said. "What does that tell you?"

I've come to love Howard Dean and hope he runs for president again, but I disagree with him here. The public option is dead, Medicare at 55 is dead, and I wish Joe Lieberman was dead. But let's step back. 40,000 people a year die from not having health care, and if that number can even be cut in half, a watered down bill that makes the insurance companies richer IS still better than nothing.

Now let's look at President Obama. I'm pissed off at his political cowardice, but never doubted that when is team said they didn't have the votes for public option that they were wrong. Amy I still pissed off that he didn't use his bully pulpit to tell three corporate owned Democrats, "This is what I want?"

"You betcha."

But let's face it: even if he swayed two of those evil puppets, Joe Lieberman still would have sunk the boat.

Should Obama still have fought the good fight? Fuck, yeah.

But this is a lost war, won by greedy insurance companies and fought by the Republican and Democrat politicians they bought, and supported by your average Republican voters who are so brainwashed by right wing ideology, so willingly self dumbed down, that they don't have a clue as to what is good or bad, right or wrong with this country. They're all plunging us down the train and don't even know it. They have so willingly embraced stupidity that they can't see the light, and we're all paying the price.

The enxt time a Democrat runs for the Top Spot - and I'll support just about anyone who challenges Obama - I hope they run on this philosophy: "Screw bi-partisanship, it doesn't exist when ANY of those partisans are conservative."

Does anyone even care what Obama has to say about anything anymore? I sure don't.

And the sad thing is, he's still ten times better than John McCain and Yup-Yup would have been.

What a sad, sad lack of leadership we have in this country.

The George W. Bush/Dick Cheney Administration: the gift that keeps on giving. They denied that any e-mails had been "lost," and now some non-profit computer techs have recovered 22,000,000 of them. I'd say there's a book in there, but there's probaply a 20-book series instead. We'll be paying for these monsters' deeds the rest of our lives... and our children will be paying for them for the rest of their lives... and let's not underestimate W and Dick, our grandkids will be paying for them, too. Amazing how one dastardly administration could destroy an entire country - make that several - in just 8 years. I can't wait to hear how the apologists try to sweep 22,000,000 lies under the carpet.

--to wish for something really bad to happen to Joe Lieberman?

I don't care, he's ruining too many lives.

Strike him down, Lord.

Up today:

http://www.fearzone.com/

It took a little while longer than expected to get a few things up. Onward.

Well, our last night with cable TV was a rewarding one. The season finales of DEXTER and CALIFORNICATION were both excellent. Interesting that both finales put their respective seasons in a whole different light, harkened back to their original stories, and stranded their main characters in a different situation. Oddly enough, I found CALIFORNICATION's finale more emotional than DEXTER's game changer. The new DEXTER also now has something in common with his literary counterpart.

I'm putting together the super detailed, super encessary daily production reports I need to submit to NYS for the film production tax credit. Oy, vay! And Tamar is working on the production's receipts. OY VAY! Two of the big headaches of producing. I hate em, hate em, hate em.

92 pages into Jake Helman #3, just over a quarter of the way. I figure I can do 2 more chapters before I have to stop and think really hard how to pull off the chapter after that. And I have a small paying freelance gig for a friend. So a lot of stuff to juggle. Good thing there's so much time left before variosu end of the year deadlines.

I've been collecting blurbs for my werewolf novel THE FRENZY WAY, which will be published as a trade paperback by Medallion Press in June, 2010:



“THE FRENZY WAY is an awesome blend of police procedural and bloody werewolf action. It’s easily Lamberson’s best novel—and I loved his first two!”

--Jeff Strand


"A werewolf serial killer whodunit with real teeth, THE FRENZY WAY, is a razor sharp read from beginning to end. Lamberson’s tale is a police procedural, werewolf historical, good old fashioned monster movie mash up, a winning mix to be sure, but what really makes the narrative shine are its deft characterizations. Even the tiniest, bit players seem alive, vital, a crucial part of the puzzle, making this wild-in-the-streets werewolf hunt all the more tense. Highly recommended."

--Michael Louis Calvillo, author of I WILL RISE and AS FATE WOULD HAVE IT



"The Frenzy Way is a grinning, snapping chainsaw of a novel, so grab some heavy gloves and eye protection and hang on for a fast, fun ride."

-Jeff Jacobson, author of WORMFOOD



"From the opening paragraph, Greg Lamberson's The Frenzy Way sinks its long dark claws into you, refusing to release you until your shaking fingers have turned the very last page. There is a chilling seduction to the intelligent, gritty crime noir style in which this distinctive take on the werewolf myth is delivered that is exsquitely terrifying, breathtakingly harsh and beautifully brutal. The Frenzy Way is horror at its absolute best!"

- Gabrielle S. Faust, ETERNAL VIGILANCE

If you don't have Sirius Radio (I won't in 2 weeks), or if you just fall asleep before Midnight because you're exhausted from snow blowing all day, you can now listen to "Slime City Massa-CREEEE," the punk rock end credits song for SLIME CITY MASSACRE, at the website of the band Crankdaddy:

http://crankdaddy.com/

Crankdaddy is fronted by Tom Merrick, my former college roommate who played best friend Jerry in the original SLIME CITY and a badass mercenary in SCM. The song is full of references to 80s splatter flicks and immortalizes my most embarrassing cinema moment. Thanks, Tom!

I do, at least for 2 more weeks (forgot to mention that on my New Year's Resolutions). If so, be sure to check out FANGORIA RADIO, co-hosted and co-produced by Debbie Rochon, from 10pm - 1 AM to hear the world premiere of "Slime City Massa-CREEEE," the punk rock end credits theme song for SLIME CITY created by Crankdaddy. One of the 'daddies' is Tom Merrick, who played the best friend in the original SLIME and plays a badass merc this time around.

No buying books or DVDs. An easy one, since I don't do that now.

No cable TV. I've hung on as long as I have for DEXTER, which reaches its conclusion Sunday.

No trips that aren't paid for.

No daycare for Kaelin. It was great for her, but she needs a little bit of food more.

No heat.

No coffee.

No food that doesn't involve a seasoning pack and hot water.

I never thought I'd have a family like THE WALTONS, but in an odd way I think that's where we find ourselves. They're so darned cheerful, though!