Monday, November 09, 2009

HUNGRY, VERY HUNGRY

Sunday, November 08, 2009

FRIEND IN NEED

I have a very dear friend on Facebook who is even more unhappy and poor than I am.
She can't post pics of herself, because she has a bad skin condition from childhood and she feels like the ugliest thing on the planet. But the coolest chick. We were exchanging some "hard time" stories about my not being able to land another job and not having eaten for almost two days and she told me that she hates to admit it, but she ate cake frosting for lunch today, cause she has no food!!!!

She says she has a job, but it hardly covers her rent and she is worried sick.
Now I know we are all in deep shit in some way or another, but if anyone knows anyone who stays in Washington State (except Jojo) who might be able to bail the poor woman out with some food, please e-mail me so I can put them in touch with her.

I can't do anything to help her and its killing me, so the least I can do is get the word out, cause you ladies know more people closer to her than I do.
Hope you are all well and happy......and as Christmas creeps up, I hope y'all get a little V in yer stockings ;-))
Hehehe!!!

Friday, November 06, 2009

SA HORRORFEST....and I was there!!!

Pansies and scaredy cats, DO NOT watch the clip, okay?

I was asked to review a film called STRIGOI by Pretty Scary online magazine in L.A. and so I drove out to the center of Cape Town, about 40 minutes' drive from my home. (Evethough it was on a near empty tank of gas) The Labia Theatre....hahaha....sorry, can't say it with a straight face...is right in the middle of old Cape Town city, amidst old churches and buildings that remind us that we used to be a British Colony. The history is rife all round and the streets to the Labia are cobbled and narrow. Simply beautiful....well, it looks a LOT better at night. I don't have a camera, so I got these off Google.

Labia outside

Lobby & ticket office

At 6pm STRIGOI was billed to start and I was almost late, because I had to navigate my way through the inner city to find the theater. I parked at a theater complex opposite the street, purely by accident, and made it just before 6.

The lobby was full of people and I went to meet Sonja Ruppersburg, co-ordinator of the festival and Paul Blom's wife. She is the pretty woman in the clip. Sonja is a peach....I never expected her to be so down-to-earth and sweet. Because Pretty Scary arranged for me to review this film, I got to go in for free :-)

As before every show, Paul gave out free goodies to the audience for random horror film questions that are correctly yelled out. I won a bad excorcism DVD called BLACK WATER VALLEY Excorcism...hahaha....bad movie, but hey, I got it for free. Then STRIGOI started, which I thoroughly enjoyed and at once, that vague memory called happiness, filtered through and swam over me.
The audience was great. Fellow filmmakers, horror lovers and Facebook friends who were all there for the common purpose of enjoying and celebrating good horror we will never get to see on the big screen.

After STRIGOI, there was a 30min break and I sat in this beautiful old lobby, built by the British of old and the red carpets and heavy walls took me back to a subliminal memory I have long held, but never lived. A nice cup of coffee and good kindred company was something I never have the pleasure of experiencing.
Now, something I am not used to, is making impulsive decisions for my own gain. But that is exactly what I did.
The next show was the legendary, the iconic, the classic AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, one of my all time faves which I have not seen since I was a child and certainly not seen on the big screen, cause I was 3 yrs old when it came out.

I sent the kids a text message to tell them I am staying for another film and got a A-OKAY back from them. This was so what I needed ladies. Here I was, surrounded by people like me who dress weird like me, drinking coffee in a beautiful old theater, about to watch one of the most classic werewolf films ever made, while outside there was a FULL MOON and a cool, eerie wind blowing.
It was official.
I was in heaven.

It was wonderful to see this movie again, especially the infamous shape-shifting sequence, still revered by FX artists today! Not to mention my favorite song when I was a little girl, Bad Moon Rising, featured in it.

It was awesome!!! I continually found myself smiling in utter joy, not just because I'm a sick bitch who loves this depraved shit, but because for one night, my Cape Town dream was a reality. This was what I came here for. This is what I expected to find when I moved here and it was heavenly to know that if I looked in the right places and kept the right company, I could live my dream.

After the screening, I was the last to leave when they locked up. My car stood deserted in the parking lot courtyard of little independent theaters, illuminated by pale yellow security lights and all I could hear was the brown leaves blown by the night wind and my lonely footfalls on cobblestone. The moon was full and it felt like the world was all mine, just me, the night and the abandoned old buildings all around me. I did not want to leave. For once, things I dreamed were real.
I got in my car and drove home while the full moon peeked into my car and gave the world a blueish glow. I reached down to my radio and had no idea what I had in the CD shuttle.
Now, I kid you not, I turned on my radio and I squealed in pleasure, out loud. Creedence Clearwater Revival, ladies!!! It came over my speakers....BAD MOON RISING!!!!!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

GRIZZLY and the human it eats

I find myself dreadfully sad lately and I have become completely nocturnal, which is wonderful. My "day" consisting of peace and dead silence, as if all the things and people who make my life a living hell, are dead. Oh how I wish they were all dead. In the night I can write, I can watch movies, I can write songs, read, chat to my friends, who are all in the Northern Hemisphere, so this existence is perfect for a thing like me.
To my regret, I realize that society will not allow me to live the way I want and THAT.....is what drives the animal in me even wilder, more hateful and more determined to fight back.

I am exhausted, though.
Do you know how draining it is to strain your body and soul into a being you are not, solely to blend in? I feel like a mermaid who was lent legs for a while. Just like a fish out of water. The daily grind of normal nothingness that breaks my spirit and the perpetual denial of my true form and place. These things slowly chip away both at my patience and at my soul.

My life is unbearable, albeit fun and not lacking little moments of true happiness, because I am not in my place. The mask is becoming too heavy and I fear I might do something terrible when the mask cracks and I am revealed. My teeth want to come out!

I am tired of being forced to be like them. You don't see a bear living in a nest with squealing chicks in a tree. You don't see fish in the desert. Why the hell do you see ME here?
The pain is becoming physical. The frustration is draining my emotions.
I have got to end this.
Soon.....

Friday, October 23, 2009

CRUEL GODS

I haven't blogged because it feels like I'm just doing it to waste time. No-one really reads it anymore, so its become more of a tool for therapy than anything else.

Still, things come to me like a cruel trick from the gods.
I get messages for casting in films, ut only if I ca travel to New York or Spain, where the casting is. Its so unfair. Its like I get the offers, but its always out of reach for some reason. This is hell on so many levels, but the only reason I keep doing it, is becase this is what I wanna do with my life and I WILL NOT BACK DOWN!!! I will NOT run back to my old life and have gone through all this shit for nothing and spend the rest of my life wondering why I wake up every day. I WILL NOT!

Now I have an oppertunity to distribute one of Kevin's films here, but of course I don't have the financial backing, so I must look like a joke to the producers.

Get this....
There is a woman here in Cape Town who owns both a successful crew agency as well as a film production company. I enquired about courses to get myself into the biz and the one I wanna do is 7 G's. She suggested I just do a bootcamp course for two days to be a qualified PA, which she says will have her getting me into the film biz IMMEDIATELY. I told her I'll do this course as soon as I am employed again.

This morning she e-mailed me and almost made my day.
ALMOST.
The e-mail said that thee was a cancellation in this weekend's course and that since I am unemployed, she is willing to sponsor my course!!!!!
Yes, there was a catch.....the course is in Johannesburg, not Cape Town.
:-(

I feel like a dog on a leash that is just too short to reach the juicy steak laying in front of me!

Friday, October 09, 2009

WMF T-SHIRT

Front

Back

Since Madi and I were talking about me not being able to sell off all my T-shirts I have left from the Festival, I realised that I have not posted exactly what the T's look like before.

So just for interest.....this is the LadyAxe WMF 2009 T-shirt!!!

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

SMALL THINGS

Its funny how its the tiny little seemingly trivial things that keep one going in times of diress and anxiety.

I still don't have a job, but I registered as an agent for a company who have people working from home to advertise their products on the Net. Unfortunately, its only local and I have to e-mail ads to people for the relevant products and IF they get an order, I get a tiny commission. But hey, its a job, of sorts. Can't imagine being able to pay my monthly expenses on it, though.

Remember long ago when I first made UKOYIKA and it was screened at the SA HorrorFest? There was a website that showed interest in me as a director. The site is called PRETTY/ SCARY .
It is run by Heidi Martinuzzi.
She is a film journalist in L.A. and loves my work. Heidi asked me to be PRETTY SCARY's local correspondent at this year's HorrorFest and to review a few films for the website!!!!
Wow, like a proper journalist......in horror film!

Its these small things that keep me going while I try to make ends meet and it helps to just keep my eye on the goal, so that I did not come to this horrid place and went through all this trouble for nothing.

<$$>