Terrance Zdunich's Blog, page 7

THE DEVIL’S CARNIVAL ON BLU-RAY & DVD OCTOBER 23!

To pre-order your Limited Ringmaster Edition Blu-Ray & DVD Set, please visit: http://www.TheDevilsCarnival.com.

Come Hang with me this Labor Day Weekend at Horrorfind in PA!

Join me and my The Devil’s Carnival and Repo! The Genetic Opera costars, Bill Moseley and OhGr, this weekend in Gettysburg, PA, at Horrorfind Weekend Convention. I’ll be there August 31s -September 2nd, peddling autographed REPO!, TDC, and The Molting wares. Hope to see you there! For tickets and info, visit: http://www.horrorfindweekend.com

THE DEVIL’S ENCORE: HOMESIX-SIX-SICKNESS

I’ve been home for almost a week now, following a sixty-city tour with my new musical film, The Devil’s Carnival. Due to the frenzied pace of tour life, since April, the majority of my meals, sleep cycles, and even potty breaks, have been rushed. You would think that being home, dining in the coziness of one’s own kitchen, bathing in the peacefulness of one’s own shower, sleeping in the security of one’s own bed, would bring comfort… but I’m not sure it has.

Adjusting to the pace of regular life after being away for months is no easy feat. I’m not itching to jump back into the tour van just yet mind you, but, at the same time, I feel displaced being home. The normalcy of these familiar apartment walls is far more off-balancing than the utter unpredictability of so much of the tour.

As a subscriber to the Fight Club mantra that the-things-you-own-end-up-owning-you, I generally don’t form bonds with material possessions. I view the current mattress where I rest my head, for example, as a bed as opposed to my bed—as if it were a borrowed or rented napping station. Because of this, I have an easier time uprooting and galavanting across the continent than most, but a more difficult time returning.

This week, reuniting with friends I hadn’t seen in months, I struggled to explain my touring adventures. From the outsider’s perspective, I could see that the tour appeared to them like a big party, like some outrageous vacation. As such, it felt ridiculous trying to sum up how much sweat and sacrifice went into creating and traveling The Devil’s Carnival. And touting tired expressions like “you had to be there” seemed equally unsatisfying.

How can one accurately describe that state of pure delirium when you’re standing inside an empty hotel hallway at three in the morning, following a late-night performance, following an all-night drive? How does one verbally depict that sensation of tired fingers reaching into one’s pants pocket, pulling out a week’s worth of hotel keycards, blearily looking up and down the hallway at the rows of sleepy hotel doors, and having no idea which key belonged to the present?

To my fellow fatigued traveling companions—those mutual wayward souls who “were there”– I want to extend my deepest gratitude. The tours would not have been possible without your help and unfaltering commitment.

To Laura Bousman and Spooky Dan Walker, thank you for your continued labors behind-, and in-front-of, the scene. To our lovely emcees, Carlee Baker and Stephanie Hyden, thanks for leading “Hail Satan!” chants the continent over. To tour gals, Andrea Manners, Kelly “Scully” Rybarczyk, and Kimmie Yan, thanks for being the brains and beauty behind our pilgrimages. To Courtney Ortega, thanks for tending to my cockroaches whilst I was away, and for being a constant source of inspiration and support throughout this trying adventure. To my partner in crime, director Darren Lynn Bousman, thanks for sharing in my artistic passion. And lastly, to all of you beautiful souls who showed up, dressed up, and threw up your horns nightly on “The Devil’s Tour” and “The Devil’s Encore Tour”, THANK YOU!

Now that the formalities are done with, I shall resume the project of home life acclimation, of rejoining the human race. As daunting a task as this is, with The Devil’s Carnival‘s pending DVD release, I have no shortage of wicked chores with which to distract myself.

Since its inception, The Devil’s Carnival has been an independent project. It was independently produced and financed, and now it’s being independently distributed. This independent model affords us, the creators, a lot of creative freedom, but it also means that ALL of the workload falls on our shoulders. This workload has now extended to the creation and mass production of TDC‘s DVDs.  The box art, disc content, and sales outreach, rests on our road weary shoulders.

In the short time since the tour’s ended, I’ve been tasked with drafting a script for the DVD’s closed captioning (so there will be no “it’s my job to steal and rob GRAPES!” subtitle blunders this time around, REPO! fans!). I’ve also been prepping for a slew of web updates to TheDevilsCarnival.com to correspond with our DVD launch. And last, but certainly not least, there’s Episode Two to contend with. That’s right, sinners; the end of the tour is is just the beginning for The Devil’s Carnival!

Be sure to “like” us on FaceBook (http://www.facebook.com/devilscarnival) and please sign up on our website’s mailing list (http://oi.vresp.com/?fid=f55fe7c872) to receive updates on the status of The Devil’s Carnival‘s DVD and the future of our wicked project.

Sinners of Los Angeles & Vancouver!

THE DEVIL’S ENCORE: WILD LITTLE BRUISES

It’s day thirty of “The Devil’s Encore Tour”, a day much like any other on this multi-city adventure: director Darren Lynn Bousman, a trio of sexy roadies, and I, arrive via van in a new town each night to premiere our musical film, The Devil’s Carnival. Following each one-night-only event screening, my travel companions and I retire to a discount hotel room, sleep for a few hours, and then hop in the van and repeat the ritual.

Tonight, as I ready for the sleeping portion of this routine, I catch site of myself in the mirror of my rented room for the night. Wiping toothpaste from my chin, I scrub a newly-acquired, motorized Little Mermaid toothbrush (don’t ask) across my gums. Gazing at my reflection, I can’t help but notice the weight my midsection has gained from a tour diet consisting almost exclusively of greasy diners and truck stop huts. I also notice a series of bruises.

The dark, discolorations spot my ribs, the back of my arms, and my love handles. I lower my gaze and follow the bruise trail down my legs to the swollen ankle above my right foot. Below the ankle, planted on the tile floor, my crooked second toe throbs.

I look and feel like I’ve lost a fight, and in many ways I have. I’m on the losing end of a battle with our van’s cargo—heavy, bulky merchandise boxes and a PA system that needs to be unloaded and then reloaded nightly on our tour. In the always rushed process of setting and striking each evening’s stage, cuts, scrapes, and bruises are commonplace. And I’m not the only one going toe-to-toe with The Devil’s Carnival gear.

I always joke that I like my women like my fish sticks: good and battered…. and sexy tour team gals, Kelly “Scully” Rybarczyk and Kimmie Yan, are sporting similar bruising to my own. These bad ass chicks aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, lugging boxes and speakers nightly.  Yes, boys and girls alike have taken their lumps on The Devil’s Carnival touring sideshow… and lived to tell about it! Everyone’s had their share of victory and defeat, glory and humiliation, strikes and gutters.

In the frenzy of our continent trotting, we’ve all lost credit cards or had fraudulent activities charged to our accounts. We’ve all made regretful food orders—our lovely emcee, actress Carlee Baker, lost a bout with food poisoning at our August 7th Winnipeg stop. We’ve all drank more alcohol than we should’ve following (or during!) performances. And each of us has stumbled, tripped, or fallen at least once on tour.

In Charlotte, at the Neighborhood Theatre, performer Emilie Autumn (Painted Doll) made her first appearance on “The Devil’s Tour”. During a pre-show meet-and-greet with fans that night, Emilie used a chair as a ladder to climb onto the venue’s stage. Halfway into the climb, the chair legs kicked out from under her. From the corner of my evil eye, I saw what looked to be a flying pixie-ballerina sail and then crash land to the floor. Emilie’s dismount and landing, although painful-looking, were far more graceful than my own sad splays.

One night, after introducing The Devil’s Carnival to a captive crowd, the cable from the microphone I was using got tangled around my feet. I skipped, tripped, and lunged forward in a most clumsy “fall from grace”.

My left-footed lubberliness has resulted in a few longstanding injuries. In 2006, when filming the Repo! The Genetic Opera short film—a twelve-minute teaser that led to the financing of 2008′s feature film—I learned the hard way that running in GraveRobber boots can be as perilous as running with scissors. Showing off for short film Shilo, actress Kristin Fairlie, I twisted my ankle so severely that it’s yet to properly heal.

In May, on the Kansas City stop of “The Devil’s Tour”, I clumsily whacked my foot against a sturdy piece of furniture, resulting in what I think was a broken toe. Fractured or not, two-and-a-half months after the injury, the wound continues to manifest itself in the sharp, ongoing sensation that my toe is stiffening and retreating into the front of my foot.

Road wounds are not only bodily on The Devil’s Carnival tours; in the tussle of our promotional adventures, personal property has also not come out unscathed. Laptops, luggage bags, and boot zippers are just some of the possession casualties.

In the escalating stink wars of TDC‘s tour van (described in detail in my recent post “THE DEVIL’S ENCORE: CARNIVAL DISTRACTIONS”), bottled deer urine has been added to our artillery. “Dominant Buck”—or “DomBo”, as we like to call it—is apparently favored by both hunters trying to attract game and tour pranksters alike. In futile attempts to flee from stinky sprays and malodorous mischief, a half-full cup of coffee was accidentally spilled on a laptop within the van, short-circuiting the device.

Like the doomed laptop, as we near the end of this sixty-city tour, my travel fellowship and I are also on the verge of short-circuiting. Our eyes are bloodshot, our bodies bruised, our quarters befouled. No single incident better sums up our tour bruising, however, than what transpired during Saturday night’s screening at San Francisco’s Balboa Theatre.

The night’s first screening was drawing to an end. Director Darren Lynn Bousman and I were waiting beyond the theatre’s auditorium doors to be called to the stage for a post-screening audience Q&A, when suddenly, WhhAM!… an audience member kicked open the swinging doors to exit the theatre, slamming the wooden partition directly into Darren’s face, knocking him to the floor and breaking his nose.

Darren suffered a bloody beak and a mild concussion, but shook it off to return to the stage and participate in what remained of the event. Punk rock filmmaking, people. Punk rock filmmaking.

If you haven’t yet experienced The Devil’s Carnival, there are only two tour stops remaining, so don’t miss your chance to go a few rounds with us bruisers. Tickets and information are available at http://www.TheDevilsCarnival.com.

 

THE DEVIL’S ENCORE: CARNIVAL DISTRACTIONS

By the end of August, I will have spent the better part of the last five months away from home. A good portion of this time away has crawled by from the backseat of a cramped van. A van crowded with road trip food wrappers, bizarre gifts from strangers, and broken shards of glass (which I’ll get to later). I sit here now, amongst these artifacts, penning this blog.

How did I wind up here? On April 5th, director Darren Lynn Bousman and I embarked on a multi-month, multi-city adventure across North America, touring our musical movie event, The Devil’s Carnival. We loaded up the aforementioned van with roadies and cargo and set sail for a series of one-night-only premiere engagements across the continent, docking in new towns nearly every night. By mid-month, we will have shared The Devil’s Carnival with nearly sixty cities. Between destinations, on long stretches of highway, blog writing is just one of the many pastimes I use to distract myself from the monotony of the van.

Much to my luddite chagrin, the primary road rituals employed by my tour companions comes by way of compact technological devices: hip and palm-sized digital diversions that beep, blink, and never sleep. I realize that it’s hypocritical for a so-called blogger to bemoan cyber communications, but still it irks me that even in a vehicle full of artistically-minded souls, most prefer to communicate with small glowing screens than with living persons.

This phenomenon of people being permanently epoxied to their phones and palm pads has all but ruined movie screenings and concerts for me. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t understand why anyone would spend hard-won money to see a show and then exhaust their experience texting—to say nothing of how obnoxious their illuminated devices are to fellow patrons. If people need to be digitally distracted at music and movie events—which are supposed to be fun!—I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for teachers to teach (or students to learn from them) in the age of the portable internet device.

On tour, during Darren’s and my nightly audience Q&A sessions, it’s always odd to look out at the sea of cell phone cameras knowing that improvised—and often floundering and embarrassing moments—are being filmed and made permanent. Stranger still, there’s always at least one person who tries to have an honest conversation with me from behind the lens of a recording gizmo. These folks almost never ask for consent or acknowledge the bizarreness of the proposed exchange.

Because of the accessibility of pocket-sized recording equipment, Darren and I initiated what’s become known as “The Douchebag Pledge” on tour. Nightly, we ask the audience to join us in a left-handed vow to not film or pirate The Devil’s Carnival. It sucks to have to do this, but as an independent project, we’re relying on the exclusivity of TDC‘s live touring events to keep the project alive. In solidarity, fans have honored the pledge… so thank you all for being understanding and respectful of our plight. For everyone living beyond the current reach of the tour, thanks for your patience. I promise that The Devil’s Carnival will be available to the public at large before the end of the year.

Since prohibitions on technology would not be as welcomed on a tour van as in a theatre—especially on long commutes—my travel mates and I have resorted to some old-school, traditional folk activities to break up our high-tech tendencies. These activities typically come in the form of ball-busting and pranks.

Whoopee cushions, Silly String, and Waffle House “Waffle Princess” t-shirts are on the lighthearted end of the ribbing spectrum; disgusting odors and gross-out tactics occupy the more severe side of the prankster’s wheel.

Our tour hijinks reached a new plateau last week when, en route to our hotel rooms for the night, following a TDC screening, a series of novelty store stink bombs were exploded inside the closed confines of our moving van (hence the broken glass mentioned at the start of this blog). These olfactory offenses were met with gusts of vile-smelling stink spray launched from a product aptly-named “Liquid Ass”. In retaliation, truck stop purchased Vienna Sausages were lobbed like war shrapnel about the vehicle, and the juice from the flying wieners splashed against the windshield and clothing of every soldier amongst us.

The ick and smell in our touring tank was repulsive, sending the entire crew fleeing to our hotel’s shower and laundry facilities to disinfect. Knowing that there’s still two weeks remaining on the tour, I shudder to think where this friendly feud will end… but I’m also excited by the prospect.

Through bruises and shame—like the permanent blood stain on my trousers where I cut myself opening a can of Alpo ammo—skins were thickened, friendships were formed, and camaraderies strengthened. Internet-dependency grumblings aside, touring with The Devil’s Carnival is an amazing experience, and it’s a privilege to be able to interact nightly with fans—fans whose handcrafted costumes and gifts restore my faith in humanity’s non-digital reliance.

Last Thursday, for example, at Cleveland’s Capitol Theatre, I got word that a fan was in the lobby before the screening crafting balloon animals. During the pre-show, I half-jokingly requested a balloon cockroach. Hours later, I was graced with an epic, four-foot balloon Blaptica.

In Jackson, at the Michigan Theatre of Jackson, I was gifted with a hand-sculpted Lucifer model. The figurine is so impressive that it’s going to become a fixture in my drawing studio… once I’m home from the tour, that is.

Speaking of the tour, there’s only a few chances remaining to experience The Devil’s Carnival. For tickets and info, please visit: http://www.TheDevilsCarnival.com. Come party with us horseplay-ing hucksters, with all of our hi- and low-tech ways.

THE DEVIL’S TOUR: CARNIVAL DISTRACTIONS

By the end of August, I will have spent the better part of the last five months away from home. A good portion of this time away has crawled by from the backseat of a cramped van. A van crowded with road trip food wrappers, bizarre gifts from strangers, and broken shards of glass (which I’ll get to later). I sit here now, amongst these artifacts, penning this blog.

How did I wind up here? On April 5th, director Darren Lynn Bousman and I embarked on a multi-month, multi-city adventure across North America, touring our musical movie event, The Devil’s Carnival. We loaded up the aforementioned van with roadies and cargo and set sail for a series of one-night-only premiere engagements across the continent, docking in new towns nearly every night. By mid-month, we will have shared The Devil’s Carnival with nearly sixty cities. Between destinations, on long stretches of highway, blog writing is just one of the many pastimes I use to distract myself from the monotony of the van.

Much to my luddite chagrin, the primary road rituals employed by my tour companions comes by way of compact technological devices: hip and palm-sized digital diversions that beep, blink, and never sleep. I realize that it’s hypocritical for a so-called blogger to bemoan cyber communications, but still it irks me that in a vehicle full of artistically-minded souls, most prefer to communicate with small glowing screens than with living persons.

This phenomenon of people being permanently epoxied to their phones and palm pads has all but ruined movie screenings and concerts for me. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t understand why anyone would spend hard-won money to see a show and then exhaust their experience texting—to say nothing of how obnoxious their illuminated devices are to fellow patrons. If people need to be digitally distracted at music and movie events—which are supposed to be fun!—I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for teachers to teach (or students to learn from them) in the age of the portable internet device.

On tour, during Darren’s and my nightly audience Q&A sessions, it’s always odd to look out at the sea of cell phone cameras knowing that improvised—and often floundering and embarrassing moments—are being filmed and made permanent. Stranger still, there’s always at least one person who tries to have an honest conversation with me from behind the lens of a recording gizmo. These folks almost never ask for consent or acknowledge the bizarreness of the proposed exchange.

Because of the accessibility of pocket-sized recording equipment, Darren and I initiated what’s become known as “The Douchebag Pledge” on tour. Nightly, we ask the audience to join us in a left-handed vow to not film or pirate The Devil’s Carnival. It sucks to have to do this, but as an independent project, we’re relying on the exclusivity of TDC‘s live touring events to keep the project alive. In solidarity, fans have honored the pledge… so thank you all for being understanding and respectful of our plight. For everyone living beyond the current reach of the tour, thanks for your patience. I promise that The Devil’s Carnival will be available to the public at large before the end of the year.

Since prohibitions on technology would not be as welcomed on a tour van as in a theatre—especially on long commutes—my travel mates and I have resorted to some old-school, traditional folk activities to break up our high-tech tendencies. These activities typically come in the form of ball-busting and pranks.

Whoopee cushions, Silly String, and Waffle House “Waffle Princess” t-shirts are on the lighthearted end of the ribbing spectrum; disgusting odors and gross-out tactics occupy the more severe side of the prankster’s wheel.

Our tour hijinks reached a new plateau last week when, en route to our hotel rooms for the night, following a TDC screening, a series of novelty store stink bombs were exploded inside the closed confines of our moving van (hence the broken glass mentioned at the start of this blog). These olfactory offenses were met with gusts of vile-smelling stink spray launched from a product aptly-named “Liquid Ass”. In retaliation, truck stop purchased Vienna Sausages were lobbed like war shrapnel about the vehicle, and the juice from the flying wieners splashed against the windshield and clothing of every soldier amongst us.

The ick and smell in our touring tank was repulsive, sending the entire crew fleeing to our hotel’s shower and laundry facilities to disinfect. Knowing that there’s still two weeks remaining on the tour, I shudder to think where this friendly feud will end… but I’m also excited by the prospect.

Through bruises and shame—like the permanent blood stain on my trousers where I cut myself opening a can of Alpo ammo—skins were thickened, friendships were formed, and camaraderies strengthened. Internet-dependency grumblings aside, touring with The Devil’s Carnival is an amazing experience, and it’s a privilege to  be able to interact nightly with fans—fans whose handcrafted costumes and gifts restore my faith in humanity’s non-digital reliance.

Last Thursday, for example, at Cleveland’s Capitol Theatre, I got word that a fan was in the lobby before the screening crafting balloon animals. During the pre-show, I half-jokingly requested a balloon cockroach. Hours later, I was graced with an epic, four-foot balloon Blaptica.

In Jackson, at the Michigan Theatre of Jackson, I was gifted with a hand-sculpted Lucifer model. The figurine is so impressive that it’s going to become a fixture in my drawing studio… once I’m home from the tour, that is.

Speaking of the tour, there’s only a few chances remaining to experience The Devil’s Carnival. For tickets and info, please visit: http://www.TheDevilsCarnival.com. Come party with us horseplay-ing hucksters, with all of our hi- and low-tech ways.

THE DEVIL’S ENCORE: BLOOD MARKETS

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. It’s not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean. It’s not the size of the assault weapon, but the number of hostages I can squeeze into a broom closet. It’s not the size of the carnival, but…

In January, when director Darren Lynn Bousman and I wrapped principal photography on our newest musical film, The Devil’s Carnival, we immediately began plotting “The Devil’s Tour”. When mapping this thirty-four city adventure, SIZE was one of our primary concerns. We needed to design a course that would take us through some of North America’s biggest cities for a series of one-night-only only event screenings. Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Dallas, Toronto, and so on.

The tour was victorious. We proved not only that independent filmmakers can successfully take the distribution of their projects into their own hands, but, more importantly, we connected nightly with our awesome fans. Many of these fine folks have been following Darren’s and my career since our foremost film collaboration, Repo! The Genetic Opera. On “The Devil’s Tour”, they joined us at stops all over the continent to experience The Devil’s Carnival.

Throughout the tour, Darren and I received countless messages from fans across the country and world, especially from smaller cities—cities typically skipped over when it came to concerts and movie premieres. Theses messages were almost always the same: “I know no one ever comes to my small ass town, but it would mean the world to me if you guys would bring The Devil’s Carnival here.” These requests were touching, but also heartwrenching. By virtue of their zip codes, a lot of fun stuff—including The Devil’s Carnival—would never visit these fine folks.

Being on the other side of the tour van’s windshield, I understand why big bands and acts often overlook these smaller cities: it costs a lot of money to put on a tour and you need to pick markets large enough to equalize the expense (And international travels are even more costly!).

Fiscal logic aside, it bummed me out to receive these emails. On the one hand, it was awesome knowing that fans were interested in my art. On the other hand, it sucked not being able to write them back and say, “Hey, we’re coming to your town.”

In May, after wrapping “The Devil’s Tour”, Darren and I took these small town inquiries to heart and, without pausing, endeavored to plot a second tour. On “The Devil’s Encore Tour”, we wanted to strike a better balance between big cities—like last Tuesday’s screening in Indianapolis at The Irving—and less frequented towns—like Boise, Idaho (on 8/9), and Reno, Nevada (on 8/10). In Jackson, Mississippi, we even experimented with capping our audience at forty to have an intimate, almost living room-like TDC viewing, with our fans there.

The downside of selecting smaller markets, is that Darren and I had to keep our tour costs lower this time around, which meant we didn’t have a budget to fly and house celebrity guests for this leg of the tour… a small price to pay to party in the boonies with midnight movie loonies the continent over!

Residing in Los Angeles, alternative culture is practically mainstream. As such, it’s always strange when our tour van docks in smaller, less cosmopolitan townships to find Holy Scriptures quoted on restaurant walls, white people taking our fast food orders, and passers-by gawking and gossiping about crew member Scully’s mohawk, as though she were some sort of spiky alien subspecies. That said, in these ‘merican villages where being weird truly is weird, when the freaks show up… they mean business! And I couldn’t be more proud to have created a project like The Devil’s Carnival where people feel free to dress up, show up, and let their freak flags fly.

Big cities and small cities alike, thank you for accepting The Devil’s Carnival into your homes and hamlets. It’s a privilege and pleasure to interact with you on this journey, and to share my art nightly with so many lovely, likeminded loons.

Like Mark Twain’s “size” quote referenced at the start of this blog, The Devil’s Carnival is very much that small dog with a big dog’s fight in it. We’re an independent film project trying to compete with the big dogs of Hollywood. Our project, touring distribution model, and even selected tour stops, are out of the mainstream box. As such, we rely on the support of our fans to stay alive, so if you haven’t yet experienced The Devil’s Carnival, come join us at a stop near you. Tickets and info are available at http://www.TheDevilsCarnival.com. If our tour schedule doesn’t presently include your city, please make sure to sign up on our website’s mailing list and “like” us on FaceBook at http://www.facebook.com/devilscarnival to receive updates on where our carnival’s headed next.

THE DEVIL’S ENCORE: BIRTHDAY BLASPHEMIES

For the last several years, my birthday’s landed during San Deigo Comic-Con. Like those unfortunate late-December babies relegated to sharing their special day with that Jesus guy, my cake and candles have taken second fiddle to America’s largest pop culture convention and fan event.

Throughout my thirties, I’ve been a guest at the con, attending midnight screenings of my musical film Repo! The Genetic Opera and participating in panel discussions on The Molting, my indie comic book series.  As such, for the last five years, my age odometer has clicked forward amongst a sea of Vulcans and Imperial Stormtroopers.

I’m not complaining about having my natal thunder usurped. In fact, I like not having to think about what to do on my birthday. Comic-Con’s already a celebration of sorts and as good a place as any to add another digit to the tally towards senility (although with each advancing year, I feel more and more creepy hobnobbing with fanboys and girls who seem younger and younger as I prune and ferment).

For reasons unbeknownst to me, SDCC 2012 was scheduled to take place a week earlier than in recent years, so my annual day of creation would not coincide with the con this year. Instead, imaginary party favors and streamers were packed into a suitcase to be enjoyed on the fifth stop of a twenty-four city encore tour with The Devil’s Carnival, my new musical film. Yes, I’d be celebrating my thirty-sixth birthday with a bunch of cos-playing Canucks in Montreal at Fantasia International Film Festival.

I have great memories associated with Fantasia Film Fest. Repo! premiered there and won “Most Innovative Film” in 2008. That year, director Darren Lynn Bousman, members of Repo!‘s cast and crew, and I were invited as guests of the festival. I remember arriving in the predominately French-speaking city and having the surreal experience of seeing a picture of myself as GraveRobber, displayed at a newsstand, gracing the cover of the local weekly paper, the Montreal Mirror.

In many ways, Fantasia 2008 was the birthplace of the fan-demonium that presently surrounds Repo!. Up until that point, our whacky film had failed to charm focus groups or mainstream critics, so I was feeling a general lack of optimism about the future of the project, a project that I’d spent eight-and-half years developing.

I remember showing up to the Fantasia theaters, seeing a line wrapping around the block, and assuming those folks were waiting to see a film other than Repo!. It wasn’t until the line cheered as we passed by, that I realized the night was going to be special. When my Repo! cohorts and I entered the theatre and found people cos-playing Repo! characters—characters that up ’til then had only been revealed in online promo images and vids—I knew the game was changing: Repo! would never be a mainstream, commercial hit, but it had found its sanctuary amongst a crew of cult misfits and merrymakers.

Since Fantasia Film Fest marked Year One of Repo!‘s rebirth—or in our case, more like a gooey afterbirth—it seemed fitting that I’d be celebrating the thirty-sixth anniversary of my first breath in Montreal.

Thirty-six? Jesus, where has time gone? It seemed only yesterday that thirty seemed an age I’d never reach, and now I’m tipping towards forty. There are so many things I thought I’d have accomplished by this point in my life, things like financial security and the ability to shave without cutting my chin. My hair and waistlines have changed, but I still feel and behave like that impetuous teenager from twenty years ago. Still chasing improbable dreams. Still stubborn, yet rebellious. Still lustful, yet complicated. Still visual, yet shortsighted. It’s depressing to think about how little has changed, which I suppose is part of why I try not to make a big deal out of my birthday.

Blocking and partitioning memories is one of the skills I’ve carried with me over the years, so much so that I’d practically forgotten it was my birthday until our lovely tour emcee, Carlee Baker, reminded me in front of a crowd of onlooking theatre-goers at Fantasia’s screening of The Devil’s Carnival. I was a bit taken aback at first, especially when the auditorium began singing to me.

In a restaurant, waiting for the serving staff’s dreaded birthday song to end is like waiting for a rapist to cum; it can’t happen quick enough. That weird sensation of having all eyes directed at you, watching for your reaction, is enough to make even a narcissist uncomfortable. In a theatre full of Canadian midnight rowdies, however, it felt like home.

Montreal, thanks for celebrating my birthday with me. And to the fantastic fans of Repo! and TDC worldwide, thank you for your thoughtful online birthday wishes. I was truly floored by the number of messages I received, and look forward to sharing many more moons with all of you fine lunatics.

If you haven’t yet experienced The Devil’s Carnival, and are curious as to what all of the fuss is about, please come party with us at a city near you. For tickets and information, please visit: http://www.TheDevilsCarnival.com.

THE DEVIL’S ENCORE: REDEYES AND RITUALS

It’s Wednesday night. I’m catching a redeye flight to New York where an overpriced cab awaits to carry me to a hotel in Westwood, New Jersey. There, I’ll connect with a caravan of travel companions. We’re heading to an eight o’clock screening of my latest musical film, The Devil’s Carnival.

This hopscotch travel ritual is familiar; I know her chaotic scent well. It was barely two months ago that director Darren Lynn Bousman and I wrapped a thirty-nine day, thirty-four city crusade with The Devil’s Carnival—our Tales From The Crypt-meets-the-anti-Glee musical series—where we leapfrogged from hotel to van to theatre and back again on a voyage across the continent.

The mission of “The Devil’s Tour” was to share our culty film event with live audiences at a series of exclusive premiere screenings. Darren and I hoped to reunite with the unique fanbase that embraced our foremost film collaboration, Repo! The Genetic Opera: that party of crazy cosplayers and Zydrate addicts that transformed our doomed-by-the-mainstream flick into a midnight movie fav. Because of this fanbase, Repo! now screens regularly with the likes of The Rocky Horror Picture Show worldwide.

With Repo! and The Devil’s Carnival, Darren and I abandoned traditional distribution models. We rolled up our sleeves, laced up our boots, and delivered our unconventional projects to audiences via an equally unconventional cinematic vehicle: a van. It worked. The “Repo Road Tours” spawned “The Devil’s Tour”, and the recent pilgrimage was so successful that we’re taking to the road again for “The Devil’s Carnival Encore Tour”.

As with any all-consuming endeavor, each phase of a project like Repo! or The Devil’s Carnival is so intensive that one often forgets (or choses to forget) the pangs associated with previous phases of the journey. This selective memory lapse definitely held true with the preparation leg of the first TDC tour.

I had blocked from memory how difficult it was to plot a travel course and book venues across the continent on a narrow budget and deadline. Repeating this process for the encore tour sent those repressed memories racing back to the forefront of my brain, like patrons fleeing a Colorado movie theatre.

Twenty-three new cities. Twenty-three new theaters. Twenty-three new opening acts. Like Jim Carrey in that paranoia movie, I was seeing the number twenty-three everywhere, especially in my hefty tour to-do list—a list that needed to be completed before catching that redeye to New York. Even if all tasks went according to plan, getting this tour off the ground would be difficult. And something with so many variables at play never goes off with a hitch. Or twenty-three hitches, for that matter.

Here are some of the malfunctions that Darren and I navigated in the days leading up to the encore tour: a venue cancelled (the first stop on the calendar); we met with the impossibility of obtaining meaningful press when competing against Comic-Con’s media monopoly; we discovered that the tour merchandise boxes we stayed up all night packing didn’t fit inside our rented tour van; and; a last-minute scheduling conflict prevented our first tour’s emcee from returning for the second leg. To cap it all off, the zipper on my travel bag split at the seams moments before passing through airport security on that eastbound redeye flight, exposing my rations of travel pornography, women’s hair locks, stun guns, and zip ties.

In short, our encore enterprise seemed more than a little screwed. A more reasonable man might have called off the tour, grabbed a hostage, and climbed the nearest clock tower. But then again, there is nothing reasonable about dedicating one’s life to the financially-ruining pursuit of cult musicals and indie comic books. It’s this lifelong, irrational artistic inclination that makes the road bumps of planning a tour seem like pebbles on a pavement. Especially when you’ve got kick ass fans and a bad ass team to help navigate the perilous terrain!

Sinners and cellmates, allow me to introduce you to The Devil’s Carnival Encore Tour team:

Tour one alum, Kimmie Yan, is back with a vengeance (and a knapsack full of new tricks and wigs!).

Darren and I were so impressed by newcomer Kelly “Scully” Rybarczyk—who helped at a handful of tour one stops—that we invited her to join the fold full-time. She’s equipped with canisters of cunning, mohawk spray, and bookkeeping greatness.

Darren’s onset assistant on TDC, Benjamin Michael Marsh, also joins our troop. In addition to being a terrific team player, Ben’s voice leads Paul Sorvino’s trio of gAyNGLES on “Heaven’s All Around”, the opening track on TDC‘s Official Soundtrack.

Lastly, actress Carlee Baker (Wicked Lake, The Woman) squeezes into a set of gloves and stockings to join our crew. She’s our new mistress of ceremonies.

Our tour fellowship is working ’round the clock to make “The Devil’s Encore Tour” the best damn sideshow possible, including regularly driving through the night to keep our caravan on schedule. I’ve included photos of the new team, so if you spot any of these lurid lovelies at a stop near you, let ‘em know how much they rock. If you haven’t yet experienced The Devil’s Carnival, I invite you to join us at a stop near you. For tickets and information, please visit: http://www.TheDevilsCarnival.com.