Sorry - Ghostkeeper comes back - or not

Sorry but a lot of Gkpr stuff that will never get right, with a lot of people who have no heart. I know the business and how cruel it could be. Like I made a movie and they had nothing to it.

Funny about this, I never thought I'd get so much attention basically with all those horror people who "discovered" Gkpr made by a guy and the other day, who made a short film at the 1976 Academies. And the same winning in Canada the same year.

Well, there's a lot of problems now because someone took Gkpr for himself to sell and threaten anyone else for trying.

So I'm in one of those potential things for now.

Gotta work a little more for the next few days.

Never know what will become?

Hang on.


Meantime I'm ready for Terminator; Dark Fate

Vietnam

I left Vancouver (the Canadian city) and returned to my little city of Windsor at began going to Henry Ford Community College as this was Ford territory as well as GM and Chrysler.

This was the beginning for Vietnam and America and when you were over than 18 you were probably going to Vietnam. It didn't bother me because I was Canadian but I had a lot of American friends. This was also the beginning of battling with having to go and those who ran to Canada and stay there. Some went to jail.

Ironically I met a psych tech finishing her classes and was about three years older than me. We continued meeting in Detroit often and continued until.  And I still do. I have a street she might have lived on but that was gone.

But there was a war going on two fronts, Vietnam and also the anti-war movement which included both men and women and a few crazy groups. I decided to see what the battles were on both the U.S. and far away in another country which I wondered about. There was also that home front battle grounds. To me it was Detroit. I didn't know what I would do really, but wanted to be part of it.

Ironically I ended up in Indianapolis on a bus packed with hundreds of us going to work for Bobby Kennedy. I had never been to "Indiana" but was there in midnight in the bad part of town with a hundred or so of us looking for cheap hotels paid by Kennedy. I ended up the next days going to the black areas and I wondered how I would make it through. But I found the homes and families very happy to see me, they loved Bobby.

It was scary for sure, but being a Canadian boy in a dark city, it was a great time. But the best time was to be when Bobby came to town and I saw him in a car waving and smiling. I didn't know that a few months more he would be dead. I stayed more around Detroit now, closer to home and the bridge over two different cities. I would see my psych now and then as she was working in a hospital.

I found myself spending more time in the city and less in Canada. I had a dozen or so cousins as well who lived in Detroit, which made it much easier. But school became a problem, I wanted to do more of all the things going on in the big city and got into some radical group of which I realized I was not really hanging with these, they were far to dangerous for me. I also needed a job and had to go back to Windsor, the little city across the river.

But now in my 20's, I was thinking about a job, something that I could enjoy, even if my dad said that jobs aren't enjoyable. He worked as a garage mechanic, and a good one. But I was not sure about that. Windsor was a factory city, part of the massive Detroit city. Almost all of my friends worked in the big companies.

I went to a job office and looked at a few jobs until I noticed that there was an opening for the local TV station. As you know, I loved TV and always had dreams about it. Now was the chance. I went to the TV station that afternoon and had an interview. I had to promise to stay here forever of course, but I figured nobody would want someone who had a stammer. Nobody hires those people.

But magic did happen. They hired me. I was an office "boy" going from office to office and errands. For me, it was magic. I remember now how I entered the station and walk through the studios. It was empty and dark and the cameras seemed to hang their heads down like dinosaurs.

It was the movies! And I was in it. Sort off.

I lasted for 6 months until someone else left the station and left an opening. I was going to cut TV commercials. I was going to cut commercials to insert into the broadcasts. Remember this is very basic, 1966. I figured it out and kept cutting. I soon found that I would probably stay at that job until someone else dies.

Our radio station was also within the TV station and was actually a big-time radio station owned by Americans. And not too long, someone had left and there was an opening. Our radio station was the biggest around. "The Big 8" . And I applied.

But it wasn't exactly what I wanted. I was editing audios for the DJ's. (Disc Jockey). However it wasn't what I thought, it was fast, hard work and I really didn't belong. So I could go back to cutting commercials. Or I could be let go. We actually owned a major trio of radio stations that were huge.
And I wasn't particularly good at it.

So now what? Do I go back to cutting commercials?

Or do I just go?

Will I go back to writing articles against the war against Vietnam? I did some good writing for Vets For Peace.

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Someone asked me how many blogs I wrote a few years ago. I looked around and was quite impressed. I never thought I would last the year. But it's not a race, it's just that I gotta lot of stuff to show, even now.

And wonder how far they can stretch it.

But I do have a way to keep going.

I have the movie industry. And it goes back to the Greeks. In fact it was the Greeks. Before that a lot of writing on the rock. Lotta rocks still hanging around today too. And we managed to find a lot of
these writers. Maybe they always had a rock guy to tell stories, he'd hang around with the ladies maybe.

But it all comes to now. Stories. Everybody has stories, made up or heard and even stories.

I wrote my first story in Grade 6, something about a guy who fell in love with his schoolteacher who was eight years older. But never forgotten. I grew up in the black and white TV series era, just at the edge of color. A 21-inch TV was almost as good as a movie.

My mom said I would have to have glasses if you don't hurt yourself. I would go to any movie I could pay for, twenty-five cents! I also bought "comic" books. And I kept them until I was married and my mom threw away about 200 or so.

Then, I discovered a new book. Well, actually not new, but the book was new to my life. Some of you probably have seen the person. Jack Kerouac. If you haven't you should.

Kerouac was one of a large group who, after the 2nd World War would hang out with university students and drive across the U.S. just for the hell of it. They weren't in the war but began to be what would become the "Beat Generation", which would lead towards writers who led to "Beatniks". Jazz and blues flowed through college campuses.

So you can imagine what this 15 year old kid was reading. I took it from the library whenever it was there. It was "On The Road". (And I still have one of the books). I began reading Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, two others who hung with Kerouac.

But there was another part to my story. My father would always take us to visit family across the country often and finding motels and statues of Pal Bunyan in the mid-west. And food we never knew of, like something called pizza.

You can begin to see things?

I went through a good Catholic school where we drove Sister Anna Catherine crazy. By now I was reading more of Kerouac and his companions who really brought in the hippies and Vietnam. And you know what that led to.

When I graduated from high school I had no idea what I was going to do. I lived in a small automobile factory across the river from Detroit but my heart was in that city. 5 million people. I went to a college there and wasn't really exciting about anything except that Vietnam had begun
across the ocean. And friends of mine could go there to fight. Since I was Canadian I didn't have to worry.

But those days were great for me, I had American cousins and so spent lots of time in a tough city that was ready to explode besides Vietnam. I remembered very well when Detroit exploded with black and white. When I crossed the tunnel border we were stopped by National Guard soldiers who said that they would not accompany us -- and we were on our own.

Of course, we weren't in real danger, but possibilities. But downtown Detroit was dangerous, smoke and fire. And a lot of people died.

But now I had two years and wondering what I would be doing. My friends tried working in the factories of both cities but weren't sure either. Three of them decided the easy way - school teacher.

Someone told me about getting cars from Detroit to car dealers in the west coast and it didn't sink in until I remembered Kerouac and "OnThe Road". He was born in 1922 and died while I was still alive and living. And I was "on the road" myself driving across America in some salesman's vehicle that would be put up for sale somewhere near Seattle, a city I never knew much about.

After that I would fly to Vancouver to see my cousin and my aunt and uncle. But right now I was travelling alone and I was as close to Kerouac as I could ever know. And the beginning of a life with highways and movies.

Want to learn screenwriting?

I haven't for gotten the Ghostkeeper issue and am working more to find out who has my movie and how they have it and why they have it and also where they live. Or house.

But let's go to a different story.

I don't know if any of you have known that I taught screenwriting for 6 years or something like that. I spent a lot of time writing features and tv for about 10 years and always liked to talk to people about the business. And by 10 years I really decided to try it out. I knew a friend who knew a friend who had connections to the UCLA screenwriting courses. So I decided to teach screenwriting to UCLA students and people who could also join in.

It didn't talk long and I was on staff. I was going to teach courses to both types of students and had courses that were basically real UCLA teaching. Some were going for credits and some were just there to see if they could write a script and make lots of money.

Well, that's not that easy but again I had UCLA behind me and that gave me one hell of a shot right there. So how did I do this? I had about 14 years behind me, including my first one, Ghostkeeper. But also by now I had a pretty sense of writing movies and tv and with real credits behind me. I had about 40 different movies and TV series by them.

And I talk a lot and have a sense of humor.

I managed to do this for as long as I could, sometimes working on a screenplay while teaching on line. Online is basically taught by a teacher and students who email and even some personal students who I met, even one man who was in his early 90's and always wanted to write. In fact he already had written one. And not bad.

I quite enjoyed teaching, learning how to handle students and how to do my best to talk to. I had a student in Switzerland, another in South Korea, mostly though it was students from the U.S. You can see some of my work way back in 2004 or so. I haven't kept much of my teaching but still have the teaching courses.

Teaching on line turned out to be a lot of fun and had a lot of students who came back for courses. There were also some who taught I wasn't that good but I found that those who were not happy were more like expecting to know my courses were magical and find that they weren't. That's always tough as having to satisfy around 12 to 13 students, you get the good ones and the ones who think I'm not as good as they thought. Can't win them all, but I always had good classes.

The truth is, you can only be as good as you can. Like my senior screenwriter who, as I said, had a good story. He was the early 90's and hoped to see his screenplay work, but he passed earlier, a gentleman and a lot of fun.

I did hang out with some of the students who, of course, were in L.A. And I always wanted to meet the Swiss student who had to take that train so she could send her emails.

Where Am I?

So I'm here nor knowing where my distributor Bill is but I do know his brother and someone who is selling Ghostkeeper on his own. I discovered where the someone is. And the distrib's brother who does not want to do anything with the Bill. I don't know how or why his brother and the mystery man do not want to know anything about Bill.

So where is Bill. He said hello to me that he said he was in the hospital.

But what hospital? How many hospitals can you count in L.A., or in Seattle where I knew where he was for the 14 yrs before it expired. And what makes his brother and mystery man who both say they will not speak  to him again. What did he do? Or not do.

I suppose that it's got something to do with videos as either he stole videos or take what belongs to him. But once again, it seems to not be only Ghostkeeper only. A few weeks ago I got emails from both Bill's brother and mystery man.

Both of them will not have anything to do with Bill.

Once again, they will not have anything to do with Bill.

So what does that have to do with me? Bill's brother emailed me to say he's found a DVD of Ghostkeeper, and that's all he knows about his brother. Or at least used to know.

But why does Bill's brother "find" a real 35mm feature film of Ghostkeeper for me?. I'm not sure what that's about. I wouldn't mind the 6 or so reels but hardly find useful. First I don't have a projector to run it and secondly I don't know how good it could be. I don't carry 6 or 7 reels of 35mm film.

I still didn't really understand him giving me the reels.

So, at this point this is where I am.

First, Bill's distribution memorandum Ghostkeeper. It's for Code Red DVD. There's a few more points mounting 3 pages of all that stuff nobody wants to read. But I have read it clearly and does not go on till 2019.  Signed by both of us. Ending around 2011.

So we're now in 2019 and someone I don't know is selling my 1980 yr old movie being sold blu-ray movies under blu-ray.

We don't talk to him

Okay...


So this is my distributor in the hospital. I listened to him and thought that it's all good and that since he's in the hospital and seeming healthy he must be reasonably okay. I said we'll talk about Blu-ray videos. Which I thought this would put the pieces together. Also I never got a Blu-ray video neither during the big disappearance.

So I picked up some names and horror fans and collectors as well. But I did get one thing. My distrib had part of the distribution, who looks very close to my guy. Short, fat guys. Nice guys too. I think I met Bro 2. You rarely get good distributors because they get your money first.

My first distrib, from Israel was a lesson and left us with no money at all. This was my first lesson.
After that all I had left was the distributor of my leading actress. He managed to get video for Canada. This was 90's and the movie was pretty much dead.

But then, someone spotted my old video and liked it. And he was a feature film company person and worked for New World Video. This took Ghostkeeper to video. It lasted for awhile and enough that it began to sell the video all over the world. Surprise.

At this time, early 2000's Ghostkeeper begin playing in South America and other countries. They had some great covers, way crazier than our hotel-in-snow. One never suggested that it was snow, why not make the cover completely crazy, a monster and south american creature.

A long way from the Canadian Rockies.

And then I began hearing reviews on Ghostkeeper, mostly half and half. And they were coming from Germany and other European horror fans always looking for new movies. And many times finding old ones like mine. My movie was a hit of sorts so I began getting "fan mail".

But the big thing began to come from England where there were well-written articles on horror films and of course, Ghostkeeper. And really good articles. One writer wrote a very good article on Ghostkeeper, not always given it good comments but smart. By now I began getting fans myself.

And now I discovered the distribution person who seemed pretty good, he told me what he was doing. He threw in better dvd and finally and Blu-ray.

Now what?

* Had a break in my laptop for 3 days...

Life and Death

So... right after...

What am a I doing here, besides returning to see my friends and a few who don't. Right from Crave, I walk walk a block down towards the short end of Ventura and Van Nuys. I really like the idea of private stores and only a few company stores and even a Joe's.

But what I'm going to talk about is very different and actually about legality. Here's what it means to me. First this; by now most of you know about Ghostkeeper, my first feacher which I made in 1980 for about $1,800,000. Not a lot but enough to make an okay movie way back then. 

I had a distributor (known as not very honest) who basically spent all monies for himself. Unfortunately after several years he died. Then somehow someone connected us to a distributor called Bill Olsen who also had a brother in the business. But that's just beginning.

Bill did pretty good to me, I did get money, not great but then Ghostkeeper wasn't a great movie. Bill put us into dvd's finally rather than the old videos. It went good. But then Bill started Blu-ray and he disappeared. 

But before he gave me $4000.

And then he really disappeared. And this is a really interesting story.

I began to track down Bill, but it was almost impossible, in fact it was impossible.

At this time I was seeing a company you'll see ahead, but you can see that he was selling Ghostkeeper.

I was looking around for Ghostkeeper videos and accidentally I found out who was selling my movie. He was a video house and had a lot of Blu-ray videos... and Ghostkeeper.

Then one night I was looking around for video horror fans talking to each other. I wasn't sure but I thought it might be interesting. There's a lot of then but somehow, that night it turned out very good.

I listened and then Ghostkeeper was spoken.

By Bill.  

"Hi, Jim"
"Hey Bill, where are you."

"I'm in the hospital."