-Didn’t I just write one of these? 🙂 2017 went by quite fast for me. There were a lot of good things that happened to me this year. I also went through a number of changes-some with good results and some with not so good results. In fact, I’m currently leaving 2017 at quite a low point in almost all areas in my life. I know in last years review I had written that I felt like taking “one step forward, two steps back” more often than not. This year my mantra seemed to be “one step forward, many steps back” 🙂 I know what I have to do, for the most part, and am determined to turn things around in 2018.

-2017 saw the loss of one of my fellow actors and one of the reasons I went into acting full time-Jack Gargaro. He unfortunately passed away in April of this year. In 2009-2010, I’d just started dabbling with acting (outside of music videos). My path was still working towards being a musician full time doing recording and tours. Jack was one of the first people to encourage me to go into acting full time-and his conversations with me were in my mind when I finally did make the decision to change my primary focus from music to acting. He was always very supportive and encouraging.

-In addition, UVTV mastermind Rich Stahle passed on just last month. Rich was the producer for several music videos for CAROLINE BLUE, which were very instrumental in the growth of the band. Rich was always willing to help out the bands in CNY and even sent me several “enhanced” versions of some of the videos he made with CB. There were some others that were to be sent, I believe, at a future time but now that’s up in the air. Regardless, both Rich and Jack will be missed 😦

-On a side note, it seems that, with each advancing year, I get a little more sensitive when it comes to death and passing on. It’s ironic, then, that this year saw me starting a new job where I have to discuss it with others almost every work day. This was a bold step I took and there was a lot of promise and potential in regards to it-and if I can turn things around, some great things will happen as a result. Currently, however, the opposite is happening and it is a big reason why I’m starting to fall apart in so many areas. I’m working to reverse this. Guess we’ll all have to wait till next year’s review to find out how I did-and maybe that will also be the end of me “vague posting” right? (HA!) 🙂

-As some of you may or may not know, (all two of you reading this-HA!) I do have writing aspirations and have done some in the past-most notably a monthly article called “Band Primer” with FOURTH COAST ENTERTAINMENT MAGAZINE from 2009-2012. What you may not know is that I started taking lessons, sporadically, in writing for a few years and have written some short stories as lessons. As of October, I had to put a stop to that for the time being. I do plan to jump start this and get it finished at some point. Perhaps I’ll post some of those short stories in here. They were a lot of fun to write, but I found I had to be in a certain “mood” to work on them. As anyone knows, when it comes to pro writing, you can’t just wait to be “inspired.” I want to get where I’m writing a book once a year (min)-as well as putting out a CD of music per year (min), doing at least one music video / show and being in a major movie in some capacity (ideally it would be part of the main cast, but so far the highest I’ve done is in “Mohawk”-basically a featured extra. No lines, but everyone else in the scene is part of the main cast. ) I’ve said this all a few times in past interviews. If I could get to where I’m putting out all that every year, I’ll be a happy lad 🙂 I’m still working to make that happen…

-Music-wise, again not too much this year. The CAROLINE BLUE site is STILL not revamped and up. It makes me wonder, at times, if it ever will… The pics section alone will take a solid month minimum. It WILL get done though. One thing that I did manage to do was record a new song for the soundtrack of the film ROMEO 3000 (by MAD ANGEL FILMS in association with WWJ PRODUCTIONS). It’s currently in post production. We already have a good chunk of the footage for a music video for that as well so this will be out sometime in 2018. I’m also trying to work on shows / a new CD, but for the last three months, I’ve had to put almost everything on the back burner for the new job. I was lucky that I was able to record all the parts of the song in an afternoon I had off-not bad for someone who is admittedly “rusty.” 🙂 I’m looking forward to this being released-as well as the film (my first as a co-writer / co-producers as well as one of the lead actors).

-2017 saw me doing a number of acting gig, but less than normal. In fact, 2017 is tied with 2015 with the number of acting gigs that year-and I barely got to that (with a voice over gig for “Romeo 3000.”) Speaking of voice over, my first acting gig in 2017 was reprising my voice over role as Lt. Kal-Del in S1E3 (“Any Port in a Storm”) from STARSHIP SWIFTWIND (formerly “Star Trek Absolution.”). Episode 4 is in the works, but above is this episode in full.

-Staying on the Star Trek theme, in the middle of the year I found myself in Arkansas reprising my role as Ensign Dawson Walking Bear in “Walking Bear, Running Wolf” by THE FEDERATION FILES. This came off very well on all levels (although, at this point, maybe I should be called “Mountain Bear” cause I’m bigger than back when I was playing the role in the STNV / PII days. 🙂 This was also released and can be seen above.

-I also did some filming on the following projects: “Juggernaut” (a documentary out in the Auburn, NY area-directed by Nicholas Bongiorno), “The Lamb” ( a short film out in the Albany, NY area – directed by Kyle Kleege ), “They’re Here” ( a trailer / short film out in the Buffalo, NY area – directed by Ken Cosentino ) and “In Search Of”-a bigfoot movie out in Pennsylvania with Mark Polonia.). I was also involved with a KINNEY DRUGS commercial via AMS MODELS AND TALENT. Hopefully they will all be released in 2018.

-I also got to flex some theater muscle (what little I have) when I was invited to do a two day live performance as part of PIRATE QUEEN QUIGLY‘S Crew for Pirates Weekend at the TURNING STONE CASINO in Verona, NY. I played the part of “Johnny Red” and that was quite the event. This was about as close as I got to doing theater work in 2017. Hopefully, I’ll be able to expand this in 2018.

-2017 was the year things expanded outward for NIGHT OF SOMETHING STRANGE. First of all, the movie was released on DVD and blu-ray, as was SHE KILLS and “Empire State of the Dead.” Due to the rise in popularity with NoSS, I was able to go to a number of horror conventions in 2017-including Monster Mania in New Jersey, The Day of the Dead in Indiana, and both We Need A Hero and Zombie Con in Central NY (Utica and Syracuse respectively). I was even able to set up my own booth at Zombie Con. I got to meet a lot of awesome people at these conventions and hope to meet more in 2018. In fact, I even got myself a booking agent via ASYLUM CONVENTION AND ENTERTAINMENT SERVICES to help me in this area. Check out my recaps from those conventions-they were a blast!

-In addition, due to NoSS, my pic was in a couple of actual horror magazines, like GRUESOME MAGAZINE (Issue #1) and SCREAM THE HORROR MAGAZINE (#40 from the UK). 🙂

-I even got some good press locally-courtesy of Mike Jaquays for the ONEIDA DISPATCH newspaper. I’ve done several interviews with Mike in the past regarding CAROLINE BLUE, but this was my first one that involved acting. I didn’t expect what happened-it was like one and half pages with huge pics of me. I was really honored. You can read it online HERE.

-I also did a number on interviews-mainly due to NoSS, but also with boosts from TALES OF DRACULA and ROMEO 3000. Click HERE to check them out. In addition, NoSS continues to generate A LOT of reviews-both positive and negative. I actually have a list of all the ones for NoSS that I can find (to date) HERE. For a recap of some of the positive ones, check out my PRESS KIT.

-On top of all that, there were two action figures made based on my role as Cornelius-how cool is that? 🙂 The first was limited to one made-and I was able to get that. 🙂 The other figure has a limited run of 669 copies and is still available HERE. Yes-I got this one too. 🙂 I’m up to three action figures so far. (four if you include the Dracula resin bust-the other figure is, currently, a one of a kind Dracula doll in my image) I am extremely flattered and honored by this.

-And if that weren’t enough, I also received two awards for acting. The first was given to me by Mad Angel Films at their 10th Anniversary Show, where I was given the award for “Best Villain”-based on my role as Tybalt in “Romeo 3000” Then, at the TOXFF FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS, I nabbed the award for “Best Villain”-based on my role as Cornelius in NoSS. 🙂

-Not all was cheery (cheeky?) in Acting Land, but I really don’t have much to complain about (or cry about-see above pic-HA!) given all that was said above. I did have to miss out on a good amount of auditions for several reasons-including an audition to be in “Sushi Tushi,” a casting call to play Dracula in a Kinney Drugs commercial, and trying to be involved in “Purge 4” and “The Mountain” with Jeff Goldblum (which looked like every CNY actor was posting pics of themselves with him at one point 🙂 ). But it’s OK-I know there are tons of opportunities out there and I learned a long time ago that there will always be more auditions out there and more roles out there. 🙂

-So for 2018, it looks like several of the films I’ve done will be released. Above is the trailer for HOUSE SHARK-where I play the epic role of “Darth Squanto.” 🙂 “Mohawk” premiered at a film festival earlier this year and will be having a premiere at THE PALACE THEATER in Syracuse, NY on 2/16/2018. “Romeo 3000” is set to possibly premiere in three places the week after “Mohawk” in CNY. It also looks like 2018 will (hopefully) see the releases of “They’re Here,” “The Lamb,” “In Search Of,” “Drive,” “American Dresser” and “The Dollmaker” among others.

-In terms of upcoming acting roles, there’s not too many so far-but the year is young 🙂 I’ve been cast as “Zelgious-The Black Knight” in “Radiant Dark” with filming to have been done earlier this year, but it didn’t happen so I’m sure it will take place sometime in 2018. There is also talk of “Tales of Dracula: Dracula Meets The Wolfman” beginning production, but I haven’t been told anything specific (or even much in general) in regards to that so I have no idea how that’s coming along. In about three months or so filming starts on “Johnny Z” by Jonathan Straiton (director of NoSS). Above is a quick video I made to help out the JOHNNY Z INDIEGOGO CAMPAIGN. It would be great if I could crank out some more CAROLINE BLUE music videos in 2018, but I have to get back in shape first 🙂 As you can see from the above video, I’ve been slowly adding to the video collection on the WWJ YOU TUBE PAGE (feel free to like / comment / share BTW…). More to come-A LOT more. Wait till I get to the CAROLINE BLUE stuff (which will go on the CB you tube page) 🙂

-So here we are at the end of another year in review-all 2 of us (HA!) 🙂 As you can see, a lot of good things happened for me in 2017. The last 3-4 months though have, unfortunately, cracked through almost all of my foundations and it’s not pretty. I made some bold choices and we’ll see in 2018 if they were for the better or for the worst. I was never really huge on that “new year, new you” mantra per se, but I’m going to go full out on it for 2018. I don’t have much of a choice. C-ya all next year and wishing you all a Happy and Safe New Year. Please don’t drink and drive and keep your pets inside-it’s too damn cold! \m/