It was Friday, August 10, and I was headed for Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I would not only attend the world premiere of Scott Phillip's GIMME SKELTER (in which I appear), but test-screen my new short film, NIGHT VISIT.

My shuttle arrived early, as always, and got me to the airport hours before my flight. The days leading up to this had been fairly stressful, so I christened my journey with a few cocktails at the airport. While sitting at the bar, I chatted with CGI artist Tom Capizzi and his girlfriend Marcy, who were bound for Las Vegas. Later on, I was waiting in the terminal and realized I was sitting next to actress Julie Carmen, who played to sultry vampire in FRIGHT NIGHT II. Since I know a lot of the effects artists who worked on that picture, I introduced myself to her. She had fond memories of the production and chatted with me for a while before we boarded the plane.

I was met at the Albuquerque Airport by Billy Garberina, who is the producer and star of SKELTER. He was picking me up instead of Scott, who was still preparing for the screening. Billy was hard to miss, wearing pink pajamas and a red velvet smoking jacket. He offered to take me anywhere I wanted to go. I opted to go straight to the house I would be staying at. On the drive there, he questioned me about distribution for independent features. He has a feature of his own called NECROVILLE, which is nearing completion.

The house in question belongs to one of my oldest and dearest friends, Patricia Rogers. We met as teens back when we both lived in Florida and have remained close ever since. She lives with her husband, Scott Denning (not to be confused with Scott Phillips), in wonderful old adobe home filled with antiques, nestled on a rural piece of property in the community of Bernalillo. It was Pat who introduced me to Scott Phillips many years before when he briefly moved to Hollywood. Now, appropriately enough, he lives in the house next door to her on the same property.

After settling in and saying "hi" to Mr. Phillips, who was understandably nervous about his premiere, Billy and headed back into town to drop off my short at the theatre before grabbing some dinner. The venue was a cool art house on Central Avenue called the Guild Cinema. The owners, along with local entertainment newspaper The Alibi, have been tremendous supporters of independent film. Several years before, we screened my movie THE HALFWAY HOUSE there.

Cast and crew were already gathering out in front of the theatre. I ran into sexy starlet Elske McCain, who decided to accompany me to dinner up the street. We were joined there by another good friend, Dayna Hawes, who shot stills on my last movie and was currently living in Albuquerque. We were disappointed the place did not have a full bar so we fortified ourselves with some local brews before heading back.

The lines were now quite long in front of the Guild and the 10pm show was completely sold out. A few doors down, star Gunnar Hansen ("Leatherface" from the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) was signing autographs in a gelato shop. I stopped by to say hello. I've known the man for a long time and, even though we had no scenes together in the film, it was nice to be involved in a project with him. He greeted me warmly. I also saw some of my other co-stars – indie fave Trent Haaga, Sarah Lee Turner, Kurly Tlapoyawa, local sci-fi writer Bob Vardeman, and Ashley Bryce (who murders me onscreen).

Once the audience was packed into the theatre, Alibi staff writer and fellow cast member Devin O'Leary called me and the other "guests" up front to introduce the movie. This was interrupted by the entrance of Israel "Izzy" Wright, in full Green Beret uniform, who had flown in to surprise the director. (He hadn't been able to work on SKELTER but had been a frequent contributor to Scott's other films.) After the happy reunion, I made my announcement that this was the first public screening of NIGHT VISIT, which was still a "work in progress."

I was relieved when the crowd reacted favorably to my short. I was more uncomfortable with my performance in GIMME SKELTER. I gave up acting decades ago to pursue a career behind the camera but, ironically, I get asked to do cameos all the time. Fortunately, I get stabbed to death before the opening credits so I was able to relax and enjoy the rest of the film. Since I had never read the entire script, it was as fresh to me as it was to everybody else and was filled with good performances and wonderfully quirky writing.

After the first show, I got a lot of nice comments on both my short and my acting. I managed to refrain from saying I thought I looked fat onscreen. The audience was smaller for the midnight show but we gave it the same rousing introduction that we had earlier. After the second screening started, I said my "goodnights" and headed for home. It had been a long day.

I slept as late as I could on Saturday, considering Pat was co-hosting a big barbeque for the cast and crew. I was feeling a bit off that day, probably due to lack of sleep combined with a negative reaction to the altitude, heat, and humidity. (Who would have thought they had a monsoon season in New Mexico?) I was fairly useless helping to set up for the party but Scott's girlfriend Jen was on top of things.

People began drifting in around 1pm. I was a bit relieved that everyone seemed as exhausted as I was from the last night's festivities, so I didn't feel totally out of place. There were many people there I recognized but, given my terrible memory for names, I will have to ask their forgiveness for not mentioning them all. Gunnar showed up with his lovely lady friend Betty and stayed a while. He could not be at the screenings that night but signed numerous posters and photos before departing. Trent came by late because he was shooting another movie in town.

After the party broke up, I rode into town with Dayna and had a nice dinner, this time with martinis. I introduced the first showing with the rest of the gang, watched the movie a second time, made another intro for the midnight show, then bugged out. Apparently, the rest of the cast did the same.

Pat fixed a big breakfast for everyone Sunday morning. Afterwards, she and her husband offered to take me sightseeing. The two of them are wonderful tour guides who are well-versed in local history. We took some desert dirt roads past old ghost towns to Madrid, a quaintly-restored mining town that had been used as a location for the recent film WILD HOGS. We drove through atmospheric Cerillos, which had been used in John Carpenter's VAMPIRES, before having a late lunch in Santa Fe. For some reason, every time I go there, it starts raining.

Returning home, we realized no one was around to drive me into town for the final 10pm screening on Sunday night. Instead, I was able to spend a relaxing evening sitting on Pat's patio, drinking wine, smoking cigars, and catching up with her. Scott Phillips came by later to say there was a good turnout for the last showing. I decided not to stay up most of the night to watch the meteor showers because I had to fly back to LA the next morning.