Several longtime readers have written me recently, wondering when the next issue of SHOCK CINEMA is being published, with some of them slightly worried that the magazine might be going the way of so many other small-press film-publications -- out of business. Well, please allow me to put those worries to rest. It's not! Plus, I apologize for the delay... The fact is, I'm in the midst of purchasing all of the wholesale paper for our next THREE issues, and if I'm spending 20G's on skids of paper, I'm obviously not going to be ending the magazine anytime in the near future.

Of course, I'm not surprised that these folks were curious, since the next issue (#37) is running extremely late -- even later than usual! The truth is, I'm spending as much time as possible on the magazine, but the last few months have been very difficult for me on a personal level...

A little over three months ago, in late April, my mother was rushed to the hospital and soon afterward, had to be relocated to a nursing home. Luckily, she was able to get into one of the best facilities in the Central NY area. Unfortunately, that left my 88-year-old father -- who's in a wheelchair and has required 24/7 caregivers ever since his severe stroke from five years ago -- unable to stay in his home. After much finagling, we managed to get them a shared room in that same nursing home.

Meanwhile, it was suddenly up to me to manage all of their mounting bills, figure out their financial state and rise to the occasion. On top of all that, since I'm an only child, it was up to myself -- and Anna, of course -- to clean out my parents' Liverpool, NY home, where they resided for over 50 years! It's a HUGE undertaking, and the fact that they lived over 250 miles away from us only adds to the difficulty of it all. No surprise, my own work suffered in the process, but that's just how life goes sometimes -- reviewing a bunch of bizarre movies just doesn't seem that urgent when you're being overwhelmed with family emergencies...

On Wednesday evening, July 29, my mother passed away. Since my parents never made any concrete funeral plans, Anna and I have spent the last several days scrambling to figure everything out. Faxing, phoning and finally rushing up to meet with the Veteran's Administration, to secure a burial plot. Finalizing all of the funeral plans (while hoping that we made all the right decisions). And comforting my father, of course, who was at my mom's bedside when she passed and is obviously struggling to cope with her death.

My mom's funeral is on Tuesday afternoon. And since I suddenly found myself with a couple rare hours of down time, I wanted to knock out this blog entry in order to inform any friends of my mother's passing, as well as to reassure SHOCK CINEMA readers that the next issue is coming along quite well (albeit slowly), and I plan to get it back on the fasttrack as soon as possible.

Peace.