Hotel Camarillo is now on Amazon Prime! It is also available for digital rent or purchase. You can click on the direct link link below.
https://www.amazon.com/Hotel-Camarillo-Wayne-Poe/dp/B073GML5R1/
After one month of release on Amazon Prime, Hotel Camarillo has had 2500 viewers (90% of the viewership is in the U.S.)
The viewership for this past week was the highest yet, so the film numbers are on the rise and it hasn’t peaked yet. Thank you to everyone who still supports Hotel Camarillo.
Last Bookstore sign.
I visited “The Last Bookstore” for the first time last week. It’s a great place with lots of character. It’s located in the Spring Arts Tower at 5th & Spring, and used to be a depression era bank. The vaults and heavy vault doors are still there, as well as the original tile floor.
Upstairs vault.
I of course asked one of the workers there if it was haunted. He replied that no one wants to venture up to he second floor at night before closing. Awesome.
Shot from the second floor.
My friends Sabrina and Gladys quickly found the strange and occult section of the bookstore on the creepy second floor.
Gladys and Sabrina
Gladys pointed out a book she thought I’d be interested in, and it was an excellent choice. The book is “Voices From The Tapes, Recordings From The Other World” by Peter Bander. (Yes I know it’s kind of ironic for me to supply an Amazon.com link to a book I found in a staunchly proud indie bookstore, but…actually I have no excuse!)
The book represents early research into the phenomenon of EVP(Electronic Voice Phenomenon). It’s written by the man who wrote the preface and edited Konstantīn Raudive’s Breakthrough. I found the introduction to “”Voices From The Tapes” very relevant to today’s paranormal investigators.
Quote from introduction.
But the coolest thing was the book was a gift to someone in 1977, and a small note was left at the beginning of the book.
The gift.
So my friend Lia wanted me to report on this book as I read it. I’m reading the book in pieces, as I rarely find time to read a book anymore! The entire book is only 160 pages, and could easily be finished in an evening. But I sometimes like to ‘live” with a book for a while, and think about what I’ve read. I may not get back to a book for a week or more.
The book first takes us through scientific reaction to the EVP phenomena, and how serious it was taken and researched in the 1970’s. Batteries of tests are presented, trying to figure out just where the voices were coming from. By process of elimination, Bander states the voices were dismissed from coming from outer space, or a projection of our subconscious, also known as “thought forms.” The only “possibility” left were voices of the dead. The voices d indeed show up on oscilloscopes, even after every possibility was eliminated, including radio waves.
Surprisingly, Bander’s book is openly critical of Konstantīn Raudive. The author chronicles the problems he had with the very demanding Raudive in getting “Breakthrough” ready for publication. Bander also states that some of Raudive’s conclusions were questionable, and he insisted that questionable material be present in his book. Bander states that “Breakthrough” is a difficult read, and it is. I’ve owned the bouk for about 3 years and still haven’t finished it. The book is basically meticulous notes of all the EVP Raudive captured, with side notes and minutiae that are just boring to read through.
That’s it for now. Stay tuned for another update!
Hallway to the 99 cent books.
From the second floor.
Great news just came in today from ScareLA!. NIGHT STALKERS, my first paranormal documentary, will be shown at this year’s ScareLA! NIGHT STALKERS is a time capsule of paranormal investigation and investigators as they existed in Southern California in 2010. Be sure to come to ScareLA this August, on the 8 & 9, and see NIGHT STALKERS on the big screen along with other GREAT horror related films.
I will also be sharing a vendor table at the event with Bob Davis and Brian Clune of PLANET PARANORMAL, where I will be selling NIGHT STALKERS and HOTEL CAMARILLO DVDs, so be on the lookout for our table!
This year ScareLA will be at a brand new 100,000+ sq.ft. venue, the Pasadena Convention Center on August 8 & 9, 2015
Lately I’ve been getting a lot of emails and Facebook PMs from people who tell me they are being threatened, warned off, and “unfriended” from Facebook for being involved in the “Hotel Camarillo” project. Make no mistake, there is a lot of jealousy swirling around this documentary. All of it completely necessary, as we’ve reached out to even the most distasteful Paranormal Pariahs, in an effort to include all investigators who have walked Camarillo’s abandoned halls capturing evidence.
Fortunately,”Hotel Camarillo” currently has nothing but the best in the paranormal field participating. The vapid will not be missed.
Here is one such email that I received. The sender asked me to eliminate their name, but gave me permission to use this in the blog to illustrate the pettiness going on. Below is the original comment in reaction to my “The Thick Plottens…” blog:,p>
“Oh WOW! I couldn’t help but start to roll my eyes a little at Louis’ claims! WE have ALL investigated out there at one time or another. We have all paid our “dues” to be there and if he chooses to be nasty about the film then guess what? That is HIS loss and he will regret it one day! He cannot sue Frank for what evidence Frank uses, a judge would just throw out the case! It is just too bad that Louis can’t get over himself, or the issues he bears long enough to be a part of the film since he did put a lot of time in investigating as lot of us have over the years. It should be about educating the public about what CSUCI once was and still in many ways remains. I just wouldn’t pay any attention to anyone that is negative about the documentary.”
The emails follow:
“I guess I cannot speak my mind. I was threatened by withheld for posting how I felt about him. (Here’s what he wrote:)
… Even before you wrote this, I found your attempt to friend me on Facebook quite amusing… to actually think I’d accept a friend request – not out of any actual desire to interact with me – but instead to be a fly on the wall.
…. I DO also have a series of several damning photos of you taking bong hits of marijuana in one of the hallways – so much for “educating the public about what CSCUI one was…” (whatever the hell that means). But alas, I’ve keep those little inconvenient truths under wraps… No negativity – or any feelings whatsoever – for individuals I’m neither emotionally invested in, nor whom I respect. These people are as dead to me as the Spirits they claim exist there.
Friend Request Denied.
So I get accused of being a spy and doing bong hits at CSUCI! lol
I told him I do not hide that I once smoked pot at CSUCI, but at least get it right, it was not a bong, it was a pipe! What a jerk! I told him I’m a medical marijuana patient. I happened to be very sick that day and the person I was with, whom I trusted and asked if they even minded if I smoked, did a sneaky thing to me and snapped photo’s of me smoking! Then months later emailed them to people obviously trying to make me out to be a bad person. I’m over it and I do not hold negativity toward that any longer. He talks as if he took photo’s of me himself, lol!
He is obviously still very bitter about the past and won’t let it go! I tried to explain to him I didn’t write what I wrote to attack him. I was trying to say, why hold onto the past when something awesome like your documentary is happening, ya know? I told him I feel sorry for him that he feels I had bad intentions toward him. Oh well…
Oh and here is the last message he sent me:
Truth… You are an acquaintance at BEST – irrelevant in my lived experience… Ergo, your “opinions” as well as your revisionist historical account of someone who threw you under the bus are rendered mute.(sic) Keep defending folks that think your cray cray. Some of whom only live mere miles from you.
Editor’s Note: The proper phrase uses the word “moot”; those that bolster their self importance by picking phrases out of a Thesaurus usually won’t know that.
…and then he actually blocked me after that message! Good lord! Someone is being quite dramatic!
As The Paranormal Turns…
Filming for the second documentary continues. Wednesday, we were on location, and all of us heard a disembodied voice say, “Yes….?” It was captured on three seperate recorders, as well as on camera. Also a loud knock emanated frm a door right in front of us. Interesting stuff, and we’re still at the beginning stages of the project!
On Wednesday, September 28th, “Night Stalkers” had its second public screening at the Center For Inquiry in the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood, CA. Unlike the last screening, the entrance to Steve’s theater wasn’t blocked off, so there was an actual audience this time.
This audience was made up of skeptics from IIG, or the Independent Investigations Group. Mark Edward, who appears in Night Stalkers, set up the screening and invited me to do a Q&A session afterward. The screening went over very well. The audience laughed at most of the claims, like I knew they would, but they were generally quiet through it. Louis Gonzalez was applauded for stating investigators should be prepared to accept that what they are investigating may not be proof of anything. Sarah Troop got a big laugh when she pointed out that the skeptics at 2010’s Para Con handing out suckers to all the attendees was the purest form of irony.
Joe and Rebecca Mendoza from 3am Paranormal were another highlight with the audience. While they generally scoffed at references to the entity known as “Pipes”, the audience really enjoyed the banter between the two. They laughed when Rebecca revealed that she uses the “after death” code word between her and Joe on numerous passwords. Joe’s reactions to being singled out as the first to die between them also got a big laugh. And of course, he brought the house down with the “banana bush” analogy. Rebecca received applause when she declared that she didn’t believe in Sylvia Brown.
During the Q&A; they seemed generally curious about the investigators and my adventures with them. One theme that kept coming up was that the skeptics wanted a dialogue with the paranormal investigators. Perhaps in the future, they could meet at a convention setting and discuss their sides of supernatural phenomena. Mark Edward said this was his second viewing, and he liked it much better than the first, because he appreciaated how it focused on the investigators’ character. That was good to hear!
SEVENTH PLANET PRODUCTIONS 