Guest Blogger

This blog began as an experiment on Facebook in early September 2007, as I was heading into the production of my first feature film, Sin Nombre. It's sporadic, un-thematic, and quickly written, but then again, I was in the middle of making a movie so prose wasn't a priority If anything, it's a good place to procrastinate. I hope you enjoy it...

Right, subject says it all. This is my attempt to be disciplined about describing the process of making a feature, mostly to myself so I understand what it is I'm supposed to be doing down here. So, expect the next blog six months from now.

No drama so far, we're pretty much crewed up, just looking for an editor, and possibly a costume designer (if the one that we originally wanted feels like taking a vacation with her boyfriend) and basically our entire cast. We finally have our money and are going on a scout in Veracruz the rest of the week. Then Friday I'm flying to post-hurricane Honduras, via Costa Rica-Guatemala-El Salvador, to continue my Central American casting.

Meanwhile, I'm staying at a hotel called La Casona until I find an apartment in Coyoacan. It's an old, Spanish-style villa in La Condesa that looks at least 150 years old, so, naturally, it's got some history. I'd stayed here before (in July while making painful but necessary cuts to my script — as in going from 115 pages to 97) and enjoyed the privacy of the place. Up until then, I'd been crashing at friends' apartments and had gotten used to sleeping crookedly on couches. La Casona meant a real bed, a desk and a lot of privacy to do the literary chopping. Now, several weeks later, I'm back again, only this time I've had a much less private experience.

Being a Spanish-style building, the hallway wraps around the building with the center opening into a restaurant/terrace. The rooms are built off the hallway, with respective interior and exterior rooms either facing street or restaurant. I happen to be staying in a first-floor room, on the exterior of the building. On my first night, just before turning my lights out, I had the distinct feeling that there was something odd about the room, but I was tired from the flight and didn't think more of it, quickly falling asleep. Around 3:00 AM, I awoke to what sounded like an old record player, like a hissing, scratching, popping sound of a Victrola — and then as I became more aware, I distinguished the screeching howls of a baby. There was no doubt, it was clearly screaming in my room, but somehow, the sound came as if it were a recording on the Victrola rather than a baby laying next to me. Before I could even get up to check where the sound was coming from the hair rose on the back of my neck and an ice cold streak of fear running down my back. I just knew it — I was in the presence of a ghost. My heart began pumping adrenaline to every point in my body and I literally froze.

Now, this is not my first experience with the paranormal. I've had ghost vibes before, although I've never technically seen one. The last time was also in Mexico about a year before, while staying in Guadalajara in another old Spanish-style home. There, a ghost held me down in bed my first night in the guest bedroom. I told the owners, who didn't believe me, but their cousin told me a man hung himself from the tree in the backyard several decades before. In Spanish they say, "Se me subio el muerto," when you awake to such terror and are unable to move, either due to the power of the spirit — or as skeptics say, due to the fact that you are actually sleeping and having a nightmare and therefore are not in full control of your motor skills. I can't prove it, but I'm pretty damned sure what I experienced in Guadalajara and what I was now experiencing in La Casona is real.

Back to the event, where I realized the popping, scratching, hissing noise was not a Victrola, but a fire, and was sure that if I were to turn over I'd probably see the blackened corpse of a baby or worse, the baby and the burnt mother standing over me. Now as I stated before, I've never technically seen a ghost, but if I were to choose my preferred ghost image, it wouldn't include burnt corpses. So, in order to save this visual experience for later I decided it was wise not to look. Instead I blocked the sound (and mental image) as best as I could and attempted to fall asleep again. Believe me, this takes a while when you think you're being watched by a burnt corpse.

Two mornings later, I was having breakfast in the restaurant, which sits in what would have been the terrace of the old house. Sipping my tea, I flagged down one of the hotel concierges and asked him about ghosts in the hotel. He smiled and laughed at my question, then told me that there were none. Funny, I said, because last night, I think I experienced one. He humored me and asked what happened and I told him how I had this strange feeling, and not wanting to sound like a lunatic, described it as "some story with a baby."

Ahhh, he replied, "The screaming baby? Yeah, well actually the entire first floor is haunted, and sometimes a woman appears in the restaurant at night." He spun around and disappeared before I could ask him more.

Right, well, I'm changing rooms tonight. Needless to say, I slept last night with all the lights on and my iTunes blasting. I did pretty much the same in Guadalajara... the only solution I know to handle poltergeists. More to come later... maybe.

Update, September 6, 2007: Ghost story mildly substantiated. I just spoke with one of the owners of the hotel. Apparently about 50 years ago, the building was abandoned and inhabited by transients. A fire took place on the first floor and a family, including a three-year-old boy, perished. Until now though, he cannot remember a guest complaining about the cries of a baby, but other strange things have occurred, including lights going on and off and stereos playing on their own. No visions of charred babies... yet.

Update, September 14, 2007: FYI, for all others experiencing a poltergeist at home or on the road my friend Naje reports that good porn played on loop "usually helps keep ghosts away."