Discovered the problem and it wasn't related to permissions. Thought I'd post in case anyone else has a similar problem.
After doing a lot of research on apple's forums, I saw other users had similar problems and I downloaded iphoto library manager as well. Turns out, it was a problem with keywords.
I originally exported my photos from my PC. I was using Picassa and had tagged all of them with keywords. Turns out, the keywords stayed with the images and iphoto had a problem with that. None of the other ilife apps would recognize my iphoto library either so this was a bigger problem. iPhoto saw some invisible characters from the Picassa keywords and that was the root of the problem.
The resolution: go in to iphoto preferences and delete ALL of the keywords that came in from Picassa (first four keywords are included in iphoto so you can leave those). Problem solved with Front Row and all other iLife apps. Only downside is that I have to go back and retag 6000 photos But at least all works now!