John Oak Dalton

I Was Feeling Kinda Seasick; But The Crowd Called Out For More

2012-02-01T20:49:00.000-05:00

Well, it's February, 1st, it is 60 degrees in the midwest, Indiana is going to start teaching Creationism, and Don Cornelius died.

There is apparently also going to be a prequel to the milestone comics series Watchmen, but I will withhold judgment on whether this is the Fourth Horseman in what is obviously the long-awaited End of Days.

I have been afraid to talk about this unusual winter. I guess I knew that all that Aqua Net my mother's beauty salon sprayed in the 70s and 80s would one day take its toll, but we have had two very hard winters in a row. Last year we had terrible ice and snow, including a frostquake, which is an actual thing, and not a D&D spell, or a Superman villain. I also fell off the roof chipping ice out of the gutters on the second story and still pause in wonderment that I landed unbroken.

After last winter I vowed I would never complain about heat again, so we were tested with a boiling hot summer. Now this unusual weather makes people superstitious, thinking that our winter will somehow get tacked on to the end; I think it is just shaving days off of what we would have had.

But what I really think is that the Earth will spin on and doesn't care about our little part in it, a February kind of thought.

In other news, I am once more going to try to read 50 books in the calendar year, but will try to change it up a bit this go-round. This year I am going to offer up my favorite book of the month and invite loyal readers to follow along. If you have been reading this humble blog for a while, I guarantee you will like it. For January: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin.

Until later, you can catch me at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Loved by Rejected!

2012-01-29T17:04:00.000-05:00

I returned to Rejected by Covered in 2012 with my first contemporary cover, done when I was struck with "inspiration," so to speak, by the loan of this run by my old comic book pal Doug. Check out the site for actual talented people.

Only Close in Horseshoes

2012-01-18T20:25:00.000-05:00

An official Super Bowl scarf that my wife finished knitting tonight. I was supposed to be wearing this while watching the Colts on television, right down the road in Lucas Oil Stadium, in a few weeks. A nice scarf with a bitter aftertaste.

Star Comics, 1976-2012

2012-01-14T11:45:00.001-05:00

Above is the cover of Star Comics, circa 1976, where my god-like Superman-type figure, White Miracle, apparently gets pissed off, grabs a flying surfboard, and goes rogue. Lined up to stop him are Starman, Rockman, Stretcho, and Shadowman, who have only a coincidental similarity to the Golden Age Starman, The Thing, Elongated Man, and a Mego Spider-Man wearing a Mego Batman's costume. They are aided by the White Miracle of the 74th Century, an apparent nod to my fascination with the Legion of Super-Heroes and the color orange. The real question is, has my art style really evolved, more than 35 years later?

Bookworms 2011

2011-12-31T19:06:00.000-05:00

Hard to believe I have read over 200 books in the last four years. Last year I listed my top 10, and with 50 new novels to choose from, only changed one; nonetheless, here is the updated list of what I have loved since starting this project in 2008:

Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis

Embassytown by China Mieville

The Keep by Jennifer Egan

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo

The Murderer Vine by Shepard Rifkin

Happy reading!

Fave Reads of 2011

2011-12-30T18:51:00.002-05:00

I met my challenge of reading 50 books again this year, and for those interested wanted to take a second to list my top ten favorite reads of 2011.

Embassytown by China Mieville

The Devil's Star by Jo Nesbo

Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indridason

Robbie's Wife by Russell Hill

The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer

The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Nobody's Angel by Jack Clark

Up in the Air by Walter Kirn

Nineteen Seventy-Four by David Peace

Bossypants by Tina Fey

And five honorable mentions:

Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan

Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland by Patton Oswalt

Our Kind of Traitor by John LeCarre

This list is fairly heavy on crime, mystery, and thriller, and I admit to feeling a bit of ennui when making this out. I'm getting an itching in my mind to read a little better, or at least smarter, for a while. We shall see how it goes, but based on what I bought with my Amazon gift cards, I am going to try.

I have also now mastered this challenge for, unbelievably, four years in a row. Here are my lists of favorite reads from 2010, 2009, and the first go-round in 2008. To maybe spice it up in 2012, I will be taking suggestions from readers. Let me know what you think is good and I will try to mix a few new ideas.

Cracking IQ 84 by Haruki Murakami tonight!

Turn Left at Icewind Dale

2011-12-27T21:27:00.002-05:00

My son and my brother in our traditional holiday gaming day. Legend of Drizzt board game and Lord of the Rings soundtrack on Pandora. Another day in nerd's paradise.

Thy Colors True of Red and White Shall E'er Exalted Be

2011-12-17T21:47:00.000-05:00

Three generations of Ball State University grads, with seven college degrees and 36 years of service to the university between my dad, my wife, me, and my daughter.

Guitar Santa

2011-12-03T22:30:00.000-05:00

Christmas 1987 we were newly married and broke like the Ten Commandments; that first year we bought all of our ornaments from a drugstore that was going out of business and I think we spent about 50 cents each on them. Still my favorite ornament from that time though the kids are sick of hearing this story.

The Non-Team's Non-Team

2011-11-21T20:33:00.001-05:00

So Victor Gischler is a novelist and a comic book writer and a pretty active Twitter personality (and I've followed him for so long I went out and got The Deputy for my beloved Kindle) who every once in a while lets people ask him questions over Twitter. So I asked him what his dream Defenders line-up would be and he came back with Doctor Strange, Tigra, Valkyrie, Howard the Duck, and Juice Newton; but when I pointed out that all superhero teams should really have seven members, he tweeted back to add whatever vampires were left alive after he got done with his series Hulk vs Dracula. Although I did not read it, I am speculating that one of my favorite 70s characters Morbius the Living Vampire is probably hanging around; as well as the rather obscure Bloodstorm, the alternate universe Storm from the Mutant X book that featured, of all things, Havok going to a parallel universe. Dazzler, in the costume I remember her best in, fills in for Juice.

Me and Warren's Giant Head, Live from BWIFF

2011-11-19T20:49:00.000-05:00

Skype Q&A with documentary director Warren Skeels, whose doc "Thespians" played at the Blue Whiskey Film Festival this summer, bringing back some nostalgia for me.

Things That Go Bump In The Night

2011-10-31T22:27:00.000-04:00

Me and my Little Brother, still Colts fans but wearing disguises, Halloween 2011. That classic Batman mask has been with me since 1966, the luchadore mask since Athens Georgia a weekend or so ago. Trick or Treat!

Everybody's Talkin' At Me

2011-10-27T21:13:00.004-04:00

Throwback night at my college's volleyball game had me resurrecting this jacket from the back of my dad's closet (accompanied by a Goodwill castoff shirt); a jacket I coveted back in the day and now fit in fine. Gold chain and chest hair my own. Although some observed I might have been working a little Midnight Cowboy, I was feeling somewhere between Easy Rider and Superfly; kind of an Easyfly.

Paradise Regained

2011-10-17T20:37:00.000-04:00

Looking at a chocolate tree at the Georgia State Botanical Gardens. Behind me is a coffee tree. If there was a comic book tree here I could have just moved in.

Lost Files of the JLA #1-6

2011-09-15T19:27:00.002-04:00

So I got a sketchbook and some art supplies for Father's Day and have been doodling away. I know I can hardly draw but when I'm thinking, especially about writing projects, it's good to draw. Oddly, my entire family has encouraged this. I have, also rather strangely, had some drawings accepted on the Rejected By Covered art blog (with my contributions defining the blog's mission somewhat loosely) which reminded me how, as a kid, I always liked to draw the covers of comics I wanted to make. I frequently talk about writing Suicide Squad or Secret Society of Super-Villains (mainly because I don't think anyone cares that much about them and thus one day I might actually get a chance to write them) but let's face it, the gold standard is the Justice League of America. I have batted around a "Lost Files" fan fiction idea for a long time and decided to draw up some of the covers. Bonus nerd points if you can identify some of these characters, and seek help immediately if you can divine what my plots were intended to be.

The Turn of the Screw

2011-09-14T17:42:00.000-04:00

If you want to know what it's like to be a 2x4, get a dental implant done. This started with a big filling back in the 70s that broke, then I had to get a root canal that broke, then I had to get a crown that never held together, so that got pulled and then I had no bone underneath so I got a "donor" bone graft which was probably from some serial killer (you've seen the movie). Now I've got a screw from Lowe's in there to put a tooth on top of. It was basically put in with a socket set and tweaked up with an allen wrench. Someone told me I should start taking this x-ray to the airport with me.

On the Book Beat

2011-09-13T18:00:00.000-04:00

My latest column for Pomp and Circumstantial Evidence, the magazine for the Magna Cum Murder Mystery Conference.

TheFifth Witness by Michael Connelly

A lawyer working the foreclosure anglefinds himself in the middle of a murder case when his client is accused ofkilling a banker in Michael Connelly's TheFifth Witness.

Michael Connelly is one of my favoriterecent-era mystery writers and his series about police detective Harry Boschis, despite a few low spots, a significant achievement in contemporary crimewriting. He has dabbled in a few othercharacters but seems to be really finding some traction with Mickey Haller,first introduced in The Lincoln Lawyer.

Like Bosch, Haller has a lot ofbaggage, including two ex-wives, and feels most comfortable working out of theback seat of his car. He is also afairly tarnished but ultimately likable character.

Connelly seems to have hit his stridewith this entry, which has a neat story and compelling courtroom action. It has been interesting to see how thecharacters have evolved over the last few novels as well. I am beginning to look forward to the nextHaller story almost as much as the next Bosch.

TheTourist by Olen Steinhauer

After a mission turns tragic, a spy ina top-secret branch called "The Department of Tourism" goes intosemi-retirement with his new family; but soon various tightly-woven plots bringhim back into the fold in Olen Steinhauer's highly enjoyable espionage thrillerThe Tourist.

In turns darkly funny but eminentlycredible, The Tourist harkens back to the best of the genre (most especiallyone of my favorites, Len Deighton) but the storyline is up to the minute interms of contemporary threats and political scenarios.

Steinhauer writes in a very readable,engaging style while remaining suitably complex for the steady reader ofthrillers. Worthwhile right through thefinal twist.

I would have to say this is one of myfavorite novels of the year to date and would recommend it to any generalreader.

TheIce Princess by Camilla Lackberg

Murders and suicides rock a small townin Sweden, sending ripples through various families and back a generation, inCamilla Lackberg's debut mystery The IcePrincess.

Lackberg has arrived on a big wave ofScandinavian novels that made it to our shores in recent years post-StiegLarsson, and I have enjoyed them as a change of pace from their Americancounterparts; typically more morose and thoughtful and tangled with familydysfunction.

But Lackberg takes something back inreturn from here; a glimmer of romance, as the main character--writing a bookabout her childhood friend's death--takes up with a handsome police detective,a departure from the usual gloomy ruminations of her Scandinavian counterparts.

The darker novels of some of hercolleagues (authors I enjoy like Arnaldur Indridason and Asa Larsson amongthem) might not be to everyone's taste, so Lackberg's relatively lighter faremight be more palatable to the general reader. I will still look for her next book even though I would not rate her ashighly as some others (including current fave Jo Nesbo).

ThreeSeconds by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom

A deep undercover police informant goesto prison to break up a Polish drug ring, only to get burned by his superiorsand have to fight his way out, in ThreeSeconds, a tough-minded crime drama from Sweden.

Three Seconds is very hard-boiled andwell-written and showcases a different voice in crime writing, which is one ofthe elements I have enjoyed from the recent spate of Scandinavian mysteriesthat have graced these shores in recent years. Unlike others, the writing team of Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom isless melancholy than some of their counterparts and relies more on burlyaction.

The down side is that, after a longbuildup, the finale relies too heavily on an intricate Rube Goldberg-likesequence of events, coincidences, and lucky breaks that allows the storyline tocome to a satisfactory conclusion.

But I was with them most of the way andwould recommend this meaty thriller to mystery fans.

ThreeStations by Martin Cruz Smith

Moscow police investigator ArkadyRenko, an outsider in his own department, still puts his skills to work tryingto solve a young woman's murder and a baby's disappearance in Martin CruzSmith's Three Stations.

Smith's series has chronicled life inRussia for several decades now, oftentimes with long intervals between novels(though they are starting to come out considerably faster lately). This is a credible, admirable crime seriesthat started with the well-known GorkyPark but has produced many notable entries since then (my favorite isprobably Polar Star) that are as muchsocio-political treatises as they are mysteries.

WolvesEat Dogs and Stalin's Ghost, the most recent novels in the series, representPutin-era Russia and might be a jumping-off point for new readers.

Djiboutiby Elmore Leonard

A documentary film crew get involvedwith Somalian pirates and, by association, an emerging terrorist plot in ElmoreLeonard's Djibouti.

In the 50s and 60s Elmore Leonard solidbut today underrated Westerns, then was best known for a very admirable stringof crime novels up through the 90s, many with a strong Detroit Rock Cityflavor. In the 21st Century he hassampled all over the place with various genres and time periods, with somepretty good novels (Tishomingo Blues, TheHot Kid) and some okay ones (PaganBabies, Road Dogs).

This one has an interesting premise,and Leonard also does some neat things with nonlinear storytelling to change itup a bit. As usual, the novel ispopulated by Leonard's trademark quirky characters.

But unfortunately it's all talk, talk,talk until a (literally) explosive conclusion. And some of the dialogue clanks a bit (including the young leadcharacter calling movies "pictures," which seems dated).

Although this one is a bit of a mixedbag, Elmore Leonard is still worth reading, well into his 80s.

TheInnocent Man by John Grisham

A washed-up, mentally unstable formerpro baseball player ends up framed for an Oklahoma woman's murder in JohnGrisham's hair-raising nonfiction work TheInnocent Man.

I have always liked Grisham but hate toadmit that a lot of his books were starting to run together in my mind. But this non-fiction work you almost couldn'tmake up, populated with blind and drunk lawyers, bungling judges, treacherousjailhouse snitches, bullying cops, dream confessions, last-minute death-row reprieves,and more, in a case that spans decades.

What's more, Grisham sets forth andleast two other botched cases from the same time period and geographical areaduring the course of the story that are almost as chilling as the main story.

Long but absolutely compelling fromstart to finish, The Innocent Manactually made me rethink some of my beliefs about the death penalty.

Robbie’sWife by Russell Hill
An aging screenwriter, not exactly washed up because he was always an also-ran,tries to restart his foundering career by going to a remote English farmhouse;but instead almost instantly fall into a dangerous infatuation with a farmer'swife in Russell Hill's Robbie's Wife.

Robbie's Wife is a mature noir with a classic unreliable narrator. It is part of the very notable Hard Case Crime series, which releases lostclassics alongside contemporary counterparts. This is a great addition tothe series, a very strong modern entry that stands alongside some of my favorites,including Scott Smith's A Simple Plan and Robert Ward's Four Kinds ofRain, books that would bring a smile to Jim Thompson's face.

Hill's book also reads as a solid literary piece, with a lot of sharp writingand an interesting subplot about the Mad Cow Disease issue in England. Recommended.

Nobody's Angel by Jack Clark

A Chicagocab driver ends up in the middle of two horrible crimes, the maiming of a teenprostitute and the murder of a fellow cabbie; cruising the streets in theshadows of the city's worst housing projects, he almost subconsciously movestowards solving both in Jack Clark's superior contemporary noir Nobody's Angel.

This bookcame out as part of Hard Case Crime, and has a very unusual history, as Clarkis an actual Chicago cab driver who self-published the book originally and soldit out of the front seat of his cab.

It is anastounding story when one finds out how good the writing is. It is obvious that Clark knows the meanstreets of the Windy City intimately, and the characters are well-rounded.

If CornellWoolrich drove a cab, and Jim Thompson was a passenger in the back seat, theymight put their heads together and come up with something like Nobody's Angel. Recommended.

Nineteen Seventy-Four by David Peace

Set in anearly 70s northern England, a crime reporter tries to unravel some grislymurders that end up taking a psychic and physical toll on him in David Peace'sblistering noir Nineteen Seventy-Four.

Peace writesin a raw but realistic voice and the storytelling is dense and electric. Although I enjoyed this immensely, I wouldonly recommend it with reservations as it is very, very mature in situationsand content. Peace's novel makes thebleak noir of Jim Thompson and James Ellroy seem like a Hardy Boys mystery.

This is thefirst of four novels that Peace wrote in this setting, to great acclaim. I have also seen the first movie based on theseries, Red Riding 1974, shot forBritish television and worthwhile in its own right.

The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto

A youngmural artist takes up with a fragile man with a dark past in Banana Yoshimoto's The Lake.

I had neverheard of Yoshimoto and picked this up on a whim. She has apparently been big in Japan for sometime.

The Lake is a slight, and slightly creepy,novel that read a bit like Haruki Murakami lite. The story ambles along as a blossomingromance between two troubled people until the pair visit a nearby lake cabinand two odd siblings who live there, one of who is an apparent psychic, whereties to a frightening past are revealed.

Withoutrevealing too much of the backstory, I believe the novel would be prettyresonant to Japanese readers, and I enjoyed it well enough to look for moretranslations of Yoshimoto's work.

Look At Me by Jennifer Egan

A supermodelhas a life-altering car wreck that ends up with her face being rebuilt, thoughunrecognizable; the results impact not only her but a teenage girl from herhometown, the supermodel's childhood friend, a downtrodden private eye, amysterious figure known as Z and others in Jennifer Egan's genre pretzel of anovel, Look At Me.

Egan's novelThe Keep was one of my favorite readsof recent years. I didn't like this onequite as much, but it is very interesting throughout, with plenty of surprisesand no linear paths to follow. There arealso lots of unique characters and very complicated characterizations. As inthe last one I read, I thought the ending sort of ran out of steam, but Igenuinely could not guess what was coming next; and as I read a lot of books,that means something.

Despite someflaws, I am beginning to think that Jennifer Egan is becoming one of myfavorite new writers, almost entirely based on her unique storytelling alone.

Splash Mountain

2011-09-03T19:53:00.000-04:00

So the college where I work was having a "Back to School" bash and everyone thought I would be "popular" in the dunk tank. Why this was I will leave up to the reader to speculate. Suffice to say there was a long line of familiar faces lined up to take their shot, on what happened to be my 45th birthday. If you ever wondered what it would be like to get waterboarded on your birthday, a dunk tank is for you. Actually it was like doing about 35 cannonballs in a row; at least, that's what my body was telling me afterward. It wasn't exactly on my bucket list, but a memorable and ultimately fun birthday nonetheless.

Still Loved by Rejected!

2011-08-21T11:42:00.000-04:00

There's a cool site called Covered where artists do music-style covers of their favorite comic book covers; then there is Rejected By Covered, where there are still tons of people that can draw better than me, and yet they took two more of my covers; a Gene Colan tribute and one of the first covers I remember seeing, The Freedom Fighters #1.

Lest Ye Be Judged

2011-08-07T11:25:00.000-04:00

The exceedingly handsome Judges Panel for the Blue WhiskeyFilm Festival in Palatine, Illinois. This was a great pair of guys to work with, which was handy because weall liked different things. My festivalfave was Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil); Falling Overnight won Best of, and Turkey Bowl, The Dead Inside, Absentia, The Wanteds, and The Day Carl Sandburg Died were all well received, among others. You can check out the whole lineup at www.bwiff.com.

BWIFF Journal

2011-08-07T10:58:00.000-04:00

Live music in the lobby before the screenings.

BWIFF Journal #2

2011-08-07T10:40:00.000-04:00

Me and festival coordinator Mike Noens. I'm not sure he had slept since the previous fest.

BWIFF Journal #3

2011-08-07T10:21:00.000-04:00

Dinner between screenings. Man, the food is always good in Palatine.

BWIFF Journal #4

2011-08-07T10:13:00.000-04:00

Hardware at the Awards Breakfast.

BWIFF Journal #5

2011-08-07T10:04:00.000-04:00

Awards brunch at the Blue Whiskey Film Fest. Already looking forward to next year!

In The Year 7510

2011-07-28T20:27:00.000-04:00

Finally had to write down the directions for how the TV works for when I'm away and the family wants to watch it. It takes five remotes for it to work and I'm totally okay with that. There's something that makes you feel less liberal about having a big flatscreen TV but I am getting used to that as well.

Everything Old is New Again

2011-07-17T10:29:00.003-04:00

How cool is Duane Swierczynski? I pre-ordered his new book, Fun and Games, for my beloved Kindle, and he sent me a postcard from The Alamo.

G.I.s In Space (Super-8 B/W Silent, 1982)

2011-07-14T19:48:00.001-04:00

My homage to old-time serials, watched feverishly in my teen years; I shot this mostly in my parent's garage with Estes rockets and borrowed costumes from the high school. Filmed on black-and-white Super-8 Tri-X film stock in Muncie Indiana in 1982, later projected on the wall and recorded on SVHS, now presented digitally.

Geekbusters (Super-8 Silent, 1984)

2011-07-14T19:45:00.003-04:00

Fueled by multiple viewings of Ghostbusters at the local cinema, and armed with shop-vacs and jumpsuits, my friends and I made this parody short in 1984, filmed on Super-8 in Muncie, Indiana. Later this was projected on the wall and taped onto SVHS, and very recently digitized for your modest pleasure.

Justice By The Slice (Super-8 Silent, 1986)

2011-06-26T18:42:00.001-04:00

So many people have told me that the movie Super-8 reminds them of me, and this might be why. For your modest enjoyment, the saga of a vigilante pizza deliverer, shot on Super-8 Silent film stock in Muncie Indiana in the summer of 1986, later projected on the wall and taped on SVHS, recently encoded for its 25th Anniversary.

Uncensored Heroes (Super-8 Silent, 1986)

2011-06-26T18:25:00.000-04:00

An old plastic Batman helmet from my childhood and a renewed love for comic books spurred on this short, filmed on Super-8 in Muncie Indiana in 1986 (with a long gap and some rewrites due to a case of mono). Still wishing I had filmed the poker scene featuring the Golden Age Flash and the Golden Age Sandman, but alas.

Accepted By Rejected!

2011-06-25T20:04:00.000-04:00

There is a pretty cool site called Covered where artists do covers (music style) of their favorite comic book covers; there is also Rejected By Covered, which still has a lot of talented people on it, all of whom draw better than me. But it struck my fancy nonetheless so I whipped up a few covers of comics that struck a chord in me as a youngster; and, shockingly, they took them all. Whether this foretells a rise in my cartooning skills, frozen since about 1979, or a thinning of the talent pool on Covered, is for the viewer to decide.

So Long, And Thanks For All The Fumetti

2011-05-28T23:12:00.000-04:00

For the few that missed me, I was out goofing off in Europe. This is Rome, a great city with history on every corner. For my hometown, history means going to the McDonald's where they have the neon sign from the 50s, so this was quite a culture shock. As you can see, they have let things get a little run down, though. Would some asphalt and a few Starbucks hurt anybody? Just saying.

Check, Please

2011-05-28T23:03:00.000-04:00

A statue in Italy commemorating how hard it is to catch a waiter's eye to bring you your bill at any local restaurant. Around tourists, Italians seem aggressive and in a rush, but when you catch them in their own element you learn they prefer to chill out, drink wine, eat pizza and have leisurely lunches; basically how I spent my first few years of college in the mid 80s.

The Touch of a World That is Older

2011-05-28T22:51:00.002-04:00

Grave of Marconi, the dude that invented radio, Florence, Italy. This church also has Machiavelli, Dante, Michelangelo, and some other big names who had big honking statues and other huge monuments dedicated to them. Meanwhile, my brother here looks like he got put in the pet cemetery. AV nerds always get the short end.

Johnny Stecchino

2011-05-28T22:01:00.006-04:00

In Florence, the outside of the church where Marconi is taking the long dirt nap. I sort of figured out if you know how to say "Scusi" and "Grazie" you can pretty much make your way across Italy.

Said I Shot A Man Named Ray, Took His Wife To Italy

2011-05-28T22:01:00.000-04:00

This big shack is the Parthenon. Half of Rome looks like a movie set. Besides the obvious Sergio Leone and Mario Bava and Dario Argento movies I would recommend "The Bicycle Thief" and "La Dolce Vita" and "Big Deal on Madonna Street" for the classics; some good contemporary movies include "Cinema Paradiso" and "Johnny Stecchino" and "I'm Not Afraid."

Statuesque

2011-05-28T21:54:00.000-04:00

Me: "I think I compare favorably to the statue of David." Wife: "You must have been looking at a statue of Socrates."

Rock On, Romans

2011-05-28T21:52:00.001-04:00

I like how in Rome the buses run wherever and whenever they damn well please, you better be ready to tuck in to a hearty meal all the time, and you can buy Dylan Dog and Nathan Never comics at every newsstand. But my favorite thing was these posters plastered all over the city advertising an upcoming rock concert by showcasing an old man shushing people.

London's Calling

2011-05-28T21:49:00.003-04:00

Crazy statue in the Tower of London, England. Everywhere you look there are ideas for new D&D adventures.

Holidays in the Sun

2011-05-28T20:57:00.012-04:00

British Museum, London. Where they keep all the stuff they took when they conquered the world, once upon a time. London is a great city, which I felt very comfortable with since I have watched a lot of Doctor Who and read Harry Potter. What you might not know is that the food is better than you'd think and the Tube is a great invention. Even more surprising was that Obama was there at the same time and didn't invite me to the barbecue at Downing Street.

She Wouldn't Have A Willy Or A Sam

2011-05-28T20:20:00.002-04:00

Where Anne Boleyn was beheaded at the Tower of London. Didn't see Natalie Dormer around anywhere.

BBC 1, BBC 2

2011-05-28T20:09:00.005-04:00

One of my favorite areas of London, the South Bank. Tons of good little shops and restaurants and hipsters and buskers. Stalls full of paperbacks. Found some good British hardboiled stuff here. Big Ben dead ahead, the Eye behind.

The Runaway Bride

2011-05-28T20:06:00.007-04:00

Speaking of Doctor Who: Yes, my brothers, I saw Doctor Who's David Tennant and Catherine Tate in Much Ado About Nothing in London's West End. (Photo borrowed from somebody who thought to bring a camera to Leicester Square). This show was sold out but they had a lottery to sell twenty returned tickets for ten pounds each (face value 50 pounds and up) the morning of the show. I stood in a block-long line and thought I wasn't going to make it but got drawn second to last. Then they had a few more available at face value so I queued back up and managed to get a second ticket. Strangely my wife and I were only a few seats apart in the same row and some nice ladies swapped with us so we could sit together. My nerd karma rolled all that day. After I nabbed these two tickets I walked down Charing Cross Road and finally found the latest issue of 2000 AD that I had been searching for. Good night, sweet London town, good night.

You Thought The Leaden Winter Would Bring You Down Forever

2011-04-29T23:18:00.001-04:00

Commemorating our first win (in four tries) playing the D&D board game "Castle Ravenloft." Recommended.

It's A Thousand Pages, Give Or Take A Few

2011-04-27T18:25:00.002-04:00

Whenever I talk about my attempt(s) to read 50 books a year I typically get asked for book recommendations.

Right now I am pretty much always recommending The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson to people who like to read, as kind of a good safe bet.

Historically my favorite novels include Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, and The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer.

My favorite genre authors historically are probably Philip K. Dick, Samuel R. Delany, Ursula K. LeGuin, Mickey Spillane, Chester B. Himes; and contemporary probably Michael Connelly, Chuck Palahniuk, Jonathan Lethem, Jennifer Egan and Michael Chabon.

So that’s where I’m coming from, otherwise. Below I have listed 25 books that I have read over the last few years that pretty much make up my current contemporary recommendations. Enjoy!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold

The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis

The Keep by Jennifer Egan

The City and The City by China Mieville

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo

Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey

Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

Missing by Karen Alvtegen

Real World by Natsuo Kirino

The Wandering Ghost by Martin Limon

Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon

The Princess of Burundi by Kjell Ericksson

Sun Storm by Asa Larsson

Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason

Four Kinds of Rain by Robert Ward

London Boulevard by Ken Bruen

#100factsaboutme

2011-04-19T12:44:00.002-04:00

For those of you who didn't see me blowing up your Twitter feeds and Facebook walls over the last few weeks, here's a meme that I did. (Bonus Fact: The first time I heard the word "meme" was when I read F. Chong Rutherford's script "Meme" on TriggerStreet).

100. Met my future wife on a blind date in January 1987 and got married that October.

99. Majored in TCOM (Film) with minors in Humanities and History at Ball State, so I'm really good at Trivial Pursuit.

98. Made about 30 short films on Super-8 between 1980-1987.

97. The first time I ever heard the term "homeboy" used was via Johnny Depp on 21 Jump Street.

96. I think the best overall dining experience I've had on the planet was at Joseph Decuis. http://www.josephdecuis.com/

95. Married the Valedictorian of Blue River Valley High School Class of 1983.

94. On our honeymoon, we made the mistake of going to see the new Michael Douglas movie--Fatal Attraction.

93. Got married in the Kitselman Center at Ball State University in 1987. #100factsaboutme

92. Had a recurring nightmare all through the 80s (Reagan Era) that a nuclear flash goes off outside my bedroom window.

91. I made an unbreakable vow to call my daughter Sarah every time I hear "Sarah Smile."

90. The first date my wife and I had was at a health food place on the Ball State campus called Kazoo's.

89. Was active in Boy Scouts on into high school. Rat Patrol, represent!

88. My earliest memory in life is my dad riding me around the Ball State Duck Pond on the back of his bike.

87. Have kept a blog detailing my attempts to read 50 books/yr for the last 3 yrs: http://www.onthebookbeat.blogspot.com/

86. Played clarinet in the Anthony Elementary School band (but never learned to read music).

85. The older I get the more I like hotter and rarer food.

84. My favorite article of clothing is the big comfy green sweater my wife knitted me; second, my Carhartt jacket.

83. Somehow developed shellfish/seafood allergies as an adult.

82. Probably my favorite long-running D&D character I gamed was a Fighter/Magic User/Thief half-elf named Pollux.

81. Have had pneumonia twice and still not sure how to spell it.

80. The first book I ever bought for my Kindle was Shepard Rifkiin's "The Murderer Vine."

79. I played outfield and sometimes pitched for the Anthony Aces Elementary School baseball team in Muncie, IN.

78. I think the first time I was in Fangoria Magazine I reached the first pinnacle of my screenwriting career.

77. Screenwriters are in either MovieMagic or Final Draft camps; I use MovieMagic but also think Celtx is pretty good.

76. The first screenplay I got paid to write was the spy thriller "Player in the Game" which never actually got made.

75. I've completed two 24 Hour Comics Day events. http://www.24hourcomicsday.com/

74. Although Dr. Strangelove is my favorite movie ever I bet I have seen When Harry Met Sally more times.

73. That being said, I think my favorite album of all time is Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks.

72. When I need creative energy I like to listen to The Fifth Dimension Greatest Hits on Earth and ELO's Out of the Blue.

71. I think my favorite song over the longest time is probably Strawberry Letter 22 by The Brothers Johnson

70. Started my blog on August 19, 2003: http://johnoakdalton.blogspot.com/2003/08/i-have-been-told-for-while-that-i.html

69. I never thought CDs would catch on because they just seemed to me to be little records.

68. I want to go to the Macy’s Parade before I die.

67. Was once very adept at the Video Toaster.

66. If I go to Hell, it’s likely because I stepped in a puddle then cussed in front of a priest on the Notre Dame campus.

65. Probably the most surprising person who ever sent me an email was Michael Tolkin. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0866062/

64. Told everybody I voted for Mondale but secretly voted for Reagan.

63. Have never figured out how to blow a bubble with gum.

62. Didn't start liking football until I played the 1983 San Francisco 49ers on the Statis Pro football boardgame.

61. A lot of people don't believe I don't know how to play Solitaire, but I have never been alone long enough to learn.

60. My brother and I stayed up late to watch the start of MTV in 1981. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw6xesXLIAA

59. The first Doctor Who episode I ever saw was "The Androids of Tara" and that was an awful good place to start.

58. Once almost cut the ball of my thumb off opening a can of tuna. 8 stitches closed it up.

57. I was at Six Flags St. Louis the day the gondola crashed in 1978.

56. I think the only comic I still wish I had was a Suicide Squad #1 John Ostrander wrote a personal note to me in.

55. The first DVD I ever owned was "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

54. When I first learned to shave, Aqua Velva was my aftershave of choice.

53. The last time I cried reading a book was Larry McMurtry's Streets of Laredo (though I did have pneumonia at the time).

52. The last time I cried was when I heard Johnny Cash's cover of Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face."

51. A bird once pooped on my head when I was riding a bike. What are the odds of that?

50. Given a hard hat as a gift when I left my last job because I had gone several years without being knocked unconscious.

49. Kicked out of AV in high school for drawing (and taping to the wall) a comic strip called “AV in Space.”

48. Had a pet tarantula as a kid.

47. Kept stats for my daughter’s basketball team for six years.

46. Can be heard on DVD commentary tracks for “Among Us” and “Peter Rottentail.”

45. Probably have re-read Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” more than any other novel.

44. Did not learn to type until I took a course in college.

43. Wrote a fan letter to President Jimmy Carter in sixth grade.

42. Earned my first actual paycheck in high school videotaping varsity wrestling matches.

41. The first TV show I ever worked on was camera on "The Phipps Gospel Sing” on WIPB-TV.

40. I was an active member of the Pen Pal Club on PBS' Big Blue Marble throughout the 70s and early 80s.

39. My first car was a 'vette. A 1979 Chevette we bought from my gym teacher. I shared it with my brother.

38. I have never watched the final episode of "The Prisoner" because I never wanted to end.

37. Played a pawn in a human chess game at a Renaissance Festival.

36. The first song I ever called a radio station to request was “Telephone Line” by ELO at 990 WERK in Muncie IN.

35. I have seen a lot of famous people but only asked for one autograph (from Carl Erskine, for my son).

34. My daughter and I were both born at Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie Indiana.

33. Since I didn’t have a bank account as a kid, I used to keep all of my money in a copy of Spillane's “I, the Jury.”

32. I was named Big Brother of the Year for east central Indiana in 1993.

31. I have been active in Big Brothers/Big Sisters more or less continuously since 1987.

30. The first song I played through without getting booed off stage on Guitar Hero was Fascination Street by The Cure.

29. I have had two gold teeth (one of them I finally had to pull).

28. Until my mother retired from hairdressing, nobody else had ever cut my hair.

27. The first D&D module I played was White Plume Mountain.

26. The first movie I watched on HBO was The Last Remake of Beau Geste.

25. For whatever reason the Golden Age Flash has pretty much always been my favorite superhero.

24. Have stood in the DMZ and looked into North Korea.

23. Was in New York to watch a taping of Late Night with David Letterman in 1988.

22. I was brushed with a foul ball and knocked down at a Reds game last season.

21. I was at the first Pacers game ever at Conseco Fieldhouse, with my dad and brother.

20. Stood on the Great Wall of China.

19. Took a square dancing class in college.

18. Wrote the script for, and appeared as a suicidal Nazi, in the direct to DVD "Black Mass."

17. Wore a bigfoot suit in the direct-to-DVD movie "Among Us" which I also wrote.

16. I am mentioned in the acknowledgments for Haven Kimmel's novel "The Used World."

15. In college, I was a DJ for a carrier-current radio station in a dorm at Ball State.

14. Several times I was the guest host for "Now Showing," a movie review show on WIPB-TV.

13. I won a David Letterman Telecommunications Scholarship in 1987.

12. I was Freshman Writer of the Year for the Ball State Daily News in 1985.

11. Characters in the short films "The Hook" and "The B-Team" are named after me.

10. I used to host a public access TV show about comic books in Muncie, Indiana.

9. The first movie I remember seeing was The Barefoot Executive.

8. My first R rated movie was Alien.

7. I was an extra in the movie Hoosiers.

6. I "sang" in a punk band called The Johnnies in high school.

5. M first CD was Pearl Jam Ten.

4. My first cassette was Bryan Adams Cuts Like A Knife.

3. My first 8-track was Wings Greatest Hits.

2. The first .45 was "King Tut."

1. My first concert was Adam Ant, opening act The Romantics.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

2011-04-18T18:22:00.000-04:00

Photographic evidence that I actually finished a 5K, and with people behind me (albeit mostly old ladies). I tell people I finished 64 out of 100 without mentioning 30 people didn't show up day of because of cold and rain.

On the Book Beat Again

2011-03-21T20:20:00.000-04:00

My quarterly column for Pomp and Circumstantial Evidence, the magazine of the Magna Cum Murder Mystery Conference at Ball State University. You can read all of my reviews on every genre at www.onthebookbeat.blogspot.com.

The Devil's Star by Joe Nesbo

Harry Hole is a brilliant cop who fights alcoholism and other personal demons; Tom Waaler is his partner, the ace detective in the Oslo police force. But Hole also believes Waaler is the murderous crime lord Prince, although nobody else believes him. In a blazing Norwegian summer, these two cops must team up to find a serial killer in Jo Nesbo's The Devil's Star.

Nesbo's first Harry Hole novel translated into English, The Redbreast, is one of my favorites from the large spate of Scandinavian mysteries that have landed on these shores in recent years. I thought the second in the series, Nemesis, was good but not up to the first one; but The Devil's Star is close, a dark, delirious crime drama chock full of odd characters and colorful writing.

I think Nesbo compares favorably to one of my other must-read crime novelists, Michael Connelly, although Nesbo does not have the body of work yet.

For better or worse, Nesbo writes in a more American style with plenty of action, and doesn't often dwell in the gloom and doom of his Scandinavian brethren.

Nesbo also injects a lot of quirky humor, a welcome respite from these frequently wintry novels. Recommended.

Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indridason

Morose Reykjavik cop Erlendur becomes fascinated with a depressed woman's suicide as tragedies in his own past resonate, ending with him taking up an unofficial investigation that uncovers more family trauma in Arnaldur Indridason's Hypothermia, part of his long-running police procedural series set in Iceland.

This is one of my favorite authors in the batch of gloomy Scandinavian imports that have reached U.S. readers over the past few years. Each novel features great characters that grow and change along with complex crime drama. The philosophical underpinnings of most of the mystery novels from Scandinavia offer a welcome change of pace from American crime fare.

And it's not often you see a U.S. detective/protagonist tuck into a boiled sheep's head in jam.

The dead of winter probably wasn't the ideal time to pick up Indridason's latest, but when I see the newest one on the shelf I can't resist. This series starts with Jar City, recently made into a movie, and all entries so far come recommended. I thought this one was perhaps the best yet.

Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

A doctor in a chaotic hospital ends up with even more stress than usual when he is outed as a former hitman hiding in the Witness Protection Program in Josh Bazell's darkly comic debut Beat the Reaper.

Beat the Reaper is fairly outlandish, penned in a cinematic style, and is quite funny throughout (and rather oddly provides footnotes for the medical terminology and other asides).

It does suffer a bit from a somewhat rushed, slam-bang ending which seems to segue into a sequel.

The novel is written in a pretty unique voice (with undertones of other mafia and hospital stories) with lots of temporal distortion (and roller-coaster reveals) and recommended for a fast, fun read.

The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte

A former war photographer has isolated himself in a lighthouse on the Spanish coast, painting a giant mural; soon he is joined by a former soldier who was the subject of one of his most famous photographs and now wants to kill him. Their conversations about life, death, war, art and love make up the center of Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Painter of Battles.

Although the description makes it sound as if the novel has the barest wisp of a plot, it is a dense, cerebral novel with rewards for the patient (including a surprising, chilling ending).

I am more familiar with Perez-Reverte as the author of the swashbuckling Captain Alatriste series and the memorable, whacked-out The Club Dumas (filmed as The Ninth Gate).

This book is a departure from what I have read into a more literary bent but is quite a good read.

Sunday Morning, Coming Down

2011-03-20T11:15:00.001-04:00

First Mailbox of 2011

2011-01-02T18:46:00.005-05:00

New reader Scott writes:

Question for you, I have written a collection of horror scripts and I'm trying to sell my first one to break into the industry. How did you get your funding for the movie, SEX MACHINE? I'm trying everything and getting nowhere, from investors, production companies and even tried an agent. I'm open to any suggestions that you might have.

Thanks for asking. I actually was the co-writer on that, not the director/producer. I have primarily been a screenwriter and not involved much on the production side. But it seems like what you are asking is how to break in.

When I was trying to break in about ten years ago I started by going to some conventions and just trying to meet people. There is the Flashback Horror Con in Chicago, as well as the Wizard World Comic Book Convention, Gen Con down in Indianapolis, Cinema Wasteland in Ohio, and many others. I would recommend just introducing yourself to people and not pitching scripts. Relationships are important because a director/producer/distributor needs to know you are easy to get along with and reliable before they commit to you, because the screenwriting process can be a few months to a year of collaboration (and then another year or so of production which might include some rewrites).

At some point they will want to know you have skills but frankly it is rare for someone to buy a spec script, in my opinion. I have written a few over the years but in the last ten years I have been hired to write 20 scripts and none of them were from my script ideas. Most were rewrites of somebody else's script (that includes Sex Machine) or written to somebody else's specs, either what the director wants or what the distributor wants or so on. I think it has nice to have some to show you know the basics of screenwriting, structure and terms and so on. I use Movie Magic Screenwriter but many others like Final Draft and there is the free Celtx which is a good platform if you don't want to spend money yet.

I have never had an agent and have always been able to negotiate my own contracts (and you should always have a contract). If an agent would take you on, I think it is worthwhile, but I have always done my own thing and have my own network now. I think to get to another level obviously you need an agent, though I am happy with where I am now.

I hope this answers your basic question, but feel free to write back if you have more questions. I am at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Best of the Book Beat 2008-2010

2010-12-31T11:39:00.002-05:00

Somehow I have read over 150 books in the last three years. As it may be my last serious attempt to read 50 books a year (which takes a lot more concentration than you might think), here is my highly subjective list of my favorites since 2008:

Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis

The Keep by Jennifer Egan

The City and The City by China Mieville

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo

The Murderer Vine by Shepard Rifkin

On the Book Beat 2010

2010-12-31T11:13:00.002-05:00

For three years running I have managed to make my goal of reading 50 books a year; so I guess I have that one knocked down and perhaps it's time to try some new challenge (although I will continue to keep counting on this blog). I did vow to read a little smarter this year, though I still read a mountain of trash and pulp. But I read some really good books, and here are my favorites:

1. The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno

2. The Keep by Jennifer Egan

3. The City and The City by China Mieville

4. Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey

5. The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

6. Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks

7. Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

8. Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K. Dick

9. Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem

10. The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King

As always, happy reading!

Who Draws The Crowd and Plays So Loud

2010-12-27T22:44:00.000-05:00

Showing off my axe skills to thunderous boos on my new Wii, the first game system of my own since my beloved Atari (and even that one I shared with my brother). I have been playing this game with the family for several straight days (which seemed like half an hour) and I think it might catch on with people--it's called "Guitar Hero." It's no "Asteroids" but it might have some staying power. Happy Holidays!

Santa's Helpers

2010-12-17T23:04:00.000-05:00

Wrapping presents and watching movies on Roku. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Sketchy Heroes

2010-12-04T08:49:00.005-05:00

When I did my first 24 Hour Comic, Bad Eggs, I used an online random superhero name generator to come up with these characters, then quickly sketched what I thought they would look like. Some of them show up in Bad Eggs, The Vow, and other places.

More Sketchy Comics

2010-12-03T20:36:00.008-05:00

A frank depiction of what it was like to play Marvel SAGA RPG with me and my friends some years ago. I used to doodle little sequences and write various quips people spouted off as we went, and if I am reading this account correctly Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye and Iron Man face off against the Hulk, Ultron, and Loki.

From the Sketchbook

2010-12-01T20:12:00.000-05:00

So I was watching "Dateline NBC" and they had a show all about Real Life Super Heroes and people who supposedly had super powers. They had a guy that liked to glide, a guy who liked to climb buildings, two women who wanted to be mermaids, a smart guy, a person with great cold resistance and a person with a lot of running endurance. I wondered what that would look like as a superhero team so I doodled this up and got my answer: pretty lame.

From Rome With Love

2010-11-27T11:58:00.000-05:00

The annual Thanksgiving edition of Axis and Allies played with my son and brother. This is the new Axis and Allies: Europe 1940 Deluxe edition and comes recommended. I rather whimsically decided to play Italy and found myself dominating the Mediterranean and then helping my German allies repel the invasion of France. After four hours we declared a stalemate.

And Glowed Like Burnin’ Coal

2010-11-21T11:30:00.005-05:00

People keep tagging me on these Facebook memes and this one caught my fancy so I thought I would try it. It is supposed to be a list of the 15 most influential writers in your life, off the top of your head. Here we go:

1.       E.M. Dalton—my wife has published short fiction and poetry, so how can I not list her as the most influential writer in my life? We have been together since I was 20 and just celebrated our 23rd Anniversary. I think it is one of the great injustices of the world that I have been paid more to write piranha and frankenstein and bigfoot movies than she has to write fiction that could influence the human condition.

2.       Robert Heinlein—I am afraid to go back and reread these books but as a kid I read and reread his novels, like Have Spacesuit Will Travel and Rocket Ship Galileo especially.

3.       Mickey Spillane—my fevered teen years were spent discovering these, especially loving My Gun Is Quick and Kiss Me Deadly and Vengeance is Mine.

4.       Joseph Heller—solely based on Catch-22 which I reread often as a teen and probably most influenced my writing now.

5.       Cornell Woolrich—wrote haunting noir like Rendezvous in Black and The Bride Wore Black and was the sole ripoff/influence for my senior Honors Thesis at Ball State University, Deadlines, and my first attempt at an adult short story, Dead Wong.

6.       John Lennon and Paul McCartney—especially Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, Let It Be and Abbey Road.

7.       Chester B. Himes—I found him as an adult and loved his political, allegorical noir and would someday like to write something as good as The Heat's On or The Real Cool Killers.

8.       David Gilmour and Roger Waters—especially Wish You Were Here, Meddle and The Final Cut.

9.       Bob Dylan—especially Blood on the Tracks and The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

10.   Philip K. Dick—a raging genius who when great is untouchable; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and A Scanner Darkly and Clans of the Alphane Moon and The Man in the High Castle and Martian Time-Slip just the tip of the iceberg.

11.   Joe Bob Briggs—in the early 80s I saw his funny movie reviews in a college newspaper that we used to receive in the newsroom when I worked at the Ball State Daily News—I think it was The Daily Texan--and had no idea who he was (for the longest time I thought he was a student—this is before the internet), but immediately tried to emulate his writing style.

12.   Michael Tolkin—when I was trying to learn screenwriting I read a lot of bound screenplays that I checked out from the library, and really was influenced by the commentaries that he included; much later in life I blogged about this and was surprised to get a nice email from Michael Tolkin, and I have never forgotten him reaching out to me.

13.   Samuel R. Delany—I am coming to him later in life but only wish I could write as imaginatively as him; Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand I think is a great novel that I wish I wrote but Nova ain’t slouching either.

14.   Roger Ebert—when I was a kid I actually thought he was at the local PBS station in Muncie, Indiana; I worked there later and never saw him around. He is only growing in influence with his writing.

15.   Haven Kimmel—I have to end where I began, with a writer I actually know, my wife’s best friend growing up and the first friend of hers I met when we married. She is a bestselling author who, strangely and possibly to her own detriment, has always cheered on my humble screenwriting career.

There’s fifteen, and if I did this again tomorrow I might juggle it a bit and include Terrence Rafferty, William Goldman, and Steve Gerber, but this is awful close.

To Telepath Messages Through the Vast Unknown

2010-11-20T18:18:00.000-05:00

Following up on my last post, I know there is no way I am going to hit 50,000 words on NaNoWriMo this year, nor am I even close; but I have had fun working on some writing again with Johnny Demonseed, and I have already done well in the Nerd Olympics this year.

For the third surprising year in a row I have met the challenge of reading 50 books in a year and this time I finished with a month to spare. I think I'm going with The Boy Detective Fails as my favorite book that I read in 2010, and that's not just because I happened to meet Joe Meno in a small, spooky town called New Harmony down in southern Indiana and got to ask him what the hell he was thinking during the writing of this strange, magical work.

I also liked The City and The City by China Mieville, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, The Keep by Jennifer Egan, Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby, Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K. Dick, Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks, and London Boulevard by Ken Bruen, to name a few.

On my second try I managed to visit six ballparks this summer, beating my old, inadvertent record of visiting five in one summer. When I concentrated last year I only hit four so I decided to zen it out again this year and ended up at six.

I went to my hometown Richmond Riverrats in Richmond, Indiana a few times; saw the Evansville Otters in the ballpark featured in A League of Their Own on a very hot summer day; saw the Dayton Dragons for a friend's birthday, probably now one of my favorite ballparks; went to see the Reds with my dad and got a Chris Sabo bobblehead but also got walloped in the eye either with a fist or a foul ball, I'm still not sure which; caught the Durham Bulls for the second time with friends and ate great Carolina barbecue; and, on the last day of the season, went to see the Indianapolis Indians with my wife and daughter, who surprised me by asking if I wanted to go and break my record at my other favorite ballpark, which they were happy to join me at if I would buy the beer.

But writing again must have put something in the karma bank because I have spent the weekend helping judge the United Kingdom's National Student Film Association's Screenwriting Competition. It was very flattering to be asked, but I felt sorry for these poor youths who obviously got turned down by every legitimate screenwriter on the European continent and thus were forced to forage in America's Heartland for another judge. But it was cool for once and probably for only to be mentioned in the same breath as BFI and BAFTA.

Until later I am at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Mugen Punch

2010-11-02T20:17:00.000-04:00

So I have more or less been in self-imposed exile from screenwriting and associated activities for a while.

I took all of 2006 off when I changed jobs and cities and then promised my new boss I would take six months off when I changed careers again in April 2009. But I haven't started back up again. Since then I have turned down three or four screenwriting jobs and numerous offers to take up review writing again; though I could not turn down my old friends in Palatine Illinois and judged the new Blue Whiskey Film Festival this summer.

I have to say that being hired to write 20 screenplays in 10 years has a nice round ring to it. And I wish that a few old friends like John Polonia and Ivan Rogers were still on the trail with me.

I've been thinking for a while that there was a new model coming and I think it is still emerging. As the neterrati like to say, free is the new black. How that will work for writers, actors, directors, and so on to make money I'm not sure.

I used to like saying that a lot of my career was in the long tail, and now it seems like the long tail will be part of that new model.

I keep thinking it might be time to get a recharge by doing some different kinds of writing. Conveniently, there's NaNoWriMo.

I last tried National Novel Writing Month way back in 2004. You can click here and follow my adventures for the entire eight days I tried it before throwing in the towel. I'm contemplating giving it another stab this year, if nothing else than to maybe get the machine running again. As longtime fans of my blog know, I have been a fan of Nerd Extreme Sports, having done a 24 Hour Zine and two 24 Hour Comics, Bad Eggs and The Liberator. And I made my goal of visiting six ballparks this summer, so who knows?

Until then I am at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Polonia Day Redux

2010-09-30T21:27:00.001-04:00

The lunatics at the Cult of Polonia, the Polonia Brothers Fan Club, declare today (the filmmaking twins' birthday) a national holiday. Head prophet Tim Shrum usually bakes a cake in honor of the day, and naturally I have had a special fondness for two of them that happened to be based on scripts I had written for them. And people say that my screenplays are hard to swallow!

I think Polonia Day has been dimmed somewhat in recent years by John Polonia's untimely passing. I might suggest renting Monster Movie on DVD and watching the tribute to John as part of the extras, in which I was glad to be asked to have a small part.

Of course I am partial to the movies I worked on-- Among Us and The Da Vinci Curse/Dead Knight/Army of Wolves favorite among them--but the movies that I had nothing to do with that I enjoy include Dweller, The House That Screamed 2, and the original cult classic Feeders.

Check out the party here!

Go Engineers!

2010-09-29T22:05:00.000-04:00

A pal from Worcester Polytechnic Institute sent me this nice t-shirt. WPI has campus-wide role-playing gaming and once hosted a sci-fi convention. Had I known this school existed when I was looking for colleges, I could have gone there and been among my people and perhaps been Homecoming king, except I think you also have to be smart. Now I will have to settle on being its president one day.

From My Screenwriting Journal

2010-09-16T21:19:00.000-04:00

I was looking for some of my old homemade comics and was surprised to find a screenwriting journal that I kept for a few years before starting this blog. Here is an entry marked January 21, 2002.

Yesterday I made a more or less impromptu trip to Indy to meet with Ivan Rogers in a brainstorming session on "The Payback Man." We just chatted for a little while and then got into a real idea session, moving all around, writing in my notebook, adding to the synopsis on Ivan's PC, and on and on, bolstered by Diet Coke and then wine.

After a few hours Ivan asked if I liked BBQ. So off we went to Ivan's old downtown neighborhood, and a legendary spot called BBQ Heaven. And was it. Just past the bulletproof glass were steaming trays of ribs, collared greens, cornbread, macaroni and cheese, sweet-potato pie, and plenty of white bread to sop it up.

Then Ivan took me next door to a shuttered and dark VFW. We went around back and Ivan hit a little buzzer. There was an eye at the peephole, then we were in--a little backroom after-hours place, awash in Aretha and James Brown, everybody dressed in Sunday best and dancing, everything you wanted to drink at the bar as long as it is a shot and a beer.

We stayed for a few minutes and then Ivan said, "This place should be in the movie." And I think it should be.

Remembering Ivan Rogers

2010-09-15T23:11:00.000-04:00

I found out last week that an old friend, filmmaker Ivan Rogers, passed away. He was a private person and wanted to go out without any ceremony, but somebody did update his IMDB profile and I'm sure he would have liked that.

For my part, I knew Ivan for more than twenty years. I was a young associate producer at WIPB, a PBS station in Muncie, Indiana, when one day Ivan showed up to appear on a minority public affairs program the station produced. I later learned he was in the area working on pre-production for "Caged Women 2." I ended up running studio camera on the show and after asked if he would meet me for coffee so that I could pick his brain about filmmaking.

I had heard of Ivan and knew that throughout the 80s, Ivan had been writing, directing, and starring in his own theatrically-released action movies (and sometimes distributing them) as well as appearing in other people's films. At the time he was the only person I knew who had even brushed against the hem of Hollywood.

He was very gracious and spent a few hours with me, and surprised me by keeping in touch later. I began to hatch a plan to write a screenplay for him, and set out in the evenings to write it out longhand. It was an old-school action movie called "Grindhouse" that I later sent to Ivan, and he was kind enough to loan me MovieMagic Screenwriter so that I could learn properly formatting.

After I sold my first screenplay I bought MovieMagic Screenwriter for myself, and until this summer used the mower I also spent some of this first money on. The freezer I used the remainder on is still running.

Surprisingly, Ivan was always interested in this very first script, and over the last ten years I rewrote it several times for him and others under various titles, including "Red Puzzle," "Heat of the Lash," and "Hands Down." Ivan asked me to send this script to a friend of his just a month or two ago. He always liked it, but we could never get it done.

However, we did work on several projects together. When Ivan was in post-production for "Forgive Me Father" he was having trouble getting the editing done. He had transferred the 35mm to SVHS, then was going to use the open edge numbers on the SVHS edit to cut the film. I was a pretty good cut bench editor at the time and so I offered to cut one scene for him. He ended up liking that scene and ultimately I ended up cutting about 40 minutes of action scenes for the film. I basically never saw any of the characters alive until I went to the premiere at the Hollywood Bar and Filmworks in Indianapolis.

In lieu of pay, I asked Ivan to help me shop some scripts. Although this did not result in selling any of my own scripts, Ivan was good to his word and got me set up to work on another project called "Player in the Game." Although this movie never got made, it did appear in the listings in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, which I believe ultimately led to all of the rest of the work I have done since.

Several years later I worked through about ten drafts of "The Payback Man" with Ivan before he went another direction with it, but we continued to keep in touch. Even as his health began failing in the last few years he had a lot of plans and ideas.

Ivan acted in other people's bigger movies and was involved in larger scale projects to leverage his own movies that he controlled from top to bottom. Not everybody liked Ivan's movies, but he did what a lot of people just talk about doing. And he gave a young unknown a few hours of his time over coffee many years ago, which has led to a long writing career.

Glitter on the Hallway

2010-08-23T20:59:00.000-04:00

Biltmore House, 100 degree day, Asheville North Carolina. People love to flock to this shack but it kind of got the socialist up in me. Stuff like you find out that they had one of the first private bowling alleys, and by the way some servant dude had to hang around behind and stand the pins back up every time. Good Carolina BBQ served in the converted stable, though.

Live from Blue Whiskey

2010-07-25T16:43:00.000-04:00

My brother Eric and I making another journey to beloved Palatine Illinois, this time for the first Blue Whiskey Independent Film Fest. Lots of good films in store.

Filmmakers' Breakfast at the BWIFF

2010-07-25T16:33:00.001-04:00

Billy's Pancake House and the Filmmaker's Breakfast, a great tradition reignited in Palatine. The legendary Meat Lovers Skillet is always offered up as a challenge, and has over the years broken many a strong man and woman. This year a young couple took it on together and are splitting a double bypass later.

Dinner Bell at the BWIFF

2010-07-25T16:26:00.000-04:00

Dinner break at the Blue Whiskey Film Festival at a local microbrewery. I have said before, you'll never go hungry in Palatine.

Live from BWIFF

2010-07-25T16:18:00.002-04:00

Super-talented young filmmaker Matt Meindl and I got to meet up again at the BWIFF. He always hunches over a little so I don't look so short.

Getting Spunky at the BWIFF

2010-07-25T16:05:00.002-04:00

No trip to Palatine is complete without taking the uninitiated to Spunky Dunkers, a legendary 24-hour donut place where you can meet a lot of interesting people in the middle of the night (some pictured here).

Awards at the BWIFF

2010-07-25T16:01:00.000-04:00

I saw a lot of top-shelf work at the Blue Whiskey Film Festival, so it was a tough night of judging after a twelve-hour day of screening Saturday. Best of Fest went to a really crazy neo-noir called The Scenesters but Annabelle and Bear and Driver's Ed Mutiny also grabbed multiple awards. Above is a guy who drove all the way from Detroit and, not knowing better, wanted me in his picture.

SPACE Men

2010-07-20T21:16:00.000-04:00

Finally got done reading a great, and great big, stash of stuff I picked up at the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo a while back. I went with my trusty sidekick and actual cartoonist Tom Cherry for the second time together, my third overall.

I would have to say I like the new venue even better, and the show has continued to grow. I talked to several artists whose work is breaking into the mainstream but continue to return to SPACE as it is where they got started. It's a good sign. And there are plenty of young guns still coming up through the ranks.

I'm a longtime fan of John Porcellino's King Cat, and was glad to pick up new stuff from him there. I have been a fan of Indiana cartoonist Pam Bliss for many years and enjoy talking to her and seeing her work. Some new stuff I enjoyed--for art or storytelling or both--included Blue Wraith, Silver Comics, Imitari Project, Haunted House Heroes, Ten Gallon Tomb Raiders, Cragmore, and Gulatta.

Far and away the find of the show was Jim Rugg's lunatic Afrodisiac, a pitch-perfect send-up of 70s comics of all stripes. Tom picked this up for me and is now my new BFF.

Next year I think Tom and I are going to try to have our own table there, where I will attempt to draw another 24 Hour Comic, I think.

Even sooner you can catch me at the Blue Whiskey Film Festival in beloved Palatine, Illinois, where I will be a festival judge. I always enjoyed visiting during Microcinema Fest there and shockingly haven't seemed to wear out my welcome yet.

Until later I am at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Ruff and Reddy

2010-06-20T21:58:00.002-04:00

I wish I could say this was a fake picture, but I was taking a little nap on the floor on Father's Day and Bonnie sidled up next to me for some snoozing as well. My wife was responsible for this blackmail photo. Sweet Dreams and Happy Father's Day!

You Are Number Six

2010-06-18T14:15:00.000-04:00

Two labyrinths in New Harmony, Indiana. Spookiest place I have been in since I visited Salem Massachusetts a few summers ago. I really can't put my finger on it except to say that the whole place kind of reminds me The Village from the classic show "The Prisoner," although I think the food and coffee is better here.

The Road to Utopia

2010-06-14T20:31:00.005-04:00

Twilight at the Roofless Church in New Harmony, Indiana, the former site of a Utopian colony way down in the toe of the state. My fear of getting hit by lightning entering a church greatly increased here.

The House the Otters Built

2010-06-13T12:27:00.002-04:00

Checking out the Evansville Otters at Bosse Field, the third oldest ballpark in America (after Fenway and Wrigley). Otters lose a heartbreaker but I make my second stop on my quest to break my former record and visit six ballparks this summer.

Live from the Queen City

2010-06-07T21:18:00.000-04:00

Taking a break from a weekend trip to Cincinnati to read along with my daughter's college Young Adult Lit class. Stayed in a cabin, boated, camped, ate ribs, went to Jungle Jim's and Ikea. Feeding my head.

A Boy and His Dog

2010-05-31T14:13:00.000-04:00

Reading "When Zachary Beaver Came To Town" at Whitewater Memorial State Park over Memorial Day. Wife and daughter swimming down the beach, dog contemplating the mysteries of life. I am reading "Zachary Beaver" and the rest of the syllabus alongside my daughter who is taking a Young Adult Lit class in college this summer.

The Man in the High Castle

2010-05-23T22:39:00.000-04:00

Our annual Thanksgiving Axis and Allies game, a few months late as my brother couldn't make it this year. My butt-whipping forestalled. My brother and son teamed up to knock out the Axis on their second try at a D-Day invasion. Always fun even when I go down in flames.

The Pacific, Hoosier Style

2010-05-23T22:35:00.000-04:00

My brother and I tried the "Axis and Allies: Guadalcanal" game for the first time. My Japanese air force got wiped out early on but held strong for a while; eventually, it ended up pretty much like you see on HBO's "The Pacific." I don't mind losing when I'm the bad guys, though.

Live from SPACE #1

2010-04-24T21:10:00.000-04:00

The dudes from Mean Goat Comics giving my 24 Hour Comic The Liberator some props at the Small Press and Comics Expo in Columbus Ohio. See their own stuff right here.

Live from SPACE #2

2010-04-24T21:02:00.001-04:00

Me and Pat Lewis, whose minicomic Thankless Job I've admired for a long time. His other stuff is pretty good, too. More of him here.

Live from SPACE #3

2010-04-24T20:57:00.000-04:00

I've followed Indiana cartoonist Pam Bliss for a long time. She told me when she googles her name, the last picture I took of she and I always comes up first. Here's a fresh pic for her and me from the Small Press and Comics Expo in Columbus Ohio.

Live from SPACE #4

2010-04-24T20:05:00.004-04:00

Me and Tom Scioli, whose The Myth of 8-Opus burned my brain about ten years ago, at the Small Press and Comics Expo in Columbus Ohio. Check him out here.

David Letterman and Me

2010-04-18T11:43:00.002-04:00

I was asked by the Department of Telecommunications at Ball State to write an essay about my experience as a Letterman Scholar. This is what I sent them.

1987 was a great year of my life. In January I would go on a blind date with a young woman who had read my columns in the Ball State Daily News. That summer I went on the Far East Exchange with Ball State and stood in Tian'anmen Square, a year before the tanks rolled in. That October I married the girl I went on the blind date with, and we are still married today.

And one fateful Spring day I won a Letterman Scholarship.

I was an aspiring scriptwriter who was a fan of the radio dramas NPR was running at the time: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars. So I sat down and began writing West Coast Campus, a radio drama featuring a college newspaper reporter who was a smarter, funnier, and better-looking version of me. I wrote it in longhand, then rewrote it while typing it up. I wrote several episodes and ended up with about 100 pages. Then I wrote a detailed synopsis of several more.

But the day before the project was due I was afraid I didn't have enough heft in the submission so I wrote one more episode straight into the typewriter. About 4:45 p.m. the day it was due I called the TCOM office and let the department secretary, Pat Hensley, know I was on my way. She was willing to wait until I got there. Then I jumped on my bicycle and raced to campus, delivering the 135-page project just in time, in true Hollywood style.

Fast forward to the Scholarship announcement. Back then there were still faculty around who had known Letterman, like the formidable Dr. Darrell Wible. He was in charge of the scholarship and was hosting. All the entrants had clips from their projects shown. As I was the only script project, Dr. Wible lifted up my project in one hand and said "and here is a script project, West Coast Campus, by John Dalton," and dropped it on the podium with a flat, deflating slap. I felt myself shrinking. The common belief at the time was that video or film projects were going to win the scholarships. I was the first person to submit only a script.

Back then you actually got a check for the scholarship, distributed each quarter. Mine was $3,005. With the first $1,000 check I bought a 1980 Mercury Monarch. With the second I paid for my own wedding. With the third I actually paid for school. With the leftover $5 I bought a pizza.

I also got a nice letter from David Letterman, with a collapsible cup, a sponge, and a cap. I gave those things to my new brother-in-law, a big fan of the Letterman show. But I kept the letter and the offer for tickets to the show.

I was given the number to the show's office and just called ahead for tickets. I doubt they just give out that number today, but it was a different world then. My new wife and I drove to New York for the first time over Spring Break 1988, with my younger brother and his friend in tow to split expenses. We stayed in New Jersey and took the PATH train to Manhattan, getting off at the World Trade Center. We went to the Statue of Liberty, looked for Woody Allen at the Carnegie Deli, took a trip by carriage through Central Park. We were too afraid to hang around Times Square too long, a much different place then.

Late that afternoon we went to the show. There was a long line to get into the little studio. We strolled right to the front and told the guy we wanted the VIP line. In world-weary New York fashion, the guy said "That IS the VIP line."

We just scraped in. We saw Isiah Thomas of the Detroit Pistons. Terrence Trent D'Arby sang a song. Larry "Bud" Melman was there. Chris Elliot popped out of a hatch in the floor.

My time as a Letterman Scholar did not end there. As a conversation piece, I believe it gave me entry into my first job at WXOW in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Having later worked at Ball State for sixteen years, I got to know and befriend other Letterman Scholars, an elite group. I have always been proud of the fact that I was the first person to win with a writing project, opening the door for others to feel they could win on merely writing alone. I have gone into two colleagues' offices and seen similar letters from David Letterman hanging on their office walls. It is something I still talk about with people today, even though it happened over twenty years ago now.

I sold my first screenplay in 1999. Since then, I have been hired to write numerous Direct-to-DVD movies, available on Netflix, Amazon, video store shelves, film festival screens, and in dollar bins across America. But I always say that David Letterman gave me my first paycheck, and the confidence to continue to work on my creative writing.

But As If To Knock Me Down, Reality Came Around

2010-03-28T20:20:00.000-04:00

Knocked out by a sinus infection as winter slowly releases its grip on the Heartland of America. Dwelling on happier days seems to help. And, despite what was said on a recent episode of "Parks and Recreation" about time-shares in Muncie (yes, I am still vigilantly watching for slights against my hometown, Amy Poehler, and I died a little inside) we are hoping for sunshine soon.

A recent search on Bing, neighbor's daughter shows up at my door with debris from oak trees screaming, has to be an all-time classic and I'm sure has a complicated story all its own. But sometimes people come here with questions about other John Daltons who have done much better than me in life. But, as a public service, I will try to answer these questions as best I know how.

how tough is a hickory stump?
I've had to pull a few stumps in my day, and there's no such thing as an easy stump.

great criminal detective books?
So many, but here's five off of the top of my head: The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler, The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich, The Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett, The Heat's On by Chester Himes, When the Sacred Ginmill Closes by Lawrence Block.

unusual or whacky eating establishments in indiana?
I've tried many, but what comes to mind right away is Maid Rites just across the border in Greenville Ohio.

what other accompelments did john dalton have in his career?
Well, in addition to my sordid life in b-movies, I also like to draw comics.

Until later, I am at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Life In A High-Rise Can Make You Hungry

2010-03-15T22:20:00.001-04:00

We keep hearing that the Arts in Indiana are in trouble, and perhaps the evidence is finally here; I have been asked to serve again on the Media Panel of the Indiana Arts Commission and will be once more judging the Phantoscope Film Festival.

I enjoy judging Phantoscope. It is a regional high school film festival hosted in the town where I work It's great to meet the future filmmakers who are going to kick me off of the narrow precipice I stand on.

Since judging this Fest, I have seriously met one pretty talented young filmmaker and one insanely talented young filmmaker. And loyal readers know I was talking up this dude about five years ago (now he's in Sundance) and gave this young lady her first chance at play-by-play announcing (now she works for Fox Sports). So despite my other shortcomings and failings, I do have a good eye for talent.

I'm not sure you can say the same for Knopf Publishing, who apparently think I am a great and powerful blogger of note. They sent me a nice proof of Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest as a thank you for hosting a contest for his last book. I am not normally one of those bloggers who try to grab freebies with both hands (which are plentiful in the blogosphere) so the only thing I can figure is Knopf knows how much I loved The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and that have told many people that with no hope for reward. Strangely, I was just finishing up Arnaldur Indridason's The Draining Lake when this showed up in the mail and I have jumped right into it. Thanks to Knopf for bringing great Scandinavian mysteries to these shores and cheering up my long winter nights.

Until later, I am at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Some Stars That Fell From The Sky, Living Up On The Hill

2010-03-14T15:44:00.004-04:00

Loyal readers of my blog know that I spent a few summer vacations working at the Microcinema Film Festival in Rapid City SD and later in Palatine IL; now that beloved Palatine crew have launched their own festival right here. These folks ran a nice fest, and I always enjoyed my visits to this lovely Chicago burb, so any of my filmmaking peeps reading, submit away.

We are finally coming out of a long cold sucko winter. It was so bad I actually felt better after watching The Seventh Seal on cable. I think I put a nail in winter's coffin after coming back from Fort Myers Florida yesterday, visiting my in-laws in a retirement community there. Feeling the sun on my face meant so much it doesn't even bother me that I got food poisoning and vomited one night.

I don't have a lot of wisdom to offer, but one thing I know is that you have to keep your mouth closed when you fill the water softener and change the cat litter. To this list I can also add that you should never eat at a seafood place that is adjacent to a flea market.

Speaking of microcinema, an old pal, Canadian filmmaker Jon Ashby, answers some of my earlier philosophical rants here (at least I think he wrote this after reading my blog).

I too hope I am coming out of a long hibernation. For the second time in the last five years I made monumental changes in my day job and took a year off from the freelancing world. Somehow, the direct-to-DVD market and Fangoria Magazine survived my absence. But that year is almost up, marking a triumphant return to a world that didn't notice I was gone.

More later; until then, give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Canned Heat

2010-03-13T13:49:00.000-05:00

Edison-Ford Winter Estates, Spring Break 2010. Who knew Henry Ford liked square dancing so much?

Book Beat

2010-02-16T12:46:00.001-05:00

My latest column for POMP AND CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE, the magazine for the Magna Cum Murder Mystery Conference:

LONDON BOULEVARD by Ken Bruen
Low-level thug fresh from jail lands a handyman job (of sorts) with a fading stage actress and her mysterious butler in Ken Bruen's London Boulevard.
Ken Bruen is a hard-boiled Irish crime writer whose novels about quasi-detective Jack Taylor I have enjoyed for a while; but they are so relentlessly cold-blooded I usually like to leave a little space between reading them.
In perhaps Bruen's only nod to whimsy (that I'm aware of), this stand-alone novel is based on one of my favorite films, Sunset Boulevard, recast for the hard-bitten underworld.
Strange as it sounds, it works, and allows Bruen to riff on other pop culture references from books, movies, and music, giving this noir a looser feel.
A good entry point to Ken Bruen and an enjoyable read overall.

9 DRAGONS by Michael Connelly
L.A. police detective Harry Bosch investigates a convenience store robbery that seems to have triad connections in Michael Connelly's latest thriller 9 Dragons.
I have been a longtime Connelly fan and find his Harry Bosch series one of the best contemporary mystery series (along with Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins stories). After a bit of a lull, his last several novels have come back strong.
This one is a real change of pace, as Bosch's ex-wife and daughter, now living in Hong Kong, get caught up in the action when the daughter goes missing. Bosch immediately takes off for Hong Kong and ends up on a nightmarish journey as the clock ticks and the bodies pile up.
9 Dragons is especially high octane, and I have always enjoyed Connelly's clipped journalistic prose. A good jumping on point for thriller readers, but more rewarding for longtime fans.

THE LONG FALL by Walter Mosley
Extremely tarnished P.I. Leonid McGill tries to go straight (or at least less crooked) when he gets wrapped up in multiple revenge plots in Walter Mosley's The Long Fall.
Mosley is one of my favorite contemporary mystery authors, and I have found his Easy Rawlins novels consistently good. In that series, Mosley traces the adventures of an L.A.-based quasi-detective from the end of World War II through the Red Scare and to the Watts riots and beyond. The political and social milieu of the Rawlins series adds much to the storytelling.
Here McGill is a contemporary detective, on the other side of the country in New York. And where the Rawlins series is shot through with hints of Chester Himes and Ross Macdonald McGill is much more Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Mosley's writing is equally admirable here and I thought this was a great start for what I hope is a new series.

NEMESIS by Jo Nesbo
Oslo's crumpled cop Harry Hole is back in Jo Nesbo's Nemesis, in which our troubled hero tries to get out of the frame for an ex-girlfriend's murder while tracking a murderous serial bank robber.
Nesbo's first Scandinavian thriller translated into English, The Redbreast, was one of my favorite books of the last year or so. The Redbreast dealt with the emotional and political repercussions of Norway's Nazi involvement in World War II. This new one picks up a lot of themes and characters from his previous novel but, lacking the historical context, doesn't have quite the dramatic resonance of the prior outing.
That being said, Nemesis is a crackling good thriller with a great protagonist that reminds me favorably of Michael Connelly's notable series detective Harry Bosch. I like moody Scandinavian thrillers as a change of pace from American writers, but find that Nesbo has more the stylings of his U.S. counterparts with breakneck storytelling, linear action, and sardonic humor.
Recommended, with the caveat that you should read The Redbreast first. I am looking forward to Harry Hole's next adventure.

ROAD DOGS by Elmore Leonard
A paroled bank robber readily slips into his old life with a fake psychic and her crime lord boyfriend even as the police have him in their sights in Elmore Leonard's easygoing crime novel Road Dogs.
I have been a longtime fan of Leonard, but in the latter part of his career he has been a bit hit and miss. This is a good novel for longtime fans, though, as it features a handful of characters from previous novels (including the George Clooney character from Out of Sight). However, for three quarters of the novel they stand around and assess each other's coolness and tell stories; only during the last bit of the novel does the story come to life with double and triple crosses and bursts of violence.
Overall an enjoyable tale, though again not at the top of Leonard's admirable bibliography.

MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN by Jonathan Lethem
Frank Minna is a former minor criminal trying to become a major private eye in Jonathan Lethem's detective novel Motherless Brooklyn. But Lethem always bends genres and upends expectations, so Minna is dispatched in the early going, leaving his sidekick, an orphan suffering from Tourette's Syndrome, to find Minna's killer.
Very fine, offbeat novel from Lethem, paying homage to Raymond Chandler the way some of his other novels are nods to greats like Philip Dick (Gun, with Occasional Music), Steve Gerber (Fortress of Solitude), and so on. I enjoy how Lethem always writes a fully-realized worldview featuring Brooklyn past and present, which adds a lot to his work.
I am a big fan of Lethem and liked this novel about as well as I thought I would. Recommended.

CITIZEN VINCE by Jess Walter
On the eve of the 1980 presidential election, a semi-reformed criminal in the Witness Protection Program makes one last attempt to bury his past in Jess Walter's darkly comic crime novel Citizen Vince.
With its engaging characters, spot-on dialogue, and sense of time and place (early 80s Spokane) Walter brings to mind some of the best work of Elmore Leonard, Lawrence Block, and Ed McBain.
Really fine writing--especially in creating a parallel story between our protagonist's troubles and the Reagan/Carter race--gives Citizen Vince a more literary bent.

FOUR KINDS OF RAIN by Robert Ward
A broke but noble activist and therapist decides he's sick of both titles when he sees a chance to steal a priceless work of art from an unstable patient in Robert Ward's riveting modern noir Four Kinds of Rain.
I haven't found a lot of noir that I liked since the great Gold Medal era of pulp writing, but Ward's novel belongs on the list of contemporary classics. It compares favorably to another modern favorite of mine, Scott Smith's A Simple Plan, which features literary writing with genre trappings.
And Jim Thompson himself couldn't frown upon the unreliable narrator depicted here, whose vast narcissism and cold rationalization of his actions cause the events to unravel in the bloody final chapters.

HOUSE DICK by E. Howard Hunt
The house detective in a big Washington hotel helps a damsel in distress and ends up in the middle of robbery, extortion, and murder in E. Howard Hunt's muscular noir House Dick.
I am a fan of the Hard Case Crime line, which brings back forgotten pulps with lurid new covers, the perfect place for this story of the lost world of house detectives, hat-check girls, newsies, and lunch counter short-order cooks.
In the stranger than fiction category, this one comes from the pen of E. Howard Hunt, Watergate conspirator and very competent and prolific genre writer (under a number of pseudonyms). I have picked him up wherever I come across him and have always found his writing solid.

MLK Straycation

2010-01-18T22:21:00.004-05:00

Westcott House, Springfield Ohio. I always had heard Frank Lloyd Wright was odd but I didn't realize he was truly wacky until I saw his work firsthand.

The Disco Ball Is Just Hanging By A Thread

2010-01-12T18:02:00.006-05:00

I'd like to ring in 2010 by giving a quick shout-out to my pal, Cuban filmmaker Miguel Coyula. Quite a few years ago now myself and some pals ran a site called Microcinema Scene which dealt with the emerging grassroots DV movement. At that time we got probably 5 to 10 tapes and DVDs a week from all kinds of filmmakers from backyard horror directors to true auteurs.

But there was nothing quite like Red Cockroaches, a Shakespearean-sized sci-fi epic shot in NYC for $2,000 that looked like two million (with a priceless storyline too baroque to go into here). We realized then that we had found microcinema's first true rising star.

In 2004 I was a judge at Microcinema Fest in Rapid City, South Dakota, as well as taught video workshops at the Dahl Arts Center with Boston-area filmmaker Jason Santo. Santo connived to get Red Cockroaches screened at the Fest, which basically blew the face off of Mt. Rushmore and the minds of everyone in a several-mile radius. But I did Jason one better by conniving to share a dorm room with Miguel at National American University during the Fest.

Ah, how young and full of hope we were then; I was just getting going as a screenwriter in the direct-to-DVD market with Among Us hitting the shelves and Miguel had just finished his first major feature. And today, Miguel has a movie playing at Sundance and I...well, perhaps it's better to dwell on the success of friends.

Strangely, it has been almost ten years since I gave myself, on my 34th birthday, one year to break into screenwriting. And every year on my birthday I take stock and decide whether I want to keep going one more year.

In between, I was hired to write or re-write twenty screenplays: PLAYER IN THE GAME (Myriad Entertainment Group), MECHANIZER (Sterling Entertainment), AMONG US (Polonia Brothers Entertainment/Intercoast), BURNING GROUNDS OF THE UNDEAD (Polonia Brothers Entertainment/Intercoast), PETER ROTTENTAIL (Polonia Brothers Entertainment), RAZORTEETH (Polonia Brothers Entertainment), GIZZARD GUTS (Polonia Brothers Entertainment), DEMONS ON A DEAD END STREET (Polonia Brothers Entertainment), DEAD LAKE (for producer Bob Dennis), SEX MACHINE (Asphalt Planet), THE PAYBACK MAN (for producer Ivan Rogers), DEAD KNIGHT (Cine Excel), COWBOY (for producer Terrence Muncy), SPLINTERHEAD (Polonia Brothers Entertainment), PRIMAL (Sterling Entertainment), NEW JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (Polonia Brothers Entertainment), MENTAL SCARS (for producer Richard Myles), and three scripts under nondisclosure.

Twenty screenplays in ten years has a nice ring to it, really.

You can buy or rent or see on TV or see at a film festival six of these (MENTAL SCARS just came out this December on DVD). They are on Amazon and Netflix and ebay and available in dollar bins on DVD double features.

One other came out without any of my rewrite. One I think is still stuck in post-production. Two started shooting but never finished. The rest...well, you just never know what might happen.

Somewhere in there I found time to write a few specs, including HANDS DOWN, ONIBOCHO THE DEMON KNIFE, RING OF THE SORCERESS, ROOK, and my modern dress/original prose adaptation of Shakespeare's TIMON OF ATHENS (yes, you read that right). Three of those five have had interest at one time or another, but nothing has really happened on them to date.

For aspiring screenwriters, that's right; nobody has ever bought one of my specs, which I mostly wrote for fun anyway.

I have been proud of everything that left my keyboard and I have never used a pseudonym, two things I promised myself I would hold to all those years ago.

Part of the reason I haven't blogged much lately is that on 2009's birthday I just flat didn't know what to do next.

I took a lot of 2009 off from freelancing. I had done it once before, for the entire year of 2006, when a lot of personal and professional changes warranted it. This year, I changed jobs again and thought I would take six months off, which more or less turned into a year when I turned down two mockbusting jobs knocking off TWILIGHT and 2012. The good thing is that every time I take some time off there are still people that want me when I come back.

Way back in 1999 I thought the direct-to-DVD market was going to blow up and need content in the same way that the rise of mom and pop video stores launched the VHS boom a decade or so before. So I was able to position myself to be there when that was needed.

When I started seeing the grassroots DV movement taking off, I was lucky to be able to turn it not only into freelance work but an actual job. But about a summer ago I declared that grassroots DV was dead and it was time to usher in the next incarnation if I could only figure out what that was.

I spent a lot of time looking into social media and certain interesting not only philosophical but technological trends, such as the idea of truly free information and entertainment (like via Creative Commons). Strangely, I worked so hard at it as a freelancer that I got myself another real job doing it and all of a sudden was talking to other people about it.

I am still thinking about what that next-gen model is and how I can get involved in it as a freelancer. If 2010 brings less talk about rubber-suited monsters and more on these philosophical subjects, I apologize in advance. It will take something special or of great interest to me to keep doing what I have been doing for the past ten years on the freelance front. But time will tell.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Nerd Roadshow

2010-01-08T19:22:00.002-05:00

Found by a friend's mom in the attic and given to said friend who was eager to just throw these relics of his childhood in the trash, rescued at the eleventh hour by yours truly. Yes, that's some 60s Silver Age Spider-Man, X-Men, Daredevil, Nick Fury Agent of Shield, Batman, Adventure Comics featuring the Legion of Super-Heroes and an admirable slice of Gold Key Turok, Doctor Solar, Magnus Robot Fighter and more. Not to mention all the stuff I didn't care to take a picture of, like old Harvey comics, Uncle Scrooge, and a ton of Archie comics.

52 Weeks, 52 Books

2010-01-03T10:14:00.000-05:00

This was the second year in a row that I vowed to read 50 books in a single calendar year. Somehow I was able to squeeze in 52. In retrospect, I had several snowbound days and a handful of beach days that helped up the numbers a bit. I could have used a few more beach days and less snow days but all's well that ends well.

After swearing off at the end of 2008, I think I will go for a hat trick and try to read 50 books again in 2010. I am one of those people that have four or five books going at once and I don't see that slacking off any. I ended 2009 reading Assignment Treason by Edward S. Aarons, The Penultimate Truth by Philip K. Dick, House Dick by E. Howard Hunt, Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem and Tamar by Mal Peet (which hopefully will all give me a good head start on 2010).

In the meantime, here are my five favorite books that I read in 2009 and five honorable mentions. If I were to write this list again tomorrow, the top three would probably stay the same but everything else would undoubtedly be up for grabs.

Top Five Reads of 2009:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis.

The Murderer Vine by Shepard Rifkin.

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill.

An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe.

Five more:

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.

Babylon Babies by Maurice G. Dantec.

Citizen Vince by Jess Walter.

Missing by Karen Alvtegen.

Real World by Natsuo Kirino.

As always, happy reading.

A Long Winter's Nap

2009-12-26T22:33:00.001-05:00

Yes, that's a Colts Snuggie, work with pride. Merry Christmas all!

Thanksgiving Season

2009-11-27T17:26:00.002-05:00

The desperation of the night before Thanksgiving, the promise of the day to come.

Feels Like the Last Time

2009-10-31T15:04:00.001-04:00

Haunted Disco, Farmland Indiana; photo snapped by my daughter on a tour of Ghost Sites of Randolph County last night.

Speeding Bullet

2009-10-31T15:01:00.001-04:00

Odd photo my daughter snapped of me at a Halloween party last night at our house of my lame Superman costume. She thought it was a "just being a nerd" costume, which isn't a costume at all.