Walkabout Thoughts #75

Thoughts & Stream of Consciousness, rough and ready, from an award-winning filmmaker and author you’ve never heard of, while walking off long Covid, and listening to podcasts…day of walk, 5/14/2024

Weather for the day… starting out, 56° nice sunny day 72° upon returning home

Podcast Marc Maron ep. 1538 - A. Whitney Brown

So May 9, 2024 Roger Corman died. I grew up watching his movies. Thank you.

Marc on the podcast will interview A. Whitney Brown at his home in Austin, Texas, which is cool because I remember him well mostly on SNL (boy he had some interesting things to say about Dennis Miller, whom I had liked until more recent years when he turned into a braindead conservative of sorts...now I know why). But then Marc talks about being at the rock museum or something and someone pulls out a bunch of cool stuff, showing him things that’s pretty cool to hear him talk about.

Interesting story about Marc’s stand-up (sitdown?) show, when a guy yelled out “fuck you“ as Marc starts talking about "Jew stuff" (being Jewish) as he put it. After talking for a while about the event he said, "I don’t know. Maybe the guy just got triggered."

I do get a kick out of, after an entire lifetime of venerating, enjoying, and watching those who entertained me, to now hear the background stories to all of those things and those times in general. This is a good podcast.

I guess as someone born in the mid 1950s, growing up through everything I had, getting "triggered" was a luxury. I never understood those knuckle draggers who just spent their egos all over anyone in range, picking fights, arguing, generally showing their ignorance and using their egos like cheap, bad guy perfume (when real mean wear cologne, you see).

I spent most of my life biting my tongue about things I wanted to speak out about. I was raised to be polite, to fit into situations. Speak up for yourself, to be sure (if you met my mother, she lived that). Over time as society evolved, where eventually you could do that and feel somewhat protected, somewhat so in a group, to the point that you can often say it when you’re alone against some other person or even to a group...maybe. 

Some of us have enough privilege that we can walk away from those sitautions alive, or to at least survive the ensuing hospital visit, while some of us, won't, don’t, can't. All for what? An opinion? An orientation? Because you were born into who you are? WTF? What is wrong with some people's children? Like MAGA who punched people in a Walmart for wearing a covid mask. WHY? Who made you the fasion police, because that's what you're doing/being. That is, an asshole.

I have trouble with the word "triggered". "Activated" perhaps...activated? Someone came up with a better word but I can’t remember if it was "activated" or not. But to me "triggered" is not a lack of self-discipline, an issue of poor personal restraint, but something that goes to the root of one's soul. Something one truly can have no control over. While often today what we from many people being “triggered “is about shit that they just want to feel triggered over, or to let go, to respond to aggressively over for a variety of reasons. How can so many, have so many issues/problems. Some do, to be sure. I feel for them. But for too many? I suspect it's poor parenting. Perhaps not putting your kids through enough trials, to help them evolve to be strong individuals. To pay attention to that, to mature into it.

Fully, I agree some people should say things they say that trigger people. But we shouldn't get triggered. Annoyed, upset, irritated? Sure. Respond intelligently? Cleverly counter stupidity, ignorance? Sure. But we're not doing that as often as I'd like to see anymore. Not that we were even a race of geniuses about that kind of thing.

I'm not a person to say the kids are weak, stupid, whatever. We've evolved. Both sides however need to grow into these times so we're all more reasonable, aware, understanding, comprehending. That ain' "woke". Though on the other hand, "woke" is just better aware. What the Buddists (Buddha Dharma) refer to as Zanshin, or Enlightenment. React appropriately because you understand, or don't react until you do. React because you do, not react and realize later, you don't.

Both sides could toughen up a little. Especially, those who resent simply being better aware of other's needs who are less considered. 

I suspect there are many people who think they’re triggered in the way that they believe Black or Gay people have a life choice of who they are. It’s nice we can speak out more freely now. But too often people are speaking out when they should keep their damn mouth shut. Sorry, but MAGA comes to mind.

Too many delusionally believe (I'd say think, but I'm unsure where thinking comes into it) we live in a theocratic or totalitarian state where they are part of the majority. Which doesn’t matter then as long as you’re part of your beloved leader's group. Until he (probably "he") goes psychotic and you become part of those, as in the USSR when Stalin slaughtered at least 9 million citizens (somewhere between 6 and 20 million). Fun times. Authoritarianism. Yay! Rise up authoritarian autocrats! It’s all, fun and joking until you are the one that gets tossed in the camps, or shot in the back of the head after being dragged out of your bed at 2 AM while your spouse and children watch. Then it’s not quite so much fun.

Stalin by the way practiced the fun form of government called (wait for it) Stalinisn:

Key characteristics of Stalinism include:

• Totalitarianism: Stalinism is characterized by a totalitarian means of governing12.
• Marxist–Leninist policies: Stalin implemented Marxist–Leninist policies during his rule12.
• Socialism in one country: This doctrine held that a viable classless society could be built within Soviet boundaries, despite encirclement by a largely capitalist world1.
• Rapid industrialization and collectivization: Stalin launched a program of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization of agriculture1.
• Cult of personality: Stalin presented himself as the sole infallible interpreter of party ideology1

ANY of that sound familiar to any current America FPOTUS now in his own personal criminal trial with more trials to come?

Anyway, I think we need to be less triggered. 

And I agree we need to do less canceling. 

There’s a difference between confronting, or refusing to accept a concept. Than simply ignoring it utterly, or refusing it to be brought into the light were it tends to die after a while. I attribute that to a lack of patience in today society about the bad things we don't like and about the wrong things we think if you won't talk about them or refuse to acknowledge them, they'd go away. We really need to get that straight in our heads. You addrews evil, civily. When it becomes murderous, you act accordingly. You act proactively, in ways that are more intelligent than less. Holding your breath until it goes away? Is no solution.

So I’ve been doing these "Walkabout Thoughts" for a while now. Which, as you may know, started with my trying to walk off symptoms of long Covid and found that it worked. Somewhat (some is better than none) If I just walked enough miles. Before it would take me a few days to get around to doing a read through of my podcast thoughts and walking ruminations, toward getting it to a functional point of anyone else reading it. Now I’m often doing it the same day, putting it out the next day, at 6am in the morning. I’ve had my overall Murdockinations blog around for 13 years now? Something like that.

There was a time where a lotta people around the world were reading it. I think my biggest readership was during the Arab Spring when a lot of Egyptians were having trouble accessing information in country or about their country. So with this current rendition of my blog, with these "Walkabouts Thoughts", which I intersperse with various oddities intermittently, once the blog hits the internet and goes live, I then share it on social media. And I pretty quickly get hits by people reading it. It was nice to see this morning when my previous blog went live, even before I could share it I noticed there were already people reading it. Tthank you for that! Actually, I still haven’t shared that one on social media today, I forgot.

As for those intermittant blogs between these "Walkabouts", some recent ones include:

• AI Evaluation - "POTUS" Al Capone vs FPOTUS45 Donald Trump
• Mother's Day (or a holiday) blog
• Kicking Around What God Knows, With Copilot
• The MAGA Moebius Strip Conundrum
• Atheism was Created by Theists... Who Came Second

Anyway. Moving on…
Wow. A. Whitney Brown only got as far as eighth grade? He was always a really sharp guy. I always thought he was more educated. He just had that air. I guess like Dennis Miller. And according to Brown, yeah, book and it's cover, and all that...

A. Whitney Brown left home in 1968 at 15, leaving behind the kerosene lamps and outhouse and his family who was falling apart through alcoholism and mental institutions and he headed up to Canada to a rock festival with Steppenwolf and some of the people that were there were not long after a Woodstock. Then he went to Woodstock. How was that? Damn. Pretty cool.

My older brother is about his age. He had a band with my sister in the 60s. I think I remember him talking about wanting to go to Woodstock, to some big festival the entire country of young were headed to and it was going to be awesome! But he couldn’t get the money together and didn't go. He later regretted that.

For Whitney, he said LSD saved his life and that Woodstock had a lot of psychedelics. For me, I refuse to do that or heroin until I got out of high school. My brother turned me onto cannabis when I was 16, the summer before 12th grade (I turned 17 within a week). Graduated 1973 having tried weed for the first time with my brother that time in Phoenix on the way home that summer from Cape May, New Jersey where I was surfing with my cousin. My older brother lived in Arizona for about seven years. I went home and immediately stopped doing all the pills I was doing back then, which was gonna lead me to early grave. I didn’t get into psychedelics until I think '74 when I graduated,got a job, and moved out to my own apartment that summer of 73. Friend of mine turned me onto his fiancé’s girlfriend who was living a block away and who I eventually married.

I had acquired some acid from somewhere that first time. I wanted to try it, but was afraid to. But my girlfriend said she had done it before a few times and she would stay with me that night and what a great night that was. Then I really got into it over the next 10 years or so until the 80s when cocaine came on the scene. While there was still acid, more so... mushrooms. I’d have to say over the 70s and 80s I tried a lot of things. Make a good book or a movie, maybe.

As happened to Whitney as detailed on the podecast, I wonder if I can find a single moment in my life that I can trace everything back to when it changed everything? I want to say yes, but I also want to say, probably multiple episodes of that. I suppose the situation I mentioned above with my brother and the first time I tried weed in Phoenix, actually Mesa, Arizona, obviously changed my life (for the better) because I truly believed I probably would’ve done the wrong pills, probably with some alcohol, over that next year and never graduated. Or made it into the next yeara. I had a serious belief back then that I'd never live until 21. That belief freed me up to do a lot of crazy shit. Though I hadn't accounted for something. I think the reason I survived that, the crazy shit, was because I’d had so much professional training, already. 

Martial arts in grade school and early junior high, fighting tournaments, under a world class Sensei. Military training, search and rescue, and first responder first aid in Civil Air Patrol in Junior high when I flew and landed my first airplane, and took ground school. And damn just so much stuff. I used to say by the time I graduated high school had done more (back in 1973) than many adults had done in their entire lives. I mean, I wrote a screenplay about part of that, “The Teenage Bodyguard. “An internationally awarded screenplay, actually with a known Hollywood producer attached to it...if we can ever get it sold and find the right damn director who has a vision at least somewhat similar to mine, in telling a story of what actually happened, rather than trying to make it into a simple money making vehicle (That is, money, nice!). I mean, dude! Let’s do both!

Shhhh… Don’t tell anyone, the screenplay I wrote was my own biopic for a week of my life in the 70s. Apparently it’s bad form to let people know you’re the screenwriter for a story about you. I don’t know why it should matter. (no, I DO, with generally so many bad screenplays...I do get it, bad screenwriter, bad story, producer's/director's wasted time, they do get hammered with nonsense...)

But I have a university degree in psychology and phenomenology, both good training for self discovery, and professional observation and reportage. I’m also an award-winning writer/screenwriter and the screenplay is a multiple award winner. Now, if I can just sell the damn thing. So if you know any good preferably known, directors…

I pitched that bodyguard concept to a producer in London long ago now. I had adapted a paranormal romance novel to screenplay format, at the authors request. Which got me in touch with him. He asked, "What else do you have?" I told him I’ve got these written screenplays and I have these ideas that I’m thinking about writing. He said, "If you ever write that idea, “the teenage bodyguard", I want to see it first."

I’m not stupid. Over the next 19 days I wrote it as fast as I could and got back to him. That was no where near as good as it is now, by the way.

This was a while back I don’t know 2012 maybe. He said, "Thanks, I'll send it off to the readers and see what they say." And then, I never heard from him again. Over the next years I reworked that draft. I hadn’t send him my first draft, I sent my second. Never send your first draft to anyone. I  eventually worked with screenplay consultant Jennifer Grisanti and that producer I mentioned above, Robert Mitas, who still produces alongside producer/actor Michael Douglas. Loving his new series on Apple+ streaming about Ben Franklin in France.

Anyway, that London producer disappeared. Eventually, I tried to track him down. What I found was, he was actually a micro producer on very tiny projects. Too small for this story.Maybe he could have been a good connection, networking and all. I don't know. So I moved on.

Oh, one thing I did want to say about that London producer was, I offered to change the title. I thought it was too obvious. But he said he loved that title. Don’t change it, he said.It says everything right there. He also said the storyline reminded him of “The Place Beyond Phe pines". So I went and watched that movie and loved it and it re-oriented me on my screenplay. My first draft was trying to be a biopic, a dramatic documentary. I was trying to stick to the truth. But that’s not entertaining. That’s a documentary, which while it can be entertaining as a documentary, I was shooting for something else.

It’s a true crime genre film and a biopic. But that seemed to be working against me so I came to wonder, is it a biopic if it’s only covering one week of someone’s life? Nope. But the thing is, for people to accept the protagonist, they had to know his background so they would buy it all, buy into what they were seeing? So after years of not realizing I shouldn’t call it a biopic, I started calling it a true crime drama. 

Now I think I have a better chance at a director seeing what I'm hinking and take it seriously as a drama. Not to mention it actually happened as a true crime story involving a 1973 Tacoma Washington mafia family. And this kid how protects witness who is running from that family, who owned the Tiki topless restaurant in Lakewood Washington, the  greater Tacoma area's first topless joint. I researched these guys for years and the more I found the more I was stunned.

Turned out there was a federal court trial of these guys that had to be moved to San Francisco and became national headline news, because they couldn’t trust Seattle/Tacoma government as the crime family had their fingers deep into the sheriff's office, the prosecutor, and maybe even the governor, or at least his office.

There is a fascinating book by a Seattle newspaper writer who did write a book about the greater Seattle area mafia families. Good book.

VICE: STRIPPERS, PROSTITUTION, DIRTY MONEY, AND CROOKED COPS

by Rick Anderson

Just passed my 2nd mile, working on my third, hoping to get a fourth. Not really feeling 100% though.

Whitney is now recounting his travels on the podcast at this point, so awesome.

That’s something, he said, maybe remember something. 

After I got divorced in 2002, whenever my kids would be away for the weekend, I would hit the bars in Seattle. All I did was commute 4 hours a day, work hard in IT, then raise my kids. No time for dating, or adult oriented fun. I had a lot of fun with the kids, but you know, you need to blow off steam in a novel environment once in a while.

With the kids gone, I would take the ferry over from Bainbridge Island, and try to hit every bar in Seattle... over time. I'd wear completely different clothes each time: Grunge one time, dressed to the 9s another. Had some adventures. There was one bar I liked, owned by a Russian guy. Called the "Backdoor". A block or two up the street from Pioneer Square, which is a big party bar venue area, with the bar right next to the Seattle underground light rail entrance, on an incline and across the street up above...the county courthouse. 

There were steps going down to the light rail and a few feet away the back door of the Backdoor with steps going up (like 60 steps, they were killer when you'd had a few or many). This place was often packed, I remember fighting to get to the bar to order another drink so I could talk to the Russian owner. I gave him my card and said, "You know what you’re missing here? A website." Why that’s memorable is I said that and he looked around at that packed little room off the dance floor, which was off the other bar on the other side side. Everything‘s packed with people (almost every time I was in there, the only time it wasn't was one day I wandered in around lunch time and people were sitting around eating lunches). He took the card, nodded his head, smiled and said, "OK." Never heard from him. Days later, I realized how stupid that was. Why the hell did he need a website when a lot of people still hardly knew what a website was. And with little marketing the place was always packed.

I forgot to mention that I rewrote my bodyguard screenplay with Robert Mitas’ input. I’ve sent them both off to screenplay contests and for whatever reason, my longer more accurate version has won more awards. Although that shorter collaboration screenplay in a better screenplay format to be honest, has also won a couple.

You see, what I came to realize, or believe anyway, with the rewritten version, it is a better spec script, better sellable script. And the problem with that is even if the true crime drama is not as easy to sell, I personally find it (and apparently others do as well) a far better story. And for how I am, a far more accurate screenplay, depicting more of what happened more accurately. I found it was funny because I had cards in the screenplay with dates and Robert thought that would confuse the audience. Too many dates and jumping around. I was telling my childhood in reverse and the criminals actions in real time leading up to the beginning of "the week". Sounds confusing, it's not. And since we re-wrote it I’ve seen a lot of movies that have cards on screen with dates and by cards I mean on screen text, or inserts (SUPERS). Since we re-wrote it, I've seen a lot of movies that have those and a lot that don’t... so I don’t know. I wonder if it isn't just personal preference.

Well? I’ve got until I die to sell the script and see it produced. So I’m giving it my best shot. I’ve submitted it to several companies just the past couple weeks. If only I knew who would be interested I'd send it to them. But that's every screenwriter's dilemma, isn't it. Of course the problem is not sending it, but it getting to them, whomever would care to see it. I find it ironic because true crimes pretty popular, so WTF is the problem?

OK, I just hit 3.5 miles. That means I’m guaranteed 4 miles plus today. Yay! 

Whitney has a good point on the podcast about Mark Twain who he said was a stand-up comedian but they called it lecturing back then. He said he was his hero as far as doing stand up. I love Mark Twain, always have. I never thought of him as a standup, but I’ve often thought that about quotes of his.

Whitney said nobody made him laugh harder than WC Fields. Regardless of anything about him, I have always enjoyed his work since I was a kid, love those old funny guys, and duos (or trios). I was a huge fan of Woody Allen since I saw his first film back in this 70s? Aside from my psychology degree at university and aside from my minor in writing and screen writing, I had focused on the cinematic works of Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, and Hitchcock. Since then as I found out about all three of those guys being...problematic...characters, in their personal or professional lives. So, what are you gonna do? No one‘s gonna give a shit 100 years from now when they view their works.

On that topic, I first ran into problematic professionals and their art when my beloved grandmother told me as a kid she didn’t like Charlie Chaplin. She’s been dead for decades now and I’ve since learned Charlie was greatly misunderstood and malaigned. Sigh...

So the way I look at it is if they’re still getting money (and they’re still alive) from their art, consider not giving them more money. But if they’re dead, I don’t know, fuck off? They’re historical at that point.

Whitney said: “the casual brutality of life, day-to-day.” “to respond to that with laughter, to turn that into laughter… “

That’s interesting. I’ve long thought about writing my autobiography and I’ve been storing notes anytime I write anything that’s historically correct about my history, just toward that. I found a lot of humor in the tragedy in my life. Not alot, not always big, but it's there. We all have it. The tiny tragedies just to us? Maybe I need to focus more on that. It’s funny because since I was much younger, like high school, I would tell friends things that happened to me and they'd be rolling in the aisles laughing about it. I’d be like... you think that’s funny? But I was in on the joke because I would laugh with them because you could see the absurdity. The whole pain and anguish plus time equals comedy, thing. I never quite knew what to do with that. How to turn it into money, or a living?

In my way of thinking, a lot of my fiction, of my published sci-fi and horror, has a lot of comedy in it. When I think back in my life to just about every time I almost died, there was always laughter or a chuckle involved first and then it happened. Giggle, giggle, grin, then Boom!

And I got in my 4 miles for the day [this now is from after I got home: I finally took my prevsious walk's steps of 3 miles and subtracted from today's and found the "steps" for 1 mile at 2,190 (I'm just calling it 2220 steps equaling a mile, for me)]

OK, so I’ll leave you with that. It’s almost time for lunch.

As always, I wish you all, all the greatest success and good health!

Just put in the time and effort for those successes.  
Until next time!

Cheers! Sláinte!

Plane Crashes, Rescues and The Teenage Bodyguard

How do I keep getting into these weird research things? For "Gumdrop, a short horror", the film I'm shooting right now, I had to research serial murderers. And worse, actually

For "The Teenage Bodyguard", yesterday and today I've been researching crashed small airplanes within 100 miles of Tacoma in 1974. I found two that work. One as the crash site in the film, one as the plane itself.

I don't want to use just one anyway as it's better to blend more than one in characters of a true story to avoid various issues involved with that kind of an endeavor. Regarding the people I knew back then, I have already combined several real people I knew into a single character. And, changed their names.

In this new opening for this redraft. I chose the Cessna 210 Centurion, an above cockpit winged aircraft. Back in the 1960s when I was in Civil Air Patrol, I flew in a variety of airplanes. Cessnas, Beechcraft Musketeers, a T-34 trainer front /back seater, once even a USAF Lockheed C-141 Starlifter,  To date, the loudest aircraft I've even flown on. Louder than the KC-135 Stratotanker I flew in when I was in the USAF.

There were two crash causalities in the story. I took the story in the screenplay from my own story I wrote years ago, "Marking Time", which is in my 2012 published book, Anthology of Evil, a collection of my first short horror and science fiction.

That story itself has an interesting history. I originally wrote it when my son was about four in 1992. I was being reflective and ignorantly headed to a divorce. So I wrote a story where I was reflecting on my past and how happy I was to have a family and a child and ...yadda yadda yadda.

Now that story in that short story came from a story I was told one day up in the mountains when I was in eighth grade. Another CAP cadet told me the story on a break from backpacking that he heard from another cadet. It was about a crash site found by that cadet with two casualties, a young daughter and her father, the pilot. I was told while in Civil Air Patrol on a training search and rescue operation at Wing Team's camp in the mountains near Shelton, WA in 1968-9.

I wrote in the original about how it was. We were all competitive to be the first to find the crashed plane. It was an honor and a bagging point to be honest. It just takes one dose of reality to turn that fun endeavor into a serious life event, however.

I saw my first cadaver in serving mass at St. Joe's Catholic Church in Tacoma when the old pastor, Father Joe, passed on and I got the serve at his funeral mass. He was a great guy and we all loved him. I was afraid to see his dead body, in the open casket, during mass. But when the priest and I went up to him in the casket there before the congregation and I saw him, he looked great. Like he was sleeping. And all my fears faded. Then I was only left with missing him and knowing we'd never again talk to one another.

The original story goes that the two passengers had been up in the wintry mountains for a while before finding them and they were frozen solid in their seats. So they had to extract them, and lay them out, then jump on their joints to flatten them and get them into the stretchers to carry them to where they could be transported to the morgue.

I always found it stunning that it was among those on his team, a kid in jr high or high school who was doing that. Jamming his booted foot down on a knee to get it to crack into a straight leg position so he'd fit into the carry.

When I was going to publish that story some years ago, I rewrote it, updated it into a supernatural horror story about a spec ops soldier in Afghanistan.

When I started writing The Teenage Bodyguard, I needed a story about my time in CAP and that story came to mind. it wasn't my story to be sure, but it gave one an idea of what being in CAP could be like. Children acting professionally like adults.

So here we are today.

In rewriting the story, I wanted to make the find of the downed plane more accurate and decided to find an actual crash incident and build off of that. I spent time getting the jargon down to an acceptable degree to work in a movie where most of the audience isn't military savvy.

I found two crashes. One within weeks or months of the actual timeline in the screenplay and another eight years later in another location. Between the two it anonymizes the scene but gives me reality to base my writing on. Which is or can be important in writing a true story. And I value reality and accuracy in my writings.

How do I keep getting into these weird research things? As I said, for The Teenage Bodyguard yesterday and today, I've been researching crashed small airplanes within 100 miles of Tacoma in 1974. I found two that work as the crash site in the film, in the new opening. I chose the Cessna 210 Centurion above cockpit winged aircraft.

Two causalities as in the story so I can anonymize it as you do in combining characters in true stories sometimes.

This is plane crash based on a story I was told while in Civil Air Patrol on a training search and rescue operation at Wing Team's camp near Shelton, WA in 1968-9.

I wrote the story, "Marking Time" based on it in the early 90s. Then rewrote it and updated it for my book, Anthology of Evil about a spec ops soldier in Afghanistan and turned it into a supernatural horror story.

After shooting "Gumdop" I want a palate cleanser and decided to maybe shoot "The Mea Culpa Document of London", a short story I wrote up at Western Washington University in getting my psych degree and a minor in creative writing and team screen/script writing.

That story is about a medieval witch hunter and a bizarre horrific situation he finds himself in where he realized he's not only been torturing his daughter, brought to him by villagers he met years ago on another campaign (thus the daughter now), but realizes he is in the same exact situation his mentor and the previous judge was in. And it had killed him.

Maybe I should do a comedy next after the next?

I'd love to shoot "Quantum History" a story about an MIT experiment that went awry clear across the country in Portland, when a guy wakes up to find he is a young Hitler, literally, but with comic elements to it.

Research My Life - The Teenage Bodyguard Screenplay

This is odd.

I have searched for over five years now for a real person from my true crime screenplay, The Teenage Bodyguard. A pivotal character. I've searched over the years through my stuff for his last name. I was unsure of the spelling of his first name as he has one of those where the first letter can be one or the other letter.

The Teenage Bodyguard is a true crime biopic from my past about a time when I was 18 when a woman asked me to arm myself and protect her for a week until she could escape the local mafia in Tacoma, WA.

It's an interesting story I am not turning from a drama with thriller elements in it, into a full out thriller with the help of a producer in Hollywood. Today we are having a phone call to begin that process of rewriting and shortening the story into a very sellable and producible project.

This actually leaves me with the current form of my screenplay where one day I may be able to see it produced as the original drama and biopic that it is. Still, it got me to this point to be producing a film I wrote and I certainly have no complaints.

I had wanted to write it as a thriller originally, but I found too many issues from my wanting it to be as 100% accurate as possible. Knowing full well that pursuing a sale of it as a drama would cripple, or at least hamper my ability to sell it.

In the end right now, I would prefer to sell and see produced a film I wrote. I'm still building my name as a screenwriter and film producer. And we all have to start somewhere. As it is now I have just begun production on a film I am directing from my own screenplay titled, "Gumdrop". It is a short horror film based on a short story of my own ("Gumdrop City") published years ago, which was based on a highly disturbing true crime.

Then yesterday, after all this time, I found the correct spelling of his first name in an old HS yearbook. I then found his last name after searching on Classmates.com by putting in his first name and the name of every high school in Tacoma Washington, where I was born.

For all I knew he may even have attended school outside of Tacoma. He had been my best female friend's boyfriend through high school. In my sophomore yearbook, I found my friend's comments which took up half a page. I cannot now remember when we met, or how.

This boyfriend had already graduated. Not unusual at our high school. Many of my male friends were frustrated that most of the girls we wanted to date were already seeing guys out of high school, in college, or in the service. Mostly the Air Force as McChord AFB (and Ft. Lewis Military Training Base are both) is just outside of Tacoma. Both together now known as Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM).

This affected my friends and I to the point that we all swore when we graduated high school we would never date a girl in high school as it was so unfair to guys still IN high school. And we didn't want to be, "those guys" who dated girls still in school. It was something that later affected me in another relationship that lasted through my college years and slightly beyond. But that, is another story.

He, let's call him, Tom (his name in the screenplay, as names have been changed to protect the guilty) was a drug dealer. He was my drug dealer, for a time. A big guy, older than us as I said. We had graduated in 1973. He, in 1970 as I have now discovered. But I wasn't even sure of that for a while.

And then, I hit on a name that was familiar. I've come to believe completely not, that it is him. I've been trying to remember his name for decades really, just for the heck of it. But as he has a pivotal role in my screenplay, it became more important to me for purposes of background for the story. And the curiosity to see what he's up to today.

I know it is him now because of the name of the author of a sci fi book I had read in high school. They had similar last names and this new name I've found fits that. Also, I found ONE photo of him on Facebook and I can see him from back then in his face now. Even though he is much older and a lot heavier now.

My point in bringing this up is this. When I found him on Facebook I reviewed his mostly secured page. But his posts are open. Friends aren't, most photos aren't. Is he paranoid? A holdover perhaps from his drug dealing days in the 70s?

Fears (still?) of the mafia who had been dismantled in the late 70s as detailed in my screenplay? I've heard recent rumors they are still active through the younger generation of those original members. Those original OG types being all dead now.

What I found so interesting is that he is a conservative now (is that where drug dealers go?). And apparently for a long time now. He is also a die-hard Trump supporter. Delusional as they do tend to be. I'm not surprised as I had discovered in researching my screenplay story, that he had used me to block the Tacoma mafia seeking a murder witness he was familiar with, by using me as a cut-out.

He may have rationalized I would be safe. Maybe.

I only realized what he had done once I women I took from where she was staying at his house, to a new location he knew nothing about. There she opened up to me. He hadn't wanted to know where she was going. That seemed very important to them both. And they made that weirdly clear to me.

In these recent times, I became upset with him when I realized it what he had done. I deluded myself into thinking we were friends as we had known one another for years. But it appears it was very one-sided. I was just, a customer. Knowing now that he is a full blown conservative nut, it makes sense.

The next time, a while later, after the week with that women, I looked him up. Probably, I was looking for some weed. But he and his roommate had both moved. Gone. I never saw them again. Well once. I did see him one more time. A year later at the Tacoma Mall. I was walking along and there he was, plain as day. I went up to him and said hi. He reacted oddly, almost a frightened look in his face. He was with a very beautiful, tiny woman holding a baby. His baby. It was his new wife.

We talked briefly, I caught his consternation. I assumed he didn't want me to blow his cover as a previous drug dealer. I assumed he had never told her about it. Now that I reflect back on it, I have to wonder if he was worried not that I might blow his cover, but that I might be pissed off, and blow him away entirely, with a gun. But I was happy to see him in my utter and sheer ignorance. Perhaps that too confused him.

But I'm a gentleman. I was gracious. I let him go and he hurried her away. I thought it odd she didn't get what was going on. But when we are fully ignorant of something like that, why should we notice anything odd? I watched them walk away that day in 1975, and never saw them again. Until Isaw his photo on Facebook.

Overall The Teenage Bodyguard is an interesting story, as is the screenplay I have written. It's not a documentary. It's a fictionalized account of a piece of my life.

One I hope and believe, we will be bringing to the screen in the next year or two. And that I have and will continue to make great strides to achieve.

Just as a caveat, beware researching your past. You never know what you might dredge up.

On the other hand, you may just find that you have a very good motion picture on your hands.

A Creative Mind and Life

I have noticed something of late and I wanted to share that. Full disclosure, I had ADHD as a kid. ADD as an adult. I'm getting older, I turn sixty-four near the end of August. I was lucky. As a kid, I had lots of activities that taught me control and discipline.

Myself as a kid

It was torture to master. Years of practice. Years of pain and frustration. Years of delayed gratification. We all need some of that, some of us far more than others. Structure to be unstructured. Discipline to be undisciplined when the right times come upon us.

I noticed as I got older that I had better control over things. Far better than many. Not as much as some, to be sure. I had built good habits growing up. Or they had been built into me. Probably out of necessity so as not to kill me as an offspring.

It was a struggle to figure out, to learn, but in the end, I did figure it out. I found I had a certain way of thinking and that it was more productive to work with what I had rather than to work against it. As we are typically taught in school through K-12.

Once I realized that my life got easier. I also realized I had to hide it. To be perceived as the other kids. To fit in while not fitting on. So I had to work around things, had to work harder and faster than others. Reminds me of that comment on Ginger Rogers doing what Fred Astaire did, only backward, and faster. I'm not claiming to know the female experience in life as I'm male, but intellectually, I do get it.

I learned to make notes for myself. I learned to take responsibility. To not be a victim to my circumstances but to find a way to succeed despite them. I learned that if I had to do something I had to see it got done to completion and if that required extraordinary means, so be it. If I had to walk the extra mile from others, no one cared, as long as I got my responsibilities cared for.

I realized that I was very good at creating in going forward, not so much remembering and regurgitating. I was exceptional in synthesis, in synthesizing things. In taking from one concept and adapting it to many others.

I was very good at taking something and modifying it, making it far better. Eventually creating from scratch myself and then modifying that over time. As they say in the writing field, writing is rewriting. So it is in other fields. To create, you make something and modify it, over and over to perfection. To YOUR perfection.

As you modify you learn. When humans do anything, in doing it over and over they find the flaws and find the enhancements needed. Those who sse that, who apply that, find success. The other end of that is the business side of creativity which is hard for most artists and why so many fail.

My grandmother told me repeatedly, if you start a book, always finish it. I can today count on one or two hands, all the books I've started in my life and not finished. Probably on one hand.

Another side of this is perseverance. Those who give up fail, by definition. Don't be defined by your failure. As Thomas A. Edison said: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." I've heard so many who have "made it" who said it was luck. You do have to, as they used to say, "take a licking and keep on ticking." Persevere.

Being in the right place at the right time, making that happen, so that luck could happen to them. So it is luck, but it's also setting yourself up for luck to happen, rather than failure. They've also said that in their never giving up, while their friends had, who started when they did, some who were even better then they were at whatever their endeavors were, while they made it, the others didn't. Because they quit or couldn't take rejection after rejection.

A famous author once said about rejection in relation to writers, that you should collect your rejections as a positive thing. As a collection. Put them on your office wall where you see them every day. Collect more. Fill the wall. Fill another wall. Fill all your office walls. Then start to fill another wall in another room.

By the time you fill your wall, or your office, or another room, or your entire home, you will have a sale and then another. You have to acclimate yourself to so-called, failures. Because each failure is a success in learning, in moving past that failure to the next and so eventually to the success you want. Or another success you never saw coming. And be sure to see that when it arrives.

Opportunity knocks only once, they say. Be sure to answer when it knocks. Truth is, opportunity knocks in our lives many times. But we often never ever hear the knock because we're looking for a knock at another door. Or listening for a knock when it is a doorbell or a whistle from outside our windows.

My High School Graduation Photo

My sister suggested when I entered high school (and that was the year after she had graduated so we missed one another), that I should write notes and put them in my jeans pocket, the pocket with my keys in them. She said it had worked for her. And I knew she was smart. After some months I found that some days, I would have a pocket full of small pieces of paper with notes on them.

When I was leaving school at the end of the day I would reach for my keys, in 12th grade, it was my car keys to drive home (even better) and I would feel the notes, read them, refresh my memory on what was to come.

Or if it was for the next day, leave it in my pocket for tomorrow morning to refresh again my memory and then try to remember to, remember. Or to keep checking my pocket throughout the day. It got to be a habit as the day went on to just touch my pocket, to feel if there were notes in there. I would remember (maybe) what the note(s) said (which actually helped my memory) or when I couldn't remember, pull them out and review them. Which also helped my memory.

My confidence grew. I made it a point to show up for things on time or a few minutes early. I came to be known as punctual. Also, dependable. A teacher pointed out one day the difference between most kids who sit in the front or back of a class.

I started putting myself on the front line, in the front row. I found I could pay more attention, get more involved. I became more interested. I had always felt I didn't want to engage (a holdover I think from my lower grade school experiences. I found ways to trick myself to, or to force myself, putting myself into positions where I had to learn or to become involved. At first, I hated it. But I persevered and eventually got to relish the interactions.

All this led to a change in how I was perceived by others. For two reasons. My strong desire to be trusted and dependable, and those pocket notes. For a while later on, it became my watch with an alarm. But there were times, without a supporting pocket note, that the alarm would go off and I would have absolutely no idea why. Nowadays, of course, I have my smartphone and calendar app along with other apps for support.

My reason for bringing this all up though really has to do with creativity. Something I studied at university. My major being psychology, one of my classes actually was titled, Creativity. And it wasn't an easy class. I quickly realized that shot name classes were hard and classes with longer names were easier.

I've noticed something for some time now about my creative pursuits. I'm very good at them. I can produce a lot, much if not most being of very high quality. But not always. And, why not?

What I have noticed first, is a change in myself as I age. When I was younger, I had massive amounts of energy. In fact, I seldom got a full night's sleep in high school. I would lie awake most of the night until four or five in the morning. Then fall asleep and wake exhausted to my alarm clock.

I had a night job at a drive-in theater snack bar. I became the snack-bar manager for the last couple of years there. I went to school during the day, then to work in the evening, then home and bed. I learned to get my homework done at school during the day.

Sometimes working in one class on homework for another class. Teachers weren't stupid and they'd rail against kids doing that. So you had to be smart about it. And you still had to pay attention to the class you were in. But I seemed to be good at multitasking and it kept my mind from wandering (ADD again).

But at night, I was usually running at a high rate of speed by the time my head I hit the pillow.

Still, I had the energy to spare when I was young. In fact, being ADHD/ADD I had far too much energy most of the time. I just had to learn to use that to my advantage and not disadvantage.

What I've noticed as I've aged though is that decrease in energy. Obviously. I'm getting older. Regular workouts become ever more important as we age. It's not just that I could be in better shape though.

There is another and well-known component involved. I asked my doctor at a checkup some years ago about changes I'd noticed. I seemed to feel things more deeply. Emotionally. I'm more affected by things than I ever used to be. He said that was really quite normal (normal, there's a concept).

Obviously, as you age you gain experience and so you feel things more deeply, he said.

OK, that made sense. Then I noticed that my creativity seemed to become more problematic. That is, I've always been able to produce quality on demand. I still can, to be sure. Years as a technical writer do that, just as Isaac Asimov had claimed in his first autobiography, In Memory, Yet Green. A book that affected me deeply when it came on the market years ago. But for pure creativity and comfort, I've noticed a change.

Example. in 2016 I sold my house of sixteen years and moved to a rental in another town, Bremerton, WA. I went where the best deal possible was at the time. I had to. I wasn't rich and I was going to retire and live off of my retirement at too young of an age. Because I could.

I was retiring, young at sixty-one I was tired of on call and IT work and wanted to finally take the time and effort (and could) to explore my creative pursuits. Writing fiction, screenplay, become proficient in film production, perhaps shoot my own films from my own writings. And so I am now doing all this and making progress.

I expected to live there a year or two and look around, find where I really want to live after having sold the house, and then move to a more long term situation. I was also retiring from twenty years in IT. Which I did. One month after moving.

Now, if you talk to a realtor, they will tell you that buying (or selling) a house is like dealing with the death of a loved one over the course of that year. There is actually a numeric scale of how much stress you should have in a year that gives you a kind of guide by which to know if you are heading into taking on too much, if not headed into more serious issues.

Friends told me when I retired that it takes people anywhere from six months to two years to recover from retiring. It is a massive changed after all and I had not only sold a house I had moved into with my wife and children, but was now a house I was to move out from without that wife and kids now full grown. And I was retiring. All that in one year was a lot. Apparently.

Yet, I figured, "I'm tough, I can handle it." Maybe a month or two to reorient and I should be good. Several months of partying and doing whatever I wanted and having drinks nearly every day if not more, one day I realized that I wasn't slowing down. It was over six months later that I realized, I was finally getting over that previous summer's house sale and move.

Two years now after selling my house and moving, I moved again.

In the interim, I had to deal with family member situations, my dog of fifteen years dying and within a month, my mother dying. There was more family drama overall going on than I want to go into here but suffice it to say, it took a lot out of me. Now that I look back I think over this last move, even though it was only from one rental house to another and only a mile away at that, it really was more intense and compromising than the move two years previous.

Once again I am trying to get back onto my creative feet and needless to say, it's been difficult. Though to be fair now, there were issues with this move too. I had volunteered to help refurbish the new rental house so I could move in earlier without paying rent for the partial first month.

The guy moving out had three large dogs, hadn't paid rent in several months and seldom on time when he did and he took questionable care of the house and yard. It was a mess. We had to rip out all the wall to wall carpet and replace them and paint the entire inside as well as clean and remove things left by the previous renter. Unused to 10-12 hour days of physical labor and during some very hot summer days, I was pretty beat when finally I moved in.

Because the carpets were put in a week after I moved in all my things were downstairs except for a bed we had to move to have the carpets installed. So I'd been delayed in getting all fully "moved in". It took a while to get my writing desk in place or a working...workspace.

It was a little frustrating. My youngest child (mid-20s) was having problems finding a place and so had moved into the previous house and about a week into the new house before moving to a new location, and suffered the interim condition of the house along with me.

My real point in bringing this all up is... I find when I go through mental duress, and working for a month requiring oneself to ignore the pain and exhaustion of remodeling in sweltering heat at my age, is a mental thing too. I find that it compromises my creative endeavors.

I find I need a period of decompression, if you will. Of relaxation and perhaps, of healing. I can fight it, or I can give it its space, which I did as I happened to still to have that luxury. Lucky me, to be sure.

I have struggled to do what creative things I could. My hardest work is writing. Alone, blindly and boldly creating, if you will. I've done some events and other physical things where I could do something creative. I've worked on and been in a few local small indie horror film projects for instance. Attended some Cons. But my goal has been writing, creating, and film production as in filming and editing my own works.

Here's my mental image of what I'm dealing with.

It's like my mind is a vast and finite cacophony of (as in a murder of crows) eggshells, all arranged in a massive solid structure. Each next to and stacked upon another. When I go through these periods of, shall we say, challenge? Some of these get crushed. So I need time once the difficulties are over, for these things to heal back up. Or be replaced. Whatever works.

If the structure is somewhat crushed I cannot traverse the creative routes. Like trying to wind through a maze in a forest, where there is too much overgrowth and too many downed trees. IF however, I take the time to clean up that part of it, to allow things to heal and grow back, then I'm back to normal and not untypically, even better.

It's just that I find now that it is easier for this structure to get crushed than ever before. Though now that I think about it, there were times in mid-life when I had trouble being creative and I gave that up to laziness. When in hindsight I can now see it was daily stress and just many of life's compromises.

It is frustrating now though because I now have what I've worked toward for some years and I'm unable to be that creative or productive. Still again, my point in bringing this all up is that I know it will pass and I only have to work with myself in order to get back on track and... I will.

I have for one, made an appointment for the first time with a top rated consultant on a screenplay of mine that has been consistently getting high reviews (THE TEENAGE BODYGUARD). I have high hopes for it, as do others. But also I need to be writing every day for a full day at a time and I'm not. Still again, I know it will come... and eventually, I'll get to where I'm headed.

Because it's all a matter of time and allowing myself to take the time I need, to properly heal up and then step bravely into a new stage of my life.

But for now, I feel kind of broken.

Like my fragile list of daily habits has been broken. Floating, drifting, rudderless. I just need to rebuild my list with a new set of habits. Or the same exact list as I had before, which can be frustrating. When you get used to that happening in your life, that urge to rebuild that which shouldn't have been broken becomes more challenging. First world problems, I know.

Taking the time to live the new life, to get used to it, to assimilate it, the list will come, eventually. If I need it faster, then I need to do it intellectually, pedantically. to know that the rest of me will eventually catch up, organically.

It is in not understanding that, where some people go wrong. They become irate, unsociable, irrational. When all you need to do is relax, be patient, and work towards a positive outcome. As best and quickly as you can. No stress, just effort.

No. It's not all wonderful. But it doesn't have to be a big difficult life event either.

You just have to let yourself... Live.

I wrote the above during the third quarter of 2018.

At this point so much has happened. I have produced my first short horror film. I'm about to start shooting my second, more than twice the length of that first eight minutes short. I'm now working with a Hollywood producer on my screenplay, The Teenage Bodyguard. This week I'm shooting an interview of me to hopefully be included in a horror documentary from the UK on horror writers and filmmakers. And I now qualify ss both.

It took me a while but I'm finally in a good place to explore the creativity I had always wanted to explore over most of my life. Those skills and things I've gone through over a lifetime have paid off and I'm seeing hope for a new career. I've met many new and interesting people. I see a path up now.

It hasn't been easy, it hasn't been quick. Not by a long shot. But those who persevere, who set themselves up to be in those places where luck CAN happen for them and others they have surrounded themselves with, who hone their skills and creativity, who take the time to make themselves indispensable to others who can help them...they are the ones who have a chance.

They are the ones who made their opportunities. And when that knock comes, will hear it. Even if it is a whistle.

And I'm just getting started...

Seven Books Worth Reading Plus One...Plus

I don't usually go in for these posting on demand things on Facebook, however...mostly seems a pain for people to do that too you. Once in a while, one comes about that I feel I can get behind, however. This was one of those. The idea is, choose a book you love, share it and say nothing. Share only seven books, one on each succeeding day.

It was a little frustrating, however. So I thought I'd alleviate some of that through a blog about these books and my reasoning in choosing them. Yes, perhaps this goes against the idea of the effort on Facebook, but I just wanted to explain where I couldn't on Facebook, to give a little background in the hope it might be interesting.

There were obvious books I skipped because so many know of them. A few seeped in below. Like, Dune, perhaps because it was so deeply affecting to me (see below). Others were also deeply affecting but did not get mentioned. Like The Hobbit, or Lord of the Rings, because so very many others also felt those books so deeply. I just felt it went without saying and the time and space could be better used with other books, less familiar to the public.

Here is what I chose and finally...why:

Day 1
Friend and actress; Jennifer True asked friend and filmmaker\director Kelly Hughes and he asked me to post covers of seven books that I love with no explanation, no reviews, etc. With each day, I'm also supposed to nominate more people.

I choose artist Marvin Hayes. Aristotle's Works

When I was in fifth grade I was only allowed at our new house we'd just moved into, to go to the library on my bicycle. I was a bother as a child, not unlike my own son. Curious, investigative, always into...something. It was a wise decision. And I did go, only to the library when I asked. I discovered very interesting things. I'd always been fascinated by the written word. Sick of waiting for someone to read me the Sunday comics in the newspaper, until after everyone else finished reading the paper on Sunday mornings, I strove to learn to read young and never stopped.

On my first time at my new library, I discovered the "Adult" section. Not what you might think but definitely more interesting than the kid's section. It was directly before the door into the library, past the "old" ladies at the front desk, clearly in the open. I sat on the floor and started going through books, occasionally sneaking a glance at the front desk, amazed they let me unbidden at the adult section.

On that first time, I found a very old book by some guy named Aristotle. Single name. Starts with an "A". Had to be something, right? I started reading there on the floor. Something touched me. So I checked the book out. And they LET me! It was a fascinating dive into logic and ethics by the Master.

I knew I was onto something one day when I mentioned something relevant in the living room to my parents, a quote from Aristotle. By then, having looked up who he was in our family encyclopedia, which I also loved to peruse, I knew he was someone important, all throughout history.

My stepfather, who didn't much like me anyway, snapped at me that what I had said was stupid. I heard that a lot from him. I responded I wasn't sure that was right. He asked what would make me say that. Very carefully, a little scared, I said that he was a well thought of thinker all throughout history and many held him in the highest esteem.

He asked me, like who? I was surprised 1) he never heard of Aristotle as I kept running across him; 2) he didn't know people referenced Aristotle a lot and; 3) my response to him that, just about every educated and well-known person in history through highly of Aristotle. And that, shut him up. Thankfully.

From that exposure to Aristotle at such a young age, his way of thinking deeply affected me. All throughout my life.

Day 2
I choose, Nikolas Hayes. Slaughter-House Five,

Day 3
I choose, friend and fellow author Kurt Giambastiani. The Year the Cloud Fell

Day 4
 I choose, friend and photographer Erwin Verweij Something Wicked This Way Comes

Day 5
I choose, author Mark Baranowski. The Star Thrower

Day 6
I choose, author Mark David Gerson. Dune

Day 7
 I choose, author Stephen King. The Books of Blood

Epilogue
I'm going to add one more book. Not just as pure self-promotion but as an honest comment about a book I wrote myself. I wrote it as I do all my stories to write something I've not seen before. At least in some way. I wrote my book, Death of heaven to show something I've not seen before.

I do not like to have to explain its format but for some, it may not have the depth it actually has. I wrote it to exemplify that "Heaven" (that is, heaven) never existed except in our minds, our mythologies, our religions. But even lies can and do have a base in fact. And that is the effort put forth in this horror / sci fi book.

We had a reason, as constructed in the book, to think there are Gods, to think there is an afterlife (maybe there is, but is there in the "Matrix" or is it another thing altogether?). And no, I do not use the Matrix as a foundation but something entirely different.

The Universe is not just as big as it is for us in the ways we conceive of. But in many ways, in many layers, in many dimensions. I tried to write a book that expands on that, expands our thinking, and offers some disturbing concepts and images to stretch concepts even further.

I based this book on Andrew, a novella about a five year traumatized boy who grows up into great things beyond that of any other human being throughout history. Andrew is a standalone ebook and the final story in my first book, a collection of my older and original short horror and sci fi fiction titled, Anthology of Evil. By the way, I have a sequel to this Anthology of Evil II but I have been busy and have not yet found a new publisher for it.

Death of heaven (see link for more) in my mind is the better book. But one leads into the other.

IF you want a book like you've not read before, give it a try. So far people seem to like it. It just hasn't had the marketing and attention it needs. See, m focus has been on film production. I've been focusing for years on screenplays and one of my favorites, the true crime biopic, The Teenage Bodyguard is now in talks with an active producer and we're building a plan for its production.

This past weekend Kelly Hughes hanging with the awesome Alison Arngrim - Meeting actors Warren and Elif at Zombie Joe's Underground Theatre in North Hollywood with Alison and Robert. — with Alison Arngrim and Robert Schoonover.

This week's blog isn't about film production but it's been my primary focus of late. So for an update...along with Kelly Hughes over at his Lucky Charm Studio, friend and fellow filmmaker and founder of the Gorst Underground Film Festival in its second annual event this fall where I have been and I am again judging films.

I hope to get one of my own in there this year or next. Kelly just produced his documentary Hush, Hush Nellie Oleson currently making the round of film festivals. And a music video collaboration with the Italian band Postvorta with the same, We're Nothing. I'm also in his book, Are You A Good Witch, with a shot of Alison Arngrim ("Nellie" from Little House on the Prarie), who "murdered" me in one of Kelly's films.

I'm currently in pre-production on shooting my own short horror film, Gumdrop based on a previous short story of mine, Gumdrop City. A true crime story. After I'm done with the Bodyguard project I'll move over to a horror comedy I wrote that did well in screenplay contests, Gray and Lover The Hearth Tales Incident. It is one that could easily lend itself to a franchise.

Getting back to the seven books, they are all great books. I don't put mine up there in the same category. But I've certainly given it a worthy effort.

I'll just leave you here with these reviews by reviewers. Make up your own mind:

From author and reviewer Michael Brookes:
"The book starts well and has a Books of Blood vibe, which really works well. It's in these tales that the author's writing ability shines. He demonstrates a lovely turn of phrase and some of the writing is almost poetic in its beauty."

From British Book Reviewer Lynn Worton:
"JZ Murdock has written a horror story that had me completely transfixed! I'm intrigued as to what he is working on next! Although horror is not one my favorite genres, I recommend this book to those who do love it."

From WILDSound Writing Festival First Chapter review said:
"The story itself is very strong, lulling the reader into a false sense of security as two young boys hunt for treasure, before ultimately morphing into a violent and sometimes disturbing tale of horror. This is done with such swiftness that it takes the reader completely by surprise, which only enhances the effect."

Check out Death of heaven!

Sláinte! Cheers!

The Teenage Bodyguard - A True Crime Biopic Review

This is a couple of reviews for my true crime / biopic, The Teenage Bodyguard. I lived this story, I researched this story, I wrote this story. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, but not the criminals.

Ruger Blackhawk .357 magnum I carried

I have an alternate title for this story, Slipping "The Enterprise". Because what we were trying to do, was to slip by the Tacoma Mafia family who called themselves, "The Enterprise" and was referred to as such in local and national newspapers all through the 1970s. The question is, could someone like me, at eighteen years of age, protect a murder witness from an organized crime enterprise who was looking for her, and actually live to tell the tale?

Shoulder holster for the magnum

Obviously, I did survive. So the question remains and the intrigue is, who else might have, or didn't survive. And how did this all work out? Because the fun is in the telling of the story of how all of this came to be and how it ended up for everyone involved.

Was a magnum too much against a bunch of guys mostly carrying 38s and 9mm and shotguns? I'd argue, no.

My esteemed self partying at a drive-in theater with the friend in the screenplay the year previous

This is a story that oddly enough, involves and aside from the typical mafia environment and activities, parties, drugs, sex, skydiving, fast cars, flying planes, and... finding dead bodies.

In the end, the Pierce Country government near Tacoma, Washington, had to be changed so another crime or mafia family could not get their hooks so easily into those who were supposed to be involved in crime prevention and prosecution and not criminal support. Here are some photos of the actual things, vehicles, weapons, criminals and weapons involved in the story.

 

--

From BlueCat Screenplay Contest:

The story picks up relatively quickly after the explosion in the Carbone party—leaving Lena a few permanent scars. After witnessing the scenes involving [our protagonist's youth] Air Force background, we realize just what kind of a character he’s raised to be: someone who couldn’t really care about his own safety, but as witnessed with his reaction with Lena’s injury (as well as his eagerness to help Sara much later on), someone that has the capacity to care for others.

But it didn’t just stop there. Even with a skydive malfunction, it seemed like [the protagonist's] own life doesn’t even seem to be worth two dollars and fifty cents, as the repack itself was a bit out of his budget.

All this makes [the protagonist] quite the exciting character to follow given his astounding complexity. His nonchalant approach to life is intoxicating mainly because it’s like watching fire: although dangerous, it’s still alluring. The initial hook of witnessing [the protagonist] potentially murder someone, as well as echoing his words “do it” as he did with his first jump, is very well played out—as it shows parallels between one world and another.

The writer also seems to have done quite the research, and it’s impressive to know that the events are chronologically accurate. I was pleased to find out [the protagonist] actually made it out of everything and even had a family of his own. Given that it was a real story based off real events, I could’ve never predicted that he’d make it to that kind of life.

Overall, The Teenage Bodyguard is one heck of a life story that I’m surprised isn’t on the big screens already—a well-done thriller that knows how to lure you into a story about two unlikely people, the protagonist and Sara, and how they took a turn for the unexpected.

John Joseph "Handsome Johnny" Carbone, head of the Tacoma Carbone crime family

From The Blacklist Coverage:

The premise of a coming of age crime drama, where an eighteen-year-old protects a witness fleeing the mafia, could have solid commercial appeal, particularly as it is based on a true story. The narrative's period setting is rendered with a strong degree of authenticity and a specificity, through details like that of the commune, that makes the film's backdrop of the Pacific Northwest feel grittily alive and real.

[The hero] is an intriguing teenage protagonist, who is well-characterized, particularly on a physical level. His courage in protecting Sara from the Tacoma mafia is credibly rendered. The dialogue is well characterized as each member of the core cast possesses a clear, identifiable voice. The down ending, featuring the harrowing final scene of Sara in the mafia car, where she "closes her eyes, puts head back and hears sounds of children happily playing baseball.", right as the hitman next to her takes out a garrote, is chilling, surprising (in a good way), and sure to have a powerful effect on audiences.

Prospects

THE TEENAGE BODYGUARD has a viable premise and core concept that could have commercial potential, likely in the indie space and is overall a solidly written script.

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Every industry type who has read this screenplay so far has really liked it.

I am obviously moving forward on this project.



#producers #studios #screenplay #biopic #truecrime