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!

"The Teenage Bodyguard" screenplay - Ruminations - Happy 4th!

Wishing you all a very happy 4th of July, 2023!

On that patriotic note, celebrating one of our own... 

I know a producer who’s worked with A-list talent on films, and read my screenplay, a true crime/biopic titled, "The Teenage Bodyguard". It sucked him in enough to then work with me on a rewrite. The rewrite was a selling script version while my original was what I referred to as the “Bible“ for the story that was the most researched, accurate and detailed. 

I get the concept of a biopic been entertaining. But for myself watching one, I prefer do at times, accuracy over entertainment value. As long as it’s interesting, engaging, evocative, and informative on things that happened, especially when in arenas I am unfamiliar with, even if it's a bit harsh, or bittersweet, I much prefer that in biopics better than the ones I would like which are merely entertaining and then, I later find out that half or all of it was just pure bullshit. IF you're going to tell a true story, based in a true story, at least try to be as accurate as possible, as much as possible. Unless possibly, if at the beginning your clearly state, "This is all bullshit, but very entertaining."

That producer said about the ending of my screenplay, a true story about a 17 year old guy (he was actually 18, but the producer thought 17 was a better idea), and about his experience over the course of a week in 1974 while protecting a murder witness. She had been a cocktail waitress at Tacoma‘s first popular topless club, run by the local crime family, the Carbones, enemies of the bigger and scarier Seattle crime family, the Colacurcios. And yes, all of Italian ancestry. The Carbone situation made national news in the late 80s for their federal court trial that had to be moved to San Francisco.

This producer said of my ending that he hated it. It had "ripped his heart out". Which was the point. The rewrite we did together, I wrote it, he guided me, and is a more mechanically functional screenplay than mine. But we left out that ending. I loved that. I loved it because this was the orientation of the entire story: bittersweet. For the young guy in a real world, growing up in a tough town of Tacoma, Washington in the Pacific Northwest, a town far tougher than he knew. This is not a typical "coming of age" tale. It is darker than light. Sadly, so many who I have tried to share the screenplay with, latched onto the young guy, hot girl, both caught up in the absurd situation storyline.

The first producer I told about this story was a London producer who triggered the whole thing. He said it was a great story. And that bittersweet intensity was its selling point. I have ongoing access to the actual character in the story and full agreement from him to tell his story. He and his story both are the selling points of this screenplay/story. The problem I ran into with the story immediately when I started writing a screenplay about it, after a lot of research and ever more as the screenplay developed and through rewrites (before I met the producer I was convinced to rewrite it by) was that no one believed this guy‘s life when he would tell anyone about it back in the 1970s. 

So he eventually quit telling this story to people. Stories he would tell people about this life story in general were discounted and disbelieved. "Kids just don’t do things like that," they would say. What is so sad for him about all that was that he was already downplaying those things but still people disbelieved him. Which surprised him. They would claim he was lying to try and make himself look better. But he didn't lie. His desire to never lie is another story altogether. So when people disbelieved him, he was shocked to be questioned. Why would he lie. But then he learned how unusual much of what he had done was to most people. Back then.

Nowadays we know far more about people and more about kids who are known for doing amazing things. And more kids are doing more amazing things now. Just consider Greta Thunberg, for instance.

But back then, for that woman to have happened upon that kid, at that time in her situation, really was an amazing stroke of luck for her. Or them both, depending on how you view it. In the end, he succeeded in his first job as a bodyguard. He later had a few protection jobs after that and into adulthood. She remained while in his protection, unharmed, unseen, and unfound by her enemies until she left the Tacoma at the end of that week. The awakening of this young man, raised as and by then a lapsed Catholic, with an old-school Slovakian mother, and a distant, seldom seen, Irish father, with a troubled stepfather who really didn’t like him very much, these are all entirely other but interesting elements of his story. 

It was a different time in the 60s and 70s. Drug culture was more prevalent. Free love was, if not more of a thing, more of a cultural phenomenon. There were no cell phones. If you were in danger, you had to get yourself out of it or find a phone somewhere. People could commit crimes more easily, and get away with them more easily. 

Some crimes, like the one this story begins with and because, in that of a bouncer at that topless club, in reality his murder was committed at 2 AM in the club's parking lot. It was deemed by a corrupt Sheriff's office, first on the scene, as a random event of violence by an "anonymous person". When in reality it was done by that crime family, to one of their own and most likely, the Sheriff's office, at least some, probably the Sheriff himself, knew what was going on, and what had happened. As he was in the Carbone's pocket, 

I had well known screenplay site, "The Blacklist", perform coverage of the screenplay. One of the reviewers asked in his review, "Why isn’t this already on the screen somewhere?" And that was years ago. Why? Because I don’t live in Hollywood? Also, although things are easier now with the Internet, the Film Industry is still after all a business. For whatever reason, I've been unable to find just the right person who gets what I'm selling here. Hard to believe, but it's true and I bet this happens all the time with great stories/screenplays.

The aforementioned producer, when he read the screenplay, said he had trouble with the beginning. But he got himself through it and in the end, it made him want to contact me. He said he wanted me to rewrite it with his help. Which I think says something right there. 

After it was rewritten, we talked to several directors he got interested in it, who wanted to make it as a film. But either we didn’t really click with one another, or I simply didn’t like their "take" on the spirit of the movie, and it didn’t happen. Because I wouldn’t go forward. We had three chances to make it into a film that I turned down. Because no one seemed to catch onto what the film is really about or who the protagonist was/is. He wasn't just some teenage boy with raging sex hormones. As one true crime podcast put it ("Scene of the Crime"), he was incredibly knowledgeable for his age and time, a quite disciplined young man, with ADHD, who was quite ethical, and had since childhood had a strong sense of character and of right and wrong. Things that had gotten him into trouble at times. 

He had found the works of Aristotle in the local library, in fifth grade and read him. In the early 60s as a little kid, he had liked watching adult detective and court ("Perry Mason") TV shows, and espionage shows. Some he watched with his grandmother. While he watched kids shows too, these were not shows other kids watched. Anyway, overall this a very good story. I just hope before I die, or even after I die, that somebody makes it into a good (great?) movie. 

Ah, now I remember what that London producer had said about this story… It reminded him of the film, "The Place Beyond the Pines" (2012). Bradley Cooper and Ryan Gosling. A gritty crime drama. And that is what "The Teenage Bodyguard" is.

THAT is what I have been shooting for. More of a serious drama. But everyone wants to turn it into a teen romp or some bullshit. I don’t understand it. The screenplay starts with a few scenes that lead into the protagonists childhood in order to make his story/character all more believable/acceptable. It stresses ta bit on his family situation. He was perhaps immature emotionally, but in other ways much more of an adult than many adults. 

By the time he was 18 he'd done many things that some adult would never do over their entire lifetime. He was a trained marksman by 9th grade. He was military trained in the USAF auxiliary, Civil Air Patrol with search and rescue training, where in his squadron, he was a Flight Commander training other cadets in drill and discipline. CAP kids can get called out of school for search and rescue missions, whenever a small plane goes down, to search for it.

When he actually entered the US Air Force, he was made primary squad leader which the entire flight of 50 men take their lead in marching from. Granted, at over 6' the tallest also goes to the front right for reasons that should be obvious.

He had his Radio-Telephone Operators permit in 8th grade in 1968, in order to operate HAM radio and that same year he flew and landed his first airplane. He landed it with a 2-point landing, which the USAF pilot owner of the plane (a "Senior" in CAP) said was excellent. "Better than some pilots would do", he had said. That scene is in the screenplay. He took pilot ground school, twice that year. He had begun Isshinryu Okinawan Karate in fifth grade and fought tournaments around the Pacific Northwest. 

By time he got connected up with that waitress (through a "friend", or so he thought...), he might well have been the most adept teen in the entire region, if not one of the most adept and well trained on the entire West Coast. 

Tell me that isn’t all set up for one hell of a story!

I’ve not named that Hollywood producer who I had worked with, because we’re not actively working together now. However, he did said should I find a buyer on my own, he would definitely be interested in  being a producer on it. He also said he’s always looking for somebody for this project. 

He's a really busy guy, working on more active projects. He saw this film as a small indie feature. I see it as a little bit bigger indie project (again, "The Place Beyond the Pine"). So we’ve kind of parted ways, but on good terms and may still work together one day. I will say, at the time I worked with him, the last A-list actor/producer he had worked with, has been one of my performing arts "heroes" since childhood. Not to mention, his father. Who, when I was very young, with my own birth father absent, was one of my "TV/movie dads". I've spoken to other guys over the years, who knew exactly what that means, and who also had absent fathers.

By the way, interesting side note… That A-list Hollywood actor producer, whose dad I so admired in the early 1960s, up until he died too soon (but at an advanced age)… that dad of my producer had been discovered by a famous Director, back in the 49? Or so he said. 

After receiving my second-degree from Western Washington University (first from Pierce College), I attended a series of seminars with that famous director. I got to sit and listen to him Saturday after Saturday, about the most amazing tales and advice on film production and the golden age of Hollywood, about his career and the famous actors he had worked with. What I would do to have a video tape of those lectures. Or even an audio recording of it. I’d have done that, recorded it, but it would’ve been too obvious back then. I started that first day seminar to take a notes, but I just gave up because of the onslaught of what he was saying, story after story all that were so amazing and distracting. He moved up north here to the PNW to retire near his daughter who lived up here. Best seminars ever. Week after week of looking forward to Saturday Kramer seminars, in 1984, at Bellevue Community College.

The problem I feared I had with this screenplay, this story, this protagonist, this real person, was getting people to find his character and actions, believable. Just throw him into situations with no backstory seems artificial. It's hard to buy into. People might see it as fantasy. How is this kid able to do all this stuff? Or have the "guts" to even agree to do it? Some is just ignorance. Some is boredom in life. Some was his position in his sometimes troubled nuclear family. Some was his position in his dojo in grade school or his  position as Flight Commander in his CAP Squadron and his first responder training.

Nowadays we can maybe see that in a youth. We see too many films that really are fantasies, but sold to us as action adventure, sci-fi, whatever. I think about the protagonist in "The Teenage Bodyguard" in that he just had a solid foundation. He had a lot of training. He sweat and worked hard since childhood. He was a "dojo rat" from fifth grade, which means he was at his dojo 7 days a week, and even when the dojo wasn’t open sometimes, on Sundays. If he heard the Sensei was going to show up to do some paperwork on Sundays, he’d request showing up alone and working out. And begrudgingly, at first, it was granted. So after mass at St. Joe's Slovak Catholic Church, he'd take the bus to the dojo.

The point of all this? "The Teenage Bodyguard" is a very interesting, well researched, true crime biopic. It just need the right director who gets the story for what it is. One of these days...

A Mafia Murder And An Armed Teen

This is the story of "The Teenage Bodyguard." Who? Well, if you haven't already heard about this, in 1974 a teenager protected a murder witness, a woman and cocktail waitress for a week, from the mob, the mafia, from their "Enterprise". And he kept her alive. But did she survive?

Graphic by Kelly Hughes

Welcome to the Pacific Northwest podcast, "Scene of the Crime", who recently did a podcast titled, "Enterprise" (Also, here - podcast currently seems unavailable), in June of 2020. It told of the story of the Tacoma, Washington Carbone crime family who abused local Pierce County law enforcement and government all through the 1970s.

Years later, in 1978 during their San Francisco federal trial of their "Enterprise", they again murdered one of their bouncers who had been subpoenaed. But he was not the first bouncer they had murdered. The first was in 1974, and his name was Danny McCormack.

In the spring of 1974, there is a particular story that is of interest to us here. And that is the story of Gordie. After receiving a phone call from a "friend", he gave a woman who had been staying with the friend, a short ride.

When she got into his car, a 1967 Camaro RS/SS red convertible (two years later this model would be renamed as the Z28 model), she refused to give him an address to where he was taking here.

The first red light, and sign there was something wrong. Instead shea just told him where to turn until they got to her new living space. Her new home was with four people she had just met recently. With no ties at all to her past, or Gordie's friend, or Gordie for that matter.

At this point one might ask, "Why isn't this in theaters yet?" And if you're someone who could see this film produced, surely, say, "Hi!"

Exactly. Even the podcast pointed that out. The Blacklist, indicated that on an evaluation of this film. The Bluecat Screenplay Contest asked that exact question.

The Blacklist: "Since 2005, each December, the Black List releases its annual list, a survey of the most liked unproduced screenplays of that year. The annual lists are aggregated using votes from film executives working in the film industry." From The Blacklist

Bluecat Screenplay Contest: "Founded in 1998 by award-winning writer Gordy Hoffman, BlueCat has remained committed in discovering unknown, gifted screenwriters and showcases their work to a global audience year after year. Through written analysis provided to all entrants, BlueCat has supported thousands of screenwriters with many who have gone on to successful careers in the film and television industry."

Actually, I've been working with Gordie, the protagonist of this story, along with Voyage Media's head of their Originals Department, Robert Mitas. Robert has had screenplays produced himself, and worked producing films with actor and producer, Michael Douglas.
We are currently working to see this screenplay and story produced and into theaters or via another of many viewer platforms. I'd be happy with Netflix or Amazon Prime or others.

Text from Thursday, January 24th, 1974 Tacoma News Tribune article:

Patron kills bouncer at Tiki

The bouncer in a Lakewood night spot was slain early Sunday as he argued with a disgruntled customer in the parking lot.

Danny Derrick McCormick, 25, 3102 S. 47th St., was pronounced dead at Lakewood General Hospital at 2:30a.m.

He was employed by The Tiki, at Villa Plaza.

Sheriff's deputies were told McCormick was shot in the chest by a young white man who earlier had been harrassing a waitress in The Tiki.

After closing at 2AM, the suspect returned to pound on the cabaret door, unsuccessfully demanding to be let in. When McCormick and a friend went to their car, the suspect and a companion drove over and began angrily discussing the Tiki operation.

The suspect pulled a revolver, deputies were told. McCormick's friend grabbed him and told the bouncer to "get the gun."

McCormick was shot as he approached the suspect, who broke away and fled with his companion in their car.

An off-duty school security officer who had left with McCormick but gone to his own car fired a shot at the fleeing car as it sped away.

Mccormick was rushed to the hospital but did not respond to treatment.

It was this murder of a coworker that sparked this whole story. A story that led to a cocktail waitress to go on the run because, as she contended, she was IN that parking lot when Danny was murdered. A murder she said was NOT performed by an anonymous disgruntled patron, but rather by one of the capos of the head of the "Enterprise", John "Handsome Johnny" Carbone himself.

Why isn't this on screen yet somewhere?

Getting a film made is a magical thing. But we continue to work toward seeing this produced so you can see this story for yourself. And maybe, make up your own mind.

Ask yourself, "Am I Racist?" Just say yes... then do better.

I will not say, "I am not racist." That... is always a mistake.

I'm white, all my life. I am not as racist as many others, more racist perhaps that some. I can only say this...I always try to treat people like I want to be treated. It takes no effort from me.

And I don't feel defensive, or worried about people being better than me. I don't care. If you're better than me, cool for you! And I'd be happy to share a few moments with you to better MY life, if you would allow it. The thing about that is, you can't always tell who is actually better than you are.

I do not feel guilty about racist issues. I didn't do it. I wasn't a slaver and my Irish ancestors weren't either. In fact, they were treated like dogs in coming to America, and in staying in Ireland as the British abused and murdered them. But' that's another story.

I also recognize I'm not 100% NOT racist as I grew up after all, in a racist country. On that matter, allow me to share and highly recommend Robin DiAngelo, PhD, and her book, "White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism".

But first...

Because a certain podcast comes out tomorrow on Tuesday of this week, there are two parts to this blog for this week. First, I just wanted to say a few words ON the podcast. Secondly, and the main part of this blog, the far more important part, I wanted to talk about something in the podcast related to this blog's topic.

So, about the podcast. I want to give a shout out to the, Scene of the Crime. A local Pacific Northwest podcast who is posting an episode with "Gordie" being interviewed from my true crime biopic screenplay, "The Teenage Bodyguard".This story is about a teenage protecting a murder witness, "Sara", from the local mafia crime family after she witnessed a murder. She witnessed the murder of Danny, a bouncer at the place she worked at, run by the mob in Tacoma, WA. In 1974.

 That is about the true story, soon to be produced into a film. True crime films aren't documentaries. Parts are always fictionalized. But the podcast is 100% as accurate as it could be made. Movies, need to be entertaining and follow elements of "story'.

The podcast is about the actual people and events, and what really happened back in 1974 in Tacoma, WA. We are currently looking to produce the film as a 2019 era story. I'm working with "Gordie" (his real name) and Voyage Media producer and head of their Originals Department, Robert Mitas.

The podcast comes out sometime on Tuesday, June 9th, 2020. Check it out!

I contacted the producers of the podcast on the off chance they might be interested in the story. And they were. So, some back and forth, and then they interviewed Gordie. He sent them some follow up emails and then one final one to the podcast producers. And I thought I should share it here because it relates to the blog this week. And, it's interesting in relation to the podcast should you listen to it. It's pretty interesting. Here's his email:

"Quick message. I'm watching Official Secrets (2019). It got me to thinking.

I had said in an email I was just glad to get "Sara's" story out there. I later reflected that this is also Danny's story and even fewer people know about it. The thing is, I have a connection to "Sara". None to Danny.

I really have no feelings about him. But I know he deserves to have his story told too.

And that's all I wanted to say. I suppose in a way, Danny has more right to this story and it being told than anyone. So I'm glad for him too now. If Sara survived, she along with all those women at the venue where she worked, had a rough ride.

But Danny McCormick, didn't get the rest of his life. Like the woman who got to testify and died of a "drug overdose". But her story was at least somewhat told. In court.
Danny got nothing. Now he will.

Thank you.

Hope you have a nice weekend. Don't work too hard!"

The other reason I mention the podcast is the Black Lives Matter issue, which really this blog today is about. Racism was a small part of the podcast interview related to Gordie's years at his high school. Which was anywhere from a third to half black and many of those kids were from the inner city. 1970-72 was a turbulent period. We don't know if the racism issues will be brought up in the podcast, probably not as it's about a murder. Another issue was that of sex, which I'm sure will be dealt with in the podcast.

Gordie just wanted to make it clear that his reason for taking on the protection job in this story, though initially sweetened with the potential for a young guy to get to have free sex with a slightly older woman, really wasn't his primary motivation. Then it grew to be even less important as that week developed in1974.

A comment about "Sara". there was a lot of loose sex, free love, a holdover from the 60s. still some small communes around and though today it may be hard to see this back then as what it was, there wasn't anything sleazy about it. Though some to be sure took advantage and some were abused. Overall it was an experiment that didn't last.

Some would say for good reason. I've seen documentaries about women being abuses in some of these "communes" But that wasn't all of them. I had known some people in a commune or two myself and in one everything seemed pretty equal and happy.

In another, it seemed very clear to me the women were running things. It was interesting to see the men in the group in such an environment. They weren't "wimps" or "gay" or weird even but believed in the equality of each individual. I'm not arguing for them, just saying what I had observed. And that it wasn't for me. Gordie says he feels the same. It was interesting, but not for him either. And I suspect overall, too many women may have been abused in these living situations.

The whole thing, according to Gordie, just started to help a friend out. And then things got weirder and weirder. It went from helping a friend to helping a frightened woman out. But let's face it, a seventeen or eighteen-year-old guy being promised sex when he'd at that time had only one (ex) girlfriend who he had regular sex with? Yeah, it initially held his interest. High hormones and all.

Sure, it was interesting. But he was also highly disciplined (just watch the movie when it comes out, you'll see what I mean). Not like many of the guys he had known, some who would do about anything for sex. Guys who would unquestionably compromise themselves to be a "ladies man", an orientation so popular back then. Hugh Hefner and all.

However, the other issue, considering the race riots downtown Tacoma's hilltop area back then was something Gordie grew up being aware of as a kid. His mother had told him, never to go downtown when he was trowing up. He met his first black kid in junior high. The school had one. Nice kid. Then he entered the big scary high school in tenth grade and couldn't understand why the black kids there all seemed so angry.

It would be good here to share this comment from Gordie.

Back in high school, there were reasons to not like some of the black kids. But though he was intimidated, even harassed some of them, he never felt any animosity against any of them. Actually, most white guys he knew felt that way and when they did have bad feelings it was because a black guy was dating a white girl.

Then things could get a little ugly, verbally and in private. It was the only time he said he saw it come out like that. And even then it was pretty curbed and only happened a few times that he can remember. There didn't seem to be that much racism around. Not overtly anyway. But that could also be chalked up to not wanting a beat down. It was a turbulent time and he eventually understood that by mid-tenth grade. It wasn't just him, it was a turbulent time. Blacks were coming into their own, finally and he felt justified for them. No one, no American should be treated so poorly as they had. The evening news was full of reasons why blacks were so angry.

In all the years since those days, he said he has only met a few blacks (guys mostly) who he did not get along with. But then the overwhelming majority of black people he has met or had contact with, and certainly the ones he knew and worked with in IT jobs, he really liked. The incident of his meeting unlikable back people in his entire life was in fact far below the number of unlikable white people he has met. Some of which, he thoroughly disliked.

There were fears of some of the black students in high school, kids who grouped together for protection, something the white kids didn't do to such a degree but felt like maybe they should at times. A racist reaction against perceived racism created from racism. If you see what I mean.

So he began to pay attention to the news and came to realize these kids had reasons to be pissed off. He just couldn't understand why they were pissed off at him too. Still, he treated everyone the same. Basically, he just didn't care. White, black, whatever, you're just another kid. He just didn't get "racism". His stepfather a few times had used the "N" word and he had always felt disgusted by it. And his mother didn't like it and said so in the moment. So there was that, too.

It may not come up in the podcast, but much of this was in the interview. I would say, Gordie isn't racist, though his step-father was. But then he never really liked him very much. He had reason to become racist in his high school, but it just wasn't how he was raised. His mother had raised her kids to be accepting of others, to always be fair, to know right from wrong, and stand for what is right.

And to deal with each person for who they are, not by some grouping they are included with. That never made any sense. What does it have to do with anything? Not the color of their skin, or their accent or some club they belong to (but then the KKK wasn't prevalent in his town either). In the 1960s his mother was openly accepting of Gays, Blacks, Asians, anyone really.

Gordie had mentioned in the podcast interview about his high school experience, just stating the facts, really. But later wondered how he had come off. Did he appear racist? Would he seem so in the released podcast? He had several run-ins with guys in high school and some of those were black. But he was always able to defuse the situation before it got out of hand. Because he had nothing against them. Black or white. There were a few black guys he was friendly with, but he couldn't say he had any black friends back then. Friendly acquaintances, sure. The few times he tried to be friendly with a black kid, they'd just look at him kind of weird and the group would talk about other things. So perhaps wrongly, he just gave up. But then, some of that is just high school cliquishness. And we try to assign it to racism.

Still, he had always, and I know this for a fact, treated people with respect, as long as they respected others. This past week he was at a Black Lives Matters protest with one of his kids and their spouse and another friend. So was I. We all should be or have been. But then, that also doesn't make us not racist.

Racism is just built into our country, our society sadly. And that's the problem. And why we have to try to understand and learn what the problems really are.There are many videos of blacks being abused. But a few short poignant videos that I liked are from someone who works on Seth Meyers' show, which point out what blacks go through, and whites just don't.

Here's a few fo them. Amber Ruffin 1, Amber Ruffin 2, Amber Ruffin 3.

And that, if anything, was Gordie's problem in high school. As some of the black kids would posture in front of their friends and pick on white kids when the opportunity presented itself, if a white kid stood up to them, a group of the kid's friends would surround the white kid. So it was scary at times. I don't think many of the confused white kids though, realized it was also scary for the black kids. Mostly everyone understood and shied away from one another. Which was too bad. An opportunity missed. Though there was a reason apparently that the school had several plainclothes security people wandering around. But the kids all liked them.

They could have used some kind of bringing them all together sessions, designed just for issues of race. But let's face it, America was pretty ignorant about all this still, at that time. Still is. But ways for very different kids (not so different really) to get to know one another? Because those you do not know, can seem intimidating, when really, we're all just defective and scared too much of the time. Especially in high school? It could have been a great thing.

But those students back then also, luckily, had a great man as their principle, a smart, funny black man named Willie Stewart. He was an amazing educator apparently all loved. It was a period in that school that could have been far worse. But as it turned out, it was all pretty livable and everyone pretty much got along. In great part, because of that man. But there was always that level of tension you would feel concerned over.

It was just a sign of the times, really. And again...still is.

SO NOW we are up to today and what America is suffering through. But also, we are waking up about Black Lives Matters (BLM) and continuing  Police abuse. But really it's about so very much more.

Black people in the late 60, the early 70s were finally finding, coming into their own. Standing up for themselves. Sick and tired of the incessant abuse in their daily lives. And that scared the hell out of many white people. Blacks were protesting, just as we're seeing now, all these decades later.

WHY are we still seeing this need, this inherent racism? Black people being murdered by cops? What IS that? As someone said, racism needs to evolve out of itself, or it cannot end. Which is why we're seeing it again, and again, and again.

Yes, cops murder whites, too. But that's really not the point here and now. Is it? After all, IF we help with Black Lives Matter, to fix the police and this idiotic orientation, isn't that going to help us all?

We are all Americans. Period.

And we ALL deserve respect...specially by those we pay through our taxes. I don't' know why some police don't get that, why some politicians, especially on the right, don't get that. They work for us. Someone please make them understand that because they seem awful high and mighty at times. Why do we feel like they just don't get it?

Because it's a fact! We are all, American. But perhaps even more so for our Black community, as well as our Native American, or First Nations, communities. Who really, were here first.

Now?

It disgusts me people are judged (sometimes at all) by their skin. As someone pointed out, by our largest organ. I have every reasonable reason to be racist from my past. So does Gordie. But it just never really was an issue. For either of us. I can speak for him, but I won't for myself.

We have GOT to end this administration as it is only exacerbating the situation. We have to vote Trump out of office, along with a majority of Republicans in office. And the many Trump-appointed so he'd have plenty of "Yes' people surrounding him. Never a good sign.

I feel I want to say that if you vote for Trump, you're racist.

But let's face it, if you're American, you're racist. Safer to think you're racist than to not. Then just go from there.

IF you think you're not racist, you're not examining your life well enough. See, even if you're not, you work from a foundation that is and so, you kind of are. Get it?

Pretty much black, white, whoever, you have racist elements in your life. Even when you try not to exist within a racist framework you cannot even see. And that is all many Black people are saying.

So DON'T say, "I'm not racist."
Say, "I don't want to be, I try hard not to be.and I want change so I don't have to be."

Some Black people I've known were at least somewhat racist, but it was obvious it was a reaction against racism against them. Since birth. So safer to just assume we're all kind of racist and go from there.

Racism is a defensive mechanism that comes from fear. Sometimes as with white people, also from perceived oppression and not real oppression.

When you are afraid, you naturally seek a reason, a source for that fear and you react in protective ways. Sometimes in oppressive ways. better to oppress than be oppressed? I don't think so.

As with antibodies in our system, sometimes they start to eat you, the good parts, and that has to be systemically stopped in order to save your life.

You may not be able to see it, so just be careful about denying it. Try to see how you are defending yourself, and ask why, and against what and what is the real source of your feelings?.

Because too frequently, we're railing against the wrong people. Just as police are against protesters. Trump and his Republican party are against the American people.

As our society is against minorities. Of all kinds.

We can be better. But first, it's going to hurt. But keep pushing for it. Because if we don't, our children will have to. And their children and their children will have to, on and on, until someone finally stops it.

Let's be the ones to stop it.

Let Me Tell You A Story About Tacoma, WA in 1973

Let me take you back, into my past...to the year 1973. Tacoma, Washington. I was seventeen. Allow me to set the stage...

Myself in Manhattan in 1974

I had graduated at seventeen, got a job, moved out of my parent's house and finally, started my life. Like many teens, I'd been ready to be on my own for years. Though in reality, I wasn't really ready for it. In some ways, I was more ready for it than many adults ever become. In other ways, not so much. I was very adept at problem-solving, at heading toward trouble when necessary, regardless of my personal feelings.

Me on the left fighting in the 1967
Seattle Open International Karate Tournament put on by my Sensei.

I had started martial arts in grade school. I had studied flight ground school. I had studied search and rescue and first responder disaster first aid in an auxiliary of the USAF, the Civil Air Patro. I had been on a private rifle team and then spent three years on my high school rifle team. I had flown small planes.

Me on the left with my high school SCUBA club in 1971

Immediately after high school, I had started sky diving. I already had my SCUBA diving license in tenth grade and performed my first open water, saltwater dive in Puget Sound's waters the same day I took my driver's license written test. In fact, I was sitting in my wet swimming trunks immediately after my open water dive while I took my written exam at my high school, after hours.

I can remember being distracted while taking my driving test by my wet swim trunks under my jeans and if anyone could smell the salt waters of Puget Sound from me while we sat stressing over filling out our test. Still, I passed both tests that day, for SCUBA and for driving.

My 2nd-floor apartment at 17

One day while sitting at my apartment in an old house in Old Town part of Tacoma, a very nice area of manicured lawns and beautiful old houses, I got a phone call that would echo throughout my entire life to today. For purposes of story and filmmaking, we altered things to turn that phone call into a party instead. But it only made the story more interesting and wrapped up several issues quickly and neatly, increasing the tension and decreasing the cost of making the film overall.

That phone call led me to some years ago, to begin writing a new screenplay. I had just been thinking of what story from my past would make an interesting story, one that could be written and filmed and sold and shown in theaters. See, when I left my parent's house in 1973 it was my desire, after a childhood of adventures, to continue on that path to bigger and better adventures, better stories, stories I could one day, as an old man, write and people might want to buy and read, supplementing my retirement.

By this time in about 2013, I had published short horror stories for money. Years before in the 80s I had gotten published in various local computer magazines, those that looked like tiny newspapers or a Nickel want ads format. I'd gotten published in the greater Seattle area and my favorite piece "Cyberspace", about the new internet for people and not just the military and universities, and about workers and managers dealing with the use of the internet at work.

Many managers were freaking out about it...should they fire employees over it? I argued it was little different at the time as over personal use of telephones which once gave managers great concertation and to today, is an issue with employees. Especially considering today the use of cell and smartphones.

So, I reviewed in my mind on that day in 2013, what stories I had that would be best to attempt a biopic of my past life. I reviewed my published stories and my memories. I looked at old photos.  I considered stories from my years in the USAF when I had a secret clearance for working around nuclear weapons. Some interesting stories there and I'm released from talking about my work in the service after twenty-five years had passed. Which they have. I thought about years growing up in the 60s and 70s and even 80s. Lot's of interesting stuff then.

In the 90s and after 2000 I was in IT work, raising my kids and my life had toned down quite a bit. In fact, when my son was about eighteen months old in 1989 I remember driving down the street considering if in now having a child I shouldn't curb my activities and do my best to be there for him growing up. And so that day I truly became a father. Then in 1993 my daughter came about and even more reason to live sane and safe.

Then I remembered something from my past, when I was seventeen. I graduated from high school and moved out of my parents as soon as I could. I got an apartment in an old house and a job where my sister had her first post-high school job, three years prior to me. Then one day I was sitting at home and a friend called me and asked that I give a woman a ride who was staying with him and his roommate. To make a long story short, I gave her a ride and ... the rest of that story seeped back into my mind.

As I ran over that day, that week actually, I realized that may be the story. My most marketable story. A story I had never told anyone. And the more I thought about it the more I couldn't believe I hadn't thought about it sooner.

Because the story was about my staying with a woman for a week until she could leave town. Something about where she had worked, at the Polynesian style Tiki Restaurant in the Tacoma suburb community of Lakewood, Washington. there had been a murder three of the young bouncer there. It was at Tacoma's first topless venue. The bouncer was only twenty-five.

The woman, in about her late twenties, admitted to being where the murder had happened and said that those who committed it believed she saw it. A murder allegedly according to the newspaper and Sheriff's office was by an anonymous patron. But a murder she claimed had been committed by the restaurant owners themselves. Those "owners" were the local mafia. Not like today where you hear about a mafia of a loosely held gang. This was the real mafia.

So I agreed. I would stay with her for that week and keep her out of trouble, away from prying eyes and keep her alive until she could leave town forever for her old home town. It was an interesting week. So I agreed. With myself. That would be the story, the screenplay I would write. One day. Some day. Time passed. Occasionally I would research some on it but never got past that stage.

A few months later I was contacted by an author whom I had written an adaptation of her novel, an espionage romance, to screenplay format. it had been a few years. She said her book been optioned once for a film, but the year had passed and the option expired. Now she had interest from another producer. One in London who wanted to see it. So I contacted him via email.

I ended up sending him a copy of the screenplay. In our emails back and forth he asked me what else i had available. So I sent him a list of my finished screenplays and protected screenplays I was considering writing. I mentioned Gray and Lover The Heart Tales Incident, which had been a semi-finalist in the Circus Road Films screenplay contest. I mentioned a few others: Colorado Lobsters.

And, Popsicle Death, Sarah, and Poor Lord Ritchie the three short stories/screenplays I had included as a part of Gray and Lover and then due to coverage suggesting removing them and let the frame and main part of the screenplay to run free, I  then cut. And to very positive effect in coming close to winning a contest with it. But then I set Gray and Lover aside for this new property.

I included a list of screenplays I was thinking of writing. He latched right onto one and asked to see it first should I ever write it. The name really grabbed him: "The Teenage Bodyguard". I finished writing it in nineteen days and sent it back to him. I never heard back from him on either property. I looked him up later and found he had disappeared from the scene. So I moved on. Continued to research and send out to contests that gave feedback. I honed the screenplay and researched more.

I'll skip the ins and outs of my efforts on this screenplay. However, through my research, I stumbled onto exactly what I had gotten myself into back in 73. The story only continued to get more interesting.

I finally got a producer to work with me just a few months ago and because of that, we have redrafted the screenplay to a smaller and more marketable approach. It's been a learning experience with producer Robert Mitas. A nice guy, interesting and knowledgable guy I've enjoyed working with who is now attached to my project.

Robert has a few irons in the fire, another film in the works similar to mine as it's a true story from a young guy's past and I'm looking forward to seeing it.

I watched his latest film, an adaptation of Shirley Jackson's story, "We Have Always Lived In The Castle". Michael Douglas was an executive producer. I really liked it. Crispin Glover was excellent as always as a quirky character, an uncle.

For my project, our project, we are now looking for a director and have a shortlist we are working off of. I look forward to seeing this project produced because it's an interesting story, a story about a place and time that hasn't received any attention.

Who KNEW there were mafia efforts in Tacoma, Washington in the 1970s? I didn't and I lived through going up against them. I just thought it was a bunch of bad actors at the time. Had I known back then, at seventeen, who they were, would it have made any difference to me at the time? I really don't think so. Here was a frightened and abused woman, who was asking for help and who was I with all the skills at my disposal, to walk away from her. That just wasn't me.

There is much more to this story. You'll be able to watch some of it in "The Teenage Bodyguard" once we get it produced and on screen for people to see. It's a much bigger story than will be on screen and maybe we'll get around to telling more of it in ensuing years. But I believe, as does Robert, that what you'll see when this version, this part of the story gets told, is a very interesting and entertaining film and you won't regret watching 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.