And So It Goes

I renewed my library card today over lunch. What a great feeling. Almost as good as voting, or hearing the Star Spangled Banner before a high school basketball game in Indiana on a snowy Friday night.

But I got a genuine shock when I got an email from Michael Tolkin yesterday. He had written an interesting essay that has helped me over a few rough patches in my humble career, and wrote me about some of my comments about it here at this very blog (as seen way back here). He must have been googling pretty deep to find this dusty basement corner of the Internet, and I appreciate him taking the time to write. I'm not ready to knock my screenwriting hero William Goldman off his pedestal, but Mr. Tolkin's now a close second.

As I predicted, I got eliminated from John Layman's American Idol-style blog competition for being away from the internet last week. It was fun while it lasted, and lasted longer than I thought. I got a pantsload of hits from the fine people at John's site too. Here's what John said:

WEEK SIX LOSER#1: MARY BRICKTHROWER'S THE WRETCHED GIRL
WEEK SIX LOSER#2: JOHN OAK DALTON
It's not like John Oak Dalton did not warn us. He said he would not be blogging for a while, and then ceased to. However, to use a (blegh!) sports analogy, one does not stop playing the game when you are on the verge of making the playoffs. Sadly, we must bid a fond farewell to JOD. However, it should be mentions, that in recent posts from his blog, John used headers from various Alice Donut song titles, and that did not go unnoticed. I wonder, is John actually a fan, or was he just shamelessly trying to survive the competition. It doesn't matter now, as John Oak Dalton has been eLAYMANated!!! At least JOD goes out with a bang for using Alice Donut songs, while Mary B goes out with a humiliating whimper.

Back to more from HELLSHOCK tomorrow. Until then, I'm at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.