Moonlight and Stars in your Strawberry Wine

Yesterday marked the 41st year I have spent on the earth. It has been seven years since I decided, after a long layoff, to get back into freelancing.

I would have to sit down and count but I think I have written somewhere between 15-20 screenplays on assignment since then and maybe two or three specs. I have about a half-dozen or so you can go out and get on the shelves with a few more in the chute. But every year on my birthday and evaluate where I am and whether I want to go one more year.

In 2006 I took a year off from writing. I had just changed jobs/careers and coupled that with some family issues. Last December I decided to pick up the pen again and was surprised to find that there were still people wanting to work with me after my self-imposed exile. Since December I have done SPLINTERHEAD and NEW JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH for Polonia Brothers Entertainment, PRIMAL for director Michael Su (which has since come out, minus my rewrite, but that's how it goes sometimes), MENTAL SCARS for producer Richard Myles, and am working on URAMESHIYA/GHOST SCREAM for director Amit Tripuraneni, with another secret project in the offing. I have worked pretty steadily since I started back up, pretty much picking up right where I left off.

This year I want to expand my base a little bit and look harder at other elements of the writing world I have been interested in. To that end I started keeping a new blog, THE HOMEMADE WORLD REVIEW, which you can check out here. Hopefully you will see more efforts in the coming months.

I had a nice birthday. I got some after shave and a new wallet and some clothes, and a gift certificate to "Books A Million" from my daughter. We had pizza with my parents and then went to the home opening football game of my alma mater in their shining new stadium. But they broke my heart, losing by one in the waning seconds.

Until next year, give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Ghostbusters 3

It's good to feed the muse once in a while. My wife and I made a quick trip up to Chicago and checked out the Art Institute. This is a great place that has such works as Edward Hopper's Nighthawks and Grant Wood's American Gothic. If you have ever played the game "Masterpiece" you know what I'm talking about.

More Art

Here we are in front of the Dayton Art Insitute in Dayton, Ohio. There was some interesting art, and a really good asparagus and blue cheese soup there in the cafe.

Up, Up and Away

A pretty cool sculpture that is a tribute to the Wright Brothers, at the Dayton Art Institute. This is my new desktop background.

Sure As You Can't Steer A Train, You Can't Change Your Fate

I saw THE LIVES OF OTHERS the other night and thought, damn I wish I had written that. Even though I don't know German.

Meanwhile, and I knew this day was coming, you can get several of my movies in dollar bins nationwide. As reported by Tim at the Polonia Brothers Fan Club, double DVDs of FEEDERS/AMONG US and HOLLA IF I KILL YOU/PETER ROTTENTAIL are cropping up in Dollar Stores across this great land. I grabbed myself one of each already.

Check out my pal Amit Tripuraneni's new movie FIVE here, with the first couple of minutes posted online. Looks like they shot the eyes out of this one. This will be playing at Microcinema Fest in a few short sweet weeks.

The return of mom and pop video stores? It does my heart (and my career) good.

Empire Star

A while back I wrote how I would love to go to Nigeria and become the William Goldman of the Nigerian film industry. Now I'm learning this emerging industry, which is all shot fast and cheap on video, almost entirely direct to video and largely genre-driven, is the third largest film industry in the world. They even have a name for it now--Nollywood. Damn, if I took the Polonia Brothers with me we could be like Dreamworks over there. I seriously would like to write something for that market.

These guys will give you a lot to think about. Especially this part.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Zirn Left Unguarded, the Jenjik Palace in Flames, Jon Westerly Dead

I moved my daughter to college, my wife has been sick and also heartbroken, 50 to 75 percent of the people at my day job have been gone with various family dramas and illnesses, the midwest is facing a drought, I owe a lot of people a lot of emails, the great Pacer Reggie Miller may unretire and go play for the Celtics.

But the world is full of small happinesses. I found a 1,000 page omnibus at the library called THE SPACE OPERA RENAISSANCE which I love. I heard "Spinning Wheel" on the radio and thought about days gone by. A friend showed me a baby squirrel he found he is nursing back to health. My wife made homemade ice cream. The world is good.

Give me a yell at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning

The real world has encroached onto my blogging time quite a bit lately, but I hope to return to regular programming before long. But go check out the site for Microcinema Fest to see what promises to be a really strong lineup of projects from the micro world, once again in beautiful sunny Palatine Illinois. It looks like Amit Tripuraneni's FIVE will be closing out the Fest, the sweet spot where SEX MACHINE sat last year. If you're in the neighborhood come holla at me and my brother there this year!

In the meantime I am punching up a third draft of URAMESHIYA (GHOST SCREAM) for my pal, the aforementioned Amit Tripuraneni, and then seeing what the world brings.

I keep forgetting to tell people that I did this. I called it FRANKENSTEIN THUMB and will be making photocopies by the end of the week if anybody wants one.

I wrote in here recently that the Redbox in front of the McDonald's in the little town ten minutes away is now officially the closest video store to my house. I finally stopped and rented one and it was pretty cool. There was actually a line there, so I'm thinking I'm not the only one who feels the same way. When I walked in my wife narrowed her eyes and said, "You just couldn't stay away from it, could you?"

Give me a yell at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Grey Flannel Life

It's been one of those hairy days when you look around and almost two weeks have gone by. I hope to return to the blogosphere soon; in the meantime, check out my new blog here.

The yard is a blasted desert, the air God's hair dryer.

I did have a BBQ sandwich dressed with blue cheese chunks that I can't stop thinking about.

I stumbled across ON THE LOT again the other night, after I had sworn it off. I keep forgetting that reality shows aren't real, and I should have remembered that more clearly as ARMED AND FAMOUS came to my hometown not long ago to make a show about law enforcement and mostly used their time there to ridicule the populace.

So much alleged fakery and trickery sprung up around ON THE LOT, this supposed reality search for a new movie director, that many people jumped ship and formed their own website that is currently hosting its own contest. The whole thing makes me a bit tired so google it for yourself if you care to know more.

They are down to six people, two of whom I was suprised to see as they should have been kicked off in the first ten minutes. They are down to one episode a week and the elimination of contestants wasn't even shown live any more. They are wheezing to a conclusion and in the end I just feel sorry for the guys left. Some of them ransomed off their lives to be on this show and it's going to be a sad footnote. I wonder what work, if any, these guys are going to be able to get. I'm sure everybody involved feels a bit sick to the stomach.

Sadly for them, I'm getting more work than these guys. I am getting ready to do a third draft of URAMESHIYA (GHOST SCREAM) for director Amit Tripuraneni. More on this soon.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.