Just Like the One in Our Backyard

This post first appeared in my e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP.

 A long time ago I took a handwritten script from John Polonia called PSYCHO CLOWN and over a three day weekend typed it up/rewrote it into a screenwriting software program and turned it into PETER ROTTENTAIL, without realizing that almost twenty years later I would still be getting on social media around Easter time and finding all the people who watch it as part of their holiday tradition.

I'm beginning to feel that way about another film I wrote, NOAH'S SHARK.  There has been A LOT of commentary on social media about it. 

There seems to be a general consensus that I was either crazy or on drugs, when I was rather quietly tapping away on my laptop drinking Coke Zero and listening to soft rock of the 70s on SiriusXM.

More fun are the people trying to read real Biblical storytelling into the movie, which I actually enjoy because I DID try to cleverly weave in real things and sort of get frustrated when people think I made up stuff like "The Witch of Endor", a real Biblical character.  It DOES scare me a little when people who have really studied the Bible are like "Noah is portrayed blah blah when in real life he was blah blah" when I didn't even bother to watch the Noah movie with Russell Crowe.  It's a rock and a hard place, but I had fun writing it, and that's how I pick my for hire scripts now--if I would have fun writing it.

At one point I was trying to figure an angle on DUNE WORLD and always thought it was interesting that Philip K. Dick used the I Ching to help with his storytelling, so I too used the I Ching for some of the dialogue.  Naturally, everybody thinks I was writing "gobbledygook" and "nonsense" but for those who know, they know, and that's who I wrote it for anyway.

Anyway, head over to social media (especially Twitter) and type in "Noah's Shark" or "Noah's Shark review" and see it unfold!  Some of the podcasts dissecting the movie are longer than the movie!

I've really flexed my muscles by writing some short stories for the Weekly Spooky podcast that couldn't be made on the budgets of most of the films I've worked on.  The site has been re-designed recently, and now you can search for mine, if podcasts are your kind of thing:  

https://www.weeklyspooky.com/search/?q=john+oak+dalton

It seems like more things in the world suck than not right now, including the death this week of my dog Bonnie, 14 years old and our empty nest baby.  But if the worst thing I ever have to do is dig a grave for a dog I loved like a person, I'll count myself lucky.

But the astounding thing was almost 200 comments on Facebook (and more than 500 interactions) about her, which makes me think we might just make it as a society, after all, if that many people care about dogs.

I've finished two screenplays lately and chunking on a third, so anything can happen.  Wishing all of you well.

I'm On A Wavelength Far From Home

This post first appeared in my newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP.

Easter has come and gone, always a busy season for me.  It's when I get on social media and interact with all of the people watching PETER ROTTENTAIL.  For something I wrote back in the early 2000s, it has just hung around and hung around.  It's fun to see.

It doesn't hurt that now you can watch it for free on Tubi.

If you want to add more spirituality to your Easter viewing next year, another movie I wrote, NOAH'S SHARK, is free on Tubi now too.

Man, Tubi, I tell you what.  Not that long ago I didn't know what it was, and now almost my entire career is on there (including what I thought was a lost movie I didn't get a credit for writing!).  A lot of people are saying it's now the go-to place to see independent movies and it's hard to argue the point.  What I like to do is type a word into the search engine, like "Amityville" or "Zombie" or "Ninja" or "Scarecrow" or "Massacre" and just click through a bunch of stuff and get the ebb and flow of it.  It's a fun exercise to sort of get the juices flowing.

We are all trying to figure out how to get the machine running again in the movie world, even way out in the hinterland where I am.  I am still quietly writing away, and maybe yet this year some of the fruits of that b-flavored labor will be out in the world.

I'm even falling behind on my annual goal of reading 50 books a year, but one I've read this season-- THE HEAP by Sean Adams--is a book I can recommend to people who like my stuff.

Hopefully will have some news to report soon, but until then, best to you all and thanks for sticking with me.