Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, May 18, 2012,
In :
Pop Culture
(Art by the legendary Frank Frazetta!) For much of the past several months I have been devoting much of my free time to helping to promote what is STILL my favorite motion picture of the year thus far: the Disney Studios’ release John Carter.
As I noted in this space earlier this year, this wonderfully crafted film – based on the first novel in an 11-volume series of science fiction tales penned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan – was unfairly pegged as a “flop” even ... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, March 9, 2012,
In :
Pop Culture
This is something I did for laughs way back when, then stuck away and forgot about until i came across it while going through some old files the other day. Please understand that it was not my intention to put down country music; I happen to like a lot of country music, although most of what I like was the stuff that was recorded back before anybody ever heard of most of the big "stars" of today like Blake and Miranda what's-their-names. Anyway, here it is...* * *The John A. Small Do... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, February 29, 2012,
In :
Pop Culture
Just heard the sad news that Davy Jones of the Monkees has passed away at the age of 66. It was odd because I was listening to one of his songs with the Monkees - "Early Morning Blues And Greens," from the Headquarters album - when I got the news. The Monkees was my favorite rock group when I was a kid; I'm one of those first generation fans who can remeber (albeit just barely) when the group was still recording and the TV series was just wrapping up its original run. The Monkees were my intr... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, February 2, 2012,
In :
Pop Culture
The family and I had the opportunity recently to see Red Tails, the George Lucas-produced historical film focusing on the famed Tuskegee Airmen – the fighter squadron made up entirely of African-American pilots who played an important role in America’s involvement in World War II.
It’s a film that Lucas had been fighting to bring to the big screen for over two decades – he reportedly self-financed the project with nearly $100 million of his personal fortune – and I can tell you that ... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, January 12, 2012,
In :
Pop Culture
(Now here's a Marx Brothers movie I would have liked to see...)In spite of my best intentions – not to mention repeated vows that I most certainly will never let it happen again – every now and then I find myself inexorably drawn into online debates about topics that are of interest to me
The latest example occurred just after Christmas, when I became the target of ridicule hurled in my direction by someone I could only assume is too young to remember a time when personal computers were... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, October 14, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
Ran across a thread on www.moviefanfare.com yesterday where guest blogger Peter Eramo, Jr shared his own personal top five celebrity crushes - stars who, to use his own words, "are simply hot, hot, hot!"
It was an interesting list to say the least. Not surprisingly it included three current celebrities - Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel and Christina Hendricks - two of which I have to admit have never done much for me. (I'll leave it to others to figure out which two.) I was impressed t find... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, September 8, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
A while back I wrote about a website where a fellow has been designing his own fake comic books covers and shared an example of his work. That got me to thinking that I've taken a stab at that same sort of thing every now and then for the past few years, and thought maybe I'd share some examples of my own work from time to time. This is one I did about six or seven years ago; it was inspired by a discussion I had with my son Joshua, who was about 13 or 14 at the time, regarding the fact that ... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Tuesday, August 16, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
Flipping through the television channels some years back, I stumbled upon a television news program which had devoted its entire hour to examining what has apparently one of the most popular religions in modern America.
One segment of the program which particularly fascinated me followed four members of this faith as they travelled about their own personal version of Mecca, pausing at various shrines to pay tribute to the object of their earnest devotion: a statue bearing his likeness, the p... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, July 22, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
When I was a little boy, there were two heroes that I really looked up to.
The first was my father. Well, I suppose that’s typical enough…every little boy I ever knew wanted to grow up and be just like his old man, and all the little girls wanted to be like their mommies. That is, until all those little boys and girls grew into teenagers, and suddenly Mommy and Daddy were somehow transformed (if only for a brief time) into Mother and Father. The Dreaded Enemies.
The other great hero of ... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, July 15, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
There's a great blog - http://braveandboldlost.blogspot.com - manned by a fellow who does a killer job of creating his own team-up comic book covers. He originally did a series of imaginary "Brave And The Bold" team-ups between Batman and a myriad of guest stars you'd have to see to believe; more recently he set Batman aside to concentrate on a new series of "Marvel Two-In-One" covers featuring The Thing in similar team-up situations. I was glancing through the site today after not having had... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, July 8, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
Have you ever noticed how some things seem to lodge themselves in your brain to the point that you just can’t drive them away, even if you bang your head over and over against that big pecan tree in your backyard?
The worst part about it is that, more often than not, these unwelcome mental lodgers tend to be things you’re not the least bit interested in. Things you weren’t consciously thinking about, and maybe wouldn’t consicously think about even if your life depended on it. And sudde... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, June 24, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
As long as we're on the subject of "Star Trek," let me begin by stating that there's a story behind the above illustration...
Back in 2000, as much for my own amusement as anything else, I wrote an essay entitled "The Eugenics War Declassified," in which I attempted to explain how the Eugenic Wars first mentioned in a 1966 "Star Trek" episode could have still occurred given what had actually transpired historically during the intervening years. As a fan of Philip José Farmer and his Wold Ne... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, June 23, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
(Note: The above picture is my son William standing in front of the original model of the USS Enterprise at the Smithsonian Institute's Air and Space Museum during or visit to Washington D.C. in 2009) “I didn’t know you were a Trekkie, Small.”
The comment was made by my boss one day a number of years ago as he happened to overhear a conversation I was having with a co-worker. We were talking about the film “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,” which I found (and still find) to... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, June 10, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
(Note: The following was my entry in a contest Time magazine held in the late 1990s - I forget the exact year right off - in which the publication asked its readers to submit ideas for an episode of a television series in which characters from another series make an appearance. The winner was some dummy that had Homer SImpson turning up on an episode of "E.R." I still like MY idea better....)
* * *
Dear Time:
My name is John Small. I live in Ravia, Oklahoma, and the following is ... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, June 9, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
(Note: This is a paper I wrote for my Introduction to Poetry class in college back in 1988. The assignment, as I recall, had to do with using what we had learned about delving into the deeper meaning of poems and applying it to popular songs; the professor assigned each of us a different song and, knowing that I was a Beatles fan, he gave me "Eleanor Rigby". He made a point of saying later that he didn't really agree with my interpretation of the piece, but gave me an "A" anyway. I don't know... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, June 8, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
Awhile back some of my fellow posters over at The Kingston Trio Place (http://www.kingstontrioplace.com/) were discussing what actors might have been cast in a movie about the popular folk group had such a film been made back in the 1960s. I liked a couple of the names that were tossed about and made this fake poster to advertise their dream project. Went over well enough that I thought I'd re-post it here. Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Monday, June 6, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
Came across this old file that I wrote back in college (circa about 1989 or '90) as part of a "fanzine" a buddy an I put together. This is probably my first real attempt at Phil Farmer-style creative mythography (it probably shows) and as such set the stage for so much that has happened in my life since then. So without further ado...* * *
THE QUESTOR FILES
By John Allen Small
On occasion in various regions of the planet Earth during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, there we... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Tuesday, May 24, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
(Note: This essay was originally written approximately a decade ago. It has been revised slightly for inclusion here at this time; I apologize upfront for any inaccuracies stemming from the passage of time that I failed to catch during that revision process.) “Mythology n. The collective myths and legends of a particular people, usually describing the exploits of gods and heroes…”
Every era of Mankind’s existence has produced its own unique set of heroes, and the past century has ce... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Monday, May 23, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
I have often been accused of not being in step with the rest of the world when it comes to my preferences, beliefs and outlooks on life. Personally I’ve never much cared about such things, and typically when the accusation has been thrown my way my response is that I’m fine and it’s the rest of the world that is out of synch.
This test was created to determine if I’m really that far off into my own little world, or if there are more of us out there than the masses would care to beli... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, May 20, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
I was digging through some old files the other night and ran across something I wrote that suddenly seemed noteworthy again in light of our most recent celebrity controversy...
It was written in response to a lengthy discussion amongst members of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society concerning an article in the July 7, 1999 edition of Variety in which it had been announced that former actor, former governor and philandering husband Arnold Schwarzenegger was planning to star as Doc Savage i... Continue reading ...
Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, May 19, 2011,
In :
Pop Culture
Somebody once told me that I didn’t have any culture.
It happened way back during my college days, but I remember the incident as vividly as if it were yesterday. Some classmates and I took a trip up to Chicago one weekend (apparently it was one of those all-too-rare weekends when none of us had any term papers to write), and while we were there one of our number suggested that we pay a visit to one of the city’s famed art galleries.
I didn’t really want to go. To be honest, I don’t... Continue reading ...
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Earlier postings can be found at: http://www.journalscape.com/lesserboulevards/
About Me
| John Allen Small |
| Tishomingo, Oklahoma |
John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996).
Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.)
John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something.
In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems.
He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.
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