Showing category "Unbridled Silliness" (Show all posts)

"MOM, DAD'S BEEN FOOLING AROUND ON PHOTOSHOP AGAIN!!!"

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, May 20, 2021, In : Unbridled Silliness 

Some days you just get a goofy idea in your head that you simply can't shake until you do something about it...
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THE TOMB OF BATMAN

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, March 25, 2021, In : Unbridled Silliness 
Another entry from our "Comic Book Covers We'd Like To See" Department...
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A PARABLE, TO DO WITH WHAT YOU WILL... OR IS IT?

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, February 24, 2021, In : Unbridled Silliness 

(NOTE: The following is a longer version of my “Small Talk” newspaper column published in the print edition of the Johnston County Sentinel’s Feb. 25, 2021, edition. I wrote the column at home over the weekend and found I had written longer than my weekly allotted space allows, so I had to trim it down some to fit. Here is the full-length version, live and in person… or something like that.)



It happened a long, long time ago now. I usually don’t like to talk about it; as a man much...


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JUST A RANDOM THOUGHT...

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, February 22, 2017, In : Unbridled Silliness 


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WELL, SOMEBODY HAD TO BE FIRST...

Posted by John Allen Small on Tuesday, July 23, 2013, In : Unbridled Silliness 
Being the first person to do something seems to carry a great deal of weight with the majority of folks.

Many of those whom we honor as heroes are so honored simply because they were the first person to do whatever it was they did. Their names become the stuff of legend: Charles 
Lindbergh, the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic; Chuck Yeager, the first man to break the sound barrier; Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon; John Garduno, the first guy in my class to work up the nerve ...

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And Now A Word From Our Sponsor…

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, September 13, 2012, In : Unbridled Silliness 
(Me at Philip José Farmer's house in 2007. This picture has absolutely nothing to do with the text below: I just thought I'd run it because I like the picture. So there.)


Announcing a special offer for all you avid “Bard Of The Lesser Boulevards” readers out there – wherever the three of you may be. 


You say that you've had it with with all those secret fraternal organizations? You know, the ones that never seem to want you as a member?


Are you feeling left out when you see your frien...


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FROM THE ARCHIVES: DAGWOOD'S REVENGE

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, April 26, 2012, In : Unbridled Silliness 

Was going through a box of old papers last night and came across this piece I drew way back in 1988 and had forgotten about. Decided to scan it and share with my friends here. It's admittedly odd, but I hope you like it.

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Another Fantasy Cover...

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, October 13, 2011, In : Unbridled Silliness 

This is just a silly little thing I did for laughs back when I was first starting to really learn how to use Photoshop. Came across a piece of cover art from one of those "spicy pulp story" magazines from the 1930s and decided to create my own version. Used Mary Tyler Moore as the cover model because I had such a crush on her when I was a kid; did you ever see the way she just kind of pulls away her pearl necklace and smiles as she exits the final scene of the very first episode of The Dick V...
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NOW HERE'S A WILD IDEA...

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, October 6, 2011, In : Unbridled Silliness 

Having recently shared a few of my silly ideas for fantasy book covers, movie posters, etc., thought I'd continue in that vein by offering this fake TV show ad I made a few years back. A friend of mine had raised the question of what it might have been like if the characters from MASH had been part of a starship crew instead of an Army hospital. I ran with the idea and had some fun, creating not only this ad but even a fake episode guide for this "fantasy series." I've still got the episode g...
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The OTHER Big Bang Theory...

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, September 21, 2011, In : Unbridled Silliness 

One day not too very long ago I was talking with one of my sons (I won’t say which one, so as to try to avoid any undue embarrassment – although he’d probably tell you that ship sailed a long time ago), who in between sips of chocolate milk shared a most interesting hypothesis with me.


“Sometimes,” he said in a voice so earnest I just knew he was pulling my leg, “I get the feeling that the Universe was created by time travel.”


I put down the magazine I was reading and gave him...


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IT MUST HAVE BEEN ONE OF THOSE WEEKENDS...

Posted by John Allen Small on Monday, June 27, 2011, In : Unbridled Silliness 

A Message From VAST (Vociferous Americans Sensing Trouble)

A Subsidiary of the Tea Party Institute for Creative Mind Control


• Do you believe that the United States Government covered up the crash-landing of a spacecraft from another world in Roswell, New Mexico in July of 1947?

• Are you convinced that the Apollo moon landings actually took place on a Hollywood soundstage?

• Have you recently spotted Elvis Presley wolfing down a large Canadian Bacon and Anchovy at Simple Simon’s Pizza?

...

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(From The Archives) The Really Great, Really Odd Leprechaun Adventure

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, June 22, 2011, In : Unbridled Silliness 
(Note: This was something I dashed off for one of my college writing classes in college back in 1988. The professor, as I recall, wanted us to have a little fun and so gave us a weekend assignment to "just write something really silly." I think my response scared him; I know it certainly scared me…)

Once upon a time, but not really all that long ago when you really stop and think about it, there was a mythical land which some people called Kankakee. And just down the highway from this mythic...

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About Me


John Allen Small 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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