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I'M GLAD I MARRIED A BETTY...

Posted by John Allen Small on Tuesday, June 18, 2024, In : Pop Culture 

I can’t remember now exactly how the subject came up (I've slept once or twice since then... I think), but a few years back I found myself standing in the parking lot of our local post office reminiscing with one of our community’s more prominent public figures (I won’t embarrass him by identifying him publicly) about the affection we shared as kids for reading comic books.


Turns out while we both enjoyed reading comics, our taste in superheroes skewed in different directions – somew...


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A BIRTHDAY LETTER TO MY GRANDDAUGHTERS

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, June 1, 2023, In : Life 

Dear Zoey and Willow:


I realize that you are both too young at the moment to understand most of what I’m about to tell you. Zoey, after all, won’t celebrate her fifth birthday until late October - and Willow is only a couple of months old now as I write this. (Roughly the same age that your Uncle Josh was when we moved here from Illinois all those years ago, now that I think about it.)


Even so, it occurred to me the other day that now was the right time to write this letter to you - and...


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Were they celebrating nerds like me... or making fun of us?

Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, May 12, 2023, In : Pop Culture 


Sometimes I just stand there, staring at myself in the mirror and wondering how I keep getting myself into these things...

This past Monday night I was here at the office, scouring the digital landscape in search of a possible topic or two for my column in this week’s issue of the newspaper, when I stumbled upon an online debate over the merits - or, in the minds of some, the perceived lack thereof - of the television sitcom The Big Bang Theory.

Full disclosure before going any further: I w...


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IN PRAISE OF AMERICAN GRAFITTI

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, January 12, 2023, In : Pop Culture 

(Note: This is a newspaper column that I wrote last year, and which I had fully intended to post here earlier - but things happen, you know?)

I recently had the opportunity to re-watch one of my all-time favorite motion pictures, and was reminded yet again of just how great a film it is.


American Graffiti, George Lucas’ second theatrical film, was one of the first films of its era to prove the value in “word of mouth promotion.“ Dimly viewed by the studio execs at the time - who famousl...


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DOC SAVAGE IN HOLLYWOOD: WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, September 26, 2019, In : Pop Culture 

Most Doc Savage fans know about the 1975 film version of the first book, Doc Savage: The Man Of Bronze, produced by George Pal (Destination Moon, The Time Machine, When Worlds Collide) and starring former TV Tarzan Ron Ely. There's been a lot of debate over the years regarding the merits of that film.

Many decry its camp sensibilities, the changes made to the original story and the lack of faith Warner Brothers seemed to have for the project (the latter foreshadowing Disney's dismal support o...


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I Don't Care What Anyone Says; I LIKED "John Carter"

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, March 29, 2012, In : Opinion 

Every now and then I find myself in the unusual (and not always desirable) position of championing some cause that seems to fly in the face of mass public opinion. I guess it is not altogether unfair to blame my parents for this tendency; after all, they are the ones who drummed into my mind as a child the importance of standing up for what you believe, and the notion that what is popular is not always what is right.


Sometimes those battles place me on what some would consider to be the wron...


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(From The Archives) DREAMCASTING DOC SAVAGE

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...


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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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