Stories ideas? Here is a story idea. And it’s drawn from real life.

I have a client and friend some years older than I am who among other things is a legend in the history of doo-wop music. He is in his seventies and has never owned a computer or had an e-mail address. I was visiting with him a couple of weeks ago when a question came up. I pulled out my phone and googled the subject matter. He was surprised I could do something like that; then he got quiet for a minute, and asked if I could use the internet to find people. You bet, I replied. I have both located and been located in such a manner. He then proceeded to tell me a story. When my friend was in his twenties, he was in the U.S. Army and stationed in France. During his tour of duty he became involved with a young woman who followed him to Germany and then back to France. Their relationship ended when he returned to the United States. Though their lives went in different directions he never forgot her. And now, over a half-century later, he wondered if I could find her.

And I did. It took a bit of doing, but I found her picture, and then, with much more effort, found her e-mail address. I just sent off a message to her, which I hope she will receive in the spirit in which it is sent. I asked my friend what he was going to do if she responded. He just laughed.

Like I said, it’s a story. It’s not a mystery or suspense or a thriller but it’s…a romance? Maybe. I’ll let you know what happens. Maybe. But with a little imagination you could turn it into anything you wanted to. She receives the e-mail and bodies start dropping, in both the United States and France. Or someone tries to kill the guy who sent the e-mail. Or the long-separated couple makes arrangements to meet in say, Montreal, where someone shoots at her when she is but steps away from his embrace. You want stories? You want ideas? They are all around you, like piles of bricks. It’s the mortar that’s hard to fill in. But the bricks? They are around you by the yardful.

by John Gilstrap

Hand to God: If 11-year-old John Fretz had not been hit by a car and critically injured in 1979, my son would never have been born in 1986, and I would be nothing like the man I am today.

From 1976-1979, I was a summer camp counselor for over-privileged rich kids in Falls Church, Virginia.  That’s how I earned my annual $800 in spending money that got me through cheap college dates.  On my last day of that last year of extended childhood, young John Fretz, who had been a staple of my group since he was seven, chased a ball into Sleepy Hollow Road and got nailed by a car doing 35-40 miles per hour.

I heard the bang and the screams of the witnesses.  When I got there, I was the first adult(ish), other than the hysterical driver.  John’s leg was bent at a 100-degree angle at mid-thigh.  He was unconscious, and a color of pale that to this day brings tears to my eyes.  By the time all the diagnoses were complete, the list of internal and external injuries was a page long, but what I remember most about sitting in the emergency room was the look on his father’s face.  Rick Fretz was a widower, and John was his only son.  If prayer can take a physical form, Rick was it.

Within a year, John was fully recovered.  I was a part of that, but only on the sidelines.  On one of my visits to the hospital within a week or two of the accident, Rick offered me a challenge:  “It’s easy to visit in week one or week two,” he said.  “But week ten and week twelve are when he’ll really need the company.”  It was that kind of recovery, and I was a regular for over a year.

I’ve lost touch with them now, but last I heard, everyone was thriving, and there was even a wife and a baby or two in the mix.  Congregation say “Amen” and tip a glass to the new generation.

So, how does this create my son?

John Fretz’s accident is the single reason why I enrolled in an EMT class at my local community college.  I was never again going to be caught feeling that helpless.  EMT class led to 15 years in the fire service.  The fire service led to a degree in safety engineering, which got me a job at an explosives manufacturer, where my boss’s boss was dating the sister of a woman named Joy, who’d recently gone through a bad break-up.  Said grand-boss arranged a blind date that resulted in love at first sight (literally), which led to the marriage that created Chris.  Really, it’s that much of a straight-line connection.

As a lifelong Catholic, I can’t say that I buy into predestination; but I can tell you from the heart that I don’t believe in coincidence, either.  Stuff happens for a reason.  If the first 27 agents I queried hadn’t rejected my first novel, I’m certain that I’d have fallen short of a couple of mega-buck deals.  If I hadn’t fallen out eventually with my first agent, I never would have found my current agent, who, along with the team she’s introduced me to, have become the architects of a whole new career.  If my career hadn’t taken a disappointing turn a few years ago, I never would have pursued the alternative routes that have opened doors that I never dreamed of.

If you’ve been in this writing game for more than a few years, you inevitably encounter the terminally-frustrated, burned-out artist who is on the verge of self-destruction.  Tastes have changed, and suddenly his market has dried up.  Or, maybe, after too many second-callbacks without ever making the final cut, he’s ready to throw in the towel.  It happens, and in a creative endeavor, I think rejection stings more than usual.

There’s a lot of Pollyanna in me.  I believe that it’s hubris for any one of us to proclaim in real time what is and is not “bad” fortune.  Certainly, there are events in life that are so dark that light cannot be imagined, but those tragedies are blessedly few.  On any given day, rank-and-file disappointments are really opportunities for forging new paths.

You just never know where that uncharted fork in the road is going to take you.

What about you, friends and Killzoners?  Have you found surprising good fortune buried in a stinking mound of disappointment?  Tell us about it.

By John Gilstrap

One really cool perk of belonging to the Writers Guild of America (WGA) is the gift that starts giving sometime in lat October, and runs fairly steadily through the end of the year: the flood of movie screeners for awards season.  Because none of the films I’ve been paid to write have ever been produced, I am not a member of the Academy, yet I do get to vote for the WGA Awards, and that in itself is pretty cool.

Some years, the flow of screeners is better than others, but 2010 brought a bumper crop.  Don’t get me wrong, I still go to the theater periodically, but not nearly as often as I used to.  When watching in the privacy of my own home, I’ve never once had to shoot a dirty look to a rude teenager with a cell phone.  That alone greatly improves the movie-going experience.  (Plus, we can pause the movie for bathroom breaks.)

With the Oscars looming this coming Sunday (my birthday!), I thought I’d make my pitch for a few of the major categories, listing which contestants I think should win, and, in some cases, who I think will win, even if I disagree.

Best Supporting Actress.  This one is tough for me, as I think it’s tough for anyone who watched some of the performaces that are competing with one another.  Hailee Steinfeld’s portrayal of Mattie Ross in True Grit was spellbinding.  She commanded every scene she was in.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.  If she won, I would not be disappointed.  But my vote goes to Helena Bonham Carter in The King’s Speech.  Through facial expressions alone, she was able to project a love of her husband that tore at my heart.

Best Supporting Actor.  Geoffrey Rush in The King’s Speech.  ‘Nuff said.  I can’t imagine the award going to anyone else this year.  Much is said of Christian Bale’s performance in The Fighter, but while I thought he was terrific in the role, he engaged in a little bit too much scenery chewing for me.  Geoffrey Rush, on the other hand, merely lived his character.

Best Actress.  Okay, time for full disclosure here.  This is the category for which I saw the least number of films.  I’m going to default to Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right.  Her portrayal of a heartsick middle-aged lesbian was a memorable part of a very memorable movie.  That said, all the buzz says the Oscar is going to Natalie Portman for The Black Swan.  Having not seen the movie (yet), I defer to the opinions of others.

Best Actor.  Another tough call.  Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit was a force of nature.  I loved every minute of his screen time.  (Every minute of the film, for that matter.)  While Jesse Eisenberg was fantastic in The Social Network, I don’t think the story was big enough to compete with some of its competition.  My choice for Best Actor is Colin Firth in The King’s Speech.  He was, in a word, fantastic.

Best Adapted Screenplay.  Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network.  Reading a Sorkin screenplay is like taking a master class in writing action and dialogue.

Best Original Screenplay.  Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg for The Kids Are All Right.  Okay, that’s my pick.  I don’t think it will win, though.  The momentum all seems to be behind David Seidler for The King’s Speech.

Best Picture.  For me, it’s a tie between True Grit and The King’s Speech.  If I were to place a bet, I think the smart money is on The King’s Speech. 

So, Killzoners . . . What do you think?  Here’s your chance to go on the record.

John Ramsey Miller

There’s this new book, O, about President Obama that was written by an anonymous author, just as the book PRIMARY COLORS was published with the author being the anonymous columnist Joe Klein. I mean PC was supposed to be fiction, right? It wasn’t actually about Bill Clinton, who was one of the best Republican presidents ever. I’m sure it’s a marketing ploy (since who needs another book about a sitting president?) just as I’m sure the publisher will swear that the reason for the anonymous tag is to insure truthfulness. I’m sure that was done because Obama would have the NSA black-baggers disappear the author if they could somehow discover who he or she is. Because it’s a huge secret on the order of who really killed JFK. I can think of lots of books that should have been written anonymously, like THE PROPHET by Kahlil Gibran or anything by Stephenie Meyer. Jus a’ kidding Steph. Seriously, anonymous is a punk-out. Stand up and take your medicine.

When I was young, my father was a Methodist minister, so I was a hellion of the first order. (stop me if I’ve told you this before). I didn’t get into trouble, I lived in trouble. I believed it was my calling. I got caught at it with amazing regularity due to my youth and inexperience, but I got better at evading detection as I grew older. Luckily I aged out of hell raising as an art form, having done no lasting damage to anyone, or to myself. The point of this confession is to say that after having done something actionable, someone sent my father a letter detailing my marauding one evening. It was perfectly written and should have convicted me to a severe grounding, except for the fact that they had signed the letter, “A concerned citizen”. After reading it to me, my father tore up the letter and tossed it into the trash, saying that if the person didn’t have the spine to sign the letter, he could not take it seriously. Being a liberal, I suspect he felt that I had the right to be confronted by my accuser. I also suspect that a Baptist minister would have, in similar circumstance, whipped his son, happy to take the word of a cowardly vigilante.

Another reason I’m talking about “anons” is because my daughter-in-law has a beauty salon and it’s a first class operation, and she’s a very talented hair stylist. She even does my hair with all my cowlicks––that’s how good she is. She is listed on a local site that highlights commercial businesses of note, and there’s a place for customer comments underneath, and you get stars just like an Amazon rating system. Well she was nominated for “Beauty Shop of the Year” and the next day someone wrote a nasty review saying that she smelled like cigarettes, dressed in trashy outfits, talked behind her customers backs, made lewd jokes about passersby, left “bleed marks” from a bad dye job, etc… It was signed anonymous. My son’s wife, the most wonderful and hard working person I know, has fifteen excellent reviews below that one. She is sure the comment was left by her main competitor because some of the detractor’s comments included beauty shop trade terms, too technical for a patron to use. There’s this beautician who hates my daughter-in-law due to losing a huge wedding party of a bride and her bridesmaids gig–but that’s another story involving my youngest son who’s getting married in June. But she’ll never know and she can’t get the comment taken off even though it’s totally a lie. And, it’s a small southern town we live in.

I agree with my father, who died on my birthday three years ago. Anybody who won’t sign their name and take responsibility for their words, is more than likely a coward and is probably just throwing monkey crap through the bars at the audience. If you can’t use your name due to the fact that you might be fired or set upon, then I say keep your damned opinion to yourself and live with it.

I tend to say idiotic things that I shouldn’t say and put my name on it. I once traded six columns to my local newspaper in exchange for an antique granite body slab that came out of a funeral home. What I wrote lit fires all over the community, but that’s another story. My wife (and more than a few others) tell me that some of my critical social filters must be clogged with dust balls. I am cognizant of the fact that a lot of my opinions would be best left unshared, or anonymous, but I’m not apt to do anything at this point in my life that makes sense.

By the way, as of last week my first novel THE LAST FAMILY, published in 1996 is now an eBook, which means that all of my novels are available in electronic format from Bantam/Dell. And I don’t have to worry about the pages yellowing.

My apologies but there will be no blog post today. After over 4 inches of rain fell in 12 hours our house flooded so we are trying to get it all sorted out. Will be back next week with an update but, most importantly, my family and I are all fine.
Clare

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

It has been an extremely interesting week, one of highs and lows. I had a wonderful professional and personal high that is still playing itself out, a circumstance where I was able to help a kind and decent person at a time when they needed it. You can read about that elsewhere http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/life/stories/2011/02/04/you-and-me-writer-identified.html?sid=101 if you wish. But let’s talk about the “low” here, at length. I have sometimes forgotten in the course of my postings that this blog is called The Kill Zone, so I will get back on track here and now.

I read crime fiction because I am fascinated with the battle between good and evil. I know that the lines are often blurred, but not necessarily to the extent that they are indistinguishable. Yet every bad guy, if you will, represents a failure on some level, perhaps unavoidable, perhaps otherwise, but a failure and a tragedy still. We all know a number of folks who for one reason or another — or for perhaps no discernable reason at all — fall off of the rails.

My younger son, who is now in his late 20s, had a childhood friend who I will call “Todd” for purposes of this discussion. Todd, when he was attending grade school with my son, gave little indication that he would have troubles later in life. He was raised in an intact family with loving parents, and if he occasionally experienced some impulse control problems, they never reached the stage that would portend the disaster his adult life has become. My son and Todd lost touch when we moved to a different school district in the area, even though I kept in contact with Todd’s parents as they intermittently relayed tales of what was turning into a slow-motion train wreck. Todd was barely into his teens when he was arrested for shoplifting. Other troubles followed. He began to have trouble with drug use; his folks placed him a tough rehab program which, to all outward appearances, he successfully completed. They took him to South Carolina over a Christmas weekend to celebrate his success. They had been there for two days when Todd‘s father called me, almost hysterical. Todd had gone out with some friends to walk the beach and within a half-hour had been arrested for armed robbery. Charged as an adult, he spent six months in a jail awaiting trial. By the time Todd finally returned home, his course seemed to be set. Trouble seemed to dip and swirl around him. When Todd’s father died of cancer, Todd could not attend the funeral because he was sitting in an Ohio prison, having been convicted of yet another offense. His mother, a sweet and kind person who devoted her life to her son and husband, had the appearance and demeanor of someone who had been shell-shocked. Just so.

Todd was in the news again this week. The area had been plagued by a period of gas station robberies and Todd was charged as the alleged perpetrator. In his booking photo, wearing a dirty wife beater and a scripted tattoo across his left arm and chest, he bears but a faint resemblance to the little boy who with my younger son played with Transformers and shared respective bedrooms like brothers. In the picture it is Todd who looks shell-shocked this time, vaguely dazed, perhaps by the state of his life at this point, perhaps wondering how and why he wound up on the downhill road he is on. Or perhaps I am projecting my own questions, wondering why him, and not my own son, since they were so alike in so many ways. The chill I have felt since seeing his picture, however, has nothing to do with the weather. And I doubt that there is a book that I could read that would conclusively answer my questions.

By John Gilstrap
I pen this week’s post from Bakersfield, California, where I’m teaching a two-day seminar on safety and health issues in the recycling industry. It’s a great class so far, packed with a lot of motivated and enthusiastic students. The fact that it took me 17 hours to get here, thanks to Mama Nature doesn’t take away from my enjoyment of the process, but it does mean that I’m tired. With tired comes cranky.

And nothing spins me up quite like unsolicited recorded phone calls.
I felt my pocket buzzing while I was in the middle of my lecture and of course ignored it because, well, I was in the middle of my lecture. During the break, I looked at my phone and found an 866 number, identified as “unknown.” I remember a friend of mine telling me about online reverse phone lookup websites that can identify unknown and scam callers, and would have saved me a lot of time!

I called the number back and reached a recorded greeting that told me, “be aware that we are a debt collector.” I suspected that it was either a scam or a wrong number, so after a minute or two on hold, I hung up and went back to work.

Then I got to thinking. This has been the year of compromised credit cards for us. It’s happened at least four times. While we’re current on all our bills, was it possible that something slipped through? There’s also the matter of a denied medical claim that we’re still negotiating with the insurance company. Could that be the problem? I really wish I’d just known how to check phone number ownership, it could have saved me such a headache.

They called back when I could actually take the call, and it turns out that a Mr. and Mrs. Ngyuen are behind on their house payments. The call goes like this:

“If this is Mr. or Mrs. Ngyuen, press one. If not, press two.”

I press two.

“If you need a moment to bring them to the phone, press one. If this is the wrong number, press two.”

I press two.

“If you want to stop receiving these phone calls, press one.”

I press one. (Really. Does anyone NOT want to stop receiving these calls?)

“To be removed from the call list, you must talk to a customer service representative. Please hold.”

I hold. For six minutes, being told regularly how important my phone call is.

Finally, a young man answers, “Hello?”

“Hello?” I say. “Really? That’s it? Hello?”

“Who is this?” he asks.

“You called me,” I say.

“Are you looking for the modification department?”

“I don’t know what a modification department is. I’m calling to be taken off your list.”

“What list?”

“The one you called me from.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I think you have the wrong number.”

“It can’t be the wrong number,” I say. “I pressed one.”

“One what?”

“The number one. You called me. Your recording told me to press one to get taken off the list. I can’t have called a wrong number.”

“Oh,” he says. “Let me pass you to someone who can take you off the list.”

“What list?” I ask.

“Huh?”

“I few seconds ago, you didn’t know what the list is. How are you going to take me off of it if you don’t know what it is?”

“I’ll transfer you to someone.”

“Let me talk to your supervisor.”

“I’ll transfer you to someone.”

“You’re not listening. I’m already talking to someone. Another someone doesn’t do me any good. I want to talk to your supervisor.”

“He’s not available.”

“I’ll talk to his supervisor, then.”

“Please hold.”

I endure three more minutes of assurances that my call is important.

“Um, sir? They weren’t available.”

“Your supervisor’s supervisor?”

“No sir. Someone else.”

“So if someone’s not there, that means no one’s there. Are you in a room by yourself?”

“No, sir.”

“Then someone must be there.”

“Sir, if you can just give me your phone number, we can take you off the list.”

“The right list? The one I want to be taken off of?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The list you don’t know.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you can guarantee that I’ll be removed.”

“I think so.”

I give him the number. “And what about the Ngyuens?” I ask.

“Excuse me?”

“The Ngyuens. The ones who are behind on their payments. Someone should call them and let them know.”

“Um.”

“They’re not at this number. I think we’ve established that.”

“They must have had that number before you.”

“This is a cell phone. I’ve had this number for over ten years.”

“Sir, I’ll tell the right person, and they’ll take the number off the list.”

“Okay,” I say. “I don’t want to have this conversation again.”

“I understand, sir. Neither do I.”

John Ramsey Miller

We have all seen movies on television where key scenes are deleted or language altered–often comically when they try to make the word fit the actor’s lip movements, or change “you Mother F*cker!” to “you silly nut” –that we are accustomed to it. The other night I was watching one of the new shows (Harry’s Law maybe)and one character called another an asshole. Did the censors stop working at the networks and go to work on Disney cartoons?

You know I like realism and I’ve got a cast-iron gut, but I was stunned last night watching BONES. This “Gravedigger”, a red-headed female serial killer, ex-prosecuting attorney in an orange jump suit stepped from a paddy wagon and was walking to the courthouse door when her head vaporized in a red wet cloud. Most realistic head blowing up I’ve ever seen and it was so seamless that, had I not known how illegal it is, I would have sworn they killed an actress (you know who was about to die of some dread disease anyway) for the shot. Then they showed closeups of people being washed with gore. It friggin looked like the special effects guy tossed a giant slurpee glass full of blood and brain tissue into the actor’s face and shirt. I was so startled I laughed. That was followed by the slow panning of the corpse, whose head was just not there, a cluttered pool of blood. This wasn’t HBO, this was Fox (I think). I’ve always thought of BONES as a light-weight drama. Those days are over.

I think some things are best shown …well, maybe less graphically. The parts of the exploded head were given a close up as the lab team prepared to reconstruct the skull on a lazy susan. Why the hell put it together? Identification to check what amount of her head actually evaporated? The shot made what was left look like a meat-lovers pizza special where the a drunk chef used half a side of beef on it. I’m talking chunks the size of toddler fists with teeth, with features and some with tufts of red hair. Man-o-man. Actually, woman-o-woman. Then they showed a corpse in a tub of lye. Everything below the waterline was bone sticking through mushy tissue… And then they had a scene with that corpse on a table in the lab. Ugggghhh!

Did I mention that my four-year-old grandson saw it? I’m sure his mind will never be the same. He was at the table behind me, and when I laughed he looked up from his coloring book. “Dotz, I want to see it again.” I changed the channel to Sponge Bob, after pressing the record button, and I had to explain special effects just like I have explained to him that Jurassic Park doesn’t have actual dinosaurs, or that there are no Transformers demolishing buildings and so forth.

So here’s my point. Do you think audiences have become so desensitized as to accept these radical changes involving what is on the tube. Where do we go from here? When is reality too real? Have I finally become as old fuddy duddy? Well, I didn’t think I was. Truth is I know the next steps and how close we are to leaving NOTHING to the imagination. That, I find truly sad.

I feel for kids. We had Roy Rogers and six guns that shot dozens of rounds if the cowboys were in a running fight. Our kids have bullets exploding heads. I’m going to start wearing a raincoat when I watch TV, just in case blood splashes through the screen.