Sean Paul Murphy, Writer

Sean Paul Murphy, Writer
Sean Paul Murphy, Storyteller

Thursday, March 10, 2016

God Told Me To Write It



Since the bulk of my work has been in the faith-based market, I am often approached by other writers trying to succeed in the same field.  It is not unusual for them to excitedly announce to me that God told them to write something.  Then, a year or two later, they approach me again to express profound disillusionment because their creative enterprise was not produced or published.  How could that be?  God told them to write it...

I'm actually a good person to discuss this issue with.  I believe in God, and I firmly believe God still communicates with people.   In fact, I wrote a book, "The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God," about something God told me would happen that didn't.  How can that be?  God cannot lie.  Right?  Right. Therefore, the error must be found elsewhere.

Before we go any further, I first recommend that you endeavor to find out whether that still small voice you are hearing is indeed God.  I am not going to go into all of the Biblical passages, but be a good Berean and test the spirit against the word of God.  Let's just leave it at this:  If the voice is telling you to do something wrong, it's definitely not God.  If the voice is encouraging you to do something you've always wanted to do, it's probably not God either.  That's probably just you.  God doesn't need to break the fourth wall, as it were, to tell us to do something we're already dead set on doing.  From my own experience, I can say that God has never encouraged me to follow my own desires.  More often than not, He's the voice that says no.  Or beware.  And, when He did send me on a path I was happy to travel, He did so by pointing me in a direction I never would have taken myself.

Back on point.  Do I believe God told me to write something?  Sure.  In fact, I credit my entire screenwriting career to His will.  To explain how, here's an excerpt from my memoir, "The Promise or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God."

     I remember driving to work one day soon after I got the job at Smith Burke & Azzam. I was long gone from Amway, but I maintained some of the goal-oriented mentality. While I was driving, I remember proclaiming to God my five professional goals. Then I heard the voice again. “Now I know your goals,” He said. “Are you interested in mine?”
     He didn’t tell them to me, but after that, I never set goals again. I have tried to live my life on a day-to-day basis, ready to respond to the prompting of the Lord. And such a prompting came rather quickly.
     A couple of months later, I was driving to work praising the Lord. It was a beautiful day, and I was very happy. Then I heard the voice again. He said: “Sean, you’re going to get fired today.”
     That stopped the praise pronto.
     The agency had just lost a major account. The previous week, we went through a Black Friday. Lots of good people were fired. Those of us who remained assumed we were safe. Advertising agencies usually fired everyone at once in those circumstances to calm the rest of the staff. Otherwise, people they intend to keep might get antsy and jump ship. 
     I was crestfallen. I liked having a real job. Real responsibilities. Real money. I didn’t know what I’d do.
     The Lord sensed my mood. He said, “If you’re afraid, I won’t have you fired, but it will be better for you if you are fired.”
     The last time God gave me a choice, I followed my own desires. This time, I was willing to trust him. “Fire me,” I said. 
     Around eleven-thirty, I was paged and told to report to the comptroller. I went to her office smiling. Sure enough, she fired me, but gently and with compassion. I left her office with a smile waiting to see what the future would hold.
     I made no immediate effort to find another job. I spent a day or two watching movies. I don’t remember what film actually inspired me, but at some point I said to myself, “I can do better than that.” I turned off the VHS player and walked upstairs to my typewriter.
     I wrote a police thriller called Forty-Four, about a retiring detective on the hunt for a serial killer on the streets of Baltimore. It was a little short and predictable, but the words came easily. Late Sunday night, I typed: Fade Out. The End. I couldn’t believe it. I wrote an entire feature length screenplay in less than a week. And it wasn’t half bad. It was only about forty-eight percent bad.
     The next morning I awoke to a ringing phone. It was Smith Burke & Azzam. They wanted to hire me back. After only a week. After only as long as it took to write that script…
     Then it struck me. The Lord had given me a forced furlough from my advertising job for that very purpose. He was pointing me in a new direction. He wanted me to write, and I wasn’t going to let Him down.

 So do I believe that God wanted me to write the script "Forty-Four?"  Yes, I do.  Granted, the timing could have been a mere coincidence, but given my relationship with the Lord at the time, I don't believe it was one.  My eventual success in the field also confirms my thoughts on the matter.

Therefore, the film got made, right?

No!

Well, it's gonna get made one day, right?  After all, God wanted you to write it....

No, I don't think it will ever get made.

Then why did God want you to write it?

Because He wanted to point me in that direction.  And He wanted me to learn the craft, and, trust me, I had a lot to learn to successfully compete with the professionals in Hollywood.

The second most memorable line I ever heard from the ultimate hyphenate, actor-writer-director-producer David A.R. White, the Tom Cruise of Christian films, was uttered at the Boston Christian Film Festival.  A budding writer came up to him and said, "I want to become a Christian screenwriter.  What should I do?"  David wisely replied, "If you want to become a Christian screenwriter, the first thing you've got to do is learn your craft because God deserves your best."

So true.  After all, if you felt God told you to become a doctor, you wouldn't immediately buy a scalpel and start operating on people the next day.  No.  You would realize that you have to go to medical school.  Then why do you think that your first script will or should be produced?  To think you can succeed as a writer without any training or even practice shows utter contempt for the field you feel inspired to enter.   God deserves your best.  Take the time to learn your craft.

And, while you're at it, learn to gauge your success on God's timetable, not your own.  Did God tell you that your inspired script would sell on a specific day?  If He did, and it didn't sell on that day, then you have a problem.  And that problem is probably that you mistook an inner yearning as the voice of God.  How can I say that?  Easy,  God doesn't lie.

If God didn't give you a date when the script or book would sell, you have no right to complain just because it hasn't happen yet.  If it is truly God's will, He will work it out in His own time.  I just shake my head when someone says their script failed because it's over a year old and that the five people who read it rejected it.  Really?  I don't even begin to think I've given one of my scripts a fair chance until I pitched it to about 900 people.  (That's not an exaggeration.)  As for timing, my script "I, John" was just optioned and will probably be produced this year.  It was written ten-years-ago.  Another one of my scripts, "Then The Judgement," was also recently optioned.  It was written twenty-eight-years-ago.  I'm glad I didn't give up on either of them after a few nos.

My point is that just because God tells you to write a script or a book, it doesn't mean it will be produced or published.  It just means He wanted you to write it for His own purposes.  You might never know why in this lifetime.  However, if you think He wanted you to write that script or book so that you could become rich and famous, then you probably weren't writing it for Him in the first place.  If it is truly God's script or book, He will use it in His way in His time.  Be patient.  Just do the best job you can and move on to the next project.

Personal Musings:
Me, Post Death
My Premature Memorial Video
Meeting The Love of My Life
My Wedding 09.30.2000
Personal Letter, or, Love in the Time of Texts
Death of an Amway God
Religion & Politics: An Uneasy Mix
The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime
God Told Me to Write It
Prince and the Nexus of Music and Memory
Surviving The Year of Death
The Ultimate Wedding Extravaganza
Sean Paul Murphy: (Failed) Songwriter
Sean Paul Murphy: (Failed) Songwriter, Pt. 2

Other Faith Based Writing Blogs:
Building The Faith Based Ghetto
Do Christian Creators Know When Their Movies Are Bad?
God Told Me To Write It
Enter The Haters
Ministry of Motion Pictures Podcast Interview Part 1
Ministry of Motion Pictures Podcast Interview Part 2
Ministry of Motion Pictures Podcast Interview Part 3
Zach Lawrence and the End Times Quandary
The Making of Hidden Secrets
The Making of Holyman Undercover
The Making of Sarah's Choice
The Making of The Encounter

Be sure to check out my memoir The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God, published by TouchPoint Press. It is my true story of first faith and first love and how the two became almost fatally intertwined.



Here are some sample chapters of The Promise:

Chapter 7 - Mission Accomplished
Chapter 15 - Quarter To Midnight

Be sure to check out my novel Chapel Street. It tells the story of a young man straddling the line between sanity and madness while battling a demonic entity that has driven his family members to suicide for generations. It was inspired by an actual haunting my family experienced.

You can buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.


Learn more about the book, click Here.

Watch the book trailer:

  

Listen to me read some chapters here:


Read about the true haunting that inspired the novel here:
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 1, An Introduction
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 2, The House
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 3, This Is Us
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 4, Arrival
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 5, Methodology
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 6, Clara's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 7, Clara's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 8, My Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 9, My Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 10, My Tale, Pt. 3
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 11, Natalia's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 12, Natalia's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 13, John's Tale, Pt. 1 
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 14, John's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 15, Come Inside!
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 16, Marion's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 17, Marion's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 18, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 19, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 20, Lisa's Tale
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 21, Recap, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 22, Recap, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 23, Recap, Pt. 3

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Monday, February 29, 2016

In Memoriam: Louis DiGiaimo


I was saddened to see Louis DiGiaimo listed in the In Memoriam section of the recent Oscar telecast.  He was primarily known a legendary Casting Director whose credits included The Godfather, Rain Man and Donny Brasco.

However, aside from being a Casting Director, Mr. DiGiaimo was also a producer.  More importantly, he was a producer who wasn't afraid to read over the transom screenplays that interested him.  Over the course of a couple years, he read a few of my screenplays.  He had kind things to say about my aging mafioso in love screenplay "Candido."  He said he liked it, but he rejected it because he said it would never find financing because the leads were too old to be bankable.  Being young and cocky, I disagreed.  Then he patiently gave me examples of similar films that languished in development because they relied on older casts -- including a project of his own based on a Broadway play that had four Oscar-winning women attached.

I often think of Mr. DiGiaimo, especially when young writers or filmmakers seek out my advice, and then shoot me down when I disagree with their vision.

Thanks for the reads, Mr. DiGiamo.  And thanks for taking the time to impart your wisdom to a hard-headed young screenwriter.

Rest in peace.
Be sure to check out my memoir The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God, published by TouchPoint Press. It is my true story of first faith and first love and how the two became almost fatally intertwined.



Here are some sample chapters of The Promise:

Chapter 7 - Mission Accomplished
Chapter 15 - Quarter To Midnight

Be sure to check out my novel Chapel Street. It tells the story of a young man straddling the line between sanity and madness while battling a demonic entity that has driven his family members to suicide for generations. It was inspired by an actual haunting my family experienced.

You can buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.


Learn more about the book, click Here.

Watch the book trailer:

  

Listen to me read some chapters here:


Read about the true haunting that inspired the novel here:
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 1, An Introduction
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 2, The House
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 3, This Is Us
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 4, Arrival
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 5, Methodology
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 6, Clara's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 7, Clara's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 8, My Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 9, My Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 10, My Tale, Pt. 3
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 11, Natalia's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 12, Natalia's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 13, John's Tale, Pt. 1 
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 14, John's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 15, Come Inside!
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 16, Marion's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 17, Marion's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 18, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 19, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 20, Lisa's Tale
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 21, Recap, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 22, Recap, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 23, Recap, Pt. 3

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Monday, February 1, 2016

"I, John" Optioned

I thought I should share this little announcement from the InkTip Preferred Newsletter about my 2012 Kairos Prize winning script:


Julie Lynch Options "I, John"
Julie Lynch with Sandalphon Entertainment found "I, John” on InkTip and optioned it from Sean Paul Murphy. Julie's credits include "Dark Desire,” among others. "I, John” tells the story of a homeless holocaust survivor who inspires an atheist surgeon and a disillusioned minister to believe that he might be the beloved biblical disciple John. Sean is a Kairos Prize-winning writer who joined InkTip five years ago, and this is his third success through InkTip.



Be sure to check out my book The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God.  It is available in paperback and on Kindle courtesy of TouchPoint Press.

Follow me on Twitter:  SeanPaulMurphy

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Friday, January 29, 2016

Writing Tip #13: Writing About Yourself

Yours truly with comedienne GL Douglas at churches Making Movies

Last year, I was invited to give a seminar about screenwriting at the Churches Making Movies Film Festival in Newark, New Jersey.  It is a great organization, and I was only too happy to do it.

I spent the weekend talking screenwriters, both actual and aspiring, and the question I was asked most often was:  "How do I write a script about my life?"

The question wasn't really surprising.  I believe most people who write do so to work out some deep inner turmoil or reveal some inner truth.  That was certainly true in my case, and I believe it is a positive impulse.  As I said in my earlier blog, Make It Real, I strongly recommend that you reach inside and find that kind of emotional truth every time you write.  Still, my answer was the same to everyone who asked me about turning their life into a movie:  "Don't."

Many of these people had very compelling stories, often involving some youthful trauma that they were able to overcome.  Some of the stories would probably make very interesting films.  Still, I recommended against it.

Why?  Because screenplays are the wrong format.  Godard famously said "Film is Truth at 24 fps."  Well, that might be true of film, but it is certainly not true of screenplays.  Screenplays are inherently artificial.  Short of haikus, screenplays are perhaps the most highly-structured form of writing imaginable.  They are certainly more structured than life itself.  As a published memoirist, I can tell you that you have to be fully prepared to followed the truth of your story where ever it goes.  That isn't always possible in the screenplay format when you must adhere to a three act structure and hit certain plot points at certain times.

One of the reasons I never seriously considered converting my memoir to a screenplay is because I knew I would have to compress time in some areas, extend it in others, combine characters into composites, etc., to make it fit the format.  Every little change would detract from the truth, as I remembered it.  I was not prepared to make that sacrifice.  I knew many people would be skeptical of the events I was about to relate, so I didn't want to change them just to fit an arbitrary format.  (That said, I did change some names and places to protect the identity of people.)

So should you write your story?  Certainly.  I have talked to a number of memoirists since my book was published and they all found the process liberating. However, I would recommend writing your story as a book first.  In the pages of a book, you will be able to follow the truth more freely.  And who knows....  If your book gets published, someone might actually pay you to turn it into a screenplay.

Other Writing Tips:



Preview my horrifying new novel Chapel Street on Amazon:


Learn more about the book, click Here.

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2016 Kairos Prize Finalists


Being a 2012 winner of the Kairos Prize for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays, I always follow the contest and I want to congratulate this year's ten finalists.  It is a great accomplishment, and, if you're like me when I reached this stage, you are now feverishly googling the competition.  I wish you all the best. Hopefully this will be the beginning of an exciting ride for you.  MovieGuide treats the winners well!  Check out my blog to read more about my experience:   Winning The Kairos Prize.

Kenya Branch for GENERATIONAL CURSES
Donald Driscoll for SHOWDOWN AT DAMASCUS
Marlon Jones for MISDIRECTION
Harry Kleinman for WIND AND A PRAYER
Christopher Lovick and Wayne Sable for HEAVEN’S MESSENGER
Steve Lucas for THE WEEDING
Jackie Macgirvin for THE DESIGNER BAG AT THE GARBAGE DUMP
Birgit Myaard for THE HAND OF A WOMAN
Mary A. Quigley for MACY’S GRACE
Paul Undari for BORN UNDER A LUCKY STAR

Be sure to check out my book The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God.  It is available in paperback and on Kindle courtesy of TouchPoint Press.

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Sunday, January 24, 2016

Short Story: To Die A Hero

     Pressing assignments have forced me to neglect my blog, so please allow me to continue to entertain you with some old writing.
     Most of my early writing was comic in nature.  I have been finding bits and pieces of skits and plays and even comics (with my own illustrations) as I search through an old chest of papers.  Most of my writing was fragmentary.  I have very few completed pieces prior to college.
     The following story was my first serious attempt to write a short story.  It was written during as an assignment at in Dr. Carl Behm's creative writing class at Towson State in the Fall of 1982.  As my memoir relates, my estranged girlfriend Kathy found the tone of the story dark and suicidal. She called to express her concern about my mental health. I don’t think I was suicidal at the time, but, in retrospect, this story might have been a harbinger of things to come.  (I originally planned to include this story in my memoir as an appendix, along with other writings contemporaneous to the events I described, but, fortunately for the sake of my readers, I didn't do so!)
     I have made no effort to improve or correct the piece.  This is, more or less, the assignment I turned in for class.  Sadly, I forgot the grade.



TO DIE A HERO


     It was rush hour. The right side of the street was filled with cars leaving the city. The left side was practically empty. Melvin Calcunn, bookkeeper, stood quietly on the bus stop observing the world around him.
      Melvin noticed a mother and daughter across the street from him. The mother looked a little frazzled. From the expression on her face and the packages in her arms, he could tell that she had spent the entire day shopping with an active child in tow. The little girl was cute and appeared to be five-or-six-years old. She had long blond hair and was wearing a yellow jumpsuit and jacket. She was happily bouncing a little red ball on the sidewalk as she stood near her mother.
     Melvin watched the child bounce the ball up and down. He watched the ball bounce into the street. He saw the girl walk, unnoticed by her mother, into the street to get the ball. More importantly, he saw something neither the mother nor the little girl saw. He saw a speeding car appear over a rise in the street.
     The car was moving fast, at least fifteen miles over the speed limit. The little girl, walking towards the ball with her back to the car, was going to die. Melvin sensed this all and made his move.
     It was a strange sensation. It was as if everything in the world slowed down except for his mind.
     His black vinyl briefcase seemed to hang in the air for a moment after he released the handle before it began to slowly drift to the ground. Melvin knew he was running as fast as he could but it seemed an eternity between each echoing thud of his feet hitting the ground.
     His eyes inspected everything.
     The little girl, who was just beginning to pick up her ball, still had her back to the oncoming traffic. Her mother’s eyes were on a store window across the street. She didn’t know her daughter was about to die.
     Melvin looked to his left. Two cars, almost side-by-side, approached him in the northbound lanes. The two cars didn’t concern him. He knew he would be out of their way long before they reached him. Looking into the faces of the drivers, he knew he had frightened them more than they frightened him. He only hoped neither of them over-reacted and endangered them all.
     Melvin looked to his right. He began to study his adversary. The car was a beat-up, multi-color Ford Pinto. It was an early model which was showing its age. It was moving fact, around forty-five-mile-an-hour in a thirty-miles-an-hour zone. The long-haired teenager who was driving the car had just caught sight of the child. He didn’t start applying the brakes yet, and the girl was only about sixty-five feet in front of him. No, Melvin thought, he couldn’t stop in time.
     Melvin’s eyes once again returned to the little girl as he continued to move slowly towards her. Her back was still to the car, but she was beginning to turn as a loud screeching noise filled the air. Melvin turned his head to the right and could see that the driver of the Pinto was beginning to apply his brakes. It’s about time, Melvin though as he realized that the car had advanced much closer to the girl while his head was turned. He could see the sheer horror in the drivers’ face. He was just probably realizing that he would not be able to stop the car in time.
     Suddenly, Melvin’s ears were filled with various echoing sounds. His ears shuddered under the blaring noise of the horns of the cars approaching from the south. Melvin knew that they were over-reacting. He had already passed over the double yellow line. In front of him, the air was filled the sound of screams. The little girl had completed her turn and began a loud, shrill scream as she froze rigid with fear. There was another scream too. Melvin glanced to the mother to see her packages drifting slowly to the ground as she screamed. She was beginning to move too, but Melvin knew she was too far away to do any good.
     The car, skidding and sliding as the tires tried to grip the street, was now about fifteen feet away from the child. Melvin knew that there was only one thing that he could do to save the child. He felt his weight being thrown forward and his feet lifting off the ground as he stretched his arms. He felt himself flying, actually flying.
     He felt a tremendous surge of emotions as he flew with his arms outstretched to toward the helpless child. However, the emotions did not stop his mind from realizing what was bound to happen. He realized that he was quickly losing altitude and would land directly in the path of the skidding car. He only hoped he hit the girl with enough force to knock her out of the way. He prayed he would die a hero.
     As he drifted through the air, he tried not to worry about the outcome. There was nothing that he could now one way or another. Everything depended upon the laws of physics and gravity. The car, which was sliding gently to the right, was locked into place by force and momentum. The child was locked into place by face. Melvin knew he was locked into his course by gravity and momentum. His destiny could not be changed.
     The world returned to normal speed.
     Melvin’s left hand crashed into the girl’s shoulder and he violently pushed her out of the way of the oncoming automobile. She would live, he though as he felt the impact of his body against the surface of the street. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the right tire of the approaching Pinto.
     There was a smile on his face as he died.
     Melvin rolled over on his side as a loud buzzing noise rang in his ears. He opened his eyes to see a sliver of the early morning sunlight entering his bedroom between a gap in his drawn curtains. With a yawn, he reached out and turned off the alarm clock. He felt good, really good.
     Melvin got and sat lazily on the side of the bed and tried to recapture the dream. He wanted to relive it again before it melted and dissolved into his unconsciousness. It was drifting away. He could see the details blurring but he knew the sensations he felt at the heroic moment would never leave him. He had died a hero.
     Melvin glanced down at the clock again. He was shocked to see that thirty-five minutes had passed since he woke up. Leaping from his bed, Melvin began to hastily remove his blue, cotton pajamas. He had to hurry, he was more than a half-an-hour behind schedule.
     He was in a hurry, but he felt uneasy rushing his daily personal hygiene. Personal hygiene was a matter that he had learned to take very seriously. He knew that one personal hygiene error in the morning could be responsible for an entire day of embarrassment. More than once Melvin found himself sitting next to a person on a bus who was breathing noisily or sitting less than placidly, which made him wonder if he had used the proper quantity of deodorant. In a case like that, he would rush to the men’s room at the office as soon as he arrived to check himself.
     After a few hurried, but carefully orchestrated, minutes in the bathroom, Melvin rushed to the closet to choose the day’s apparel. He did not worry about his style of dress. He was a good dresser, almost too good.
     He had seven dress shirts, all of them white. It wasn’t like he had a shirt for each different day of the week. He didn’t have a Monday shirt, a Tuesday shirt or a Wednesday shirt. However, he made sure he didn’t wear a shirt twice until he wore all of them once. He washed all of the shirts on Friday. Friday was his washing night.
     Melvin knew he was a good, proper dresser. He read a book which told him what colors, fashions, and styles a person should wear for business and acted accordingly. He had three suits and six ties. His suits were the recommended gray, blue and black. All of the suits had stylish thin lapels, of course. He stopped wearing bowties because the book said the wimpish Wally Cox look was definitely out. He had six narrow ties, all of which had at least a touch of red.
     Melvin knew he didn’t have to be embarrassed by what he saw when he looked into the mirror. He didn’t always have that confidence, especially not before his boss, Mr. Dedzen, complimented his appearance in front of the entire Records Department. Mr. Dedzen said he wished everyone presented as favorable impression as Melvin did. Melvin was happy to receive the compliment. However, the next day began a gradual process of toning down his appearance. He did not want his fellow workers to think that he was trying to out dress them.
     Melvin glanced down at his watch and realized he would not have time for his usual sparse, but wholesome, breakfast. However, he did have enough time to look through the morning paper. He quickly went out of the door of apartment and got his newspaper. After pouring himself a small glass of milk, he searched to see if anything interesting had happened in the world.
     He skipped the first and second pages of the newspaper which tended to be devoted to international and national affairs, as well as politics and the economy. Those subjects did not interest him. He went to page three where the human interest stories could be found. This was his favorite section. He scanned the headlines but he didn’t find any stories worth reading.
     Next he flipped to the local section of the newspaper. For the most part, Melvin was less interested in the local news than he was about national news, but he sometimes found worthwhile stories in the local section. On the fourth page, he found a story that did interest him. It was about a local house fire.
     It was pretty much a typical fire story. A tenement apartment house in the worst part of the city caught on fire, trapping two children on the third floor. Before the fire engines arrived, a man rushed into the smoke-filled building to save the children. The man, an unemployed janitor, was rushed to the hospital as a result of smoke inhalation and released later that day. Both of the children were unharmed.
     Hero stories interested Melvin. In fact, he kept a scrapbook containing newspaper clippings of various heroes. However, this story did not fulfill the prime requisite of all the stories in the scrapbook. All of the heroes in his scrapbook died saving the life of another person.
     Glancing at his watch again, he knew he would have to leave immediately to catch the seven-ten bus. Grabbing his overcoat and briefcase, he left his apartment and walked briskly to the bus stop. The bus stop was only a half a block away and he got there a full minute before the bus arrived. 
     Usually Melvin caught the six-forty-nine bus. The seven-ten was usually so crowded that he couldn’t even sit down. When the bus did arrive, Melvin suspected he would have to stand until he got off to transfer to his second bus. Days like this made him wish he still drove his car to work.
     He owned a spotless ‘seventy-nine Nova. He kept it in a garage about a half a mile away from his apartment. Once and a while he would drive out to one of the large shopping malls in the suburbs, but for all intents and purposes, he hadn’t used the car for years.
     Driving was easier and safer, he wouldn’t deny that. However, that was also the problem. When he drove, he had total control over his environment, and regardless of how hard he tried, he found it almost impossible to resist the temptation to remain in his comfort zone. He had to leave his comfort zone if ever intended to be more than what he was now. Taking the bus forced him out of his safe world.
     The trip was uneventful. As he had feared, he had to stand. Actually, he didn’t mind standing too much. Standing gave him a better view of what was going on in the bus. Melvin scanned his fellow passengers. They were male and female, black and white, well-dressed and not so well-dressed. A variety of people filled the bus, but none of them looked like a homicidal maniac about to strike. When he finally reached the skyscraper where he worked, he left the bus the same who had stepped on it. Maybe tonight, he thought as he stepped down onto the sidewalk.
     Another day, another dollar, Melvin thought as he entered the building. The same thought entered his head every time he entered the building. There was a time when he would consciously try not to think that, but he always did. After a while he stopped trying.
     Melvin was at work minutes after the elevator door opened to reveal the large room filled with desks. He didn’t spend the first half-an-hour of the day talking and gossiping like the vast majority of the people in his department. In fact, he rarely conversed with his co-workers, except within the line of duty. They were just a bunch of middle class idiots who would never do anything with their lives. They would never be anything more than what they were now. They would live until the age of 67.5 years then just die. The only who would go to their funerals were the people who had to. Looking around the office, he could see a vast number of people who have two car funeral processions. He used to hate them, but now he only felt pity.
     He was called a book keeper, but, in reality, he was little more than a book comparer. All of the accounting and book keeping chores of the huge bank he worked for were done by computers. However, for legal reasons, the bank kept physical records. Melvin worked eight hours a day, five days a week, comparing the computer printouts and the accounting journals to make sure their were no discrepancies. He hadn’t found an error in five years. Over the course of his thirteen year career, he had found only two mistakes.
     Lunch time. The office was deserted. Most of the people were eating at the cafeteria or at nearby eateries. Melvin ate lunch at his desk, as he always did. He was eating the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he had prepared the night before and packed neatly into his briefcase.
     Melvin was munching on his sandwich when a door to the office opened. Raising his eyes, he saw Bea Allenson enter the office. When she saw him, she smiled and waved. Melvin choked on his sandwich. She continued to walk toward another exit. Before she left, she turned and said, “See you on the bus stop tonight, Mr. Calcunn.” 
     “Okay,” Melvin answered feebly as he watched her smile and walk out of the office. Melvin cringed. If he had known he was going to see her, he would have prepared something better to say.
     Bea Allenson, a secretary from the Investments Department, was the closet thing to a girlfriend that Melvin had. She was pretty and always nice to him. He knew that she was single but also knew that a woman as charming as her had to have a steady boyfriend. He was tempted to ask someone in Investments about her, but he was afraid it would get out that he was interested in her. If she found out, she would probably get mad and stop talking to him on the bus stop after work. He couldn’t jeopardize that.
     After work they would take the same bus. She did not take the bus all the way to her home, where she lived with her mother. She had a car but she parked it on an inexpensive lot about a mile and a half from the building. The moments he spent with her on the bus were priceless. Too bad that she had to have a boyfriend somewhere.
     The afternoon passed more quickly than usual. As page after page of ledgers and computer printouts passed in front of him, Melvin was ashamed to realize that he had spent most of the time thinking about Bea. He tried to stop thinking about her, after all, there was no reason on earth to believe she was thinking about him. Why should she? On the outside, he realized that he was little more than just another bland book keeper. How could she possibly know that he was going to be a hero one day?
     After work, Melvin waited for Bea between the entrances of their bank’s main branch and the corporate offices. He tried to act calm and nonchalant. When she came out, he did not want her to think he was waiting especially for her. He wanted it to look like a coincidence. Finally, he decided that it would be less obvious if he waited in front of the building closer to the bus stop.
     It was two minutes before Bea stepped out on the street. She was almost at the entrance of the bank branch when the first shot rang out.
     The sound stunned everyone on the street. It was not until the second shot that Melvin realized that the sound was coming from inside of the bank. Shaking off his shock, Melvin moved away from the building where he stood. He was in the center of the sidewalk when the first gunman ran out of the bank.
     He was a big dude dressed in an Army jacket and wearing a stocking over his head. He had a pistol in one hand and a brown shopping bag in the other. He was heading directly for Bea, who was frozen in terror.
     Melvin stopped for a second to determine his strategy as the second gunman burst out of the bank doors. He was smaller than the first man, but dressed in a similar manner. As he was leaving the bank, the third and fourth shots rang out. 
     Melvin saw the smaller man knocked forward as if he were hit by an invisible sledgehammer. As he fell forward, it was as if he had been hit in the center of his back with the same sledgehammer. The man hit the sidewalk with tremendous force. He didn’t move. He was dead. Melvin had never seen a real dead man before. His eyes were glued to the corpse until he heard a strangely familiar scream.
     Melvin’s eyes moved upward and he saw a sight that shocked him to his core. The big gunman had grabbed Bea and was using her as a shield. With his back to the street, the gunman told everyone not to move or he would shoot her. Everyone on the street froze, afraid to breathe.
    Melvin saw what he had to do. He decided to do it.
     Screaming louder than he thought he could, Melvin began to run toward the gunman. Hearing the scream, the big man turned sideways and pointed his gun at Melvin. He shouted a warning, but Melvin did not stop.
     Melvin saw a burst of light erupt from the front of the pistol. The light was immediately followed by a hard, burning sensation in his shoulder. He had never before experienced anything like the searing pain, but he did not stop.
     Again, the gunman squeezed the trigger. Melvin felt a tremendous jolt to his ribs, practically doubling him over. He went blank for a second but he did not lose his balance and continued toward the gunman. Opening his blurring eyes, he saw that he was only a few feet away from his opponent. Screaming again, he forced himself onward.
     He felt himself colliding with the gunman. He did not know whether or not Bea had broken free, but he knew what he had to do. At once, both of Melvin’s hands groped blindly for the pistol. When he thought he found it, he struggled to point it toward the gunman while he squeezed down on the hand. The pistol fired again. Both of the men fell to the ground afterwards.
     Melvin was barely conscious of the activity around him. He could hear people hovering around. He could feel hands touching him. Most importantly, he could hear Bea’s sobs and feel her arms around him. As he felt the life drain out of him, Melvin smiled.
     Suddenly he heard a clear but confused voice. “Melvin, Mr. Calcunn, are you all right?” he heard Bea ask.
     Melvin opened his eyes and discovered that he was still standing next to the building. He was confused for a moment before he realized that it had all been a dream.
     Damn it, why?
    “I’m okay,” Melvin said, regaining his composure. “I was just thinking.”
     Bea smiled. She looked so good. “Okay, but we’ve got to hurry or we’ll miss the bus.”
     They got to the bus stop right before the bus arrived. The bus was crowded so they stood together and talked. Bea did most of the talking, as usual. Melvin was content to listen. He liked the sound of her voice. She gave him a big smile before rang the bell and got off the bus.
     Melvin watched her from the window. The bus began moving slowly again in the heavy traffic, staying slightly behind her. Melvin noticed that a man seemed to following her. A tall, lean man. A dangerous man.
     Bea turned into the alley between two buildings and walked toward the lot where she kept her car parked. Melvin watched the lean man reach into his pocket as he turned to follow her. As the bus passed the alley, Melvin thought he saw a glimpse of metal in the man’s hand.
     Melvin dropped his briefcase and rang the bell.
    The bus driver stopped the vehicle and glanced into his mirror. No one moved. No one even bothered to meet his eyes. After a moment, the driver muttered a curse and pressed the gas pedal.
To find out if I was indeed trapped in a suicidal spiral at the time I wrote that story, check out my book The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God.  It is available in paperback and on Kindle courtesy of TouchPoint Press.

Sample Chapters:
Chapter 1 - A Photograph
Chapter 2 - My Death
Chapter 3 - Childhood
Chapter 4 - Saved!
Chapter 5 - The Promise
Chapter 6 - The Mission
Chapter 7 - Mission Accomplished

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Sunday, January 17, 2016

My Five Favorite Dylan Albums

Here's a list of my five favorite Bob Dylan albums.  My criterion?  Basically my own personal taste, and not their place in the canon of popular music.  I think many Dylan fans will be surprised that I tend to favor the later Dylan, but, then again, that was the Dylan of my time.  I picked the five albums that I enjoy listening too most in their entirety.  Albums that I find myself skipping tracks on were disqualified from the list.

(I know I should probably start with number five and work my way down to number one, but I am going in the reverse order since that is more reflective of my Dylan journey.)


1).  Infidels.  1983

Infidels was my real introduction to Bob Dylan.  I grew up without much interest in popular music -- aside from The Beatles.  My mother had both of Dylan's earlier greatest hits albums, but I never found myself drawn to them.  I wasn't into that whole folky thing.  However, one afternoon I was sitting in the Film Lab at Towson State and I read a favorable review of this album in the Towerlight, our student newspaper.  Somehow it inspired me to go over to Record and Tape Traders and pick up a copy.  And it blew my mind.

I had never heard a song like the opening track "Jokerman" before.  I found it equally cryptic and illuminating.  I was mesmerized.  Bob sounded like an Old Testament prophet.  "Freedom, just around the corner for you, but with truth so far off, what good will it do?"  Amen, brother.  The critics hailed this album as Dylan's return from Christianity, but they weren't listening.  Christianity seemed to permeate ever track.  I think the verse to the song "I & I" succinctly sums up the relationship between God and man.  "I and I, in creation where one's nature neither honors nor forgives, I and I, one said to the other, no man sees my face and lives."  Pretty deep stuff.  At least to me.  At the time.

And the musicianship....  Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits and ex-Rolling Stone Mick Taylor going neck-to-neck on the guitars backed up by the ace rhythm section of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare.  Things don't get much better than that.

The hunt was on for more Dylan.
2).  Highway 61 Revisited.  1965

After wearing down my copy of Infidels, I started researching Dylan in order to discover where to go next.  The arrows all pointed toward Highway 61 Revisited.

What an immense flood of words floating above a lively accompaniment.  I would later understand that Dylan was exalting in the ability to say whatever he wanted on this album, and the previous one, Bringing It All Back Home, after tiring of the restraints of folk music.  The album was rife with anger and judgement, as exemplified by "Like A Rolling Stone," which looked at the revolution he helped start and found it distinctly wanting, but it was also filled with humor.  A new songwriter myself, I could picture him smiling to himself as he reached for some of the most outlandish rhymes.  Listening to the album, I was surprised how the critics were later caught off-guard by Dylan's quote/unquote Christian period.  The Bible often showed up in his work.  Think of the opening of the title track:  "God said to Abraham:  kill me a son.  Abe said:  Man, you must be putting me on."  He's already wrestling with the divine.

Depending on my mood, this album often tops my list.  Highway 61 Revisited is definitely more influential, but Infidels was my first love.
3).  Oh Mercy.  1989

When I became a Dylan fan in 1983, I didn't realize that he was entering his creative nadir.  Although I always found something of value on each of his albums, it became tougher and tougher to wade through albums like Knocked Out Loaded, Down In The Groove, and Dylan &The Dead.*  I would take solace in his earlier work, but I couldn't help but wonder when, if ever, the real Dylan would show up again.

He did in 1989 with Oh Mercy.  I loved this album from the very first note as Dylan looked out at our "Political World" and discovered that "Everything Is Broken," and warned us about "The Man In The Long Black Coat."  Not only did I like the songs and the world-weary voice, I also loved the swampy production provided by Daniel Lanois.  It seems to me that, for the most part, Dylan's production seems to be rather slapdash:  A group of musicians gather around Dylan, they run through the songs a couple of times, and that's that.  Here, as on Infidels, which was skillfully produced by Mark Knopfler, Lanois places the songs in meaningful sonic context.

It was a great return to form, but it would be almost a decade before he would put together such a strong collection of original songs.

*Actually, I don't think I ever bought Dylan & the Dead.  After seeing one of the shows on this tour in Philadelphia, I didn't see the need to own the album.  Dylan's songs lost their distinctiveness when playing with the Dead.  They all seemed to blur together into the traditional mid-tempo Grateful Dead bop.  A pity.  I had seen Dylan play three songs with the Dead at RFK in Washington when he was touring with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.  Those three songs, which were also staples of the Dead's repertoire, were fabulous.   However, a whole concert of Dylan and the Dead together result in a dulling sameness.

Perhaps it was the contact high from the audience....


4).  Blood On The Tracks.  1975

Dylan seemed like an unstoppable creative force during the 1960s, but the 1970s found him much more muddled as his work careened wildly from genius to WTF.  Blood on the Tracks was definitely his best album of the decade.  It was the first of many acclaimed comebacks.

The album opens with one of Dylan's most celebrated tracks, "Tangled Up in Blue," and the blue mood continues throughout the rest of the album.  Returning to a simpler stripped down sound than some of his previous albums, most of the songs seem to look back at a past relationship.  Most critics credit turmoil in Dylan's marriage, which would eventually end in divorce, as the inspiration for the material.  However, to this day, Dylan contends that the album was not autobiographical.  Not that it needed to be.  At least for him anyway.  I certainly recognize myself in some of those songs in some of my more melancholy moments.  This is not an album I listen to often, but when I am in the right mood, it resonates very deeply.



5).  Love and Theft.  2001

Welcome to the new millennium, Bobby.

In this self-produced album, Dylan delivers a strong set of songs, backed up by his touring band, which stylistically reflect his interest in pre-rock popular music forms.  In "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum," the old master remains as cryptic and intriguing as ever, and "Mississippi" easily ranks alongside best of his songs ever.  There isn't a bad song on the album.

Dylan himself considers this album to be part of a trilogy with Time Out of Mind, that preceded it, and Modern Times, that followed it.  Critics tend to hail the Grammy-award winning Time Out of Mind as the best of the three albums.  I prefer this one.  I appreciate Time Out of Mind, but a certain gloom hangs over it.  This album, however, is filled with wry humor and experimentation.   Dylan seems to be enjoying himself, and the masks he puts on, during album.  I enjoy it, too.

Honorable Mention:

Personally, I find it hard to believe Bringing It All Back Home didn't make it.  Every song is a classic.  I tried to include it in lieu of practically every other album on the list after the first two, but it kept getting pushed back.  I will credit it as number six.  I will confess that I am not quite as fond of Blonde on Blonde.  Most critics say it is his best album ever.  It certainly contains a number of classic tracks, but I have a hard time listening to it all the way through in a single sitting.  While creatively lost in the 1990s, Dylan released two albums of himself playing old folk and blues songs solo on acoustic guitar.  I really didn't care for the first one, Good As I've Been To You, but the second one, World Gone Wrong, is really terrific and moving.  Even better are the liner notes where Dylan describes why he chose the songs.  Usually, Dylan is too oblique for my taste in his prose writing, but these liner notes really gave a glimpse of his soul.   If this was a Top Ten list, John Wesley Harding would have definitely made it, even though Bobby Boy needed Jimi Hendrix to teach him how to really play "All Along The Watchtower."  Desire features some of his best story songs.  My favorite one on the album is "Black Diamond Bay."  I love how Dylan switches the perspective of the narrator, taking a step back from the material, in the final verse.  He employs the same device later in "Blind Willie McTell," an outtake from the Infidels album, which is one of the best songs he wrote.  The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan is my favorite of his early albums.  It would definitely make my Top Ten List.  The official release of The Basement Tapes would have made my list once upon a time, until I grew a little disillusioned with it upon discovering how many overdubs were added.  I recently picked up the new "bootleg" version of the untouched original recordings.  I have figured out where they go in the official Dylan canon yet.  Although I always enjoy listening to Dylan exploring his faith, whatever it might be at the particular moment, none of his three strictly Christian albums would have made my Top Ten list.  The first one, Slow Train Coming, is generally regarded as the best one, but I prefer the harder rocking third album, Shot of Love, the best.  The album's final track, "Every Grain of Sand,"  is one of his best songs ever and a great depiction of trying to live the Christian life.

Worst Album:

I never heard Dylan, the outtake album Columbia released to spite him after he left for Asylum, but they say that it is pretty bad.  I don't hate Self Portrait as much as people did at the time of its release.  That's probably because I never sat down and really listened to it.  I can't say that I really hate any of Dylan's albums, but there are a few that just don't gel with me no matter how many chances I give them.  They include:  New Morning, Planet Waves, Street Legal, Down In The Groove and Knocked Out Loaded.

I haven't heard the Christmas album yet.  Or his Sinatra wannabe one.  They kinda scare me....

Check out some videos I edited here:
FD Automatic: Red Shoes
Crack The Sky: Mr. President
Greg Kihn: Horror Show
Nils Lofgren: Alone

Other Lists:


Have you bought my memoir "The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking to God" yet?  If not, you really should.  Get it on paperback or kindle here:  BUY IT NOW!  (How about that for subtle?)


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