11/6/2022 1 Comment Birthday was forgettable again!October 18 was just another day. My birthday fell on a Tuesday, and I attended a Democrat Committee meeting that evening.
Family members posted greetings before noon, normally that pleases me. But one thing someone did that irritated me: posting a photo of myself heavier at the job that let me go and putting my most important writing accomplishments. I did not get anything from the woman I once expected to spend the rest of my life with. We had a big fight when her mother died on Labor Day week. I've pretty much counted her out and it will take a miracle for us to reconnect.
1 Comment
10/16/2022 0 Comments Happy Alabama Hatorade DayNational Alabama Football Hatorade Day is always celebrated different days each year. Monday, October 17, 2022 is the national holiday for hatred of Alabama football. It's the Monday after the Crimson Tide loses a game. Tennessee knocked off Alabama 52-49 in Neyland Stadium. We know the drill. Alabama loses a game on the road. Fans of home team rush onto field, tear down goal posts. Alabama coaches and players can't leave the field. When Alabama beats somebody, it's just another day. What's gotten sad about this ordeal: social media making threats to Alabama players and fans. Especially when ESPN and FOX Sports encourage it and join on the celebration. Another reason I don't watch pre-game shows anymore. Sports journalism is a thing of the past. All we have now are ex-pro athletes who often root for their teams or favorite players in the broadcast booth. As for Alabama football, I'm at stage of the contestant on the Price of Right Game show, where the person won the car, is now playing for the showcase (until they have to go home and pay taxes on the gifts). Alabama coach Nick Saban has broken the record for most national championships, seven, a record won't be broken for eons. Saban is cemented as the greatest coach ever. Another title at Alabama will break Bear Bryant's record with the Crimson Tide. The nation, except Alabama, can rejoice and celebrate all week. College football and the NFL have changed from the way we grew up. It's really sad. 10/9/2022 0 Comments Always love the month of OctoberThe month of October is always an emotional spot for me. My birthday is the 18th and I usually do something a day or so later. I am a big fan of Halloween, eating Halloween candy and cookies. I enjoy making Halloween baskets filled with Peanut Butter pumpkins, candy corn, witch popcorn, bat gum and Dracula teeth. The girls always shared my view of Halloween, wanting a bag of candy and a gift. I usually purchase peanut butter pumpkins a week after Halloween at reduced price, putting them in a Christmas basket six weeks later. To me, pumpkins always represented the Fall. 9/27/2022 0 Comments Is Hollywood in the future?I took my first and only trip to Hollywood with the then-wife during the summer of 2005. Screenwriting was nowhere near the agenda. I was preparing for what would be the worse U.S. Natural Disaster, Hurricane Katrina. Seventeen years later, I'm quietly working my way through Film Festivals in Hollywood. Earlier this year, my screenplay, Legal Passion, received the Special Jury Award at the Hollywood International Film Festival. More importantly, second-place finish was a qualifier for the International Movie Database. Last month, Legal Passion won best feature screenplay at the Hollywood Academy Film Awards. While not a IMDB qualifier, this victory is equally important. I've submitted to film festivals in Hollywood, Los Angeles and Sacramento and gotten crushed over the years, but these two Hollywood wins will always remain close to my heart. Having friends visit on the Fourth of July weekend can be a helpful thing, provided they want to be with you.
When it rained on July 4, everything is taken away. Add to the fact your love interest is out of town. Your job won't allow you to take regular vacations. Fourth of July was a stinker. 6/26/2022 0 Comments Missed out on love and happinessThe dumbest decision I ever made continues to haunt me.
Twenty-eight years ago, I turned away from a relationship that lasted from 1991 to 1994. It began during my final year at Stillman College and ended after she graduated from the University of Alabama in 1994. One day she called me at work in Biloxi, Mississippi. She planned to study fashion in New York City, but if there was a chance to have a family and get married, she'd take it. My heart went pitter-patter and it skipped a beat. My body froze quicker than a snowman at the North Pole. I was in love with her and wanted nothing more than Everlasting Love. We'd make our own version of Married....With Children. Deep down, my conscience prevented me from doing so. She'd resent me for not allowing her to go and one day, she'd leave. By the time she returned to Alabama five years later, I was about to get married. She began dating her eventual husband and father of two girls. My only marriage ended after 10 years. I have two girls. It's plain and simple: her marriage worked and mine did not. In a heavy dose of symbolism, I work in her hometown. I run into her sister and mother I often joke about what could've been. I tried to start a second time with another Selma, but her sorority and materialism kept it from going anywhere. I passed up True Love in the Spring of 1994 and it hasn't been the same since. 6/15/2022 1 Comment Just another empty Father's DayFather's Day has come and gone for 2022.
The third Sunday in June is another day to me. It's been locked in my DNA since the day I entered the world on October 18, 1969. I never had a father or dad, just someone I refer to as a sperm donor. Saying that is being kind to him. My heart always tightened whenever I saw my friends with their fathers. Whether to pick them up from school or watch them play sports. All of that eluded me. A glimmer of hope flashed between 1999 and 2008, when the child lived with me. At first, shivers slid down my spine over being a father. As time passed, my heart stalled for moments. We did a lot of great things together. I enjoyed being a dad as my tight muscles loosened. We haven't talked in four years, she's now a mother with two kids. My loose lips drop open in dejection, unable to hide my disappointment from us not talking. Symbolism surrounds me. I had a deadbeat dad and I'm being treated like a deadbeat dad. 5/22/2022 0 Comments Boot, Passion top month of MayThe month of May provided a few historic moments for me. I finally had a breakthrough in the unpredictable world of screenwriting sports movies.
I earned Special Jury Awards at two prestigious Film Festivals in Hollywood and Canada. To me, it's a second place finish behind the Best Feature Screenplay award. At least that's what I put down for the International Movie Database. Getting the Boot was honored at the Canada Independent Film Festival. The Boot emerged as my second most popular script. Legal Passion was rewarded at the Hollywood Independent Film Festival. Legal Passion is regarded by Film Festivals as my best script and I won't dispute that claim. Most of my victories have been at the expense of Legal Passion, a film set in Rome, Italy. All of this success tickles my brainwaves as I'm anxious to see what success awaits me going forward. Stay tuned. This may be fun. 4/17/2022 0 Comments Easter weekend ended up all wetIt was the worst Easter I ever experienced. Easter Eve and Easter Sunday both ended up an all wet affair in the Deep South, particularly where I grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. All of my plans were canceled on the count of heavy rain and thunderstorms, both Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. First, I planned to attend Alabama's Spring football game at Bryant-Denny Stadium. I secured a media pass, perhaps, for the last time since we currently have a sportswriter at The Selma Times-Journal who will be attending Crimson Tide home games. It rained three hours before kickoff and during the game, not an ideal situation for me. Not having the game televised sucked rotten eggs as ESPN sold its soul for the NBA. I guess ESPN forgot college football is a religion in the South. The church, whom I had been attending all month for a Easter program countywide outdoors, got rained out. The Pastor, whom I became fast friends five month since arriving in Selma. Alabama, delivered a powerful sermon. I did not sit by the woman, who I've been seeing since 2019, because we had a heated argument on Good Friday. It was over her mis-step on her daughter's performance and her mis-communication. Not that big a deal to me, but she blew it. Oh well. Easter is over. We can look forward to Memorial Day. 3/26/2022 0 Comments March Madness comes assortedMarch Madness is more than about basketball. I must that this is the best my bracket has ever done whenever I decide to participate. Half of my Final Four can still win it all, but they play each other. My national champion, Kansas, is headed to the Final Four, if the Jayhawks beat Miami on Sunday. I'm thinking about my friend, Sandra Marshall, a Kansas native and Jayhawk fan. I'm not if she's still alive, but enjoyed our friendship during the author run in the early 2010's. The other pick, Villanova, punched their ticket to the national semifinals on Saturday. Oh well, I may get a national championship pick. Back to the assorted March Madness. The regular job of mine at the newspaper where the press we print broke down and moved up our deadlines around lunchtime. Copy and pages were rushed, meaning the chances for mistakes increased. The upper level don't understand, more concerned about a magazine on short notice with reluctant and unclear subjects. I'm slowly fading out of the sports scene with the new person working his way into the grind of mixing news and sports. The new person arrived when basketball season, limiting our coverage to four live games by between December and March. One person, an Administrator and head coach for one team that made the state tournament, bitched on Social Media of our no coverage. If the person asked, they would've known I was alone and already been promoted, meaning little time for prep hoops. Comparing me to a person who had a full staff, not one or two people. The person needed to do their research. I reached out to the person when they made the Final Four and for all state picks, no calls were returned. The person apparently sent in nominations, but it failed because I'm on committee for area. Coaches in area nominate to me and I give to the committee. All I heard was more bitching about those players on All County in wrong positions, called our newspaper trash and my picks meant nothing to them. I fired back, guess that surprised them, called me a sell-out and said I shouldn't go to basketball gyms here anymore. Told the person I go where I damn well please and at their school since they don't own it. The remarks made the person sound like a political candidate about to lose badly in a race. None of my girls did name calling in high school, grew out of it in middle school. The direct messages with name calling was childish. Told the child about during her 17th birthday and she thought it was stupid. Our new person wrote a column, ripping the person for not setting an example as a leader of the school and causing their own mistake. Resorting to character assassination and comparing me to a white employee whom I did not work with can be considered borderline racism. I did not resort to name calling and served as the adult. I acted my age and not someone who seemed unhinged. A waste of time bitching about coverage for the second-best basketball team in the area when no one can cover every school. Former students at the school said the complaints were paper cover their rival, the best team in the area. Feel like I was in the 1971 legendary Brady Bunch episode, "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia," instead insert the school name. My advice is simple: learn from your mistake, swallow your pride and do not repeat it next year. |
AuthorJK Jones' writing career began as a junior at Holt High in 1986 as as Sports Editor of the Purple Reign, the school's newspaper until graduating in 1988. It opened the door to a long and successful sports writing career. As an author, several of Jones' E-books were best sellers. Jones has shown promise during the early stages of screenwriting. Jones' short screenplay, Instant Replay, was accepted by the Cannes Latitude Film Festival in 2016. Jones' most recent screenplay, False Start, was selected to the Chihuahua International Film Festival in November, 2019. For more information, visit https://www.scriptrevolution.com/profiles/jk-jones. Archives
May 2024
IMDB Qualifying First-place awards |