Flanek: The Kentucky Columbo

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Bud Flanek is a rumpled, amiable, deceptively low-key homicide detective on the Owensboro, Kentucky police force, the hero of three short, funny mystery movies that now have their own YouTube channel.

Nobody set out do a series of movies about the character… it was a happy accident. It began when Zev Buffman invited my friend David Breckman, the outrageously talented MONK writer-producer-director, to be a guest at the International Mystery Writers Festival at Riverpark Center in Owensboro a few years back.

David came up with the brilliant, insane idea of writing, producing, and directing a short film using primarily local talent … all during the course of the festival… which was, if memory serves, ran just four days. Amazingly, he pulled it off. The result was Murder in Kentucky, a twenty minute short starring Todd Reynolds as an unnamed homicide detective who solves a murder that happens during the rehearsal for a live-radio theater show. I loved it. But for reasons too complicated to go into, mostly technical, the movie only screened once and wasn’t seen again for several years (but don’t worry, there’s a happy ending to the tale).

20x30_Remaindered_Novel_Way_FestivalsNot long after that, Zev invited me to write & direct a short film in Owensboro. I decided to adapt my short story Remaindered, which had been published to some acclaim in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and was about a once-famous author on a miserable, last-ditch book tour that leads to murder. I cast Todd to play Bud Flanek, a homicide detective who appears late in the story. Although Flanek wasn’t intended to be the same character as the one Todd played in Murder in Kentucky, that’s what he became, main because he was the same actor playing a cop in the same town in the same wardrobe. And it helped that my cop had pretty much the same personality and attitude as David’s unnamed lawman.

Remaindered became a hit on the national film festival circuit, winning awards and rave reviews, including praise from writer-producer William Link, co-creator of Columbo, who loved Todd’s performance and christened Flanek “The Kentucky Columbo.” Wow.

So when Riverpark asked me to do another film, I knew I had to bring Todd back as Flanek. I adapted another short story of mine, Bumsicle, and recrafted it with Todd Reynolds in mind. Unlike Murder in Kentucky and Remaindered, though, Flanek was very much the center of this story, which was darker than the other two, but still had a few laughs.

Bumsicle also became a hit on the festival circuit and garnered lots of praise. After a year on the road, we brought the film back to Owensboro and screened it outdoors in a triple bill with Murder in Kentucky and Remaindered, drawing a crowd of over 500 people.

After that, we knew we had something special and decided to create a channel devoted to Flanek on YouTube. But first we had to tweak Murder in Kentucky a bit, which had poor sound (due to cheap equipment) and temp music lifted from Bonnie Raitt (due to the very hurried production schedule… did I mention it was written, produced, and shot in just four days?). So Firelight Entertainment Group in Hawesville Kentucky, with whom I shot Bumsicle and the Dead Man music videos, remastered the sound on Murder in Kentucky, and replaced the music. To tie the short into the series, I asked singer-songwriter Matt Branham, who did the score for my two films, to write & perform a new end theme song expressly about Flanek…”Nothing Fun About Murder”

..he even manages to mention Monk!

Now the Flanek channel is live with all three movies. Our hope is to whip up enough enthusiasm for the films to merit the funding of more short Flanek mysteries, perhaps even a webseries of 20 minute episodes. It’s in your hands.

So if you like the movies, please please PLEASE leave comments on our FLANEK channel, “like” our Flanek Facebook Page, and spread the word to all your friends!

Booksigning Hell Remembered

20x30_Remaindered_Novel_Way_FestivalsAny author who was published back in the pre-ebook days can tell you stories about some horrible booksignings. I did a signing years ago in a now-defunct Newport Beach bookstore. Not a single soul showed up. So the store clerk plopped herself down in the seat beside me.

“This is great,” she said.

“How so?” I replied.

“I can read you some of my erotic poetry,” she flipped open a thick notebook filled with illegible scrawl, and began to read. “Hello, He throbbed…”

I looked at my watch. I was scheduled to be there another hour-and-thirty minutes. And my wife had my car…

“My wife should be here any minute,” I said.

Her breasts swelled, waves of lust on a sea of passion…”

* * * * * *

Another signing, this one at a Waldenbooks in the South Bay, where I was stuck at a cardtable at the front of the store. Only one person even approached me. She wanted to know where the diet books were.

After two hours of boredom, I approached the manager and thanked her for having me.

“Would you like me to sign the stock?” I asked.

She looked at me in horror. “No way!”

“Why not?” No one had ever said no to me signing stock before.

“None our customers are going to buy a marred book!”

* * * * * *

I fictionalized one of my favorite bad booksignings for my short story REMAINDERED, which appeared in “Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine,” a few years back and was later adapted into a short film. Rather then tell it like it was, here’s a bit from the story instead…

The voice of a new generation sat at the end of aisle 14, where the house wares department ended and the book section began. He peered over the neat stack of paperbacks on the table in front of him and, once again, as politely as he could, told the irritable woman in the orange tank top and slouchy breasts that he had absolutely no idea where she could find wart remover.

“You’re not being much of a help,” she snapped, leaning one hand on her shopping cart, which was filled with disposable diapers, Weight Watchers Frozen Dinners, Captain Crunch, a sack of dry dog food, a box of snail poison and three rolls of paper towel. “Look at this, it’s doubled in size just this week.”

She thrust a finger in his face, making sure he got a good look at the huge wart on her knuckle.

“I don’t work here,” he replied.

“Then what are you doing sitting at a help desk?”

“This isn’t a help desk. I’m an author,” he said. “I’m autographing my book.”

She seemed to notice the books for the first time and picked one up. “What’s it about?”

He hated that question. That’s what book covers were for.

“It’s about an insomniac student who volunteers for a sleep study and falls into an erotic relationship with a female researcher that leads to murder.”

“Are there cats in it?” she asked, flipping through the pages.

“Why would there be a cat in it?”

“Because cats make great characters,” she dropped his book back on the stack, dismissing it and him with that one economical gesture. “Don’t you read books?”

“I do,” he replied. “I must have missed the ones with cats.”

“I like cat books, especially the ones where they solve murders. If you’re smart, you’ll write a cat book.” And with that, she adjusted her bra strap and rolled away in search of a potion to eradicate her warts.