Author Archives: Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

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About Alan O’Hashi, Whole Brain Thinker

I’ve been involved with community journalism since 1968 when I wrote for my junior school paper, the "Tumbleweed," through high school and college and then wrote for the "Wyoming State Journal." I put aside my newspaper pen and began Boulder Community Media in 2005. There wasn’t much community journalism opportunity, so I resurrected my writing career as a screenwriter. My first short screenplay, “Stardust”, won an award in the 2005 Denver Screenwriting Center contest. I've made a number of movies over the years. Filmmaking is time-consuming, labor and equipment intensive. I recently changed my workflow to first write a book and make a movie based on that content. - Electric Vehicle Anxiety and Advice - This is a memoir travelogue of three trips covering 2,600 EV miles around Wyoming (2022) - Beyond Heart Mountain - Winter Goose Publishers released my memoir in February (2022) - The Zen of Writing with Confidence and Imperfection - This is a book recounting how luck planed into my signing a book deal after a 15-minute pitch meeting. (2020) - True Stories of an Aging Baby Boomer - War stories about living in a cohousing and lessons others can learn when starting their communities (2021) - Beyond Sand Creek - About Arapaho tribal efforts to repatriate land in Colorado (PBS - TBA) - Beyond Heart Mountain - Based on my memoir about my childhood in Cheyenne facing overt and subtle racism toward the Japanese following World War II (PBS - 2021) - New Deal Artist Public Art Legacy - About artists who created work in Wyoming during the Great Depression (PBS - 2018) - Mahjong and the West - SAG indie feature which premiered at the semi-important Woodstock Film Festival (2014) Over the years, I’ve produced directed, filmed and/or edited several short movies, “Running Horses” (Runner Up – Wyoming Short Film Contest), “On the Trail: Jack Kerouac in Cheyenne” (Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Festival, Top 10 Wyoming Short Film Contest), “Gold Digger” (Boulder Asian Film Festival), “Adobo” (Boulder International Film Festival), “A Little Bit of Discipline” (Rosebud Film Series), and two feature length documentaries “Your Neighbor’s Child” (Wyoming PBS and Rocky Mountain PBS), and “Serotonin Rising” (American Film Market, Vail Film Festival). He also directed and produced the award winning stage play “Webster Street Blues” by my childhood friend Warren Kubota. Boulder Community Media is a non-profit production company dedicated to democratzing media in all their forms - large and small screens, printed page and stage by providing sustainable and community-based content. I mostly work with community-based media producers, organizations, and socially-responsible businesses to develop their content via – the written word, electronic and new media, the visual and performing arts in a culturally competent manner – I’m what’s commonly called a niche TV and movie producer. Along with all this is plying my forte’ – fund development through grant writing, sponsorship nurturing and event planning.

‘What the Morning Brings,’ an homage to Hemingway

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Are you a Hemingway fan? Check out my book!

Paris to Boulder, and Pamplona to Cheyenne: Reimagining a Hemingway Classic

Some books begin as an idea. Others begin as a conversation across generations. “What the Morning Brings” is a part of “The Libby Flats Saga” series. So far the Saga consists of three stories beginning with “The Gathering at Libby Flats” and “Vengeance! at Stone Creek.”

Best Chance Media released my historical fiction novel, “What the Morning Brings.” It’s fitting that the book comes out this month, since July 22nd is Ernest Hemingway’s birthday.

I adapted Hemingway’s classic “The Sun Also Rises,” which entered the public domain in 2022. Rather than retelling the story, I reimagined it for a different generation facing a different war.

Hemingway’s characters sought refuge in the cafés of post-World War I Paris. My characters find themselves in Boulder, Colorado, during the turbulent years of the Vietnam War. The antiwar movement gains momentum. Young people question authority. Veterans return home carrying wounds that aren’t always visible.

Jake Barnes, a Vietnam veteran and newspaper photographer, and Brett Ashley, a former military nurse turned antiwar activist, are at the center of the story. Like many people of their generation, they are searching for meaning in a world that no longer makes sense.

The story eventually leaves Boulder for Wyoming. In Hemingway’s novel, the climax unfolds during the Running of the Bulls and the bullfights of Pamplona, Spain. In “What the Morning Brings,” the action moves to Cheyenne and the Wild Prairie Stampede, where a fateful bull ride changes lives forever.

The novel explores friendship, love, loss, resilience, and the struggle to find one’s place in a rapidly changing America. While inspired by a literary classic, it’s also a story of the American West, the Vietnam era, and the people who lived through it.

As a writer and documentary filmmaker, I’ve long been fascinated by how history shapes individual lives. “What the Morning Brings” allowed me to revisit a pivotal period in American history while paying tribute to one of literature’s most enduring novels.

If you’d like to be among the first readers, autographed copies are now available. They cost more, but purchasing directly helps support independent publishing and allows me to personally sign each book before it ships. You can also order from your local bookstore or online retailer.

Thank you to everyone who has followed my writing journey. I look forward to sharing this new story with you.

Purchase your autographed copy today and join me on a journey from the streets of Boulder to the rodeo grounds of Cheyenne, where the promises of youth collide with the realities of war, love, and fate.

https://bouldercomedia.gumroad.com/l/whatthemorningbrings

Car Wash Meditation

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Do you intentionally meditate?

I’ve been trying to slow down by gardening, getting rid of my stuff so I don’t have to worry about what to do with it later.

I showed up at the gym for a drop-in class and didn’t make the cut.

Too many people, not enough spots. One of the hazards of spontaneity.

I had an hour to kill.

My Volkswagen ID.4 looked like it had recently crossed a biblical insect plague. I’d just returned from a couple of road trips: one to Casper for the Wyoming Writers Conference and another to a summer solstice party in Cheyenne.

Hundreds of miles of highway had transformed the front end and the windshield into a natural history museum of insect remains.

A car wash seemed like a productive use of my unexpected free time.

I picked up a Soccer Sandwich Special at Subway, fought my way around road construction, and pulled into the Gloss Auto Wash next door. The menu offered several packages. I chose the basic exterior wash.

“Do you want to drive it through or do you want us to do it?” the attendant asked.

“What’s the difference?”

“It’s faster if you do it,” she said. “Just follow the line.”

I had never driven through one of these conveyor-style washes before. Usually, someone would climb in while I waited outside wondering if my car will emerge intact.

The guy doing the prewash pointed toward a sign.

“Put it in neutral and keep your hands off the wheel.”

I turned off the radio.

This must be what riding in a self-driving Waymo cab feels like.

The car rolled forward on its own while workers sprayed down the front and back ends. This wasn’t one of those fully automated washes where machines do everything. It was a labor-intensive operation with people hosing, scrubbing, and prepping each vehicle before the machinery took over.

As I entered the tunnel, I couldn’t help thinking of a “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode. Cheryl takes a colon cleanser to cure a cough, gets trapped in a car wash, exits the vehicle for a reason that quickly becomes too much information, and leaves Larry to deal with the consequences. It remains one of the more memorable, and uncomfortable, television depictions of a car wash.

Fortunately, my experience was considerably less dramatic.

The brushes never touched the car, but water thundered across the glass from every direction. I could feel the vibration. For a few minutes I sat in a cocoon of splashing water, humming motors, and blurred blue light.

The outside world disappeared.

No traffic. No road construction. No deadlines. No gym class I wasn’t getting into anyway.

Just water.

It struck me that we spend a lot of time looking for relaxation. We schedule it. Pay for it. Download apps designed to teach us how to sit quietly.

Yet here I was finding a few unexpected moments of peace in the middle of a midday car wash.

The conveyor eventually carried me back into daylight. One of the attendants pointed at an open drying stall. Four guys descended on the ID.4 with red rags, wiping away every remaining drop, even opening the doors to dry the jambs.

A few minutes later, the bug cemetery was gone.

I drove away with a clean car, a good deal on lunch, and the realization that the best part of a missed appointment is the unexpected place it takes you.

In my case, it was a moving meditation wrapped in soap, water, and a bunch of guys drying my car with a personal touch, a reminder that the universe knows when I need a pause, even if it has to disguise it as a car wash.

My $33 tomato

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How’s your garden this summer?

Last night, I decided to make a Chicago dog.

I had all the essentials lined up on the counter: a hot dog and bun, relish, peppers, sauerkraut instead of pickle, celery salt, and tomato.

The tomato was supposed to be the star of the show.

Earlier this summer, I decided to turn my brown thumb into a green thumb. A local nonprofit, Growing Gardens, held its annual vegetable plant sale. I came home with a single Beefsteak tomato plant. I repotted it, gave it fresh soil, watered it faithfully, and watched it take off like it had discovered its life purpose.

Every day I checked on it.

Every day it got bigger.

Eventually, one tomato emerged as the chosen one. While a few other blossoms appeared, the plant seemed determined to pour all its energy into producing a single magnificent fruit.

Today was harvest day.

I picked the tomato and admired it for about 30 seconds before noticing a blemish on the bottom. No problem, I thought. Tomatoes get spots.

Then I cut it open.

Half the inside had spoiled. It looked like a melanoma had taken over the fruit. The plant had spent weeks concentrating all of its resources on one tomato that had gone bad from the inside out.

I trimmed away the damaged sections and salvaged what I could. The remaining pieces made it onto the Chicago dog and, to be fair, tasted pretty good.

Still, I couldn’t help doing the math.

The tomato plant, $9.

The pot, $14.

The potting soil, $10.

That means the tomato on my Chicago dog carried an investment of $33.

Even by Boulder standards, that’s an expensive tomato.

Of course, gardening isn’t about return on investment. If it were, nobody would do it. Gardeners spend money on plants, soil, cages, hoses, and tools, then celebrate when they grow something they could have purchased at the grocery store for 99 cents.

Yet next spring, I’ll try again.

Gardening is an act of optimism. I planted the tomato because I believed that with enough sunshine, water, and patience, I’d harvest a bumper crop. I hoped for a basket of tomatoes. Instead, I got one expensive tomato with a tragic flaw.

Wall Street investors chase quarterly earnings reports. Gardeners stare at a few blossoms and convince themselves that next year’s harvest is going to be spectacular.

My first tomato may have been a financial disaster, but I’ve already caught myself checking on those remaining blossoms.

That’s how gardening gets you.

No matter what happened this season, there’s always another tomato growing somewhere on the vine.