THE COLUMN:

OFFBEAT OREGON HISTORY: A weekly newspaper column that has evolved into a suite of public-history resources, including:

... a daily podcast
... a weekly RSS feed
... a Facebook page
... a Tumblr feed
... a calendar of live history shows in pubs
... a browsable Web archive (352 columns, at last count)

It's accessed through an anchor page, linked here.

THE BOOK:

WICKED PORTLAND: A book about the late-1800s underworld of Portland, Oregon, including ...

... Rascally politicians
... Saloons and gambling dens
... Naughty ladies of every description
... Shanghai artists and their victims (and would-be victims)
... Corrupt cops and mayors
... The world's dumbest-ever drug smugglers

Published by The History Press in June 2012. Here's a link to the "lost chapter" (cut from the book for lack of space); the main web site for the book is here.

AUDIOBOOKS:

PULP-LIT PRODUCTIONS is a publishing house in which I am principal partner. It specializes in annotated editions of pulp-fiction classics. Titles published to date include The John Carter of Mars Trilogy by Edgar Rice Burroughs and The Hour of the Dragon by Robert E. Howard. Upcoming projects include The Tarzan of the Apes Duology (October 2015) and The Lost Continent (December 2015), both by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and The Novels and Novellas of H.P. Lovecraft (March 2016).

The details are here.

OTHER WRITINGS:

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS: Some published, some not, accessed through a table of contents, here.

The airplane pictured above, by the way, is the one featured in this story, which is one of the best things I've ever written. Do check it out.

ME:

ABOUT ME: Everything you need to know, and a bunch of extra stuff you don't, about Yours Truly.

SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET

O Natty Light, My Natty Light

A classic-form sonnet dedicated to every impoverished graduate student's mostest bestie: Natural Light beer.

By FINN J.D. JOHN

September 2010

Topped o’er with froth like foam upon a wave
And shining in my flagon like the sea,
A golden nectar for my soul to crave,
O Natty Light! My heart I pledge to thee.

Tho’ mighty tempest toss my heart and soul,
Tho’ women find me creepy and a bore,
Tho’ Santa Claus my stocking fill with coal,
I know thy love is faithful evermore.

For every day I know ‘twould heaven be:
A loaf of bread, a jug of thee, and me.

This poetiffic masterpiece is dedicated to my erstwhile colleague, Jess Strauss, who introduced me and the other new grad students at the University of Oregon to the special cachet of Natty Light during our regular Thursday-evening meetings at Taylor's.

By the way, I created a visual of this "poem" for my "Sonnetize.com" blog. You can see it here.