Allan Duffin - Writer/Producer

"Quiet Waters" in Leatherneck Magazine

My latest article appears in this month's issue of Leatherneck, the official magazine of the U.S. Marine Corps Association. You can view a preview of the article by clicking here. (Sorry, for now the full article is only accessible to Leatherneck subscribers.)

The article is about the Warriors & Quiet Waters Foundation, Inc., an incredible organization. Their mission is as follows: "To provide traumatically injured U.S. servicemen and women from Iraq and Afghanistan with a high quality restorative program, utilizing the therapeutic experience of fly fishing on Montana waters."

Click here to view a photo gallery from the article.

"Mission: Cuba, Status: Top Secret" in Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine

Check out my new article in Smithsonian Air&Space Magazine's April/May issue. This year is the 50th Anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion, and Jim Storie — an aircraft maintenance technician who participated in the mission — told me a unique tale about his experiences at the secret base in Nicaragua. 

Here's the link the the article.

Jim and I met while I was working on The "12 O'Clock High" Logbook: The Unofficial  History of the Novel, Motion Picture, and TV Series. As a brand-new enlisted airman in the Air Force, Jim was assigned to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and found himself appearing as an extra in the movie version of Twelve O'Clock High, which filmed on base in 1949. (That's Jim in the photo on the right, at Eglin that year.)

"The Marine from NASA" in Leatherneck Magazine

Enjoy my new article about Colonel George Zamka, a United States Marine who also happens to be one of our astronauts. The article appears in the July issue of Leatherneck Magazine, the official publication of the Marine Corps Association.

Zamka’s nearly three-decade Marine career is packed with diversity and tremendous achievements. He has served as a pilot, racking up more than 5,000 hours in some 30 aircraft types. Out of the cockpit, Zamka completed tours as a forward air controller, maintenance officer and, since his appointment in June 1998, as one of America’s 95 astronauts. To date Zamka has logged nearly 700 hours in space.

Click here to read the full article, and to flip through a digital photo gallery and videos!

Today I became a Kindle Warrior: TheatreBook and Tow Truck Kings

I enjoy writing about a variety of topics, and over the last several years I've been fortunate to work as a regular contributor to two terrific industry publications: DramaBiz Magazine (the business of theatre) and Towing & Recovery Footnotes (the towing & recovery industry).

I've collected a number of those pieces into two eBooks — TheatreBook and Tow Truck Kings — available exclusively for the Amazon Kindle reader.

There's a lot of entertaining and useful information in each eBook. Theatre managers looking for tips on how to light a production or repair a costume, vehicle owners curious about how first responders clear a traffic accident, towing company owners who want to boost business — there's a little something for everyone in these two eBooks, in a portable and easy-to-read format.

You can download a free preview to your Kindle. That way you can check out the table of contents for each eBook, plus the first chapter or so. I hope you enjoy reading about the people in these two worlds as much as I did writing about them. You can click on the links below to go to Amazon's Kindle store:

TheatreBook: A Compact Guide to Running Your Theatre

Tow Truck Kings: Stories of the Towing Industry's Best & Brightest

New article in Leatherneck Magazine about HBO's "The Pacific"

I had the privilege of writing the cover story for this month's issue of Leatherneck Magazine, the official publication of the Marine Corps Association. HBO's new 10-hour TV miniseries "The Pacific," which follows the wartime exploits of three World War II Marines, premieres this month.

Many thanks to the following folks who took time out of their busy schedules to do interviews for the article: Bruce McKenna, co-executive producer and writer; Captain Dale Dye, USMC (Ret.), senior military advisor; Penny Rose, costume designer; and actor Jon Seda, who portrays legendary Marine "Manila John" Basilone. HBO's media relations staff was equally giving of their time and assistance -- thank you so much!

You can take a look at this issue of Leatherneck by clicking here, but you'll need a subscription to read the entire article.

Thanks also to Colonel Walt Ford, USMC (Ret.), the editor of Leatherneck, who's a terrific boss. He loves his job, and it shows.

Comic books, Charlton Comics, and how the job gets done

If you're a fan of comic books, head on over to Diversions of the Groovy Kind for lots of info and even scanned artwork to enjoy. I've always loved comic books, and it's nice to be able to look at issues online, appreciating the stories and art that provided fun diversions when I was a kid -- and still do today. Two of my favorite artists, Russ Heath and Pete Morisi , are featured in Diversions. (Morisi, by the way, was an officer with the NYPD who moonlighted as a comic book artist. How's that for variety?)

Diversions of the Groovy Kind includes material from the big companies like Marvel and DC, but also takes the time to feature smaller publishers (many of them defunct) like Charlton Comics, one of my favorites. Charlton was never known for quality printing, but they published a lot of fun books with material by big names in the comics industry, including John Byrne, Mike Zeck, Dick Giordano, Sam Glanzman, Tom Sutton, Steve Ditko, Joe Staton, and others. Many of these luminaries were new to comics and had their early work published by Charlton.

As a kid I visited the Charlton plant in Derby, Connecticut. It was my first real exposure to how the publishing world worked, and it was fascinating -- especially since Charlton was vertically integrated. All functions, from layout to printing to distribution, were under one roof. My visit was a crash course in the publishing process. Later on I worked in a printing plant for awhile. All of this occurred before I became a writer, but I'm grateful that I learned about -- and learned to appreciate -- the industry at such an early age.

(Graphic: A gorgeous Mike Zeck cover for Charlton Comics' Scary Tales. Click here for a closer look.)

Paper periodicals take another hit

Time, Inc.  — publisher of Entertainment Weekly, Fortune, and of course the venerable Time magazine  — will be announcing $100 million in cuts. This means that even more magazine staffers will be pink-slipped in large numbers. From the New York Times:

At Time Inc., cuts have already been heavy. A year ago, it announced it was dismissing about 600 people, or 6 percent of its staff. Since 2007, it has shut magazines including Business 2.0, Cottage Living, Southern Accents and Life, which it had revived as a newspaper supplement. A stricter expense-account policy has been in place for some time, and some magazines have decreased the weight of the paper they use.

Though I write for a variety of media, it's particularly heartbreaking to watch the painful demise of the newspaper and magazine industries. I don't think that paper periodicals will ever disappear completely, but online access to the hottest and latest news has made obsolete one of the biggest selling points of magazines and newspapers. It's been a slow process over the last decade or so, but the poor state of the economy isn't helping.

Best wishes to the staff and writers who fall to the latest swing of the sword. Hopefully they'll find new homes and continue to do what they love.

"Tanker Down!" In Towing and Recovery Footnotes

My new article in the April 2009 issue of Towing & Recovery Footnotes talks about recovery techniques for tanker trucks that have been involved in an accident. The photo at the left shows towers practicing with air cushions to right an overturned tanker. Towing expert Wes Wilburn explains:

Wilburn notes that air cushions were placed starting at the rear and working forward. And once the job is done, towers should take extra care with their air cushions. “Having the air cushions stored away properly after the last job really dictates how the next job will go,” says Wilburn. “I am not only talking about having them cleaned up, which should be obvious to most. What I believe is critical is how they have the air removed and how they are ‘tucked,’ so to speak.” Wilburn recommends that towers tuck three sides of each cushion and let the side with the hose stay untucked. “From my experience, this works much better,” he says.

"Staging the Perfect Performance" in DramaBiz Magazine

The July/August issue of DramaBiz Magazine features my article about staging equipment for the theatre. I'm always curious about the hardware that makes the magic, and wow is there a lot of available hardware:

A variety of choices are available depending on your theatre’s requirements and available budget. Vendors like StageRight, Inc., in Clare, Mich., create portable staging equipment like choral, band, and seating risers; pit fillers; orchestra enclosures; acoustical shells; and trap floor covers. According to Kathleen Meadowcroft, sales research specialist and trade show manager for the company, the firm benefits from having its manufacturing and distributing operations located under one roof. Similarly, Serapid, Inc., builds equipment like its LinkLift series of theatrical lifts at its facility in Sterling Heights, Mich., a suburb of Detroit.

Read the entire article here.

The World's Worst Airports

A friend noticed that Foreign Policy Magazine posted an article that featured information from a piece I wrote for Smithsonian/Air&Space Magazine about Baghdad International Airport. The Foreign Policy article, titled "The World's Worst Airports,"  spotlights five aerodromes where you can get shot, killed, injured, exhausted, jostled and/or robbed:

Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport (Dakar, Senegal): “There is only squalor, an unnerving sense of confinement, and to some extent danger.” —Patrick Smith, Salon.com, May 25, 2007

Indira Gandhi International Airport (New Delhi, India): “Of all the regional capital airports this one takes the cake … a piece of crap ... bring the bug spray.” —Anonymous commenter, The Budget Traveller’s Guide to Sleeping in Airports, Dec 11, 2005

Mineralnye Vody Airport (Mineralnye Vody, Russia): “Mineralnye Vody airport is a lower circle of hell.” —The Economist, Dec. 19, 2006

Baghdad International Airport (Baghdad, Iraq): “Before jumping out of your seat to complain to the pilot, consider the good news: You’ve just avoided being shot down by a missile.” —Allan T. Duffin, Air & Space magazine, Oct./Nov. 2006

Charles de Gaulle International Airport (Paris, France): “Charles de Gaulle is a disgrace… it’s like a third-world airport.” —Michel-Yves Labbé, president of French travel company Directours, Aug. 14, 2007

It's always nice to be quoted — even if it's an unpleasant subject — so many thanks to Foreign Policy Magazine. The article also appeared in the Nepali Times, where the editors added a sixth entry: Tribhuban International Airport in Kathmandu:

Immigration is a minefield for Nepali passengers, mainly women, who are harassed until they pay up. The airport was designed for traffic 20 years ago and is hopelessly overcrowded. There is a parking problem and planes have to circle for hours waiting for a slot. X-ray machines and baggage carousels are often out of order and if you land at night it's dark and dingy because half the lights in the terminal don't work. And don't get us going about the dilapidated airport taxis and the touts outside. NTB (Nepal Tourism Board) should forget about promoting Nepal abroad and clean up the airport first.

Click to see the Foreign Policy article, and a reprinting on NowPublic.com.