When word spread last weekend that Pulitzer-winning playwright and Oscar-nominated actor Sam Shepard ("The Right Stuff," "The Notebook") had been arrested in Normal on DUI charges after he spent the evening at Fat Jack's, the popular downtown watering hole and cigar club, reaction was also legion …

"What was Sam Shepard doing HERE?"

Sam Shepard

Here's the apparent punch line that also may be the truth:

Shepard was in town, having drinks … to practice his role for a potential movie to also be shot here.

Or, at least so it humorously seems.

"I'll stick with 'no comment' on that one," says Patrick Jennings, a producer/writer of a movie in pre-production out in L.A. that is titled, "normal again - a true crime."

Son of well-known Bloomington lawyer Harold "Hal" Jennings (most famed for representing accused ax-murderer David Hendricks at his first trial in 1984), Patrick is making the movie (www.normalagainthemovie.com) and said to be chatting it up with Shepard to play the part of its lead character.

The irony of ironies?

According to the movie's Web site, the role to ostensibly be played by Shepard is one of "a former state's attorney turned defense lawyer who is now trying the case and (wasting) his life away in a local bar across from the courthouse."

Is the governor all washed up?: Among all those outdoor marquees at gas stations and car washes is one along West Market Street in Bloomington that doesn't exactly have to do with cleansing your car, although it could whitewash the Governor's Mansion …

Those guys in Photo are nuts: On Monday afternoon, less than an hour after suddenly finding himself in the middle of an incredible drama, face-to-face with a gunman out on Interstate 74-55, taunted by the possibility of being shot himself but instead continuing to capture dramatic photos of an accused bank robber as he tried to flee police on an expressway, Pantagraph Photo Editor David Proeber suddenly re-appeared in the newsroom and quietly, yet quickly, rushed to his desk.

What did he do?

Accept congratulations from fellow office cronies?

Gloat about getting some great shots?

Phone home?

Ask someone for a clean pair of underwear?

Nah, he quickly grabbed a longer lens and ran right back out to the scene to potentially get more shots.

Yet another small-world update: In the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," actor Brad Pitt ages in reverse, born old, to progressively get younger, in a computer-generated process conceived by a company called Digital Domain and hailed by Katie Couric on CBS News the other night as "a first" in movie making.

Digital Domain?

It's a special effects company in Venice Beach, Calif., headed by a 43-year-old named Ed Ulbrich.

Ulbrich? Yup, grew up in Normal, graduated from Normal Community in 1983.

His parents are Ed and Angie Ulbrich. They still live on Normal Avenue, in fact.

Today's thought

As mulled by Bob Papp, of Normal:

"Ever noticed you can't buy toilet paper at Bed, Bath and Beyond? You can't even order it on their online store!"

Shepard-ing the news: If the movie writer Patrick Jennings (lead item from above) opts now to update his script to include having the Sam Shepard-character getting a DUI in Normal, he will have to hire a young female to play the role of arresting cop.

Yup, it wasn't some cagey old veteran on Normal Police who a week ago scored the potential arrest of a lifetime after spotting a speeding Chevy Tahoe (46 in a 30, according to the citation) rambling north on Main and pulled over the SUV just south of the Fairview Park aquatics center.

Who was the officer to walk up to the vehicle and discover its driver was Sam Shepard?

Name is Anne Frye. She has only been at NPD six months, still considered "in training," says Normal Police Chief Kent Crutcher.

Some training.

Contact Bill Flick at flick@pantagraph.com. The Flick Blog: www.pantagraph.com/blogs.