those sacramento drive-in nites!

mather auto movies closed in, i believe, 1976.  located in the very, very close-by city of rancho cordova, i saw many, many movies there including my introduction to bruce lee films.  the playground, swings, slide etc etc., was situated right below the screen.  so, if you were bored of the movie onscreen you could ask mom & dad if you could play.  mom & dad would usually say ok because they could keep an eye out for ya.  it was at mather auto movies that i saw the perfect job for a poet.  walking past the projection booth one very hot summer night the door was open.  i peeked in.  there was an older gent, the projectionist, reclined on a broken down laz z boy reading a thick book.  that was the job for me!  

this is the last, surviving drive-in theater of the sacramento region.  it is still open.  a sixth screen was added in 1976.  i've seen hundreds upon hundreds of movies at this drive-in.  several years ago, after the drive-in converted to digital projection the manager, earl, gave me & nick a tour of the projection booth.  one of the original projectors was still mounted & the work bench where the projectionist could splice broken film together was still there.  there was even a single toilet in the booth.  just the toilet.  no bathroom.  why?  because some of the older films they might show as a second feature was on nitrate stock.  if there was a jam or if the film broke it could catch fire.  the projectionist had to be in the booth the entire night.  at least that is what earl told us.  he also said that the film showings were on a strict time schedule & the projectionist would need to use his/her mad skills to keep the films running on time.  & if you recall the days of film projection sometimes the film stock would break &/or burn up.  this tour was a bucket list thing for me.  after decades of seeing that projection booth from the outside i finally got to see what it looked like on the inside.  thank you earl! 

we live in a completely different world.  we can stream nearly everything we want.  we have such an abundance of movies, tv shows, books, music etc etc.  it would take several lifetimes to even tap into their depth.  drive-in theaters are nearly extinct.  car culture too has changed.  but even so, there might be a survivor or three.  once a thing becomes part of our culture it never really disappears.  the experience of going to a drive-in theater & seeing an exploitation b-movie is gone.  but for those few theaters that remain, like the sac 6, they are still, in my humble estimation, the happiest places on earth.  

let's all go to the lobby

let's all go to the lobby

let's all go to the lobby!

to get ourselves a treat!

on smoking

earlier today i was looking at pics of mid-20th C poets like auden with his beautiful craggy face & in nearly all the photos of him he held a cigarette between his fingers 

same for anne sexton & nearly every poet of the past century

smoking was not just common but i think expected behavior for everyone 

now i used to smoke camel cigarettes were my favorite kind of smoke

i enjoyed the ritual of unwrapping the cellophane from the pack of smokes the tapping out a single cigarette the whirl & snap of my zippo lighter brought to the tip end & that first drag of tobacco smoke

there was a mystery to it with smoking & its tools

smoking was so accepted we even made ashtrays out of clay for our parents in elementary school!

but do i miss those days?  not at all

i stopped smoking at the age of 25 & don't miss it 

seeing cigarettes, even in the hands of a cool poet like sexton & auden, looked awkward & harsh

i am not anti-smoking & smokers have at it if you like

perhaps it is just me, but smoking was once thought sexy & outlaw & mainstream, i know!  go figure

smoking to me now is awkward & goofy & unnecessary 

seeing old photos of poets of the last century nearly all to a person with a butt in their hands kinda taken me by surprised by how common it was 

still, sometimes, i long for a few puffs, or at least a whiff of clove cigarettes, which are banned in this country!  really!

because there are three scents that speak to me of my youth & punk rock: dippity-do hair gel, leather & clove cigarettes

& sometimes i'll see an old episode of miami vice & watch ol' crockett peel off the cellophane of a fresh pack of unfiltered lucky strikes & think, damn that looks good!

i'm doomed!

hot nite in the city

 

cayucos nights

 

last day at the ca state fair

                                                 welcome! 

lowriders!

check out this gorgeous dude!

not far from the madding crowd

where can i find a cocktail?

until next year

one crazy summer [1986]

 

now this is a goofball movie!  want plot?  want sense?  want a reasonable likeness to reality?  look for them in some other film!  for this flick is one of my favorite summer movies because it is like an aimless hot summer day when you have nothing to do but manage to have one stupid adventure after another in the company of your friends &, if you are very lucky, either boyfriend or girlfriend.  this is the second movie penned & directed by savage steve holland.  his first film, better off dead [1985] also featured a very charming john cusack as a young everyman slacker in search of love. 

holland has a knack for putting in zany details in his films, such as a mom in holland's first feature cooking dinner in an otherwise ordinary late-20th C middle-class kitchen but out of the stew pot are a few waving tentacles.  summer is peppered with these dadaist details.  part of the delights of watching this movie is watching the backgrounds of the frames to see what weirdness is unfolding before our eyes. 

the macguffin of a plot is cusack plays a sadsack named hoops who is a cartoonist & the hapless beast hoops repeatedly draws is a rhino who just can't catch a break in love or in life.  oh yeah, his name, hoops, is a bit of a slight-of-hand of the screenplay because with a name like that you'd expect hoops to be an excellent basketball player.  well then, hoops & friend graduate from Generic High School.  his friend, george calamari, played by joel murray, invites hoops to spend the summer with him, his little sister & her dog who is always wearing a cone, at his grandma's house in nantucket.  

off they go!  on the way the group meets the gorgeous cassandra, played by demi moore, a musician who found a summertime gig at a bar on the island.  actually, hoops rescue her from the silliest looking biker gang one could ever conjure up in your loopiest of fever dreams.  why was the gang after cassandra?  she stole their money!  but later it is explained why she needed the bikers', or perhaps they stole it from her, money.  hoops, of course, falls head over heels for cassandra.  

the wonderful billie bird plays grandma calamari.  her house is killer!  right on the water.  she even makes dinner for hoops & her grandkids & only charges a fair restaurant price for her food & service!  then there is bobcat goldthwait as tow truck driver & mechanic, egg stork, & tom villard as his brother, clay.  it takes some fortitude to sit thru the entire runtime of a movie & listen to goldthwait's vocal tics that are very much part of his comic persona.  his comedy is like eating salt licorice.  a little goes a long way & the aftertaste lingers.  it takes training!  my stamina is up to speed i think i can now sit thru a roster of bobcat goldthwait films.  

the reason cassandra needs money, about a grand, in a week, is because the bank will foreclose on her family home.  the evil developer, aguilla beckerstead, played by mark metcalf, wants cassandra's house, & other properties so he can build a resort cum condo unit.  will he succeed?  i'm on pins & needles!  oh, & there is an annual regatta that is important for the beckerstead, pere et fils, the obnoxious, teddy, played by matt mulhern, to win.  hoops & co., including the stork bros., george, ack-ack raymond, played by curtis armstrong, decide to refurnish their own boat to race against the beckersteads.  

& so it goes down to the wire.  i would be remiss to not note that holland cast a terrific group of funny actors in this movie.  such as the wonderful taylor negron, rich little, rich hall et al.  another little detail i enjoyed were the scenes at the local drive-in theater with the old-fashioned speakers that were placed on the window of your car.  summer is too brief a time.  but sometimes it feels like a lifetime.  & sometimes you just wanna watch a movie that has that carefree, madcap, goofy summer feel.  when anything is possible & love is felt on the pulse of a warm breeze.  when summer can be, in the best ways possible, crazy.  

living in the dew drop world