A short observation too long for Facebook

Every four or five years, I encounter someone who cannot pronounce Popeye. Inexplicably, they all say Pie-Pie. They say it like it's real. Like it means something. And many become belligerent when challenged.

Just because I encounter this phenomenon only on rare occasions, I don't assume it's not pervasive. I think it is. I think the fact that the subject comes up infrequently is all that keeps these mutations from alarming the general population on a regular basis.

Breaking and Entering.

The Eastwood Theater opened in 1936 in the neighborhood of the same name. The property was designed by W. Scott Dunne, the architect responsible for many theaters of that era and area, including Houston’s Tower and Alabama theaters, the Martini in Galveston and the Texas in Palestine, which functions today as a live theater.

A boxy convergence of art deco geometry, the most prominent portion of the façade initially loomed, devoid of extraneous signage, above a discreet, horizontal marquee. A set of matching two-dimensional tower–shaped contrivances lay flat against this expanse, as if someone had twice rubberstamped the wall with a silhouette of the Empire State Building. Attached to the side of the theater was a monolith of a sign, which pierced the sky like a radio tower – or the mooring mast for a dirigible. This was all scaled down a bit, of course, to fit neatly in a modest Houston neighborhood.

In the forties, the tower adornments were painted over. This may have been an attempt to modernize the look of the building, and eschew any outdated notions of pre-war frivolity. I’m only guessing, of course.

In the fifties, sometime between The Outcasts of Poker Flats and The Boy From Oklahoma, a larger, more dominant marquee replaced the original, sleek model. The name of the establishment, simply Eastwood, perched in duplicate above this new sign in uninspired sans-serif metal and neon. This utilitarian addition consumed the lower two-thirds of the façade and further squelched the glorious aesthetic arrogance of the original design. What was once an art deco movie palace became a rather nondescript cement box with too many corners and a huge phallic sign.

A decade later I showed up with a quarter in my hand to see The Flesh Eaters.

This was my neighborhood for most of the sixties and seventies. And the Eastwood was my neighborhood theater, until it closed in the mid-sixties and I was forced to take my business downtown. In addition to The Flesh Eaters, I remember seeing Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, Mr. Hobbes Takes a Vacation, Hell is for Heroes, Zotz!, 13 Ghosts and Gypsy at the Eastwood. In fact, I went most Saturdays, no matter what was playing.

Once the doors were permanently closed, this prominent landmark quickly became a crumbling eyesore awaiting inevitable demolition. Before that happened, however, I visited the place two more times.

Between 1965 and 1969, I hung around with a bad egg we’ll just call Sean. Sean and I shared three interests. We both liked Marvel Comics (a habit never discussed publicly in those days) we both loved the world of James Bond and we both had a healthy and burgeoning fondness for girls. Beyond that, we had nothing in common. Unlike my introverted, bespectacled young self, Sean already claimed empirical knowledge of the female anatomy, and could discuss that landscape for hours. He also possessed an unapologetically criminal mind. In fact, his primary goal in life was the pursuit of crime. Luckily for me, I was a philosophical invertebrate who feared all forms of punishment and retribution. So, I mostly avoided trouble. And, because one or more of my parents was an alcoholic, I felt guilty about everything, all the time. Sean only had one parent, and feared nothing.

Clearly, I was no one’s partner in crime, so during the time we were friends most of Sean’s plans went unrealized. But, there was this one day in the 10th or 11th grade…

School had been out for about an hour. For some reason, we were standing behind the shuttered Eastwood Theater, looking up at fresh graffiti. Someone had spray-painted the words SLUMS RULE on the building. A bit farther down, much closer to the ground, a window beckoned.

An open window.

The next thing I knew, we were inside what appeared to be a utility annex, and were surrounded by dusty boxes, fluorescent bulbs and stacks of yellowed press kits and newspapers. Old-fashioned fuse boxes lined the walls and wires hung like vines. Musty, acrid air invaded my nose and throat. More importantly, an iron ladder and a square hatch led to the floor above us. Up there, we discovered more of the same, plus twin metal doors that led to ducts into which one could simply walk. We didn’t venture too far into that darkness, however, as the ladder continued upward. More boxes, more wiring, and identical metal doors waited above. The ladder stopped at the ceiling, beneath a trapdoor we did not hesitate to force open.

And this took us right back outside – up on the roof, but not to the summit. We could see that by clambering up another wall one could reach yet another ladder and climb to the very top of the building. And because we were both at the age of clambering, we soon found ourselves on the massive tar-covered roof of the Eastwood Theater.

It did not occur to me at the time, or for some time to come, that I was pursuing the commission of a felony. But I knew I was a badass. That much was certain. This was an unfamiliar intoxicant, and one I found most compelling. And I would have been perfectly happy to just hang out on that roof, which we obviously now owned, but this was not our destiny – and it only took a few moments to locate the trapdoor that lead down into the projection booth.

And just like that, we were inside a place where dust disguised itself as air, and the proliferation of mildew overwhelmed four of the five senses. The projection booth was a cluttered wonderland of film snippets, film cans and workplace minutia. The projector was still in place. A life-sized cutout of Jerry Lewis stood by an exit, leading us to the mezzanine, where a dizzying expanse of spoiled, geometric carpeting led to the foot of the stairs that climbed to the balcony.

We headed downstairs, instead.

We were perfectly respectful guests, stealing nothing, destroying nothing, disturbing nothing. I think we were in awe of the place, and spoke in whispers, even though we were completely alone. We sat in the seats, explored the mysterious world behind the screen, opened doors and peered around corners. We spent hours just looking. We headed off in different directions and lost all track of time.

Eventually, I found myself back on the second floor, where I spent a very long time looking at the stairs that led to the balcony. I gazed a bit too long at the blackness of the landing, and slowly came to the chilling realization that I was incapable of going up there. I ascended three carpeted steps, and froze. I don’t really know what I was afraid of, but I knew I couldn’t continue. It was the only part of the building that frightened me. And I still can’t say why. Occasionally, in dreams, I have the opportunity to finish the climb, but I always wake up before reaching the top.

We left the building after dark, and went our separate ways – dusty and delirious and giddy with misconduct. All I could think about was going back.

So, the next day we went back. Something very unusual and completely unrelated occurred as we loitered behind the theater, waiting for the perfect, unseen moment to climb through the window. Perhaps it was an omen.

An old, dark sedan full of young punks squealed around the corner, and a pockmarked gunman leaned out the window and fired several shots at us, laughing manically. In retrospect, I realize he was either firing blanks or brandishing a cap pistol (or he was just a terrible shot) because once the car was gone, it was like nothing had happened. Sean and I both blinked, patted our chests, and shrugged. Then we climbed through the window.

Just like the previous afternoon, we ascended both ladders to the roof and opened the trapdoor to the projection booth. Sean lowered himself into the square hole and froze. His eyes took full possession of his now colorless face, and he gasped like a beached grouper.

“Run! Someone’s got me!” He was jerked into the blackness.

I ran. I cleared the parapet, sailing over the ladder and hitting the roof of the annex with a resounding thud. I slid down the ladder to the second floor before I heard the ominous noises above my head. Someone was right behind me, and coming fast. I knew it wasn’t Sean. I calculated the difficulty of continued ladder navigation and the awkwardness of scrambling through the window on the ground floor. I considered the improbability of outrunning someone if I actually made it outside – and out of sheer desperation, I ducked into a duct. This ploy seemed like a preamble to failure, but I had little choice. As I cowered in the darkness, my future was pretty clear. I was going to jail. I was going straight to jail. And even if I wasn’t going to jail, I knew my father had a leather belt that could remove flesh from bone. Either way, I was doomed.

Heavy boots descended the ladder, and continued to the ground floor. A second pair arrived a few moments later, and paused, scrabbling just outside my tenuous hiding place. After a breathless eternity, the first pair of boots returned, and two muffled voices bemoaned my brilliant escape. All four boots returned to the roof, and I was alone – breathing rapidly through my nose.

I refused to believe I had gotten away with this. I stayed in that duct for at least a half-hour before quietly exiting the building and heading home. I really wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do about my fallen comrade, so I filled the evening with my usual pursuits. I watched network television, read comic books, lied about my homework, and went to bed.

The following morning, at school, Sean was atypically aloof. He stoically shrugged off the incident as mere fortunes of war. After a bit of coaxing he finally explained that the men inside the theater were quite amused by our flagrant and clumsy interloping. Rather than calling Sean’s parents or HPD, they simply put him to work. After a few hours of sweeping and hauling trash, he was released with the threat of severe consequences should he ever decide to return to the scene of our crime.

And that was it.

Not long after this dubious adventure, Sean moved away. We immediately lost touch. Many years later, I was informed by a mutual acquaintance that Sean had perished in an explosion on a Galveston shrimp boat. I have no way of knowing if this is true. The theater was eventually torn down. I don’t really know when this occurred, but I had probably moved to another neighborhood by then. I certainly don’t recall feeling any remorse or sense of loss for the old place -- although the Google image of the parking lot that replaced it makes me a little wistful.

That pretty much ended my life of crime. Unless you count all that partying I did in the eighties.

Some time in a bar.

The Urban Dictionary defines bar time as a clock set ahead fifteen minutes. Because of this practice, I have always assumed that bars actually exist fifteen minutes in the future. After a few drinks, this may constitute time travel.

I walked into a familiar bar last night, and immediately spotted the first guy. I had not seen that guy lately, although I used to see him all the time. While we were talking, the other guy walked up followed closely by the girl. The two guys and the girl and I had a grand time, exchanging pleasantries and observing the fact that our paths once crossed regularly, and that we rarely see each other now at all. Although, to clarify, I run into the girl frequently, and the other guy occasionally -- but the first guy, not so much.

We enjoyed our adult beverages, caught peripheral snippets of State of Grace (which, as the first guy reminded me, was one of several films I had recommended back in the days when we encountered each other more frequently). Everyone enjoyed Robert Mitchum's tale of Thunder Road when it came up on the jukebox. Talk continued. Recently deceased rock stars were mourned. The dating habits of the first guy were called into question by the second, bad jokes were butchered, and everyone paused to exchange pleasantries with the bar owner and his lovely wife as they walked outside to smoke cigarettes.

Someone had a baby in the bar. That is to say, a woman in the bar was in possession of a baby. And now that bars are smoke-free, I can't even scare up an objection. You could barely hear the little magpie over the jukebox.

Said jukebox continued playing music from every decade of my life, while we continued reminiscing about the recent past, fifteen minutes in the future. I suspect this combination of time-trickery may have curative powers, but I have no way of proving it.

Eventually the guy and the other guy left, and I continued the conversation with the girl. We discussed attending high school overseas, which only one of us had done, and stealing a stuffed animal from a police car, which neither of us had done. I introduced the term "hail fellow, well met" to her vocabulary (for at least the length of time it took her to repeat it) and she employed a famous Woody Allen quote concerning what the heart wants, to help me justify one of my more expensive habits. (Premium cable.) Like most people in bars, we talked about the past and the future. Under these circumstances, one could easily claim that the present doesn't even exist, except as a chronological borderline.

I went home and watched an episode of Breaking Bad my DVR had dutifully saved since Sunday night. This allowed me to flagrantly cheat time -- one more time.

Pointless Celebrity Encounters. Part Three.

Saturday, November 15, 1980. Houston, Texas. One day later, Gerald Hines' Galleria, modeled after the one in Milan, would be ten years old. There was much hoopla and festive adornment to mark this occasion. For example, there was a tenor, standing on a small stage that resembled the top of a wedding cake, singing opera. I paused, briefly, to watch. I had recently emerged, in much the same way hamburger emerges from a grinder, from a relationship with a woman who tried to help me appreciate opera. She failed. It was still boring, and I was still a heathen who preferred less cadaverous forms of artistic expression. I was impressed by the virtuosity of the singer, however, and found myself lingering. The small crowd continued to grow, and the tenor continued to sing. Abruptly, the man standing directly in front of me turned and we almost collided. He had obviously had enough opera, and was making his escape. I was blocking his way. It was Bruce Springsteen.

I didn't recognize him at first. He was shorter than I imagined. But the facial recognition software in my brain went haywire. For a fraction of a second, I thought I recognized him from high school, or art school or work. That face, which gives one the impression that Robert DeNiro once mated with an Easter Island statue, was clearly imprinted on my brain, but I simply could not place the name. Seriously. I was only a fan for the two years between The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle and Born to Run. By 1980, I was more interested in the rude, noisy boys and girls from England and New York and Akron. Even if had been a fan of someone as mainstream as Springsteen, it would have been my secret to conceal.

Anyway, back at the Galleria, the tenor was still singing and Bruce Springsteen was still standing in front of me, not moving. He was staring right back at me, waiting patiently for me to say something. I realized later, when I saw him talking to a group of very excited young women, that he was completely accessible, absurdly approachable, and seemed to enjoy talking to his fans.

A fraction of a second later, I recognized him, and realized he was waiting for me to say his name. I find this significant, and quite admirable. He would have granted me that moment of rare, unencumbered fandom. But, since he already knew who he was, and didn't really need my validation, I just nodded and stepped aside. He hooked up with a small entourage, and spent the next few hours doing exactly what I was doing. Hanging out at the Galleria.

He had performed at the Summit the night before, and would do it again in a few hours. I know people who still talk about those shows. When I saw him again, an hour or so later, he was watching dozens of Dorothy Hamill wannabes, and other assorted Exxon brats, skate loopy figure eights to AC/DC's Highway to Hell. That was a moment of pure American bliss. And I saw him shortly after that, talking to the aforementioned female fans. They had gathered at the base of an escalator, near the very popular Magic Pan Creperie. (Magic Pan Creperie. What the hell were we thinking?)

I continued strolling through the festivities and seductive retail overkill. Just when I thought Bruce had left the building, I ran into him one more time. He was standing in a massive, chain record store holding a copy of Give 'Em Enough Rope. I walked in looking for John Lennon's Double Fantasy, which was scheduled to drop any day. I wasn't sure if I would buy it or not, but since it marked Lennon's return to recorded pop music, I was curious -- and about two days early.

But, there was Bruce, holding that Clash album. I toyed with the idea of buying a copy of Greetings From Asbury Park and asking for his autograph, but I didn't do it. I'm glad I didn't. And I'm really glad there wasn't a phone in anyone's pocket that also took photos. The image of Bruce Springsteen holding a Clash album in 1980, when we were both young and full of nicotine, is much too cool to sully with such documentation. In about a month, Sandinista would be released and The Clash would, for a short time, be the only band that mattered. In twenty-three days, John Lennon would be gone. And thirty years later, record stores would be irrelevant.

Batman and Bacon

After weeks of non-particpation, I was reminded of my deep, abiding love of taverns, so I set out last night to make up for lost time. I suppose I over-indulged. I began the evening with (512) IPA, and switched to Sierra Nevada Pale Ale when I switched bars. There may have also been a bit of Bulleit involved. We will now avoid the temptation to dwell on the fact that I'm too old to start acting my age, because there may be a chronometric conundrum lurking in the sentiment, and I wouldn't want to tempt a headache. This was all on 6th Street, near Neches in downtown Austin. I tried to spread my meager funds around several bars, and stayed too long at the fair. At one point I felt a bit hoppy, so I swiched from Sierra Nevada to Guinness. I recall, also, crushing two cockroaches with the bottom of an empty pint glass at a bar that shall remain nameless. And, at a different bar, I may have eaten an artisanal cupcake with crumbled bacon on top. Okay, I did. It was heavenly, and because it comprised my entire evening meal, I will save the guilt for more egregious transgressions. I'm sure they will come.

I found myself at Casino el Camino ensconced in a conversation with someone I do not know about the differences between Christopher Nolan's two Batman films. Because I love film, and because I spent the best part of the 60s and 70s a full-fledged comic book fanatic (long before it was acceptable) this all seemed very, very important.

I maintained (and still do) that Batman Begins is vastly superior to The Dark Knight, which I consider overrated and extremely messy. A good half-hour too long, there are simply too many storylines, too many villains, and stylistically, too many contradictions. I mean, you can't have Heath Ledger's exquisitely deconstructed Joker 2.0 in the same film with a scar-for-scar recreation of the Bob Kane Two-Face. (Okay, apparently, you can. But I still cry foul.)

I also prefer the look of the city in Batman Begins. More art direction, less Chicago. Nothing wrong with Chicago, I just prefer my Gotham City to be located at the intersection of Art and Deco -- uptown Saturday night in the land of Oz.

Not that any of this matters. I doubt if I expressed myself coherently at the time. I was still pretty hoppy. But I do recall telling the gentleman that he looked like Sam Raimi. Which he did. I just hope that's not an insult.

The Triumphant Return of Vaudeville Smith

In 1982, Bret Mixon was a student working on a short film eventually titled The Triumphant Return of Vaudeville Smith. For this project, he enlisted the aid of his brother, Bart J. Mixon (at the time, a fledgling makeup artist) to create an effective wristcutting gag. For another scene, Bret contrived a plexiglass tennis ball pinwheel that could be attached to the torso and spun -- creating the cartoon illusion of juggling. All of this served the story, which may or may not have been inspired by a short story I may or may not have written. I was asked to create several props, including phony newspaper clippings, which I aged with overlapping creases and a long soak in English Breakfast Tea. When dried, the snippets looked appropriately old and worn. I would love to see them now, nearly thirty years later. I was also asked to create the invitation you see above. That's John Rouse with the bloody wrist. John portrayed the title character. 

The "second feature" was 16 MM print of A Hard Day's Night, projected on a naked apartment wall at earsplitting volume, to the delight of all in attendance and several down the block.

The Triumphant Return of Vaudeville Smith was primarily shot at Houston's first and foremost punk venue, The Island. During daylight hours, Bret had the run of the place. This was a strange and remarkable undertaking at a location which becomes mythical in hindsight. This unprecedented access also gave me the opportunity to write my name on the ladies room wall.

Filming at The Island was a rare experience, but it was not a particularly comfortable shoot. I'm pretty sure we arrived one Sunday morning to find the owner, Phil Hicks, asleep on a pool table. Fresh air did not always move through the building, and the club had a pervasive aroma -- an amalgam of stale beer, disinfectant (or the memory of disinfectant) and sweaty young punks. Often, when walking on Sixth Street, I will experience a sensory flashback, as intermingling blasts of air from several bars combine to create that particular perfume. That's right. It takes the funk of several modern bars to compete with that of this venerable and lamented nightclub.

Bret is in the process of restoring his film, and promises to upload it one day for all mankind. This may require some additional badgering.