I was watching a movie the other day with my wife, streaming it from an online service. In the struggle that happens with my wife in selecting a movie on Netflix, it gave me the thought that, as far as picking out a movie goes, online digital selecting is just as annoying as selecting at the video store was back in the day. I should know, I was a projectionist at a dollar theater when I was 16, and worked at three video stores (not at the same time) up until age 19.
In my mind at that age, for some reason those were the ideal jobs for me. Maybe it was the fact that my family got a VCR for the first time when I was about five or six years old. I understood then, that now we could pick our own movies out, and to me that was amazing. Looking back I suppose those were the best jobs for me. I have always considered movies as one of my main sources of artistic inspiration. I am far from the first to talk about how movies can transport you to other realms. They are even magical sometimes if you are a child, and sometimes when you are an adult too.
I enjoyed working around movies and people who enjoyed them. I liked being able to see and recommend eclectic, unique, movies and most of all I enjoyed seeing the best parts of all the movies each time I projected them. Seeing that plethora of movies at that time in my life affected my painting style and viewpoint as an artist in ways I am sure I will never fully realize. It was a great time in my life, even if to some people, it was just a few crappy video stores and an old dollar theater.
The videos stores were fun, but the projectionist job had the most impression on me though. I don't even know when Trailridge Theater was built; for as long as I can remember I always knew it as the dollar theater down the street that my friends and family and I would go to. I saw Return of the Jedi there, and Karate Kid, amongst others. (The original Karate Kid with Mr. Miyagi). It had old, barely working projectors from the early 1970's; which must of been the last time that theater was current, (I worked there in the mid 90's). Running them when I was 16 and 17 was really fun. Learning how to seam the 6 reels together onto the projection platter and then break it down when it was time for the movie to go, threading it through the projector, etc. One projector had a missing cover for a section of buttons. Once in a while I would forget to grab a pencil with an eraser to push the one malfunctioning button and it would shock the shit out of my finger.
Then or now it is hard for me to imagine the theater running first run shows, or being new, or clean, or functioning properly or efficiently. I will never remember Trailridge Theatre in any way but musty, out-dated, old-fashioned, dusty; reeking of a smell consisting of ammonia mixed with ancient-sticky-pop and sickly buttery popcorn. The smell that no matter how much you cleaned it never came out. No matter how much you scrubbed the floors, they would always be sticky. But that is why it was glorious too. It had a kind of rustic, spooky, tragic, charm to it.
Going there as a kid I was still thrilled about it even though I knew it wasn't a first run movie theatre. It had that Stephen King-like feeling about the place. You know; something about childhood friends meeting at the old local dollar theater where they discuss such and such phenomenon or something. That's how I thought about it anyways, a musty, glorious relic of the near past. The metal squeak of the seats covered in a slightly sticky red fabric, with every 12th one or so somehow broken; the sound system that still worked well, with good acoustics. The yellow and orange walls and dark brown wood, the multi-stained carpet, I remember it well. Changing the Marquee with a set of mismatched, odd letters, using letters for numbers and vice versa when necessary. Who knows or even cared the last time the set was current; little things like that throughout the whole building made it somehow creepy. Like we were stuck in an episode of Scooby Doo with a mystery at the old haunted movie theater in a backwoods town, or something.
I am not one for ludicrous ghost stories but the other employees that worked there will also tell you of odd things would happen from time to time. Footsteps in the projection booth when no one was up there (a hallway above the main lobby), lights seeming to flicker when ghosts were mentioned. It did have an odd energy about it, a kind of pathetic, last truck stop, end of the world, nothing to lose vibe about it. And that's not just me, the other people that worked there felt it too, we were part of it. It was awesome and odd to go there as a kid, then work there as a young man.
I went back one day years later to see it, and some Russians who barely spoke English had bought the place and were still showing the crappiest, oldest, movies. Soon after that it became some kind of bingo hall or church or something, I don't know. It didn't matter at that point, it was no longer Trailridge Theatre, one of the magical portals of my childhood and young adult life.
In my mind at that age, for some reason those were the ideal jobs for me. Maybe it was the fact that my family got a VCR for the first time when I was about five or six years old. I understood then, that now we could pick our own movies out, and to me that was amazing. Looking back I suppose those were the best jobs for me. I have always considered movies as one of my main sources of artistic inspiration. I am far from the first to talk about how movies can transport you to other realms. They are even magical sometimes if you are a child, and sometimes when you are an adult too.
I enjoyed working around movies and people who enjoyed them. I liked being able to see and recommend eclectic, unique, movies and most of all I enjoyed seeing the best parts of all the movies each time I projected them. Seeing that plethora of movies at that time in my life affected my painting style and viewpoint as an artist in ways I am sure I will never fully realize. It was a great time in my life, even if to some people, it was just a few crappy video stores and an old dollar theater.
The videos stores were fun, but the projectionist job had the most impression on me though. I don't even know when Trailridge Theater was built; for as long as I can remember I always knew it as the dollar theater down the street that my friends and family and I would go to. I saw Return of the Jedi there, and Karate Kid, amongst others. (The original Karate Kid with Mr. Miyagi). It had old, barely working projectors from the early 1970's; which must of been the last time that theater was current, (I worked there in the mid 90's). Running them when I was 16 and 17 was really fun. Learning how to seam the 6 reels together onto the projection platter and then break it down when it was time for the movie to go, threading it through the projector, etc. One projector had a missing cover for a section of buttons. Once in a while I would forget to grab a pencil with an eraser to push the one malfunctioning button and it would shock the shit out of my finger.
Then or now it is hard for me to imagine the theater running first run shows, or being new, or clean, or functioning properly or efficiently. I will never remember Trailridge Theatre in any way but musty, out-dated, old-fashioned, dusty; reeking of a smell consisting of ammonia mixed with ancient-sticky-pop and sickly buttery popcorn. The smell that no matter how much you cleaned it never came out. No matter how much you scrubbed the floors, they would always be sticky. But that is why it was glorious too. It had a kind of rustic, spooky, tragic, charm to it.
Going there as a kid I was still thrilled about it even though I knew it wasn't a first run movie theatre. It had that Stephen King-like feeling about the place. You know; something about childhood friends meeting at the old local dollar theater where they discuss such and such phenomenon or something. That's how I thought about it anyways, a musty, glorious relic of the near past. The metal squeak of the seats covered in a slightly sticky red fabric, with every 12th one or so somehow broken; the sound system that still worked well, with good acoustics. The yellow and orange walls and dark brown wood, the multi-stained carpet, I remember it well. Changing the Marquee with a set of mismatched, odd letters, using letters for numbers and vice versa when necessary. Who knows or even cared the last time the set was current; little things like that throughout the whole building made it somehow creepy. Like we were stuck in an episode of Scooby Doo with a mystery at the old haunted movie theater in a backwoods town, or something.
I am not one for ludicrous ghost stories but the other employees that worked there will also tell you of odd things would happen from time to time. Footsteps in the projection booth when no one was up there (a hallway above the main lobby), lights seeming to flicker when ghosts were mentioned. It did have an odd energy about it, a kind of pathetic, last truck stop, end of the world, nothing to lose vibe about it. And that's not just me, the other people that worked there felt it too, we were part of it. It was awesome and odd to go there as a kid, then work there as a young man.
I went back one day years later to see it, and some Russians who barely spoke English had bought the place and were still showing the crappiest, oldest, movies. Soon after that it became some kind of bingo hall or church or something, I don't know. It didn't matter at that point, it was no longer Trailridge Theatre, one of the magical portals of my childhood and young adult life.
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3 comments:
Great article and blog sharing of you. I like this kinda of amazing blog.
ThanksJD.
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