There was a chef at a five-star restaurant. He was cutting up vegetables prepping for that nights service when he heard a knock on the back door. He opened the door and saw a homeless guy swaying back and forth. "Do you have any toothpicks?" He asked. The chef reached over and plucked a toothpick from the make table, handed it to the guy, and closed the door. He went back to cutting vegetables and heard another knock at the back door. He opened the door and saw a second homeless guy. "Do...do (hiccup) you have any toothpicks?" he asked, slurring his words. The chef reached and pulled a toothpick from the bin on the make table, handed it to the guy, and closed the door. He went back to cutting vegetables and heard a knock on the back door. He opened the door and there was a third homeless-looking guy standing there. "Do you happen to have a straw?" The chef replied "Ok, what's going on back here? Two guys ask for toothpicks and you ask for a straw. What gives?" The vagrant replied, "Well Jerry threw up and the other two guys got the best chunks..."
As someone who literally lived in a movie theater (twice!), I thoroughly enjoyed this. To this day "concession girl" still goes down in history as my favorite job of all time. And what I wouldn't give to watch "Stand by Me" fifty thousand more times on the silver screen. Happy Sunday!
Yay! We have a shared experience. At fifteen, I took my first job at a gorgeous old single-screen called the Rio Theater (http://www.riotheatre.com/). Amazingly, the movie house is still in operation today, although it doubles as a music venue. The fey Erika and I, along with Cindy, who hated people but loved animals, and Raffi, the Armenian that smelled like Pan, ran the magical place.
Cindy worked the box office. Just like it sounds, it was a ticket office in a box. A chrome polyhedron with vents in the sides so she could breathe. It looked like a tiny spaceship set down on the mosaic-tiled entryway under the marquee.
There were time portals in the old building, like the wedge-shaped storage area behind the sign filled with movie posters and displays dating back to 1946. The projector room was a mad scientist’s lab. But the most liminal of all the secret spaces was the Cry Room—this weird little glass-fronted mini-theater hung suspended above the other 900 seats. Its original purpose was to seal mothers with their crying babies away in a soundproof booth. By 1985, this segregation was no longer practiced, so it was abandoned. Erika and I would sneak up there to watch movies, smoke pot, and make love. It was heaven.
Interesting how working in a cinema can offer opportunities for creative discovery/implementation. For example:
“So when the snooty cat and the courageous dog with the celebrity voices meet for the first time in reel three, that’s when you’ll catch a flash of Tyler’s contribution to the film.”
I still remember walking into Friday the 13th part 4 as a family, my Mom and Dad beside me and people laughing as we looked for our seats. I must have been twelve at the time. I loved all those horror movies back then. I have a lot of fond memories of my Dad and I going to the theatre or renting stacks of VHS tapes.
My great tri-plex experience at almost the opposite corner of the states, Sarasota, Florida, doesn't even come close to comparing to yours in unseemliness. The more than a decade of societal evolution in between our experiences, the facts that my manager is currently a part-time comedian who works clean and that the cinema was an art house run by a not-for-profit all definitely factored into the equation. I got promoted to the position of Assistant Manager and did a fair bit of projection myself, though we had a very cool old main projectionist named Carl Leigh who kept the prints clean with hand-held velvet as they ran. Instead of Grease, we ran the same print of "The Full Monty" from opening day until after it had been released on videotape. The body of that print was still beautiful when it got sent back, a matter of pride for Carl, though it had chunks of the credits missing because of an evening projectionist (not me) with the nasty habit of falling asleep in the booth. We hosted festivals for international film, LGBTQ Film, Spike and Mike's, and, least successfully, black film. With good reason that festival's operators moved locations to a different part of, what was then, one of the ten most segregated cities in the United States. The celebrity guest the last year at Burns Court Cinema, Delroy Lindo, was overheard by one of our employees wondering where all the black people were. The blame for hosting improperly could probably be put squarely on the shoulders of the now-late founder who also overpromised on our ability to screen dailies. The now-comedian manager and I were running the first-and-last daily in the booth for Volker Schlondorff and others, somewhat distracted by the steamy scene between Elisabeth Shue and Woody Harrelson, when another employee came into the booth with the complaint that there was no sound. We were just dopey projectionists and had no clue that the "extra" sound reels supplied were meant to be run through a different machine we didn't have. Yet another venue was switched to elsewhere and, probably for the best. We weren't the most respectful staff, consisting of art-student concession workers who saw fit to greet Harrelson with the iconic "Kingpin" wagging tongue between fingers in a vee. Schondorff himself seemed annoyed with me in my one interaction. I had seen "The Tin Drum" at a very early age on cable. I let him know that it had had a very negative and jarring effect on me and was met with no response whatsoever. There may have been some schadenfreude on my part when "Palmetto" flopped at the box office.
I wish I had the nerve to tell the joke to all of you that I had my mouth washed out for. The soap was Dial and I had to stand in the kitchen for an hour with the bar in my mouth.
I first told it to my Uncle Randy— who was the funniest Uncle ever— I just wanted people to laugh at me the way they did around him— so I learned this joke— I told him— had NO idea what I was saying at the age of 9. He just stared at me and slapped me across the face. He marched me to my parents at home, I was told to tell them the joke. After I did, my Dad started laughing HARD, hiding his face. I started to blush and laugh— enjoying the attention. That’s when the punishment took place. I was paddled. Then, the soap. After, I was asked if I even knew why the joke was bad— I didn’t. They explained. My joke telling days were over until I was older and found a way to tell them during quiet moments at bars when I was alone and good looking men were around but weren’t even trying to look my way. Dirty jokes and Dad jokes lead to some sexy evenings. There’s one fire station I know the insides of a little too well. ☺️
The "Box Office" game really highlights the degeneration of kids' imaginations. With smart phones, etc., I can pretty much guarantee you that no group of kids in the industrialized world is doing anything like this anymore. Zero attention span, zero creativity. If we're never bored we'll never have to invent ways to not be bored.
These comments are great, and everyone has interesting stuff to say, but I suspect there are (and was hoping to hear) many more ignorant-when-we-told-them dirty jokes.
I was in 3rd grade, up to 6th maybe, and I would tell a joke about a “cream-pie.” Friends (and friends of friends) loved it. I don’t think any of us understood it. I knew I didn’t get it, but since I had never eaten an actual cream pie, I assumed that once I did, maybe the joke would make sense. The joke went something like, “little Eddie told Mary that if she held his hand, he would give her a cream-pie. Mary didn’t like Eddie, but she loved cream-pies so she held his hand. “When do I get my cream-pie,” Mary asked. Eddie said, “cream-pie comes later.” Eddie said, “Now, let me see your boobies and I’ll give you a cream-pie.” Mary didn’t want to show Eddie her boobies, but she wanted a cream-pie, so she agreed…. It goes on like this, escalating in a way a 3rd grader whose mom fast-forwarded through kissing scenes would… “touch boobies,” “see butt,” “touch butt,” etc. …what was fun about this joke is if you had a crowd you could really get creative and stretch it out… until eventually little Eddie asks for sex and Mary agrees and then asks when she’ll get a cream-pie and the punch line was “don’t stop now, here comes the cream-pie.”
It might not have been until I was in college that I remembered (horrified) how often I told that joke without understanding it as a kid.
I also remember believing and sharing (at same young age) that flipping someone off was bad because the middle finger meant ‘penis.’
I wonder if kids are still able to experience the wonder of being asked to share a joke they don’t understand? I don’t want to search for (or encourage the creation), but a YouTube channel hosted by an earnest junior high kid explaining dirty jokes to his targeted audience of elementary school kids would be hilarious.
I was always so jealous of the kids in my home town that worked at the theater. I worked at KFC, and my boss used to throw chicken at us if the customer complained it wasn't fresh enough...
At any rate, I have a tendency to watch movies a million times in a row if I like them, but I've never looked at it as an educational tool...which now seems like a pretty simple, logical thing to do.
I was a projectionist at the only theater in my small town, a quad-plex with two large screens and two smaller ones. Best job I could've hoped for as a teenager, though the $4.25 an hour didn't do much for my wallet. I'm not sure if this was common practice elsewhere, but when we received the reels for a new film, always in the same dented octagonal containers, we would build them and screen them the night before release. Only employees and friends were allowed, and it was always in the early hours of the morning. Our own private showing where we could smoke weed, drink booze, and yell at the screen with impunity.
I must've seen four hundred movies this way, and it spoiled me. I can't sit in a crowded theater anymore, not even before Covid. Out of all of those films, "Se7en" sticks in my mind more than any other. What began with fifteen or so kids laughing and burping quickly turned to rapt silence. It didn't push me to the edge of my seat so much as lift me out of it. By the final scene, I was standing on the fold-out cushion, screaming, "You know what's in the box! Fucking shoot him already!" Pitch-perfect storytelling, if you ask me. Which you didn't, of course.
There was a chef at a five-star restaurant. He was cutting up vegetables prepping for that nights service when he heard a knock on the back door. He opened the door and saw a homeless guy swaying back and forth. "Do you have any toothpicks?" He asked. The chef reached over and plucked a toothpick from the make table, handed it to the guy, and closed the door. He went back to cutting vegetables and heard another knock at the back door. He opened the door and saw a second homeless guy. "Do...do (hiccup) you have any toothpicks?" he asked, slurring his words. The chef reached and pulled a toothpick from the bin on the make table, handed it to the guy, and closed the door. He went back to cutting vegetables and heard a knock on the back door. He opened the door and there was a third homeless-looking guy standing there. "Do you happen to have a straw?" The chef replied "Ok, what's going on back here? Two guys ask for toothpicks and you ask for a straw. What gives?" The vagrant replied, "Well Jerry threw up and the other two guys got the best chunks..."
As someone who literally lived in a movie theater (twice!), I thoroughly enjoyed this. To this day "concession girl" still goes down in history as my favorite job of all time. And what I wouldn't give to watch "Stand by Me" fifty thousand more times on the silver screen. Happy Sunday!
I ushered at the Edens 1 & 2 during the early 1990s. Best job ever.
Don’t forget when you want to illustrate the folly of Architecture & Dialogue I’m your girl. It’s my specialty. 😁
Yay! We have a shared experience. At fifteen, I took my first job at a gorgeous old single-screen called the Rio Theater (http://www.riotheatre.com/). Amazingly, the movie house is still in operation today, although it doubles as a music venue. The fey Erika and I, along with Cindy, who hated people but loved animals, and Raffi, the Armenian that smelled like Pan, ran the magical place.
Cindy worked the box office. Just like it sounds, it was a ticket office in a box. A chrome polyhedron with vents in the sides so she could breathe. It looked like a tiny spaceship set down on the mosaic-tiled entryway under the marquee.
There were time portals in the old building, like the wedge-shaped storage area behind the sign filled with movie posters and displays dating back to 1946. The projector room was a mad scientist’s lab. But the most liminal of all the secret spaces was the Cry Room—this weird little glass-fronted mini-theater hung suspended above the other 900 seats. Its original purpose was to seal mothers with their crying babies away in a soundproof booth. By 1985, this segregation was no longer practiced, so it was abandoned. Erika and I would sneak up there to watch movies, smoke pot, and make love. It was heaven.
Thank you for these posts. I need them. Seriously.
Interesting how working in a cinema can offer opportunities for creative discovery/implementation. For example:
“So when the snooty cat and the courageous dog with the celebrity voices meet for the first time in reel three, that’s when you’ll catch a flash of Tyler’s contribution to the film.”
I still remember walking into Friday the 13th part 4 as a family, my Mom and Dad beside me and people laughing as we looked for our seats. I must have been twelve at the time. I loved all those horror movies back then. I have a lot of fond memories of my Dad and I going to the theatre or renting stacks of VHS tapes.
My great tri-plex experience at almost the opposite corner of the states, Sarasota, Florida, doesn't even come close to comparing to yours in unseemliness. The more than a decade of societal evolution in between our experiences, the facts that my manager is currently a part-time comedian who works clean and that the cinema was an art house run by a not-for-profit all definitely factored into the equation. I got promoted to the position of Assistant Manager and did a fair bit of projection myself, though we had a very cool old main projectionist named Carl Leigh who kept the prints clean with hand-held velvet as they ran. Instead of Grease, we ran the same print of "The Full Monty" from opening day until after it had been released on videotape. The body of that print was still beautiful when it got sent back, a matter of pride for Carl, though it had chunks of the credits missing because of an evening projectionist (not me) with the nasty habit of falling asleep in the booth. We hosted festivals for international film, LGBTQ Film, Spike and Mike's, and, least successfully, black film. With good reason that festival's operators moved locations to a different part of, what was then, one of the ten most segregated cities in the United States. The celebrity guest the last year at Burns Court Cinema, Delroy Lindo, was overheard by one of our employees wondering where all the black people were. The blame for hosting improperly could probably be put squarely on the shoulders of the now-late founder who also overpromised on our ability to screen dailies. The now-comedian manager and I were running the first-and-last daily in the booth for Volker Schlondorff and others, somewhat distracted by the steamy scene between Elisabeth Shue and Woody Harrelson, when another employee came into the booth with the complaint that there was no sound. We were just dopey projectionists and had no clue that the "extra" sound reels supplied were meant to be run through a different machine we didn't have. Yet another venue was switched to elsewhere and, probably for the best. We weren't the most respectful staff, consisting of art-student concession workers who saw fit to greet Harrelson with the iconic "Kingpin" wagging tongue between fingers in a vee. Schondorff himself seemed annoyed with me in my one interaction. I had seen "The Tin Drum" at a very early age on cable. I let him know that it had had a very negative and jarring effect on me and was met with no response whatsoever. There may have been some schadenfreude on my part when "Palmetto" flopped at the box office.
I wish I had the nerve to tell the joke to all of you that I had my mouth washed out for. The soap was Dial and I had to stand in the kitchen for an hour with the bar in my mouth.
I first told it to my Uncle Randy— who was the funniest Uncle ever— I just wanted people to laugh at me the way they did around him— so I learned this joke— I told him— had NO idea what I was saying at the age of 9. He just stared at me and slapped me across the face. He marched me to my parents at home, I was told to tell them the joke. After I did, my Dad started laughing HARD, hiding his face. I started to blush and laugh— enjoying the attention. That’s when the punishment took place. I was paddled. Then, the soap. After, I was asked if I even knew why the joke was bad— I didn’t. They explained. My joke telling days were over until I was older and found a way to tell them during quiet moments at bars when I was alone and good looking men were around but weren’t even trying to look my way. Dirty jokes and Dad jokes lead to some sexy evenings. There’s one fire station I know the insides of a little too well. ☺️
The "Box Office" game really highlights the degeneration of kids' imaginations. With smart phones, etc., I can pretty much guarantee you that no group of kids in the industrialized world is doing anything like this anymore. Zero attention span, zero creativity. If we're never bored we'll never have to invent ways to not be bored.
These comments are great, and everyone has interesting stuff to say, but I suspect there are (and was hoping to hear) many more ignorant-when-we-told-them dirty jokes.
I was in 3rd grade, up to 6th maybe, and I would tell a joke about a “cream-pie.” Friends (and friends of friends) loved it. I don’t think any of us understood it. I knew I didn’t get it, but since I had never eaten an actual cream pie, I assumed that once I did, maybe the joke would make sense. The joke went something like, “little Eddie told Mary that if she held his hand, he would give her a cream-pie. Mary didn’t like Eddie, but she loved cream-pies so she held his hand. “When do I get my cream-pie,” Mary asked. Eddie said, “cream-pie comes later.” Eddie said, “Now, let me see your boobies and I’ll give you a cream-pie.” Mary didn’t want to show Eddie her boobies, but she wanted a cream-pie, so she agreed…. It goes on like this, escalating in a way a 3rd grader whose mom fast-forwarded through kissing scenes would… “touch boobies,” “see butt,” “touch butt,” etc. …what was fun about this joke is if you had a crowd you could really get creative and stretch it out… until eventually little Eddie asks for sex and Mary agrees and then asks when she’ll get a cream-pie and the punch line was “don’t stop now, here comes the cream-pie.”
It might not have been until I was in college that I remembered (horrified) how often I told that joke without understanding it as a kid.
I also remember believing and sharing (at same young age) that flipping someone off was bad because the middle finger meant ‘penis.’
I wonder if kids are still able to experience the wonder of being asked to share a joke they don’t understand? I don’t want to search for (or encourage the creation), but a YouTube channel hosted by an earnest junior high kid explaining dirty jokes to his targeted audience of elementary school kids would be hilarious.
I was always so jealous of the kids in my home town that worked at the theater. I worked at KFC, and my boss used to throw chicken at us if the customer complained it wasn't fresh enough...
At any rate, I have a tendency to watch movies a million times in a row if I like them, but I've never looked at it as an educational tool...which now seems like a pretty simple, logical thing to do.
I was a projectionist at the only theater in my small town, a quad-plex with two large screens and two smaller ones. Best job I could've hoped for as a teenager, though the $4.25 an hour didn't do much for my wallet. I'm not sure if this was common practice elsewhere, but when we received the reels for a new film, always in the same dented octagonal containers, we would build them and screen them the night before release. Only employees and friends were allowed, and it was always in the early hours of the morning. Our own private showing where we could smoke weed, drink booze, and yell at the screen with impunity.
I must've seen four hundred movies this way, and it spoiled me. I can't sit in a crowded theater anymore, not even before Covid. Out of all of those films, "Se7en" sticks in my mind more than any other. What began with fifteen or so kids laughing and burping quickly turned to rapt silence. It didn't push me to the edge of my seat so much as lift me out of it. By the final scene, I was standing on the fold-out cushion, screaming, "You know what's in the box! Fucking shoot him already!" Pitch-perfect storytelling, if you ask me. Which you didn't, of course.