Interesting Blog Post about General Cinema

If you've never checked out the Pleasant Family Shopping blog, you have missed a real treat. I was pleasantly surprised one evening to find out that the author had published some lengthy articles about the history of General Cinema. GCC is long gone now but it has a fascinating history.

Here's a link to some of the blog posts, if you're interested.

• General Cinema Feature Presentation
• The Premiere of General Cinema
  

All Fall Down

Poor Karen came back from her trip to Pampa just sick as all get out. She picked up a virus that has really knocked her for a loop. Then yesterday, I started feeling bad and woke up with a cold today which hopefully won't stick around too long. And to top it off, Robert has either (1) developed a case of food poisoning from dinner last night or (2) picked up the stomach virus that Karen had. I spoke to him not too long ago and my poor baby sounded so miserable. I hope he gets a good night's sleep and feels better tomorrow. I hope we all do!

Ugh!

I woke up feeling a bit sickly this morning, and in the interest of keeping it 'just a bit sickly' as opposed to 'just a lot sickly', I stayed home today and slept for an additional six to seven hours. I had a bit of congestion and a low grade fever, and felt just generally yucky. Ugh! But I'm going to try to get a good night's sleep and maybe I'll be back 100% in the morning. It's no fun just being wiped out and not wanting to do anything!

General Cinema V is now gone

This is sad to me, but such is progress. I worked at General Cinema, Cinema V (that's how we used to answer the phone) from March 1988 to May 1989. It was my first job, and even though it was tedious at times and I longed for more money, I didn't always appreciate what a great job it was until I had moved on to greener pastures. Sometimes when I was having a frantic day at work, I longed for the simpler days when I was dishing out popcorn or taking tickets at the ticket stand. This theater opened in 1979 and stayed in operation into the 1990s. Before I left, they had become a dollar theater. The last big movie we had as a first-run theater was Die Hard in 1988, and it was a huge hit. I saw it many times and I have it on DVD today. We schlepped up and down those back stairs, bringing down bags of popcorn (it was popped once a week, on Tuesdays) in day-glo yellow bags that we emptied into the popcorn warmers. I did just about everything there except run the place. I used to love sneaking up to the projection room and watching the screen from up there.

The theater has been vacant for at least ten years, if not more, and it had just fallen into ruin. On December 23, 2009, demolition started on the building, and it was captured by this YouTube video. I'll always treasure my memories of working there and the fun we had.

Uh, Mrs. Robinson...

We had our monthly movie group yesterday, and we saw The Graduate. I don't think I've ever seen the entire movie. If I have seen it, it has been a long time. I enjoyed it. I knew Dustin Hoffman was just a bit too old for his part, but he's winning and earnest and it's easy to overlook it. Anyone who has graduated from college -- or has come to any fork in the road and needs to make a decision -- has felt what his character is going through. He has worked hard and he has graduated from college. The big question: what do I do now? Most of us knows what happens; he meets the wife of his father's business partner: Mrs. Robinson, superbly played by Anne Bancroft. She plays on so many levels. She is cunning, manipulative, seductive, aggressive, and yet, you sense her insecurity, her desperation, and her vulnerability. She is also jealous of her daughter, played by Katharine Ross. While Dustin Hoffman became a star with this film, Anne Bancroft's performance sticks with you.

Anne Bancroft was one of the top actresses of the last 50 years, and she had a fairly brief starring career in the 60s and 70s. She took a bit of a break in the early 70s, but had memorable performances in The Prisoner of Second Avenue and The Turning Point. I've always liked her tremendously. I first fell for her when I saw To Be or Not to Be on cable television. She and Mel Brooks sang "Sweet Georgia Brown" in Polish! I loved anything I saw her in. She won an Oscar for The Miracle Worker in 1962, reprising her Broadway role as Annie Sullivan, the tough but loving teacher and friend to Helen Keller. In a side note, the Oscar drama that year was intense. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford had just struggled through making their last big picture, the macabre-yet-amusing What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? without having any major blowups. Much to Joan's disappointment, she was not nominated, but Bette was. And Bette had made comments that Joan was a mere movie star while Bette was a real actress. And much to Bette's disappointment, Joan arranged to accept the Best Actress award if the winner couldn't be there, and Anne Bancroft won. Joan got to sail onstage at the Academy Awards, looking like a million bucks, and Bette went home empty-handed.

But back to The Graduate, which was the reason for this post. I think it's a movie that you have to be a certain age to appreciate. If you're just out of high school, you might not think much of it. But if you're the right age, you'll appreciate it and admire it for the stylish and moving film that it is.

Another semester is almost gone!

As my friend and roommate Karen said to me tonight, "It's been a hell of a semester, hasn't it?" Indeed, it has. I've moved, I've started taking better care of myself financially, and I'm managing to hang on in an increasingly insane work environment. I'm getting closer and closer to Robert all the time (almost six months later, and we're still giggly teenagers). As of tomorrow evening at midnight, the semester will end. All work will have been submitted and I'll await the final results. I don't think this will be another 4.0 semester, but if I make B's, that's fine with me. In grad school, you can't graduate with honors anyway.

I'm looking forward to a nice break -- just in time to go Christmas shopping! I have a membership to Amazon Prime, so I can order stuff and get 'free' 2-day shipping.

Reflections on Self-Revelations

Watching the video of Meredith Baxter coming out to Matt Lauer on the Today show made me think back to when I discovered I was gay. Really gay.

I was about 22, I think, and while I had been around sexually for a short time, I couldn't just admit to myself that I was gay. Part of it was shyness and part of it was a conflict with my upbringing. I grew up in the Southern Baptist church and had always been taught that homosexuality was just wrong and one of the most abominable of sins, so I really had a difficult time reconciling what I had grown up with and the dilemma I faced at that time. For anyone who is gay and who has come out, this isn't anything new. And even though I hadn't gone to church in a short while, I still felt strong ties to church, particularly when it came to the big stuff. But I finally had a true heart-to-heart with myself and did some soul searching. Ultimately, I came to believe (and still do) that God would want me to find love and happiness during my lifetime, and that romantic love and happiness would most likely be found with another man.

Speaking of church.... Eventually, my mom outed me to her entire church, and I felt comfortable attending a wedding recently with my sweet Robert. Everyone knew who he was, and he was treated well and made to feel welcome. We even held hands in the back pew!

I had been on dates with women, and while they were generally pleasant, they were awkward and uncomfortable in many respects. I never got beyond a good night kiss. But when I first went out with a guy, everything snapped into focus. I knew that this was how it was supposed to be. It felt truly right for the first time. After that point, I only went out with guys. A gay co-worker took me to my first gay club, and I made out with a gorgeous guy directly under a spotlight.

Cristy was the first friend I told. She knew, but waited patiently for me to tell her, and she was very happy for me. I had met my first boyfriend (we dated for an amazing two weeks during my senior year of college) and I include him on my dating resume because he was a really cute guy and he was the first guy who told me he loved me. And shortly after graduating, I met my first partner, and we were together for almost seven years.

I can't speak for Meredith Baxter, but I'm sure she feels like an extraordinary weight has been lifted. She made a late discovery about her homosexuality, but as individuals, we're all on different wavelengths and timetables, and late discoveries are not uncommon. The main thing is that she did come to terms with that aspect of herself. I'm glad that she has come out and I'm glad to see that she seems extremely happy.