FAST TIMES AT THE MASSAPEQUA MALL
Windows down, Blaupunkt cranked, I was cruisin' in style: a two-tone chocolate brown & cream Mercedes 250 C; REO's "High Infidelity" in the cassette player; my favorite track, "Don't Let Him Go," rattlin' the coaxials . . .
"He's got plenty of cash, he's got plenty of friends.
He drives women wild, then he drives off in a Mercedes Benz . . ."
Didn't have plenty of cash or friends, and the only woman I was driving wild was the one who occupied the bucket seat beside me: my long-suffering girlfriend, Linda. Each weekend, Linda and I would head to Long Island to catch a movie. It was the early '80s, and most of the theaters in our native Queens were ancient, run-down affairs: their best days in the wind. It was the age of the multiplex, and the shopping malls of Long Island were burgeoning with these clean, well-ventilated, cubicle-like multi-theaters: your ass didn't stick to the seats, and man you had options! Six, eight, sometimes twelve flicks to choose from . . . it was paradise! Best part for me tho, was the cruise out in the Benz.
Massapequa, NY: a small, working class town less than 30 miles from Manhattan; infamous as hometown of the "Long Island Lolita," Amy Fisher. Upwardly mobile, yet close enough to the back alleys and elevated train stations of Queens to absorb some attitude. It was here, at a multiplex inside the local mall, that I spent many a Friday night. The Massapequa mall looms large in my consciousness. There are times when I still visit it in my dreams. It's one of those rare places that somehow, in some way, define my youth. Don't know why. Nothing extraordinary ever happened to me there. No sexual exploits in the theater balcony (there was no balcony): just a shitload of movies viewed (over 200 I've been able to document) -- not to mention the mountain of popcorn washed down with enough Diet Coke to float a battleship.
We'd just caught the last showing of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Not a bad flick. I had no idea I'd just witnessed a piece of cinematic history: three young actors who'd each cop a gold statue one day (Sean Penn and Nick Cage pulling a deuce) -- not to mention what would become the most iconic scene of a young girl exposing her breasts ever committed to celluloid. (God bless Phoebe Cates!) What I recall most vividly about the evening (even more so than Phoebe's bodacious set), was the strange kinship I felt with the young actors I sat watching on the screen. I felt I too, was destined for stardom.
Several months earlier, I'd boldly quit my job as a specialist clerk on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (easy to be bold when your ass is sheltered by your parents' roof), and had thrown myself into what I felt was my true calling: that of cartoonist/illustrator. Things were lookin' up. I'd recently broken into the pages of National Lampoon magazine: An estimated 8 million readers a month -- the godamn juggernaut that'd come to be regarded as the very epitome of cutting-edge humor; spawning the likes of "Animal House" and SNL. And that wasn't all . . . me and my two buds -- Tommy Donohue and Francis Romano -- were ridin' the crest of the "NeWave" comix movement. With the backing of one William L. Snyder -- Academy Award winning animator and producer of those old Tom & Jerry cartoons -- we were about to launch our own zine: "Depraved Comix: The Magazine of New Wave Humor." Oh yeah . . .
Tommy, aka "Bubbles," was the best street artist ever to come out of Queens, NY. I remember the first time I laid eyes on one of his pieces -- the image is still seared into my brain. It was a "Jimmy Page" he'd done on the back of a denim with a set of iridescent markers: a demonic "ZoSo" workin' his famous double axe -- the twin guitar necks morphing into serpents; flames dancing and writhing; colors so pure, so intense, it was like staring into the flame of an acetylene torch. And the style . . . all the primitive power of Gaugin, fused with the trippy, cosmic grandeur of Peter Max . . .
And Francis -- don't know whatever became of him. Be he dead or alive. Perhaps living on some uncharted Polynesian isle -- worshipped as a god by flower-crowned, half-naked exotic beauties -- or hooked up to a set of electrodes at the local electro shock clinic. Francis had the most facile, the most brilliant comedic mind I'd ever encountered. Period. With Bubbles in tow, we aspired to set the newly birthed NeWave movement on its ass.
Leaving the theater that night with Linda, I felt good. Feeling good was not something that came easily, or naturally to me. But the future seemed bright. I remembered a bit of dialogue from an old movie I'd once seen: "The Magic Box" -- bio flick of William Friese-Greene, inventor of the motion picture camera. Much like Philo Farnsworth -- the backwoods teen who invented the television for his high school science project (an incredible story if you're not familiar) -- Friese-Greene was ultimately cheated out of the patent for his life-altering invention. The dialogue, as I recalled, was between Friese-Greene and Fox Talbot -- one of the pioneers of still photography . . .
"If you do this," Talbot tells Friese-Greene, still struggling with his invention after many years of trial and error, "Then never again will you ever be completely unhappy."
And so I believed too, as we neared completion of the first issue of our zine, that never again would I ever be completely unhappy. It wasn't until we hit the parking lot, that an odd feeling crept over me. There bathed in the ghostly luminescence of an overhead lamp, was my Mercedes. Oh, I know it sounds shallow, even foolish, but it was beautiful! I'd just treated it to a new coat of Turtle Wax; the rich, brown laquer appearing almost black -- like polished onyx -- under the bright light. An earthy, nubile young German - American beauty at my elbow, and all I lusted for was fine German engineering -- and four coats of rich acrylic laquer.
It was then it hit me. That somehow I'd reached a high point. That a moment like this would not come again. That life was neither long, nor its possibilities infinite. That one day I'd be old, remembering this moment -- like a ghost seen in a rearview mirror.
"What are you thinking about?" Linda asked.
The question seemed intrusive; it bothered me, as Linda's questions so frequently did.
"Think I'll get some new rims for the Mercedes."
Linda wasn't buying it.
"What were you really thinking?"
"That I hope I never get old."
"Everyone gets old."
"That doesn't help me."
The feeling passed as quickly as it had come over me. Linda put some Pat Benatar in the Blaupunkt, and we headed for home -- a stop at the Flagship Diner on Queens Blvd: a couple of their famous bacon cheeseburgers, oozing so much grease and melted cheese that the fries -- equally as grease sodden -- stuck to them. Excellent.
May you never, ever, be completely unhappy.
"He's got plenty of cash, he's got plenty of friends.
He drives women wild, then he drives off in a Mercedes Benz . . ."
Didn't have plenty of cash or friends, and the only woman I was driving wild was the one who occupied the bucket seat beside me: my long-suffering girlfriend, Linda. Each weekend, Linda and I would head to Long Island to catch a movie. It was the early '80s, and most of the theaters in our native Queens were ancient, run-down affairs: their best days in the wind. It was the age of the multiplex, and the shopping malls of Long Island were burgeoning with these clean, well-ventilated, cubicle-like multi-theaters: your ass didn't stick to the seats, and man you had options! Six, eight, sometimes twelve flicks to choose from . . . it was paradise! Best part for me tho, was the cruise out in the Benz.
Massapequa, NY: a small, working class town less than 30 miles from Manhattan; infamous as hometown of the "Long Island Lolita," Amy Fisher. Upwardly mobile, yet close enough to the back alleys and elevated train stations of Queens to absorb some attitude. It was here, at a multiplex inside the local mall, that I spent many a Friday night. The Massapequa mall looms large in my consciousness. There are times when I still visit it in my dreams. It's one of those rare places that somehow, in some way, define my youth. Don't know why. Nothing extraordinary ever happened to me there. No sexual exploits in the theater balcony (there was no balcony): just a shitload of movies viewed (over 200 I've been able to document) -- not to mention the mountain of popcorn washed down with enough Diet Coke to float a battleship.
We'd just caught the last showing of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Not a bad flick. I had no idea I'd just witnessed a piece of cinematic history: three young actors who'd each cop a gold statue one day (Sean Penn and Nick Cage pulling a deuce) -- not to mention what would become the most iconic scene of a young girl exposing her breasts ever committed to celluloid. (God bless Phoebe Cates!) What I recall most vividly about the evening (even more so than Phoebe's bodacious set), was the strange kinship I felt with the young actors I sat watching on the screen. I felt I too, was destined for stardom.
Several months earlier, I'd boldly quit my job as a specialist clerk on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (easy to be bold when your ass is sheltered by your parents' roof), and had thrown myself into what I felt was my true calling: that of cartoonist/illustrator. Things were lookin' up. I'd recently broken into the pages of National Lampoon magazine: An estimated 8 million readers a month -- the godamn juggernaut that'd come to be regarded as the very epitome of cutting-edge humor; spawning the likes of "Animal House" and SNL. And that wasn't all . . . me and my two buds -- Tommy Donohue and Francis Romano -- were ridin' the crest of the "NeWave" comix movement. With the backing of one William L. Snyder -- Academy Award winning animator and producer of those old Tom & Jerry cartoons -- we were about to launch our own zine: "Depraved Comix: The Magazine of New Wave Humor." Oh yeah . . .
Tommy, aka "Bubbles," was the best street artist ever to come out of Queens, NY. I remember the first time I laid eyes on one of his pieces -- the image is still seared into my brain. It was a "Jimmy Page" he'd done on the back of a denim with a set of iridescent markers: a demonic "ZoSo" workin' his famous double axe -- the twin guitar necks morphing into serpents; flames dancing and writhing; colors so pure, so intense, it was like staring into the flame of an acetylene torch. And the style . . . all the primitive power of Gaugin, fused with the trippy, cosmic grandeur of Peter Max . . .
And Francis -- don't know whatever became of him. Be he dead or alive. Perhaps living on some uncharted Polynesian isle -- worshipped as a god by flower-crowned, half-naked exotic beauties -- or hooked up to a set of electrodes at the local electro shock clinic. Francis had the most facile, the most brilliant comedic mind I'd ever encountered. Period. With Bubbles in tow, we aspired to set the newly birthed NeWave movement on its ass.
Leaving the theater that night with Linda, I felt good. Feeling good was not something that came easily, or naturally to me. But the future seemed bright. I remembered a bit of dialogue from an old movie I'd once seen: "The Magic Box" -- bio flick of William Friese-Greene, inventor of the motion picture camera. Much like Philo Farnsworth -- the backwoods teen who invented the television for his high school science project (an incredible story if you're not familiar) -- Friese-Greene was ultimately cheated out of the patent for his life-altering invention. The dialogue, as I recalled, was between Friese-Greene and Fox Talbot -- one of the pioneers of still photography . . .
"If you do this," Talbot tells Friese-Greene, still struggling with his invention after many years of trial and error, "Then never again will you ever be completely unhappy."
And so I believed too, as we neared completion of the first issue of our zine, that never again would I ever be completely unhappy. It wasn't until we hit the parking lot, that an odd feeling crept over me. There bathed in the ghostly luminescence of an overhead lamp, was my Mercedes. Oh, I know it sounds shallow, even foolish, but it was beautiful! I'd just treated it to a new coat of Turtle Wax; the rich, brown laquer appearing almost black -- like polished onyx -- under the bright light. An earthy, nubile young German - American beauty at my elbow, and all I lusted for was fine German engineering -- and four coats of rich acrylic laquer.
It was then it hit me. That somehow I'd reached a high point. That a moment like this would not come again. That life was neither long, nor its possibilities infinite. That one day I'd be old, remembering this moment -- like a ghost seen in a rearview mirror.
"What are you thinking about?" Linda asked.
The question seemed intrusive; it bothered me, as Linda's questions so frequently did.
"Think I'll get some new rims for the Mercedes."
Linda wasn't buying it.
"What were you really thinking?"
"That I hope I never get old."
"Everyone gets old."
"That doesn't help me."
The feeling passed as quickly as it had come over me. Linda put some Pat Benatar in the Blaupunkt, and we headed for home -- a stop at the Flagship Diner on Queens Blvd: a couple of their famous bacon cheeseburgers, oozing so much grease and melted cheese that the fries -- equally as grease sodden -- stuck to them. Excellent.
May you never, ever, be completely unhappy.
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by
Angela
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Jul 31, 2010 08:48PM
No one could have said this better. I will remember when the days seem dark, that I've had high moments, too; and hopefully that will make me realize that I am not completely unhappy too.
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