The Vulture

Pretty much illustrates what I saw that day.




                                                     The Vulture

                                                             by

                                                                Jay Agan

      Back in the 70s, for about a period of four years, Mt. Vernon was without an indoor movie theater. No big deal I guess, just go to the next town if you wanted to take in a flick. Trouble was, the "next" town was Newark, Columbus or if you lived in northern Knox County, Mansfield, 25+ miles away.

      During the warm months there was the Knox Auto Theater (Now sadly gone.) but until the Colonial started operations downtown (They scored The Empire Strikes Back as their opener. How they did it, I've no idea.), you were hit with a trip mid-Fall through early Spring.

      As an objectivist (Small o. I don't believe EVERYTHING Ayn Rand says. Only 99.99%.) I really can't fault the former owner of the Vernon Theater. A bank wanted the property, cable TV was cutting into ticket sales & the place needed repair. So the old man sold it. O ..... K ..... I guess.

      Sentiment. What kind of a price do you put on it? (In Delaware County, it's 150 grand taxpayer bucks to restore the Strand.) I mean, I spent many an afternoon matinee at the Vernon. Mom & Dad Disneyed us to death there. I remember Dad bothered by three bucks a head when we saw Patton. There was the Romeo & Juliet controversy (Zeffirelli version. Didn't bother me. I'm not turned on by guys butts.). It was at the Vernon I was traumatized by Old Yeller. I was further traumatized on my first date there. Memories .....

      My last memory of the Vernon is not a good one. I was on my way to Brinings' News Stand (Down the alley & across Vine.) passing the skeletal carcass of the torn down theater. There, standing in the midst of the wreckage, was ..... HIM!

      Clad in a BLACK business suit & contrasting white shirt. Hunched shoulders, arms extended & clutched in the liver spotted leprousness of his talons ..... window glass. The elderly scavenger was salvaging window glass! Looking ..... for all the world ..... like some foul carrion bird ..... picking at road kill.

      That glass is probably laying in some barn or shed collecting about as much dust as he is. Sad.

                                         Article copyright © 7-27-2011 Jay Agan

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First Quake

Disclaimer: Though the following article has a "punchline" it is not meant to belittle or trivialize the situation the people of Japan are going through right now. My heart goes out to them & I hope I myself never have to experience what they are facing. Please remember the victims in your prayers. It's because of this I was reminded of  "incidents" of my own having to do with earthquakes.

                                                              
                                                       First Quake

                                                               by

                                                                  Jay Agan

      An Ohio Saturday afternoon in a Spring of the late 70s & there I am in my Mt. Vernon, apartment watching a flick on ch 10 (WBNS). The fight scene is raging & I'm skarfing a Coke when the house shakes a little. Funny. No truck went by. In fact it was dead quiet outside. Wasn't much of a shake but it felt ..... strange.

      Thirty seconds later it happens again. Now I was sure it wasn't something normal. Earthquake? Couldn't be positive as I had never experienced one before. I get up & dash out of the subdivided house & take a quick look up & down the street. Everything normal. Nothing out of the ordinary.

      I go back in & click on the radio. Within minutes WMVO had the scoop. A couple of tremors hit over a several county area including Knox County.

      A couple days later I'm talking to youngest brother about it & he related the same thing. His two dogs also got to howling a little after.

      My second quake was when I was with the parents in New Jersey while attending tech school in '85. It's about 5 AM Saturday morning when I hear what sounds like a freight train then a slight lurch to the house. Then neighborhood dogs get to barking & howling for a minute or two. "Musta been an earthquake." & I go back to sleep.

      Later that day it's off to the movies. I pass Computer Processing Institute on Rt 4 in Paramus where I attended school, & I notice quite a few cars in the lot. On a Saturday? I didn't think much of it & continued on. At the theater there was a long wait as tickets were being "processed" by hand. The computers were down due to the quake. I figured that was why there were so many cars at the school. This was confirmed there Monday.



Steve Reeves in Hercules Unchained. It was about at this
point in the film when the quake hit. I swear, it's true!
Credit: Warner Bros.


      Oh. The movie I was watching when I experienced my first quake? Hercules Unchained starring Steve Reeves. Honest! Go figure.

                                      Article copyright © 3-12-2011 Jay Agan


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DISCLAIMER: All images used on this blog are strictly copyrights of their owners. I do not claim credit/ownership for any images used here in my blog unless stated otherwise. If I have offended anyone by posting any images on my blog, please contact me via email and I will remove specified image(s) ASAP.

This article (only) may be copied in whole or in part. Please be sure to cite proper credit & backlink.

Kennedy Kurses!

                                                              Kennedy Kurses!
                                                                      
                                                                            by
         
                                                                               Jay Agan

     November of '88. Had been back a few months in Ohio after a 4 year stint in Jersey. Was back to start what I thought was going to be a new life & career (Can't complain. Took my chances, made my chioces.)
  
     It was the 25th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination & I'm stuck as a telemarketer for a cheap-jack insulation company that shall remain nameless. I'm into my mid-30s & the kids there were 20-somethings. One gets the idea I'm a piece of living history & would I be so kind as to relate my experience of one of the 20th centurys' defining moments? Sure.
  
     I was in Miss McIlvoys' third grade class at St. Vincents in Mt. Vernon. Principle gets on the pa & announces the pres got shot & to pray for the repose of his soul. Then some creepy choir music was piped in. One kid (who also shall remain nameless) got to laughing over it. Other kids got quiet. I didn't feel affected at all. On the bus home, the high & jr. high kids speculated over what few details they got on the news. Again, no big deal as far as I was concerned. I get home, turn on the set. News. At this hour?
  
     "Jay! The presidents' been shot!" Mom calmly explained to me. And?
 
     Later, it dawned on me. What?! No cartoons?! It was that serious enough to keep me from watching my weekly U.S.D.A. required dose of brain rot? I didn't think so.
  
     Needless to say, the kiddies at work weren't too thrilled over this first hand account of MY ENCOUNTER WITH HISTORY(!) (Insert light show here.). One he-bitch whined indignantly over my cheating him out of some hoped for profound insight.
  
     Strange as it seems, coming from a film fan, but I never was into hype & the cult of celebrity. Especially when it comes to politicians of whatever stripe.
  
    What did these fools expect from me? Something sage sounding & momentous? An unforgetable anecdote from one who was "in the moment"? Oh, come on! I was a kid. 9 years old. As a child, I thought & lived as one. I had a childs' priorities. And it was through the eyes of one I remember it.
   
    I'm not trying to be mean or callous about this. It was a terrible thing that happened. BUT:

   Anyone who was a little kid at that time telling you about "a profound sense of loss", etc. is full of it. He/she was just as ticked off as I was about no cartoons that dreary Thanksgiving weekend in November '63. Nuff said.

                                                     Article copyright © Jay Agan

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Bring Me the Head of Walt Disney (Frozen or Otherwise)

Poster/photo credit: Walt Disney Studios

                                    

Bring Me the Head of Walt Disney (Frozen or Otherwise)

by

Jay Agan
      

"No! You can't see that movie. You'll be scared & have nightmares."

   

The usual response I'd get from Mom when pointing out some cool show advertised in the paper.("Uncle Vince" & Roger Corman were THE team back in the early 60s.) Missed out on a lot of great stuff due to such overprotectiveness. She meant well but come on! A kids' gotta have his fun. Not that we didn't go to movies. Mostly kiddy fare. Usually Disney, Disney, & more Disney. And therein hangs a tale.

After an umpteenth refusal for us to see Pit & the Pendulum or other such vileness, Mom let Dad take us to see another Disney offering. Ah, yes. More uplifting, wholesome, family goodness! Now, normally, people don't think anything from the Disney studios to be damaging to children. True, there was that off screen shooting of Bambies' mother, but that was a mild anomaly not to be repeated. Disney films were supposed to be masterpieces of life affirming, goodness & spiritually edifying fun & happiness. Or so most thought at the time. Howsomever, we kids hadn't reckoned on a tour de force of jollity & good cheer bearing the title of.........Old Yeller.

Dad took us as Mom had to stay home with baby sister. Had they come with us she would have understood the folly of shielding us from the world. She got it second hand. Boy, did she ever!

I don't remember that much about the flick except for the last 20-30 minutes: Disease! Rabies! Death!

Tommy Kirk takes the gun from Pa.

Cut to barn door opening.

Shot of foam at the mouth title character in stall.

Back to Kirk taking aim.

Quick cut of "Cujo" taking a flying leap at the camera.

Quick shot of gun muzzle. BANG!

Fast fade to black.

A few seconds pass as it registers on the audience.

Little moans. One here. Another there. Several more scattered round. More dispersed yelps sprinkle the crowd. More. A little more, till it's evenly spread throughout. All in coordination, it rises in pitch & volume. Higher. Louder. Louder! Higher!

All united & chorousing upward into an overwhelming crescendo of primal scream.

Pandaemonium. Whole & total.

People jumping, hitting the cieling. Writhing on the floor. Throwing up in the aisles. Running about in bounce off the walls panic.

The kids were even worse.

Maybe I exagerate but you get the picture. We were, to say the least, in shock. Traumatized.

Dad, scanning about the theater, a look of abject disgust of his face. Through the tears, I'm thinking, "cool!"

It settles down a bit & everyone watches the epilogue/wrap-up. (Older Disney flicks had anti-climactic ending scenes.) The replacement puppy shows up (They gonna shoot him too?) & the crying crap starts in again. The End. Not yet kiddies....not yet.

The square in Mt. Vernon lies on a gentle slope. The Vernon Theater occupied the lowest (southwest) corner. Out of this "wailing well" come the most piteous squeals, echoing off the First Knox Nat. Bank & other structures. Reverberating down the side alley, bouncing off Brinings News Stand & back up. (Vine St. didn't channel any of it away.) Gives it a sort of "stroboscopic" effect. First time I ever heard sound in quite that way.

Heading home, Dad tries to explain rabies to us. We're having none of that. Reality indeed! Hey! They shot the dog! Deadern'a door nail! Waaaaaaah! Cars pull to the side, thinking an emergency vehicle needs to pass.

After all the dog did for them! Brought fun & happiness into their dull, inbred, backwoods existence. Making life more interesting in Deliverence country. Saved em from the bear 'n wolves, etc. Then they had to go 'n shoot him! Darn old subsistance farmers!

We're sort of settled down by the time we pull into home.

Getting in, Mom cheerily greets us, " so. How was your movie?"

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
    
Younger brother, stares blankly at the wall, mouth hanging open. Youngest brother, sitting, back to a wall, rocking back & forth, muttering, "they shot the dog ....eh...eh ....eh ....eh ....eh ..eh....eh.....they shot the dog!" Little sister, letting out a minutes long wail, not once pausing for breath. Dad, staring at the cieling, with a "Why me?" kind of look.

"John. John? JOHN! What kind of movie did you take them to?! It wasn't that horror movie, was it?!"

"For Gods' sake Hon! It was a Walt Disney movie! It was Old Yeller!"

"So what happened?"

"Aw, they shot the dog."

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

"Oh, shut up!"

We didn't go to the movies much after that. On many a Sunday night after. When The Wonderful World of Disney/Color would come on. I'd curse that guy  whenever he'd appear.

"Hello, boys & girls!"

"You're sick Disney! Sick! I hate your slime covered guts! Die, you -------! Die!"

Fast forward a few years to military school. Wednesday movie in the rec hall. 16mm projector puttering away. (Buena Vista presents.......uh oh.) It's the one about John Wesley Powell exploring the Grand Canyon.

"We can't take the dog with us. Here...", handing the rifle over. (Oh, no. Not again?!)

The guy takes aim.

Cut to a wide eyed, happy looking, wiggly tailed, little terrier, toungue hanging out. I swear, the dog actually smiled!

Hand pulls the hammer back.

Back to happy dog.

"Agan, quit yer cryin!

"I'm not cryin!"

"Yeah, right."

"What's goin on?"

"Aw, Agan's cryin."

"Shut up man! I'ma kick yer butt!"

"Yeah, right."

Guy relents & lowers the rifle. The pup is saved. Whew!

Yes sir! The ole tried 'n true Disney formula: KILL THE DOG!

Folks think I'm warped due to all the crazy flicks/books I've watched/read over the years. Not so. It wasn't Lugosi, Karloff,  Price, Corman, the Chaneys or any of the other greats who put my miniscule grey matter in a bunch.

It was that darned Disney.

I hate you Walt.


Article copyright © 12-17-20


Old Yeller as I saw it. (Parody trailer is not mine).


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DISCLAIMER: All images used on this blog are strictly copyrights of their owners. I do not claim credit/ownership for any images used here in my blog unless stated otherwise. If I have offended anyone by posting any images on my blog, please contact me via email and I will remove specified image(s) ASAP.