Johmbolaya This Is

Received a book earlier this week called Theatres Of Hawai’i, with stories and photos of movie theaters from back home, most of which are before my time.  Most of the theaters I went to as a kid are no longer there, or if they are there, they are either churches or retail stores that have nothing to do with movies.  I fondly remember the Empress, Cinerama, The Kuhio, Waikiki 1 & 2 and Waikiki 3, and of course drive-ins like the Kailua, the Waialae, the Royal Sunset in Waipahu, and of course the Kamehameha next to Pearlridge.

Before my time, there were neighborhood theaters, back when one of the primary functions were cartoons for the kids on Saturdays.  My mom has often talked about going to the Kaimuki Theater, paying 10 cents to be apart of the “Porky Pig Club” to watch a string of cartoons all morning.  Upon doing some research online, I discovered there was a movie theater not too far from where I lived.  It was the Liliha Theater, and when I heard about this, I though ‘what? Liliha had a movie theater? Really?” Doing some Google searches lead me to discover that its location is where the H-1 Freeway today.  It was up on the hill, and when demolished in 1962, a path was paved for the H1.

I couldn’t find a photo of the Liliha until I opened the book, and there it was.  Even though Hawai’i hasn’t been my place of residence for years, I still understand and respect the idea of the neighborhoods. That goes back to my mom’s time when living in Kaimuki meant you had to travel “very far” to go to Makiki, even though it was only a five mile drive.  Or that being in Nu’uanu meant having to travel to Waianae which may have felt like a chore, but it’s only 32 minutes away.  Still, it was nice to see a photo of the Liliha, in its simplistic yet bright glory.

Earlier this morning I watched a documentary called Linotype: The Film.  I didn’t know about it until this past weekend, but it touched on a topic that has been of interest to me for years: printing, along with typography.

The movie touched on a machine called the Linotype, which was a revolutionary machine that made it possible to put things to print, opposed to doing everything by hand.  I’ll let Wikipedia describe it for you:

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Along with letterpress printing, linotype was the industry standard for newspapers, magazines and posters from the late 19th century to the 1960s and 70s, when it was largely replaced by offset lithography printing and computer typesetting. The name of the machine comes from the fact that it produces an entire line of metal type at once, hence a line-o’-type, a significant improvement over the previous industry standard, i.e., manual, letter-by-letter typesetting using a composing stick and drawers of letters.
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During elementary school, I had learned that one of the first Hawaiian newspapers was done in the old style, where it was letter-by-letter.  As someone who had always looked into the history of Hawai’i and especially means of Hawaiian documentation, this was of interest to me.  The article I had read at the time had to do with what I believe was the 100th anniversary of the first Hawaiian newspaper, and someone was actually going to revive the old machines and print them the old way.  I never got a chance to see the final edition of that, and while I grew up in the era of photo printing (which moved into computer printing), I have always had an interest in things that are letterpressed, which to me shows a sense of quality and time put into the product.  About 11 years ago, I had wanted to release a 12” single done in a letterpress cover but at the time I had lost my job and couldn’t use my finances for that.  I still want to create a business card using letterpress, in fact there’s a company based out of Chicago called Starshaped Press whom I wanted to work with originally. With the help of the internet, I’ve discovered there are some letterpress printers in Portland, Oregon and I hope to have a card made up for me in 2013.

Anyway, Linotype touches on those who still run Linotype machines, a Linotype university that maintains the working parts, along with the reality that these 2-ton machines eventually become scrap metal when no one wants them around.  They are heavy beasts and take up a lot of time and space, so if no one knows how to use and work them, it’s useless.  With modern technology, they are very much a thing of the past, and were when the last newspaper using the Linotype went off the press in July 1978.  Today, we all use computers with a wide range of fonts, typography of which originated from the Linotype people (a company that originated by a German man named Ottmar Mergenthaler).  However, when you see the machine used today, as sentences and paragraphs are typed in and adjusted line by line, it’s a work of art and in many ways was genius for its time.  We tend to take our modern ways for granted, but it’s great to see how the revolution started.  Without the Linotype, it was said that literacy in the United States might not have gone up as they did in the early 20th century.

Eternal gratitude, Etaoin Shrdlu.

I haven’t used the reblog function too much but I was doing a search for lunch wagon after seeing a few things related to Hawai’i and came across this. I often joke about being a “child of basic cable” and this seems like the kind of movie I might’ve seen or rented on VHS but I’ve never seen this.

Just by the graphic alone, you know this is as dorky as all hell.  Other factors:

1) Michael Tucci, the actor who played Sonny LaTierri, one of the T-Birds in Grease.
2) The top four actors on the IMDB page don’t have photos in their listings.
3) Jimmy Van Patten, one of Dick’s kids.  Nuff said.
4) Rose Marie. Fortunately she has always been funny so hopefully she’s funny in this.
5) This was shot in San Fernando Valley, known for tons of cheesy movies and of course being the core of hardcore porn.

Since this is a “lunch wagon”-related movie, I would be interested in seeing this. I’m sure this has less to do with food trucks and more about getting laid in small areas, but that’s okay with me.

If there was #surfing in the #Olympics, that would be great, but I could see them turning it solely into a Rick Kane/Lance Burkhart battle.