*PICTURE SHOW - (pitchershow')  Is what people my age or older, from Texas, call the place where one goes to see a show of moving pictures or a "movie"  "Movie" is word that has survived from the dawn of the industry.  Talkies, as a word, faded away when all of the movies began to talk.  

Used in a sentence

"I found 50 cents (a denomination of an amount of money) when I cleaned the car.   Hey, that's enough money we can go to the picture show."

Back in the day,  Saturday morning a the Poly Theatre cost a dime to get in.  Popcorn was a dime and with your remaining nickle you could get a coke (soda) or a Charms sucker.  It was a place where our parents could drop us off, with our other 8-9 year old friends their little brothers or sisters, for about three hours on Saturday morning.  It was a little rowdy at times but by today's standards was almost library like.  It is a safe bet that Cheryl and I were probably at the same movie a the same time for a month of Saturday's between our 8 and 11 years but if somebody would have told us we would have wound up married....to each other......for.....40 years we would have been alarmed because generally speaking there weren't any crazy people talking to kids there then.  In any case we would have been polite.

 Another old timey word usement from a guy who delights in being Old Timey.  (We are the people who call CD's  -  albums.)

01 on 4th

EARLY IN THE AM (0112 SPECIFICALLY)  

Below please find a link to a page that I started writing long ago.  Zoot probably seems more important to me than it really is because of my apparent Zoot Deficiency.   Someday,  my Zoot will come.

ZOOT

*

In this land not too far away, not too long ago, on a bright Sunday, a 650 foot pound epiphany was issued to an army of rough men with grimy hands hunkered down in acres of garages and beneath a forest of shade trees in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and of course Texas our Texas (so wonderful so great) to witt,“Putt-eth thou a big engine in a little car.”   

This was not exactly rocket science, but it was the common denominator in rocket science.  I am positive Sir Isaac would have dug big blocks and probably would have a strong affection for the Hemi…..the bull elephant Hemi

In response to this edict, Model A’s in garages and beneath shade trees across this great nation were made to receive the Lincoln engine.   It was the American Way : absolutely wretched wonderfully excessive.  Too much, is not enough. 

 On the list of “Things that make America the Greatest Nation on God’s green Earth*  Hotrodding has got to be really close to the top.   

On the next Sunday after the missive at the Church of Torque and Recoil,  from each respective garage and from beneath each respective shade tree  there rumbled a rat rod.  Something made from the nothing of everything, ready to run some quarters, or hot laps, or measured miles. Va room.

 *Isaac Newton figured out that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force acting on the object and inversely proportional to its mass.

 On one of our few but cherished outings I tricked my Dad into taking me to Forest Hill Drag Strip.  I could be convinced that my Dad was person who inspired the creation of the character Spock.  He was really smart and not given to a flow of emotion.  I am all emotion.  At some point in the event he observed that the winner will always be the one with the better Engineer.   I didn't understand that until 45 years later.  

My dad is hanging out with Isaac Newton and Tom Landry now, and I don’t miss him because I can’t think of him as gone.

“I’m done with shiny cars.”  Rich Hall

I am eternally amazed that anybody ever reads this stuff.  

Some time ago, before my website was neatly scrubbed of most of its back pages, I was accused of having written some sparkling prose about RATRODS.  I can't find it right now, so I am writing that I have a warm spot in my heart for Rat Rods for reasons that I assume written in my DNA.

Before I get any further into the maze of misstatement, let me unpack the “I am an idiot” alibi.  At a long passed McDonald’s Cruise Night, I gushed accolades on Tyler ’s Model A pickup truck which is, indeed, praiseworthy.   With customary ease I  put my foot smack into my motorized mouth with a summary comment  to wit, “I just love rat rods.”  Tyler ‘splained that he and other drivers of such cars prefer the moniker “old school”.  

I cannot yet define “Ratrod” but I have come to know that if used by anybody who is NOT “in” the genre as a builder/driver/owner “Ratrod” is pejorative.  However, for the people “in” the genre the word “Ratrod” is OK.  I guess it’s a different type of “in” word.  Can I say that?

In a way, my ’77 Suburban is quite literally a rat rod as it has, at times, been a habitat for rodents.  See the cracked pecans on the intake manifold of my 454. (rats in the rathouse).

What ever they are correctly called, we (car nuts universal and specific) know one when we see one.  Furthermore, we embrace the fact that these are homage to the index hotrod. 

Rich Hall, born again as an old schooler, clarifys his disaffection with shiny cars with a wry statement of Ratrod-ian truth, “ They are just so cool.”  

Va Rooom.

Next 300 words:    Which big block would Isaac Newton have in his pro-mod?

 18 May 07

As I work on these cars*, I listen to the radio.  

I love television but it has gotten to be annoying because it knows it is dumb but it knows it is smarter than we are because we watch it.  I believe that Marshal McLuhan said that "TV is bubble gum for the eyes...." Which if he didn't say that he should have.  Radio is conducive to creativity as Radio at least requires some mental gymnastics.  Stan Freburg proved that by filling lake Michigan with hot chocolate. 

Radio is there for me now as it was there for me in 1951 before I jilted it for TV.  TV is the annoying relative who show you the same old "magic trick" promising that this time it is new and different.  I hate TV and wouldn't watch it at all if it weren't for 24 and the phenomenon of "Jumping the Shark"  I watch _____________ to know when ___________ jumps the shark which proves yet again I am smarter than TV which manages to occupy me with worry about my bodily functions or dis-functions.    TV convinced me that I am not creative.  Yes I am a 1 in 1200 artist**, but having the ability to draw and the ability to create are different chips on the same board.  I am more illustrator than creator.  I draw what's in your head and that can be pretty scary....for both of us.  Think in terms of caps on ability is not healthy.  If Steven King thought that way he wouldn't have written 38 books and stories that have been made into movies and TV mini series and made a zillion or so dollars along the way.

I will know I am further along getting well when I can kick TV as I kicked newspapers.  Admittedly, it is hard to turn your back on a parent.  I was TV's first generation. 

My radio (Hugh Hewitt) told me about James Lileks   Lileks is funny; very funny.  Funny is very good.  

Thank you radio.  I am going back to "work" on the cars now.

What I do doesn’t look like work. 

It’s not that I “make it look easy” as say Steve Nash makes basketball look easy.  It (making art) doesn’t look like work, not even to me. 

However, doing a toon wears me out.  Over the years I have done a lot of art work that I have shaken out of my sleeve.  In, out, nobody got hurt.  None was overly great or wonderful, but it wasn’t bad.  The car toons I do for yall are different.  I want each piece to have a  “pop” which will cause the “huh?-wow!” response.  If they don’t pop then I have missed my mark and I will work them until they do pop because the intrinsic payoff is better than money.

I called my business Aron’s Art Works! (note the exclamation point) because I mean for the stuff to work.   Work= do a job.

As a cartoonist I aspire to deliver happiness.  Drawing your car is the next most personal thing of yours that I can draw and it is the only thing of yours that I can draw that I would sign so you could hang it on your wall for the world to see.  To us, a car (vehicle)is  a expression of individualism and personal freedom.

How great is this.  You live in the only country in the world founded on the  unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and there are folks like me who want to deliver the happiness to you.  Righteous business.

1 in 1200.

I like Roadfood.com because of the way they evaluate a restaurant’s significance in terms of how many miles out of the way is it worth driving to eat there.

This is clear and to the point.

I aspire to be succinct.  

I have to deal with my artistic ability in some satisfactory fashion that is an expression of my confidence while not coming off like and arrogant self effacing twit.  

In a town with a population of 1200 I would be the best artist in town.  I might be better but this is as far as I go with horn tooting.  The more that I do the better I get.

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