Movie Theaters are about the Experience not the Movies

“I can watch a movie at home. Why do I have to pay to see something that will be on cable in a month?”

Sweet baby…  Y’all gonna make me lose my mind! Have you people forgotten?

Have you forgotten the first time you saw the Goonies on the big screen?

The excitement of piling into the theater with friends…

The shock and awe of slide…the giant squid? Check it out there really was one

What about the candy and the popcorn that just taste better in the dark for some reason.

How dare you not go to the movies. It is your duty as a child of the 70’s 80’s and 90’s from now until infinity to stumble over dimly lit stairs to run to the restroom so you don’t miss the one part that everyone will talk about in the car, that you missed because you had to have that super sized big gulp.

Crap!!! People it has never been just about the movie that is playing today.

Rather it was the Goonies, Spiderman, Fast and Furious or Dead Pool it has always. Always ALWAYS!!! Been about the shared experience.

People say, “I can watch these movies at home”; but there is something to be said for the theater experience.

The conversation on the way home and the days after when you try, no matter how poorly you are at it, to act out the scenes for your friend who hasn’t seen it yet.

For me, there is nothing better than going to the movies, dimly lit theaters, larger than life image, the smell of popcorn which we all know is better at the theater than at home.

It’s my escape from the madness, the absurd, and the Groundhog Day normalcy of terrible things in the media that has become real life.

Get Out of the Car!!!!

I was having a conversation with a student not too long ago and we were discussing the length of the classes. As a suggestion the student wanted me to consider making the class longer. Currently, the class is three hours and the student suggested making it six hours.

I’m telling you this so you understand the story that I am about to tell you and the context in which it came about…Ok, Ok.

After a few minutes going back and forth as to why this would not be a likely solution to the issues at hand, I slipped back into my minister shoes.

*Not actually as I am not a minister this is just a term I use when I am on my soapbox*

So I tell the student about this one time when I owned a bread truck, and how miserable I was and how miserable I was making my family and how I always wanted to do other things but between making money and spending money I didn’t have the time to pursue anything else.

I was unhappy. Yes, I was making money. But I was miserable and pissed at the world. I was the living embodiment of the Grinch. Then this one day as I was sitting in my depot yard at 2 am, I couldn’t bring myself to get out of the car. I knew my family needed the money. I knew this job was a blessing and there were many people that wanted to do what I was doing. But I couldn’t get out of the car.

I sat in that car till 6 am. Then without a plan, I called my depot manager and quit.

It turns out that the job was a blessing but not how I thought it was or understood it to be at the time.

How does this relate to my student; you may ask?

Slow your roll I’m getting there.

In life, the world will not bend for us. Achieving anything worth anything takes a level of sacrifice. It will be hard. It will be uncomfortable. It will not be all fanfare and parades. It will test if you really want that thing. Whatever it may be, but you have to know that you will live and die on those decisions.

See coming to class twice a week when you work a full-time job is difficult. It is not easy and you must choose whom you belong to. Are you renting your free time to a company that you have to schedule your life around? Or are you biding your time till you can schedule your work into the life you want to live?

The first day after giving up my bread truck I felt free. I felt like I had something I had lost. I felt like myself. The future was unwritten but I knew wherever it was taking me I wouldn’t hesitate to get out of the car.