Poosey Digest: Remember the Alamo!

I am tempted to make the trip but 943 miles is a long way to travel just to watch a movie. The Poosey-to-Austin excursion should take 15 hours and 55 minutes according to Mr. Google Map, and if I add another two hours to allow for Herb’s weak bladder we can make it in time for tomorrow’s featured movie.

I read about the place in Time magazine and decided to investigate further.

The Alamo Draft House is one of the new wave of eat, dine, and view complexes where you can have your dinner and your entertainment all in the same place, but there’s something very peculiar about this little Austin movie house. They care about their customers.

The Draft House doesn’t play ads before the movie. Anyone who’s attended a film lately knows that it’s like sitting through a steroid-infused version of the Home Shopping Network before the show begins. And this Austin cinema doesn’t allow children under six or unaccompanied minors to most showings. I’m not anti-child, but the current practice using the movie house as a babysitter, simply dropping the kids off to do and act how they please, has been enough to cause many theatre-goers to stay home and cozy up to the DVD player.

But the really astounding (and gratifying!) thing about the Alamo Draft House is it policy on cell phones. If they see anyone light up the theatre with the glow of their phones they’ll kick them out – without refund. The same goes for talkers. You want to gab, you’re outta here, Tex.

Some of the movies at the Alamo begin with a recording of an actual voicemail left by one of their displaced patrons. She’d been disturbing other moviegoers with the light from her texting screen so the manager asked her to leave – with no refund. The profanity-laden diatribe that she phoned in when she got home is now the introductory piece to each movie and if your ears can stand a bit of burning, it’s hilarious.

Here’s how the Alamo’s manager puts it: “When we adopted our strict no talking policy back in 1997 we knew we were going to alienate some of our patrons. That was the plan. If you can’t change your behavior and be quiet (or unilluminated) during a movie, then we don’t want you at our venue. Follow our rules, or get the hell out and don’t come back until you can.”

Wow. My kind of guy.

And what better name for the last stand in civility? The Alamo! Yes, they’ll some day be sued by a mother who insists on chatting with her daughter all the way through the latest Disney flick, but until then, “Remember the Alamo!”… and May Your Tribe Increase! Wait a minute… this is Texas. Mom will lose the lawsuit.

Alamo restaurants! The jerk behind you is shouting into his phone, “I can’t hear you! It’s really noisy in this restaurant!” and the ghost of Davy Crockett emerges from the idiot’s Waldorf salad, grabs him by his cell-phoned earlobe and tosses him out the front of the restaurant without opening the door. Take that, Santa Anna!

Alamo Airlines! Mr. and Mrs. Hog-the-Overhead come waddling down the aisle carrying the entire contents of their duplex in Miami, then attempt to stuff their luggage, furniture, Toyota Camry, and their three children into the overhead bins, causing all the previously stuffed luggage to fall ingloriously upon your head. Then boom! The blast of a cannon! The fanfare of a hundred Texas trumpets! Jim Bowie slashes his way down the aisle, grabs the overhead hogs along with their luggage, pets, sofas and children, and sends them sprawling onto the tarmac.

And perhaps we can truly strike a blow for Texas-style civility and create the brand-new Alamo Highway! Tiny sensors implanted into each mile of the cross-country highway with the ability to pick up cell phone signals emitted by one-handed cell-chatting drivers. The moment Miss Cellular tries to attempt a left-hand turn while doing her makeup and chatting with her mother in El Paso, the Duke will fly into action. John Wayne himself will come charging down the highway, his horse’s reins in his teeth, patch over one eye, shouting, “Empty your hands, you son-of-a-gun!” and… well… I get excited just imagining the finale.

Let’s hear it for the brave little movie house in Austin!

You ever in Poosey, stop by. And remember the Alamo!