Tower vs. Crest

I am so cracked out on coffee. Cracked. Out. On. Coffee.

It's because I didn't drink any yesterday because for some weird reason I didn't feel like it and today I accidentally on purpose made it super strong.

Blind item: Which ex-Cali band was recently cracked out on something stronger than coffee? Namely: crack.

So I wrote a post yesterday about the Tower vs. The Crest rivalry and blogspot ate it. I'll try again.

I guess Cinearts as a specific proposal is for real dead. But the city is still looking into various options including giant megaplexes downtown that would have so many screens that it could be playing every movie, independent or mainstream, currently in release and still have two screens left over for episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond and one for the latest scandalous Paris Hilton video (shame on you racist, jew-hating Paris Hilton with your wonky fake blue eyes I have seen the new Maxim and Nikki's butt is much cuter than your non-butt). At the "Save the Tower" rally, Reading Entertainment CEO Elaine Cotter was up there quaking in her Manolo's about these proposals and whining about Tower losing money. That is not what I came to the rally for. I don't care if she can't buy a new pony for Christmas this year. I just don't want the city handing out subsidies to major corporations and planning stupid projects that won't help downtown.

I looked into Reading Entertainment a little bit and I am confused at why they claim to be "independent". This is the company that owned the Reading Railroad of Monopoly fame. They own real estate and movie theaters. They own quite a few in the U.S. and quite a few in other countries. So if they own a theater, how is it independent?

I didn't hear anyone at this rally mentioning the Crest, and how these proposals will help or hurt their business. They are the real independently owned theater. I know the popular opinion is that the Crest will be OK, but I want to be sure of that. And that brings me to some of the comments on my last entry of this blog that dealt with Cinearts. Someone commented about the Century Theater controlling the screens at the Crest. I highly doubt that to the point where I completely doubt it. In fact, I'll go ahead and say that's not true just on gut instinct alone (if it's good enough for Prez Bush, it's good enough for me). The next commenter, the mysterious "keith" (I can think of two keiths it might be) said this in a more scatological way. I don't like the way this issue is pitting the Crest against the Tower. There is room enough in town for both of them to thrive. When I worked at Tower I used to joke that there was a rivalry (we were always saying we would have a softball game or tug of war to decide it once and for all), and sure we've all heard the stereotypes that the Crest are a bunch of pot-smoking hippies (well, that's kind of an old stereotype) and that the Tower are a bunch of surly slackers, but really the employees are all friends and we all go to movies at each other's theaters. There has even been known to be some Crest and Tower miscegenation. I dearly wish that the owners of the Crest could somehow buy the Tower. That would be the best! And maybe they could buy the Tower Cafe too and turn it into a good restaurant and they could get rid of that hideous multi-colored birdbath and that curtain of beads with Frida Kahlo on it.

I finally went to the new Beers Books and although it lacks some of the funky charm (Ew! I just wrote "funky charm") of the old one, I'm stoked that it's right by my house. They are supposed to open a cafe with coffee and beer (and food) pretty soon, so that should be cool. That way I can read books for free in the cafe and get coffee stains on them and stuff and I won't even have to buy them!