I'm Tony. I'm Eric. We are the sons of San Fernando. But we've been friends for over 40 years. And grew up together in the San Fernando Valley. These are the stories of our experiences as adventurous Gen X latchkey slackers from back in the day. And don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe button so you don't miss an episode. Was that the lyric? Tang, what is the lyric? I don't know. Take me and y'all down down.
Rock me tonight. Do do do. You know, look, I know I make fun of Billy Squire, but I love Billy Squire. Billy Squire makes fun of you. You'd think that with the advent of things like Uber and stuff like that, you would have less people on the road. Like somehow that, I don't know. I always thought that would like help things. Like everybody's not in an individual car anymore because so many people, especially the newer generation, they're riding more.
Like they're not. Everybody's using Uber and Lyft. Yeah. It's only like old guys like us that still drive our cars. But here's the thing that I learned recently. Nothing helps. Anything. Everything sucks. Yeah. And entropy moves that forward. It just is bad. And it's like the real goal is not to fix things. That's been, that's a red herring, man. It's not a key herring. By the way, red, but have you ever had a good red herring sandwich? No, I haven't. What deli
do you go to get your red herring sandwiches? Take me and ya. But I, yeah, everything's bad. Everything's bad. And everything will continue to be bad. And then you just let it go. It didn't used to be bad. You know what's the worst? What's the worst? Movies. I can't, like I'll look up a movie and it'll be like Marvel movie, Marvel movie, Marvel movie, Marvel movie, Wonder Woman, Marvel movie, Marvel movie. I can't take it. Isn't Wonder Woman Marvel movie? Probably.
I don't even fucking know. DC, I don't know, it doesn't matter. It's all, yeah, but who cares? Who cares? Same genre. Same smell. Same junk, same garb. Right, there's like, it's so hard to find any good movie. That's like, how many times do you go to the theater now? I try to go all the time. I'm always looking, what's playing, what's playing, and it's like garbage, garbage. Okay, so right now it's September. How many movies did you see in the 30? In the
30, what? In the 30, they're 30 months now? We live in different dimensions? Yeah. We live on a different planet apparently. You live on Neptune, we're there in 30 months. In a year. I live on Uranus. Oh, you would, thank God. You know what I'm saying? Thank God. I've seen this year in theaters. You're talking about in theaters. In theaters only. I would say five, four, five, four. Four, five. How many have you seen in theaters? I think two. Yeah,
so not still. Just one last week and one earlier this year and that was it. Well, you know. I can see here's the thing. You used to go all the time. Well here's the thing, it was a whole different experience to go. First of all, you couldn't see the films at home. So that- Yeah, that's right. You had to go- That doesn't right there. You had to go to theater. And a lot of the movies now are just put straight out to Max or Prime or whatever. Or your butthole.
Yeah. Or your Max butthole. Which is a great streaming service. Yeah, butthole? I love the butthole streaming. I don't know if you subscribe to my butthole. Yeah. It's a great service. It's too high a cost. No, it is expensive, but it's worth it, is the thing. You have to experience my butthole to really appreciate the benefits of subscribing to my butthole. That's not what I write on Yelp. No. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. The experience is everything. It
changes the way you view the film. Yeah, being there in the theater. So, like, okay, I did go to the theater the other day. Oh, which one? Regal? Okay. No wait. The Regal Beagle? Not the Regal Beagle. No wait, what is it? No, no, the AMC. AMC, the small, the one in the mall in Burbank Mall, the AMC8. Smaller one, they should- How was the experience? Does it have
the reclining seats? It has the reclining seats, but you know, you buy your tickets in advance and you have your seats and we sit down and we go to recline our seats and they don't fucking recline. No. So did you just switch seats? Yeah, I mean, luckily in this day and age, you can look up, it's one of the good things, you can look up and see what still is unsold. So we moved to an unsold seat. Here's the difference between me and you. Never in a million years
would I've looked it up. I would've said, there's a seat. I'm gonna go sit there. Yeah, but then you sit there and like two minutes later, somebody comes and says, that's my seat. You get to pick up and move again. I know, but there's the possibility that won't happen and then you don't have to look it up. But then I only have to move once. I've saved up the look up time. And I've saved the getting kicked out of the seat by the guy with his popcorn and
jujubes. I don't mind the guy kicking me out of the seat as much as I might look like that. But you know where you never got kicked out of a seat? My butthole. Again, back to the Yelp reviews. I don't, you know. Where did you never get kicked out of a seat? At the drive-in. Oh right, because it was your seat. You brought your fucking seat. You brought your own goddamn seat. Here's the thing about the drive-in. Wait, we had a drive-in right by the 405. And that
thing didn't go away for, I mean it was there for a long time. Long as time. It was one of the last surviving drives. Do you remember what the name of that drive? Was it the Van Nuys? Van Nuys Drive-In I think. Van Nuys Drive-In, yeah. It was like right off the 405. Yeah, so. And here's the greatest part, is you could see the movies when you were driving by. Yeah. And they were backwards, cause you were on the backside of the screen. You would see. It was
just a see through, it was a transparent screen. Yeah, you would see the movies from back for like five seconds. So you could see Jarl's backwards. Yeah. By the way, Jaws backwards, he actually spits up Quint. It's actually Swage. Okay, now, did you go to that drive-through? First of all, we look at- Drive-through? I mean- Okay, wait, you just nailed it. Drive-through movies. Wait, drive-through movies. That's what we gotta react. That's what we gotta read. We gotta
create a new business. That is it. So you, it's, they're not just shorts. They're like 30 second movies. Yeah, right. It's like a commercial. Yeah, you're on like a conveyor belt, like a car wash, right? So you go into the car wash belt. No, wait, you couple it with a car wash. Right. So, so there's, they're projecting the movie in the car wash. Right, that's a- And then you get, and they're like, Ren and Stimpy shorts. Yeah, you just get like a, whatever,
two minutes, how long does it take to go through a car wash? Two minutes? Oh, four or seven. Why are you clicking me at the bottom of the smoke arrange? I think it's easily four to 35 minutes in a car wash. Four to 35 minutes? I mean, a little. About four minutes, right? Okay, so maybe. No, six. No, it's not six minutes. You are, what car wash are you going to? You can easily watch a short. You can watch a, well, a short short. Okay, let's not argue on the
length of a car wash duration. But let's say four, five, six minutes, somewhere in there. You know who taught me the word duration? Do you know who taught me the meaning of the word duration? I'm sure I don't care. I bet you could guess. If I just gave you a minute to say who in my young childhood would have taken the time to explain to me what the meaning of the word duration was. In your young childhood? Yeah, well, yeah, I was probably...
Was this a school chum? It was not a chum. But it was a school. It was at school. And it was not a chum. It was... Your mother. It was your mother. Oh, I thought you were just... I thought you were just ragging on me. Your mother. No! Your mother was like... She said something to me like, they'll be there... Oh no, she said, will you be there for the duration? I don't remember what we were doing or where I was going. She said, will you? Because, you know, I'm
for anybody who's listening. which are very few and far between, your mother was working at Our Lady of Grace. Yeah, she was a librarian. As the librarian. And I said, I'm going somewhere, and she said, will you be there for the duration? And I must have looked at her like, you know, I am. And she said, do you know what duration means? I said, no. She said, the length of time that it happens. And I was like, okay, now I know duration. And to this day, when
someone says the word duration, I think of your mother. I think of Seal Wibbles. And here I thought you were just, just. I was just giving you a neighborhood, yeah, mom joke. No, no, it was your mother taught me the meaning of the word duration. Anyway, the duration of the car wash is enough time to watch a short. Yeah, and then you get, so you pay for your
ticket, you watch your short. Drive through movies. But it's, you get your car washed, you watch the short, and at the end, there's a window where you can pick up your fries. Right, exactly, I love this idea. I think this is- What do you call this? Washer through. I gotta work on that. Movie wash. Yeah, we got nothing on that. Okay, yeah, we'll come back to that. We'll come back to that. Okay, so. But drive in movies. These movies are a little
different than drive through movies. You would drive in, for those who don't know, there were actually these giant ass parking lots. You think young people are listening to this garbage? Yeah. There's no way, Eric, that somebody who's listening to this thing that we're recording right now doesn't know what a drive in is. I know, if I remember correctly, you would drive in and you had to. pay for everybody in it wasn't per car. I don't that I don't remember. I think
I remember. It wasn't per car. I don't think so because I remember hiding. You know what I'm gonna defer to your. I remember hiding. I remember like sometimes you like hide in the back of the wagon or like under you know. Wait your parents would hide you? No, I think this was later maybe when there were still drive-ins, but we were maybe teenagers and you were trying to save a buck and you'd stick your buddy in the trunk. In the trunk. Oh, you're right,
because I think they do that in Grease. And then they started checking people in the trunk. Actually, in the big drive-in scene in Grease, when they drive in they all pile out of the trunk when they park inside the car. Yeah, I think they were charging, and then I think they got licensed and said, you know what, we're just going to charge per car or something like that. What are your feelings on the movie Grease? I love Grease. Oh you do? Oh yeah, I watch
it. You know, I had this feeling that you weren't gonna like it. I watch it like maybe once a year, once a couple of times. Really? Oh yeah, I know it's great. I've seen it at, I go out to see it, like at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Oh right, Hollywood Forever. That's like going. Wait, is there still a drive-in anywhere? I don't, if there is, who's going to? Like you just can't make enough money. It would be amazing, because you'd be the only one. Yeah, but. You'd
be the only one. First of all, what was the biggest drawback? Let's do, we'll start with this. The biggest drawback of the drive-in movie. There's a drawback? Yeah. Uh, sound? That was the major one. So you had this contraption. Yeah, that was the best part. That was, you tuned what, your AM station or something? Yeah, you was, wait, so was that ho ho? Ho ho ho. Who, you calling a ho ho? No, wait, I thought there were two different ways to do it. Either
you tuned into the station. Yeah. Right? Where you could listen to it being broadcast. You're right, right. Or you had the contraption. You could put the contraption on your window that had a little speaker. So I think the old, old school one was the contraption and you would hang it on your window that you rolled down by hand. You would half roll, so that you could hang it on the window. And your sedan. Right, and listen to it through this little shitty
mono speaker. And it was like a little eight inch speaker. You could barely make out what they were saying was terrible. The screen was fucking massive. Which was great. And the sound was shit. And it was nice, it was outside, it was so fun. And you're hanging it. I think it was always on the driver's side door, but you had the big screen, you had the comfort of your own car, you didn't have to sit next to anybody else. And it was make-out central.
And it was, well, not when we were kids. No. No, not when we were kids. When you go with your parents, the other thing was, Then it's not make-out central. There was a concession stand you can get up and go to, and you had the bathrooms and stuff. I can see that there were concessions. I would hope so. Yeah. But you could also. bring all your own stuff. I remember that. And my mom loved that. Because you pop your own popcorn and bring your own
sodas and it didn't have to pay the exorbitant prices. So you had it all self-contained in your car, which was amazing. I think I saw, can you remember any movies that you saw? Fuck no. I can, I can. I remember specifically that I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I bet that was great to watch. At drive-in. Drive-in, what's wrong with you? Drive-in, god damn through in. Cause that's all I ever say, who says drive-in? It's not in my vernacular anymore, I gotta
replant it. Okay, please do. And let me tell you, that sounds like, I wanna go do that right
now. of the third kind in a drive-in in my truck and when I flip the truck around that was the other thing oh yeah that's right the truck around so remember yes 70s all the people that had car seats that they'd ripped out of an old junker at the junkyard and they throw it in the back of their truck and bolted into the bed backwards against the cab hundred percent and people would sit in them as they were fucking dry We did the same thing with the station wagon.
We'd park the station wagon backwards. Flip it around. The tailgate would go down and we'd just. Oh man, I'm on a cry right now. And you had your blankets and stuff and it was cold outside, didn't matter, because you had your pillow, you were super fucking comfortable watching movies. Oh God, that's the greatest thing. Ah! I'm literally, I'm so, I'm so sad for the loss of this, talking about this right now. I want to do that. And because what happened
is. I'm making this. You had, well and then, okay, so later we got. It was Makeout Central. Once it was, once we were teenagers. But then it went away, like not long after we were teenagers. You didn't matter what movie you went to see. No, you didn't see it. Because you weren't going to see the movie. No, you didn't see it. Yeah, you were just, you know, you put your popcorn, you get your popcorn going and your Coke and your- Get your popcorn going, get
your popcorn. And then you get some other popcorn going. Yeah, I mean, I don't remember doing a ton of drive-through makeouts because I think that it was gone sooner. then I was dating anybody. Yeah, no, just a little bit of that. Like, just early, early part of that. That Van Nuys one was there for a long time, though. I wonder what year that closed down. But yes, you could do that, but ultimately, forget about that. I mean, I don't wanna forget about it.
It is part of the whole drive-through lore is the- Drive it. What is wrong with- Do you want me to start a list? Yeah, I need to know. We don't have that much time. You should be honest with me. That's a whole different episode. We will cover that. I am comfortable with you telling me. Yeah, well that's actually a triple episode. Drive in, drive in, drive in. You got it. So in the whole drive in lore has, part of that is the make out central, but really
the bigger thing, the bigger thing about it is this vibe of. community, even though when you go to a movie, so just going to a movie in general, there's a community sensibility that you miss when you're home, right? When you laugh at a joke at home, it's just you
laughing at the joke at home. When you laugh at a joke in a movie theater and everybody gets the joke, I remember seeing Ghostbusters the day it came out at the movies of Tarzana, and I sat, I think, with Don Burns and my sister in the very front row, in the very side, of the movie, just looking straight up. Oh my God, that's straight up, that's terrible. Straight
up and to the right. whole time at Ghostbusters. That sounds awful. And I love this movie so much, and I remember the whole audience laughing at Bill Murray, and there's something about that. Oh, it's, it's. That you can't do at home. It's visceral, you get that, what was it, when Jurassic Park came out, the original. Okay. Opening evening, saw Jurassic Park. Oh yeah. Waited in that line, went in, and it was unbelievable. Yeah, it's great, because everybody in there
was oooing and awing and freaking out at the freaking dinosaurs. And then you and I were talking about horror movies the other day. I also saw horror movies. Horror movies. Horror. Horror movies. Horror. Okay. Horror movies. And I went to see... Again, in the theater, not on opening day, but I saw Exorcist Three in the theater. And the collective shriek and scream and- And the collective grab of their sphincter. And pants shitting that happened
all at the same time. Could you imagine if you grabbed other people's sphincters? I was that scared I did. I grabbed sphincters on either side because I'm like, what just, but yeah, you had that feeling of everybody else. Yeah, everybody sphincterizing at the same time. Which was different in, you didn't have that in the drive-in because you were in your own
car. I pulled on them. But people had to. Sometimes you did. And then when you could hear other people laughing at the drive through and it was kind of echoing with the coyotes in the canyon, I mean, that's great shit. And you know what else people would do when there was something really funny or something exciting? What do you have in your car? You have, I don't, what do you have, Eric? A glove compartment? A horn. Oh, people honked? People honked. Yeah, to
like applaud. Ha-na-na-na-na-na. Oh yeah, people did honk. People were laughing a lot. You know, now that you say that at the end of the movie, sometimes people would honk. Yeah, a lot of honking going on. This needs to come back. We need to have drive-through movies. In! It's America. I'll get it by. Therapy. Ugh! Drive in. So, but how do you remedy things that are, okay, so the things that are so- What do you need a remedy? The things that are so right
about it are so right. Just the sound. Because- What's so right? Being outside, sitting in your truck bed. Being outside in the truck is great. All those things are great, and I prefer that to sitting next to somebody in a movie theater that is fucking constantly on their phone during the show talking. Talking. There was somebody talking next to the movie. I just
went to see Sing Sing. Yeah, and there's a guy talking to his girlfriend. It's like shut the fuck No, you're usually pretty good about this guy was really big No, he would have just taken his I recline seat and hold it in half with me in it And that would have been the end. I just went to see Hamilton in New York, although I could have sicked Elaine on it because she would have just Yeah, all 35 pounds. Yeah, she would turn him up I saw Hamilton in New York
with Zoe Ziggy and Jacob and- Hamilton who? The play. And the guy in front of us. First of all, this guy sitting in front of me, he was sitting in front of Zoe, we had to switch because he had literally the biggest head ever placed on a human being. I know that guy, he's the guy that sits in front of me at every fucking concert. Well, you should say hi to him at the next concert and tell him that Hamilton was very annoying. What was that? Heed, heed!
Yeah, no, the guy's head was, it was unreal. And here's the weird thing, he kept shifting it from left to right the whole show. He could shift his head? Well, I know. Well, maybe that's why he was shifting. I didn't think of that, but maybe because it was so fucking heavy. Yeah, he has to. So gigantic, he has to go left, have to go right. I feel for the guy. So he's shifting his head left and right. Every time he shifts, so I'm like, Zoe, just switch. So
she switched with me to be in front, behind his girlfriend, right? So now I'm behind him and he's shifting his head left and right and they, the two of them together are singing along poorly to every single song. And it was just like, I didn't want to. stab them in the heart. You know, bum them out because they were really enjoying this. But tickets to a Broadway show are not cheap. But it doesn't matter. You can't take away the enjoyment of everybody
else. I have not paid to hear you sing it. That was, I had the same problem at a YouTube show with the guys singing right next to me. Right, I remember that. Because it's not, just like you can't talk during the, I didn't pay to hear you talk in a movie. I want to see and hear what's going on the screen. I understand that. And this guy, again, like the friend that you
had in front of you at Sing Sing, this guy was enormous to match his head. I mean, his head was, there's no way he could have had a body that was any smaller than 6'6", because the dude's head was so gigantic. And so I wasn't saying anything, not because he was so gigantic, I really wanted him to enjoy the show and they were so into it. You know, it wasn't like they
were just talking about something else. They were saying that. And then Zoe, at one point in the second act, leans in like right her head right in between both of them and goes, like Elaine Bennis in Sidewell. And I was like, well, that'll do it. You know what they need at movie theaters and shows like that is they need, you know, they always have ushers and what have you. They need. Bouncers. Bouncers would be great. Like at the movie theater. At grabbing
by your belt buckle and scrubbing your neck. Yeah, it's like you're talking to, maybe you get a warning and then they actually pick you the fuck up and they fucking throw you out the door. Well, that's the beauty of going to a drive-through is there's nobody in front of you. Going to a what? Drive-in, oh God! What did I? It's really upsetting that I can't. So we have to fix the things that are, I wanna go back to the things that are right and the
things that are wrong about Dr. Arthur. Wait, we didn't say all the things that are right yet. We said, okay, what are the other things that are right? Okay, right. We had the giant screen. Giant screen is great. Sit by yourself, back of the truck, bring your own snacks. Bring your own snacks is important. Bring your own goddamn snacks. And then, okay, that's about it, right? Oh, summer night, beautiful outside, stars above, honk at the end of the movie.
And you don't have to worry about people talking, or, you know, I mean. Around you like interrupting the movie unless they honk which they didn't generally do unless it was the end of the movie She didn't real good. She didn't really have distractions. You had the occasional person walking in front of your car to go get Concessions or something, but that's fine. There was yeah, there were concessions. Yeah, you could still go. Oh, yeah. Yeah Oh, it was 65 miles away
and it was like 1295 for a pack of milk. That's what else is new. That's not new Okay, so and then the bad things really are only the sound Yeah, the sound. What else do you have to fix? Yeah, the sound. No, that's it. Yeah. It's just sound. I just gotta figure out the sound thing. If I can figure out the sound thing, I am opening up a drive-through. This is my mission in goddamn life. They've gotta be something that you can, because everybody's car is gonna be different.
You can't rely on the, you know, tuning in to the radio. On the car itself, or tuning into the radio. And that's why, yeah. I mean, they're not even gonna have radios and cars at some point. And here's the thing. People are used to going and seeing. IMAX or the big screen and the Dolby surround sound. Wait, wait, wait. No, sound's a big deal. Sound is a big deal, especially all the, you talk about the movies we don't like, like the Marvel movies, the
DC stuff. That's all about huge sound or the Mad Max Fury Road or the new ones. That is all about big sound. So how do you get, you can't replicate that in your car. Listen, hold on, you can't replicate that, but the sound system's in. cars today versus 1975 are quite different. But what if you have a car from 1975? Who no one does. Classic cars are not on the road anymore. They are gone. So I guess if you're driving an old car, you're just a little fucked.
She fucked you, yeah, and get a new car. So I say, we just broadcast it, but you gotta broadcast it on FM. On FM. Not AM, because AM is smaller. And then you can blast the fucking sound. And if you blast it in stereo, it would sound good. And that's a great thing too. for a drive-in, you can blast the sound as loud as you want. You can have as quiet or as loud because it's in your own fucking car. Even if you have the windows down. I know people who
do that for their fucking Christmas. decorations on their house. Yeah. You go to their house, and then they have a little sign that says tune in to this channel. And then you can watch their little show with the music because they have a little transmitter at their house. I could do that. This is how we solve that. It's just the sound. No, I'm not joking, though. I know this sounds like I'm saying this stuff for the sake of the podcast. But I can tell
you right now, I am going to open a drive-through. I just. Drive in! God damn it! I. How is my brain not able to do that? As much as I, what the drive-in gives you, that is you get the community without being too close to actual people. Yeah, you don't like that. It's just an approach. You don't like actual people. You've never liked actual people. No, no, I really don't. I don't like being that close to people. Simulated people, but not
actual people. But if I've got like 10 feet between me and the next car, that's fine. Hold on. I'm not really into that. Hold on. That's okay. drive-in movie that you cannot save yourself a drive-in movie we're going to go to a drive-in movie imagine the day five years from now i've got the setup i've got a franchise we're going to the drive-in and they're gonna be, yeah, let's go. Cause there is one. Cause I started it. And I'm gonna franchise these all over
the country. I'm gonna make a zillion dollars on this idea. Unless somebody else does it before me cause they heard me and they- No, no, no. We're just gonna save this episode until we actually put it out. Until I've got a TM on my drive-through. Wait, what am I gonna call my drive-through? Oh, that's a good question. My butt hole. Drive through my butt hole! No, but it's not, it's drive in my butthole. Drive in my butthole, right? Yeah.
listening to the Sons of San Fernando. Don't forget to hit that subscribe or follow button in your favorite podcast app so you don't miss an episode. Drop us a review, we'd love to hear from you. If you'd like to support the Sons of San Fernando, the best way is to share the show. We'll catch you on the next episode.