Slap & Tickle

It was Twenty Years Ago Today...


I got an email the other day from an old friend congratulating me on the 20th anniversary of my ‘zine Block Talk™, the precursor to my ‘zine and subsequent blog both titled Slap & Tickle.

Back in the day, I was a manager for Century Theatres—or as I affectionately refer to them as “the bastards at Syufy. Back in those days, they were not called Century Theatres, they were “Syufy Luxury Theatres.” The theaters were massive domes which sat anywhere between 450 – 1000 people. No shoeboxes for these luxury theatres, no siree…

We were young and we were in charge. I knew few people working in the theaters that were over 30—and those that were older were often old-timers who hadn’t seen 50 in over a decade… so, there was a bit of a Lord of the Flies thing going on. Total irresponsibility, total ‘managed chaos’ and totally fun. Totally.*

Block Talk™ got started because the bastards at Syufy had a newsletter called Platter Chatter** and each district had to submit information to be included. I was the editor for the San Jose division.

The problem was, not a lot was going on that was exciting… or exciting enough to be included in Platter Chatter (a read often referred to in the company as being “dryer than a popcorn fart.”***). I would often get complaints from other managers that I had failed to include whatever pointless information a theater had submitted because it did not show up in the oh-so-prestigious Platter Chatter. Who gave a shit if their per-person took a 3 cent jump? Honestly, the way Syufy kept raising prices, it was impossible not to get that to happen.

The problem was, I was submitting this boring information and no one in our Corporate Office could give a rat’s ass about them (and our theaters had TONS of rats. Seriously. Tones.) In desperation, I created Block Talk™ and what I submitted to Corporate, I sent to all the theaters.

I quickly discovered I needed to “contain [my] smartass comments.” Because, after my first issue, my district manager came up to me and said, “You need to contain your smartass comments.” That spawned the Block Talk™ Annex. Which had articles, stories, and artwork that Corporate need not see—especially, if I wanted to keep my job.

There were some bits of genius in there—all by individuals other than myself. Chris Sanford and Matthew Keller created some brilliant and hysterical work. I looked through it the other day and realized so much has changed. Many are married, a number of us came out, a surprising number have moved away, and Century Theatres has been sold to some crappy company out of Plano, Texas. However, in a small way and in significantly different format, Block Talk™ is still around.

For those of you who never got to enjoy “The Exciting Adventures of Jolly Joe” featuring the crime solving mysteries of Syufy Sam, or experience “Dan Koje: Ambulance Driver on the Edge,”I will try and get permission from the writer to publish excerpts—(perhaps even the whole series? Who knows? It’s a wild crazy world!)

Twenty years… it goes by fast.





*It was the 80’s…
**Sort of an inside joke… an unfunny inside joke, but an inside joke none-the-less.
***The driest of all known farts…