Amarillo Sam's Drive-In Round-Up - August 9th

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Amarillo Sam's Drive-In Round-Up
Sunday, August 9th, 1981

Alright, it’s time for a little tough love.

You know I love all of you, right? You are the loyal and the faithful: the broth in my soup; the beans in my chili; the shot of whiskey in this old cowboy’s coffee that makes him get up in the afternoon and hit the drive-in yet again. But I gotta be honest: I’m getting sick and tired of you lately.

And it’s not because you keep coming up in the middle of the flicks and wrapping your knuckles on the foggy windows of the Hemicuda, begging for an autograph or asking me what I think of Chuck Norris in this one, all the while disturbing Juanita Tubbs’s ecstasy (‘matter of fact, she kinda likes you buttin in). No, what’s driving my keister up the thin layer of horse manure is all you sob cases winin to me about this MTV business -- or whatever it is -- that’s apparently about to, as my reader Junior T. says, “dismantle the pop culture-evolutionary fabric all us celluloid sleazes hold dear, forever making the public indulgence of pornographic filth that has been held as a sacred right of passage in this country ever since Richard Hollingshead built the first drive-in movie stand at his gas station in Camden, New Jersey obsolete”.

Easy there, Junior. Do I understand you to say that the drive-in is about to die? All because you can suddenly turn on the tube and watch Mick Jagger strut his mouth sores in the comfort of your own home? I think not. It’s just another case of fearing the new thing because we all think this new thing is gonna fill in the holes of what there is right now. And Junior, I’m here to tell you this: there are no holes in what we have now.

You’re right: the kind of vice you can indulge in at the good ole American drive-in -- whether it be on film or behind tempered glass -- is only allowable in a few other places on Planet Earth, and none of them are in America itself.

So, NO, folks -- for the last guldern time, I AM NOT afraid of MTV. The drive-in will survive, so go on back to your own danged cars and celebrate the danged ritual for all it’s worth. And if you happen to hear Juanita Tubbs makin the sound of the two-headed hyena, that’s your cue to peak over the fence.