( 9:27 AM )
I just finished reading "When the Colts Belonged To Baltimore" by the Washington Post's William Gildea. Put simply, it's the story of the author's relationship with his father against the backdrop of the city of Baltimore's uncommonly close relationship with the Colts teams of the '50's and '60's. It's a good read, at least for someone that has some familiarity with the area (which I have since I spent my early years only a little more than an hour north of Baltimore). I'm sure that it's even more affecting if you were a Colts' fan and had strong memories of watching those teams.
However, I'm not mentioning this to review the book...I have a different purpose. In the book, Gildea talks about Colts' Hall of Fame defensive lineman Gino Marchetti. As a matter of course, he writes about Marchetti's business interests, which included the Gino's fast food restaurants. While much of the book's discussion of Baltimore didn't stir long dormant memories, the mention of Gino's nearly brought a tear to my eyes. See, Gino's was just as prevelant where I lived in Delaware as it was in Baltimore.
Gino's was my favorite fast food place, topping Wendy's by a smidge. There was a Gino's right next door to my junior high that we used to sneak off campus to go to for lunch. One of my first introductions to professional football was the plastic minature helmets with NFL logos that my childhood friend Jeff Cox and I collected from Gino's. I haven't been there in a while, but I can still pinpoint the location of that Gino's (which, ok, isn't that hard since last time I checked it was a Popeye's Chicken). There are a ton of area specific things that people who grew up in and around Philadelphia back in the '60's & '70's -- Captain Noah, Sally Starr, Chief Halftown, Larry Ferrari, etc. -- but Gino's is something that's frequently overlooked...probably because there weren't that many of them. However, I think that it's high time that changed, so...
If you've got any memories about Gino's that you feel like sharing with me, send them along to BMcCullin@2Walls.com or BMcCullin@aol.com. If anything interesting comes of it, I'll be sure to share that in this space.
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( 8:24 AM )
I just got back from a quick trip to my beloved Los Angeles where I had a short job interview with a company attending E3. I'm not sure that this happens with other people but during my brief stay in the land of painfully thin actresses, I noticed that I did nothing but eat. In-N-Out, Islands, Carl's Jr., Mel's Drive-In, Acapulco's...and I was only there for about 48 hours. If I hadn't had lunch at the Warner Bros. commissary, I would've also fit in a trip to Baja Fresh or Panda Express or one of the other fast food places that apparently I ate at a lot in LA without realizing it.
Were it not for an evening spent at an actor friend of friends, where dinner was a chicken, rice and broccoli casserole prepared by some current members of young Hollywood I would've eaten abolutely nothing that was in any way healthy. I was reminded that I'm no longer a member of that "young Hollywood" group -- and really almost never was since I didn't move to LA until I was 27 -- when one of the cohabitants of the house told me that I looked exactly like his "bass player's dad." I'm not sure that anyone is quite prepared for the first time they're told by someone in their 20's that they look like one of their friend's parents. The only saving grace was that it was coming from a very talented musician, which hopefully speaks well for the bass player who's father I'm twins with. It's not much, but at a certain point you just try for any positive that you can find.
(The healthy dinner was at the home of the ABC sitcom Less Than Perfect's Zac Levi, a fact that is being mentioned solely for shameless search engine leeching once he really breaks big...and what the heck, one of the friends that I was with was writer/producer Jeremy Danial, in case he hits big first...sure, it's not the least bit interesting, but the site could always use more traffic.)
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