'Hey, meathead!': A dispatch from the Outdoor Film Festival

Hey, meathead!

I'm trying to watch The Night of the Hunter. Granted I shouldn't be trying to watch it in earnest at Grant Park, behind all these thousands of well-behaved lawn-chair people, but surely not all of you people really need to be here. It's a public park. Especially not you people who get up for a leisurely stretch up front and block my view of the middle third of the screen. Surely not all of you really want quite this badly to see The Night of the Hunter, or want your little mongoloid children—yea, them, pissing away your money on those distracting flourescent necklace things and other doodads—to see such a film.

"There are things you do hate, Lord. Perfume-smellin' things, lacy things, things with curly hair!"

So you see, as Rev. Powell teaches, there's quite a struggle here between LOVE and HATE. Even on splendid Butler Field...

Someday, cinema technology will enable Robert Mitchum to leap off the screen and scare you and your misbegotten spawn back into order.

And on the way back, just wait for a less-crowded train. Don't cram into one that's already so packed that people's asses keep the doors from closing. If you're that desperate to get somewhere in a cramped, noisy vehicle, go back to street level, get critically injured and call yourself a fucking ambulance.