Mystic Marquee

The Mystic Theater in Petaluma, California. A pretty great place to see bands if you want an intimate setting and don't mind blowing your eardrums out. This place used to be The Plaza back in the Seventies and Eighties, a movie house with plush red interior that screened a double feature plus every few days. It was where all us kids would congregate to smuggle in booze, see rockumentaries and thrash in the aisles. It's where I saw Tommy and Quadrophenia. Eraserhead. Freaks. Odorama. Pink Flamingos. The Holy Mountain. All the weirdest films. Classics, too. The burning of Atlanta is something on the big screen. Rob and I saw The Lady Eve with Peter Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck on our second date. You could buy carrot cake and tea instead of popcorn and coke. Now it's a club but still pretty cool. I'm glad it wasn't razed in the foolish years when they set the bulldozers on anything with character, like the old Cal in Santa Rosa. Vintage infrastructure put to new use. It's what we need more of.