In the form of the Parkway Speakeasy Movie Theater in Oakland, lakeside. When I was ten, I transferred into a new junior high, where I met my lifelong friend and conspirator, MW. When people ask her how we became friends, she tells them that this crazy short new girl invited her to her birthday party. She wasn't sure about the girl, but she was polite so she went anyways. And found out that for my birthday we would go see Vertigo at the then-independent, locally run Bridge Theater. And MW knew we would be friends for life.
But The Bridge is now a Landmark, which is somehow getting as close to "independent" in the Bay Area as movie theater can be. For now, this Sunday, after twelve years of charging like $5 a head and then serving couch sitting people pizza and beer and popcorn (and eventually wine and salad and pasta and all sorts of stuff) while we watched the boys babble their weird rambling introductions to whatever happened to be playing that day, the Parkway Speakeasy will be closing its doors. It is a sad time for independent, community theater. They did open the El Cerrito one, which will continue to operate, but this still marks the end of an era for me. R.I.P.
