The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Desperation may very well be the mother of invention but the South End Sinerama’s dream of an outdoor cinema showing soft core x-rated porn is proof that desperation may lead to even worse straits. When the vaudeville circuit dried up for the once infamous Dr. Daring, fire eater, sword swallower and bed of nails expert, he was forced to seek creative outlets beyond the archaic stages of his youth. You don’t run into fire eaters often down at the South End — probably for good reason — but if you’d ever seen the death defying Dr. Daring take a sword down his throat, you’d never forget it, even if you’d never want to witness it a second time.

Doc Daring, for who know what reason — possibly fleeing demons or debt collectors — ended up a long stone’s throw from me. He built a primitive house at his acreage down the road, then slowly filled it with dead automobiles, rusting RV’s, rotting boats, bikes, motorcycles, deceased appliances plus a menagerie of various animals, all the junk and detritus he apparently needed to keep. Hard, I guess, to let go of the past.

Doc made the occasional appearance at alternative fairs and events, mixed in his political patter with flame throwing, but the money was too little and too far between. His life was rapidly becoming its own bed of nails. One stoned night he must have had the inspiration for the Sinerama. He erected a big top style canvas tent, built a frame for a plywood screen he painted white, ran an extension cord out from the shack and started advertising his 16mm vintage porn palace.

Any fool among us South Enders could have told him — as if he would listen — that the Little Church in the Ravine would come howling out of their pews to put a stop to what front page news as far away as Seattle called Camano and Gomorrah. Oh, a few bored teenage boys came once or twice but smirking in a drafty tent on crappy lawn chair lost its novelty pretty quick. Doc eventually got the message after multiple visits by the sheriff’s deputies looking for underage kids and after the attendance dwindled to near nothing.

Lately he’s been showing old ‘30’s fare, Betty Boop cartoons and Laurel and Hardy movies, which draws a few local folks with their kids, probably the ones who never heard of the Sinerama’s heydays. The past, I guess it’s safe to say, is always prologue on the salty South End. Or at least prolonged….

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