Dennis Latham: Life, Fiction, and the Pursuit of Madness

The old Park Show looked different in the 50s. This picture was taken a few years ago.   The Park Show Around 1956, everyone used to go to the old Park Show, right across from the Park Chili in Cincinnati's Northside. It cost 25 cents to get in, and they always had cartoons or serials between the shows. They even sold dried fish in the movies back then (strange days), and they had ushers who were older teenagers and usually real dicks. On Saturday they would sometimes advertise a free box of candy if you came to the Park Show for the matinee. When you got there, it would cost 30 cents to get in instead of 25 cents, and they would give you a nickel box of candy for your free candy. They pulled that scam forever and no one ever said anything. No one really cared, and it was the only place around. There were no adults at the Park Show on Saturday because it was like kid psycho paradise. The place would be packed. The bathroom was full of kids smoking and sometimes fighting.

The original title was Driving With Ace. It's a bizarre comedy. Last Chance Of  A Crazy Virgin (Story behind the non-politically correct story) I wrote the first words of this novel on the back porch of a farm in rural Rebecca, Georgia in 1977. I had a pen and a yellow pad, and the sun was just coming up over the lake behind the house. I didn't live there. I had been living out of a suitcase for the past two years while singing in a road band. I was 30, in between gigs, in a place I had never been with a 24-year-old Georgia Peach named Debbie who was so stunning it hurt your soul just to look at her. She was also crazy as hell. She coached me on how to conduct myself with her parents by being nice and polite. So, I was surprised when I walked in with her and she said: "Mom and Dad, this is Dennis. We sleep together in the same bed and we will sleep together in this house in the same bed." That was it. I about fell over. Her parents nodded and smile