Customer Reviews

The Roadhead Chronicles: PopCulture And Chrome Meet Asphalt and Art

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Just when you thought the ghost of Frederick Lewis Allen had abandoned us, along comes the sometimes irreverent, sometimes witty Mike Marino to suck us back into the fascinating world of modern day history. For those in the dark, Allen took on the histories of the 20s, 30s and 40s America and made them palatable to the reader who preferred their history interesting, not stuffy. Marino has done the same here.

His chapters bounce all over the place and that is part of the book's charm. It is as if he is saying that you don't have to have your history chronological, that the events themselves are history in themselves, and yet he loosely strings each chapter around a theme. He sets up the 50s with a look at what led up to them, then it's through the looking glass. From the James Dean cool to the sci-fi kitsch, he lays out the changing world of youth and hints at the probable horror felt by the parents of the time. From muscle cars to the (North) beach scene to the advent of drive-ins (both movie and fast food), he shows us what many of us missed as it happened before our eyes.

The great thing is that he portrays them as seen through his eyes, for he has a vision of the recent past as seen while it happened. This is not a guy who looks back on his past. This is a guy who writes about his past as it happened. And the great thing is that his past is ours.

As for the historical subjects? They were the true histories and not those spoonfed by educators strapped to corporation-accepted textbooks. The real history of the carhop, the fear created by the nuclear age, the very real effect of teen idol worship, the eccentric people and their odd worlds which touched us for a headline and maybe two. The stories are short and sweet, sometimes just a passing comment, but stated in such a way that we feel that, trivial though they may seem, they were after all important enough to be included and, dammit, who are these people to tell us what's important, anyway?

I laughed through a large part of this and found myself heading to the computer to type in certain things in the old search engine, it was that interesting, but maybe I'm an old fuddyduddy. I mean, I read Frederick Lewis Allen in my youth and, in fact, still have three of his fine books on my shelves. Occasionally, I pick them up and leaf through them because damned if it isn't just plain interesting stuff.

Marino's book will make it there soon, but I've placed it for the moment on the coffeetable. It's so much easier to roll over on the couch and reach out than to get up and walk to the bookshelves every time I want a quick Roadhead fix. I'm not getting any younger, you know.

M. Berferlitz

Mike Marino has been called a lot of things: for one, an author. With this book Marino shows us that he can also teach, and that he does, in a rather unique platform style.

What Marino does in this book is showcase a view of America and Americans in a period still much too close in our rearview mirrors to figure out. That era, the post war 1950-'s to it's abrupt end off the coast of Huntington Beach, California as fear overtakes everyone and Charlie Manson roams free and we find the moon, is something American's will be sorting out for God knows how long.

And this book will be there, will be studied and read by youth, college kids and others trying to figure what the heck happened during those years.

Marino gives us a fast ride through this era. He doesn't stop long and linger except to make points. He is realistic and upbeat while showing us that we having nothing to fear in taking the social bark off the great tree of our collective cultural history.

Which is what the book primarily is: an American cultural history. And Marino brings that to us in his own style. Which, I think, makes the whole thing even more interesting.

Marino spends a lot space talking about cars. Big, fast American cars made in Detroit by Union workers. Cars that became a person's identity and extension of who they were. Marino talks about those cars, and how they effected us all once they left those huge plants in Michigan. Marino gets into detail about that love affair and the great American spirit of adventure, westward ho, Route 66, Sal Paradise and the gang laying it all out for a generation of baby boomers just getting their legs under them.

And California. Marino is all over California. California was the cultural engine that drove 1960's American life. It's where a lot of those Detroit cars ended up, loaded with Americans from every other state ready to start a new life on the Gold Coast. And all of those other people who followed that cultural wave to The Bay, the movement and the new way of life. Marion explains all of this like no one else.

And the book goes on and on and on. I don't think he missed anything.

Which is really great for us, because this is a classic view of America and needs to be read by more people.

If you read it and still don't 'get it' then you might need help.

Great book, strongly recommend it.

In THE ROADHEAD CHRONICLES, Mike Marino, author and "roadhead" extraordinaire, takes to the "road" "head"-ing us on a blue suede cruise burning rubber through history the way most of us blue collar bourgeois can relate to--from the backseat of a V-8 deuce coupe, an AM rock 'n roll radio station blaring! We're covering ground you wouldn't step foot on during your senior class history lesson, that's for darn sure!

How does he do it? As soon as you slide along the leather of that backseat, Mike Marino adjusts his rear view mirror. Before you know it, you're cruising down Post WWII Lane, winding through the sideroads of the 50's and 60's through the pop culture of cars right off Detroit's assembly lines, Harleys, rock 'n roll, car hops, drive-ins, White Castle Burgers, movies that captured the Greaser/Jock friction--"The Wild One," "Rebel without a Cause"...

Mike Marino hangs a left and we're in the 60's as Comies, pinkos, and socialists hid under our beds, and we crouched under our school desks as protection from nuclear fallout. Who knew that popular monster flicks like "The Blob" were subliminal rebellion against Kruschev's hammer-and-sickle threat to bury us? We speed by Vietnam--Jane Fonda, psychedelia, "Easy Rider"... The engine of that magnificent chrome mosheen never idles long enough for its passengers to get bored.

The Beach Boys harmonize as Mike navigates us onto Route 66, that 2000 mi. two-lane stretch from Chicago to LA known as "The Mother Road." He fills us in about westward migration during the Dust Bowl of the 30's immortalized in Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath." While looking out the window, we learn this defunct artery was the brainchild of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's vison to build a network of interstates to blanket the country. We cruise past diners, motels, and quirky roadside attractions you'd never glimpse by taking major thoroughfares. Never once letting up on the gas pedal, Mike chronicles the rise and demise of amusement parks such Coney Island, speeds by Disney theme parks, national parks, museums. And--the diners-- greasy spoons as well as the legendary select "Harvey Houses" with their stellar waitresses. Phillips 66 filling stations... barnyard art billboards... Old West bad boys...our travel guide leaves nothing untouched!

Like any good driver who takes you for a ride, Mike Marino knows how to hold the reader's interest by fast pacing and a built-in sexiness from start to finish on this road trip. I give you a man's adulation for his Tin Lizzy:

"Lizzie lets her gown flow dreamlike from her shoulders and exposes her treasures for discovery. Her door opens wide and he goes inside, gentle and timid at first, and then grabs her crank and turns her over...she sputters and moans, then smiles and sighs, and her engine burns and roars to life."

THE ROADHEAD CHRONICLES is a comprehensive dumpster of history locked and loaded within a 400 page spread, driven by a guy who knows the best paths in life are those found on the highways, byways, and back roads. Hop in and go along for the ride of your life! I'm glad I did.