The Roadhead Chronicles: PopCulture And Chrome Meet Asphalt and Art (Paperback)

by Michael Vitti (Author)
Key Phrases: roadside culture, mother road, fuzzy dice, Mike Marino, The Roadhead Chronicles, San Francisco (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Mike Marino has delivered a one-two punch of a book that goes under the V-8 hood of the American car culture. It's style is fast paced, rapid fire and colorful, and examines the Chrome-magnon car and pop culture of America with a sense of humor, history, and a dose of horsepower haiku.THE ROADHEAD CHRONICLES separates the world of the Roadhead into three distinct sections. You'll jump into the backseat world of Saturday night drive-in movies, V-8's and Vietnam, fuzzy dice, carhops, jukeboxes, and the rock 'n roll rebel without a cause switchblade, black leather jacket lifestyle of the blue suede cruise of the 50's and 60's, not to mention the muscle-flexing Motor City of the '70s where GTO's ruled the roads! THE ROADHEAD CHRONICLES will also gas up and kick asphalt through the world of Route 66, the kitsch culture of roadside nostalgia, neon motels, cafes, gas stations and diners, along with an offbeat look at Mystery Spots, Rock City and other asphaltian oddities that have become destinations and road culture icons in and of themselves.THE ROADHEAD CHRONICLES wraps up with previously published articles of Mike's Roadhead Columns that explore the city where the "beat" goes on in Jack Kerouac's North Beach, Jerry Garcia's spare change Haight Ashbury, all the way to Cadillac Ranch and the famous Ken Kesey bus tour of America in the '60s. So buckle up, lock and load, and get ready to KICK ASPHALT as you fire up the engine and hit the highway in...THE ROADHEAD CHRONICLES!!

About the Author
Mike Marino's writing style has been described as "wickedly wonderful" and "delightfully weird." His writing voice is a verbal machete cutting a pathway through the literary landscape to a place where pop culture and chrome meet asphalt and art!In addition to Mike's freelance writing, he's also a photographer, playwright, and founder of the former Experimental Theater Workshop in Detroit, Michigan, and hosted "The Blue Suede Cruise" oldies radio show in San Francisco. Raised in the Motor City, Mike has also lived in a tree house in Hawaii, the Haight Ashbury district, and the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. He enjoys a good pair of fuzzy dice, Hawaiian shirts, and a cold Corona on Saturday nights.

Product Details

• Paperback: 412 pages
• Publisher: AuthorHouse (May 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1418425869
• ISBN-13: 978-1418425869
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,363,546 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Kick Asphalt with The Roadhead Chronicles, December 5, 2007

By	Patricia M. Salerno "atlantic goddess" (Wakefield, RI, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

4.0 out of 5 stars Like Frederick Lewis Allen on Acid, June 17, 2005

By	M. Berferlitz (Oregon) - See all my reviews

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