"But uh-oh those summer nights..."

The Maestro got home from his final summer tour on Thursday night. Summers are typically trying because he travels a lot for work and I'm generally knee-deep in production of a show or three, and so communication between the two of us often falls by the wayside. When he gets back from his final tour of the summer, though, we try to find fun and new things to do to celebrate being in one another's presence again.

On Thursday night, I told the Maestro that I felt as though I'd wasted the entire summer because I hadn't done anything authentically Baltimore-in-the-summertime all season. The city has a plethora of really great summer activities-- festivals such as ArtScape and HonFest, neighborhood cultural fairs (Greek Festival is my absolute favorite), and the like. Imagine my delight when he suggested that we go see an outdoor movie last night.

Little Italy has a famous tradition of screening free movies on the side of a building on Friday evenings in the summer. Last night, they screened The Blues Brothers. How I got through 24 years of life without watching The Blues Brothers or seeing an outdoor movie in Little Italy, I will never know, but I'm glad that I have recently reconciled both of those wrongs. I think it goes without saying that the film is both a cult classic and leftover acid trip, but we had fun nonetheless. I think the Maestro and I may have been the only two people in the audience of hundreds who had never partaken in the movie. There was a little hiccup in the video stream around the time when Dan Aykroyd's character tries to pick up the hot blonde in the convertible at the gas station... I'm not quite sure what happened around there, but I got the general jist of the movie.

And everyone cheered after this special little number:



The Maestro picked up some great snacks at Eddie's for us to munch on al fresco and we grabbed gelato and espresso from Vaccaro's for dessert immediately after the movie. They show movies every summer through the end of August, so check it out if you're looking for something super cheap (the screening is free... space is available on a first come, first served basis) to do in the next couple of weekends. They're showing Cindarella Man next week and Cinema Paradiso the week after next.

If you're going to go, here are a few hints that the Maestro and I learned for next time:

1. Go early! In prime Downbeat/Maestro style, we got there right in the nick of time. We would've seen the beginning of the movie had there been any open parking. As this is a great Baltimore tradition with a huge following, there wasn't readily available street parking, and all pay parking was a flat rate of $15. Since we're cheap economical, we rode around for an extra 15 minutes waiting for the heavens to open up and grant us a parking space. If you don't want to pay out the nose for parking and want to see the entire flick, make sure you add an extra 30 to 45 minutes as parking in Little Italy on a Friday night is a pain any time of year.

2. Take lawn chairs Want to know when the Maestro and I realized that neither of us own lawn chairs? As we were getting out of his car and walking towards the parking lot where the movie was being screened. Thankfully, he unintentionally had a blanket in his car, so we had something that wasn't direct asphalt to sit on, but we were struggling to stay comfortable the entire time. There was a lot of shifting and maneuvering on both of our parts to make sure that legs didn't have to be amputated for lack of circulation by the end of the evening.

3. Clear out ASAP If you're going to hit a bar of Vaccaro's after the film is over, don't wait for the credits to finish. All 500 million people who are there without children are going to want to get their drink/ice cream/coffee on when the movie's finished, and if you get there before the credits stop rolling like we do, you'll avoid a heinous line.

4. Don't sit near the bathrooms/trash cans/a large group of people We sat next to the port-a-pots because we got there late. We heard doors slamming through the entire movie and got to fight to see with the people standing in line waiting for the can. I saw people in similar situations as ours who sat near the only trash receptacle or who were flanking teenagers who came in large groups. That pretty much goes along with getting there early to stake out your spot.

5. Don't bring more than you need Neither the Maestro nor myself are particularly green. I know, I should get better. At any rate, when you're going to one of these things, it almost pays not to. He got our snacks in those disposable plastic containers so that we could throw them away immediately afterwards. Even the stuff that we weren't finished with wound up getting tossed in the end so that the rest of our night downtown could happen unencumbered by unnecessary clutter.

All in all, we had a great time. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for something to do in Baltimore... or even if you're not in Baltimore, free outdoor screenings are definitely a fantastic date night anywhere. Find an open air screening in your city and enjoy the rest of the summer.