This is getting meta. A short time after I wrote a post about not writing posts, Carload showed up in an article about drive-ins. That article mentioned the post about not writing posts, and now I’m adding a post about the article.

Anyway, this was a very nice article about the present and future of drive-ins, written by Joseph Williams for S&P Global Market Intelligence. That’s one of those outlets that informs investors and business folks about trends and shifting winds and those next big opportunities. I suspect that the article’s first paragraphs, mostly about me doing things like spiking a speaker to the gravel in reaction to The Gong Show Movie, were pop-culture sweetening to lure readers into the back-loaded nutritious market discussion.

Williams also touched on the question of how many active drive-ins there are in the US today, really. Do flat parking lots with pop-up screens count? John Vincent Jr., president of the United Drive-In Theatre Owners’ Association, probably doesn’t think so. “Nothing beats a movie at a real drive-in that has proper ramps and has the huge screen,” he told WIlliams.

I addressed this a long time ago. If the screen stays in one place, it doesn’t matter how puffy it is. If people in cars can drive up, park, and watch a movie, ramps aren’t important. That’s the way I see it, though I can understand Vincent thinking that all drive-ins should look like his dues-paying members’ drive-ins.

Anyway, since this post is supposed to be about Carload in the news, here’s one more article to read. In late June, while I was busy not writing posts, Smithsonian magazine ran an article about the 2020 summer of drive-ins, and Carload showed up again in the second paragraph. I wish they’d have told me that they were going to profile the Kanopolis; they could have used my photo.