Happy Birthday, Blue Starlite Drive-In

What's that you say? It's too hot to go to a drive-in movie? P'shaw, we say. Real Texans thrive in the heat and are (mostly) conceived at drive-in movie theaters! So congratulations are in order for Austin's Blue Starlite Urban Drive-In which celebrates its one year anniversary this week with a double dose of bonafide hot-weather hits.

We grew up in the late heyday of the great American drive-in movie theater and we can attest to how ultracool they were/are, especially in weather hot enough to melt the vulcanized rubber on your car tires. They're so cool that the first film we can remember ever watching was at a drive-in in rural New York. (That would be Disney's That Darn Cat, if you're wondering, and no, we're not that old: it was in regional re-release.) Huzzah Dean Jones!

There are still a handful of actual, full-scale drive-ins scattered across the Lone Star State, but only Austin has its own "urban boutique" drive-in theater.

Owner and small-space visionary (and author of The Pixies bio Fool the World) Josh Frank started the Blue Starlite with little more than a mad, foolish dream and a whitewashed rectangle on a cracked concrete wall inside a then-vacant lot at 2326 E. Cesar Chavez St. Scouring eBay, Frank soon added real, working 1950's style speaker posts, a refreshment stand, FM transmitters, period kiddie-cars, and, most recently, an actual 22-by-10-foot screen. One year on and the dream -- sweaty though it may be at the moment -- not only survives but thrives, with a new, larger location in the works.

The Blue Starlite will be holding its official, one year anniversary party this Wednesday and Thursday, August 31 and September 1, with screenings of Grease and Pee-Wees Big Adventure, respectively. A Champagne toast and giveaways galore are to be expected. Drive on!