by Mick Rhodes | editor@claremont-courier.com

It’s the most wonderful time of the year … allegedly.

Every fall I tell myself I’ll be tanned, rested, and ready come December. Every year I fail.

I’ve heard the holidays are a time of great joy for many. These are the lucky ones, predestined by station, tradition, DNA, cold-blooded organizational wizardry, or all of the above, to enjoy these frantic few weeks.

For the rest of us, the holidays are marked by crushing physical and emotional anxiety. I want to be the guy in the ad strolling down a wintery city sidewalk, bundled up and smiling, with an armful of beautifully wrapped packages. But, I’m the sweaty guy in his pajamas hunched over his laptop in the wee hours illuminated by the sickly glow, overcompensating again for falling short on holiday cheer and gratitude, frantically filling my Amazon cart with kids’ gifts. I’m that guy.

If the holidays could just be rescheduled to a more convenient month, all would be well. Along with Christmas, I’ve two very important birthdays in December, my youngest daughter’s and my wife’s, a book deadline, four issues of the Courier and a special edition to put out in three weeks, and a quick trip to Tahoe with the kids in between Christmas and New Year’s. My anxiety is through the roof and I’m binge eating nachos and Good & Plentys. Thus far I’ve managed to go easy on the booze, but it’s only December 10, so don’t expect miracles.

And then there’s the ridiculousness of it all; I have a home, a loving family, food, friends, and a job. Complaining amidst all these blessings feels petty and tone deaf. But still, I persist.

Modeling good behavior for my kids is my highest calling. I fear my ambivalence about the holidays, consumerism, and the military industrial complex may be doing long-term damage. Am I raising a pack of cynics? This keeps me awake at night, along with the panic over those fast approaching deadlines.

Numbness is certainly an option. But I’ve tried that, and though effective in the short term, it’s a temporary fix that never ends well. No, the only way through these dog days of winter is to put my head down and check off one box at a time in the methodical trudge toward January’s mercifully sparse calendar.

I try to breathe through the anxiety, telling myself it’s going to be fine, that the work will get done, and even if I fall short on a few things life will go on. I won’t be shunned, fired, stoned, or divorced. Probably.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year?

No sale at Laemmle auction

This week brought some good news, again, for fans of the Laemmle Claremont 5:

“It is with some pleasure that I can report that the theatre property did NOT sell at auction on December 4,” Laemmle Theaters President and CEO Greg Laemmle wrote me in an email on Monday.

The auction closed with no bids coming close to reaching the reserve price, so the theater at 450 W. Second St. will remain open. Again.

Laemmle declined to disclose how many bids were received, the amount of the highest bid, or the reserve price, which he told me last month was somewhere south of its previous asking price of $4.25 million.

The Laemmle Claremont 5 has been in danger of closing for a few years now, with close calls and several reprieves along the way. Frankly, the many deadlines, announcements, and pleas for support have wrung me out. I’ve run out of clever metaphors. For now, we have a movie theater in Claremont. We may keep it. We may not.

The driver for all this tumult has been years of revenue shortfalls. After years of solvency, things began to change for the Claremont 5 after the Edwards La Verne theater installed recliner seats in 2016. Then it endured a 13 month shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was followed by perhaps the most damaging event, the opening of the plush new AMC Dine-In Montclair Place 12 theater in 2021.

The failed auction leaves all of us right back to where we’ve been for a few years now, in limbo, with an unprofitable movie theater seemingly on life support.But like a cinematic Easter egg, there is a bright spot.

“We do hope to use the numbers from the auction when appealing to the property tax board,” Laemmle wrote. “Lowering the property taxes will be a major component of lowering overall expenses.” That would figure to be a slam dunk, as according to LA County the property is worth $6.3 million, and that’s the amount it’s been using to compute Laemmle Theaters’ property tax bill.

So, once again, we’ve been spared saying goodbye to the Laemmle, which, aside from 13 months of pandemic-related darkness, has been open every day since 2007.

If it is to compete with the fancy Montclair AMC, Laemmle will have to do something at the Claremont 5. “We are discussing options for physical upgrades,” Laemmle said. “But seeing an uptick in business would certainly spur that decision.

Laemmle said he has no immediate plans to put the property up for auction again or list it for sale, but did include a disclaimer: “As a business person, I have a responsibility to give due consideration to any offer that comes my way for either purchase or lease of the property,” he wrote. “But I have no plans to actively solicit either of these.”

For now, plans are to operate the Claremont 5 “in the most commercially reasonable manner, hoping to regain as much of our pre-pandemic audience as possible, and exhibiting as wide a variety of films for the benefit of the residents of the City of Claremont and the large Pomona Valley community,” Laemmle wrote.

Resting in power, Ed, with Motörhead

I’ve received quite a lot of feedback from last week’s column, “Saying goodbye to a sweet guy, punk rock style,” all of it positive (a rarity around here), mostly from friends of our late friend, Eddie Neville.

In the column I wrote about Ed’s deep love for his favorite band, British hard rock/punk giants Motörhead. Well, somehow the band’s management firm, Singerman Entertainment, found it, and sent this email on Friday:

“I just read your article on Ed Neville. I work for the management of Motörhead and was curious if there is a final resting place for his ashes that we might be able to send some items to accompany him.”

Anyone who knew Ed knows he would have been beside himself with joy had he known anyone connected to his favorite band knew his name, let alone thought so much of him as to send some Motörhead mementos for his journey into eternity. Those keepsakes are now en route to Ed’s little brother, to be placed with his ashes.

We’ve all seen how the all-pervasive internet can change lives. Those kinds of stories are usually cautionary. This time though, the ol’ information superhighway led to something beautiful. Ed would have approved.