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I ran a club called READ in Los Angeles around 1987-88. It was the “Less Than Zero” era of movable underground parties—nightclubs that existed one night a week in a location that constantly changed. You needed a flyer to know how to locate secret late-night places with exotic names like POWER TOOLS, BOTSWANA, PLASTIC PASSION and ENTER THE DRAGON.
READ began more as a literary salon. The opening was hosted by Bret Easton Ellis to celebrate the publication of Mark Lindquist’s novel Sad Movies. The space was in a tiny bar downtown called LALA that was trying to go for a smart crowd. READ’s main floor featured a magazine rack selling radical left-wing books and our self-published house zine with original poetry, artwork, and short stories by authors such as future award-winner Richard Lange.
I made flyers to get people in the door, which worked. The crowds were diverse and at some point included Jodie Foster, Nic Cage, and John Cusack. We’d distribute flyers everywhere: record stores, on parked cars at other like minded clubs, and through mailing lists (the physical kind). I would pull all-nighters at a 24-hour Kinko’s designing them, endlessly cutting and pasting and xeroxing.
At a certain point, my film career took off and I had to choose between making movies or running the club… and that choice was easy. READ was never a profitable venture despite the efforts of my partners in crime Jamie Glantz and Nicolas Griffin, so it died a quiet death. I don’t think we even announced the club’s end. Just one day there weren’t any more flyers. And then no one knew where to go.
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Larry Karaszewski is a screenwriter and film producer living in Los Angeles. His film writing credits include Ed Wood, The People Vs. Larry Flynt, Dolemite Is My Name and the Emmy Award winning miniseries The People v. O.J. Simpson. He currently serves on the board of directors of the National Film Preservation Foundation.