I am sad to report that a piece of Americana was destroyed by fire in Tulsa, Oklahoma today. The Admiral Twin Drive-In burned to the ground today in a huge blaze. Firefighters are still investigating the cause of the fire. It has been speculated that the electrical system may have been the cause. The was also a report that a small group of people were seen in the area shortly before the fire began. All of that is speculation and we will have to wait for investigators to make their final determination.

Here is actual video footage of the fire taken by someone who was on I-244 at the time of the fire. This video is posted on our Channel 2 NBC news affiliate’s web site at KJRH.com.

You might be asking me how The Admiral Twin Drive-In theater is a piece of Americana. Well let me explain. It originally opened in 1951 with a single screen as The Modernaire Drive-In. A year later they added on a second screen (back to back screens) and changed the name to The Admiral Twin Drive-In. The Admiral part of the name comes from its location just north of East Admiral Place here in Tulsa. It was/is one of the longest operating drive-ins in the country. Thousands of people drive past it each every day as they commute down I-244. All of this has made it an iconic landmark in Tulsa.

Of course all of that doesn’t really make it a piece of Americana now does it? What solidifies its place as a piece of Americana is that it was featured in the classic 1983 film The Outsiders which was filmed here in Tulsa. The nearly ten minute scene at The Admiral Twin Drive-In will be kept alive forever, even if they can’t rebuild. Here is the entire clip of the Drive-In scene. Unfortunately I couldn’t find it in one clip, so it is about the final four minutes of the first clip, and the first five and a half minutes of the second clip.

Admiral Twin Drive-In After the Fire

Blake Smith, a current co-owner of the Admiral Twin said that they don’t have fire insurance and are unsure if they will be able to rebuild.

Soon after hearing about the fire a company named Bigfoot Prints began selling “Save The Admiral Twin” t-shirts for $10 each. All of the profits from the shirts will be given to help rebuild the landmark. There is also a Facebook page which was previously setup to try and help keep the drive-in up and running. A few days ago it had about 25 fans. It now has nearly 10,000 fans as I type this. Save The Admiral Twin Drive-In Facebook Page

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I have a ton of stuff I need to be doing, but before I get to all that I need to post this because time is running out.

First a little background story.

(Click for full size image)

I was born in 1971 so when KISS got started I was very young. Thanks to a couple of my brothers I was exposed to music like Pink Floyd, The Kinks, The Eagles, and a bunch of other classic acts from the 60s and 70s at an unusually young age. I thank them for giving me what is now a vast spectrum of the types of music I like today. This includes KISS. I still have the 8-Track tape that was my brother’s which was the first time I remember hearing them. It was Rock and Roll Over. ( Coincidentally if I were to ever get a tattoo, it would be a full sized album cover of Rock and Roll Over on my back. It is the first image in this post. Nice, huh?) Now I know I had heard some of their other albums before that, but that is the first one I actually remember.

Some time after that I remember one Friday night my sister who was watching me at the time let me stay up late. The condition was I had to be laying in the bed of the pullout couch in the living room. The reason I wanted to stay up late was to see the late late movie that was going to be on. That movie was KISS Meet the Phantom of the Park. Yes, I know it is an extremely cheesey movie in every way shape and form, but I was a young impressionable kid, and loved it! Truth be told till this day I still watch it on occassion and still enjoy it. I have owned it on VHS about a dozen or so times, needing to be replaced for one reason or another, or just because it wore out.

While growing up and establishing my own musical tastes KISS moved to the forefront and have been my #1 favorite band from about the time I was about 10 probably. I went out and got a complete mint condition set of the original KISS trading cards. I spent hundreds of dollars accumulating a pin collection, and a cutout/stand up picture collection of all sorts of live concert shots and poses of the band. They all came from an amusement park in the town I grew up in. The owner of the stand / booth where I got them had a friend who was personal friends with the band. He was such a friend that he had in his possession a pair of Ace Frehley’s boots. I made good enough friends with them that I actually got to touch one of the boots! Yeah, I know I am a bit obsessed so?

While working for a demolition company many times people would tell us what to get rid of, what walls to tear out and such. Some times this included getting rid of trunks full of all sorts of stuff. Of course since we were getting rid of it all, anything we found inside stuff that we were sure the people just wanted to get rid of was divied up between everyone that was working that day. This is what lead to one of my “Holy Grail” type findings of KISS memoribilia. We had like three steamer type trunks full of all sorts of collectibles. There was a set of Wizard of Oz action figures new in the package. A set of Donny & Marie dolls from the 70s in their original packages. I was the one that got to sort things out of the trunks into piles for everyone to go through – for doing this I got to pick the first thing I wanted. Then the clouds parted and the sun shone down like a spotlight over my shoulder onto an original Gene Simmons action figure still in full costume. Unfortunately it wasn’t in a package and had clearly been played with. Nonetheless, want to guess what I picked?

Actually the other guys didn’t want what they were calling “dolls”. I had collected things my entire life, from baseball cards to t-shirts, and movie posters and such. So, basically my mind said, “Well those are definitely worth something.” So I wound up getting The Wiz and Osmond ones too. I went ahead and sold them to two different people and made a decent amount of money.

Anyway, back to my actual story. . .

Where I lived there really wasn’t an arena that was considered “close”, well not a big arena anyway. It was an hour or so north to The Meadowlands, or an hour or so south to Philly. By the time I was to the age where I had money, andwas able to figure out a way to get to one of these arenas on my own I had missed so much.

The first concert I ever went to was Whitesnake with Faster Pussycat opening up for them. Absolutely loved it. It was right after Steve Vai joined Whitesnake. He did like a 10-15 minute version of the National Anthem into a sick guitar solo while the band took a break. It was unbelievable.

My other concerts were Pink Floyd on their reunion tour, and the Eagles on their reunion tour. See the influence of my brothers lived on strong. By the way both amazng shows I am so glad I got to see them in my lifetime.

In there somewhere was the KISS reunion tour. At that point I was working for a landscaping company. I had my money all put away to get tickets to go see them. Leading up to the Saturday at 8AM when the tickets were going on sale it rained for almost two weeks straight. This led to the boss making it mandatory that we work that Saturday to get caught up on all the stuff we couldn’t do during the rains. We left before sunup and of course weren’t done till the sun was going down.

All day long I kept telling myself that I would just go and get tickets after I got home. Well, when I got home I found out that tickets had sold out for the one schedule show at the Meadowlands had sold out in like 18 seconds or something like that. so they added two additional shows spontaneously. Guess what, they sold out right away too!

Now KISS is asking the fans to choose what cities they visit in their North American tour. You can demand that they play in your city – or for that matter any city.

I now live 5 minutes from the BOK Center here in Tulsa which is where they would play if they came here. I would be able to get my hand on tickets one way or another if they did come here. So, what I am asking anyone reading this to do is go and Demand that KISS comes to Tulsa. It doesn’t matter where you live, you can put in any zip code. Yes, even you my friends in Australia.

In the current standings Tulsa is ranked #77 in the voting. Oklahoma City is 42nd in the voting, but it would probably cost about $200-300 more for us to go see them there, plus add on a major headache of getting there and back, and finding puppy and kitten sitters and such. Obviously them here in Tulsa would be much much better than in OKC.

Here is the link where you can go and enter the zip code 74120.

Demand KISS play in Tulsa (or your city if you must)

That zip code again is 74120 (or any other Tulsa, Oklahoma zip code for that matter) You have to hurry though. The deadline for DEMANDING KISS is Tuesday June 30th. So go vote quick and often.

Thank you to everyone who helps me try and get KISS to Tulsa and make a lifelong obsession and dream come true.

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