By Sidney Reilly
Okay, so if I understand the situation correctly, there is nobody who can make the Majestic profitable. The current management team is out and who know who will step in next to rescue the classic venue. As my Econ 001 professor once cleverly explained, “I can take a dump in a box and stash it in the attic until it’s a vintage dump in a box and then put it on eBay for the value an antique deserves. But I’ll probably not get $1,000 for it. I’ll get whatever people are willing to pay for a dump in a box.”
Now the Majestic is far from a dump in a box, but the fact remains, through all the finger pointing and idea wrangling, that we’re just not turning out and filling seats.
I believe it’s because there’s too much supply and not enough demand in Corvallis. Between the University’s multiple venues, the Whiteside, the Darkside, the Carmike, Regal, the bar music scene and a litany of options in Albany, there’s just too many things to go to for anyone to go see a show or a play at the Majestic at the clip needed to sustain salaries and upkeep.
What if instead the Majestic, which if I understand correctly is owned by the city anyway, became a central location for anything we want. After all, as tax paying community members, we’re the stakeholders in the Majestic’s future; why let it be hijacked by stuffy shirted artsy fartsianism? We could do garage sales there, rib cook-offs, small scale narcotics distribution, fight clubs, dice games, paintball parties and improve poetry cat fashion shows.
Clearly I’m kidding a little, come on now, who’s ever heard of a “rib cook-off” anyway? But the idea has some merit if you let it wash over you a little. I’m envisioning a Magnaplex where anything goes and entertainment is king. Perhaps we can also work on the name. Instead of Majestic Theatre, for instance, how about Majestic Thunderdome?
3 Words: Putt Putt Bar
On a recent trip to San Francisco, I experienced a mini-golf bar that mixed three very popular current trends: booze, hipsters and things we all used to do that are completely unremarkable that hipsters have recently just discovered and are flipping out about like they’re Captain America’s frozen body in the glacier.
While the whole experience was pretty obnoxious, and the golf itself was completely forgettable, the idea has strong merit. We all like to drink, and we all like to compete in relatively simple games. Where the SF douchebar fell short was that it focused on all the wrong things. It’s not important that the deep friend Mac’n’cheese hors d’oeuvres be sprinkled with truffle salt, and the course doesn’t need clever holograms. The beer should be cold and the putt putt holes should be challenging.
Not to give away free money making genius here, but a booze’n’putt in Corvallis would be like printing money. Only better because when I printed my own money that one time, Treasury agents stormed my apartment and tear gassed my cat.
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