“I can’t remember the last time I paid to go to a movie,” Jack says, feet propped up on his desk. “I just don’t think any movie is worth $6.50.” Despite an income close to six figures, Jack has a problem with the high rates charged at the multiplexes for smaller and smaller screens. This type of price gouging upsets Jack.
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Last spring’s basketball play-off games at the Stadium were a recent triumph. Rod smiles at the memory. “It was simple really,” he says. “Before the first Cleveland play-off game at the Stadium, we hung about three or four cameras around our necks, stuffed newspaper in some extra camera bags we had, carried little reporter’s notebooks, wore faded blue jeans, and generally looked like photographers. Then we entered through the press gate on Madison while walking quickly and talking to each other about what shots we wanted. Nobody stopped us to ask for credentials and by about the fourth home play-off game, the security and Andy Frains were even saying hi to us as we walked by. We saw every play-off game that way.
“We watched the first half from any no-show seats we could find, because to go courtside they were very strict about checking credentials,” Rod explains. “Then at halftime, when everyone is standing and moving about, we moved down to the front of the mezzanine to the short wall, which separates the $50 and $100 seats from the mezzanine. Amongst the activity around us we hopped the wall. Now, for the second half, we again played photographer and could watch the game from anywhere, because to get that close you had to have credentials and no one hassles you about them once you are that close. We usually watched the second half from behind the press tables or from under the Bulls’ basket.”
Rod says that his guilt about pilfering someone else’s VIP tickets was assuaged by the knowledge that according to the press there weren’t any VIP tickets in the first place. This, he says, is justice.
“Once we were inside we were like the hits of the party,” Rod continues. “We barely had time to try the prime rib and jumbo Cajun shrimp because people began to come up to us and ask if we would take their picture for money. We charged ten dollars per picture and took the name and address of each person. One of the pictures we took was of Matt Suhey with his arms around two girls. We made about $250 doing this. I’m lucky the flashbulb was working because I sure as hell didn’t have any film in the camera.”
Through the street level window of the brothers’ office we see an old Pontiac pull into a no-parking zone directly in front. A gangly blond-haired kid emerges from the auto. That’s their cousin Bobby, Jack points out. After locking the driver’s door, Bobby pulls a handful of Chicago parking tickets from his shirt pocket and places one under his windshield wiper; he then proceeds to place tickets under the wipers of a few more cars in the same no-parking zone.
