Hawkmoon,adds,You know,weird folks hang out every where!But to say,you recognized someone of bieng a <edited>,and used it to gain for yourself,kinda makes your motives suspect!! In the early daze,pinballs in bars were usually used for gambling! In my day,50s 60s bowling alleys and arcades were the best places to play!Peace,Hawkmoon

Drifters and Homosexuals sounds like a great band name.

This Friday night, Drifters and Homosexuals at the pincade.

We've gotta introduce this guy to Black_Rose.

Hey! I'm not a drifter!!!!!

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.games.pinball/6Uac4XT5erY%5B1-25%5D

My ol lady thinks it's sexy when I get high score on Galaga

How much "suspect motive" do you have as a 14 year old kid?

When you have a strange adult paying for your games and food, you don't have to be Freud to know that something is wrong with them.

The older teens would sometimes follow the Pedos outside and beat the crap out of them. You would still see them hanging around the young kids, just at a different arcade.

Ah, yes, I remember the underground pinball spot at Youge and Gould. It was advertized as the worlds largest pinball arcade. There were over 400 machines. All EMs you got to know which copy was easier to beat. I spent time waiting for my girlfriend (now my wife) to get out of school at Ryerson. That was probably 1976. Although the arcade is long gone the wife is still here! Saying Yonge St. at that time was sleazy is putting it mildly.

Don't try and defend pedofags. Just don't.

plaaaaablaaaahhh simnmplissssshh

Classy posts pinsiders. Classy

Stop using "fag" as a slur. Gay people have a painful and harmful history of being lumped together with pedophiles as "sexual deviants". It's harmful and very offensive and turns a fun thread corrosive. You want to talk about pedophiles, sure I guess, but don't use slurs against gay people at the same time.

As a queer person with an addiction to pinside, I've always felt good here... it's why I feel safe making quips like the one I did earlier in the thread. Generally, everyone's nice. So, please, stop it.

It would be really cool if Gordy Leong would make a very memorable thread entrance.

I want a t-shirt with that image all big and fish-eyed on the front, and that pic of Mr. Fivehead somewhere, maybe as just a stamp in the bottom right corner or something. And then on the all-important back (visible to curious onlookers who might wonder if you're shirking your responsibilities as you're playing on location), could be in an official-looking font "Truancy Officer".

Quick 'n dirty:
MrFiveheadSezPinballPunksOnDope.jpg

Arcades in the 70s were often pretty shady places. I romanticize those times, but I also know there was a lot of fairly sleazy stuff going on that I was happily oblivious to, being a kid--and that which I identified I knew well enough to avoid, thankfully. Never had any bad experiences, and really at that age being there was all about the games, and everything else was a distant second.

Need I remind you that robosexual marriage is illegal?

Times have changed for the better..a special thanks to social media. I have gay, straight, who knows friends and I'm not ashamed to admit it and I don't care. I'm hope my buddies aren't ashamed I'm a beer drinking hockey nut.

Take off, you hoser! That's like 35 years late, eh!

Wow, that article brought back memories. I used to hang out in those arcades on yonge st. There was one arcade that was a downstairs on Yonge St., and it had about 100 pins in it. It was awesome. I could never figure out how they made money though, because I'd be in there on a Friday night and there would be about 6 people in there. I talked to a guy about it, who said it was a great place to launder money. I heard the Toronto Mafia was involved with a few of them. Maybe that article was a way of getting behind a way to stop the arcades, which would stop the money laundering. Anyhow pure speculation. I really didn't care as a youth though, as it was a pinheads dream. Wish they were around still today. When I drive downtown on Yonge street, I still look over at that spot with fond memories.
Thanks for sharing the article. By the way, the used to call Yonge street fun street. A few years later strip joints and massage parlors were on Yonge street, and they called it, Yonge street, sin street. It's more respectable now.

Thanks for speaking out. Hey, almost 30,000 pinsiders and I only got 8 or so down votes for my comment. Not bad. I usually like it here too. Mods cleaned it up though, and my apologies to Vid1900 for getting personal.

Dunce.

My Dad and I would go to Yonge Street in the mid 70's. During a few weeks in the summer 2 or 3 blocks of the downtown road was closed and a mall was placed in the street. Planters, benches, and some kiosks. Dad would always say, 'Keep an eye out for those Hippies'. Fun stuff, Sam the Record Man, A&A Records next door to each other.

Pinball has gotten a bad rap over the years mostly because the target audience was adolescent boys. I remember this from attending Bally service schools. They actually admitted that to us but did ask that we not spread it around back then. That is how they explained the revealing, (for that era), artwork.

Then the local shows draw attention for the few that won't bathe or are dressed up like it's Halloween. California has more than it's fair share of free spirits that visit the shows.

My favorite was the Craigslist article that was brought to my attention from a co-worker days after the show. Apparently someone in San Jose wrote about their chance encounter to a CA Extreme Show in 2005 at the Convention Center, when it was held at that location back then.

Bad BO.jpg

I attached it here and here is a link to the actual article that someone posted on the Bay Area Riders Forum. It will make you laugh or make you mad. Also I have no idea who Hooli is.

http://www.bayarearidersforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2047013

ad-old-have-a-fag.jpg

That damn huge head... I can't stop looking at it... I'm going to leave the house tomorrow and this will be the first person I see while getting my coffee. I can't stop laughing

image.jpg

Allan Sparrow:
Born 1944, past away 2008. 1974 to 1980 held 3 terms as a Toronto City Councillor. Was a political activist. He retired from politics in 2007.

allansparrow_jpeg_size_xxlarge_letterbox Allen Sparrow.jpg

Still???

In some places in the galaxy. Some people travel to other solar systems, while others are holding out until they can do it where their friends and family are.

That sucks that some places are still like that.

I hate all this hatred.

We should focus our efforts to protect the children in getting rid of these damn pinball death boxes.

"Gordy Leong, 17, is a pinball addict on slow withdrawal - he's switched schools to get unhooked from the pinball turn-on of popping bright lights, clanging metal and a scoreboard flashing instant success."

Aside from the unscientific generalizations and frequent portrayal of the authors' opinions as factual, these are the meatiest writeups of pinball I've read. Having 4 arcades nearby with over 600 pinball machines....Wow! Makes me wish I'd grown up in Toronto back in the day. ... and had been more of a thug/punk

I guess that I grew up too sheltered in our Midwestern archades... I would have never guessed that something so special for me and my family back in the day had morality issues. My father should have never given me those first few quarters to play Worlds Fair back in 66'. Little did he know that it would start me down a path of depravity that I still enjoy today. Sincerely - thank you Dad!

Here's a short doc on Times Square with footage inside Playland. Playland also appears in Taxi Driver in a drive-by sequence.

IIRC, on the movie my parents took, the main sign had Admiral Television & Appliances at the top. The smoke blowing Camel Cigarettes sign was off to the side. Playland was across from the Camel sign.

was Playland open in the 90's ? like around 96 ?

Looks like Dwight to me...

dwight-in-office.jpg

Yeah I missed out on that one.

My joke song band's name was always called "Triangles for Dudes".

Too bad this doesn't happen anymore.

tumblr_m71arfk7ci1qjwcc4o1_500.gif

So THIS is why Rowling won't sell the license to Harry Potter!

By the time she does, I'll be too old for Harry Potter and will have moved up to Hunger Games, like my older sister.

If we were in GB, this would be a confusing one. The real question is how the word ended up becoming a slur in the first place. Odd history on some words.
download.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_%28slang%29

Says the guy with 114 in his collection. You have your own arcade.

Not only 100s of games, but a hot new game might have 4 of the same title, side by side, and 8 people deep to play them.

Good times.

That stinks! Hopefully one day you will get them all laid out like a big arcade and you can invite some drifters and homosexuals over.

1992 or 1993. An Arcade in Vancouver use to install a large monitor above the arcade games. So everyone could watch. Later they used a camera to do the same thing with the popular pin ball machines. Highlighting the newest pin on site.

I've been to the Czech Republic once before. I stayed in Prague for a few days. Got really drunk at U Fleku. I think I was only 16 at the time.

Maybe one day I'll come be a drifter in your arcade.

This was from the same trip, a picture of us as a team in Slovenia. I'm the fat guy in the middle of the back row with no glasses on.

1996team_lrg.jpg

That is an amazing collection of drifters and homosexuals.