theroadhead@gmail.com

BBQH BABY BOOMERS HEADQUARTERS MAGAZINE
This is the epitome of a boomer roadie book for the boomer roadie. It's funny, it's nostalgic, it's interesting. Route 66, fins, fuzzy dice, carhops. It's all there. This would be a great gift for the roadhead in your life.

The Roadhead Chronicles Kicks Asphalt Through the Cold War Fabulous Fifites!

The Roadhead Chronicles Trips Out Through The Purple Hazed and Double Dazed Sixites

THE ROADHEAD BOOK - ORDER HERE!

DRIVE IN MOVIES MAGAZINE
Mike Marino has scored a hit with The Roadhead Chronicles as he rips through the American car culture. This book contains drive-ins! You get kicks on Route 66 with a look of the development, growth and born again rebirth of the world's most famous two-lane. Mike explores the origins of the automobile, horsepower and the impact of Henry Ford and the Model T, and how Walt Disney helped make the asphalt world explode with delighted vacationers.
You'll jump into the backseat of the car and chrome world of fuzzy dice, carhops, drive-in movies, jukeboxes and the rock and roll rebel without a cause switchblade, black leather jacket lifestyle of the blue suede cruise of the 50's and 60's, not to mention the muscle flexing Motor City of the 70's where GTO's ruled the roads!

PURPLE HAZED & DOUBLE DAZED!

"Where Cool Was Born" - Chapter One

The Roadhead Chronicles goes from the Cold War Fifties Pop Culture of classic cars and rock n' roll to the spaced out Spare Change Sixties of Vietnam and Hells Angels. Not the usual look at the era, instead It's written by someone who lived it and spent a life of being on the road from his beach bum days in Honolulu to the glitz and dangers of the Sunset Strip in LA, and his purple hazed and double dazed days in North Beach and the Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. The Roadhead Chronicles also looks at the history of Route 66, Roadside Neon Culture and old diners and dives!

Mike Marino writes in an offbeat and irreverant style with a beat and a cadence that is all his own. His writing style has been compared to John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck and Terry Southern and one reviewer likened him to Frederick Lewis Allen on acid! Readers and critics call the book "wickedly wonderful", "delightfully weird" and "automotively sexy."!!!

BOOK REVIEWS AND READER BLURBS

FRANK GUTCH, JR.
Reviewer
He's like Frederick Lewis Allen on Acid! His chapters bounce all over the place and that is part of the book's charm. It is as if he is saying that you don't have to have your history chronological, that the events themselves are history in themselves, and yet he loosely strings each chapter around a theme. He sets up the 50s with a look at what led up to them, then it's through the looking glass. From the James Dean cool to the sci-fi kitsch, he lays out the changing world of youth and hints at the probable horror felt by the parents of the time. From muscle cars to the (North) beach scene to the advent of drive-ins (both movie and fast food), he shows us what many of us missed as it happened before our eyes. The great thing is that he portrays them as seen through his eyes, for he has a vision of the recent past as seen while it happened. This is not a guy who looks back on his past. This is a guy who writes about his past as it happened. And the great thing is that his past is ours.

As for the historical subjects? They were the true histories and not those spoonfed by educators strapped to corporation-accepted textbooks. The real history of the carhop, the fear created by the nuclear age, the very real effect of teen idol worship, the eccentric people and their odd worlds which touched us for a headline and maybe two. The stories are short and sweet, sometimes just a passing comment, but stated in such a way that we feel that, trivial though they may seem, they were after all important enough to be included and, dammit, who are these people to tell us what's important, anyway?
I laughed through a large part of this and found myself heading to the computer to type in certain things in the old search engine, it was that interesting, but maybe I'm an old fuddyduddy. I mean, I read Frederick Lewis Allen in my youth and, in fact, still have three of his fine books on my shelves. Occasionally, I pick them up and leaf through them because damned if it isn't just plain interesting stuff.
Marino's book will make it there soon, but I've placed it for the moment on the coffeetable. It's so much easier to roll over on the couch and reach out than to get up and walk to the bookshelves every time I want a quick Roadhead fix. I'm not getting any younger, you know.

JANE DENT - THE GREEN ROOM CAFE
Reader - Australia

Mike Marino is an amazing character. He chronicles his life from the travelling aspect and an amusing one at that. His ability to make us laugh at our own quirks, his generosity of spirit, and his genuine affection for his life's work are palpable and The Road Head Chronicles is simply a delight to read.

FICTION WISE BOOK REVIEW
Mike Marino's writing style has been described as automotively sexy and delightfully weird. His writing voice is a verbal machete cutting a pathway through the literary landscape to a place that truly iswhere pop culture and chrome meet asphalt and art. In addition to Mikes freelance writing, he's also a photographer, playwright, and founder of the former Experimental Theater Workshop in Detroit, Michigan, and hosted "The Blue Suede Cruise" oldies radio show in San Francisco.

BBQH BABY BOOMERS HEADQUARTERS MAGAZINE
This is the epitome of a boomer roadie book for the boomer roadie. It's funny, it's nostalgic, it's interesting. Route 66, fins, fuzzy dice, carhops. It's all there. This would be a great gift for the roadhead in your life.

DRIVE IN MOVIES MAGAZINE
Mike Marino has scored a hit with The Roadhead Chronicles as he rips through the American car culture. This book contains drive-ins! You get kicks on Route 66 with a look of the development, growth and born again rebirth of the world's most famous two-lane. Mike explores the origins of the automobile, horsepower and the impact of Henry Ford and the Model T, and how Walt Disney helped make the asphalt world explode with delighted vacationers.
You'll jump into the backseat of the car and chrome world of fuzzy dice, carhops, drive-in movies, jukeboxes and the rock and roll rebel without a cause switchblade, black leather jacket lifestyle of the blue suede cruise of the 50's and 60's, not to mention the muscle flexing Motor City of the 70's where GTO's ruled the roads!

ED REAVIE
President of Nostalgia Productions Car Shows
Mike punches every pop culture button there is and then some with a sense of irreverence, history and humor!

THE ROADHEAD CHRONICLES separates the world of the Roadhead into three distint sections. You'll jump into the backseat of the car and chrome world of fuzzy dice, carhops, drivein movies, jukeboxes and the rock and roll rebel without a cause swithcblade, black leather jacket lifestyle of the blue suede cruise of the Fifties and the purple hazed spare change Sixties.
It also gets greased up, gassed up and kicks asphalt through the world of Route 66 & roadside nostalgia of neon motels, cafes, gas stations and diners, along with a lootk at Mystery Spots, Rock City and other asphaltian oddities such as Cadillac Ranch and Mystery Spots that have become destinations and road culture icons of themselves.
Mike also explores the city where the "beat" goes on with a visit to Jack Kerouc's North Beach, Jerry Garcia's spare change Haight Ashbury, a look at Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the Greyhound Bus Museum in Minnesota, and giant Paul Bunyan Statues made from car parts.

POP CULTURE & CHROME

This first section of The Roadhead Chronicles is an asphalt kicking journey through the world of carhops and drivein's, V-8's and Vietnam, mighty Motor City Muscle Machine machismo, cruising and drag racing, '32 Fords and Dodge Chargers, burgers and chili dogs, backseat realities and Brylcreem dreams. The big screen of the drivein's fire up with, Godzilla the Atomic Lizard, and James Dean cruises the California silver screen in a '49 Merc, then crashes in a sportscar blaze of metal and broken glass on a lonely California highway. Big fins and bigger chrome grills share the parking lot with hotrods and Harleys, and the Hells Angels and Haight Ashbury run into Ken Kesey and Jack Kerouac.
The cars as celebrity, parade and cruise through the pages, and we get a good ole boy look inside the history of the Duke boys' "General Lee" to the lesson we learned from Stephen Kings book and film, "Christine", that Hell Hath No Fury Like a Plymouth Scorned!!
It's a roadhead romp through the world of rock and roll, psychedelia, the Cold War and Vietnam. It's a study of the history of fast food and faster cars. Big fins and fuzzy dice. Harley Earl and Harley Davidson. The urban culture of hot rods and the cool California car and son-of-a-beach culture of Woodies and surf music. It's a rubber burning, asphalt eating period of the American car culture, and The Roadhead rocks and rolls!

ASPHALT AND ART

Mike also paints a portrait of the magical world of roadside nostalgia and the roadhead culture of neon, motels, gas stations, greasy spoons and diners. Burma Shave signs, Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco barn art, and "free ice water" at Wall Drug! The growth of cross country tourism, tourist camps and cabins. It also explores the story of the pre-eminent Motor City Motorhead, Henry Ford, and how he put the world on wheels. The Roadhead will hop in the old 'Vette and cruise on down the highway of history on an asphalt kicker of a trip along the two lanes, highways and byways to explore the beginnings of paved roads including the birth of the Lincoln Highway, and of course Route 66 history from it's inception in the 1920's to it's Steinbeckian days of the Dustbowl in the 1930's to it's days as the Kitsch Culture Capital of Mainstreet America in the days following WWII. Wall Drug, Meramec Caverns, Rock City and Disneyland, all figure prominently, along with a look at the history of the automobile that goes back to the 1300's...in China!!

THE CHRONICLES

The Roadhead also includes chapters based on his travels across the asphalt oceans of the United States on the two-lanes, interstates and dirt roads of backroads America. You'll visit the land of the lawdogs and outlaws with the "High Plains Roadhead" as you journey across the land of goodguys and badguys of the Wild West. Climb aboard Ken Kesey's magic bus and crash head-on into Jack Kerouac in North Beach and Jerry Garcia in Haight-Ashbury and places like Cadillac Ranch in Texas and Carhenge in Nebraska and you'll discover a Paul Bunyan statue made entirely of Kaiser auto parts!!

MIKE MARINO BIOGRAPHY

Mike Purple Hazed and Double Dazed in Haight Ashbury in 1967

Mike Marino has made his "roadhead" bones and enjoy's nothing better than a greasy, unfolded map on the seat of the car...a bag of beef jerky and smoked fish and a cream soda to wash it all down as the highway and the steel belts play a meloldy of asphalt. Originally a product of the Motor City, Mike has lived in on the streets and on the beach in Hawaii, as well as in Haight Ashbury and the North Beach neighborhoods in San Francisco.
Mike is also founder of the Experimental Theater Workshop, The Spare Change Artists Project, adn the Dung Zen Sustainable Living Project. He is primarily though a freelance magazine writer of pop culture, car culture, travel and history for numerous publications and he enjoys Hawaiian shirts, classic cars, Ed Wood Movies, fuzzy dice and hula dashboard ornaments as well as a good Hemmingway cigar, Corona beer, hiking and backpacking and rummaging through flea markets and auto junkyards.

CONTACT:
theroadhead@yahoo.com