The Burnzo Diaries

Tuesday, September 9, 2025

CAPE CODDING IT: A Cape Cod vacation memoir

I was lucky if I could get any sleep at all. It was almost as bad as Christmas Eve. I’m talking about VacationEve. The night before family vacation down on Cape Cod.

We would get up early on Saturday morning. The car had been packed the night before. A family of five stuffed into a 1986 Toyota Camry sedan with the ocean-blue fabric interior, Rusty Jones sticker on that little quarter window located on the rear corner of the car. The trunk was strategically packed so that every inch of space was utilized. Same with the white, Sears X-cargo carrier clamped onto the roof of the car and safely secured with bungee cords. My siblings and I were in the backseat, but we sat on top of our unrolled sleeping bags that were sprawled out across the seats and we also had to ride with our pillows on our laps. Even small areas on the floor by our feet would be packed with little items like board games or hair dryers, maybe a pot or frying pan—things like that.

The Sears X-cargo carrier.

We would try to be on the road before 8am. This way, we would ideally get to “the bridge” before 9am, hopefully before the traffic backup got too bad. And when I say, “the bridge,” I’m talking about the SagamoreBridge, one of the two bridges that you drove over in order to get to Cape Cod from mainland Massachusetts, the other bridge, of course, being the Bourne Bridge. There is only one other bridge that can take you onto Cape Cod, but that is a railroad bridge—the vertical lift “Bourne Railroad Bridge,” to be exact—so you would have to be riding on a train in order to go over that one.

To me, the Sagamore Bridge always carried extra weight with it (no pun intended). What I mean is that it was a bridge I had much more respect for, a bridge I took much more seriously, because it was the bridge my family always went over when we were going to Cape Cod for an actual vacation.

The Cape Cod canal with the Sagamore Bridge in the distance.

As for the Bourne Bridge? That was always an exciting bridge to go over as well, but we only rode over that bridge for day trips to Cape Cod, most likely if we were going to Old Silver Beach in Falmouth for the day.

But the Sagamore? That meant serious business for the Burns family. It meant we would be on “the Cape” for at least a week. I don’t think I can put into words how exciting it was to a) ride over that bridge, all whilst looking down to the beautiful, man-made Cape Cod canal below, and b) going around that initial rotary where there was a shrubbery that spelled out, “Welcome to Cape Cod.” Ok, that shrubbery was actually after the Bourne Bridge—my memory is conflating the two bridges—but, just, you know, stay with me here, please.

After the Sagamore, you then found yourself on Route 6 (aka the mid-Cape highway), which had similar implications as the Sagamore Bridge. That is, the Route 6 highway wasn’t a highway we ever took for a daytrip to the beach. No, it meant we were going much deeper into the Cape, usually as far as Dennis or maybe even Harwich.

At first, it was Dennis and, more specifically, West Dennis. Yes, my earliest memories of going to Cape Cod for a family vacation are from staying in a small cottage in West Dennis on Captain Chase Rd. that we always called the “Murphy cottage” (name changed to protect the owners’ privacy) because that was the name of the family who rented it out to us. More than anything else, I remember the smell of the cottage, which was not a bad smell, but there was a distinct cottage smell, which from that point on in my life became known as “the cottage smell.” I believe this smell results from the moisture in the air getting into the wood of the cottage floors or furniture, something like this, but “smells like cottage” has been a phrase I’ve used pretty much all my life or at least since the mid-to-late-1980s.

The Murphy cottage was about a five or ten-minute walk to the beach, straight down Captain Chase. You’d pass a couple different little motels during the walk and then I seem to remember there being some sort of raft/beach toy store, maybe on the corner of Captain Chase before you crossed Old Warf Road and got to the beach.

We stayed in the Murphy cottage for maybe two years during the mid-1980s and then sometime in the later 1980s we had to, for whatever reason, rent another cottage, which was only a road or two over from Captain Chase (this area in West Dennis was almost like a village with a LOT of roads running parallel with one another and these roads were filled with A LOT of cottages). This cottage was even smaller than the Murphy cottage and all I remember is it had a screened-in porch with a bed that my sister slept in. There were also a lot of earwigs in this cottage, so we eventually started referring to this place as “the earwig cottage.”

One day during the week that we were staying in said earwig cottage, there was some drama just up the road from us. A transformer on a telephone pole exploded because a crow had flown into it. The poor crow got fried and was dead on the side of the road. Sorry, this is a depressing story, but I remember the whole incident fascinated all of us and certainly left an impression on me, a five or six-year-old at the time. Coincidentally, this was actually around the time when I had first seen Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and I thought the strange crow behavior was very eerie or perhaps even an omen of worse things to come.

Fortunately, nothing worse happened, especially nothing like what happens in Hitchcock’s film.

Now, it’s important to note that my aunt, uncle and cousins pretty much always vacationed during the same week as my family and usually stayed in a cottage that was very close to us. During the summer that we were staying in the earwig cottage, my cousins were staying in a cottage on Susan-Ruth Rd., which was, I think, only one road over from us. They always somehow lucked out and stayed in a cottage that was usually at least sliiiiightly better than ours (if not MUCH better), so we would often spend more time at their cottage than in our own. Their cottage on Susan-Ruth Rd., for example, had a cabana-like shed in the backyard that had been converted into a kids clubhouse. I remember my siblings and I hanging out with my cousins in this clubhouse and we all called ourselves “the cabana kids.”

We would usually spend most of the day at the beach, but in the evenings, we would often go to one of the many Cape Cod tourist hotspots for shopping, ice cream or, of course, mini-golf.

As far as shopping goes, there were two stores that we pretty much always went to at least once during our weeklong Cape Cod vacation: Cuffy’s and the Christmas Tree Shop.

Cuffy’s was a clothing store, but it mostly sold nice, soft sweatshirts and sweatpants. There was also a gift section with coffee mugs, salt water taffy, board games and other novelties. Or at least I think there was a gift section back then (the store has since been renovated and there is now a rather large “general store” section with all the gifts, salt water taffy and such). Back in the 1980s, it almost went without saying that you would have to purchase a Cuffy’s sweatshirt or pair of sweatpants sometime during your vacation on Cape Cod.

Cuffy's before the recent renovation.

A photo I took of a sand sculpture outside of Cuffy's circa 2020
shortly before the store was renovated.

As for the Christmas Tree Shop, this store was as much of a Cape Cod staple as Cuffy’s was. It sold all sorts of crafts, home goods, housewares, toys, gifts and holiday items, including but not limited to Christmas items. I remember buying a super-cool Rambo toy kit there (that came with a plastic version of Rambo’s signature Bowie knife along with his iconic red bandana), and I also remember buying a framed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie poster.

One of the Christmas Tree Shops on Cape Cod (the one near the Sagamore Bridge).

The Christmas Tree Shop basically became a franchise in the 1990s and stores began sprouting up in the Massachusetts mainland suburbs. Once this happened, it made going to the flagship store on Cape Cod a little less special. A couple years ago, however, all of the Christmas Tree Shops, including the ones on Cape Cod, had to close due to bankruptcy, so the Christmas Tree Shop is now a store of the past.

Along with Cuffy’s and Christmas Tree shop, a third place we almost always went to for shopping on Cape Cod (especially on a rainy day) was the Cape Cod Mall, aka the Hyannis Mall. In the late-1980s and probably into the early-1990s, the Cape Cod Mall was known to be the biggest mall in the area. Even when I hear the name “Cape Cod Mall” today, I still feel a shiver run down my spine because, back in the day, that name was pretty much synonymous with THE MALL OF ALL MALLS. When you go to the mall today, it doesn’t seem all that impressive, but back in its heyday, it seemed massive. It had all the popular anchor stores (Sears, Filene’s, Woolworths, etc.) and it also had all the usual inner-mall stores (Brookstone, Thom McAn, Record Town, Tape World, B. Dalton books, etc.). Furthermore, there was a food court and, of course, what badass mall would be complete without a cinema as well.

The Cape Cod Mall would be paaaaaaaaacked on a rainy Cape Cod summer’s day. And the traffic getting there on Route 28 would be equally horrendous.

When it came to getting ice cream on Cape Cod, we usually went to a place called Sundae School located on Lower County Rd. in Dennis. I haven’t been there in ages (because I don’t really do dairy anymore, if you know what I mean), but I remember it having some of the best ice cream around. It was homemade, too. Chocolate chip was always my flavor of choice.

And then there was the miniature golf. Our go-to mini-golf establishment was this place in Dennis called the “Barn of Fun” that I think was part of a larger place called the Sea View Playland. Or maybe Barn of Fun was technically the name of the video arcade at Sea View Playland, which was literally located inside a barn. The arcade had the reputation of being world-class with video game cabinets up the wazoo. I don’t remember the name of it, but I remember that we would play some racecar driving game over and over again; you know, it was one of those video game cabinets that had an actual steering wheel that you would use to steer the car. There was maybe even a shifter as well.

This was the Barn of Fun.

The Barn of Fun was also one of those arcades where you could play Skee-Ball and win tickets if you were any good at it. The better you were, the more tickets you would win and then you could use the tickets to purchase prizes. One time, my cousins and my siblings all pooled our tickets together and purchased this awesome plastic California Raisins mug. For years, we would share custody of this mug. My family would keep it for a few months. Then, when we saw our cousins at Christmas or something, we would hand the mug over to them and they would keep it for a few months. At some point, the mug got lost and this makes me very sad.

The only evidence of the California Raisins mug that I could find.
Sorry the photo is so blurry.

Also sad is the fact that Barn of Fun/Sea View Playland doesn’t exist anymore. The main places to play mini-golf down the Cape, at least in the mid-Cape area, are Pirates Cove and Skull Island.

Going to the movies was also a big thing to do while you were down the Cape, at night usually, but also when there was a rainy day and the beaches were unpleasant. Dennis had this shopping plaza called “Patriot Square” with a supermarket but also a cinema. I specifically remember seeing the movie Caddyshack 2 there with my family and cousins, and this night became legendary because my dad could not stop laughing throughout the entire movie, or so it seemed. He literally had never laughed so hard in his life. In hindsight, I find this puzzling, because Caddyshack 2 is NOT a funny movie; the first Caddyshack was the funny one. The sequel is, frankly, terrible (and I actually attempted rewatching it recently to confirm this). So I’m shocked that my dad was laughing so hard at it. We all still talk about that night to this day, though. The night we all saw Caddyshack 2 and my dad couldn’t stop laughing.

All in all, I think I remember a total of about three years of vacationing in Dennis. In the very late-1980s, we made the switch to Harwich where we stayed in a cottage owned by a woman my dad worked with at the time. This place was within walking distance of the beach, but, more notably, it was literally up the street from a go-kart racing track. And just down the street from the go-karts was an outdoor trampoline park. Oh man, I had so much fun on those go-karts! And the trampolines, too! Trampoline parks weren’t commonplace back then like they are now. Neither were go-kart tracks. This was what made Cape Cod even more magical. You had to go to “the Cape” to find a trampoline park and a go-kart race track. Cape Cod was like some sort of fantasy land—it really was.

The beach that was within walking distance of our cottage (I think) was Red River Beach. What I remember the most about Red River Beach and most of the other Harwich beaches was that they had nice long jetties and, in those days, you were actually allowed to walk out onto them. If you’re not familiar, these were the piles of rocks that divided up beach properties (I think) and went straight out into the water about 50 yards or so, give or take, and at Red River Beach it was usually give. We bought simple droplines that we used to fish for crabs in the water holes of these jetty rocks. For bait, we would catch minnows that would swim in schools within the knee-deep shore of the beach. We would use those mesh butterfly nets with the wooden stem to catch the minnows. They sold those nets virtually everywhere on the Cape.

A beach jetty. We would fish for crabs on these.

Using the minnows as bait, we were often successful in catching crabs of all sizes, but one time we brought up our line and realized there was this giant, snake-like thing on the hook. It was a black eel! Gross. The eel only stayed on the hook for a moment, then managed to wriggle itself loose and slither back down into the water, so we only caught a quick glimpse of it. But catching that eel quickly became a top Cape Cod vacation memory, one that was talked about for ages afterwards, much like my dad laughing like a maniac at Caddyshack 2.

Harwich also had a semi-fun downtown to it with a couple notable places, the most notable of which was this store that I’m almost positive was called Cranberries. This was a store that sold beach rafts and other flotational devices, beach toys, the aforementioned butterfly nets, flip flops, gifts, post cards, scented soaps/candles and this may have even been where we bought our droplines as well. For whatever reason, I loved that store, but it sadly got turned into a liquor store, sometime around the year 2006, I believe.

Downtown Harwich also had a place called Cinnamon Stick (a gift shop) and a small (maybe two-screen) cinema that showed decent movies. Oh, and I think there was a Harwich House of Pizza that I don’t think I ever went to.

For the next summer (maybe in 1990 or so?), we rented a nicer cottage in Harwich, not near the go-carts, but still close to the beach. It was a white, two-floor colonial owned by the grandparents of our neighbors back home. For this summer and I think the next summer, we actually stayed in the cottage for TWO WHOLE WEEKS, one week of which was shared with our cousins. I think our cousins would rent for the first week, we would come down and share the cottage with them the second week and then we would stay there alone the third week (or vice versa). I think we basically split the cost of the rental with our cousins for the three weeks, and since we shared one of those weeks, it was kind of like getting a week free. Or a half a week free? Sorry, my math is bad. Either way, it was a win-win situation, because we had a two-week vacation at a discounted price, one week of which we got to spend with our cousins.

Now, I’m pretty sure that this was the year that we discovered the Wellfleet flea market. Oh boy, I loved that place! While en route to a daytrip to Provincetown, the entire gang (my family and my cousins) stopped at the Wellfleet drive-in movie theater where, usually on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays during the summer, there was a big flea market set up in the drive-in parking lot. Back in the day, you could buy used cassette tapes, CDs, used books, baseball cards, jewelry, clothing, antiques, VHS tapes, video games, BB-guns, knives (if you were old enough) and pretty much anything else you could think of. The vendors were all hippy-like and some were even kind of sketchy, but I loved the place.

The Wellfleet flea market.

By the way, the trip to Provincetown didn’t leave as big of an impression on me as the Wellfleet flea market did. Our trip to P-Town had its moments, especially the ride there where you pass by all the sand dunes in Truro, but Wellfleet flea market was a much more interesting place than P-Town, in my humble opinion.

About 20 years later (in 2010 or so), I revisited the Wellfleet flea market with my brother and it was just as fun. Not much had changed except, instead of VHS tapes, there were DVDs, and instead of used 8-bit Nintendo games, there were PlayStation 2 games. I also remember there was some guy in scrubs doing teeth whitening from the back of a truck. Now, it’s one thing to buy some used DVDs or books at the flea market, but I think getting your teeth whitened by some sketchy guy in the back of a truck is something you want to avoid.

Other favorite places to go down the Cape were downtown Hyannisport and also downtown Chatham.

Both places had shops galore, but in the case of Hyannis I remember this place called Kandy Korner that I thought was so great. It was a candy and ice cream store with a very old-fashioned feel, but there were also many gifts, post cards and other novelties that you could purchase there. I remember getting one of those novelty invisible dog leashes at Kandy Korner, which were popular in the late-1980s. I never got any candy at the store because I wasn’t really allowed to eat candy (too many artificial flavors and colors). I probably got ice cream there at one time or another.

Kandy Korner in Hyannis.

The invisible dog leash.

Hyannis also had this awesome used bookstore called Tim’s Books that I really liked, especially in later years. When I was in my early-30s, I found this great copy of Kenneth Anger’s book Hollywood Babylon there. Sadly, Tim’s Books closed its doors a few years ago, I believe.

And how could I forget the Hyannis Army & Navy store? Army & Navy stores were very big in the 1990s. They kind of became an integral part of the grunge era, wouldn’t you say? This was a place where you could get your wallet chains, I believe? I know they sold some skater clothing there as well. As well as skater shoes (Vans, Airwalks, etc.). Doc Martens. Flannel shirts. That kind of thing.

Like with downtown Hyannis, downtown Chatham was another good place to go in the evening after you had spent a day at the beach. There were a couple different ice cream parlors, gift shops, and maybe a bookstore or two. If I remember correctly, there was some sort of concert on the common once a week there that was well-attended.

All in all, we spent many a summers vacationing on Cape Cod. In the early ‘90s (1992-1994 area), my family, along with my cousins, tried something different and vacationed in North Conway, NH. (in the summer of 1992), subsequently followed by two consecutive years of vacationing in Waterville Valley, NH. (summers of 1993 and 1994). Both the North Conway and Waterville vacations were a ton of fun as well (maybe I’ll write about those vacations someday, but I haven’t yet).

For the summer right before my freshman year in high school (1996), my family re-rented the cottage in Harwich that was up the street from the go-carts. But after this year I don’t think we vacationed down on the Cape, at least not for a full week, until 2007 when my family rented a cottage in Falmouth, right up the street from Old Silver Beach.

Old Silver Beach, if you’re not familiar, was (and I believe still is) a beautiful beach with nice whitish sand, very little seaweed, tame waters with small waves, and, at times of low tide, you could often walk very far out into the water because of all the sandbars. Prior to 2007, Old Silver had always been our daytrip beach, a place we went to for a day on Cape Cod (not on vacation), since it was only a little more than an hour drive from our house in suburban Massachusetts.

A photo I took of the Old Silver Beach sunset.

My family rented the Falmouth cottage for three or four years, from 2007 to about 2009 or so.

The year 2009 is significant because it gave me one Cape Cod memory that has nothing to do with a vacation or even a summer daytrip but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention. During this time, my aunt and uncle (that is, a different aunt and uncle from who we usually vacationed with) were renting a house in Bourne that they were living in while they waited for their new house in Cotuit to be built. They hadn’t been staying in this place all that long when my aunt and uncle told my family, somewhat casually, that they thought the house was haunted. I was very interested in the paranormal at the time, so one day in the middle of the winter, I paid them a visit, took my video camera, and shot some footage of the rooms in the house.

It wasn’t until I reviewed the footage at home a day or two later that I noticed something weird on the tape. In one shot, it looked like there was a face looking at me. The face … of a ghost!

I showed the face to my uncle and he was shocked. “Yes, it’s a face!” he exclaimed.

A couple months later, I shot a short documentary at the house where I communicated with the entities via knocks and caught several other anomalies on camera (mostly orbs). The documentary ended up being about 30 minutes long and I called it A Parallel World (you can watch it on YouTube HERE or it's also embedded below).

A Parallel World

In 2013, my family started renting a cottage in Dennis again. This one was on Ocean Drive, a few streets over from Captain Chase Rd. It was a very small cottage and we tried to fit eight or so people inside of it (including two young children), as well as three dogs. I mean, this cottage was literally the size of maybe two or three sheds, so that was an interesting week to say the least. What’s the saying? “I need a vacation from my vacation?!” Hahaha. Am I right, guys? I needed one of those! Hahahaha. Sorry.

For the next summer, we found a new cottage that was a couple roads closer to Captain Chase on Uncle Rolf Rd. It was bigger and could fit more people. We ended up renting this place for several years. It had a nice five-minute walk to the beach or even less.

A photo I took on Uncle Rolf Road's private beach.
This is one of my favorite photos from the Cape.

It was around this time (2014) when I discovered West Dennis Beach, which, to this day, is one of my favorite places to be on earth, especially during sunset. It’s a great beach to walk along, probably about a mile walk up and down the shore—maybe more. It’s very peaceful and not crowded during the early-evening hours. I’ve shot a lot of video footage there (see videos below) and I’ve done much meditating at that beach. I try to go there every time I’m on the Cape for a recharge.

Lifeguard chair at West Dennis Beach during "magic hour."

The only other beach I’ve been to on the Cape that is as beautiful as West Dennis Beach during the sunset is a beach called Mayflower Beach in northern Dennis (i.e. on the Cape Cod Bay side of Dennis). I’ve only been to this beach once, but I was there during magic hour (i.e. sunset) and it was truly breathtaking. Look at this photo I took while I was there:

Mayflower Beach at sunset.

As I write this, it’s been a few years since I’ve vacationed down on Cape Cod and this is partially why I’m writing this Cape Cod vacation memoir: because I miss it. I miss the beach and swimming in the salt water. I miss the ocean air that gets me all energized. I miss the “Cape Cod trees” (you know, those ‘pitch pine’ ones that almost resemble Bonsai trees). I miss the outdoor showers and how refreshing they are, especially when you finish up and the ocean breeze begins air drying your wet body.

A "Cape Cod Tree."

A small "Cape Cod Tree" that looks like a Bonsai tree.

I miss the initial drive over the Sagamore or Bourne bridges, looking down at the boats in the canal below, catching that first glimpse of the “Welcome to Cape Cod” shrubbery when you first enter the post-bridge rotary.

I miss the “cottage smell.”

I miss Cuffy’s, even though I never buy anything there anymore (the sweatshirts are a tad pricey). Wait, I like buying coffee mugs there!

I miss the Christmas Tree Shop, but everyone does, because it doesn’t exist anymore.

I miss the Cape Cod Mall even though malls are pretty much unnecessary these days, what with Amazon and other online shopping.

I miss homemade ice cream from Sundae School. Ok, I’m sensitive to dairy. So … I guess, even if I was on the Cape, I couldn’t go to Sundae School anyway.

I miss mini-golfing, but let me just say Pirates Cove and Skull Island are a tad too commercial/mainstream for my taste (I prefer the indie mini-golf establishments).

I miss playing video games and Skee-Ball at the Barn of Fun.

I miss going to the movies in the evening, watching whatever summer blockbuster comedy Hollywood has to throw at me at the time, laughing hard at movies like Caddyshack 2 that aren’t even funny, but you laugh anyway because you are in vacation mode and laugh at everything.

I miss the go-karts.

And the trampoline park!

I miss fishing for crabs off the jetties of Red River Beach.

I miss catching minnows in butterfly nets.

I miss the Wellfleet flea market and all its sketchy vendors.

I miss the smell of the homemade fudge, salt water taffy and other treats in Hyannis’ Kandy Korner.

I miss the sandbars at Old Silver Beach.

I DO NOT miss the ghosts that haunted my aunt and uncle’s house in Bourne.

But I especially miss walking up and down the shore of West Dennis Beach at sunset time, watching the sandpipers running in and out of the water, looking for worms or snails.

I miss Cape Cod.

But I’ll be back soon.

Rest assured; I will be Cape Codding it again.

…

MATT BURNS is the author of several novels, including Weird Monster, Supermarket Zombies!, The Woman and the Dragon and Johnny Cruise. He’s also written numerous memoirs, including GARAGE MOVIE: My Adventures Making Weird Films, My Raging Case of Beastie Fever, Jungle F’ng Fever: My 30-Year Love Affair with Guns N’ Roses and I Turned into a Misfit! Check out these books (and many more) on his Amazon author page HERE.

Other trending articles by Matt Burns that may be of interest to you:

A Love Letter to the Emerald Square Mall (about the death of the shopping mall age)

NEVER FORGET the Fun-O-Rama (a traveling carnival memoir)

Some Wicked Good Times: A Love Letter to Newbury Comics

I Dream of Dream Machine (a memoir of the local video arcade)

Skateboarding in the 1990s

My Childhood Obsession with Rambo

Video Store Memories

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Charlie (a story about Burns’ recurring nightmares featuring Charlie Chaplin)

I USED TO BE A GAMER: The 8-bit Nintendo Years

WAAF Goes Off the Air

Remembering That Time I Tried to Stop a Shoplifter at the Wrentham Outlets

The Strange, Surreal Moment of Being Called a DILF Inside a Panera Bread Restaurant on a Wednesday Afternoon

Visiting Mom in the ICU (short story contest winner)

How I Got into the Films of John Cassavetes

If I May Say a Few Words About FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR

35 YEARS OF TURTLE POWER: A Tribute to 1990’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie

Revisiting the Blair Witch Project

PROXOS IN THE PLEX: A Goldeneye 007 N64 Retrospective

100 DAYS of ZELDA: Revisiting Ocarina of Time

Weird Times en la Weirdioteca

RIP PowerBook G3

THE AUDIO BOOK EXPERIMENT: Tips and Advice on How to Record Your First Audio Book

Getting Your Novel Done

Making Your Good Writing Great

Getting Your Screenplay Done

Writing the Sequel

Writing the Trilogy

No-No, Learn to Love the Rejection: Some Sage Advice for Writers in Search of an Agent or Publisher

The Story Behind Supermarket Zombies!

The Story Behind The Woman and the Dragon

Thursday, August 28, 2025

How I Got into the Films of John Cassavetes

I’m not sure I ever would have heard of or even been exposed to the films of John Cassavetes had I not attended Boston University. I believe it could have been my freshman year at the university and I remember walking into the main entrance of BU’s College of Communication building. There was a little display case in the entrance showcasing books that College of Communication professors had recently published. I remember seeing a big fat copy of Cassavetes on Cassavetes in this display case, which had recently been published by BU film professor Ray Carney.[i] I was very drawn to this book. There was a photo of John Cassavetes behind a film camera, so I knew the book was about a filmmaker, but I had never heard of this filmmaker before. I think part of what intrigued me was how fat the book was. I was wondering who this filmmaker was that somebody had written such a big book about (500 pages long).

Cassavetes on Cassavetes

As my time at BU progressed, I began hearing the name Cassavetes pop up here and there, mainly because America’s renown expert on Cassavetes (Carney) was the head of the film studies department at BU and I basically couldn’t help but NOT hear the name pop up. By my second semester sophomore year, I was in an introductory film course called UNDERSTANDING FILM. This course was not taught by Carney but by a professor who had been a former student of Carney’s and was kind of like his protégé. Although we didn’t watch any Cassavetes films in the class (looking back on this, I’m surprised that we never did), I do remember my professor devoting a class to Cassavetes’ filmmaking style, which he called “experiential cinema.” I had no idea what that meant at the time, but I think I do now. I think what he meant was that Cassavetes films were not interested in providing a mass audience “communal experience,” which is basically the goal of all Hollywood films. In fact, the goal of the Hollywood movie is to—generally speaking—serve a canned experience to an audience, one which most members of the audience will experience in a similar manner. You know: thriller, horror, comedy, drama … there may be some variation in which a viewer experiences the film, but the main goal is for everyone to enjoy the experience as a collective body. They laugh together, get scared together, get thrilled together, cry together, and then they can all talk about it at the water cooler on Monday morning.

Cassavetes films, however, are the complete opposite of this.

John’s work did something that no film had ever really done before and that was provide a non-communal experience, meaning each viewer mostly experiences the film in his or her own unique way. What one scene means to one person means something different to another person. Thus, an individualized experience is created, not a collective one. A person can watch a Cassavetes film and literally have an experience with that film that is completely unique, personal and intimate to them. Now, if you’re confused by what I mean when I say “intimate,” what I mean is that you basically engage in an intimate relationship with that film that nobody else is a part of. It’s just you and the film and the experience you have with one another. Then, of course, another viewer has their own relationship with the film that is different from your own and then another viewer has yet another unique, intimate relationship and so on and so forth. No one relationship is quite the same as another; they are all different, personal and, yes, intimate. If you really think about it, what is more American than that? Embracing the individual and NOT the collective. When it’s said that John Cassavetes is the godfather of American Independent Film, it couldn’t be more accurate, because his films were, indeed, so truly American.

So, yes, in short, “experiential” cinema meant that when you watched the film, you had a unique experience, one that didn’t leave you feeling like a member of a mass audience but, rather, left you feeling like an individual. Or, put another way, John’s films were one-on-one media, not mass media. I could not for the life of me understand this concept when I was a sophomore in college, but I was still so intrigued by Cassavetes and I wanted to begin watching his films.

I believe the very first Cassavetes film I ever saw was A Woman Under the Influence and that was probably a good film to start with. I remember that I was watching it in the basement of my house and my mom came downstairs to iron or something and caught one of the more dramatic scenes. She seemed riveted and said something along the lines of, “You know, there’s households out there that are really like that,” meaning dysfunctional and chaotic. At the time, I kind of scoffed and said, “Oh, silly mom,” she doesn’t get that there is something much deeper and smarter going on in the film, that there is something beyond the surface of it all, that Mabel “represents” something larger, that there’s some deep social commentary to be found in the film’s subtext. But that was me thinking I was Mr. Smarty Pants. I was used to seeing films and looking for deep messages and metaphors and I thought Cassavetes films must be much more than what they appeared to be. It wasn’t until years later that I realized I was being way too intellectual in my viewing of A Woman Under the Influence. What my mom got out of the film was what she was supposed to get out of the film. Cassavetes had realistically captured a complicated, at-times chaotic and often dysfunctional (yet loving) family in a completely riveting manner. I thought my mom was just looking at the surface of the film and not “getting it,” but what was there to get? Cassavetes wanted to capture the reality of a troubled marriage and imperfect family in its rawest form and he had successfully done it. Now, I can’t say that there AREN’T any metaphors, social commentaries or allegories in Cassavetes’ films (because I personally think there are some), but the point of watching a Cassavetes film is not to search for metaphor, decode social commentary and identify allegory. Above all else, the point is to experience the expression of human behavior, including how humans engage in complicated relationships with one another. My mom got this. I did not.

Gena Rowlands as Mabel in A Woman Under the Influence.

John Cassavetes filming Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence.

Other than A Woman Under the Influence, I, at a certain point, tried watching The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, but I remember that not going so well; I thought it was boring and I was disappointed that it wasn’t the Goodfellas-esque gangster film I thought it would be (today it’s ironically my personal favorite of the Cassavetes films—maybe not his best but a personal favorite). I’m not even sure I made it through the film. Instead, I went back to my viewing of more “conventional” movies like Hitchcock and Kubrick etc.

However, I still felt an attraction to Cassavetes. The Cassavetes on Cassavetes book was in the display case at the COM building entrance for maybe a couple years or so and it kept calling my name. I knew it wanted me to read it.

It wasn’t until the summer between my junior year and senior year at BU that I finally went to the Barnes & Noble in Kenmore Square and bought myself a copy of Cassavetes on Cassavetes. In fact, I think I had just completed an intensive round of summer school courses that ended in July and I had maybe a couple months of downtime before I resumed classes in the fall. I began reading Cassavetes on Cassavetes and I didn’t stop until I read all 500 pages of it. I don’t even think I watched the Cassavetes’ films along with the reading of the book. Reading the book was enough for me or all I wanted to do at the time. I found Cassavetes’ words so creatively inspiring. I can’t say that I owe it all to Cassavetes, but that summer marked a turning point in my life. What would happen on most of my summer vacations was that I would go into them with all these big plans of what I would do. You know, “I’m going to read this book and that book and … hmmm … maybe I’ll write a screenplay, maybe even write a book,” and then what would happen after a week or so would be that I’d get lazy, play video games, watch movies, TV, hang out with friends doing nothing all that productive (unless hanging out outside the local 7-Eleven is considered productive), and none of my big plans would come to fruition.

The summer between junior and senior year—the summer of 2003, to be exact—was very different. That was really the summer when I somehow found the self-discipline needed to become a writer. I also made a couple short films, nothing like Cassavetes’ work, by the way, but they were creative endeavors and my newfound creative drive was definitely driven by the reading of Cassavetes on Cassavetes and the inspiration it gave me. I was never the same person after the summer of 2003. My newfound self-discipline never went away and I still have it to this very day, more than 20 years later.

My personal copy of Cassavetes on Cassavetes that I still have today.

But, no, I didn’t watch any more Cassavetes films, even after reading Cassavetes on Cassavetes. The words of wisdom were enough. And I never took a class with Ray Carney while I was at BU. Why? Not sure. I guess I had other priorities at the time. Carney was teaching a Cassavetes course and I think, to be honest, I thought I was too dumb for it. Yes, I actually think I was afraid of the course. It felt intimidating to me. Besides, I wanted to take more film production courses and I also wanted to pull off an English minor, so I took a lot of literature courses and the Cassavetes class never became a priority for me.

It actually wasn’t until AFTER I graduated from BU that I got REALLY bit by the Cassavetes bug. It was either the end of 2004 or the beginning of 2005 (i.e. six months after graduating college) that I heard there was a box set of Cassavetes films being released by the Criterion collection. Criterion had the reputation of releasing some really good, high-quality DVDs. It looked like a nice box set with all sorts of extra features and I knew I had to get it. It was either for Christmas that year or for my birthday, which came a couple weeks later (on January 5^th) that I was gifted the box set of five Cassavetes films.

This was, in all seriousness, another life-changing moment.

I popped Cassavetes’ first film Shadows into my DVD player and I never looked back. Faces, A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Opening Night—I watched each of John’s films over and over again. I don’t know if it was divine timing or what, but I guess, for some reason, it was now the perfect time in my life to begin watching Cassavetes films. Up until that point, I had been exposed here and there to Cassavetes, in little bits and pieces, then I, of course, read the Ray Carney book, but now … NOW … it was apparently time for me to really do a deep dive into his work. Maybe I wasn’t ready for his films until that point in my life. Who knows?

I didn’t stop with the five films that were in the box set, either. On Amazon, I managed to find rare VHS copies of both Minnie and Moskowitz and Cassavetes’ last film Love Streams. I watched those over and over as well. Also, from my local library network, I was able to find a DVD copy of Husbands. Every night, I would confine myself to my bedroom, turn out the light, sometimes sip an adult beverage, sometimes not, and “escape” into the world of a Cassavetes film. And I put the word “escape” in quotes because it was really the opposite of escaping from reality … it was tuning into reality, the complete antithetical experience of what Hollywood movies do (i.e. provide you an escape from reality).

The Love Streams VHS.

The uniquely designed Canon Group VHS box for Love Streams.

The Minnie and Moskowitz VHS.
This film is hard to find in any other format as of 2025.

All of Cassavetes’ films were so different from what I was used to. Most Hollywood movies were “plot-driven,” but Cassavetes’ films were the most character-driven works, I think, in existence. In fact, ‘character-driven’ isn’t quite the correct term. I would say his films were more like ‘human-driven’, which was a radical departure from Hollywood where the “humans” in movies are more like dehumanized pawns strategically used to tell a good story … or, in other words, a means to an end. Cassavetes, however, apparently didn’t give a damn about entertaining an audience with a good story. All he cared about was capturing something truthful about human behavior and the human condition. The story didn’t dictate the human behavior; rather, it was the human behavior that dictated the story.

Now, many people (rightfully so) misconceive Cassavetes’ films as being “improvised” (maybe because a title card in Shadows says everything you are seeing is an improvisation), but the films are apparently all scripted and well-structured in their own unique, non-Hollywood way. They seem improvised because Cassavetes was so talented at capturing real human behavior on the written page. Of course, his scripts were by no means etched in stone. The actors—with the guidance of Cassavetes—were free to explore the complexities of their characters and alter their dialogue or actions as they saw fit.[ii] The script was always subject to changes, even during shooting (as you can see in the documentary I’m Almost Not Crazy) and was never bound by a tight plot.[iii] In fact, ‘plot’ was a dirty word. Reality was more important than plot, the latter of which, if you think about it, is really the opposite of reality; it’s un-reality.

Indeed, Cassavetes’ main interest lay in non-contrived reality while Hollywood was more interested in contrived character arcs, plot beats, Acts, well-established character conflicts, clear-cut character goals (the question ‘what does this character want?’ must be clear!) etc., all of which are elements of a false reality. Cassavetes wanted to deliver audiences from this Hollywood-induced unreality and reintroduce them to reality.

As for me, I apparently craved this reality. For a period of several months, Cassavetes’ films were my addiction. I literally could watch nothing BUT Cassavetes. Hollywood movies were suddenly so stupid to me, with one-dimensional characters or ‘types’ with canned emotions, Hollywood feeling, not real humanfeelings that you would experience in everyday life.

Out of all the Cassavetes films I watched, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie probably became my favorite; again, not because it was necessarily his best film but, for some reason, because it spoke to me the most. The Criterion DVD contained two different versions of this film and I watched both versions multiple times. That’s right: Cassavetes’ filmmaking was very explorational and his artistic vision was in a constant state of flux throughout the process of shooting a film and even throughout the process of editing it. If the editing process took him in a different direction from what he had in the initial script, well, he would simply go with it and pleasantly surprise himself with an end-product different from anything he had initially envisioned. If he wanted to explore two different creative pathways and end up with two versions of his films? Well, why not? Hollywood, of course, wouldn’t approve of this explorative process; they would want one version of the film finished on deadline, then they would promote the film, distribute the film, hope to make a lot of money off the film and on to the next. Cassavetes, however, seemed to like taking his time and the filmmaking process was more interesting to him than making an end-product that would hopefully be a “hit” (i.e. a financially successful movie). In this sense, he was the epitome of the anti-Hollywood filmmaker. His filmmaking style was unprecedented at the time, especially in America. He completely subverted the Hollywood model of what a movie should be.

Anyway, it sounds sappy, but I watched so many Cassavetes films over the course of about a year that it felt as though Cassavetes himself was holding my hand throughout this entire process, functioning as a kind of spirit guide, walking me through the spiritual experience of a lifetime.

Assisting with this “spiritual experience” were Ray Carney’s books on Cassavetes, my reading of which coincided with my viewing of the films. I re-read much of Cassavetes on Cassavetes, but I also read Carney’s book The Films of John Cassavetes: Pragmatism, Modernism and the Movies,[iv] a British Film Institute (BFI) published book called Shadows,[v] and a self-published book called John Cassavetes: The Adventure of Insecurity.[vi] Both the films of John Cassavetes and the writing of Ray Carney went hand-in-hand. Carney’s books were almost like an extension of the films themselves, meaning you got way more out of the viewing experience with his writing complementing it. Or, in other words, I guess what I’m saying is that Cassavetes and Carney were sort of a package deal.

The amazing thing (and what-I-deemed serendipitous at the time) was that Carney literally lived a mere five minutes away from me. One day in March 2005 (a good three months or so into my addiction to Cassavetes films), I was out walking my Bassett Hound Anthony just down the street from my house and I saw this man rolling down the street on his bike. As he came closer, he started looking familiar and then he waved, smiled and said ‘hello’. I suddenly realized, holy sh**, that was just Ray Carney! At the time, I had been drowning myself in all things Cassavetes, reading all things Carney as a kind of study aid to the films, and then, boom, there was the man himself riding right past me on his bike. It was so surreal. Too surreal. Serendipitous for sure.

I felt a strong pull to contact Mr. Carney, so the next day, I wrote Ray a letter and sent him a VHS copy of a short film I had made. A few days later, I received an email from him thanking me for the letter and he said he enjoyed the film and, more specifically, he said, “You leave people thinking.” Needless to say, getting a compliment like that (i.e. that my film was thought-provoking), from the guy who wrote Cassavetes on Cassavetes really made my day.

I emailed Ray back and forth and probably bothered the hell out of him because he was such a busy man, but he eventually invited me to sit in on his American Independent Film class at BU. So back to BU I went as a non-student and sat in on Carney’s class, but I don’t think he ever showed any Cassavetes films for the classes I had attended (I believe he taught a whole separate Cassavetes course during a different semester). For the next two months or so, I occasionally sat in on Carney’s classes, corresponded with him via email and very often crossed paths with the film scholar while he was biking.

Surprisingly, I can’t think of many occasions when Carney would mention Cassavetes or his work. I know he did a couple of times, but the filmmaker wasn’t discussed as much as you would think. We had interesting conversations, though, especially about the current state of film schools and how they had become kind of like trade schools that taught students how to achieve success in Hollywood, not places where students were taught to express themselves freely or even think freely.

In general, Ray was very encouraging, inspiring and supportive of my work. He would tell me things like, “Fight the culture of unreality!” and, “Work for truth!” and, “Don’t think, just do!” and, “Do your soul work!” (i.e. work that may not pay but that your soul needs you to do). Incidentally, Carney also gave me the filmmaker Richard Linklater’s email address. That was nice of him to do. Oh, and how could I forget the time when Ray came to see a play I was in called King of Hearts! He had very nice things to say about my performance (I played a deaf mute named Demosthenes). Again, Carney was very supportive and encouraging when it came to my creative endeavors.

Signed copy of Ray Carney's John Cassavetes: The Adventure of Insecurity.

A nice message from Ray Carney after I sat in on his class.
This is a signed copy of Ray Carney's self-published book of essays and interviews.

Another self-published book of Ray Carney essays/interviews signed by Carney.

A third book of Carney essays/interviews signed by Carney.

Years later, in the year 2020, right at the beginning of COVID, I re-read Cassavetes on Cassavetes and it was like I had never read it before. I found it just as inspiring and just as fascinating, maybe even more than I had when I first read the book.

In 2022, I made a point to rewatch many of Cassavetes’ films, which I hadn’t done in maybe a good 10 or maybe even 15 years. My experience watching them was a lot different this time around. I was older, had different life experiences under my belt and could identify with or simply appreciate things that I hadn’t appreciated before when I was younger.

Let me quickly give you a few examples of this:

The first example is in Faces where at least three scenes in that film reminded me of many late-night “after parties” I had gone to during my twenties and even early-thirties. You know what I mean: the kind of parties where you are out with friends at a bar, you meet up with some new girls and they invite you back over to their apartment to do more drinking and the night kind of turns into a hazy blur. During the course of the night, you try to win over the girl you want, but sometimes your friend is having better luck with this or vice versa and you kind of compete with each other or put on a show for the girls to try and impress them and whoever puts on the best show wins the girl over or so it seems at the time. This is what I saw happening with the scenes that take place at Jeannie’s house when Richard Forst and Freddie Draper are trying to win her over, then in a similar scene when Jim McCarthy is competing with Richard Forst to get Jeannie to like him, and also when the four ladies—Maria Forst, Louise, Billie Mae and “Florence from Torrance”—bring Chet (played by Seymour Cassel) back to their place after being out at Whisky a Go Go. In the latter scene, there are also interesting moments when Chet clearly is into one particular woman (Maria), but it’s Florence from Torrance who is the most into him and he politely ingratiates her with his attention but also tries to ditch her at the same time. There is even one moment when Chet is dancing with Florence but also nonchalantly leading her towards the door to the house, subtly (or perhaps not-so-subtly) trying to get her to leave so he can be alone with Maria. Again, these are all situations that reminded me of late-night “after-parties” that I had been to.

One of the "after-party" scenes in Faces.

The second example is something I identified with in Husbands and Love Streams. In both movies, Cassavetes plays a character that, at one point, tries to win over a girl who is playing hard to get; in Love Streams, it’s Robert Harmon trying to win over the nightclub singer Susan and in Husbands it’s Gus Demetri trying to win over Mary, a girl he picks up while carousing with the guys in London. When Robert and Gus do eventually win these girls over, they get cold, back off and run in the opposite direction. They are interested in the chase, but once they get their prize, they are no longer interested. Or maybe they only want what they can’t have and, after they get it, they don’t want it anymore. Or maybe they’re afraid of real relationships and once it seems like an actual relationship is being established, they get scared and back off. Or maybe, especially in the case of Gus, it’s part of a mid-life crisis and it’s his way of feeling young and free again, but once he feels like the woman likes him, then he no longer has any use for her, his ego has already been satiated. Whatever it is, both characters—Robert and Gus—don’t seem to really know what they want (i.e. do they or do they not want the girl?). This complex male psychology was certainly something I could identify with and I think it’s very common male behavior. It’s also something you would rarely find in a Hollywood movie because characters always have to know what they want. It’s pretty much the first rule of conventional screenwriting: figure out what your character wants, what their goal is.

Robert Harmon (Cassavetes) and Sarah Lawson (Rowlands) in Love Streams.

The movie poster for Husbands.

A third example is a bar scene that felt very familiar to me in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (the shorter 1978 version, that is). This is the scene early in the film when Cosmo has finally paid off his debts to the loan shark. He has a cab drive him to a local dive bar so he can grab a couple drinks to celebrate by himself. There is nothing overly revealing about this scene as far as plot goes. Cosmo basically walks in, orders a scotch ‘n water, dances around with himself a bit, then goes and plays a song on the jukebox, sits down and says to a random girl that he’s “got the world by the balls.” Again, not much plot going on, but the scene reminded me of moments I’ve had in my own life when I’m in a really good mood and I was also reminded of the few times that I’ve actually been out to a bar on my own. I have a good buzz going. I talk to random people. I’m in a good zone and actually feel like I got “the world by the balls.” Now, I’m not sure if this was the intention of the scene (i.e. to remind me the viewer of moments when I’ve drank by myself in a bar); there may have been some other purpose why Cassavetes wanted this scene in here, but, for me, it reminded me of drinking alone at a bar, having a great buzz going, celebrating something in my mind, and feeling like I have the world by the balls. That was my unique experience in watching that scene.

On a side (but also related) note, I should probably mention that one other thing that I became more consciously aware of while watching Cassavetes’ films this time around was how much drinking there actually is in them. Not to mention smoking, too. If you were to play a drinking game and take a sip of a drink every time a character lights up a cigarette and/or takes a drink or says, “I need a drink,” or asks, “Want a drink?” you would be absolutely plastered by about 20 minutes in and I’m not sure I’m even exaggerating. Cassavetes’ love of alcohol and cigarettes was certainly no secret, as it is proudly expressed in almost every frame of his films. Seriously, it’s hard to watch a Cassavetes movie without feeling hung over and like you need a shower to get the stench of cigarette smoke off yourself.

Anyway, I’m sure that, after another ten years or so, I will watch Cassavetes’ films again and identify with or appreciate or notice something completely different about them. That’s the beauty of his films. They never get old. You never get sick of them. And your viewing experience of them is never the same. It’s almost as though they are living, breathing entities, like perpetual-experience-machines or something, works of art that you never fully consume. I mean, there’s only so many times you can watch a movie like Star Warswithout having the feeling that you’ve had enough already. But Cassavetes films—no matter how many times you’ve watched them—always leave you with a new experience, even when you think you’ve experienced it all.

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