Good questions -- to answer, the Ma. is short for Maria. In many
Latin countries, including the Philippines, Maria is a common middle
name. You'll often see names like Jose Maria in the credits for
Spanish and Mexican films as well. Maria is usually shortened to Ma.
As to Nashville, he had a friend named Gary Vaughn who was a part time
poster dealer who lived in Nashville. Gary agreed to open a Cinemonde
Nashville and funnel some of the profits from the business to Jose.
Unfortunately, I don't think there were a lot of profits but I had
been gone from the business by the time they set up the Nashville
operation so I don't know the whole story there.
Thanks for asking, Channing
On Apr 15, 2010, at 7:26 PM, Zeev Drach wrote:
Channing, thanks for the story.
Although I never met him(saw him once), I’ve heard a lot about Jose
Ma. Carpio over the years. Simply put, the guy has become a legend
in this hobby of ours.
(with such a flamboyant and mysterious name, he’s like our own
Keyser Soze). There are two questions that always intrigued me
about Jose, and you are probably the right person to ask:
1. Is Ma. A middle name? Inintials? Or short for something?
2. From having a Café in San Francisco, how does one jump to
Nashville TN in a quest to expand his poster business?
Zeev
From: MoPo List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
channinglylethomson
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 4:24 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [MOPO] Introducing Myself to the Group
4/15/2010
Dear Mopo Members --
I've had several discussion with people in MOPO about the various
members here. One thing that always comes up is that with some of
the anonymity of a group like this, we don't always find out a lot
about the other members and how they came to the hobby. I thought
I'd do a quick introduction (or reintroduction) here in case some of
the MOPO members don't know anything about me. I would like to hear
from others in the group as well if they are so inclined.
My name is Channing Thomson. I have lived in in San Francisco since
1979 and first got involved with the movie poster scene in 1983. At
that time, there was a cafe on Russian Hill (where I still live)
called Cafe Cinemonde. It was run by a Filipino man named Jose Ma.
Carpio. The theme of the cafe was Hollywood movies and the walls
were decorated with posters and lobby cards. At the time, VCRs
weren't prevalent in people's homes so he had a nightly schedule
where you could eat dinner, have a glass of wine or a beer, and
watch a movie on the cafe's Betamax! Jose also ran a movie poster
shop in San Francisco called Cinemonde Posters. In 1984 I quit my
job with Bank of America and started working with Jose as his store
manager. I was there from 1984 till 1994. It was an exciting time,
hiring on a few employees, having a sort of gallery on Polk Street,
converting to a computer inventory program on Mac (much of this with
the tremendous assistance of Kirby McDaniel of Movie Art/Austin).
We also were heavily involved with several of the first auctions of
movie posters at Camden House in LA, Sotheby's in New York, Odyssey
in Southern California, and Butterfields. Those were heady times as
posters for everything from Frankenstein to Metropolis to The Mummy
inevitably came through the doors. We also created about ten
catalogs over the years, fully illustrated and in color that were
collected all over the world. Some time I'll jot down some of the
prices we were asking and let you all salivate!
As with all great things, it inevitably came to an end. Jose tried
to expand the business with a separate site in Nashville, TN that
never really took off. For personal reasons, he moved to Camden,
Maine and basically dropped out of the business entirely passing
away prematurely last year. I left Cinemonde in 1994 and started my
own business online and have had an EBAY presence since 1997. It's
been a long interesting journey and I'm not quite sure were it will
end. . .
Thanks for reading, Channing
P.S. Other people's "stories" & introductions would interest me
immensely.
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