My first experience with something being très “meta” happened in the summer of 1978 when I wasn’t quite 14 years old yet, as my parents, my three siblings and I sat in my dad’s large, vintage Mercedes with the a/c blasting to avoid the scorching June Miami heat. My parents had decided to take the family to a drive-in movie—a first for us—on the opening night of John Travolta’s latest film, Grease. Fresh off his Academy Award-nominated role in Saturday Night Fever, Travolta fever was everywhere and my sisters (and maybe even my mom) weren’t immune from the actor’s considerable…
