Ooh baby, baby…
I came from the turbulent sea, where whitecaps rocked our boat at all hours and the smell of decaying seafood forever scarred my nose hairs.
It was … what … yes, it was Penn Cove, and not the Bering Strait … it was still horrifying.
No, I’m not being a fancy lad … well, maybe a little bit … but I still have nightmares, thank you very much.
Back in 1994, when I fled the mussel rafts after multiple months of “learning about life,” the chance to work in a video store — especially a snug lil’ popcorn-scented joint like Videoville — was like gaining entrance to heaven itself.
VHS tapes crammed ceiling to floor, a movie on the TV screen, the smell of “butter” in the air, easy access to Reese’s Pieces … I was never leaving.
And I didn’t, for a very long time.
A year in the small house in which Videoville began, then another 11 in the “new store,” which introduced Cow Town to the concept of paying extra for your coffee thanks to Miriam’s Espresso.
The bigger store wasn’t quite as snug as the house, maybe, and the popcorn machine was replaced with a giant gumball dispenser.
But it also had three TV’s instead of one, so I could play Bugsy Malone and the ’70s version of Gone in 60 Seconds in surround-vision.
And I still got paid to stand around and scarf Reese’s Pieces and tell people they were missing out on the finer things in life if they didn’t accept Bottle Rocket as their true lord and savior.
While staying far, far away from the mussel rafts.
They will rock you.
Miriam Meyer, who was my boss from 1994-2006, was more than a boss.
She was a second mom, and she let me largely run wild, ordering movies that often had no business being on the shelf of a small-town video store.
Suicide Club. Shortbus. Ichi the Killer. Hands on a Hardbody. Doggy Poo.
The last one was a Korean animated short film about a pile of doggy doo-doo seeking inner peace and enlightenment. Seriously.
The first four? The one that sounds like porn (Hands) was completely not, while Shortbus was … an arthouse … film. Or something like that.
Videoville never had an X-rated section, but we did appeal to the higher-minded nudie lovers who wanted overly complex plots crafted by pretentious artistes.
We used to put little notes on movies sometimes to give customers at least a fighting chance to know they would be renting something likely to offend.
Or to allow me to rant and rave about the quality of small gems that otherwise would be invisible.
Love Serenade, where a weathered disc jockey transforms into a fish and swims away from a small-town love triangle.
Margaret’s Musuem, where a lonely woman collects “bit and pieces” of each dude who dies in the town’s coal mine.
Strictly Ballroom, a passionate ode to big hair and bigger dance moves.
Dead End Drive In, where teens are trapped in a Hellhole of endless junk food and junkier movies and can’t leave … and, wait, how is that a bad thing??
Basically, what I’m saying is my years in the video store biz are bathed in a hazy, golden nostalgia, and the mere smell of Reese’s Pieces makes me weep that one day I had to return to doing actual work.
Having busted my back as a landscaper, farm hand, booze pusher, dishwasher, onion chopper, and on other assorted gigs, writing ain’t that hard.
But it’s not video store life.
So, from time to time, I get caught up in the lure of recapturing the olden days and I amass movies in my duplex.
I’m doing it again, having gone from a couple of DVDs to 600+ and counting in the last week or two, thanks to people doing spring cleaning in a streaming world.
It begins … again.
Yes, it’s a slippery slope.
One day you have just The Abyss and Moulin Rouge, and the next you wake up to find the back bedroom turned into a shrine to my Reese’s-scented days.
My sister and landlord shake their heads, while my youngest nephews, who weren’t around in the video store days, are captivated by this reoccurring burst of mania.
“You should get VHS, too, Uncle David!! Be a real hoarder!!! I mean … history preserver.”
And then they giggle as their mom shoots them an arched eyebrow and they return to looking on Ebay for cheaply priced mystery boxes of movies they can buy me for my upcoming birthday.
I hope…
Want to beat them to the punch?
I’m taking in all your tired, your poor, your huddled masses of DVD (not VHS!) yearning to breathe free and have a forever home with a view of Penn Cove.
The address: 165 Sherman, Coupeville, WA, 98239. There’s a porch in front and another in back, just waiting for your drop-offs.
Or find me, or my dark green, dirt splattered Xterra, at a CHS baseball or softball game this spring and take me back to my golden days.
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