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Speaker 1: Ephemeral as a protection of My Heart Radio. Last episode,

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Speaker 1: we trace the rise and fall of the video rental

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Speaker 1: store with Dan Herbert, a professor of media studies at

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Speaker 1: the University of Michigan and author of the book Video

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Speaker 1: Land Movie Culture at the American Video Store. Today, we're

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Speaker 1: going to take our own field trip to an independent

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Speaker 1: video store that, despite the ever changing media market, has

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Speaker 1: continued to thrive in its local community. Later, the Ephemeral

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Speaker 1: team will chat with two of our favorite podcast hosts,

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Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum and any Reese of the podcast Saver about

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Speaker 1: some of our best video store memories. But first, a

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Speaker 1: few more words from Dan on the ephemeral experience of

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Speaker 1: selecting a movie from a wall of titles. One of

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Speaker 1: the things that I think was awesome about video stores

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Speaker 1: is that they put things into shelves and aisles, and

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Speaker 1: that those shelves and aisles had a logic that spatialized

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Speaker 1: a bunch of notions about taste and value related to movies.

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Speaker 1: What I mean by that is that they put labels

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Speaker 1: on them, like action or adventure, or romance or horror.

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Speaker 1: Different stores created these categories to lump movies together, and

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Speaker 1: they put that into a physical space or there was

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Speaker 1: a physical space associated with that category, just the same

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Speaker 1: way you walk down an aisle in a grocery store

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Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, this is the space with baby

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Speaker 1: food and baby diapers, and now there's pet toys. What's

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Speaker 1: that about. I just think that, like, retail spaces are

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Speaker 1: really interesting in general, and video stores were interesting because

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Speaker 1: of the way they plumped things together that the corporate

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Speaker 1: stores like Hollywood in Blockbuster. Generally, those stores put things

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Speaker 1: into very broad, generic categories because those stores were really

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Speaker 1: driven by new releases, so the biggest section of the

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Speaker 1: store was not based on a genre or a commonality

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Speaker 1: among the movies, but rather the temporality of the release.

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Speaker 1: The kind of broad categories found at a corporate store

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Speaker 1: imply a kind of openness and a kind of democratic

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Speaker 1: attitude toward individual taste. That you didn't have to know

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Speaker 1: much about a movie, or about the history of movies,

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Speaker 1: or about film art or aesthetics to figure out where

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Speaker 1: you should be in the store to get what you want.

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Speaker 1: And then with independence stores you find all sorts of

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Speaker 1: quirky categories. Sometimes these are kind of because the person

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Speaker 1: is educated about film history and film art. Sometimes it's

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Speaker 1: just because there was like a quirky video store owner. Right,

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Speaker 1: So like various small town stores had these great sections

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Speaker 1: like movies with people with mustaches or like bald in

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Speaker 1: times days movies, so like a subcategory of romances. Right,

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Speaker 1: Whereas the corporate store had everything in these big umbrellas.

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Speaker 1: The independent stores generally find more sections and more kind

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Speaker 1: of fine grained criteria for putting movies together. And then

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Speaker 1: there's those stories that really went to town being very

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Speaker 1: particular about why some movies were in some sections. And

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Speaker 1: they have tons and tons of sections, so it's not

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Speaker 1: just a matter of putting things into like documentary, but

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Speaker 1: you have sub sections for historical documentary, political documentary, concert films,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. And then foreign films might be divided by country,

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Speaker 1: by director, or by both. Right, those kinds of stores

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Speaker 1: display in physical space a kind of more formally educated

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Speaker 1: approach toward film, not necessarily a better education, just a

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Speaker 1: more formally trained It's like, oh, somehow we should all

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Speaker 1: think about where a movie came from, what country, and

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Speaker 1: we should all think about what director. That isn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: the case, but if you've been to film school, that

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Speaker 1: is the case. So those stores are a little i

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Speaker 1: would say, less democratic, because you can't navigate those spaces

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Speaker 1: unless you know one that directors matter and that countries matter,

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Speaker 1: and two you have to kind of have a more

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Speaker 1: kind of intellectual rather than emotional approach towards selection, meaning

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Speaker 1: that it's like, Okay, if I want to feel scared

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Speaker 1: at eight thirty PM, that might mean me actually going

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Speaker 1: to the documentary section or getting something by Louis Bunuell.

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Speaker 1: Those are the three categories. Is like the corporate store

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Speaker 1: with its bland, general, emotion driven generic categories, the indie

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Speaker 1: stores that were often quirky and had more sections, and

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Speaker 1: those sections often revealed kind of the odd ball thinking

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Speaker 1: of the individual owners. And then there's those specialty stores

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Speaker 1: that really did organize things according to a very kind

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Speaker 1: of formal and formally edging hated approach toward film history

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Speaker 1: and film art. But everything came to a head at

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Speaker 1: the checkout counter. Rather than appearing like a movie concession stand,

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Speaker 1: early video store checkout counters like look like hardware repair shops,

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Speaker 1: because that's really what they were doing, is they were

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Speaker 1: they were renting these tapes and these VCRs with three

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Speaker 1: paid rentles from Blockbuster Video, get a free to linear

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Speaker 1: bottle of diet Coca Cola, and then you have Blockbuster

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Speaker 1: and other stores like that really did transform the checkout

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Speaker 1: counter into a movie concession stand. So you weren't just

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Speaker 1: getting the movie, but you know all of the kind

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Speaker 1: of things that we attached to movie consumption from movie theaters,

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Speaker 1: you know, candy, soda, whatever, things like that. The checkout

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Speaker 1: counter is this kind of amazing space in general because

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Speaker 1: all of that contemplation, wandering, browsing, selecting, discussing, all that

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Speaker 1: gets kind of condensed down to this business transaction at

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Speaker 1: the counter. Right, So on the one hand, there's the clerk,

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Speaker 1: and maybe the clerk is somebody that you would talk

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Speaker 1: to and make recommendations back and forth. Maybe the clerk

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Speaker 1: isn't that kind of person. But in the end, it's

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Speaker 1: a business transaction. It can be fraud because it is

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Speaker 1: a business transaction, like do I have late fees? Right,

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Speaker 1: Like the number of times people are surprised by having

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Speaker 1: late fees or feigned surprised by having late fees like

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Speaker 1: oh no, I had no idea, And then the bizarre

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Speaker 1: negotiation that would happen between the clerk and the customer

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Speaker 1: of like, well, you owe thirty bucks, but I guess

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Speaker 1: you know I can. I can let you off for fifteen.

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Speaker 1: It's like, what do you mean you're gonna let me off?

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Speaker 1: You're not a cop? And who determined like the value

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Speaker 1: of a late movie anyway, Like there's no fixed price

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Speaker 1: on on latenus. I mean there is at the store,

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Speaker 1: but it's still such a strangely ephemeral or bendable kind

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Speaker 1: of thing here in Atlanta to We're fortunate to have

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Speaker 1: Video Drone, a rental house that's continuously operated since. Videodrome

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Speaker 1: exemplifies much of what Dan values about the in store

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Speaker 1: rental experience. It's a place that has something to offer

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Speaker 1: anyone that walks through its doors, and has been able

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Speaker 1: to adapt to two decades of change, including weathering a

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Speaker 1: global pandemic. Inside, you'll find a vibrant culture of people

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Speaker 1: from all walks of life seeking out about film, with

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Speaker 1: stacks of DVDs in their arms. Owner Matt Booth and

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Speaker 1: the proprietors of Videodrome were gracious enough to invite us

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Speaker 1: to chat about their history, take a look around, and

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Speaker 1: point microphones at unsuspecting customers. I'd like to just collect

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Speaker 1: and watch as much as I can, especially during quarantine,

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Speaker 1: and there's a lot of stuff that isn't online, and

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Speaker 1: video Drome has been like the only source I could

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Speaker 1: find for so much stuff. There's this myth that like

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Speaker 1: in the age of the Internet, like you have access

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Speaker 1: to everything, but it's not. It's just somewhere between thirty

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Speaker 1: and forty thousand movies. And like if you take Netflix, Hulu,

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Speaker 1: Amazon and combine their entire just film libraries, not counting

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Speaker 1: the television, I think it edges out to like nine

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Speaker 1: or ten thousand. My name is Ian Deaton. I'm a

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Speaker 1: low budget film composer, and I also work part time

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Speaker 1: a video drme, drabbing things off the shop that we

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Speaker 1: would have never found. Especially I'm like a big like

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Speaker 1: horror and exploitation fan, and that's probably one of the

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Speaker 1: most like lost genres of film. Like you could probably

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Speaker 1: find like things that are considered like classics, but like

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Speaker 1: you can't find most of them unless you like either

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Speaker 1: buy a physical copy from someone for like a hundred

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Speaker 1: dollars or just come here. You know that amped up

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Speaker 1: a lot during quarantine. I moved back to Atlanta from

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Speaker 1: Athens in now would come probably like twice a month

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Speaker 1: whenever I could get down here, like I would try

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Speaker 1: to just like walk around at least brows because I've

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Speaker 1: never seen something so detailed and cataloged. It was enthralling.

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Speaker 1: Any kind of physical storefront in like this era is

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Speaker 1: kind of like practicing a traditional routine in a weird way,

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Speaker 1: especially something like a video store. It's like a reflection

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Speaker 1: of something maybe people associate with the past, but like

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Speaker 1: actually has a lot of usefulness. It's just fun. It's

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Speaker 1: like and then the conversations you have, you know, it's great.

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Speaker 1: Another thing I'll say is that coming over here and

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Speaker 1: just being able to talk with some of the staff

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Speaker 1: while I like brows has been a welcomed human interaction,

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Speaker 1: just like being inside all the time. It's like around people,

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Speaker 1: it's just like but it's just so relaxed and like,

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Speaker 1: I'm not even the number one fan in my friend group.

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Speaker 1: It's Dan Clifford. He paid someone to do an embroidery

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Speaker 1: of their low Go for a Christmas president room sweet Drome.

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Speaker 1: So I mean, he'll probably come in today, usually comes

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Speaker 1: in on Friday. So I think the most important thing

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Speaker 1: is curators, like because that's what this story is even

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Speaker 1: though it's there's an insane amount of films and television

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Speaker 1: shows in here, Matt and everybody else that works here,

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Speaker 1: because it's kind of like a collective, we really try

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Speaker 1: to curate this stuff. That's one of the reasons why

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Speaker 1: it's split into all these crazy sections and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: All of us that work here have Hulu and Net.

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Speaker 1: It's not like we're opposed to that. We want to

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Speaker 1: see the films, however, then we can get our grubby

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Speaker 1: little hands on it, and this just happens to be

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Speaker 1: the most direct way to do it. A lot of

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Speaker 1: times you get weird information you didn't know before that

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Speaker 1: you're not necessarily Like if you pull up Rolling Thunder

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Speaker 1: on Netflix, it's not going to tell you that Paul

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Speaker 1: Trader was unemployed for six months and an alcoholic and

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Speaker 1: almost got kicked out of his house and got fired

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Speaker 1: by Pauline while he was writing the movie. And that's

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Speaker 1: why it's so you know what I'm saying, like, don't

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Speaker 1: learn stuff like that. And we also have a lot

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Speaker 1: of people that work part time on and off in

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Speaker 1: the film industry that work here, like Tommy has done

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Speaker 1: construction on sets, Donnie barely comes here anymore because he's

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Speaker 1: a full time editor on television shows and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: I worked as a p A and a camera p

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Speaker 1: A for like years until it bashed my childhood dreams

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Speaker 1: into nothing and I had to run away screaming to

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Speaker 1: this wonderful place where movies are real. And yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: there's other stories too, but but it's nice because we

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Speaker 1: get to like kind of bring that kind of stuff

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Speaker 1: into the store to talk to the customs about. And

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Speaker 1: most importantly, everybody, I think most of the people that

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Speaker 1: will actually sit and talk to you have a basic

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Speaker 1: love of cinema and most importantly storytelling. It's extremely important

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Speaker 1: to all cultures and always has been. And if you

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Speaker 1: look back, there's even examples in like I don't know,

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Speaker 1: I want to say thousands or twelve hundred in the

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Speaker 1: Middle East where they were doing projected plays with candlelight

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Speaker 1: and like stuff like that, like literally proto cinema, like

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Speaker 1: a long time ago. And it's like it's obvious that

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Speaker 1: this ritual of human beings sitting around some kind of

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Speaker 1: white to tell them a story, whether that's a someone

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Speaker 1: speaking or behind a screen or on the stage or

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Speaker 1: what you know, it's like it just keeps coming up

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Speaker 1: over and over again. We can't seem to shake that

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Speaker 1: mode of people sitting around telling us something about ourselves.

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Speaker 1: I know it's I'm going way out there, but but

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Speaker 1: but still it is important. And I've recognized that so

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Speaker 1: many times working here, I'm like, where is the common

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Speaker 1: denominator between all this? And it's like, oh, yeah, when

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Speaker 1: I was five and my grandpa tells me a creepy

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Speaker 1: story about when he thought he saw a UFO, you know,

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Speaker 1: standing in front of the fire, it's literally the same

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Speaker 1: same thing. I just loved DVDs. I know it's silly

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Speaker 1: and everybody's gone to streaming and all this other kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff, But to me, this is like opening a book,

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Speaker 1: holding a book in your hand. You're you've got the

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Speaker 1: DVD and it's I don't know, it's just something special,

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Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Then everything else, it's truly

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Speaker 1: stringing string passion. And besides, these guys are fantastic. They

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Speaker 1: know every movie ever made, every everything. If there's anything

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Speaker 1: you want to know, I mean, they know it so

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Speaker 1: and to me that just means a lot. I come

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Speaker 1: once a week, truly, because I don't always know what

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Speaker 1: I want to watch me be able to browse the

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Speaker 1: shelves is exciting and honestly, talking to these guys are

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Speaker 1: always recommended me something that somebody who thinks that I

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Speaker 1: know a lot about movies, then you come here and

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Speaker 1: you realize you know, the diverse uh stuff that they

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Speaker 1: know about and recommend is just it just makes it

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Speaker 1: better than than any other options, you know, streaming or otherwise.

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Speaker 1: So I'm Dan, Dan, your reputation preceded you. They were

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Speaker 1: talking about you before you got That's very cool. I'm

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Speaker 1: very excited about that. I've been coming here for a year.

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Speaker 1: On a is my one year anniversary of coming here

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Speaker 1: every week. Because they gave him a rental history a

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Speaker 1: while back and I was like, I don't want to

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Speaker 1: find out what the like the exact day is. This

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Speaker 1: is the best story in the damn world. It's like

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Speaker 1: the only space sale on myself to go to. I

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Speaker 1: really don't like algorithms is one part of it, but

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Speaker 1: like this store. What's great about it is like they'll

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Speaker 1: give you off the wall recommendations about something that you'll

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Speaker 1: never even think to look for. You can dig really

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Speaker 1: deep in an obscure sub genre in a way that

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Speaker 1: you can't even via streaming, Like we watched fifty three

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Speaker 1: Hong Kong movies this summer or something. We were able

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Speaker 1: to because of these guys. You know, they know that

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Speaker 1: Hong Kong section is a legendary. It's just the the

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Speaker 1: ability to like drill down into a sub genre or

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Speaker 1: get something completely random that generally speaking isn't on streaming.

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Speaker 1: You know, the knowledge base of like what like twenty

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Speaker 1: years of collecting is unparalleled. It's hard for me to

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Speaker 1: put into word, frankly, how much I like this place.

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Speaker 1: Then I want to point out, because the microphone doesn't

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Speaker 1: capture this, that you're wearing a video drum mask. Uh,

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Speaker 1: I'm not wearing one video drumask. I'm wearing two and

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Speaker 1: the Ladies snowblood shirt. I figure I look like the

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Speaker 1: picture of the client going a cassette tape earring too.

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Speaker 1: It just it all tracks. I'm well, And you've been

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Speaker 1: coming here for what like the last year, You've been

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Speaker 1: coming longer I've been coming before, Like we had our

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Speaker 1: pretty much day to day ritual. Um, yeah, probably about

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Speaker 1: two or three years now. Yeah. Yeah, there's a Hollywood

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Speaker 1: video on Highway forty one. Thought we would go to it.

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Speaker 1: Was pretty big. It's now an auto zone. I think

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Speaker 1: that's much more exciting. Yeah, and then there was like

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Speaker 1: a really strange I feel like I just remember the

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Speaker 1: smell where it wasn't it doesn't smell like mothballs would

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Speaker 1: have just smelled very like dingy. And that one was

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Speaker 1: closer to us, but we didn't go there as often.

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Speaker 1: It was as much smaller, but I don't remember the

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Speaker 1: name of it. I think it was just like independently owned.

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Speaker 1: I also went to school in Athens, so I went

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Speaker 1: to Vision Video and Athen's a bunch and that kind

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Speaker 1: of like that's howaing what got me into watching movies

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Speaker 1: was going to Vision Video. What are you gonna rent today?

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Speaker 1: You have any idea? No? No, That's why I came

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Speaker 1: in here all excited. Cond there's unlimited possibilities. So far.

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Speaker 1: I have Night of the Demon from seven haven't seen it.

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Speaker 1: I'm very excited. And then recommendation from him was Rolling Thunder,

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Speaker 1: Paul Schrader. I love Paul Schrader. Mishima first reformed. He

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Speaker 1: wrote Taxi driver, you know, and Flash Gordon smooth talk.

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Speaker 1: A lot of stuff that I haven't seen that I

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Speaker 1: feel like I should have seen already mixed with a

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Speaker 1: new release let him Go, because I'll admit to me

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Speaker 1: and like Kevin Costner fanboy, we're looking for something very doom,

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Speaker 1: so we might get Freddie Got Fingered or Encino Man

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Speaker 1: because we just got vaccinated, so we're trying to watch

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Speaker 1: something as stupid as possible. Today, I'm actually buying a

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Speaker 1: VHS tapes are producer Tremor. I found a lovely copy

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Speaker 1: of Pink Floyds at the wall. Dude, I've seen that.

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Speaker 1: Just my dad has an Yeah, I could not pass

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Speaker 1: at up. How do you pick something? I mean, you

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Speaker 1: just divine it. You hear about stuff naturally. It just

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Speaker 1: just like advertisments and everything else. But a lot of

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Speaker 1: times this can't sound silly, but I just walked in

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Speaker 1: and whatever jumps out at me, and usually that's better

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Speaker 1: than what I had heard or planned on getting. To

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Speaker 1: begin with, my name is Matt Booth. I'm known or

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Speaker 1: video drum moved Atlanta, n I kind of worked in

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Speaker 1: video stores on and off in high school, and I

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Speaker 1: didn't really have a lot of job opportunities after college,

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Speaker 1: and I just started picking up shifts at a video

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Speaker 1: store that at that time it was called Video Update,

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Speaker 1: and it was at real Mall, which is doesn't exist anymore.

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Speaker 1: It was a kind job where people came and go

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Speaker 1: a lot, so if you just showed up on time,

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Speaker 1: you became the manager pretty quickly. And I got moved

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Speaker 1: over to the little Five Points location. I wasn't the

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Speaker 1: head person that store, but I was a manager, and

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Speaker 1: I just got to know people in the neighborhood and

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Speaker 1: realized it was a kind of neighborhood that like people

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Speaker 1: were looking for more than just what corporate stores were,

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Speaker 1: and that was like the heyday video stores. That was

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Speaker 1: like nice six nine seven. They were so common at

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Speaker 1: that time. That's the only way people got entertainment on

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Speaker 1: Friday and Saturday besides going to the movie, So it

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Speaker 1: didn't seem ridiculous to open another video store. I had

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Speaker 1: a friend at the time who also worked at the

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Speaker 1: Store's name was Jeff Sutton, and we just started looking

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Speaker 1: for locations, and we convinced the landlord here too in

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Speaker 1: the summer to let us have this space. And we

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Speaker 1: took a combination of our own VHS collections and what

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Speaker 1: we kind of drove around and scavenged how to do

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Speaker 1: amount of money to put some orders in and started

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Speaker 1: the store with the maybe like five HS. There's been

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Speaker 1: a lot of changes in this industry, so we were

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Speaker 1: all VHS and we moved to DVD slowly, and now

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Speaker 1: we're kind of moving to Blu ray and there's been

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Speaker 1: some kind of lost formats in between two. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Blu Ray's working really well. It's a really good Format's

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Speaker 1: got tons of great companies played out, really special editions

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Speaker 1: of things, perfect restorations. It's a really impressive kind of format.

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Speaker 1: So I'm hoping it's days. I mean, we've had our

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Speaker 1: ups and downs too. I mean, and we started, like

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Speaker 1: I said, we were more of like alternative to the

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Speaker 1: corporate store, so we were concentrating on the genres. We

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Speaker 1: liked Italian horror and Hong Kong movies and anime and like,

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Speaker 1: we had new releases, but they were just like the

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Speaker 1: indie stuff for the foreign stuff. We didn't mess with

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Speaker 1: big Hollywood releases at all. As we became the last

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Speaker 1: video store, we've become more mainstream in a way, and

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Speaker 1: we get kind of something for everybody. And our selection

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Speaker 1: really just evolved with our customer base what they're looking for,

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Speaker 1: and with our employees what they're asking for. Our customers

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Speaker 1: are really knowledgeable. They fill us in all the time

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Speaker 1: on things that if we miss it, they loves, and

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Speaker 1: I put a great stock in like personal recommendations. So

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Speaker 1: for me sitting around and talking to customers all day

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Speaker 1: about what they're watching, what they like, they've turned me

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Speaker 1: onto so much stuff. You know, it's not just me

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Speaker 1: turning some o the things. We have a new a

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Speaker 1: new release Fall and you know that does have new

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Speaker 1: movies that you categorize as things that just came out

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Speaker 1: on DVD and Blu Ray, and it also has a

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Speaker 1: lot of like special releases, special editions of things that

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Speaker 1: are new to Blu Ray for the first time, So

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Speaker 1: it has a lot of older movies on it, but

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Speaker 1: it's the first time they've been on Blue Ray or whatever.

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Speaker 1: And then if you move along the store, we have

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Speaker 1: an anime section from Japanese animation to adult swim to

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Speaker 1: like theatrical animated features. A TV section over in that corner.

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Speaker 1: That's one thing that's really changed since we've been opened.

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Speaker 1: TV was terrible when we first started, and now that

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Speaker 1: whole genre has gotten better. And then it kind of

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Speaker 1: moves into some foreign stuff. We have like a Scandinavian section,

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Speaker 1: Eastern European, German, Spanish, South American, Central American, Italian, big

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Speaker 1: French section with some of the big French directors carved

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Speaker 1: out sort of kids section, and above that there's like

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Speaker 1: a young adult section that has like the Harry Potter

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Speaker 1: and Star Wars and that kind of stuff too. And

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Speaker 1: then when you go around in that corner, they'll be

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Speaker 1: like a Japanese section, which is sort of mainstream Japanese movies,

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Speaker 1: and then the classic Japanese section that has more like Curasawa,

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Speaker 1: and then a bunch of Samurai and kind of Chuza movies.

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Speaker 1: Southeast Asia some of the countries that don't have a

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Speaker 1: ton of movies, but we have a half a shelf

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Speaker 1: or so of each of those. Yeah, yeah, Taiwan is big.

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Speaker 1: Now there's a bunch of great Taiwanese films. China with

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Speaker 1: big Hong Kong section nineties. Hong Kong cent is one

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Speaker 1: of the favorite like genres of our store. So then

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Speaker 1: there's some generic kind of comedy, British drama, action, thriller.

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Speaker 1: We have an eighty section with a bunch of eighties favorites.

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Speaker 1: We call it we keep wanting to a ninety section,

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Speaker 1: but there's no room right now. But we're getting to that.

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Speaker 1: We only have room for about forty five thousand movies

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Speaker 1: in this whole story, and some of that it's multiples

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Speaker 1: of certain you know, we might have five copies of

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00:21:22,119 --> 00:21:24,600
Speaker 1: certain things. So that's actually one of the things we're

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Speaker 1: doing now to make more room for Blu Ray. We

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Speaker 1: have about seventy rays right now. We're going back pulling

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Speaker 1: some DVDs that we had three and four copies of that.

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00:21:32,520 --> 00:21:34,399
Speaker 1: We don't need three and four DVDs of that anymore,

395
00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:37,480
Speaker 1: dropping down to one or two. We just only have

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00:21:37,560 --> 00:21:39,680
Speaker 1: the shell space for a certain amount of movies. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's usually anywhere between forty and forty thousand. You want

398
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Speaker 1: to see the stacks are a little type back here, um,

399
00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:53,800
Speaker 1: but you can see the numbers back here. They go

400
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Speaker 1: somewhere into the thirty thousand. Back here. We have different

401
00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:01,080
Speaker 1: color codes for differ tags for us that we can

402
00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:04,840
Speaker 1: organize it a certain way. It's a labyrinth of shelves basically,

403
00:22:04,960 --> 00:22:11,000
Speaker 1: so we had to add rolling shelves. Um add shelves

404
00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:13,080
Speaker 1: on top of shelves. I don't know. It's just a

405
00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:15,399
Speaker 1: system to get as made distant here as possible. They

406
00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:18,680
Speaker 1: originally built the whole vhs. The newer shelves stock to

407
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:21,320
Speaker 1: be is big because they hold DVDs and blue rays.

408
00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:23,879
Speaker 1: And then you've just got every title in like a

409
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:28,280
Speaker 1: generic case with like a serial number you made up

410
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:31,920
Speaker 1: in the title of the movie, like handwritten on the outside. Yeah,

411
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 1: it's not the dewy desibl system. It's basically every movie

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Speaker 1: in the order that we got it, essentially that it

413
00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:41,240
Speaker 1: came into the store. Yeah. I when're talking about new movies,

414
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:43,280
Speaker 1: like this is the desk, that's small desk we used

415
00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 1: to work on stuff. This is the movies that come

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Speaker 1: out next week. And you've got your glamorous shout of

417
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Speaker 1: Tommy why so looking over you know he was here

418
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 1: one time he signed his movie for us. Yeah, this

419
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:58,159
Speaker 1: is where we've been collecting vhs that we sell. I

420
00:22:58,320 --> 00:23:01,520
Speaker 1: like set up appointments with people coming by vhs sometimes

421
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:04,200
Speaker 1: or we have it for We've had some vhs like

422
00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:07,240
Speaker 1: events where we've sold vhs at events for us that

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Speaker 1: we just want to be a part of the community.

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00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:10,040
Speaker 1: We want to be part of the film community. We

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00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:11,840
Speaker 1: like to put on screenings. We have to do events

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00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 1: at like bars and restaurants. We like to have people

427
00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:16,760
Speaker 1: in the store, and as long as we have customers

428
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:22,040
Speaker 1: and they're into us, will be here essentially the past.

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00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:28,560
Speaker 1: Oh my god, are you for real? Dude? I love

430
00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:34,119
Speaker 1: your podcast just like, wait, holy I was just on Ephemeral,

431
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:38,800
Speaker 1: but you will be I was literally like two days

432
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 1: ago looking up to see if y'all were doing new stuff.

433
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:43,280
Speaker 1: I mean, like, I feel like I just walked on

434
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:45,680
Speaker 1: the set of a One Car one movie accidentally, or

435
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:51,280
Speaker 1: some like wow and see, oh man, that's another extremely

436
00:23:51,480 --> 00:24:06,639
Speaker 1: stupid movie. Yeah. In preparation for this pair of episodes,

437
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:09,639
Speaker 1: we wanted to talk with friends who also came of

438
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:13,119
Speaker 1: age in the heyday of the American video store. Here,

439
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:17,360
Speaker 1: Annie Reese of the podcasts Savor and Stuff, Mom Never

440
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:21,280
Speaker 1: Told You and Lauren Vogelbaum of Saver and brain Stuff

441
00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 1: join Ephemerald producers Trevor Young, Max Williams, and myself for

442
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:30,920
Speaker 1: a roundtable discussion on growing up with movie stores. First

443
00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:32,639
Speaker 1: of all, and I told some friends of mine that

444
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:35,399
Speaker 1: we were doing this who were older than me. They

445
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:38,200
Speaker 1: were like, you don't know video stores? Did you have vhs?

446
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:41,640
Speaker 1: Like I love that level of like automatic, you're too

447
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:46,720
Speaker 1: young for that. But my family, we did love movies,

448
00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 1: and my dad especially like he even taught a movie class.

449
00:24:49,400 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 1: And when I went to college, once a month he

450
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:54,119
Speaker 1: would send me a box of movies to watch. And

451
00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 1: when movie stores came out, when I remember going to them.

452
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:04,760
Speaker 1: First I was elementary school and every Friday we would

453
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 1: get either pizza or Chinese food. And then I have

454
00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:11,679
Speaker 1: two brothers and we have a very contentious competitive relationship

455
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:16,399
Speaker 1: with each other, and usually one of us got to

456
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: choose the movie. Sometimes it was two and sometimes it

457
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 1: was a video game. And I grew up in a

458
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:24,359
Speaker 1: really small town, so there was an option in town

459
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 1: that was like fifteen minutes away, or there was a Blockbuster,

460
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:31,359
Speaker 1: which was bigger and had more options thirty minutes away.

461
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:33,119
Speaker 1: So we usually did that only once a month, and

462
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 1: we we typically went to the one in town which

463
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:37,920
Speaker 1: had I love it. It was like a year behind

464
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:41,119
Speaker 1: and everything, and they only had one copy of everything.

465
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:45,920
Speaker 1: So like you at Blockbuster, in my experience, it would

466
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 1: have like a copy of the DVD would bring up

467
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 1: to check out right this place in my town, which

468
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: I don't remember the name of, but it was just

469
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 1: this really small hole in the wall. You would get

470
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:57,920
Speaker 1: like these little coins. You'd get them off the wall

471
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:01,640
Speaker 1: and there's only one for every movie or every video game,

472
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 1: and you would take it up to to check it out.

473
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:08,200
Speaker 1: And it was the most exciting, like competitive, like you'd

474
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 1: see somebody else going for a movie I don't know

475
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:14,399
Speaker 1: you would go for, especially because everything was a year behind,

476
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 1: so there were certain titles that were just really in demand.

477
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:23,440
Speaker 1: And I loved it. I loved the excitement of that

478
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: sitting around on a Friday night with my family and

479
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:28,920
Speaker 1: we would demo lights and we would eat whatever, like

480
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 1: pizza or Chinese food. And even if I like, for instance,

481
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:35,760
Speaker 1: my older brother loves star check and I was afraid

482
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 1: of aliens, I think he would always get star check

483
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: movies like even that I would I would let it settle.

484
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:42,720
Speaker 1: I would let him win, and we would try to

485
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:47,639
Speaker 1: enjoy this experience together. That was very exciting to me

486
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:51,200
Speaker 1: as a child of like this new movie. I can't go.

487
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:53,800
Speaker 1: We can't afford to go to the movies the theater

488
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 1: all the time, but we can do this and it

489
00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 1: was really special to me. Do you ever like getting

490
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: certain he's a year late and like like to get

491
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 1: a I don't know the matrix in like two thousand

492
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: three or something. I actually have a very specific memory

493
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:13,119
Speaker 1: of the Matrix. Yes. The funny part is my hometown

494
00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: also didn't have a movie theater, except they had like

495
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 1: a historic theater that was usually used for plays, but

496
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 1: they also got movies a year late. So it's like

497
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:26,480
Speaker 1: the whole town was kind of isolated in that way.

498
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:29,920
Speaker 1: So if you stayed in the bubble, no one knew

499
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 1: what happened. At the end of the Matrix. I was surprised.

500
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 1: I was surprised about what happened in fight Club. But

501
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 1: once a month we did go to Blockbuster, and that

502
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:44,399
Speaker 1: was that was like the almost the same as I

503
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 1: don't know, a small town girl goes to big city

504
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:50,200
Speaker 1: or I'd just be like options, options, so big, everything's

505
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:55,119
Speaker 1: new and shiny, what about goodness. My very first video

506
00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:59,359
Speaker 1: store was when I was a tiny child, maybe like

507
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:03,200
Speaker 1: a four to six years old, growing up in Ohio,

508
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:06,520
Speaker 1: up near Cleveland and down the block from my house,

509
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:09,440
Speaker 1: there was this little corner market that I believe was

510
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:13,400
Speaker 1: named Bordon Arrows or Borden Narrows. I was six, um

511
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:16,560
Speaker 1: and they had a single rack, like one of those

512
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:21,320
Speaker 1: little round spinny racks of vhs tapes, and my dad

513
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:25,560
Speaker 1: was a relatively early adopter of the home VHS player.

514
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:28,240
Speaker 1: I remember he would have gotten one in maybe like

515
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 1: eighty six or something like that, you know, so not

516
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 1: like it was one of the first ones. I remember

517
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 1: him specifically showing off the features of rewinding and slow

518
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 1: forward motion to one of his friends with Indiana Jones

519
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 1: and the writers Little Lost Dark, and they were both

520
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:49,720
Speaker 1: like whoa and but so Bordinaros had this like one

521
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: rack VHS tapes and uh. I occasionally would get to

522
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 1: pick one out, and every single time I got Disney's

523
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: Robin Hood, to the point that mother had to sit

524
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 1: me down and have a very earnest conversation with me

525
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 1: about what renting means and about how much it cost.

526
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: And I think that was the end of my reign

527
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 1: of terror with with Robin Hood from Disney and all

528
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:17,760
Speaker 1: those sexy sexy foxes. What kind of store was it?

529
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: What was it like kind of like an indie store

530
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: where there wasn't a lot of selection like any was

531
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:24,960
Speaker 1: talking about, or it wasn't primarily for for a video. Yeah,

532
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 1: it was this like small corner, grosser market kind of thing.

533
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: Um that I just remember being so much in that

534
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 1: color palette of the mid to late eighties where everything

535
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 1: was kind of like that like rusty brown color, the

536
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 1: floors where the shelving was the light sort of war.

537
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 1: I was always excited because they had like the cool

538
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 1: bubble gum, like big chew and stuff at the checkout.

539
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:50,480
Speaker 1: Not that my mom let let me get bubblegum, but

540
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 1: I was like, oh man, I could pretend I used

541
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 1: chewing tobacco, like what like what like why was that

542
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 1: a thing in my brain when I was six years old?

543
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was extremely limited selection. I'm not sure

544
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:06,200
Speaker 1: other than Disney's Robin Hood, what I would have possibly

545
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: been interested in at this place. Yeah, it's it reminds

546
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 1: me and I sometimes forget this. Like they used to

547
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 1: have like little video rental stores like you're describing in

548
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 1: like grocery stores and like gas station Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

549
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:22,320
Speaker 1: this one was just a little privately owned place. You know,

550
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: you could pick up I don't know, spettios, drag goods,

551
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and yeah, pick out a video tape. Yeah. Actually,

552
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, I was hiking near like

553
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:36,320
Speaker 1: an hour away from Atlanta, and I went to an

554
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 1: Ingalls and I was delighted that they still had via rental,

555
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: and I was like taking pictures and the people working

556
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 1: there were like, what's wrong with you? It's a video.

557
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 1: I haven't seen this in forever. Yeah. When I when

558
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:54,600
Speaker 1: I got older, um and we moved to South Florida,

559
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:57,600
Speaker 1: it was kind of, you know, that early nineties boom

560
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 1: of video stores when they were making the transfer over

561
00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 1: into DVD, and so that's when I started going to

562
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: like a Blockbuster and stuff like that. And Yeah, lots

563
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 1: of memories similar to what Annie was talking about with

564
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: hair Blockbuster experience, with just you know, like like walking

565
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: in and you get that gust of just pure plastic

566
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 1: scene in the air, and there's just all the bright

567
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:20,720
Speaker 1: and shiny displays everywhere, and they all really want you

568
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: to watch I don't know, Silence of the Lambs or

569
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and they've got nine copies of that

570
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 1: one DVD. And then I don't know, when you're like

571
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 1: a little goth high school weirdo, you just kind of

572
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 1: like shuffle quietly over to the horror section and look

573
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 1: through because you couldn't google anything, you know, and so

574
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 1: it was either what you knew about at the time

575
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 1: or what you could glean from the box art and

576
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:48,240
Speaker 1: like the fonts and like whatever terrible marketing copy was

577
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 1: on there, whether or not you really wanted to rent

578
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 1: candy Man or whatever it was, Alex your Taron. Well,

579
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 1: maybe Max and I can tag team because I don't

580
00:31:57,960 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 1: know if you will know a Max and I are

581
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 1: blood brothers. Yeah, were related to If you guys didn't

582
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 1: pick up on that, I can't even tell the difference

583
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:08,800
Speaker 1: between you two. So yeah, I mean I think our

584
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 1: video store experience is probably about the same in our town.

585
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 1: I mean that we weren't too limited. I mean we

586
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 1: had a Blockbuster. We had two Blockbusters and a Hollywood

587
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 1: video actually, so I don't know what. We had two

588
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 1: Blockbusters in our house was equidistant between them, you know.

589
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 1: I remember in Royal Oak, Michigan, in the town when

590
00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 1: we were real little before we moved down south, going

591
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: to I don't know what the video store was there.

592
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 1: It was an indie video store there, but that would

593
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: have been the early nineties, but I remember going there.

594
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:45,120
Speaker 1: Similar to both of your stories, Max, you gotta tell this,

595
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 1: aren't you know. I gotta my my You know, my

596
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:49,719
Speaker 1: parents would be like, all right, I actually pick a video, Max,

597
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 1: you pick a video. Max a little younger than me,

598
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: and Max there was a series of videos than like

599
00:32:56,360 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 1: thirty minute educational things called Road Construction Ahead. Each episode

600
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 1: of Road Construction Ahead would focus on like a particular

601
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 1: like piece of road construction equipment, like the back out

602
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 1: or the crane or or you know, the bulldozer. And

603
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:15,480
Speaker 1: I remember my parents bargaining with him being like, Max,

604
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 1: we've seen this, We've seen Road Construction Ahead bulldozer already.

605
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 1: Do you want to watch this cartoon? And he would

606
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 1: be like road Construction Ahead there like do you want

607
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: to watch like this film Road Construction Ahead? And so

608
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 1: we just rented Road Construction Ahead from Max every single

609
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 1: time we went, and then eventually my parents bought the

610
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 1: whole series after they had, you know, sunk their lives

611
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: sexings in to renting from this indy store. Well, that

612
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:40,719
Speaker 1: was the least surprising thing I've encountered today. Yes, uh,

613
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a person that when I really like something,

614
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: I just you know why I change it up. I mean,

615
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 1: Road Construction Ahead was amazing and I would love to

616
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: trace it down. But yeah, I mean I was trying

617
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 1: to think of the name of that video store as well.

618
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: Like I was sitting here because I was gonn to

619
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: tell that story as well, but I just cannot remember that.

620
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 1: But i'd remember because you know, as Alex said, there

621
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:03,959
Speaker 1: was two Blockbusters equidistance. And this is by the time

622
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 1: we'd move down here to Atlanta, which I was what six,

623
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:10,360
Speaker 1: and I think Alex was. We were what eight seven

624
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:13,480
Speaker 1: when we moved down here, so we were both pretty young.

625
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 1: Like one of the Blockbusters, it was like point one

626
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 1: miles closer. That was it. So that's why we went there.

627
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 1: But there was one summer was when Alex was getting

628
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 1: his learners permit. We got a like unlimited pass, so

629
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:29,239
Speaker 1: you can get as many movies as you want from

630
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:31,440
Speaker 1: that Blockbuster, like you could you have two at a time,

631
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:33,759
Speaker 1: but you can watch him return and watch him return them.

632
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:37,319
Speaker 1: And so we would go like honestly twice a day,

633
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 1: three times a day. Sometimes just we just sit. It

634
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 1: was over summer, just watched movies scene day. We watched

635
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 1: virtually the entire selection, and trying to think of some

636
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 1: of the movies we watched. We watched some terrible movies.

637
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:51,280
Speaker 1: I remember spending like an afternoon watching a like Stephen

638
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,480
Speaker 1: King four hour like marathon movie. And I was like, oh,

639
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:57,000
Speaker 1: it was bright outside, now it's dark. That's how we

640
00:34:57,080 --> 00:34:59,799
Speaker 1: spent our day. That's how we spent our lovely summer day.

641
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 1: It look you know, occasion we get something like really good.

642
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: But I mean, I think the coolest part about it

643
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 1: was by the end of the summer, like everyone, like

644
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:10,560
Speaker 1: I guess probably the manager there or floor manager whatever,

645
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: they he knew us and he's like, oh, you guy

646
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:14,800
Speaker 1: should watch this movie. Kind of similar like how like

647
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 1: our tip Deal video drum was where it's like, hey,

648
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:18,880
Speaker 1: to watch this movie, but you know, to a very

649
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 1: much a lesser extent about it. So obviously I think

650
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:23,920
Speaker 1: of Roald construction ahead, and I knew Ox would tell

651
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:27,759
Speaker 1: that story because he's my older brother. But yeah, I

652
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 1: really think about that that summer. I guess I don't

653
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:32,799
Speaker 1: remember what year it was, but when we literally were

654
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:35,759
Speaker 1: just at the Blockbuster every day. So the other person

655
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:37,360
Speaker 1: I would go to the video store with was my

656
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:41,320
Speaker 1: friend Michael, who's been on this show before. And Michael's

657
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:45,000
Speaker 1: grandparents of Jehovah's witnesses, and his grandfather is an elder

658
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,880
Speaker 1: in the in the Kingdom Hall. And I don't know

659
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 1: what connection this has, but it had some kind of connection.

660
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 1: He always had coupons for stuff. He always had so

661
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:57,080
Speaker 1: many coupons and gift cards that he got through some

662
00:35:57,280 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 1: connection at his Kingdom Hall. I don't know, I don't

663
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 1: know why. But so he would be like, your kids,

664
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:06,880
Speaker 1: stay out of trouble. Is his papa is his grandfather's name. Uh,

665
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 1: you can stay out of trouble. Go to Red Lobster

666
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 1: tonight and give us a fifty dollar gift card to

667
00:36:11,080 --> 00:36:15,560
Speaker 1: Red Lobster. And he always had Blockbuster coupons where you

668
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:17,880
Speaker 1: could take a coupon and run a movie with it.

669
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:19,880
Speaker 1: And so Michael and I would go at least twice

670
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:22,880
Speaker 1: a week to the Blockbuster the other one in Dunwoody,

671
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:25,719
Speaker 1: And we didn't know the people in this store there,

672
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 1: and we were little, you know, sixteen year old seventeen

673
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:31,320
Speaker 1: year old cinema snobs, and we would go there and

674
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 1: argue about films with with the people behind the counter.

675
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 1: Between those two that's where I watched all of my

676
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:40,359
Speaker 1: movies in my formative years. And can I can I ask,

677
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:44,360
Speaker 1: did y'all want to impress the people at the counters

678
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:47,360
Speaker 1: of these stores or for me? It was kind of

679
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 1: an adversarial relationship, like because like I thought, I was

680
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:53,839
Speaker 1: so much cooler than them, and so like whatever they thought,

681
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, well, I'm glad you didn't like

682
00:36:56,080 --> 00:37:00,120
Speaker 1: this woman, But did y'all have the opposite experience? I

683
00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:03,399
Speaker 1: think it was kind of adversarial, to be honest. Yeah,

684
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,360
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe it was different for different guys.

685
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:08,799
Speaker 1: I I wish I remembered them all a little bit more.

686
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 1: Let's see, my video store experience growing up was kind

687
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:15,800
Speaker 1: of twofold. So I grew up with split custody between

688
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 1: my mom and dad. My mom was in Austin, which

689
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: is where I primarily grew up and lived, and then

690
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: I would like visit my dad who lived in Dallas.

691
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 1: So when I went to Dallas, my dad and I

692
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:27,440
Speaker 1: would get all the chains like Blockbuster. So that was

693
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: kind of our thing we did when he had custody

694
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:32,120
Speaker 1: of me every other weekend or whatever it was. And

695
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:36,440
Speaker 1: then in Austin it was a little bit more of

696
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: a like cinephile town, I guess, so it was much

697
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:42,520
Speaker 1: more of like a cultural institution kind of a thing,

698
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:45,960
Speaker 1: having a video store nearby, and the big one in

699
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 1: Austin that we would go to was called I Love Video,

700
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 1: the love part being just being like a heart on

701
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 1: the on the sign, which I'm sure like some people

702
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:57,520
Speaker 1: have seen before because it's somewhat iconic, I guess, at

703
00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:01,279
Speaker 1: least amongst video store ficionados. So I Love Video was

704
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 1: like the really cool one that my mom would take

705
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: me to. And there were always people with like green hair,

706
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 1: you know, and like wearing like hippie off. It's there.

707
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:11,960
Speaker 1: It was like that kind of place, and it was

708
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:14,600
Speaker 1: like laid out really cool. There were like toys everywhere,

709
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:18,600
Speaker 1: like hanging from the ceiling by string, you know, like Godzilla's.

710
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: It was like neon lit on the inside. It was

711
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 1: really like just neat, hip place to be. I guess.

712
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 1: So a lot of my video store experience growing up

713
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:30,239
Speaker 1: was like also like a cultural ussering. You know. It

714
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:34,120
Speaker 1: was like, this is Austin culture right here, incarnate in

715
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: this little store, and if you want to grow up

716
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 1: to be a true Austinite, you have to like absorb this.

717
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: So I guess in my mind, you know, it was

718
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 1: also kind of a place to find identity, you know,

719
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: a video store. I can't imagine it's exactly the same

720
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 1: for everybody, but I think everybody at least to some degree,

721
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:52,399
Speaker 1: you can relate to that. You know, like you kind

722
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: of found out who you were a little bit in

723
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:57,560
Speaker 1: a video store, whether or not you wanted to. When

724
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 1: you got to Atlanta and went into video for the

725
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 1: first time, did it feel a little bit like coming home? Yeah, yeah,

726
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 1: you could say that. I think Video Drome here in

727
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:08,640
Speaker 1: Atlanta does a really good job of capturing that same

728
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:11,360
Speaker 1: energy I was talking about, you know this like like

729
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: love of movies and like making everything seemed really hip

730
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:18,960
Speaker 1: and cool around, like seeing and renting movies. I really

731
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 1: hadn't experienced that, and like I don't know, god, like

732
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:24,360
Speaker 1: ten fifteen years since I lived in Austin, you know,

733
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:26,919
Speaker 1: when I was a teenager. It was like the last

734
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 1: time I had really felt that. And so when I

735
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:32,800
Speaker 1: came to Atlanta, I like gravitated towards Video Drama immediately.

736
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 1: I would like start going there regularly. You know. I

737
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: never thought I'd like go back to like renting movies

738
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: from a brick and mortar store, But there was just

739
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 1: so much to love about, like the experience and kind

740
00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:46,040
Speaker 1: of living out this you know, childhood memories and that

741
00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 1: feeling again that I've been a regular patron ever since Yeah,

742
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 1: same when when I moved here. I moved here like

743
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:55,640
Speaker 1: fifteen or sixteen years ago now, and so so blockbusters

744
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 1: in Hollywood videos and all that were still open, and

745
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 1: it was still a thing that I would go because

746
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:02,880
Speaker 1: because it was it was like an event night, you know,

747
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:04,279
Speaker 1: like it would be that would be what you were

748
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:05,719
Speaker 1: doing with the night. You were going to this video

749
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:07,320
Speaker 1: store and renting a movie and taking it home and

750
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 1: watching it, as opposed to whatever browsing that you do

751
00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 1: these days. But yeah, it felt like it felt like

752
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:16,160
Speaker 1: a grown up candy store. The first time I went

753
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 1: into Video Drum, Like I just walked in and I was,

754
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: you know, like like kind of like just bouncing around

755
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:22,239
Speaker 1: the quarters like I'm in heck and you know, Willy

756
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 1: Wonka's chocolate factory. And I turned and there's just a

757
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:27,400
Speaker 1: whole wall it's as sex and splatter, and I'm like,

758
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:32,240
Speaker 1: I'm home, thank you, thank you forgetting me. Yeah, it's interesting.

759
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: When we did the tour, I think one of the

760
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:37,360
Speaker 1: things most people really enjoyed about it was like getting

761
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:40,880
Speaker 1: to have conversation, you know, they're like about movies and

762
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 1: be around other like minded people about film and cinema

763
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: and just like be able to like hang out there

764
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: for forty five minutes, you know, chit chatting about whatever.

765
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 1: I guess. You know, as a kid, I'm sure most

766
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:56,319
Speaker 1: of us were probably like this too, Like I don't,

767
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 1: I guess we didn't really know enough about movies. Like

768
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 1: I was happy with whatever. You know. It's like Spider

769
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:02,960
Speaker 1: Man movie was out at the time that like I

770
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:05,400
Speaker 1: didn't feel they need to like have conversations. But like

771
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:07,800
Speaker 1: when I started coming to video drum as an adult,

772
00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: you know, I got to really like discover that discover

773
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 1: that feeling of like community around film that I, like,

774
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 1: I guess I never really caught onto as a kid.

775
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 1: You know, like I kind of felt it was there

776
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:20,000
Speaker 1: for the adults, but it wasn't until I was one

777
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:21,920
Speaker 1: that I could like do that. And I don't think

778
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 1: that would have ever happened if video drum didn't exist,

779
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,600
Speaker 1: you know, can I ask? I've been talking to people

780
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:30,279
Speaker 1: about videos to as a jog my memory, because I

781
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:31,880
Speaker 1: think the last time that I was regularly going to

782
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 1: a video store, I was like pre seventeen, to be honest,

783
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:40,759
Speaker 1: What were the sections in like a Blockbuster? Oh well,

784
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 1: I can tell you about mine, please, Okay? So the

785
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 1: way the Blockbuster in Dawsonville, Georgia was set up. You

786
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 1: still remember like the order that you walked around the shop,

787
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 1: don't you. Oh yeah, well so the key. The key

788
00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: was if you wanted a like new release, popular movie,

789
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 1: they were on the outside edges, so you had to

790
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 1: go to the back, and they were usually like a

791
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:11,879
Speaker 1: bunch of them, like a whole wall. That's one title, yes,

792
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 1: and like multiple copies behind the cover. It felt so

793
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 1: like such a success, especially for me because we didn't

794
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:23,440
Speaker 1: go to that place that often. If it was a

795
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 1: really high in demand movie and it's only like one

796
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:28,920
Speaker 1: copy left, oh gosh, it's the best and maybe you

797
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 1: didn't even want to see that movie. I think that's

798
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 1: one thing, Lauren, that you touched on that is lost

799
00:42:34,719 --> 00:42:37,800
Speaker 1: perhaps two younger folks who don't have this experience. You

800
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: didn't have the internet. It was fun in that way

801
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:42,440
Speaker 1: of you know, this movie could be really bad, but

802
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna get it, like that Netflix of deciding

803
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:47,480
Speaker 1: for two hours what you're gonna watch and then you

804
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:50,359
Speaker 1: don't watch anything that wasn't a thing because you had

805
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:53,440
Speaker 1: your parents. In my case, my my mom being like

806
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:58,320
Speaker 1: we have ten minutes get something, and so you just

807
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:01,200
Speaker 1: had to get something. And then for in the Blockbuster

808
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 1: where that I went to, it had in the store

809
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:09,840
Speaker 1: kind of like a library, like yeah, horror, Action, adventure, romance,

810
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: all those big genre kendy and then usually like one

811
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 1: that was foreign movies, and then one that was like

812
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 1: in the movies with very small selection. And I did

813
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 1: love horror from a very young age. And my form

814
00:43:24,680 --> 00:43:30,479
Speaker 1: of altercation with a Blockbuster people was that me trying

815
00:43:30,520 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 1: to convince them not to tell my mom will let

816
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 1: me rent this rated arm which I sometimes succeeded in

817
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:41,840
Speaker 1: often I didn't because we did usually rent as a family.

818
00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: So would be like what did you get? And I

819
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:46,080
Speaker 1: would be like event Horizon, and then there would be

820
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 1: a very long conversation Annie, how many of these movies

821
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:54,520
Speaker 1: actually gave you such terrible nightmares that like your parents

822
00:43:54,560 --> 00:43:56,799
Speaker 1: were justified and not wanting you to see the film

823
00:43:56,840 --> 00:44:02,359
Speaker 1: in the first place. Very very many, very many. Uh.

824
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 1: And in fact, one of my one of my earliest memories,

825
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:07,880
Speaker 1: I had snuck in and watched Jurassic Park and I

826
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:09,839
Speaker 1: had a nightmare about raptors that night, and like woke

827
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:11,960
Speaker 1: up screaming, and my parts were like why did you

828
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:14,880
Speaker 1: have a nightmare about raptors? And I was like, no reason,

829
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: no reason. It came out that I had snuck into

830
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 1: the Jurassic Parks. So I have a very long history

831
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:24,880
Speaker 1: of yeah, pushing the envelope when it comes to that

832
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:27,759
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and my parents being like, stop it.

833
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 1: I totally forget about ratings so that you can't just

834
00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:35,640
Speaker 1: pick up whatever you want. Totally forgot about like our

835
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:38,799
Speaker 1: rated things when you were a kid, when we were kids. Yeah, man,

836
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:43,479
Speaker 1: oh yeah. I I consistently would like get a horror

837
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:45,920
Speaker 1: movie that was rated R and try to be like,

838
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 1: just be cool. Just come on, man, I got the money.

839
00:44:56,600 --> 00:44:58,279
Speaker 1: Any One of the things you talked about that I

840
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:01,279
Speaker 1: also wanted to talk about was the experience of like

841
00:45:01,480 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 1: checking out and how like magical and an experience that

842
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:07,520
Speaker 1: was not only because you're getting this thing, but also

843
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:10,000
Speaker 1: because they had so much cool like I don't know,

844
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 1: merch and stuff, you know, like you had like the

845
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:16,040
Speaker 1: candy you had sometimes they had like toys behind the counter,

846
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:19,440
Speaker 1: they had like plushies, you name it, And that was

847
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 1: always a really fun thing for me. I would like

848
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:25,319
Speaker 1: always get something some sort of candy or what have you. Yeah,

849
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 1: I was always trying to because my parents also were

850
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 1: very frugal, and I was always after those free movie posters.

851
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: If you waited long enough, they would give you, like

852
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 1: usually pretty small movie posters. I really campaigned hard for

853
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 1: cardboard cutouts. I never succeeded in that regard, but occasionally.

854
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:50,920
Speaker 1: I wasn't big into candy growing up, but there was

855
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:54,600
Speaker 1: something about I think the way we frame candy, like

856
00:45:54,719 --> 00:45:56,920
Speaker 1: as a snack around movies in the US, Like even

857
00:45:56,960 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 1: if I wasn't, I didn't want it necessarily. I did

858
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:04,880
Speaker 1: want it, like just the getting it. It was so exciting,

859
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 1: and so I sometimes me and my brothers would come

860
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 1: together and usually my older brother also he usually won

861
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 1: these kinds of things. We would get butter finger babies

862
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:16,360
Speaker 1: because he loved the Simpsons and they were having that

863
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:20,000
Speaker 1: whole thing, and so that was like we would form

864
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:26,120
Speaker 1: an alliance over these butterfinger babies, even if it were

865
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:28,399
Speaker 1: watching Star Trek. What was the one that really missed

866
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:37,560
Speaker 1: me up? The one with the yeah Nemesis about to say,

867
00:46:38,040 --> 00:46:40,879
Speaker 1: Tom Hardy right there, this is the moment where Tom

868
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:47,880
Speaker 1: already plays uh Patrick Stewart's twisty. I blocked that movie

869
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:53,640
Speaker 1: outlays Picard from the past, but also just the experience

870
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:59,040
Speaker 1: of getting that movie was exciting, like having that because

871
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:02,399
Speaker 1: a lot of times I did use my own money

872
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:05,279
Speaker 1: and I would check it out and just being like

873
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:08,360
Speaker 1: proud of being able to do that, but also excited.

874
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:12,360
Speaker 1: What's this gonna night gonna be? And what if I

875
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:14,320
Speaker 1: love this movie as much as I love Hocus Focus

876
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:17,840
Speaker 1: and it changes my life like that, like the possibilities

877
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:19,960
Speaker 1: in front of you when you would get a movie.

878
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 1: And I was somebody who love libraries too, and that

879
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 1: was a very similar experience of like, I'm so excited

880
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 1: about this that could really really charge my imagination and

881
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 1: perhaps like change how I view things or some be

882
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:38,759
Speaker 1: something that I love potentially. So I just that experience

883
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:43,120
Speaker 1: on top of the Butterfinger. I'll tell you what I've

884
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:47,080
Speaker 1: asked like three friends just about their video store, you know,

885
00:47:47,719 --> 00:47:49,880
Speaker 1: video stores growing up and whatever. And the first thing

886
00:47:49,960 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: all of them mentioned was the candy. The candy. I

887
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:54,840
Speaker 1: had forgotten all about it, but there was like candy

888
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:59,840
Speaker 1: and like very large quantities, like large portions of candy,

889
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:02,480
Speaker 1: or even if it wasn't large portions, it was in

890
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:05,600
Speaker 1: like the movie sized boxes. So it seems so. And

891
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 1: they're all in these like day glow colors, especially in

892
00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 1: the nineties, and uh and and so bright and big

893
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:13,759
Speaker 1: and so in your face with the marketing, because I'm

894
00:48:13,800 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 1: sure that, like in a movie theater, the up charged

895
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,759
Speaker 1: on those is tremendous um, so it's really worth their

896
00:48:19,800 --> 00:48:21,919
Speaker 1: while to push it on you. I never had any

897
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:24,600
Speaker 1: pocket money as a kid, so when I would go

898
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:27,799
Speaker 1: and have a sleepover and have these video store experiences,

899
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:30,600
Speaker 1: I was never buying candy there, but I could. Usually

900
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: Usually the video stores were in like a shopping center

901
00:48:34,120 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 1: with a whatever the shopping store of of the of

902
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:40,520
Speaker 1: the day was, and I could trick them into being like, hey,

903
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 1: can we go over to Publix and get some popcorn

904
00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:47,360
Speaker 1: and candy? Yeah? Oh those checkout lanes. That was a

905
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:50,400
Speaker 1: what what? What a what a gambit of of of

906
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 1: will willpower? It was terrible. Oh it was a cue too.

907
00:48:55,320 --> 00:48:57,680
Speaker 1: You walk through a que whether or not there was

908
00:48:57,719 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 1: anyone in a lot. You couldn't just walk up to

909
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:01,480
Speaker 1: the counter. You had to go through a little zigzag

910
00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 1: structure that they had set up with them cordon. Only

911
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 1: the fanciest in Hollywood video what what did the Blackbuster

912
00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:15,439
Speaker 1: look like, was the carpet blue. I want to say, yeah,

913
00:49:15,520 --> 00:49:17,959
Speaker 1: everything in there was that was that iconic, like blue

914
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 1: and yellow, those like power colors, like you're in the

915
00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 1: middle of a Superhero title sequence. I remember everything being

916
00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:26,480
Speaker 1: kind of like polka dot carpet, you know, it's like

917
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:30,440
Speaker 1: that really like flat thin carpet. It's like basically like concrete,

918
00:49:31,239 --> 00:49:33,360
Speaker 1: and it was like kind of like, I don't know,

919
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:36,200
Speaker 1: weird crazy, like when I think like eighties design like

920
00:49:36,239 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 1: Saved by the Bell, kind of like spotty, squiggily designs

921
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: on the carpet. That's what I remember looking like. Well,

922
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 1: my the one that was the small one in my

923
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:51,239
Speaker 1: hometown was really haphazardly put together. It was like imagine

924
00:49:51,239 --> 00:49:58,200
Speaker 1: a really sad linoleum office and just like not very small,

925
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 1: and the shelves didn't have many options to choose from.

926
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:03,960
Speaker 1: But I forgot to say, there was an ice cream

927
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:07,000
Speaker 1: store in the back, so on special days I could

928
00:50:07,040 --> 00:50:10,000
Speaker 1: go back to to talk to Dan and get a

929
00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:12,440
Speaker 1: scoop of ice cream. And that was a good day.

930
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 1: That was a really good day. My next question for

931
00:50:16,719 --> 00:50:19,400
Speaker 1: the group, it's kind of just when you kind of

932
00:50:19,520 --> 00:50:22,280
Speaker 1: noticed that like video stores are going out of style,

933
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:24,840
Speaker 1: and if you ever really like consciously thought about it,

934
00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:28,080
Speaker 1: like I never go to video stores anymore, Like were

935
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:31,080
Speaker 1: you happy to embrace like things like streaming and Netflix?

936
00:50:31,120 --> 00:50:33,800
Speaker 1: And I didn't really lose that much until I don't know,

937
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:35,360
Speaker 1: you were an adult and had to think about it,

938
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:39,360
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. Our family was on the Netflix

939
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:44,239
Speaker 1: DVD rental plan very early. My dad, yeah, was on

940
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:47,600
Speaker 1: Netflix right away. I think the actually Blockbuster did the

941
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:50,040
Speaker 1: disc rent old thing to compete with Netflix early on.

942
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:53,640
Speaker 1: And then yeah, I left home when I was seventeen

943
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:56,719
Speaker 1: for college and I went to film school, and so

944
00:50:57,040 --> 00:51:01,759
Speaker 1: I remember having to watch very specific films a lot.

945
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:05,279
Speaker 1: So I had a Netflix rental to get you know,

946
00:51:05,440 --> 00:51:09,080
Speaker 1: these films that maybe Blockbuster wouldn't carry, and you know

947
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:11,719
Speaker 1: also like going to the library at school and screenings

948
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:15,200
Speaker 1: at school. Specifically, that was two thousands seven to two

949
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:18,200
Speaker 1: thousand eleven. I think that's basically the decline of the

950
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:20,920
Speaker 1: the video store was like happening when I was in

951
00:51:21,040 --> 00:51:23,560
Speaker 1: film school. Does that does those dates make sense for

952
00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:29,239
Speaker 1: your research? Triver? Yeah? Yes, I think Liketen was kind

953
00:51:29,239 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 1: of like when they really started just disappearing, you know,

954
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 1: when we started seeing headlines of Blockbuster declaring bankruptcy, closing

955
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of stories, stuff like that. It was

956
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:42,880
Speaker 1: just I was in my maximum film snobbery at that time,

957
00:51:43,239 --> 00:51:47,080
Speaker 1: only watching foreign films. I wasn't helping anybody, but I

958
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:49,640
Speaker 1: jump in there. I mean, I feel like my stores

959
00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:52,680
Speaker 1: could kind of slowery. So I left for college two

960
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:56,840
Speaker 1: years after Alex did. And you know, as I mentioned earlier,

961
00:51:57,000 --> 00:52:00,200
Speaker 1: like my dad learned. Dad is pretty like you know,

962
00:52:00,680 --> 00:52:05,400
Speaker 1: he's you know, pretty fiscally aware, and so he hated Blockbuster.

963
00:52:05,520 --> 00:52:07,759
Speaker 1: He hate like the late charges, he hate like the

964
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:10,200
Speaker 1: limited things. He thought it was a massive markup. So

965
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:15,759
Speaker 1: as soon as he could jump ship from Blockbuster, he did. So.

966
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:18,239
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't remember maybe like hanging out some

967
00:52:18,360 --> 00:52:21,040
Speaker 1: friends on like a Friday night or something that would

968
00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:23,080
Speaker 1: go to Blockbuster and good movie, but I don't remember

969
00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:26,400
Speaker 1: really going to Blockbuster. After Alex left for college. I

970
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:29,279
Speaker 1: remember Blockbuster being the thing still when I was in

971
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 1: high school. And then you know, by the I was

972
00:52:31,719 --> 00:52:33,600
Speaker 1: like five and Alex and I didn't have a car either,

973
00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:35,360
Speaker 1: so it wasn't like we could just get in a

974
00:52:35,440 --> 00:52:37,440
Speaker 1: car drive to the Blockbuster stuff like that, Like you know,

975
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:40,320
Speaker 1: every trip to something that had to be calculated and

976
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:43,360
Speaker 1: figure it out, and it was just kind of like,

977
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:45,279
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, there was one day it's like, oh, yeah,

978
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:47,920
Speaker 1: these things don't exist anymore for me. And I was

979
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 1: kind of like, I mean, I I liked like the

980
00:52:50,239 --> 00:52:52,840
Speaker 1: independent like movie rental stores are like Blockbuster. It's like

981
00:52:52,920 --> 00:52:55,719
Speaker 1: there was kind of such an evil company that I

982
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:58,000
Speaker 1: didn't feel bad that they were gone. I mean, just

983
00:52:58,080 --> 00:52:59,880
Speaker 1: to be just to be honest, I was just like,

984
00:53:00,520 --> 00:53:02,400
Speaker 1: good riddance for them. But it kind of set out

985
00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:04,759
Speaker 1: all the rest of them are gone though, So I

986
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 1: don't know, that's I guess my take on it. Yeah, definitely,

987
00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:12,000
Speaker 1: the community stores are the ones that probably gotta hit

988
00:53:12,040 --> 00:53:14,520
Speaker 1: the hardest and needed the most help, and most of

989
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:17,160
Speaker 1: them didn't get it. But you know, I guess frankly,

990
00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:19,640
Speaker 1: there just wasn't much of a market for it, you know,

991
00:53:19,719 --> 00:53:21,239
Speaker 1: so of course they'd be the first ones to go

992
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:24,000
Speaker 1: for me. I think it kind of the decline kind

993
00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:28,840
Speaker 1: of started with DVDs because we would buy some vhs,

994
00:53:28,920 --> 00:53:31,560
Speaker 1: but for the most part, like vhs, we're like very clunky.

995
00:53:32,040 --> 00:53:35,160
Speaker 1: They were primarily known as like rentals, there were a

996
00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:38,160
Speaker 1: lot more expensive to produce, write a lot of more

997
00:53:38,239 --> 00:53:42,239
Speaker 1: love more materials. So the cell throom market was not

998
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:45,440
Speaker 1: as as big for vhs, Like you couldn't really go

999
00:53:45,760 --> 00:53:48,360
Speaker 1: to the store and buy vhs. I mean you could sometimes,

1000
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:50,800
Speaker 1: like we had some vhs, but when t v t

1001
00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:53,000
Speaker 1: s came out, at least it was like way cheaper

1002
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:55,160
Speaker 1: to buy your own movies. All of a sudden, it

1003
00:53:55,239 --> 00:53:58,320
Speaker 1: was like every Christmas, every Birthday, I got like five DVDs,

1004
00:53:58,719 --> 00:54:00,600
Speaker 1: you know. It was just like you can get a

1005
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:03,160
Speaker 1: DVD for like ten bucks at Walmart or whatever. And

1006
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:06,839
Speaker 1: so at that point, like the rental system just kind

1007
00:54:06,840 --> 00:54:08,839
Speaker 1: of started to collapse. I noticed, like I didn't find

1008
00:54:08,880 --> 00:54:11,719
Speaker 1: myself going to rent anything anymore because I could either

1009
00:54:12,040 --> 00:54:14,319
Speaker 1: get a disc for super cheap where I could rip

1010
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:16,759
Speaker 1: it off lime wire at that point or something like that.

1011
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:18,400
Speaker 1: You know, like ripping when you had a disk too,

1012
00:54:18,520 --> 00:54:21,600
Speaker 1: was like way more sophisticated. So you started to see

1013
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:23,640
Speaker 1: that a lot more too. So in my mind that

1014
00:54:23,719 --> 00:54:26,560
Speaker 1: just became the future was like collecting my own physical

1015
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 1: media rather than renting. And that's why I stopped going

1016
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:32,160
Speaker 1: to stories for the most part growing up. Yeah, I

1017
00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:35,880
Speaker 1: think similarly, my dad did really love movies, so he

1018
00:54:36,080 --> 00:54:39,560
Speaker 1: just started buying a lot of movies. So it became

1019
00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:43,399
Speaker 1: we didn't have cable, we didn't have TV, we didn't

1020
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:46,080
Speaker 1: have working internet. They didn't get all that stuff until

1021
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:48,720
Speaker 1: I moved out and went to college, which still bothers

1022
00:54:48,800 --> 00:54:51,160
Speaker 1: me to this day, but that's just how things work. Sometimes.

1023
00:54:51,680 --> 00:54:54,560
Speaker 1: We kind of, or at least my dad's case, like

1024
00:54:54,920 --> 00:54:57,600
Speaker 1: we needed media or some kind of entertainment, Like we

1025
00:54:57,640 --> 00:55:00,200
Speaker 1: could just be renting something all the time, but we

1026
00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:04,200
Speaker 1: didn't have cable or TV, so we would buy movies.

1027
00:55:05,080 --> 00:55:07,239
Speaker 1: And I feel like it was also for me when

1028
00:55:07,320 --> 00:55:09,120
Speaker 1: DVDs came out in high school. When I was in

1029
00:55:09,200 --> 00:55:12,560
Speaker 1: high school, they became more ubiquitous. And then when I

1030
00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:16,840
Speaker 1: went to college, I did. My roommate um also loved movies,

1031
00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:19,279
Speaker 1: and she had this goal to watch the top one

1032
00:55:19,719 --> 00:55:23,200
Speaker 1: a f I movies, and so we would rent movies

1033
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:28,160
Speaker 1: every week from the library and we did that throughout college.

1034
00:55:28,200 --> 00:55:34,480
Speaker 1: But that was probably the last time I've regularly rented movies.

1035
00:55:34,719 --> 00:55:36,680
Speaker 1: And it was lovely. I mean, I there's something about

1036
00:55:36,719 --> 00:55:39,319
Speaker 1: the experience, especially because of the library was free, where

1037
00:55:39,360 --> 00:55:40,920
Speaker 1: you just be like, yeah, let's get that. I don't

1038
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:42,640
Speaker 1: know what this is, let's get it. Let's try it

1039
00:55:43,800 --> 00:55:46,600
Speaker 1: and having that night together being like, Okay, this wasn't

1040
00:55:46,600 --> 00:55:51,319
Speaker 1: really good, but we had fun. Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm

1041
00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:53,640
Speaker 1: a I'm a couple of years older than the rest

1042
00:55:53,719 --> 00:55:55,920
Speaker 1: of y'all. Um. So I was in college from two

1043
00:55:55,960 --> 00:55:58,479
Speaker 1: thousand to two thousand four. UM, So by the time

1044
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:02,920
Speaker 1: video stores were really declining, I was already uh grown

1045
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:05,680
Speaker 1: up twenty something at any rate out in the world.

1046
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:09,040
Speaker 1: And um, some of my friends did have Netflix DVD

1047
00:56:09,120 --> 00:56:14,320
Speaker 1: subscriptions at the time. I think my highest rental time

1048
00:56:14,960 --> 00:56:17,920
Speaker 1: was during college when some of my friends and I, UM,

1049
00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:21,200
Speaker 1: we're starting to get into weird indie films, UM and

1050
00:56:21,360 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 1: especially weird genre films, and um there were still a

1051
00:56:24,600 --> 00:56:28,040
Speaker 1: couple of local places that would rent out these just

1052
00:56:28,280 --> 00:56:34,319
Speaker 1: just wonderful, bizarre, uh scandalous, scandalous films UM and uh

1053
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:39,000
Speaker 1: finding those either through these online subscription services or UM

1054
00:56:39,560 --> 00:56:44,480
Speaker 1: or uh in these local stores was just just just magical,

1055
00:56:44,719 --> 00:56:48,040
Speaker 1: just absolutely like the kind of things that you're you're

1056
00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:51,120
Speaker 1: just not even share why and how someone committed this

1057
00:56:51,320 --> 00:56:53,759
Speaker 1: object to film and suddenly you get to watch it

1058
00:56:53,840 --> 00:56:56,680
Speaker 1: in your house, uh twenty years after it was made.

1059
00:56:56,840 --> 00:57:00,840
Speaker 1: Just magic. But I felt the decline line of the

1060
00:57:00,920 --> 00:57:04,360
Speaker 1: big box video stores really viscerally because it was again

1061
00:57:04,440 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 1: like it was a thing that I would go and

1062
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:08,400
Speaker 1: do with my friends and that was an activity that

1063
00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:13,160
Speaker 1: was a relatively inexpensive activity for the evening. And I

1064
00:57:13,320 --> 00:57:15,239
Speaker 1: was just like, well, but what what am I gonna

1065
00:57:15,600 --> 00:57:17,080
Speaker 1: What am I gonna do? Like what am I gonna

1066
00:57:17,120 --> 00:57:19,320
Speaker 1: do with Kai? Like what? Like what what are we

1067
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:22,160
Speaker 1: gonna watch when we order pizza? If we can't go

1068
00:57:22,240 --> 00:57:24,760
Speaker 1: to the Hollywood video next to the pizza place? Like like,

1069
00:57:24,880 --> 00:57:26,960
Speaker 1: how is this going to work? And I don't know

1070
00:57:27,120 --> 00:57:29,800
Speaker 1: you even getting a DVD in the mail is is

1071
00:57:29,840 --> 00:57:32,720
Speaker 1: a different I think I think you're I think you're right, Trevor,

1072
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:35,800
Speaker 1: Like there was something about vhs that lent itself to

1073
00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:40,840
Speaker 1: the lending process a little bit more economically or viscerally

1074
00:57:41,040 --> 00:57:43,800
Speaker 1: or something like there was something about the physicality of

1075
00:57:43,880 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 1: that tape and the way that it the way that

1076
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:48,240
Speaker 1: it rattles, and the way that it even rattles in

1077
00:57:48,280 --> 00:57:52,000
Speaker 1: the paper sleeve in this very satisfying way. Um that

1078
00:57:52,120 --> 00:57:57,520
Speaker 1: even a DVD. Yeah, yes, I mean where do you

1079
00:57:57,560 --> 00:57:59,280
Speaker 1: guys think video stores are going from here? Do you

1080
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:02,520
Speaker 1: think like video drome can still continue to exist? Do

1081
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:05,040
Speaker 1: you think all these kind of you know, holdouts are

1082
00:58:05,040 --> 00:58:06,640
Speaker 1: going to be able to like make it happen. Are

1083
00:58:06,680 --> 00:58:08,640
Speaker 1: we just gonna lose that on this kind of piece

1084
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:12,400
Speaker 1: of culture forever inevitably coming soon? I think that that

1085
00:58:12,560 --> 00:58:14,880
Speaker 1: you see it in kind of a lot of different industries,

1086
00:58:14,960 --> 00:58:18,960
Speaker 1: like a return to It's been a weird year for

1087
00:58:19,040 --> 00:58:22,440
Speaker 1: it obviously, but a return to like in person more

1088
00:58:22,520 --> 00:58:26,760
Speaker 1: kind of like boutique, yeah, like final or like record stores,

1089
00:58:27,200 --> 00:58:32,520
Speaker 1: you know, or whatever, Like you know, people getting away

1090
00:58:32,720 --> 00:58:36,840
Speaker 1: from buying everything on Amazon, doing all of their shopping

1091
00:58:36,920 --> 00:58:39,000
Speaker 1: and all of their commerce online. But it's like, oh,

1092
00:58:39,080 --> 00:58:42,919
Speaker 1: there are certain things that like I do actually want

1093
00:58:43,000 --> 00:58:47,280
Speaker 1: to you know, have like a personal experience going in

1094
00:58:47,680 --> 00:58:49,960
Speaker 1: choosing something like that. I mean, like what's more valuable

1095
00:58:50,040 --> 00:58:53,360
Speaker 1: than your time? Right? You know people is a little

1096
00:58:53,360 --> 00:58:54,640
Speaker 1: bit of a long winded of saying, but like some

1097
00:58:54,680 --> 00:58:57,160
Speaker 1: people might do it with you know, fashion or something

1098
00:58:57,200 --> 00:58:58,560
Speaker 1: like you don't want to buy your stuff online, you

1099
00:58:58,560 --> 00:59:00,520
Speaker 1: want to go into an actual physic cool store to

1100
00:59:00,600 --> 00:59:03,400
Speaker 1: do it. Like if if like your thing is watching

1101
00:59:03,520 --> 00:59:04,840
Speaker 1: movies and lots of you don't have to be a

1102
00:59:04,960 --> 00:59:07,760
Speaker 1: cinephiles quote unquote to be that person, right, Like if

1103
00:59:07,800 --> 00:59:11,000
Speaker 1: you like watching movies then like there's certainly a particular

1104
00:59:11,120 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 1: drive to go into a place where you can do

1105
00:59:13,960 --> 00:59:17,320
Speaker 1: it the most conscientiously. Yeah, I think I think so.

1106
00:59:17,680 --> 00:59:21,040
Speaker 1: I don't think they'll ever come back to like when

1107
00:59:21,240 --> 00:59:24,760
Speaker 1: the heyday of when we were experiencing them, but I

1108
00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:27,040
Speaker 1: do feel like there's been a return in a lot

1109
00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:29,840
Speaker 1: of ways of people have expressed like, what is that

1110
00:59:29,920 --> 00:59:32,520
Speaker 1: called entertainment fatigue? When you have way too many streaming options,

1111
00:59:32,520 --> 00:59:35,400
Speaker 1: are way too many things like the reasons we flocked

1112
00:59:35,480 --> 00:59:38,320
Speaker 1: to things like Netflix, which is convenience and it's just

1113
00:59:38,520 --> 00:59:43,320
Speaker 1: right there. I think that we are realizing like, yes,

1114
00:59:43,400 --> 00:59:46,840
Speaker 1: that's great, love it, but sometimes I don't want that thing,

1115
00:59:46,920 --> 00:59:49,840
Speaker 1: Like sometimes I want something else, I want a different option.

1116
00:59:50,560 --> 00:59:53,920
Speaker 1: And so I do think that I hope that there

1117
00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:57,920
Speaker 1: is a market for smaller boutique stores and people will

1118
00:59:58,000 --> 01:00:02,600
Speaker 1: continue to patron eyes them and that that number might grow. Yeah.

1119
01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:05,640
Speaker 1: I certainly hope that the that the small shops can

1120
01:00:05,760 --> 01:00:08,880
Speaker 1: hang on. And I love what Video Drome specifically has

1121
01:00:08,920 --> 01:00:12,200
Speaker 1: been doing in partnering up with other local businesses like

1122
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:14,440
Speaker 1: the Plaza Theater, which is right around the corner, to

1123
01:00:14,560 --> 01:00:18,040
Speaker 1: do some film screenings of really interesting movies or they

1124
01:00:18,120 --> 01:00:20,920
Speaker 1: had a couple back when, you know, like live events

1125
01:00:20,960 --> 01:00:22,760
Speaker 1: were a thing. They had a few parties over at

1126
01:00:22,760 --> 01:00:25,280
Speaker 1: the Highland in ballroom. Um that we're always just a

1127
01:00:25,360 --> 01:00:28,440
Speaker 1: really fun time of you know, like people who are

1128
01:00:28,560 --> 01:00:31,280
Speaker 1: enthusiastic about a thing getting together in a space and

1129
01:00:31,360 --> 01:00:34,240
Speaker 1: being enthusiastic about it is a wonderful thing. And I guess,

1130
01:00:34,280 --> 01:00:36,200
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, that that is what you're talking about

1131
01:00:36,200 --> 01:00:39,080
Speaker 1: when you're talking about that community of a film store,

1132
01:00:39,120 --> 01:00:41,400
Speaker 1: even if it's just you and the surly attendant, Like

1133
01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:45,360
Speaker 1: that is a community of two of two people who

1134
01:00:46,040 --> 01:00:48,560
Speaker 1: you know, are who otherwise might not ever have the

1135
01:00:48,640 --> 01:00:51,840
Speaker 1: opportunity to talk and can wind up getting into a

1136
01:00:51,960 --> 01:00:55,400
Speaker 1: really interesting conversation about yeah, like Cronenberg or whatever it

1137
01:00:55,520 --> 01:00:58,880
Speaker 1: is that it is like I think that videos stores

1138
01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:03,320
Speaker 1: that exist now have the potential to go on and

1139
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:06,120
Speaker 1: that that they can get some support because they fill

1140
01:01:06,160 --> 01:01:08,000
Speaker 1: a need in their community, but also maybe especially because

1141
01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:10,640
Speaker 1: they feel like a really rare niche now that there's

1142
01:01:10,640 --> 01:01:12,400
Speaker 1: just not that there's so few of them, there's such

1143
01:01:12,400 --> 01:01:16,720
Speaker 1: a rarity. But like new video stores like people opening,

1144
01:01:16,840 --> 01:01:20,479
Speaker 1: do you think that's a possibility a new indie store

1145
01:01:20,520 --> 01:01:24,600
Speaker 1: in your town. I think it's possible. It would be hard,

1146
01:01:25,520 --> 01:01:29,040
Speaker 1: to be difficult to do, but I think it's possible.

1147
01:01:29,840 --> 01:01:34,080
Speaker 1: I think it's like more likely in very specific geographic areas,

1148
01:01:34,560 --> 01:01:36,200
Speaker 1: Like it's got to be somewhere that's like a little

1149
01:01:36,240 --> 01:01:38,360
Speaker 1: bit more Irvan. It's got to be somewhere, or it's

1150
01:01:38,360 --> 01:01:40,320
Speaker 1: got to be somewhere with like a big college, you know,

1151
01:01:40,400 --> 01:01:43,680
Speaker 1: like maybe Athens or somewhere. Would that would work, you know,

1152
01:01:43,720 --> 01:01:46,080
Speaker 1: where there's like enough young people. Yeah, just that kind

1153
01:01:46,120 --> 01:01:48,720
Speaker 1: of density. Yeah. One of the things that they pointed

1154
01:01:48,760 --> 01:01:50,760
Speaker 1: out when we were at Video Drome is that because

1155
01:01:50,760 --> 01:01:53,960
Speaker 1: they've it open for over twenty years, they've collected titles

1156
01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:56,640
Speaker 1: that aren't in print anymore that you can't really find.

1157
01:01:56,680 --> 01:01:58,360
Speaker 1: I mean they took all this they've taken all this

1158
01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:00,959
Speaker 1: time to build up inventory. All is be buying things,

1159
01:02:01,040 --> 01:02:02,480
Speaker 1: and that's one of the reasons when you go in

1160
01:02:02,600 --> 01:02:05,040
Speaker 1: there that their catalog is so incredibly diverse. I mean

1161
01:02:05,080 --> 01:02:08,720
Speaker 1: it's something close to titles now, and you know, they've

1162
01:02:08,760 --> 01:02:10,280
Speaker 1: got lots of they mean the stuff they opened in

1163
01:02:10,320 --> 01:02:12,440
Speaker 1: the nineties, they've got lots of like Indian sort of

1164
01:02:12,520 --> 01:02:15,720
Speaker 1: small release stuff from the nineties specifically that hasn't been

1165
01:02:15,760 --> 01:02:19,440
Speaker 1: reissued and isn't in print anymore. If you or your

1166
01:02:19,480 --> 01:02:24,480
Speaker 1: collection of friends or whatever had a deep collection of

1167
01:02:25,360 --> 01:02:28,760
Speaker 1: film titles already, then you can start a store. Starting

1168
01:02:28,840 --> 01:02:30,920
Speaker 1: a store brand new and just buying all this stuff

1169
01:02:30,920 --> 01:02:34,280
Speaker 1: would probably be the least exciting way to do it.

1170
01:02:35,480 --> 01:02:37,160
Speaker 1: And I feel like at this point you would start

1171
01:02:37,240 --> 01:02:40,080
Speaker 1: having to does a video drume to do this. Um.

1172
01:02:40,160 --> 01:02:42,280
Speaker 1: I feel like at a certain point, from Blockbuster or whatever,

1173
01:02:42,320 --> 01:02:46,120
Speaker 1: you could rent out VCR if you didn't have one. Um.

1174
01:02:46,600 --> 01:02:49,920
Speaker 1: But yeah, like I think that any new place that

1175
01:02:50,040 --> 01:02:52,520
Speaker 1: opened up might need to consider renting out the equipment

1176
01:02:52,600 --> 01:02:56,760
Speaker 1: with which to watch such a thing. I mean, you

1177
01:02:56,840 --> 01:02:58,760
Speaker 1: make a good point. You make a good point. I mean,

1178
01:02:58,800 --> 01:03:01,440
Speaker 1: who has DVD players anymore? Just you know, I don't know, Like,

1179
01:03:01,560 --> 01:03:03,200
Speaker 1: are you going to rent it on a thumb drive? Like?

1180
01:03:03,360 --> 01:03:09,560
Speaker 1: I like? Who? I will say, there are a couple

1181
01:03:09,600 --> 01:03:13,120
Speaker 1: of movies I can't find on streaming that I want,

1182
01:03:13,720 --> 01:03:17,040
Speaker 1: and I can't buy them anywhere, and I'm not willing

1183
01:03:17,120 --> 01:03:20,560
Speaker 1: to spend a hundred and eighty dollars on The Princess

1184
01:03:20,640 --> 01:03:22,880
Speaker 1: and the Goblin, which I think is probably not very good.

1185
01:03:23,120 --> 01:03:27,280
Speaker 1: But I liked it as a child. He had coarse

1186
01:03:27,360 --> 01:03:31,120
Speaker 1: Leashman in it, so that's the plus. Um, I feel

1187
01:03:31,120 --> 01:03:35,040
Speaker 1: like video drums that you should a video drume. I should.

1188
01:03:35,160 --> 01:03:37,280
Speaker 1: I have like four movies from my childhood that I'm like,

1189
01:03:37,320 --> 01:03:40,960
Speaker 1: I'm pretty when I watched Um, The Thief and the

1190
01:03:41,040 --> 01:03:44,520
Speaker 1: Cobbler is on there. I have a whole list from

1191
01:03:44,520 --> 01:03:46,880
Speaker 1: the same production Coveny or something, because that's something like

1192
01:03:46,960 --> 01:03:50,800
Speaker 1: the first one. Probably well, I can't get them anywhere,

1193
01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:53,960
Speaker 1: but I do think it's interesting the idea like in

1194
01:03:54,160 --> 01:03:59,400
Speaker 1: the post apocalypse times, we won't have well, well I

1195
01:03:59,400 --> 01:04:01,760
Speaker 1: don't know full around, but there will be like Internet necessarily,

1196
01:04:01,840 --> 01:04:04,600
Speaker 1: and there will you want these physical things. And there

1197
01:04:04,640 --> 01:04:07,880
Speaker 1: are movies that I remember watching as a kid where

1198
01:04:07,920 --> 01:04:10,080
Speaker 1: that they would have to act out like the adults

1199
01:04:10,160 --> 01:04:13,080
Speaker 1: that could remember the Star Wars like movies they would

1200
01:04:13,080 --> 01:04:16,360
Speaker 1: act them out for younger generations. But there is you know,

1201
01:04:16,520 --> 01:04:18,160
Speaker 1: maybe you don't want to think that way, but it's

1202
01:04:18,240 --> 01:04:24,480
Speaker 1: possible that we will need this physical media in the future.

1203
01:04:25,080 --> 01:04:31,920
Speaker 1: So that's something to keep in mind. This episode of

1204
01:04:31,960 --> 01:04:35,360
Speaker 1: Ephemeral was produced by Trevor Young and Max and Alex Williams,

1205
01:04:35,680 --> 01:04:39,000
Speaker 1: with big thanks to Dan Herbert. My colleagues Annie Reese

1206
01:04:39,160 --> 01:04:43,320
Speaker 1: and Lauren Vogelbaum of the phenomenal food and culture podcast Saver.

1207
01:04:44,240 --> 01:04:46,920
Speaker 1: And to Matt Booth and everyone at Video Drome for

1208
01:04:47,000 --> 01:04:50,680
Speaker 1: their hospitality in this production and for making Atlanta a

1209
01:04:50,800 --> 01:04:54,280
Speaker 1: great place for movie culture. We'll be back with something

1210
01:04:54,360 --> 01:04:57,520
Speaker 1: new in two weeks. In the meantime, you can find

1211
01:04:57,600 --> 01:05:01,520
Speaker 1: the fullest of Ephemeral episodes over on our website Ephemeral

1212
01:05:01,880 --> 01:05:05,360
Speaker 1: dot Show. And for more podcasts from My Heart Radio

1213
01:05:05,920 --> 01:05:08,760
Speaker 1: like Sabor, Brain, Stuff and Stuff Mom Never Told You,

1214
01:05:09,560 --> 01:05:13,320
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1215
01:05:13,400 --> 01:05:39,000
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. M. M.