The End of An Era (The Local Video Store Closes Down) 12-27-2005
A friend told me just last night that our video rental store had closed down and vacated the premises. Pre-Netflix, it was the last bastion against the staid Blockbusters that surrounded it. It offered the unrated versions of movies where its competition watered them down. It had swinging western-style saloon doors that opened into the adult section. But best of all, the woman at the front desk gave unsolicited eyebrow-up, furrowed-eyebrow reviews of each movie you chose, long before Siskel and Ebert agreed to respectfully disagree. Boobsie’s query on the whereabouts of Showgirls yielded a dry “Have you tried the comedy section?” The infernal “I would like to buy your copy of Gross Misconduct” was met with “Everything in this store is for sale, except that.”
I think on the two-for-one day when I rented “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” with “The Chaucer Finger Puppet Theatre presents Eddie Murphy’s Tranny Fantasies in Middle English” her eyebrows stunned Elizabeth Taylor’s into retirement.
Believe me, we tried to keep this place alive. Even after I defected to Netflix for my Bunuel and Bergman flicks, I made it a point to drop in for an occasional helping of Mean Girls or American Pie. But the truth was that I’ve done three circuits around the entire foreign section, and I was beginning to see myself in Kieslowski’s “The Double Life of Veronique. The entire place was a skeleton, kept alive by the throbbing section in the back, where men in raincoats fingered copies of “Anal Queens and other famous Republicans.”
The masochists in us have seen our favorite video rental matriach (heaven knows if Tarantino had worked there, he would be filming for PBS today) through pregnancies and seasonal illnesses. The hotel behind them had been demolished and rebuilt, after several asbestos-related deaths. The shack down the road had been busted on the biggest ecstasy operation ring on the east coast. And the day WalMart mysteriously appeared in the back parking lot, I knew it was only a matter of time. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, but I bet she flicked off the lights and locked the door for the last time
…and drove off into the sunset with her copy of Gross Misconduct.
The entire place was a skeleton, kept alive by the throbbing section in the back, where men in raincoats fingered copies of “Anal Queens and other famous Republicans.â€
Of course I shouldn’t say this, probably be suspect under the patriot act. Buuut …. Love it
Jenn, please do keep this instance as a “Get Our Of Jail Free” card, because when it comes time to make fun of feminists, democrats, and the most sacred one of them all, FACD (Fans of Celine Dion), just remember that I’ve been an EOJ (equal opportunity jokester)