Videocy

            In the 80s one of my closest friends organized a surprise birthday party where my friends chipped in to buy me a VCR. Those were in the days when the machines were big, clunky top loaders. They also bought me my first two VHS tapes- Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and the gay porn film Like A Horse (two classics). Back then tapes were surprisingly pricey- nearly $60 each. It was a terrific party and that VCR never stayed cold until it’s untimely death and the advent of DVD.

            Videocy was an obsession just waiting to happen in my life, my most important concerns are the three M’s: Movies, Masturbation and Murder. With video, I found I could satisfy all three, sometimes all in one tape. But it wasn’t until the price of tapes came down and video stores began selling used copies when I began to pad my collection. But the trouble with starting a library of favorite films is that it’s a costly and demented addiction that can quickly eat up space in your apartment (not to mention your bank account) faster than you can say “rewind.” Many a time I’ve spent my last twenty bucks on some ludicrous title that I lovingly place on a shelf, never to watch again. But every time I look up to see Three On A Meathook I’m filled with an almost preternatural warm glow.

            I’ve had to adapt to format changes- like DVD, laser disc and eventually Blu-ray, and as the library grew out of control, and different machines ended in landfills, I found I had multiple formats of the same title, each one increasing in clarity. There have been times when I’ve promised myself never to buy another copy of certain films, Psycho for instance, but I just heard a new version showed up in Germany with snippets of censored material we’ve never seen before. Well, I need that!!!!

            Being a “videot” puts you in contact with other like-minded collectors, and in the old days, when I would plan a whole day around excursions to countless video stores or Entertainment Warehouses that sold discount tapes, I would run into many of them and we would exchange notes about recent video “scores.” It’s classic junkie mentality, but doesn’t hurt anyone except one’s own pocketbook. Rather than huddling in alleys over a crack pipe, we gather in darkened apartments, huddled around a television set watching obscure bad movies that test patience and/or the boundaries of sanity.

            There are plenty of clinics for drug and alcohol abuse. There are groups that meet to overcome bulimia and sexual addiction. But as far as I know, there is no smoke-filled room where I can stand up and tearfully confess: “My name is Dennis and I’m a Videot.” What would be my daily prayer? “One DVD at a time.”

But movie-collecting obsession included unforgettable moments too- like when I was, weeding through used VHS copies at a going-out-business video store and I came across the especially rare “big box” videos of Black Devil Doll From Hell (about a sexually voracious Stevie Wonder look-a-like ventriloquist dummy) and Criminally Insane (starring the amazing Priscilla Alden as a deranged woman who kills people just to snack and sprays Glade around the house as the bodies pile up). Coming home with those tapes in my bag, I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my body as if I’d just robbed a convenience store.

These days I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out where I’ve stashed all my DVDs around the apartment- under beds, under couches, up in closets and endless book shelves. My memory is so shot I’ve had to catalogue a lot of it, just in case in the dead of night I wake up in a panic, needing to re-watch Chesty Morgan beat people to death with her breasts in Deadly Weapons.

Fortunately, I have it in my will that my collection will go to Lincoln Center Library when I die. It gives me comfort that a lot of these rare titles (that have gone out of print and go for a fortune on eBay) will be able to be watched and enjoyed by anyone with a library card. But as I lie in bed rolling around in a pile of rare Blu-rays and DVDs as if they were hundred dollar bills, I try to imagine the poor soul renting my copy of For Your Height Only, a James Bond-like action film from the Philippines starring a rodent-like midget named Weng Weng, who plays Agent 003 ½ and speaks in a dubbed high, squeaky voice which sounds like someone just sucked down a balloon filled with helium. Will they understand the joy I felt when I accidentally bought this weird-looking video from a store liquidating its stock and came home to slide the tape in and howl with joy and wonder at the discovery? The countless frantic phone calls to friends begging them to come over and watch it. The eventual screening in 2000 I had for the film, courtesy of Paper magazine, where my friends gathered at a cushy screening room (with an open bar) to share the endless delights of Weng Weng together. Probably not.