Video Stores II

continued to thrive in its local community. Later, the Ephemeral team will chat with two of our favorite podcast hosts, Lauren Vogelbaum and any Reese of the podcast Saver about some of our best video store memories. But first, a few more words from Dan on the ephemeral experience of

selecting a movie from a wall of titles. One of the things that I think was awesome about video stores is that they put things into shelves and aisles, and that those shelves and aisles had a logic that spatialized a bunch of notions about taste and value related to movies. What I mean by that is that they put labels on them, like action or adventure, or romance or horror.

Different stores created these categories to lump movies together, and they put that into a physical space or there was a physical space associated with that category, just the same way you walk down an aisle in a grocery store and you're like, oh, this is the space with baby food and baby diapers, and now there's pet toys. What's

that about. I just think that, like, retail spaces are really interesting in general, and video stores were interesting because of the way they plumped things together that the corporate stores like Hollywood in Blockbuster. Generally, those stores put things into very broad, generic categories because those stores were really driven by new releases, so the biggest section of the store was not based on a genre or a commonality among the movies, but rather the temporality of the release.

The kind of broad categories found at a corporate store imply a kind of openness and a kind of democratic attitude toward individual taste. That you didn't have to know much about a movie, or about the history of movies, or about film art or aesthetics to figure out where you should be in the store to get what you want. And then with independence stores you find all sorts of quirky categories. Sometimes these are kind of because the person

is educated about film history and film art. Sometimes it's just because there was like a quirky video store owner. Right, So like various small town stores had these great sections like movies with people with mustaches or like bald in times days movies, so like a subcategory of romances. Right, Whereas the corporate store had everything in these big umbrellas. The independent stores generally find more sections and more kind

of fine grained criteria for putting movies together. And then there's those stories that really went to town being very particular about why some movies were in some sections. And they have tons and tons of sections, so it's not just a matter of putting things into like documentary, but you have sub sections for historical documentary, political documentary, concert films, et cetera. And then foreign films might be divided by country,

by director, or by both. Right, those kinds of stores display in physical space a kind of more formally educated approach toward film, not necessarily a better education, just a more formally trained It's like, oh, somehow we should all think about where a movie came from, what country, and we should all think about what director. That isn't necessarily the case, but if you've been to film school, that

is the case. So those stores are a little i would say, less democratic, because you can't navigate those spaces unless you know one that directors matter and that countries matter, and two you have to kind of have a more kind of intellectual rather than emotional approach towards selection, meaning that it's like, Okay, if I want to feel scared at eight thirty PM, that might mean me actually going to the documentary section or getting something by Louis Bunuell.

Those are the three categories. Is like the corporate store with its bland, general, emotion driven generic categories, the indie stores that were often quirky and had more sections, and those sections often revealed kind of the odd ball thinking of the individual owners. And then there's those specialty stores that really did organize things according to a very kind of formal and formally edging hated approach toward film history and film art. But everything came to a head at

the checkout counter. Rather than appearing like a movie concession stand, early video store checkout counters like look like hardware repair shops, because that's really what they were doing, is they were they were renting these tapes and these VCRs with three paid rentles from Blockbuster Video, get a free to linear bottle of diet Coca Cola, and then you have Blockbuster and other stores like that really did transform the checkout

counter into a movie concession stand. So you weren't just getting the movie, but you know all of the kind of things that we attached to movie consumption from movie theaters, you know, candy, soda, whatever, things like that. The checkout counter is this kind of amazing space in general because all of that contemplation, wandering, browsing, selecting, discussing, all that gets kind of condensed down to this business transaction at

the counter. Right, So on the one hand, there's the clerk, and maybe the clerk is somebody that you would talk to and make recommendations back and forth. Maybe the clerk isn't that kind of person. But in the end, it's a business transaction. It can be fraud because it is

a business transaction, like do I have late fees? Right, Like the number of times people are surprised by having late fees or feigned surprised by having late fees like oh no, I had no idea, And then the bizarre negotiation that would happen between the clerk and the customer of like, well, you owe thirty bucks, but I guess you know I can. I can let you off for fifteen. It's like, what do you mean you're gonna let me off?

You're not a cop? And who determined like the value of a late movie anyway, Like there's no fixed price on on latenus. I mean there is at the store, but it's still such a strangely ephemeral or bendable kind of thing here in Atlanta to We're fortunate to have Video Drone, a rental house that's continuously operated since. Videodrome exemplifies much of what Dan values about the in store

rental experience. It's a place that has something to offer anyone that walks through its doors, and has been able to adapt to two decades of change, including weathering a global pandemic. Inside, you'll find a vibrant culture of people from all walks of life seeking out about film, with stacks of DVDs in their arms. Owner Matt Booth and the proprietors of Videodrome were gracious enough to invite us to chat about their history, take a look around, and

point microphones at unsuspecting customers. I'd like to just collect and watch as much as I can, especially during quarantine, and there's a lot of stuff that isn't online, and video Drome has been like the only source I could find for so much stuff. There's this myth that like in the age of the Internet, like you have access to everything, but it's not. It's just somewhere between thirty

and forty thousand movies. And like if you take Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and combine their entire just film libraries, not counting the television, I think it edges out to like nine or ten thousand. My name is Ian Deaton. I'm a low budget film composer, and I also work part time a video drme, drabbing things off the shop that we would have never found. Especially I'm like a big like horror and exploitation fan, and that's probably one of the

most like lost genres of film. Like you could probably find like things that are considered like classics, but like you can't find most of them unless you like either buy a physical copy from someone for like a hundred dollars or just come here. You know that amped up a lot during quarantine. I moved back to Atlanta from Athens in now would come probably like twice a month whenever I could get down here, like I would try to just like walk around at least brows because I've

never seen something so detailed and cataloged. It was enthralling. Any kind of physical storefront in like this era is kind of like practicing a traditional routine in a weird way, especially something like a video store. It's like a reflection of something maybe people associate with the past, but like actually has a lot of usefulness. It's just fun. It's like and then the conversations you have, you know, it's great.

Another thing I'll say is that coming over here and just being able to talk with some of the staff while I like brows has been a welcomed human interaction, just like being inside all the time. It's like around people, it's just like but it's just so relaxed and like, I'm not even the number one fan in my friend group. It's Dan Clifford. He paid someone to do an embroidery of their low Go for a Christmas president room sweet Drome. So I mean, he'll probably come in today, usually comes

in on Friday. So I think the most important thing is curators, like because that's what this story is even though it's there's an insane amount of films and television shows in here, Matt and everybody else that works here, because it's kind of like a collective, we really try to curate this stuff. That's one of the reasons why it's split into all these crazy sections and stuff like that. All of us that work here have Hulu and Net.

It's not like we're opposed to that. We want to see the films, however, then we can get our grubby little hands on it, and this just happens to be the most direct way to do it. A lot of times you get weird information you didn't know before that you're not necessarily Like if you pull up Rolling Thunder on Netflix, it's not going to tell you that Paul Trader was unemployed for six months and an alcoholic and almost got kicked out of his house and got fired

by Pauline while he was writing the movie. And that's why it's so you know what I'm saying, like, don't learn stuff like that. And we also have a lot of people that work part time on and off in the film industry that work here, like Tommy has done construction on sets, Donnie barely comes here anymore because he's a full time editor on television shows and stuff like that.

I worked as a p A and a camera p A for like years until it bashed my childhood dreams into nothing and I had to run away screaming to this wonderful place where movies are real. And yeah, there's there's other stories too, but but it's nice because we get to like kind of bring that kind of stuff into the store to talk to the customs about. And most importantly, everybody, I think most of the people that will actually sit and talk to you have a basic

love of cinema and most importantly storytelling. It's extremely important to all cultures and always has been. And if you look back, there's even examples in like I don't know, I want to say thousands or twelve hundred in the Middle East where they were doing projected plays with candlelight and like stuff like that, like literally proto cinema, like

a long time ago. And it's like it's obvious that this ritual of human beings sitting around some kind of white to tell them a story, whether that's a someone speaking or behind a screen or on the stage or what you know, it's like it just keeps coming up over and over again. We can't seem to shake that mode of people sitting around telling us something about ourselves. I know it's I'm going way out there, but but

but still it is important. And I've recognized that so many times working here, I'm like, where is the common denominator between all this? And it's like, oh, yeah, when I was five and my grandpa tells me a creepy story about when he thought he saw a UFO, you know, standing in front of the fire, it's literally the same same thing. I just loved DVDs. I know it's silly and everybody's gone to streaming and all this other kind of stuff, But to me, this is like opening a book,

holding a book in your hand. You're you've got the DVD and it's I don't know, it's just something special, you know what I'm saying. Then everything else, it's truly stringing string passion. And besides, these guys are fantastic. They know every movie ever made, every everything. If there's anything you want to know, I mean, they know it so

and to me that just means a lot. I come once a week, truly, because I don't always know what I want to watch me be able to browse the shelves is exciting and honestly, talking to these guys are always recommended me something that somebody who thinks that I know a lot about movies, then you come here and you realize you know, the diverse uh stuff that they know about and recommend is just it just makes it better than than any other options, you know, streaming or otherwise.

So I'm Dan, Dan, your reputation preceded you. They were talking about you before you got That's very cool. I'm very excited about that. I've been coming here for a year. On a is my one year anniversary of coming here every week. Because they gave him a rental history a while back and I was like, I don't want to find out what the like the exact day is. This is the best story in the damn world. It's like the only space sale on myself to go to. I really don't like algorithms is one part of it, but

like this store. What's great about it is like they'll give you off the wall recommendations about something that you'll never even think to look for. You can dig really deep in an obscure sub genre in a way that you can't even via streaming, Like we watched fifty three Hong Kong movies this summer or something. We were able to because of these guys. You know, they know that

Hong Kong section is a legendary. It's just the the ability to like drill down into a sub genre or get something completely random that generally speaking isn't on streaming. You know, the knowledge base of like what like twenty years of collecting is unparalleled. It's hard for me to put into word, frankly, how much I like this place. Then I want to point out, because the microphone doesn't capture this, that you're wearing a video drum mask. Uh,

I'm not wearing one video drumask. I'm wearing two and the Ladies snowblood shirt. I figure I look like the picture of the client going a cassette tape earring too. It just it all tracks. I'm well, And you've been coming here for what like the last year, You've been coming longer I've been coming before, Like we had our pretty much day to day ritual. Um, yeah, probably about two or three years now. Yeah. Yeah, there's a Hollywood video on Highway forty one. Thought we would go to it.

Was pretty big. It's now an auto zone. I think that's much more exciting. Yeah, and then there was like a really strange I feel like I just remember the smell where it wasn't it doesn't smell like mothballs would have just smelled very like dingy. And that one was closer to us, but we didn't go there as often. It was as much smaller, but I don't remember the name of it. I think it was just like independently owned.

I also went to school in Athens, so I went to Vision Video and Athen's a bunch and that kind of like that's howaing what got me into watching movies was going to Vision Video. What are you gonna rent today? You have any idea? No? No, That's why I came in here all excited. Cond there's unlimited possibilities. So far. I have Night of the Demon from seven haven't seen it. I'm very excited. And then recommendation from him was Rolling Thunder,

Paul Schrader. I love Paul Schrader. Mishima first reformed. He wrote Taxi driver, you know, and Flash Gordon smooth talk. A lot of stuff that I haven't seen that I feel like I should have seen already mixed with a new release let him Go, because I'll admit to me and like Kevin Costner fanboy, we're looking for something very doom, so we might get Freddie Got Fingered or Encino Man because we just got vaccinated, so we're trying to watch

something as stupid as possible. Today, I'm actually buying a VHS tapes are producer Tremor. I found a lovely copy of Pink Floyds at the wall. Dude, I've seen that. Just my dad has an Yeah, I could not pass at up. How do you pick something? I mean, you just divine it. You hear about stuff naturally. It just just like advertisments and everything else. But a lot of times this can't sound silly, but I just walked in and whatever jumps out at me, and usually that's better

than what I had heard or planned on getting. To begin with, my name is Matt Booth. I'm known or video drum moved Atlanta, n I kind of worked in video stores on and off in high school, and I didn't really have a lot of job opportunities after college, and I just started picking up shifts at a video store that at that time it was called Video Update, and it was at real Mall, which is doesn't exist anymore. It was a kind job where people came and go a lot, so if you just showed up on time,

you became the manager pretty quickly. And I got moved over to the little Five Points location. I wasn't the head person that store, but I was a manager, and I just got to know people in the neighborhood and realized it was a kind of neighborhood that like people were looking for more than just what corporate stores were, and that was like the heyday video stores. That was like nice six nine seven. They were so common at

that time. That's the only way people got entertainment on Friday and Saturday besides going to the movie, So it didn't seem ridiculous to open another video store. I had a friend at the time who also worked at the Store's name was Jeff Sutton, and we just started looking for locations, and we convinced the landlord here too in

the summer to let us have this space. And we took a combination of our own VHS collections and what we kind of drove around and scavenged how to do amount of money to put some orders in and started the store with the maybe like five HS. There's been a lot of changes in this industry, so we were all VHS and we moved to DVD slowly, and now we're kind of moving to Blu ray and there's been some kind of lost formats in between two. I don't know.

Blu Ray's working really well. It's a really good Format's got tons of great companies played out, really special editions of things, perfect restorations. It's a really impressive kind of format. So I'm hoping it's days. I mean, we've had our ups and downs too. I mean, and we started, like I said, we were more of like alternative to the

corporate store, so we were concentrating on the genres. We liked Italian horror and Hong Kong movies and anime and like, we had new releases, but they were just like the indie stuff for the foreign stuff. We didn't mess with big Hollywood releases at all. As we became the last video store, we've become more mainstream in a way, and we get kind of something for everybody. And our selection really just evolved with our customer base what they're looking for,

and with our employees what they're asking for. Our customers are really knowledgeable. They fill us in all the time on things that if we miss it, they loves, and I put a great stock in like personal recommendations. So for me sitting around and talking to customers all day about what they're watching, what they like, they've turned me onto so much stuff. You know, it's not just me

turning some o the things. We have a new a new release Fall and you know that does have new movies that you categorize as things that just came out on DVD and Blu Ray, and it also has a lot of like special releases, special editions of things that are new to Blu Ray for the first time, So it has a lot of older movies on it, but it's the first time they've been on Blue Ray or whatever. And then if you move along the store, we have an anime section from Japanese animation to adult swim to

like theatrical animated features. A TV section over in that corner. That's one thing that's really changed since we've been opened. TV was terrible when we first started, and now that whole genre has gotten better. And then it kind of

moves into some foreign stuff. We have like a Scandinavian section, Eastern European, German, Spanish, South American, Central American, Italian, big French section with some of the big French directors carved out sort of kids section, and above that there's like a young adult section that has like the Harry Potter

and Star Wars and that kind of stuff too. And then when you go around in that corner, they'll be like a Japanese section, which is sort of mainstream Japanese movies, and then the classic Japanese section that has more like Curasawa, and then a bunch of Samurai and kind of Chuza movies. Southeast Asia some of the countries that don't have a ton of movies, but we have a half a shelf or so of each of those. Yeah, yeah, Taiwan is big. Now there's a bunch of great Taiwanese films. China with

big Hong Kong section nineties. Hong Kong cent is one of the favorite like genres of our store. So then there's some generic kind of comedy, British drama, action, thriller. We have an eighty section with a bunch of eighties favorites. We call it we keep wanting to a ninety section, but there's no room right now. But we're getting to that. We only have room for about forty five thousand movies in this whole story, and some of that it's multiples of certain you know, we might have five copies of

certain things. So that's actually one of the things we're doing now to make more room for Blu Ray. We have about seventy rays right now. We're going back pulling some DVDs that we had three and four copies of that. We don't need three and four DVDs of that anymore, dropping down to one or two. We just only have the shell space for a certain amount of movies. So yeah, it's usually anywhere between forty and forty thousand. You want to see the stacks are a little type back here, um,

but you can see the numbers back here. They go somewhere into the thirty thousand. Back here. We have different color codes for differ tags for us that we can organize it a certain way. It's a labyrinth of shelves basically, so we had to add rolling shelves. Um add shelves on top of shelves. I don't know. It's just a system to get as made distant here as possible. They originally built the whole vhs. The newer shelves stock to be is big because they hold DVDs and blue rays.

And then you've just got every title in like a generic case with like a serial number you made up in the title of the movie, like handwritten on the outside. Yeah, it's not the dewy desibl system. It's basically every movie in the order that we got it, essentially that it came into the store. Yeah. I when're talking about new movies, like this is the desk, that's small desk we used to work on stuff. This is the movies that come

out next week. And you've got your glamorous shout of Tommy why so looking over you know he was here one time he signed his movie for us. Yeah, this is where we've been collecting vhs that we sell. I like set up appointments with people coming by vhs sometimes or we have it for We've had some vhs like events where we've sold vhs at events for us that we just want to be a part of the community. We want to be part of the film community. We like to put on screenings. We have to do events

at like bars and restaurants. We like to have people in the store, and as long as we have customers and they're into us, will be here essentially the past. Oh my god, are you for real? Dude? I love your podcast just like, wait, holy I was just on Ephemeral, but you will be I was literally like two days ago looking up to see if y'all were doing new stuff.

I mean, like, I feel like I just walked on the set of a One Car one movie accidentally, or some like wow and see, oh man, that's another extremely stupid movie. Yeah. In preparation for this pair of episodes, we wanted to talk with friends who also came of age in the heyday of the American video store. Here, Annie Reese of the podcasts Savor and Stuff, Mom Never Told You and Lauren Vogelbaum of Saver and brain Stuff join Ephemerald producers Trevor Young, Max Williams, and myself for

a roundtable discussion on growing up with movie stores. First of all, and I told some friends of mine that we were doing this who were older than me. They were like, you don't know video stores? Did you have vhs? Like I love that level of like automatic, you're too young for that. But my family, we did love movies, and my dad especially like he even taught a movie class. And when I went to college, once a month he

would send me a box of movies to watch. And when movie stores came out, when I remember going to them. First I was elementary school and every Friday we would get either pizza or Chinese food. And then I have two brothers and we have a very contentious competitive relationship with each other, and usually one of us got to choose the movie. Sometimes it was two and sometimes it

was a video game. And I grew up in a really small town, so there was an option in town that was like fifteen minutes away, or there was a Blockbuster, which was bigger and had more options thirty minutes away. So we usually did that only once a month, and we we typically went to the one in town which had I love it. It was like a year behind and everything, and they only had one copy of everything.

So like you at Blockbuster, in my experience, it would have like a copy of the DVD would bring up to check out right this place in my town, which I don't remember the name of, but it was just this really small hole in the wall. You would get like these little coins. You'd get them off the wall and there's only one for every movie or every video game, and you would take it up to to check it out.

And it was the most exciting, like competitive, like you'd see somebody else going for a movie I don't know you would go for, especially because everything was a year behind, so there were certain titles that were just really in demand. And I loved it. I loved the excitement of that sitting around on a Friday night with my family and we would demo lights and we would eat whatever, like

pizza or Chinese food. And even if I like, for instance, my older brother loves star check and I was afraid of aliens, I think he would always get star check movies like even that I would I would let it settle. I would let him win, and we would try to enjoy this experience together. That was very exciting to me as a child of like this new movie. I can't go. We can't afford to go to the movies the theater all the time, but we can do this and it

was really special to me. Do you ever like getting certain he's a year late and like like to get a I don't know the matrix in like two thousand three or something. I actually have a very specific memory of the Matrix. Yes. The funny part is my hometown also didn't have a movie theater, except they had like a historic theater that was usually used for plays, but they also got movies a year late. So it's like the whole town was kind of isolated in that way.

So if you stayed in the bubble, no one knew what happened. At the end of the Matrix. I was surprised. I was surprised about what happened in fight Club. But once a month we did go to Blockbuster, and that was that was like the almost the same as I don't know, a small town girl goes to big city or I'd just be like options, options, so big, everything's

new and shiny, what about goodness. My very first video store was when I was a tiny child, maybe like a four to six years old, growing up in Ohio, up near Cleveland and down the block from my house, there was this little corner market that I believe was named Bordon Arrows or Borden Narrows. I was six, um and they had a single rack, like one of those little round spinny racks of vhs tapes, and my dad was a relatively early adopter of the home VHS player.

I remember he would have gotten one in maybe like eighty six or something like that, you know, so not like it was one of the first ones. I remember him specifically showing off the features of rewinding and slow forward motion to one of his friends with Indiana Jones and the writers Little Lost Dark, and they were both like whoa and but so Bordinaros had this like one

rack VHS tapes and uh. I occasionally would get to pick one out, and every single time I got Disney's Robin Hood, to the point that mother had to sit me down and have a very earnest conversation with me about what renting means and about how much it cost. And I think that was the end of my reign of terror with with Robin Hood from Disney and all those sexy sexy foxes. What kind of store was it? What was it like kind of like an indie store where there wasn't a lot of selection like any was

talking about, or it wasn't primarily for for a video. Yeah, it was this like small corner, grosser market kind of thing. Um that I just remember being so much in that color palette of the mid to late eighties where everything was kind of like that like rusty brown color, the floors where the shelving was the light sort of war. I was always excited because they had like the cool bubble gum, like big chew and stuff at the checkout.

Not that my mom let let me get bubblegum, but I was like, oh man, I could pretend I used chewing tobacco, like what like what like why was that a thing in my brain when I was six years old? But yeah, it was extremely limited selection. I'm not sure other than Disney's Robin Hood, what I would have possibly been interested in at this place. Yeah, it's it reminds me and I sometimes forget this. Like they used to have like little video rental stores like you're describing in

like grocery stores and like gas station Yeah. Yeah, yeah, this one was just a little privately owned place. You know, you could pick up I don't know, spettios, drag goods, stuff like that, and yeah, pick out a video tape. Yeah. Actually, a couple of years ago, I was hiking near like an hour away from Atlanta, and I went to an Ingalls and I was delighted that they still had via rental, and I was like taking pictures and the people working there were like, what's wrong with you? It's a video.

I haven't seen this in forever. Yeah. When I when I got older, um and we moved to South Florida, it was kind of, you know, that early nineties boom of video stores when they were making the transfer over into DVD, and so that's when I started going to

like a Blockbuster and stuff like that. And Yeah, lots of memories similar to what Annie was talking about with hair Blockbuster experience, with just you know, like like walking in and you get that gust of just pure plastic scene in the air, and there's just all the bright and shiny displays everywhere, and they all really want you to watch I don't know, Silence of the Lambs or whatever it is, and they've got nine copies of that

one DVD. And then I don't know, when you're like a little goth high school weirdo, you just kind of like shuffle quietly over to the horror section and look through because you couldn't google anything, you know, and so it was either what you knew about at the time or what you could glean from the box art and like the fonts and like whatever terrible marketing copy was on there, whether or not you really wanted to rent

candy Man or whatever it was, Alex your Taron. Well, maybe Max and I can tag team because I don't know if you will know a Max and I are blood brothers. Yeah, were related to If you guys didn't pick up on that, I can't even tell the difference between you two. So yeah, I mean I think our video store experience is probably about the same in our town. I mean that we weren't too limited. I mean we had a Blockbuster. We had two Blockbusters and a Hollywood

video actually, so I don't know what. We had two Blockbusters in our house was equidistant between them, you know. I remember in Royal Oak, Michigan, in the town when we were real little before we moved down south, going to I don't know what the video store was there. It was an indie video store there, but that would have been the early nineties, but I remember going there. Similar to both of your stories, Max, you gotta tell this,

aren't you know. I gotta my my You know, my parents would be like, all right, I actually pick a video, Max, you pick a video. Max a little younger than me, and Max there was a series of videos than like thirty minute educational things called Road Construction Ahead. Each episode of Road Construction Ahead would focus on like a particular like piece of road construction equipment, like the back out

or the crane or or you know, the bulldozer. And I remember my parents bargaining with him being like, Max, we've seen this, We've seen Road Construction Ahead bulldozer already. Do you want to watch this cartoon? And he would be like road Construction Ahead there like do you want

to watch like this film Road Construction Ahead? And so we just rented Road Construction Ahead from Max every single time we went, and then eventually my parents bought the whole series after they had, you know, sunk their lives sexings in to renting from this indy store. Well, that was the least surprising thing I've encountered today. Yes, uh, I mean, I'm a person that when I really like something,

I just you know why I change it up. I mean, Road Construction Ahead was amazing and I would love to trace it down. But yeah, I mean I was trying to think of the name of that video store as well. Like I was sitting here because I was gonn to tell that story as well, but I just cannot remember that. But i'd remember because you know, as Alex said, there was two Blockbusters equidistance. And this is by the time we'd move down here to Atlanta, which I was what six,

and I think Alex was. We were what eight seven when we moved down here, so we were both pretty young. Like one of the Blockbusters, it was like point one miles closer. That was it. So that's why we went there. But there was one summer was when Alex was getting his learners permit. We got a like unlimited pass, so you can get as many movies as you want from that Blockbuster, like you could you have two at a time, but you can watch him return and watch him return them.

And so we would go like honestly twice a day, three times a day. Sometimes just we just sit. It was over summer, just watched movies scene day. We watched virtually the entire selection, and trying to think of some of the movies we watched. We watched some terrible movies. I remember spending like an afternoon watching a like Stephen King four hour like marathon movie. And I was like, oh, it was bright outside, now it's dark. That's how we

spent our day. That's how we spent our lovely summer day. It look you know, occasion we get something like really good. But I mean, I think the coolest part about it was by the end of the summer, like everyone, like I guess probably the manager there or floor manager whatever, they he knew us and he's like, oh, you guy should watch this movie. Kind of similar like how like our tip Deal video drum was where it's like, hey, to watch this movie, but you know, to a very

much a lesser extent about it. So obviously I think of Roald construction ahead, and I knew Ox would tell that story because he's my older brother. But yeah, I really think about that that summer. I guess I don't remember what year it was, but when we literally were just at the Blockbuster every day. So the other person I would go to the video store with was my friend Michael, who's been on this show before. And Michael's grandparents of Jehovah's witnesses, and his grandfather is an elder

in the in the Kingdom Hall. And I don't know what connection this has, but it had some kind of connection. He always had coupons for stuff. He always had so many coupons and gift cards that he got through some connection at his Kingdom Hall. I don't know, I don't know why. But so he would be like, your kids, stay out of trouble. Is his papa is his grandfather's name. Uh, you can stay out of trouble. Go to Red Lobster tonight and give us a fifty dollar gift card to

Red Lobster. And he always had Blockbuster coupons where you could take a coupon and run a movie with it. And so Michael and I would go at least twice a week to the Blockbuster the other one in Dunwoody, And we didn't know the people in this store there, and we were little, you know, sixteen year old seventeen year old cinema snobs, and we would go there and argue about films with with the people behind the counter. Between those two that's where I watched all of my

movies in my formative years. And can I can I ask, did y'all want to impress the people at the counters of these stores or for me? It was kind of an adversarial relationship, like because like I thought, I was so much cooler than them, and so like whatever they thought, I was like, oh, well, I'm glad you didn't like this woman, But did y'all have the opposite experience? I think it was kind of adversarial, to be honest. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it was different for different guys.

I I wish I remembered them all a little bit more. Let's see, my video store experience growing up was kind of twofold. So I grew up with split custody between my mom and dad. My mom was in Austin, which is where I primarily grew up and lived, and then I would like visit my dad who lived in Dallas. So when I went to Dallas, my dad and I would get all the chains like Blockbuster. So that was kind of our thing we did when he had custody

of me every other weekend or whatever it was. And then in Austin it was a little bit more of a like cinephile town, I guess, so it was much more of like a cultural institution kind of a thing, having a video store nearby, and the big one in Austin that we would go to was called I Love Video, the love part being just being like a heart on the on the sign, which I'm sure like some people have seen before because it's somewhat iconic, I guess, at

least amongst video store ficionados. So I Love Video was like the really cool one that my mom would take me to. And there were always people with like green hair, you know, and like wearing like hippie off. It's there. It was like that kind of place, and it was like laid out really cool. There were like toys everywhere, like hanging from the ceiling by string, you know, like Godzilla's. It was like neon lit on the inside. It was really like just neat, hip place to be. I guess.

So a lot of my video store experience growing up was like also like a cultural ussering. You know. It was like, this is Austin culture right here, incarnate in this little store, and if you want to grow up to be a true Austinite, you have to like absorb this. So I guess in my mind, you know, it was also kind of a place to find identity, you know, a video store. I can't imagine it's exactly the same for everybody, but I think everybody at least to some degree,

you can relate to that. You know, like you kind of found out who you were a little bit in a video store, whether or not you wanted to. When you got to Atlanta and went into video for the first time, did it feel a little bit like coming home? Yeah, yeah, you could say that. I think Video Drome here in Atlanta does a really good job of capturing that same energy I was talking about, you know this like like love of movies and like making everything seemed really hip

and cool around, like seeing and renting movies. I really hadn't experienced that, and like I don't know, god, like ten fifteen years since I lived in Austin, you know, when I was a teenager. It was like the last time I had really felt that. And so when I came to Atlanta, I like gravitated towards Video Drama immediately.

I would like start going there regularly. You know. I never thought I'd like go back to like renting movies from a brick and mortar store, But there was just so much to love about, like the experience and kind of living out this you know, childhood memories and that feeling again that I've been a regular patron ever since Yeah,

same when when I moved here. I moved here like fifteen or sixteen years ago now, and so so blockbusters in Hollywood videos and all that were still open, and it was still a thing that I would go because because it was it was like an event night, you know, like it would be that would be what you were doing with the night. You were going to this video store and renting a movie and taking it home and watching it, as opposed to whatever browsing that you do

these days. But yeah, it felt like it felt like a grown up candy store. The first time I went into Video Drum, Like I just walked in and I was, you know, like like kind of like just bouncing around the quarters like I'm in heck and you know, Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. And I turned and there's just a whole wall it's as sex and splatter, and I'm like, I'm home, thank you, thank you forgetting me. Yeah, it's interesting.

When we did the tour, I think one of the things most people really enjoyed about it was like getting to have conversation, you know, they're like about movies and be around other like minded people about film and cinema and just like be able to like hang out there for forty five minutes, you know, chit chatting about whatever. I guess. You know, as a kid, I'm sure most of us were probably like this too, Like I don't, I guess we didn't really know enough about movies. Like

I was happy with whatever. You know. It's like Spider Man movie was out at the time that like I didn't feel they need to like have conversations. But like when I started coming to video drum as an adult, you know, I got to really like discover that discover that feeling of like community around film that I, like, I guess I never really caught onto as a kid. You know, like I kind of felt it was there for the adults, but it wasn't until I was one

that I could like do that. And I don't think that would have ever happened if video drum didn't exist, you know, can I ask? I've been talking to people about videos to as a jog my memory, because I think the last time that I was regularly going to a video store, I was like pre seventeen, to be honest, What were the sections in like a Blockbuster? Oh well, I can tell you about mine, please, Okay? So the

way the Blockbuster in Dawsonville, Georgia was set up. You still remember like the order that you walked around the shop, don't you. Oh yeah, well so the key. The key was if you wanted a like new release, popular movie, they were on the outside edges, so you had to go to the back, and they were usually like a bunch of them, like a whole wall. That's one title, yes, and like multiple copies behind the cover. It felt so like such a success, especially for me because we didn't

go to that place that often. If it was a really high in demand movie and it's only like one copy left, oh gosh, it's the best and maybe you didn't even want to see that movie. I think that's one thing, Lauren, that you touched on that is lost perhaps two younger folks who don't have this experience. You

didn't have the internet. It was fun in that way of you know, this movie could be really bad, but I'm just gonna get it, like that Netflix of deciding for two hours what you're gonna watch and then you don't watch anything that wasn't a thing because you had your parents. In my case, my my mom being like we have ten minutes get something, and so you just

had to get something. And then for in the Blockbuster where that I went to, it had in the store kind of like a library, like yeah, horror, Action, adventure, romance, all those big genre kendy and then usually like one that was foreign movies, and then one that was like in the movies with very small selection. And I did

love horror from a very young age. And my form of altercation with a Blockbuster people was that me trying to convince them not to tell my mom will let me rent this rated arm which I sometimes succeeded in often I didn't because we did usually rent as a family.

So would be like what did you get? And I would be like event Horizon, and then there would be a very long conversation Annie, how many of these movies actually gave you such terrible nightmares that like your parents were justified and not wanting you to see the film

in the first place. Very very many, very many. Uh. And in fact, one of my one of my earliest memories, I had snuck in and watched Jurassic Park and I had a nightmare about raptors that night, and like woke up screaming, and my parts were like why did you have a nightmare about raptors? And I was like, no reason, no reason. It came out that I had snuck into

the Jurassic Parks. So I have a very long history of yeah, pushing the envelope when it comes to that kind of thing, and my parents being like, stop it. I totally forget about ratings so that you can't just pick up whatever you want. Totally forgot about like our rated things when you were a kid, when we were kids. Yeah, man, oh yeah. I I consistently would like get a horror movie that was rated R and try to be like, just be cool. Just come on, man, I got the money.

Any One of the things you talked about that I also wanted to talk about was the experience of like checking out and how like magical and an experience that was not only because you're getting this thing, but also because they had so much cool like I don't know, merch and stuff, you know, like you had like the candy you had sometimes they had like toys behind the counter, they had like plushies, you name it, And that was always a really fun thing for me. I would like

always get something some sort of candy or what have you. Yeah, I was always trying to because my parents also were very frugal, and I was always after those free movie posters. If you waited long enough, they would give you, like usually pretty small movie posters. I really campaigned hard for cardboard cutouts. I never succeeded in that regard, but occasionally.

I wasn't big into candy growing up, but there was something about I think the way we frame candy, like as a snack around movies in the US, Like even if I wasn't, I didn't want it necessarily. I did want it, like just the getting it. It was so exciting, and so I sometimes me and my brothers would come together and usually my older brother also he usually won

these kinds of things. We would get butter finger babies because he loved the Simpsons and they were having that whole thing, and so that was like we would form an alliance over these butterfinger babies, even if it were watching Star Trek. What was the one that really missed me up? The one with the yeah Nemesis about to say, Tom Hardy right there, this is the moment where Tom

already plays uh Patrick Stewart's twisty. I blocked that movie outlays Picard from the past, but also just the experience of getting that movie was exciting, like having that because a lot of times I did use my own money and I would check it out and just being like proud of being able to do that, but also excited.

What's this gonna night gonna be? And what if I love this movie as much as I love Hocus Focus and it changes my life like that, like the possibilities in front of you when you would get a movie. And I was somebody who love libraries too, and that was a very similar experience of like, I'm so excited about this that could really really charge my imagination and perhaps like change how I view things or some be something that I love potentially. So I just that experience

on top of the Butterfinger. I'll tell you what I've asked like three friends just about their video store, you know, video stores growing up and whatever. And the first thing all of them mentioned was the candy. The candy. I had forgotten all about it, but there was like candy and like very large quantities, like large portions of candy, or even if it wasn't large portions, it was in

like the movie sized boxes. So it seems so. And they're all in these like day glow colors, especially in the nineties, and uh and and so bright and big and so in your face with the marketing, because I'm sure that, like in a movie theater, the up charged on those is tremendous um, so it's really worth their while to push it on you. I never had any pocket money as a kid, so when I would go and have a sleepover and have these video store experiences,

I was never buying candy there, but I could. Usually Usually the video stores were in like a shopping center with a whatever the shopping store of of the of the day was, and I could trick them into being like, hey, can we go over to Publix and get some popcorn and candy? Yeah? Oh those checkout lanes. That was a what what? What a what a gambit of of of will willpower? It was terrible. Oh it was a cue too. You walk through a que whether or not there was

anyone in a lot. You couldn't just walk up to the counter. You had to go through a little zigzag structure that they had set up with them cordon. Only the fanciest in Hollywood video what what did the Blackbuster look like, was the carpet blue. I want to say, yeah, everything in there was that was that iconic, like blue and yellow, those like power colors, like you're in the middle of a Superhero title sequence. I remember everything being kind of like polka dot carpet, you know, it's like

that really like flat thin carpet. It's like basically like concrete, and it was like kind of like, I don't know, weird crazy, like when I think like eighties design like Saved by the Bell, kind of like spotty, squiggily designs on the carpet. That's what I remember looking like. Well, my the one that was the small one in my

hometown was really haphazardly put together. It was like imagine a really sad linoleum office and just like not very small, and the shelves didn't have many options to choose from. But I forgot to say, there was an ice cream store in the back, so on special days I could go back to to talk to Dan and get a scoop of ice cream. And that was a good day.

That was a really good day. My next question for the group, it's kind of just when you kind of noticed that like video stores are going out of style, and if you ever really like consciously thought about it, like I never go to video stores anymore, Like were you happy to embrace like things like streaming and Netflix? And I didn't really lose that much until I don't know, you were an adult and had to think about it, if that makes sense. Our family was on the Netflix

DVD rental plan very early. My dad, yeah, was on Netflix right away. I think the actually Blockbuster did the disc rent old thing to compete with Netflix early on. And then yeah, I left home when I was seventeen for college and I went to film school, and so I remember having to watch very specific films a lot. So I had a Netflix rental to get you know, these films that maybe Blockbuster wouldn't carry, and you know also like going to the library at school and screenings

at school. Specifically, that was two thousands seven to two thousand eleven. I think that's basically the decline of the the video store was like happening when I was in film school. Does that does those dates make sense for your research? Triver? Yeah? Yes, I think Liketen was kind of like when they really started just disappearing, you know, when we started seeing headlines of Blockbuster declaring bankruptcy, closing

tens of thousands of stories, stuff like that. It was just I was in my maximum film snobbery at that time, only watching foreign films. I wasn't helping anybody, but I jump in there. I mean, I feel like my stores could kind of slowery. So I left for college two years after Alex did. And you know, as I mentioned earlier, like my dad learned. Dad is pretty like you know, he's you know, pretty fiscally aware, and so he hated Blockbuster. He hate like the late charges, he hate like the

limited things. He thought it was a massive markup. So as soon as he could jump ship from Blockbuster, he did. So. I mean, I don't remember maybe like hanging out some friends on like a Friday night or something that would go to Blockbuster and good movie, but I don't remember really going to Blockbuster. After Alex left for college. I remember Blockbuster being the thing still when I was in

high school. And then you know, by the I was like five and Alex and I didn't have a car either, so it wasn't like we could just get in a car drive to the Blockbuster stuff like that, Like you know, every trip to something that had to be calculated and figure it out, and it was just kind of like, all of a sudden, there was one day it's like, oh, yeah, these things don't exist anymore for me. And I was kind of like, I mean, I I liked like the

independent like movie rental stores are like Blockbuster. It's like there was kind of such an evil company that I didn't feel bad that they were gone. I mean, just to be just to be honest, I was just like, good riddance for them. But it kind of set out all the rest of them are gone though, So I don't know, that's I guess my take on it. Yeah, definitely, the community stores are the ones that probably gotta hit the hardest and needed the most help, and most of

them didn't get it. But you know, I guess frankly, there just wasn't much of a market for it, you know, so of course they'd be the first ones to go for me. I think it kind of the decline kind of started with DVDs because we would buy some vhs, but for the most part, like vhs, we're like very clunky. They were primarily known as like rentals, there were a lot more expensive to produce, write a lot of more

love more materials. So the cell throom market was not as as big for vhs, Like you couldn't really go to the store and buy vhs. I mean you could sometimes, like we had some vhs, but when t v t s came out, at least it was like way cheaper to buy your own movies. All of a sudden, it was like every Christmas, every Birthday, I got like five DVDs, you know. It was just like you can get a DVD for like ten bucks at Walmart or whatever. And so at that point, like the rental system just kind

of started to collapse. I noticed, like I didn't find myself going to rent anything anymore because I could either get a disc for super cheap where I could rip it off lime wire at that point or something like that. You know, like ripping when you had a disk too, was like way more sophisticated. So you started to see that a lot more too. So in my mind that just became the future was like collecting my own physical media rather than renting. And that's why I stopped going

to stories for the most part growing up. Yeah, I think similarly, my dad did really love movies, so he just started buying a lot of movies. So it became we didn't have cable, we didn't have TV, we didn't have working internet. They didn't get all that stuff until I moved out and went to college, which still bothers me to this day, but that's just how things work. Sometimes.

We kind of, or at least my dad's case, like we needed media or some kind of entertainment, Like we could just be renting something all the time, but we didn't have cable or TV, so we would buy movies. And I feel like it was also for me when DVDs came out in high school. When I was in high school, they became more ubiquitous. And then when I

went to college, I did. My roommate um also loved movies, and she had this goal to watch the top one a f I movies, and so we would rent movies every week from the library and we did that throughout college. But that was probably the last time I've regularly rented movies. And it was lovely. I mean, I there's something about the experience, especially because of the library was free, where you just be like, yeah, let's get that. I don't

know what this is, let's get it. Let's try it and having that night together being like, Okay, this wasn't really good, but we had fun. Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm a I'm a couple of years older than the rest of y'all. Um. So I was in college from two thousand to two thousand four. UM, So by the time video stores were really declining, I was already uh grown up twenty something at any rate out in the world. And um, some of my friends did have Netflix DVD

subscriptions at the time. I think my highest rental time was during college when some of my friends and I, UM, we're starting to get into weird indie films, UM and especially weird genre films, and um there were still a couple of local places that would rent out these just just wonderful, bizarre, uh scandalous, scandalous films UM and uh finding those either through these online subscription services or UM or uh in these local stores was just just just magical,

just absolutely like the kind of things that you're you're just not even share why and how someone committed this object to film and suddenly you get to watch it in your house, uh twenty years after it was made. Just magic. But I felt the decline line of the big box video stores really viscerally because it was again like it was a thing that I would go and do with my friends and that was an activity that

was a relatively inexpensive activity for the evening. And I was just like, well, but what what am I gonna What am I gonna do? Like what am I gonna do with Kai? Like what? Like what what are we gonna watch when we order pizza? If we can't go to the Hollywood video next to the pizza place? Like like,

how is this going to work? And I don't know you even getting a DVD in the mail is is a different I think I think you're I think you're right, Trevor, Like there was something about vhs that lent itself to the lending process a little bit more economically or viscerally or something like there was something about the physicality of that tape and the way that it the way that it rattles, and the way that it even rattles in the paper sleeve in this very satisfying way. Um that

even a DVD. Yeah, yes, I mean where do you guys think video stores are going from here? Do you think like video drome can still continue to exist? Do you think all these kind of you know, holdouts are going to be able to like make it happen. Are we just gonna lose that on this kind of piece

of culture forever inevitably coming soon? I think that that you see it in kind of a lot of different industries, like a return to It's been a weird year for it obviously, but a return to like in person more kind of like boutique, yeah, like final or like record stores, you know, or whatever, Like you know, people getting away from buying everything on Amazon, doing all of their shopping

and all of their commerce online. But it's like, oh, there are certain things that like I do actually want to you know, have like a personal experience going in choosing something like that. I mean, like what's more valuable than your time? Right? You know people is a little bit of a long winded of saying, but like some people might do it with you know, fashion or something like you don't want to buy your stuff online, you want to go into an actual physic cool store to

do it. Like if if like your thing is watching movies and lots of you don't have to be a cinephiles quote unquote to be that person, right, Like if you like watching movies then like there's certainly a particular drive to go into a place where you can do it the most conscientiously. Yeah, I think I think so.

I don't think they'll ever come back to like when the heyday of when we were experiencing them, but I do feel like there's been a return in a lot of ways of people have expressed like, what is that called entertainment fatigue? When you have way too many streaming options, are way too many things like the reasons we flocked to things like Netflix, which is convenience and it's just

right there. I think that we are realizing like, yes, that's great, love it, but sometimes I don't want that thing, Like sometimes I want something else, I want a different option. And so I do think that I hope that there is a market for smaller boutique stores and people will continue to patron eyes them and that that number might grow. Yeah. I certainly hope that the that the small shops can

hang on. And I love what Video Drome specifically has been doing in partnering up with other local businesses like the Plaza Theater, which is right around the corner, to do some film screenings of really interesting movies or they had a couple back when, you know, like live events were a thing. They had a few parties over at the Highland in ballroom. Um that we're always just a really fun time of you know, like people who are enthusiastic about a thing getting together in a space and

being enthusiastic about it is a wonderful thing. And I guess, I guess, yeah, that that is what you're talking about when you're talking about that community of a film store, even if it's just you and the surly attendant, Like that is a community of two of two people who you know, are who otherwise might not ever have the opportunity to talk and can wind up getting into a really interesting conversation about yeah, like Cronenberg or whatever it is that it is like I think that videos stores

that exist now have the potential to go on and that that they can get some support because they fill a need in their community, but also maybe especially because they feel like a really rare niche now that there's just not that there's so few of them, there's such a rarity. But like new video stores like people opening, do you think that's a possibility a new indie store in your town. I think it's possible. It would be hard, to be difficult to do, but I think it's possible.

I think it's like more likely in very specific geographic areas, Like it's got to be somewhere that's like a little bit more Irvan. It's got to be somewhere, or it's got to be somewhere with like a big college, you know, like maybe Athens or somewhere. Would that would work, you know, where there's like enough young people. Yeah, just that kind

of density. Yeah. One of the things that they pointed out when we were at Video Drome is that because they've it open for over twenty years, they've collected titles that aren't in print anymore that you can't really find. I mean they took all this they've taken all this time to build up inventory. All is be buying things, and that's one of the reasons when you go in

there that their catalog is so incredibly diverse. I mean it's something close to titles now, and you know, they've got lots of they mean the stuff they opened in the nineties, they've got lots of like Indian sort of small release stuff from the nineties specifically that hasn't been reissued and isn't in print anymore. If you or your collection of friends or whatever had a deep collection of

film titles already, then you can start a store. Starting a store brand new and just buying all this stuff would probably be the least exciting way to do it. And I feel like at this point you would start having to does a video drume to do this. Um. I feel like at a certain point, from Blockbuster or whatever, you could rent out VCR if you didn't have one. Um. But yeah, like I think that any new place that opened up might need to consider renting out the equipment

with which to watch such a thing. I mean, you make a good point. You make a good point. I mean, who has DVD players anymore? Just you know, I don't know, Like, are you going to rent it on a thumb drive? Like? I like? Who? I will say, there are a couple of movies I can't find on streaming that I want, and I can't buy them anywhere, and I'm not willing to spend a hundred and eighty dollars on The Princess and the Goblin, which I think is probably not very good.

But I liked it as a child. He had coarse Leashman in it, so that's the plus. Um, I feel like video drums that you should a video drume. I should. I have like four movies from my childhood that I'm like, I'm pretty when I watched Um, The Thief and the Cobbler is on there. I have a whole list from the same production Coveny or something, because that's something like

the first one. Probably well, I can't get them anywhere, but I do think it's interesting the idea like in the post apocalypse times, we won't have well, well I don't know full around, but there will be like Internet necessarily, and there will you want these physical things. And there are movies that I remember watching as a kid where that they would have to act out like the adults that could remember the Star Wars like movies they would

act them out for younger generations. But there is you know, maybe you don't want to think that way, but it's possible that we will need this physical media in the future. So that's something to keep in mind. This episode of Ephemeral was produced by Trevor Young and Max and Alex Williams, with big thanks to Dan Herbert. My colleagues Annie Reese and Lauren Vogelbaum of the phenomenal food and culture podcast Saver.

And to Matt Booth and everyone at Video Drome for their hospitality in this production and for making Atlanta a great place for movie culture. We'll be back with something new in two weeks. In the meantime, you can find the fullest of Ephemeral episodes over on our website Ephemeral dot Show. And for more podcasts from My Heart Radio like Sabor, Brain, Stuff and Stuff Mom Never Told You, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M. M.