VHS

Yes, there is a connection.

I love VHS. I love it because it’s cheap. I can buy a VHS player for ten bucks and repair it and run it forever. I can buy a new remote on eBay for a few dollars. I can buy any movie I want for a dollar (or less) and only the very rarest videos are more than that. It’s a buyer’s market.

It’s a buyer’s market because people don’t want them. They pay to get rid of them. On the other hand, I’m a buyer. I’m not a big-time collector but a have a couple hundred tapes. I have some real classics in there. Widescreen, a lot of them. Just recently I watched three movies that you cannot get on Netflix. You could get them from Amazon, but IT WOULD COST YOU.

I bought the my movies for cash, and that’s all I pay. No fees. No nothing. I OWN them. It’s a new concept and I don’t blame you if you find it hard to wrap your mind around it. I own these tapes. I can watch them whenever I want. Period.

The thing is, nobody, but nobody, will admit that I may have a good thing going here. There may be a few hipsters who collect old horror films (yeah, I’ve got several of the Full Moon videos) but they are “collectors.” They collect. I buy to watch. I acquire movies that I like, not just slasher films that are “collectible.” I actually WATCH these movies.

I have a TV that I consider to be “state of the art.” Yes, it is a newer one that I can easily pick up with one hand, It has the 16:9 aspect ratio. I also have a ROKU and NETFLIX that I pay American money for. That doesn’t mean a thing when I want to watch Alien, or Robocop, or Devil in a Blue Dress. If I want to watch them, I can pay the man, or can go to the shelf and pull out my VHS copy. Problem solved.

But nobody cares. The reply I got from a friend was “too many moving parts.” Yeah. Right.

The connection to brushpainting is easy to make. I love brushpainting plastic model kits. I think it’s easier, cheaper and, last but not least, safer. I tell other people about what a cool things I’ve discovered. Makes no difference. It’s not “cool” to watch VHS. It’s not “cool” to brushpaint.

Unless, of course, the planets align and it becomes “cool” to do one of these things. Then I will be treated to a sight that no man really wants to see. Self-respecting people asking me to show them how to learn the hip, new thing.

Never happen….

Probably.

2 Replies to “VHS”

  1. Well, I still have VHS tapes, but no VHS player. I do however have a tonne of DVD movies/shows/etc and still buy them. Not Blu Ray ™, DVD. I then rip them to files and watch them via this method, keeping my master DVDs in pristine condition (same with music).

    If you really wanted to be cool, you would have talked about your awesome Betamax video collection. Much like old Apple computers, Beta was for all the hip cats in the 80’s.

    1. Right next to “The Tragedy of the Commons” should be “The Tragedy of the Betamax.” It would describe all of the situations where an inferior technology triumphs in the marketplace because it’s a LITTLE cheaper. That’s all it takes. That’s one of the things I like best about plastic model kits. Price doesn’t enter into it–much.

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