Shortly after graduating college, I had the pleasure of managing an independent record store. It was one of the best jobs I ever had. It was there that I learned how to use a video monitor to set a mood for a room. The theory was that the right video can add just as much flavor as the posters on the walls, the music coming out of the sound system, and the records in the rack. After a couple of years, I had to leave the record store. While it was a great job, it didn’t pay. Surprisingly enough, the new video store down the street did pay…at least more than the record store. Yeah, I took the money, but I took comfort in thinking that it wasn’t going to be much different. I rationalized that discussing good movies was the same as discussing good music. Sadly, I found out, rather quickly, that like the BMV, everybody goes to the video store. See, at the record store, I had a specific demographic of kids from 15 to 26 with an occasional rock and roll holdover from the 60′s who would share tales of getting high with the MC5, turning me on to bands like the Stooges. The video store had no such demographic filter. To make matters worse, the general public has no taste. I would do my very best to promote good films only to have those people return them, telling me how much the movie blew, and why I sucked for liking such crap.
Yes, managing a video store was my professional low point. To make it tolerable, I would try to inject a little flavor by playing some off-beat videos during my shift, like an old WrestleMania or the Thunderbirds. Anything other than whatever typical video store movie the rest of the staff played. One of the movies I would love to play was the Monkees “Head.” It’s just so fucked up. It’s like they got a mountain of drugs, called Jack Nicholson to direct, and made this scattered, stream of consciousness, trippy mess. What was most fun for me was that regular folks would be in the store, shopping, not paying attention, but they’d hear a Monkees song, think it was an episode, and it would change, and Mike Nesmith would throw a tantrum, and they’d think to themselves, “I never saw this episode.” They’d come to the counter with their videos and say, “What in Gods name are you watching?” Success!
In honor of this “I’m going to fuck with you now, typical video store patron” memory, I give you The Monkees, with one of their more psychedelic songs, “Porpoise Song.”
In fairness, I should mention that there were those moments where I would receive compliments on such a video. While those moments certainly felt better, they were extremely rare.
