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July 16th, 2004
THIS ONE GOES TO NUMBER
ELEVEN: HOPE FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF VIDEO RENTERS
 "Dude! They have it here," said the teenage boy
with the dreadlocks and the skateboard under his arm.
The three teenaged
skaters looked a bit out of place chattering animatedly in the middle of Have
You Seen Video on the busy Friday night. The soft murmur from the older
and more sophisticated film renters were assaulted by the loud, hyper and
foul mouthed ramblings of the three boys.
"Oh man. This is gonna be
fuckin' awesome!" replied another one of the boys excitedly. "This movie fuckin'
rocks!"
"Yeah. I can't wait to see it again!" chimed in the third
boy.
As they cackled and guffawed the door of the small alternative video
store opened up and even more teenagers filed in, this time mainly girls but
with two silent lost looking boys that didn't look to have much of the clue. The
group was headed by a pretty girl dressed in a denim skirt and a jean jacket
with large hair. She reminded me of Candace Cameron from "Full House" and I
shuddered to think that the styles of the late 1980's are now back in
style.
"Maaaatttt," the girl whined, which made her sound like Fran
Dresher having an asthma attack, "What are you guys doing?"
The tallest
skater turned to her, "We're getting the movie," he replied excitedly, obviously
enthusiastic about the movie he held in his hand.
"We're getting it...
here?" the girl said, looking around the store with her face scrunched up in
disgust. She was obviously a slave  to the
common denominator and was a stranger in a strange land. I don't think we're in
Blockbuster anymore Toto.
"Yeah. This movie is fuckin' awesome!" the boy
replied.
"Yeah," chimed in the shortest skater.
"What is it
anyways?" asked the Candace Cameron clone grabbing the box and looking at it
with the same look of disgust.
"It's called Spinal Tap and it's the best
fuckin' movie ever. It's fuckin' hilarious." At this point I asked myself, "Did
I swear like that as a teenager?"
"Oh. Well... whatever," said the
Candace Cameron clone rolling her eyes and shoving the box back at the tall
skater as she led her little posse out the door.
"Yeah, we'll meet you
back at the house," the tall skater yelled after them.
 The skater
turned back to his friends. "So do we just take this box up to the counter or
what do we do?" he asked.
"I don't know man. Just take it up there," one
of the kids answered.
Watching these three kids, who were so excited to
have discovered "Spinal Tap" - something that none of the other kids they knew
had ever heard of, made me kind of chuckle. It reminded me of myself at their
age discovering old films that none of the kids I knew had ever heard of and how
every week I felt like I was in on something really special and great. I mean,
Spinal Tap isn't the greatest movie of all time, but its a start at least. It
made me realize that as long as there are kids willing to give something that
isn't in the New Release section a chance, good films will continue to stay
alive. There may be hope for the next generation of film watchers
yet.
Unfortunately for the skater boys, Spinal Tap was actually rented
out and the boys didn't get their movie. I didn't wait around to find out what
they rented. Bloody shame.
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