Fruit of the Vine

I fucking absolutely hate VHS recorder/tape machines, always have. Just think about how many you've owned.....

I found some files in a file cabinet last week-end, and in those files was a receipt for the first VHS tape player I ever purchased for $579.00 from the late '70's. Can you imagine, $579.00?

A couple weeks ago I won an auction for a fairly rare skate video called "Fruit of the Vine". It's a skate documentary that was shot on Super 8mm film by Nichols / Charnowski, and it chronicled the lengths that skateboarders would go to skate an abandoned swimming pool.

I got my video from off of eBay and was primed for a viewing, had beer and popcorn at the ready. Now, I knew that my VHS recorder had been a bit recalcitrant the last couple of times I had tried to use it. So thankfully I had a bit of forethought, and decided to try and make it play a demo tape before sticking my rare new find in the intake slot. Well, lo and behold, it ate the junk demo tape. I then took the cover off and pulled all the pulleys and arms back and retreived my demo tape for future use. Or, should I say future abuse.....

I had another, older VHS machine downstairs, so I dug it out and did all the hook-ups, hunted down the remote. Again, it ate my demo tape, which was probably the reason it was stashed downstairs. Well.

I then proceeded to take almighty great pleasure by taking both machines out back and beating them both into a million freaking pieces with each other. Made every dog in the neighborhood bark like bat-shit. There were gears and plastic and metal crap spread over the parking lot of the Old Dick P.O. Hell, I had to wear my safety glasses. It was pure primal therapy. I swept it all up, and I'm sure the trash guys wondered what the hell was in that one bag.

I still haven't viewed "Fruit of the Vine" yet though.....I guess I'm gonna' have to buy me a new VHS player, but at least it won't be $579.00. But, I'll bet it won't last any damn longer than the last one.....sheesh.