Mining My Past For Blog Fodder
NOTE: Just a quick story this time, as I'm bored and any attempt at entertaining myself will do.
I used to work at a video store in Austin called Vulcan Video. It was the "hip" video store in town; independently owned, staffed with film nerds (hi), and chock full of off-beat, unusual movies in which the freakazoid population of the town could partake. As a job, it was parallel to none. Partly because of the free rentals and the deals we struck for free food with other local establishments, but mostly because they let us drink during our shifts there. In the words of the management, "we don't pay you enough to tell you not to." Good times. Anyway, next door to Vulcan Video was a porn store. A gross one at that; we'd go over there every so often to swap out 10$ bills for rolls of quarters when we ran low. We knew they'd always have them because they had coin-operated "private viewing booths" in the back; they always kept a steady supply on hand so they could make change.
Side Note: The thing I'll always remember about the decor of the porn shop, other than the creepy, serial-killer's-basement wood panelling that they had, was that they kept all of their "toys" hanging on a rack right next to the shop's only door. Meaning, whenever you wanted to leave, you were forced almost against your will to browse a wide selection of items that you could shove up your butt or, perhaps, the butt of a loved one. My favorite was the life-sized, intricately detailed rubber replica of a human arm. The hand of which was sculpted into a clenched fist. Ouch! (I assume)
The thing that sucked about these "private viewing rooms" was that they could be entered and occupied for only a quarter. Because of this thrifty fact, they were widely known as a great place for the so-inclined members of Austin's underground to go and privately shoot up massive amounts of heroin. Because the staff of the porn shop was, generally, a pretty worthless lot, they had a tendency to not notice or to forget that people were supposedly back there watching porn. This would naturally lead to other patrons heading back, opening the door to a booth, and finding not a treasure trove of porn-ly goodness, but a junkie on the nod... or, as did happen a few times during my tenure next door, a junkie that had ODed and was thus quite dead.
I say that this sucked because, when this happened, the ambulance would pretty much take over the small parking lot, which made trying to park your car for your shift a total hassle. Lousy junkies, makin' my life harder...
I used to work at a video store in Austin called Vulcan Video. It was the "hip" video store in town; independently owned, staffed with film nerds (hi), and chock full of off-beat, unusual movies in which the freakazoid population of the town could partake. As a job, it was parallel to none. Partly because of the free rentals and the deals we struck for free food with other local establishments, but mostly because they let us drink during our shifts there. In the words of the management, "we don't pay you enough to tell you not to." Good times. Anyway, next door to Vulcan Video was a porn store. A gross one at that; we'd go over there every so often to swap out 10$ bills for rolls of quarters when we ran low. We knew they'd always have them because they had coin-operated "private viewing booths" in the back; they always kept a steady supply on hand so they could make change.
Side Note: The thing I'll always remember about the decor of the porn shop, other than the creepy, serial-killer's-basement wood panelling that they had, was that they kept all of their "toys" hanging on a rack right next to the shop's only door. Meaning, whenever you wanted to leave, you were forced almost against your will to browse a wide selection of items that you could shove up your butt or, perhaps, the butt of a loved one. My favorite was the life-sized, intricately detailed rubber replica of a human arm. The hand of which was sculpted into a clenched fist. Ouch! (I assume)
The thing that sucked about these "private viewing rooms" was that they could be entered and occupied for only a quarter. Because of this thrifty fact, they were widely known as a great place for the so-inclined members of Austin's underground to go and privately shoot up massive amounts of heroin. Because the staff of the porn shop was, generally, a pretty worthless lot, they had a tendency to not notice or to forget that people were supposedly back there watching porn. This would naturally lead to other patrons heading back, opening the door to a booth, and finding not a treasure trove of porn-ly goodness, but a junkie on the nod... or, as did happen a few times during my tenure next door, a junkie that had ODed and was thus quite dead.
I say that this sucked because, when this happened, the ambulance would pretty much take over the small parking lot, which made trying to park your car for your shift a total hassle. Lousy junkies, makin' my life harder...
posted by Clinton at 3:40 PM
6 Comments:
but mostly because they let us drink during our shifts there
Why would you ever leave? I don't care what it pays, get me an application!
Ah, good old Vulcan. Like a Neverland for geeks with vices.
Kind of upsetting about the Smut Smackhouse. I always felt bad for the sheet music store that was between Vulcan and the Pornery. "Hi, I was wondering if you had any Sonatas for Flute and DEAR GOD, NO!"
"Hello, this is RST Video, customer number 4352, I need to place an order. Okay, I need one each of the following tapes: "Whispers in the Wind", "To Each His Own", "Put It Where It Doesn't Belong", "My Pipes Need Cleaning", "All Tit-Fucking Volume 8", "I Need Your Cock", "Ass-Worshipping Rim-Jobbers..."
Midwesterner... If I hadn't left, I'd have been there forever. Which seemed like a bad thing at the time. Um... not sure what I was thinking, actually...
Braden... For some reason, I always forget that the sheet music store was between our store and theirs. Weird. Did you ever see any dead bodies being hauled out of the Pornery while you worked there? Because it seemed to happen pretty frequently when I was there.
Todd... If I start getting a ton of hits from people searching for "Ass-Worshipping Rim-Jobbers," then... well, I'll be grateful for the traffic, I guess. And maybe I can score some phone numbers...
No corpses during my tenure. But I will always be haunted by the dead-eyed stares of a few Vulcan customers who paid actual real money to rent Bringing Down Da House.
I thought we had a "No Renting Queen Latifa/Steve Martin Quasi-Comedies" policy? Also, how weird is it that we both worked there, but never at the same time? I've always found that strange.
Post a Comment
<< Home