Please Be Kind, Rewind

It's all in your perspective.

My Mom used to say that no one missed the good old days who actually lived through them.

Not so for lovers of VHS, as shown in the documentary "Adjust Your Tracking: The Untold Story of the VHS Collector" at the Movie Loft tonight. Mad props to the guy collecting the admission at the door because he was stuffing it in a VHS tape box.

Now that's allegiance to a theme.

I loved the space - two rows of mismatched couches- and promptly sat on one only to be told I was sitting on someone's seat. Oops.

Moving to the front row where the couch wore a soft, pale green blanket, I was allowed to stay and was soon joined by a filmmaker I know. Like me, he's of an age to remember the full history of VHS and not just being taken to the video store as a kid.

Also like me, he's a music fanatic, so before the film, he told me about his recent trip to Maryland to see New Order. I wasn't surprised to hear that all ages were represented at the show but I was very surprised to hear that their encore was all Joy Division, with Ian Curtis' face projected behind them.

And, speaking of the '70s...

Filmmakers Dan Kinem and Levi Peretic humorously warned us that we'd soon be seeing a parade of middle-aged men with bad personal hygiene and a passion for VHS.

Guys who say things like, "VHS, it's my manhood." Guys who give interviews from a colorful ball pit or, more often, from their room-sized collection of VHS tapes.

I was one of the people who remembered that 1983 was the golden age of VHS without hearing it in the film. Actually, in 1983, I was dating a guy who ran a video store. True story.

And they were making a killing.

The collectors talked about how Blockbuster killed the Mom and Pop video stores (like the one my boyfriend worked for) and about the joys of the pops and crackles of VHS tapes. All of them got worked up on the subject of VHS box cover art and how often it belied its contents.

Still, most of them agreed that a great cover was enough reason to rent or buy a tape.

Unbelievably, one guy took his VHS collection and set up a mock video store in his basement, complete with 1990 computer (pre-mouse) and original video store counter (he had to cut it in half to get it down the basement steps).

That's VHS love.

Turns out the holy grail for VHS geeks is the 1978 movie "Tales from the Quadead Zone," impossibly hard to find. One guy happened on a copy, bought it for two bucks and sold it on e-Bay for $660. Both guys were interviewed about it on camera and both were thrilled with what they'd gotten.

"That was the game changer," one said perfectly seriously. As in, that's when it became clear that there was an army of VHS collectors out there, most eager to accumulate as many tapes as they could.

And these guys already had 3900, 4500 or more tapes.

I found it hysterical how one guy said he loved to watch more than one movie at a time, stopping the tape and inserting another before going back to just where he'd left off with the first. We all know that's not something you can do with a DVD.

But you also can't toss DVDs around because they're not the indestructible monsters that VHS tapes are. And who knew that movies are again being made in the VHS format?

It's a good thing I go out so I can learn this kind of stuff.

By the time the documentary ended, my memories of the pleasures of VHS tapes had been brought back into sharper focus. The filmmakers are to be congratulated because the documentary had done its job well, sucking me back into the good, old days.

The rewinding, the tracking adjustments, the trips to the video store and enjoyment from wandering aisle after aisle to choose the perfect obscure film to complete my afternoon or evening.

Way better than the memories of the video store boyfriend.

Naturally, afterwards there was a sale in the back of the loft of, what else, VHS tapes. As it happens, I already have every Perry Mason episode ever filmed on VHS and since I have no VCR (or TV), I didn't really feel the need to add to my collection.

Which I suppose means I'd make a lousy VHS collector.

That and my personal hygiene is really pretty good.