Ennui

Video killed the radio star.
And now video is dead.

The last VHS players are being made, possibly as I type this.
I actually bought a VCR about six years ago.  I bought a dual VHS/DVD-R player/writer.  I still have a pile of VHS tapes and I wanted to transfer some to DVD.  In the last six years, I've transferred exactly one VHS tape to disc.

Interesting prototypes and extremely expensive units aside, the first VHS VCR was available in the late 1970's.  It was probably some time in the early 1980's when I was introduced to the VCR; a friend whose family was more well-off financially had one on their relatively large television.  VHS was preceded shortly by the Betamax format, but I only remember one family having it.  Likely more actually did, and my boss in high school had a "Beta" player and a never ending stack of PG movies, many taped off of the TV with the occasional PG-13 that were still deemed acceptable.  Conservative ideology in movies may have played a role in eventual death of Sony's Betamax format, and it is entirely possible that is part of the reason my boss chose it.  Shockingly, the time delta from the last Betamax blank tape being made to the last VHS VCR being made is only a few months.

Jaws was one of the first movies I saw from VHS.  When VCRs first began to gain popularity, Movie studios were terrified they would kill profits at the theaters, and movies were priced astronomically high.  My memory wants to recall hundreds of dollars for recent movies, but perhaps it wasn't that bad.  They were, regardless, expensive.
Prohibitive movie costs meant that renting movies was extremely lucrative.  Every grocery store, pharmacy and gas station had a wall of movies to rent, competing with dedicated movie rental business that sprung up everywhere.  Many rented movies regardless of renter age which is how many of us were introduced to R-Rated movies.
Postal VHS Clubs sprung up where very poor quality movie tapes were given away to lure memberships which came with the "convenience" of new movies sent for cost every month.  There was no better way to spend a lot of money for movies nobody really wanted to see more than once.

Still, I'm left with a sense of ennui that the VCR has come to an end.  In a way, this is closing a door on a big part of the 1980's.  Another reason for Generation X to wince as the baby boomers hop over on the backs of the millennials.

We watched The Breakfast Club, probably the movie that better defines the 80's than any other.  It seems like St. Elmo's Fire should be a much later release, but it came out the same year.  Eventually things fell to Less than Zero, which worried some of our parents; they must have read the book.

Ferris Bueller took a day off, and just about anyone of a certain age will have to try not to smile when they hear, "Bueller, Bueller, Anyone, Anyone."

We watched Some Kind of Wonderful in the church basement, only to realize how fiction Fiction can be.

We watched The Terminator, introducing us to a future governor, followed by Predator, with two future governors.

We watched Red Dawn, assuming we could all kick ass as much as those kids.

We watched Rambo kick some ass, then watched First Blood and didn't understand it, only to find out Sylvester Stallone was - and is - an asshole.

We all wanted to become ski bums after watching Hot Dog.

We watched Eddie Murphy's Raw, but none of us could pull off a full body red leather suite (or tried, thankfully).

We watched Porky's and The Sure Thing, assuming that was what college was really going to be like.

I guess there is no reason to be either sanguine or melancholy about the protracted death of VHS.  The 8-track was nearly dead by the time I saw my first VHS movie and we'll always have Netflix streaming.
Or will we?

Derelict Houses

There is a house I frequently go past that has been vacant for a few years.  It is much newer than my house, larger and the property even has a pond.
From the little I know of its history, its build wasn't very rapid, likely due to the unique and customized log-cabin style architecture.  A couple years after occupancy, the couple that owned the house prepared for divorce and abandoned the property to the creditors.  While the cost may have been prohibitive for one of them to hold on to it, it was unfortunate that there did not even seem to be an attempt to sell it first.  Perhaps in the face of a personal and emotional failure, it was just one more thing which was too much.

Empty buildings make me sad - this isn't entirely complete.  Empty buildings make me sad as they deteriorate.
I'm not naive in this.  I realize that in some cases, the expense of keeping a structure outweighs its usefulness or cost to keep it up.  But empty houses take on an aura of depression, and this depression grows to an overwhelming pitch as buildings atrophy.

Houses develop a personality, a psyche, over time.  Walking into a freshly completed structure is probably intensely exciting to new home owners.  I've never lived that, and the feeling from other's new houses has always been one of intense sterility - akin to walking into a hospital, or furniture showroom.  The overwhelming smell of new paint and carpet; the saccharin look of all the unused fixtures; lack of scuff marks showing where people's lives have intersected with chairs and doors, with the floors and counters.  When redoing windows in my previous house, then well over 100 years old, I found mischievous etchings in the wood, archaeology and anthropology meet in real, every-day form.  The feeling was similar to when I found an old rifle with "Stoby" inscribed in the stock.

I love the feel of an old house.  The walls breath with its history.  Peoples lives are written in every nook of an old house.  And that is part of the reason why seeing houses fall derelict is so depressing.
Pausing in front of an old, empty house, it is possible to imagine all of life's little happinesses that may have happened there.  But as the house deteriorates, the happiness seems to slip away, leaving only life's evils.  I think that is why old empty buildings are so frequently described as "creepy" - the buildings lose their upbeat spirit, and what is left is fear, anger, and anxiety.

I took refuge from a sudden rainstorm once in an abandoned building.  The floor had given way in spots and there was overwhelming evidence of years of animals taking up residence.  I looked around and wondered what events had happened in the very spot I was standing.  As the rain pattered on the roof, and through it in some places, it almost sounded like voices of the past, a reminder that things weren't always like they are now.

I often wonder what transpired to transform a home into a shell no longer worthy enough to maintain, especially in and around areas that remain populated?  Fire and severe damage due to weather leave scars that explain catastrophic devastation.  Termites and other insects can render a building dangerous over time.  Poor maintenance, particularly as it pertains to weather fastness can be destructive.  Yet these issues build slowly over time.  Many empty properties are left more in a state of suspended animation.  They stand a testament to history, and as a reminder that at one time, the structure was once not only someone's house, but someone's new house.

Over the years it was empty, the house I frequently go past started to look more distressed.  Exterior wood needing treatment turned prematurely grey, and wooden clapboards began to fall out of place.  Vines started to grow ominously up the side, the chimney was left askew after a windstorm, and trees began standing sentry, blocking the front door.
That vacant log house has recently started to be cleaned up.  If other similar properties are any guide, it will go up for sale soon for a fraction of the value of other similar houses in the area, with the caveat that it is strictly sold as is.  The house will be set to be transformed back into a home, ready to create more history.

Road Trip Risk

Like many other things, it falls into the camp of, "I'd rather not know."

Two of the dogs had their annual check-ups a few days ago.  En route to the vet, NPR had a story about an upcoming book The Voyeur's Motel by Gay Talese.  I got to the vet a few minutes before they opened, so I was able to listen to the end of the story.  A quick search on my phone revealed a pre-article under the same title in The New Yorker.  I printed the article to a PDF and emailed it to myself for future reading.  Interestingly, The New Yorker cartoon images did not render in the PDF, while the captions for the cartoons did, making the cartoons just as enjoyable had they been displayed correctly.

The article was disturbing - as I assume the book is.  The basics: a man in Colorado bought a motel and created viewing ports in the attic to watch guests ... doing what guests do in motels.  With a few weeks on the road every year, I stay in lots of hotels.  I'm not terribly picky about the hotel, other than it be relatively clean and relatively inexpensive.    I'm well aware it is very possible to make a room look clean, with actual cleanliness somewhat suspect.  Sometimes clean and cheap compete.  And apparently there are sometimes viewing ports in the rooms.
In one of my most conspicuous examples of cheap and clean competing, I was vacationing through South Texas well over 10 years ago.  There was a very nice chain hotel that was more expensive than we wanted to pay, with a slightly rundown place (LCI) across the street, "Cheapest Rates on the Beach!"  The hotel was cheap, but there was a $5 deposit on the room key - seriously.  The room was tolerably clean, but the large front window didn't lock very well.  After settling in, I was unable to find the remote to turn on the TV.  Walking back to the lobby, I was informed that remotes are given out only after a $10 deposit.  This was probably the only time I have stayed in a place where other denizens feel compelled to steal TV remotes.  The restaurant next door that night was great and after several margaritas I slept just fine in the hotel room, even if it wasn't the best room I've ever stayed in.  The broken window lock didn't even bother me (much).  I still have the receipt for that hotel as a memento.  For all the now forgotten hotels and motels I've stayed in, LCI was quite memorable, even if it wasn't for the best reasons.
Looking at Google Streetview, the hotel still exists, and the exterior looks better than I remember from my stay.  Reviews for the establishment are largely wretched.  No mention in the reviews of deposits for room keys or TV remotes.  I can only hope.
There have been other cheap hotels which have ranged from exquisite to funky-smelling to pretty awful.  I've been given the keys to rooms which were already rented, and had people try to enter in the middle of the night when my room was rerented, "I'm mad about this, I could have gotten shot!"  Perhaps my penchant for travelling armed proceeds me.  Road trips mean never staying in one place very long.  If I do stay in the same place for multiple days, I generally try to get, at least, a more interesting place to stay.

I've always thought that there was some voyeuristic behavior in hotels, either by the staff and management, or by other guests.  With housekeeping walking in and out every day, it is hard to imagine some snooping NOT happening.  Even I, on occasion, have spent a few minutes peeking out of a hotel door peep hole.  This may be due to safety more than anything nefarious as I can be a bit paranoid.  One night in Illinois, I was sure I was going to be on an episode of Cops, as a woman screamed "RYAN," while pounding on the doors around my room.  But hearing of the flagrant example of criminal peeping tomery in The New Yorker article was a little hard to stomach.  While I expect this was, and is, the very rare exception rather than the rule, it is none the less disturbing.
I would actually think peering in on people going about mundane events would get quite dull very quickly, which makes the subject in the upcoming book all the more frightening since it went on for many years.  Perhaps the mundanity is interspersed with enough novel events to continue.  More likely, one must be the right kind of person to do this in the first place.

The comparison of the subject of Mr. Talese's book to the Norman Bates of Hitchcock fame is almost impossible not to make.  In an early scene of the first Bates movie, Norman peeks through a small hole in the wall at a female guest in the shower, which begins to set off the unfortunate fictional events.
In this new book, the events are believed to be largely non-fiction.  However, there are discrepancies noted and Mr. Talese is of the New Journalism school, which has at times split the hair between fiction and non-fiction.  Hopefully this doesn't happen obliquely.  After reading the article, I'm not sure if I'll read the book.  I think I've learned enough at this point.  Tell-all books are better when the alls that are being told are voyeuristically about something that affects other people.

The vet visit concluded that the dogs are getting older and are healthy with no new issues uncovered.  They received annual vaccinations, including for bordetella - meaning they can be kenneled for a future road trip ... which will include motel stays.

I Wonder if my Aunt Listens to Guns N' Roses

There was a family reunion this weekend.  Normally I wouldn't even consider going to one of these things but I perseverated about it for several weeks.  As recently as a few days before I was still leaning toward going.  But inaction is the easy default and I stayed home for the three-day weekend.

As part of the reunion, there was a pig roast - which was quite an appealing draw.  It has probably been decades since I have been to a pig roast.  When I was a kid, the church I went to had an annual pig roast.  Living across the street from the church, I would always wander over there shortly after the pit master (I'm not sure if they were called that yet in the 1970's) would get there with the roaster and pig.  The pig would be roasted, complete with apple in mouth.  I would hang around and sometimes get meat presnacks.  But maybe I didn't.
There were several pictures posted on Facebook by a few relatives at the reunion.  I'm glad there were no pictures of a brown roasted pig; that would have increased the angst about not going.

Last weekend there was also a reunited Guns N' Roses concert at Soldier Field.  Slash and Axl back together again.  Unlike the reunion, I never even considered going, even for a picosecond.  I almost went to a Detroit GNR concert in the late 80's.  I didn't go and it was cancelled anyway.  As I recall, the late cancellation caused a near riot.

The Independence Day weekend was a productive one, if slightly dull.  I was able to treat some wood around the house that needed attention and fix my pole barn.  I had one panel of siding on the barn that was slightly mangled in reinstallation haste earlier in the year after replacing some wood that had rotted due to the barn builder's omission of a few pennies worth of caulk; this allowed water to get to the wood above the overhead door, rotting it to structural worthlessness in less than five years.  I was also able to put a small patch over what I am quite certain is a bullet hole in the back of the barn.  I don't see it daily so I'm fine with the patch.  The bullet hole is a little troubling, but I guess someone can hit the broad side of a barn.  In reality, I'm not completely sure it actually was a bullet hole, and even if it was, the projectile had to have come form a very long distance away.

Some of the other reunion pictures posted on Facebook were a good reminder of some of the reasons I didn't want to go to the reunion.  I cringe at the thought of the awkward conversations with uncles and aunts.  I don't suppose most neural-typical people see these family conversations as awkward, but I do.  While I have some fond memories of my slightly judgmental relatives from childhood, at this point they are more like strangers I barely know and have little in common with, other than a few chromosomes.  Perhaps that is because I don't go to the family reunions.

I wonder if any of my uncles listen to Guns N' Roses.  Almost certainly not...

I likely would have enjoyed catching up with some of my cousins - and seeing them as they are today as adults, probably with their own children.  In my memories, they are still the lurchy teenagers we all used to be.  It actually could have been quite unsettling.  My cousin's children look more like my memories of the cousins themselves.
The weather was actually much better seven hours away at the reunion location than it was at home.  It would have been a great excuse for a lot of motorcycle time.  The motorcycle ride home would have been quite wet however, and I am in need of new tires on the Triumph.
I was, quite frankly, wanting a simple weekend after an exhausting week of work, where my job has completed a five month transition.

I'm not sure if not going to the family reunion was the right decision.  But it was a decision.  I rarely look back with regret, but sometimes with zelfmedelijden.

"Just as ancient insects that led full productive lives disappeared without a trace, and those that bumbled into amber and died are still around in tangible form, so our personal failures remain, sharp and clear, long after the day-to-day routine and minor victories fade into nothingness." - Neil Steinberg