Tuesdays With Dummy

As you may know, if you happen to be a huge nerd, Tuesdays are the day when that week's new release DVD's hit shelves. Generally, each week will have 2 or 3 big, recent, mainstream movies released, along with a bevy of classic titles, TV shows, direct-to-DVD selections and other assorted weird crap.

For example, this week saw the release to DVD of Dukes of Hazzard, Fantastic Four and Cinderella Man, along with new transfers of Fox classic noir titles like The Dark Corner, Kiss of Death and Where the Sidewalk Ends and two new features from the Criterion Collection, Shoot the Piano Player and Forbidden Games. Also, there was a new season of "The West Wing," season 4 of the most innovative comedy series on TV right now, "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," a new season of "24," "MASH," "Garfield and Friends," "Law and Order," "MacGyver," "Land of the Lost," "Murder She Wrote," "Roseanne" and "Batman: The Animated Series." Oh, also, a very special box set of Disney's beloved series "That's So Raven." Not to mention the second batch of Cartoon Network "Clone Wars" cartoons, a bunch of collectable tins from Disney Animation and a box set of all four secret agent movies starring Dean Martin as Matt Helm.

Most people - or rather, most sane, normal, well-adjusted people - aren't even aware that Tuesday in New DVD Day. They'll wander into a Tower or a Laser Blazer once in a great while, look around and see all the stuff that has come out since they were there last, maybe pick up a few things and be on their way.

But our die-hard customers, they study the list of new releases with the seriousness of a rabbinical student taking in the Talmud. They obsess for weeks in advance about what titles they will want to buy, which ones are in anamorphic widescreen, what the packaging will be like and so on. And they are filled with questions...

"How much will this box set cost? Does it come with any other promotional materials? Is this a new transfer of The Dirty Dozen, or the old one, because that one had some artifacting and pixellation in spots. Will the films come together or separately? Do you think they'll ever come all together? Should I wait to get them? Have you guys seen that movie? Is it worth buying? What if I already have an older version somewhere? Have they added any new material? Is there a commentary? Which company is releasing it? Is it in 'Scope? Will there be French subtitles? What about German? What took them so long to release it? Were there rights issues? Are all the original songs still in the film? Will it be in 5.1 or the original mono? Is the documentary on there any good? Is it the same documentary from the Laserdisc? Do you guys still have this on Laserdisc? Do you still sell Laserdiscs at all? Who still buys them? Can you still get a Laserdisc player? Do you know anyone who sells them? Where can I get my old one fixed? Are you about to close? Should I leave? Am I annoying you? Why are you advancing on me? Would you remove that sharp, blunt object from my rectum if I agree to leave the store quietly without asking any more questions?"

I'm kidding...sort of. Actually, most of the Tuesday regulars are nice, friendly poeple, whom I have gotten to know week after week for the past year. To be perfectly honest, I myself was once a Tuesday DVD-buying regular. At my old job, we'd often walk to the Tower on Sunset during our lunch break to buy that week's new DVD's (and, of course, I always knew what was coming out that week beforehand). So that's why I'm allowed to make fun of these guys...because I am one of them.

I always wind up working on Tuesday nights with Ari, and we have a few favorite Tuesday customers. Without going into too much detail, because my boss hates that, here are a few brief sketches of some of the ultimate DVD-buying weirdos and fanatics.

- Mail Order Bride Guy

So called because he came in today with a tall, attractive blonde woman with a heavy Russian accent who, by virtue of hanging out with this oddball with visibly bad plastic surgery, must either be (1) a high-class prostitute or (2) a mail-order bride. If this were a pornographic film, I would add to that list (3) struggling, extremely naive college student with a peculiar fondness for massive, uncircumcized penises. But it's not a porno. It's life.

They marched right up to the counter as soon as they came in, as if he was anxious to show off his attractive lady friend to us poor schlubs at the video store, and asked for the Guy Ritche film Revolver, yet to be released theatrically in this country. (Look for it to highly resemble Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and to hit American shores in Spring '06). When I told the girl that this movie she wanted wasn't even out in America, this was her reply:

"[Giggling] Spring in 2006? In Russia, it was out last year!"

I was very tempted to switch into Yakov mode for a moment and reply, "In Soviet Russia, movie watches you!" But I managed, somehow, to restrain myself. My boss later told me the guy used to be a regular, before he had the plastic surgery. Now he looks like Mickey Rourke standing in a powerful wind tunnel.

- Pot Belly

I do a pretty solid impression of this guy. It's probably my best Laser Blazer customer impression. He's this funny little man who waddles around the store each and every Tuesday, looking for the week's latest softcore pornographic releases. Seriously, the guy is exclusively into softcore porn. Like Playboy and Penthouse videos, and also those weird European direct-to-DVD movies with titles like Sultry Obsession or 100 Girls in Chains or European Hot Sensual Massage Ladies of the Night, Part 8.

We call him pot belly for reasons that would be totally obvious if I had a picture. He's a pretty pudgy guy overall, but the size of his gut is completely disproportionate to the rest of his body. I mean, he looks like he's carrying around two fetuses, an Alien and a pony keg in there. The other weird thing about this guy, and his odd tic that led to my doing an impression of him, is that he won't ever give us his name despite coming in each and every week.

We ask people's names to save in the computer in case they want to do a return or something...It makes it way easier to look up all their transactions. But he'll never give us his name.

"Oh, I'm not in your computer," he'll say every time. Now that I think about it, I might not want my name associated in some random computer with all those softcore titles, either. What if he wants to run for president some day?

- Team Late-Night

The same two weirdos come in together at 9:45 each and every Tuesday night. (The store closes at 10). They rarely buy anything; they just wander around and look at all the boxes together and pretend to shop. And they always want to hang around until the absolute last minute; I always wind up following them around at 9:59 telling them to finish dicking around and buy something or leave.

So tonight, when they came in, I started goofing on them with Ari, and that's how this entire article came to be. We were saying that they probably had a date..."I'll see you Tuesdays at Laser Blazer, my love..." Get it? "Tuesdays With Dummy." I hope you've enjoyed this rare glimpse into how my brain works.

- Mr. Happy

A guy came in today and told Ari that he doesn't smile enough. It's true...Ari's not really a sunshine-and-smiles type of guy. I can't say that I blame him. I kind of fake cheer, when possible, for the customers, but that's only because I have found people are less likely to be rude to someone who's grinning like an idiot at them. Sometimes, I'm way over the top sunny and enthusiastic to people in an obviously sarcastic fashion and they totally can't even tell.

But can you imagine being the kind of person who walks around saying stuff like that? "Hey, you should smile more when you speak to me!" Hey, you should shut the hell up more, not just when you're speaking to me...but all the time. Jackass. Maybe Ari was just having a bad day and didn't feel like smiling. Is that what you get for the cost of a $12 DVD? A movie for your collection and emotional control over all those around you?

- The Whining Complainer

I genuinely can't tell if this guy is trying to be affable or if he's genuinely a massive pain in the ass. All my co-workers assume it's the latter - that his constant complaining about all sorts of inconsequential nonsense over which we have no control is a function of his being a jerkoff. But I kind of feel like he thinks we find it amusing. Or, at least, that he feels he's doing some sort of public service, helping us out by letting us know what we're doing wrong.

Regardless of his motivation, he's obnoxious. Every week, it's..."Why don't you guys have my movie? You never have enough rentals of the good titles. I'm trying to get through a whoel season of this show and I can't get all the discs at once."

And he's never asking for good titles. Like, he's not upset that we didn't make rentals out of that new Lina Wertmuller collection yet. It's that he can't ever get his hands on the new Steven Seagal movie that just came out, or that direct-to-video thing with Michael Dudikoff. Seriously, the guy pulled me aside the other day to recommend that we open at least 5 copies of every direct-to-DVD action movie. That's what people want to watch, he assured me, not this weird experimental foreign stuff we like to open.

Ugh. I felt dirty afterwards.