Analog Dialog
Going through the DVDs of history (fine, of the garage and storage).
The long-delayed breaking into The Storage Bins of Time resulted in finding a lot of DVD gems and a lot of packaged junk that was a TV show. Not that another person’s television show is junk, but I’m not sure many people will even remember those shows much less buy them back on eBay or Amoeba.
There are CDs, too, of course. But that’s a separate column. And books — but are books analog? I think they are. That’s also a separate column (though already I wrote about that when I hauled a stash of beloved but mostly unread books up to Portland last year).
No, this was about crossing off (or attempting to) one of the most doggedly old, relentlessly unbeatable to-do lists: finding out what I had kept through the years and hauled from house to house like treasure, unpacking it to bask in its glory and perhaps watch a ton of movies that aren’t streaming anywhere, and then to get rid of the rest.
At the heart of this chore, time-consuming task, glorious adventure, were two disparate hopes:
Filling a cool space with DVD gems.
Creating more storage space elsewhere for important things (possibly my furniture collection/obsession) instead of, say, copies of “Show X Complete Season One” when there ultimately was only one season and then time marched on and now only you and I know about “Andy Richter Controls the Universe.”
Viewing Partner KB and I have really been embracing the idea of physical media. With my history of changing every room I live in every six months, it was bound to happen when we moved in together (last year) at her Suburban Bauhaus and spent more time in her cultivated Viewing Temple (fine, it’s not called that, but I’m low-key pushing for it).
This was a room I wasn’t allowed to touch. In many ways it was perfect as is; comfy, dark, a haven for her sci-fi Saturday mornings, our Letterboxd pursuits, Warriors games and all my Deep Dive viewing.
But when she decided that, yes, it needed a refresh, we figured we could take everything off the shelves and replace those things with whatever quality goods were sitting in four or five six or seven gigantic bins weighing several hundred pounds each that I have been hauling around for more than a decade, easy.
It was a long, slow, process that culminated in going for it this past weekend. All the bins that were eventually, over the course of months, moved out of two storage units and into her garage (after an attic mini-renovation for more space) were finally due to be opened.
Result?
Well, we tossed so much that the “reject” pile, just for television DVDs, would need two very strong people to lift even a foot off the ground and would — conservative estimate here — take an industrious high school student or broke college student forever to sell on eBay, but it would buy a lot of cool stuff at vintage clothing stores and as much boba tea as you could drink in several years (not that we’re looking for such an individual, though my daughter has been offered a shot at it).
The rest is pretty sweet — particularly the movies, which was our main aim. Some in-progress pictures:
There’s blue bag in one of the photos that contains 15-20 animation gems like these:
In a full confession, Sunday’s sweat-fest ended with us rolling one of those previously mentioned gigantic bins with several hundred not-to-be-saved DVDs into the garage and then covered it with furniture and boxes and I frankly don’t have the energy to dig it out again for a photo. Sorry. It’s majestic. I wasn’t thinking at the time that I would be writing about this.
I did get a shot of a small pile of random TV series that we’re keeping, but don’t know just yet if they’ll fit in the space we have. Here’s a picture:
And here’s a few things I/we learned in this process:
Those first two seasons of “Northern Exposure,” an old series I loved well before my TV critic days, used to be unavailable to stream. I hauled them around like little bits of gold that I’d watch one day — and you can see that I still kind of knee-jerk kept them in the “save” bin — and then found out that all six seasons or whatever are available to stream on Amazon. I don’t even remember there being that many seasons.
And yes the point is — exactly — that you keep physical media because it gives you control over the movies and television series you love when you can’t trust streaming services these days to forever have them available.
I get that. BUT I KEPT THOSE “NORTHERN EXPOSURE” DVDs CLENCHED TIGHT, LIKE SAVING THEM MATTERED.
I ran into a lot of shows like “Ray Donovan” where I’ve imagined a series creator having the same bracing conversation at a party that authors have had for years: “What do you do?” “I’m a television writer.” “Oh, amazing! What did you write?” “I created and wrote ‘Ray Donovan.’ A bunch of seasons, actually.” “Oh. Interesting. That was on TV?”
I decided that even though I loved “The Shield,” I didn’t want to keep the complete box set, because I can’t imagine myself rewatching it, where once I could.
I thought I had every season of “Mad Men.” I do not. I have the first three, a second version of the third season, and the second half of the seventh season. Strange. It’s entirely possible that I gave the rest away through the years. I did a lot of that. To friends, etc. Hell, some of you were even in attendance at big screening events where I threw (yes, threw) box sets and random DVDs into the crowd of people who came to see me talk about television (it’s a miracle nobody lost an eye).
I realized I would rather have my “Pucca” animation DVDs than basically every single “blue sky” drama that aired on cable television in the middle 2000s.
I had a “Dobie Gillis” complete series and Gilligan from “Gilligan’s Island” has a hippy goatee on the cover and looks stoned. I’ve never seen that show. Tossed it in the sell pile.
If a series aired on a “mediocre” aka Mid cable channel, I have pretty much every show they made; sometimes every season. And no I didn’t keep them. In the bin they went.
Back then, I wasn’t getting many films on DVD, since I was a TV critic, so the ones that I somehow did get were our favorite finds.
There was a moment on Sunday where I sat looking at maybe 100 DVD sets from television series almost no one will remember and I thought, “At least they all got paid.” But it was slightly depressing because for a minute there, and maybe a minute now, I wanted to write my own series, and the assumption I’ve held was always that if you’re able to thread that needle and get something made, it will last forever and be remembered. The truth is that it won’t. Just like books. Make your art for yourself.
As a follow up to that thought: Wow, there was a ton of shit that got made from, say, the late 1990s to right around 2019, and it must have felt then like anything you thought up could be a show.
Once we organize the shelves in the coming days, I’ll post some other photos, probably in Notes (remember that?) and try to highlight the gems.
Another thing I took away, that I’m proud of? I gave a lot of these away through the years. Less proud? Hauling around and paying for storage what I would eventually consider not worth keeping.
I don’t know if my daughter or someone else will ever want to take up the task of going through several hundred rejects and getting some spending money by fulfilling someone’s dream — someone somewhere — of a Frank Sinatra movie box set, or an “All In the Family” DVD that doesn’t cover the entire series, or random USA, TNT, Discovery, SyFy, A&E, TBS, Comedy Central, Starz, Epix, Showtime and other channel offerings.
Are there people in the world who want out of order season sets of “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy” and “South Park” DVDs even though each has roughly 49 seasons and seems to be streaming everywhere? Are people completists? Are there fears that in the future nothing will be streamed and if you have Season 16 of “South Park” and an operable DVD player, everything will be fine?
I don’t know. It’s a strangely empty feeling I have on the TV side of things as we chose what DVDs to hang onto. Hell, does someone have the rest of my “Game Of Thrones” box sets? My “Breaking Bad” sets? Mine are strangely incomplete (though “The Wire,” “The Sopranos,” “Rome,” “Deadwood” and “Prime Suspect” are complete)
Plus, I have these:
I’ll circle back on the movie DVDs I found, in particular. We are excited to watch them in the Viewing Temple.
It might be that I get more joy out of unearthing my CDs? Maybe. Books? Oh, Literary Gods, there are so many books in so many bins.
But we are sticking to the Physical Media Project with full force. I know that one night I will pull out those “Pucca” DVDs or “The Sweeney” or “Slings & Arrows” and be happy I saved them. We will watch contentedly and appreciate our “collection.”
“I fear this will eventually result in us buying a turntable,” KB said.
Nah. At this point, I have more sofas than I do LPs.
When we left the US almost seven years ago, I couldn't take all of the books, LPs and art and got a storage unit. Count me as another one "paying for storage what I would eventually consider not worth keeping." It took six and a half years and the thieves that are Public Storage tripling the rent for me to conclude the unit had to be cleaned out and shut down. It absolutely was not easy, emotionally, to let go of decades of collecting things that meant so much, but it had to be done. A friend who is an experienced reseller sold the LPs and books that he didn't keep for himself.
It actually feels good to let go and not have so many possessions. You feel lighter, as someone else here already said.
But damn, if I had a copy of Andy Richter Controls The Universe, I would happily watch it again. That's quite a collection you have there.
Regarding books, someone said once that reading and collecting books are two completely different activities. It's true! I am still a sucker for eBooks on sale (luckily that doesn't waste space), but it's a much easier thing to do than actually sit down and read a book! I suspect that is somewhat true for movies and TV, although moreso TV since it's more time consuming to get through even a season. I most related to the DVDs you own that are still in its original plastic. Yup. The dopamine hit of ACQUIRING something nice sometimes doesn't get followed through with actually CONSUMING said object. We're human. We like to hunt and gather.