I’ll go first. I was in junior high. Eighth grade, to be exact, and I remember watching the announcement of the verdict on TV and seeing the footage of the Simi Valley courthouse from a helicopter circling above the government center, just one town away from where I lived. Shortly after, I watched a crowd pull Reginald Denny from his truck, beat him to the ground, and throw a cinder block at his head. I had never seen anything so violent.

The buzz at school the next day was that the riots that had broken out the night before were heading our way. I had never seen a riot before, so I didn’t know how big they were or how far they could spread. I also didn’t know where exactly they were, but I knew they were in Los Angeles, and that we were just about 35 miles away. It seemed, to my naive young mind, plausible, but unlikely.

Night after night, we watched the news and saw the footage of stores burning, and mobs running down the street, arms full of stolen merchandise. It was my first encounter with civil unrest in America. I don’t think my young mind was capable of comprehending what it saw.

People were angry that justice wasn’t served against the people who beat a man in the street, so they took to the streets and beat a man in the street. Even at thirteen years old, I knew that was irrational and stupid. I could sympathize with their anger; I was angry myself, but I couldn’t understand what was being accomplished by tearing up the town. It would have been like me destroying everything in my bedroom because I didn’t like a decision my mom made.

Of course, the riots accomplished nothing. Police and civilian relations have never been worse, and Rodney King was hardly the last victim of their brutality. In June of 2020, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, millions took to the streets to protest the death of yet another black man at the hands of the police.

Thousands gathered outside the government center in Simi Valley, where 28 years earlier, four LAPD officers were acquitted of charges of excessive force. Just across the street sits a bar called Judge Roy Bean’s, named for the infamous West Texas “Hangin’ Judge.” Over the bar hangs a noose, to, I suppose, honor Judge Bean.

My 46-year-old brain can’t process that juxtaposition any better than my 13-year-old brain could process the riots. The one thing I can understand, however, is why things are the way they are, and while they’ll never change.

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It’s going to be really nice having a stand-alone camera that isn’t also my phone.

I’ll have more to say about it once I’ve had a chance to play with it, but so far, I’m pleased.

This is the first picture I took with it.

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What I was looking for was a Sony HVC 2800. Before I tested the VC 1810, I set up my Sony HVC 2400 because I know it works. That way, if there was a problem with the VC 1810, I would know it was a problem with the camera and not the VTR, TV, or any other part of the system. As I was plugging in the HVC 2400, I noticed how much nicer it was than the VC 1810, particularly the cable. The Zenith cables on both the VC 1800 and VC 1810 are thin, stiff, and kind of cheap-feeling.

The cable on the Sony, on the other hand, was thick, soft, and felt like what you would expect from a professional camera. That got me thinking about how I had been looking for an HVC 2800, but hadn’t had any luck. I had found another Sony BetaMax camera on eBay a while back, but I couldn’t remember which model it was. So, at about 11:30 p.m. last night, I went out to the garage to see what it was, and to my surprise, found it was an HVC 2800. I paid $10 for it, and it didn’t work when it arrived, so it was shelved.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to hook it up to see if it would work, and to my great surprise and delight, it worked! It didn’t work perfectly, but it worked when it hadn’t worked before. It was a Christmas miracle! I wanted to see how far my miracle went, so I set up the VC 1800, and it worked, too! What the hell was going on? These cameras didn’t work when I got them, and now they suddenly do? If those two worked, maybe the 1810 would work, too, so I hooked it up, but just as it had hours before, it just displayed static. I was just pressing my luck at that point, and I didn’t really expect it to work.

Fast forward to this morning, I saw an estate sale here in town that looked like a carefully curated hoard. It didn’t look like anything I would be interested in – car parts and antiques – but I always enjoy wandering through strangers’ houses, and so does Bonnie, so we went. As soon as I walked in, I found an old camera light that I wasn’t sure I wanted, but someone else was looking at it, so I picked it up and carried it around the house with me, just in case it grew on me.

I ended up in a bedroom where I found a GE 9-9806 VHS camcorder in like-new condition. They wanted $40 for it, but I really didn’t want to pay that much for yet another camera of unknown condition. It was in its original case, had all of the cables, battery charger, and even the instruction manual. I looked through the case, closed it up, and put it back. I walked through the house some more, and found Bonnie, and we went back to that bedroom.

I showed her the camera, and while we were standing there discussing it, a short, older, Hispanic woman said, “Are you going to buy that?” pointing to the camera case and light I was holding in my left hand. “I’m thinking about it?” I said, while thinking, what the fuck is it to you? Mind your fucking business, bitch. Then, she asked me, in an accusatory tone, if I had taken the light out of the camera case. Confused, I looked at it and said no. Bonnie told her I found it by the front door. Why would I have taken it out of the case? Why wouldn’t I have put it in the case?

She asked me if I had a ticket. I didn’t know what she was talking about. She said, “You can’t leave the room with that if you don’t have a ticket.” Her tone became increasingly stern and agitated. It wasn’t as if anyone explained the arbitrary rules of this estate sale to me when I walked in the door. I told her to write me a ticket. She asked what my name was and then wrote it on a carbonless receipt from a receipt pad. Then, she asked to see the prices on both items. I showed her and she wrote them next to a description of each item.

We left the room and looked around the house once more. As I was standing in the living room, I heard my name and turned around to find that horrible little woman in the kitchen talking shit about me to someone else. That was it. I had had enough. I went to the front door to leave. I didn’t want to give these people my money, but I also didn’t want anyone else to have the camera or light, so I paid for them and left. I was fuming. For the next few hours, I couldn’t calm down.

I was slighted, and I wanted retribution. Bonnie kept telling me to let it go, but I couldn’t. I was angry. I went out to the garage and set up the HVC 2800 and VC 1800 just to see if they still worked. I wasn’t 100% sure I hadn’t dreamed that whole Christmas miracle last night. Both cameras worked, so I proceeded to set up my new purchase. Everything it needed was included, except a VHS tape, but I have plenty of those. I wasn’t planning to record onto a tape anyway, though, so it didn’t matter.

The camera worked flawlessly. I don’t think it had ever been used before. All of the cables were still wrapped as if they had left the factory this morning. The picture quality was pristine. The only problem I had was that there was no sound. Neither the onboard mic nor the external mic input worked. Eventually, I figured out that you have to put a tape in to activate the mic. That’s a weird feature.

Upon seeing how well the camera worked, all of the animosity I felt for the people in charge of that estate sale washed away, and I basked in the soft definition of my obsolete camcorder.

I spent the day hooking up and testing all of the various video cameras I’ve collected over the past few months. I think I’m up to 10. I only tested 7, though. I don’t have power supplies for three of them. Of the seven I tested, though, only one was knackered. It might work if I can find the proprietary A/V cable it needs to send out a signal, so I’ll look for one of them.

Don’t think for a second, though, that because I have ten old useless video cameras, my hunt is over. I won’t stop until I find a working Zenith VC 1800 and a Working Sony HVC 2500. In the meantime, my search has unearthed scads of accessories I had no idea existed or that I needed.

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I purchased it on eBay last weekend, with no real hope that it was in working condition. I had just never seen a model 1810 before, and I hated the idea of someone else getting it, so I bought it. We’ll never know if it was in working condition or not because the seller just threw it in a box with no paper, packing peanuts, or bubble wrap. It was just loose in the box. It actually punched a hole in the side of the box.

So, into the camera graveyard it goes, but I remain undeterred. I will find my unicorn. Oh yes, I will find it.

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In July of 2021, my mom asked me if I wanted to go to the El Capitan in Hollywood to see The Jungle Book. I always liked that one, and I thought it would be cool to see it in a fancy old theater, so I accepted her invitation. You can imagine my surprise when I walked into the theater and saw The Jungle Cruise projected onto the gold curtain hanging in front of the screen.

“We’re seeing The Jungle Cruise?” I asked suspiciously.

“Yeah, what did you think we were seeing?” my mom replied.

“The Jungle Book,” I said, “because you said we were seeing The Jungle Book.”

I was ready to walk out when the movie started, and I realized it was just The Mummy set in South America. A smart, adventurous woman, her inept and lazy brother, a rough-hewn but capable guide, and a cursed antagonist. For whatever reason that I can’t explain, I didn’t hate The Jungle Cruise.

This afternoon, Bonnie had to go to a client’s house, and they had three cats. She’s deathly allergic and spent way too long in the house. When she got home, she took an allergy pill, and by 8 p.m., she couldn’t keep her eyes open, but she was fighting it. She always fights it. I told her to get comfortable, and I would put on The Mummy, and she could sleep through it. Then, I went out for a walk. I had hoped it would be over by the time I got home, but the fucking steaming pile of shit is over two hours long. Two hours!

At least I didn’t have to endure the whole thing.

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I’ve already got the batteries charging, so they’ll be ready to go when my new camera gets here. I ordered two three-packs, so with the one that comes with the camera, I’ll have a total of seven, which will give me 14 hours of recording time. When I bought my two Insta360 One Xs back in 2018, I bought six extra batteries, giving me a total of eight, which allowed me to record for long periods without worrying about the camera dying and recharging batteries. It was well worth the cost.

I bought two SD cards, because why the hell not? They fill up and need to be dumped. With two, you can just swap them and keep shooting.

I ordered the camera with the kit lens, but Bonnie said I should get this 50mm lens, too. I don’t know why. She knows more about cameras and lenses than the nothing I know about them, so I’ll trust her judgment.

She also said I need this lens foreskin, so I bought of them as well.

I’m so excited! I can’t wait until my new camera gets here!

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It’s also remarkable that the grass is still so green so late in April. Normally, the hills have already started fading into blonde by now. We haven’t even had much rain this year, which makes it all the more strange. When the hills look like this, it doesn’t seem like such a bad place to live. It never lasts long, though.

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I looked around and found this plastic fork. I folded the corner of the bag with the hole in it over itself and clipped it with the tines of the fork. Then, I popped it in the microwave and hoped the fork didn’t melt. To my great delight, it didn’t! My broccoli cooked perfectly, and dinner was saved. Yay me!

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