I Worked In The Front Room Area. The Shelves Were Well Stocked This Day. That Doorway You See Would Eventually Become The Owner's Office. Because They Had To Close and Sell Stores To Make Rent.For the past three years I've worked at Columbus, Ohio's North Campus Video -- I've been documenting on a semi-weekly basis my experiences at the 31-year old mom and pop business. What you should know is this is a completely biased account of how one particular ex-employee saw in the underbelly of a Columbus landmark. Unfortunately, the manner in which I was laid off has actually stayed my blade [for the time being]. My original account of my tenure was going to be poisoned-tipped and rage-filled, but in the interest in the off chance of me getting the little details wrong -- I'll leave names out.
I, like a lot of college students, was introduced to North Campus Video via a friend of a friend. Kinda like how a curious child in a rough neighborhood invites his chums to a smelly industrial-sized garbage can to show them their first dead body. North Campus Video was founded in 1979 -- and much like its current status -- was well known for its odd collection of rare movies and was [at one time] the biggest name in the Columbus' sex industry.
Though it may not show now, North Campus Video once housed peep show booths and fought vehemently against Ohio Law Enforcement in order to cater to our local Mid-Western pervert. This is the cool part. There is actually something very admirable about two guys [we'll touch on that later] deciding to provide a local, conservative-leaning city, with a service that was openly brow-beaten but secretly well supported.
Where do I come in? Well I got a grown-up job after coming out of college and wasn't being paid on time...then I wasn't being paid at all. I was promptly evicted and spent the latter part of 2006 job hunting and sleeping on a friend's futon. Sidenote: You probably don't want to go into print publication anytime soon -- at least not as a photographer.
In between this time, I ventured down to NCV to check out my little Miike films and Arrested Development series. I heard a friend was quitting and my ears perked up. No longer would I have to eat Doritos for dinner. When I eventually got the job I also started work at a bookstore so income was coming in and I was happy.
The average customers, like myself, sees a job as a video store clerk as a glamorous position in life. "So is your job just like that movie Clerks?" Yes, only that movie is over in 2 hours and has great editing. Over three years at this store I made friends, enemies. I saw families begin and lost dedicated customers. All at the wage of $7.25 an hour. And trust me, the only reason it was that high was because of the Federal Minimum Wage law that passed a couple years back.
Last Winter. Many Days Looked Just Like This. Empty. After The City Remodeled The Building. My Boss Got The Wise Idea Of Grabbing A 'Grand Opening Sign' Though The Store Never Closed. It Can't. The Doors Have No Locks. That's Why NCV Is 24-Hours.
The Pre-Dirt
I mean, that's what you're reading for right? I was laid off and am privy to secrets aplenty. There is something prohibiting me from 'fully' dishing here. Maybe its because I have a good guess as to when North Campus Video and its sister location, Video Central will collapse. I mean the excuse I was given was, "The German Village Store is barely pulling in $600 a night on weekends! So we gotta cut peoples hours here so we can bring people over and..." you get the drift. I can't, in good conscience, kick a video store when its a husk of an already decomposed entity.
The Nazi-Pedophile
However I will say this, I worked with a pedophile. A Nazi loving, Lynx & Lamb supporter who, out of all oddities, had a very public foot fetish. Not disgusted enough, huh? Two bosses told me the story [at separate times] of him going over a friend's house and sitting on a chair -- only for his friend's 9-year-old daughter to climb up on the Nazi-pedo's lap. He, apparently had an 'accident' and left immediately. This same person had a psych record and often times complained when I'd show up 10-minutes late for my 4-to-midnight shift because, and I quote "I got a playground to go to."
Now I know its inappropriate to speak ill of someone who hasn't, technically committed -- or as I like to say hasn't been caught, engaging in criminal activity, but this guy...I didn't like. And it goes without saying, he didn't like me. I even took it as a personal affront when I found out that he got fired on the same day as I. But I digress, this waste of flesh was supposedly raised in a super-Christian household and at a very young age was abused and mistreated. So much so that he was sent to a psych ward for 'playing Doctor' with a neighboring younger girl.
Of course all of this is hearsay and general work gossip. Though I've heard the Nazi-Pedo shout "88!" [which is code for HH or Heil Hitler] when he thought I wasn't listening. I've seen him draw swastikas -- of which I drew an accompanying swastika so he didn't feel alone. The last, truly comical story -- even though I believe he was going to be fired either way for stealing porno mags and hiding movies, was one day I came in to take over the shift. He was noticeably dodging me and not making eye-contact. Which is odd for him considering he likes to stare at me angrily once he notices how late I am or if he noticed the pre-teen movie pick I put in his Employee Picks.
Apparently the Pedo-Nazi...sorry Nazi-Pedo, had some sort of inflammation all over his eyes and mouth. This rash apparently came from him camping in a poison ivy patch. The kicker is that originally the rash was on his penis. And 'somehow' spread to his eyes and mouth. An anti-climatic end, but an ending story I can live with.
The Days Weren't All Bad. I'd Actually Say I Had A Blast Barring The Last Year. Watching Movies At Work. Talking To Friends To Past The Time. It Was...An X-Rated Version Of Clerks In A Way.The Dealers
My immediate boss was a toothless 50-year-old man who rented enough porn at this particular store to buy an $80,000 house -- mind you this is one store and what he decided to check out on the clock. If the store has problems pulling in money on a nightly basis chances are he saw a girl with a pretty face or a nice rack and decided, "You know what? This one is on the house." I would argue that most of NCVs clientele is a 60/40 split. Sixty percent of the clientele being college students and North High St. inhabitants the other 40 percent being our local porn buyer/renters. My boss was in heaven. He had his fellow porn purveyors and pill popping enthusiast to give him the support needed to actually feel like he was in a position of power. Doesn't hurt to have the occasional 20-something college lady strut by to make a 50-year-old sod feel like 'he's still with it, he's still hip'. I can't be mad at him though, he actually got me the job and the shift with some of my good friends that last three years. Be that as it may, when money was missing out of the change box it was usually him or the other manager [whom I said we're getting to].
The other manager was and is probably the closest person to the owner. He's funded the store with money and gambled some of it on the horses. Hey, we all have our faults, his was just gambling with the business' future he worked at for decades and often times being drunk or under some form of hallucinogen while doing so. This guy is special, he loses his temper, gets drunk in public and because of his 60-plus years on earth, can barely walk [which would explain his access to prescription pills]. Walking is essential when dolling out porn and whippits, which is one of the contributing factors as to why the franchise is still above water. You're biggest riddle would be, how does a boss like this never get fired? How does a manager who can barely work for the owner not get his coke and semen-soaked jersey retired? I'll tell you why...love.
After Hollywood Video went under and Blockbuster's lease was up [two stores that were a block over], they started trimming the youthful fat around the stores. Inside Baseball: North Campus Video, at one time, had 4 sister locations -- one of which being in Alum Creek and host of over a hundred peepshow booths. There were rumors that the booths were shut down due to a strict regime change in legislature and law enforcement. Makes sense, this is the Mid-West and as much as we love to act on our primal urges, we are still cuckolded by deep-seeded American/Puritanical repression. But I digress. With stores catering to all walks of life at that time, it only makes sense that rumors started to swirl about two men running the stores could be romantically involved. Heck, had it not been for one of the managers drunken ways we would have had one of the biggest video store business ran by the oldest living gay couple in Columbus.
I shouldn't say that. Its purely speculative. Other than the fact that the owner and the manager have told me they stay together and have been together for years. Sure there may have been women, drug and alcohol abuse, but through it all they made it. I could go into further detail on the sexual exploits of two almost-elderly men discovering their sexuality, at a time, in a place where it was as taboo as incest. But it made me sad that I didn't work long enough to get them to see them say they love each other in public.
The Bad Days, Were Awful. There Were Many Days I Fantasized About Either Creating Another Universe Or At The Very Least...Burning The Place Down.
The Guy With The Hole In His Face
Before I started working at NCV, this guy was there. He was kind of the mascot of NCV. He kinda still is. Though he just turned sixty last year, his aged and withered face would prove otherwise. Prior to me working there I never new much about him other than I 'thought' he was the brother of my eventual pill-selling manager. Turns out not all toothless old white men who work at video stores aren't necessarily related. One of the last times I rented there, before becoming a reluctant employee, he came up behind me and began petting me on the top of my head. I turned around and damn-near punched a hole through his Crypt Keeper-esque jaw. "Don't ever touch me again or you will be hurt." After that we never spoke. Making things extra tame and uncomfortable when I started working there.
How he got the job was via the boss who drank and gambled a ton. Hole-In-The-Face would go into our, at the time, illustrious porn room and talk to the manager until eventually he just gave him a job. 8pm-to-8am no shift could be worse, but he took it on one condition. "I can't work in the back, I have a problem with the boys." This could be taken a lot of ways, but I think you know which way to take it.
Not much is known about Mr. Hole-In-The-Face. What we do know is for a large sum of the 90's he did beer backing in the Short North area. Supposedly, this occurred at gay bars and supposedly he would show up with a broom and begin sweeping and would throw stuff away until they eventually threw him a couple dollars. The odd thing was is that one day an ex-employee of his came in and said, "One day he showed up with chaps and no pants. Just bare-assed. So we had to let him go." Prior to that is an even bigger mystery. He said that he worked at Nationwide Arena for years, which the owners of NCV searched and found to be true. They also found psych ward papers as a result of him being released from Nationwide. I, myself, have heard him allude to his time 'in the service' and he has never hesitated to go into thorough detail as to how life in prison could 'change a man'. The oddest little rumor about Mr. Hole-In-The-Face would be that he apparently may have had a fiancee.
He's still there. I strongly believe when the end of the world comes, it will be him and the roaches left. Though he has had a long battle with some form of cancer -- which subsequently had him miss a couple days of work in his long 11-to-15 year career at the store, Mr. Hole-In-The-Face will haunt my dreams as one the saddest people I've ever met. He chain smokes with the hopes of wheezing his skeletal frame into an early grave, but we know better.
There Were Tons Of Illegal Activity Known To Go Down At NCV. What Disturbed Me Most Was When The Very Male Staff Would Hire Females. In Some Cases, Underaged Females, To Work In The Porn Room.
The Owners
So the owner with the live-in life partner needed a pal to steer this ship. Seeing as his life partner made an ass out of himself on the Blue Danube floor several times within a year. There were regime changes and under bosses, but he decided to take a bright-eyed manager from the German Village store as a partner. This man, was the reason I was fired. So I owe him a huge debt of gratitude. He cared for his truck and his dog. That was it. He was a very clear cut, simple man who almost threw out all of the CD's and magazines me and my coworker needed to get through a daily shift. Things got bad once porn, regular rentals and even money started showing up missing on a regular basis. Everyone was guilty. I'll say this, I've never bought more blank dvd's at Target than I did in my past year at NCV. But apparently the amount of what was missing lead me to believe that someone was 'going a little to hard'. I mean, I would grab a movie that wasn't renting well, take it home for a couple hours and bring it back, there were stacks of movies missing...most of which would be returned by attractive women.
The Owners had to do something right? They forced people out, fired them even. They recently kicked out friends and regulars to flex their managerial muscle. They cut hours across the board. This helped me. I was going through a rough patch with my then-girlfriend and...you know...I could use that time to not hate my life.
Now we are down to two stores. The very popular [although going through a grotesque change of losing store space and its outdoor signage] North Campus Video and the under-performing German Village store. The ex-manager-turned co-owner of the German Village store decided that his store is still valuable. Even though its costing both stores thousands a month to keep it open. He decides to lean on his elderly partner who has to get throat scrapings every week to combat his throat cancer [which explains why his live-in lover works so hard for him even though he can't walk without 20 pills in his system].
Hey, What Doesn't Kill Ya, Right?
The End
I got fired. And I'm relieved. But I was fired because they thought the young gents at the German Village store were worth keeping on-staff, more than myself. I'm okay with that. The job made me lazy, complacent and I need to do something now. Still, I would have liked to have been there when the ship went down. Just so I can have my camera take the last shot. Go a ahead and rent the weird movies and the porn if you want [hell, I probably still will]. I have no ill will towards the lovely guys of S&H Entertainment, but I'm sure if this meets their glaucomic eyes -- they may not think too highly of me. Hey, I'm emotional. They bounced one of the last checks they gave me. My bank account was hacked [unbeknownst to them] and the following week I get laid off. At the same time, when North Campus Video goes, a whole lot of strange movies and history will go with it.