True Porn Clerk Stories (9 page)

Wednesday Mr. Gentle was in and in a fairly bad mood. Not snippy, of course, but definitely unhappy and sort of exhausted. He said he'd just been discussing his paper with someone and was upset because he thought he might have to switch the focus. He couldn't decide whether or not to risk his academic credibility a bit and write for a more popular audience.

"Worked out pretty well for Margaret Mead," I said, and looked up in time to see his head snap up and three thoughts go through his face all at once. The first was the realization that writing for a popular audience had, in fact, brought worldwide fame and respect to Margaret Mead for a solid 50 years. Hmm. Thoughts two and three were, in rapid succession, the realizations that his video clerk had not only just referenced Margaret Mead but seemed to have at least a basic handle on her career.

And suddenly we were friendlier. As I said, he's always been great, so the change was a tiny one. Now we're friendly-friendly instead of transaction-friendly.

He's always been very aware that there was a worthwhile human being behind the counter, it's just that now he's had a hint that there's a brain in the worthwhile human being behind the counter. We chatted more. I recommended an article in
Salon
, which he wrote down eagerly, and then he went away.

Today when he came in instead of hello and isn't it early we talked about the FBI scandal and what we thought the fallout would be.

I was very happy at the new nuance in our customer-clerk relationship. My intellectual vanity is, I think, the personality flaw that I've done the most work on and made the least progress with. I like him. I want him to know I'm smart and trust me to understand what his paper is about, and I like getting to talk to him a little longer in the quiet of the morning.

The downside is that now I seem to make Mr. Gentle a little sad. He seems to be fairly sensitive to nuance himself, and now I think he knows how much I don't want to be there. I want to tell him that it's OK, that things are looking up and even when they're not I'm using it all for writing fodder. But I can't tell him that because, in another nuance, while we are friendlier, we are not friends.

I'm looking forward to the day I can resign now more than ever, and in a new way. There will be a quiet pleasure in telling Mr. Gentle, when he asks, that today I am not just OK.

Wuss

First off, two updates:

1. I am pained to admit that my informal bisexual tally is not going well. The ratio is something like one incredibly cool person to every 200 complete freakballs. I am beginning to understand the origin of the unpleasant stereotyping; I'd be wary of dating me too.

2. I am deeply relieved to report that
V8
refers to fingers. How sad that I've reached a point in my life where the fact that a woman is only having four fingers jammed up her anus while another four are jammed into her vagina is a relief.

…Which brings me to M. I never actually met M. She was a new clerk we hired who quit after one day. She left a note on the manager's desk saying that she couldn't stay because the job was too degrading to women.

When I told the story to my friend Jenny, she said "Good for her!" I was taken aback for a moment, because my reaction had been "What a wuss!" Most of the women at the store had said some variation on "What a wuss!" I had told the story to Jenny in anticipation of her saying "What a wuss!"

I think the right response is somewhere in between. Some porn is degrading. Hell, a lot of it is degrading very much on purpose. It's hard to look at the box for
Young, Dumb and Full of Cum
and think the filmmakers had anything else in mind.

(On a side note, I hate it when people use the spelling "cum". I HATE IT. What, it's supposed to be dirtier that way? Just because it's supposed to be all raw and sexy doesn't mean you have to be an idiot about it. Jesus.)

But the more I've worked at the video store, the less I'm convinced that porn is inherently degrading, and the line between degrading and not gets blurrier.

For example, the [My Store] chain, (and by "chain," I mean four stores, three of which actually deal in porn) does not carry pregnancy porn. My internal reaction to that is "Good," but I couldn't tell you why. I know that pregnant women have sex. I know that some pregnant women have been frustrated by their partners' reluctance to have sex or queasiness over seeing them as sexual beings.

For that matter, it's arguably a good way for a resourceful mom to start off Junior's college fund. But we don't carry it because The Powers That Be find it inherently degrading and it's never been a point I've cared to argue. If I look at it dispassionately, though, I don't think it is. Or at least it's dependent on what the pregnant woman in question is being asked to do.

We recently stopped carrying bukkake, also because it's degrading. When I first started working at the store, that one seemed like an easy call for me. Bukakke involves a circle of men with a woman in the center. The men jerk off, covering the woman in semen. It's hard to think of a context in which that wouldn't be degrading. It certainly was hard for me.

Until, of course, I saw the box for
Gay Bukkake
. Yup. Same deal, only it's a man in the center. I realized that I found straight bukkake degrading, but gay bukkake merely incredibly disgusting. Did that make me a sexist, or was I penalizing straight men for being straight? So except for the disgusting part, I had to pencil in a new opinion.

Occasionally I get caught up in the principle of a thing, and when my manager mentioned the no-more-bukkake decision I actually started to argue with her. It took me a couple of minutes to ratchet my brain down from the logistics of it and remember that I loathe having to look at the bukkake boxes and having them out of the store would suit me fine.

So I backed out of an ethical debate and went against my newfound principles for my own comfort.

What a wuss.

The Art of the Shuffle

I've been torturing my morning customers lately.

The store has been creeping up my opening shifts over the past several months anyway, and now that S. is gone almost all of my shifts are openers. There are plenty of random freakos that shuffle in and out in the morning, but most of the people that come in at 7 a.m. are regulars.

To open the door at 7:00, I arrive at about 6:30. My rule is, if I'm hitting the door at 6:30 a.m., I can play whatever the fuck I want on the stereo to keep myself awake. Thus, the torture.

What keeps me awake is
Aquarium
, by Aqua. You may remember Aqua -- they were a Danish-Norwegian technopop group that won both worldwide fame and my heart by pissing off Mattel with the song "Barbie Girl".

I honestly can't remember why I bought the entire CD. I know I wanted to use the song for something, but why didn't I just get the single? This would have been back in 97 or so when the song came out, and at the time I had a full-time job and actual disposable income, but still. Anyway, I used the song on a mix tape or something and then never really listened to the whole CD.

…Until I took this job. Shifts can become gulags of boredom without the CD player. My collection isn't exactly huge, so before long I was digging back through the pile.

And that's when I discovered that I love
Aquarium
. It's the very finest in Scandinavian synth-pop dance music. It's also incredibly chipper, in a modern Abbaesque sort of way. Years ago, I went out a couple of times with a guy who had been to Sweden and he said you really couldn't understand Abba until you'd traveled through a Scandinavian winter. I think he meant that they need that level of perkiness to keep themselves awake and sane during those endless cold nights, and I can't help but think that Aqua was doing the same public service.

Whatever they did for the Scandinavians, it really cheers me up first thing in the morning. "Barbie Girl" is great, of course, but the one that has most won my heart is the first track, "Happy Boys & Girls". After an opening synthesizer blast, the opening lyrics go like this:

Be HAPPY!

(Come on, let's go get it on!)

Be HAPPY!

Be HAPPY!

(Come on, let's go get it on!)

Be HAPPY!

And it just keeps getting better.

There's also a delightfully baffling song called "Doctor Jones":

Doctor Jones, Jones,

Calling Doctor Jones,

Doctor Jones, Doctor Jones get up now!

(Wake up, now!)

(Female lead yodels like a cowgirl)

I don't know if it's the lyrics written by non-native speakers of English or simply the relentless throbbing disco beat, but I just can't get enough of it.

Or, more accurately, I just can't open the store without it. I play it every time I open. The whole album. I can't help it -- the morning just isn't complete without it. If I time it just right, I can hit "play" when I'm rounding the counter and the lead singer screams "Be HAPPY!" just as I open the door.

I am happy, but I know it's driving my customers crazy. The songs have been drilled into their brains so many times that some of them unconsciously sing or whistle along. But not in a good way. There tends to be a bit of eye-rolling when they hit the door. Straight guys hate it the most, of course. It's hard to shop for rugged, manly porn to high-pitched singing and bouncy synthesizers. I hope that both "Barbie Girl" and the underrated "For Once in Your Life, Be a Man" give them something to think about, but I doubt it.

I feel bad for them, but I can't stop. (Well, I mostly feel bad for them. A tiny, sadistic part of my brain that I can't quite get rid of sees their pain and laughs like Renfield at their torment. The only one I've actually apologized to is Mr. Gentle. He sheepishly admitted to enjoying it, solidifying his position as my favorite customer ever.)

When I first started at the store, we weren't allowed to play whole albums. Our old manager hated being subjected to one choice for an hour at a time, so he mandated filling the player with different stuff and shuffling.