Hobbies are fun. Obsessions on the other hand...they're pleasing, but in no way rewarding. Pleasureable, but by no means is the pursuit fun. In fact, it's a sad desperate mess that benefits you only if you like to be put down, constantly. But I love horror. I love cheap xerox mags. I love to put myself down.
Before I metamorphosed into a psychotronic nerd, I was a library nerd. My high school was a cramped reformed warehouse where we were shipped off on a weekly basis to the eight story Central Library (liberry) in Downtown Los Angeles. Now, I work at the campus liberry, giving out wrong information whenever possible.
As a nerd, I do nerd things. Today, is a perfect example. I typed PSYCHOTRONIC into the library search engine, and lo and behold, an entry popped up. PSYCHOTRONIC video mag--located in Special Collections and Archives!! As a nerd, of course I'd take my lunch break to go there and see it.
You can't just walk in. You have to knock and wave. The man behind the desk at Special Collections and Archives has to roll his eyes and motion awkwardly. You have to shrug. He has to get up, come around his desk, and open the door.
"What?"
"I want to see something in the special collections"
The mag isn't hard to find, ebay and the like will get you what you need, but on the budget I'm on, forget it. But I've never seen one anywhere and it's here, sorta kinda at my fingertips. As a sufferer of psychotronia nerdosis, it's my duty to do my share of research. Keep in mind this is my 5th year in college, THIS is my first time doing real library research. The process of accessing the archives is insane. Some paperwork is involved, proper identification, you're belongings must be put in a locker outside, no pens, no pads.
Here I am. Dwelling in the dark lairs of nerdosis. The underbelly of normal society. This is what I think of myself as I sit quiet at a table in a eerily sterilized room.
The guy (kind of a douche)brings it to me in a manilla folder. After the whole process of leaving the room to retrieve it, he tosses it loosely on the table, I imagine after peeling through some of the pages on his way back. His job, all day, is to retrieve the rarest of library artifacts: the stone tablets that have the 10 commandments chiseled on them, the missing 18 minutes from Nixon's recorded conversation, Hemingway's first draft of his novel that his wife lost on the train, and special-collections-douche has to bring back a xeroxed horror mag from the early 90's with such ad's as THE ED GEIN FAN CLUB.
Psychotronic Video Mag, #11. #3.50
Fall of '91 but it could've been Summer of '73
Ads for companies long gone.
The inside cover reads GUARANTEED WORST MOVIES IN TOWN!! and I know I'm home. Dated beige colored pages screaming printed with love. Smells like old comics sans the cat piss. The ad for the new Ventures CD just proves surf music and psychotronic film are siamese. Familiar faces of the magazine: Tor Johnson, Ronald Reagan, Jerry Lewis, Traci Lords, Ed Gein. It has an article on Drew Friedman Art in posters and an interview with John "Gomez Addams" Astin.
One of the last ads I see calls out, MONSTERS, MUTANTS, and MANIACS!
(shock-toon video from NJ) and I know I fit in there somewhere, and anybody who stops to read this blog.
Special collections has eight non-sequential issues. Expect to see me for #13, special collections douche-bag.
-King Nerdo
