Misadventures in Blissville

Tonight, we have a Super-Special Extra-Creamy episode with cherries on top featuring my old friend, Andrew La Ganke.  Andrew came to the fold recently because he shares a a particular talent with me: that of not being able to shut the hell up.  We’re not quite sure when we first met, but it had to be around 1994 or 1995, something like that.  We worked in a video store on the Upper West Side together.

We’re talking about Laserdiscs. Remember those?

“You were heavily into laserdiscs, and got me into collecting as well. This was before DVD. This was before all the special features you find being packaged in videos today. We were renting out VHS tapes (we had no clue about DVD yet) – also the video store had an impressive adult section. I remember I was there one day and a salesman brought in a box of HOT titles, so to speak, and our employers sifted through the titles and bought what they wanted for the store. The guy, the salesman was wearing a trenchcoat, he was bald, he looked rather mobbed-up, you know? That was hilarious, and then they were asking my opinion of what titles to buy. I forgot my suggestions, maybe they were the nicest-looking boxes, cover designs that would really grab people, I don’t know.”

“I still have my player. It’s quietly gathering dust in my media center, but it still works. I have my laserdiscs in a storage bin in the basement. I have some of yours as well that you had lent me. I still have your “Abyss” Special Edition. Later on, this “The Abyss” special edition was re-released for DVD – obviously you can store more information on the DVD. The laserdisc package was enormous, four or five of those large discs, this was compact disc technology, converting audio and video to linear digital bits, there was some compression but not nearly as much as you would find on a DVD, but I think, now I’m not sure, but I think that was one of the reasons for what is called “laser-rot”, the problem that would occur from age, neglect; the fact that there was so little compression can cause these problems. On a DVD, you have to squeeze all this information on a comparatively tiny disc. I’m not sure about that.”

A note about the music: Our official BlissVille podcast theme has been added to this episode. The music is titled, “This House Has Eyes”, and it was composed and performed by Sean A. McCabe. The music appears courtesy of Audio Jungle and Envato Music.

Questions? Comments? blissville1870@gmail.com