Just when I thought I had the whole VHS collection transferred over, I found this tape on my shelf.
Back in high school I was president of the German Club. Ethnically, I am not one bit German. But I did always like the language, so I ended up taking it from middle school all the way through my first year or two of college.
Anyway, back in 1992, Primetime Live had aired a special on the neo-Nazi movement in Germany. Third Reich memorabilia is essentially illegal to have in Germany. You can't print the swastika on anything either. But, as this report showed, some German neo-Nazis were still getting items like this (along with other white supremacy propaganda stuff like books, computer games, etc.) from some American neo-Nazis who were exporting them. It was a hot topic for Germany, so I taped the special, and arranged to watch it as part of a German Club event. Anybody was welcome to come down at the precise after-school time and room I got to borrow with the TV and VCR, and watch the hour-long special.
As with all other German Club events, I made fliers to put on a couple of the school bulletin boards. And that's where I caused a bit of a stir, because I included a swastika on the posters. Why did I do it? Simple. Because besides being relevant to the event, I knew people would actually stop and read a flier if it had a swastika. Just as I titled this blog something other than "A VHS Tape I found". Unfortunately, my German teacher told me that the flier "had been defaced" and was taken down as a result. He wouldn't tell me the details. I'm amused at the irony: somebody thought the poster itself was too close to promoting the very same idea that it was actually helping to expose and speak out against. Go figure.
(By the way, Nazis still suck. Did they have pretty dashing aesthetics? Sure. Are there a lot of irrational, knee-jerk reactionary idiots who think Hitler was literally the Antichrist, and can't have an objective conversation about the Third Reich? Absolutely. But blind devotion to an unfounded ideology used by some early 20th century Austrian dictator, is still fucking stupid. And no, I'm not saying this to defend myself and/or quality my use of a swastika on a school poster 18 years ago. I'm saying it because I'm sick of the racists I keep running into on-line. It's a long story. But there, glad to get that off my chest.)
Well I popped the VHS tape into my player, and found out quickly that I had a lot more on the tape than I realized. This was one of those cases where I didn't label my tapes better. Here's what else was on there:
- Primus on Headbangers' Ball. Just a few short interview clips which I taped over some of the special. I think a lot of the compulsive 80s metal haters would be shocked to realize that there was a time when bands like Primus, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and the like were being covered by the metal shows and metal magazines. Fun interview.
- Real Sex. No, not footage of actual sexual intercourse. Real Sex was the name of a series on HBO. It was a documentary where they covered a few different sex-related topics in each show. I had 20 minutes of one episode on this tape. They looked into the phone sex industry, interviewed a married stripper couple, and as usual had their street opinion polling. My cousin got asked a question on the street like that, and he's in one of the episodes, though I don't know which one.
- Freddy Mercury "Concert for Life". Now this was a hidden gem. FOUR HOUR documentary of this show from Mtv! I remember how pissed off my mom was that I set up the TV and VCR to tape it. I put a note on the TV saying that I'd be taping, so touching the TV that night. It takes a lot to make my mother say "Bullshit!", but that did it. Granted, they eventually released the show on DVD, but judging from the low-star reviews on Amazon.com, the DVD leaves out a lot.
