It probably began while bored, just poking around on eBay while listening to some music, newly acquired by any number of less than legal methods.
Often times while farting around on the internet I search eBay for super 8 cameras, always allowing my stifling reasonableness to hold me back from throwing my money into that particular pit of obsolescence.
I have been fascinated by the super 8 format ever since my friend picked up a camera and projector while we wasted a suburban New Jersey spring Saturday cruising from garage sale to garage sale in his taco colored Toyota in which the driver's seat was held in an upright position by a milk crate of Grateful Dead tapes.
While the main mission of the day was completed earlier in the morning by obtaining some prime seats for The Grateful Dead's annual visit to Giants Stadium, the purchase of the camera on the same afternoon would become just as significant to me over time and the purchase of the camera and the purchase of the tickets would forever be linked.
August had arrived and with the camera loaded into the taco colored car, we made the trip to Giants Stadium.
We filmed liberally in the parking lot before the show. It was an exciting feeling. My family had never had a video camera, so this was my first time getting a turn operating any kind of film device. By the time Jerry Garcia was bungling the show's opener, Mississippi Half Step Uptown Toodleoo, on their way to performing perhaps the worst show of their career, it would be the filming in the parking lot (and the opening set by a reunited Traffic) that was the highlight of the day.
the show:
Months later, when we finally got to see the finished product of what we made (an amalgam of parking lot scenes, yo yo tricks, random family members waving like buffoons, etc.) I was blown away. The haze hanging over the parking lot seemed like I could touch it. The shirtless man's embrace of me while waiting patiently for the porta potty was almost as body odor infused on the film as it was in person There were also some speed issues that added some brilliant comedy, as sped up film tends to do.
It's this experience that leads me to constantly search for super 8 cameras on eBay without ever pulling the trigger.
The search I did this time seemed to present me with offers too good to pass up.
The two cameras with auctions ending soonest were both in good condition, both starting at 99 cents, had original cases and instructions, and were from the same seller who happened to have 100% positive feedback selling a wide variety of camera equipment. There wasn't much time left on the auctions and there were still no bids on the cameras. Everything was falling into place. Would I possibly be able to get two cameras for two dollars?
The first camera up for auction was a GAF SS 250 XL.
This one was the one I was really interested in. It looked much sharper than the other one, and had sound and ZOOM! Could "zoom" be more onomatopoetically fantastic? How could one not want to zoom with it's z providing motion, the two ohs telescoping toward the subject and the m swallowing it up.
With just over a minute left I got in on the bidding. There were others waiting until the last moment to take action too. It quickly reached twenty dollars and factoring how much I had decided I wanted to spend on something that was essentially going to be a dust collecting piece of the past that got little use I placed one final bid. Just like that the auction was over and the camera was sold to another lucky money waster for thirty seven dollars. I wasn't that disappointed. The second camera's auction was next and while it didn't have zoom, it still had sound.
The second camera was a Kodak Ektasound 130.
I quickly set myself for the Kodak auction and with a minute left and no bids on the camera I won the auction for 99 cents and 12 dollars shipping. This seemed like a steal. My first thought was that zoom must be a very special feature as it seemed the only real obvious difference to warrant the thirty dollar discrepancy in the going price for the two cameras.
Excited by my victory I began to research my Ektasound 130 to see what kind of film I would need to get and where I would get it.
I should have done this before buying a camera.
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