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Waldo told me: "Get a Fujix," when I told him I was thinking of buying a Hi-8 camcorder (Waldo's the guy to talk to when you're talking video). So I kept my eyes open for sales and in the classifieds, but didn't see anything right away.Then my wife and I went down to Ashland for the weekend, and right away on Saturday morning, there's an ad in the Portland paper for a used Fujix Hi-8, $600 even.I figured it'd be gone by the time I got back on Tuesday, but I clipped the ad just in case and forgot about it for a couple of days.When I got back to town, I called the number in the ad and asked if the camera was still available. The voice on the other end told me it was and gave me an address just off of Northeast Killingsworth. I said I'd be there in an hour or two. When I got to the turn off of Killingsworth, I started to get a little bit worried. The street the house was on was unpaved and rutted, and the white, one-level shack at the address I'd been given had a crummy white Caddy parked in front, a bunch of junk piled in the carport, and a sign by the front door that said: "Everything's for Sale!" I was starting to wonder how hot the camera was. The door was opened by a gnomish man who looked vaguely familiar. He had an aroma about him that was definitely not aftershave. Despite my initial misgivings, I said I was the guy who was interested in the camera, and he got it out of a grimy bag packed with battery packs and cables.Most of my worries were dissipated by the way he handled the camera. He obviously knew its features fairly well. Then I saw something that convinced me that whatever concerns I should hold, I didn't need to worry about the provenance of the camera.In front of me, live and--thankfully--NOT in the flesh, was none other than Jim Spagg, the man who had brought nude beach, naked dancing, and masturbation videos to the Multnomah Cable Access channel. The man whose fat, flabby body had graced the front page of our city newspaper's Living section clad in nothing but an artfully placed, oversized dollar bill. I guess I didn't recognize him because he had his clothes on. "You're Jim Spagg!" I said."Yeah, I'm Spagg," he replied.The things that camera must have seen makes me shudder, but I bought it anyway. Spagg took a tape out of it before he handed me the camera and its accessories. I cleaned it pretty thoroughly, too. |
