LA City Beat, CA
Aug 4 2005

Walk on the Wild Side
Bootlegs reveal a lot about your neighborhood … and you

~ By DONNELL ALEXANDER ~

Illustration by Sean Tejaratchi

I am not nearly as cool as people tend to think I am. For instance,
I roll worse blunts than that chick with the stupid-long Korean nails.
I don’t know where the after-party is later on tonight (so stop asking,
motherfucker). And, as of this writing, I have not been involved in
a threesome.

Which is why I engage bootleg discs. I need to get out more, but
there’s so much to see and so little time. Like a Grateful Dead taper
from back in the day, I watch my DVDs – and listen to the odd CD –
for that ambient information encasing the putative object of art.

Up on Flickr.com there’s a “Crappy Bootleg DVD Covers” photo show.
It’s meant to make fun, but I find the material awesome. Independent
of the gross factual inaccuracies – Spike Lee directed The Passion?
“Jackson Pollack is the greatest living fainter?” And this on the Harry
Potter box? – there’s genius in the anime cover art interpretation for
the film A.I. Plus, that contrived sidelong nude is the Carrie-Anne
Moss scene that might have saved The Matrix Reloaded.

It’s inadvertent genius of this sort that makes me follow bootlegs,
especially in tangible Los Angeles. Like the speakeasies that are
popping up more around the cool parts of town – and that I’m only
cool enough to occasionally hit – bootlegs speak to a life that’s
beyond regulation and ineffably real.

I actually spent money on my first and last bootlegs in Brooklyn,
during the summer of 2001. The CDs? Missy Elliott’s joint, house-music
collection NYC Underground, Vol. 3, and a release that presently eludes
me. My son, then four, and I were outside a kids’ bowling party in
Sunset Park, waiting on a car. I knew it was morally sketchy, so that’s
why I made the move: For the thrill. I might not ever do it again.

And the product was fine; at the very least I cemented an affinity
for house music. Most value was peripheral – the art of the deal and
the presentation of the discs. (I love the look of faded cover art in
a digital age.) Purchasing bootlegs feels less risky than purchasing
drugs or other stolen goods. The objects themselves are transgressive,
but, let’s face it, no one feels at risk for purchasing them. It’s
strictly self-policing that keeps me out of the game.

Nowadays I watch and I listen, but don’t buy. The Gangs of New York
DVD that recently graced my pad has not been consumed. I fetishize
it anyway.

Were it not for this DVD, I might not recognize Thai writing. (Thai
subtitles and Dolby audio are primary to the disc; English, Malaysian,
and “Chinese” are other subtitle options.) If not for this disc, I’d
have continued to think all those businesses in the west portal of my
East Hollywood neighborhood were Armenian. One might call this copy
of Gangs of New York perfect were it not for its promise of “Bouns”
where one might expect bonus material. (If “Bouns” is Thai for nothing,
well, the section has bouns up the ass.)

About a year ago, Baby Mama Deux hit me off with Bad Santa, Peter
Pan, Big Fish, 28 Grams, and a title that presently eludes me. One
of Deux’s 10-year-old students sold her the DVDs for $20 while she
shopped in the Garment District, a fact that created some conflicted
feelings about contributing to an illegal activity. But at least,
she reasoned, the problem child was showing some initiative, and it
wasn’t crack that he proffered.

One can get anything in the Garment District.

Bad Santa was really excellent, a horrible copy but somehow true
to the grimy narrative and in a way preferable to Badder Santa, a
DVD release which in my opinion dragged. But Peter Pan was such an
impressionistic smear of imagery that my then-seven-year-old could
not watch it; his entire appreciation of the myth was tainted. And
as a result I developed a policy against watching any knockoff copy
from which I have any expectation of artistic excellence.

One exception: I did watch Spider-Man 2 in bootleg form while staying
at a Sacramento pad in the summer of ’04. Again and again I tried to
walk past the big screen. But the bootleg was so pristine, its audio
so absolutely clear, I just had to stay and watch the film that was
that week’s biggest hit. Spider-Man 2’s Italian titles gave away the
secret to its fine pedigree. “Made in America” has iffy connotations,
even in the realm of knockoff DVDs.

But Fahrenheit 9/11? Absolutely no watchy. The DVD’s muffled sound
and silhouettes getting popcorn were repellent. Kill Bill Vol. 2?
Still haven’t seen it. I did take in Hollywood sequels and early
Roc-A-Fella releases and decided that Soul Plane is the ultimate
bootleg film: a guilty pleasure atop a guilty pleasure.

One might find fault with my policy. Isn’t it clear, one might ask,
that I’m depriving the slumping biz of much needed income by watching
secondhand bootlegs rather than subscribing to Netflix? Well, the
biz ain’t trying half as hard as I am to control quality, with its
sequels and TV-show remakes and lowbrow spring fare. Therefore, my
standards are a lot more about my tastes than concern for the film
industry. One who doesn’t accept this can kiss my natural black ass.

Of greater importance in my moral universe is remaining part of the
citizenry’s off-the-books library, its unofficial pass-around that
allows anyone to see the town. Or the nation. Or the world.

It’s a beautiful thing, the notion of immigrants from Thailand using
bootlegs to learn an honest American history. The crime is one with
a built-in bouns.

Shit, I used to be a real wild kid. On certain weeknights when I
lived in NYC, I’d party until the Manhattan clubs and bars closed,
then shuffle into my sports-mag gig at 4 a.m. I’d write until near
9, when the ad staff began leaking in. In the bathroom, I’d roll
up a bag of funk – delivered to me in that very same john, natch –
then start making my way up the island. Up through Times Square, past
the delis on the Upper West Side, I did the watcher part of writing,
my gig – in my mind – to the core. Then the A-train dragged me back
to downtown Brooklyn, for coffee and a couple of cannoli and a smoke
in the alley and a matinee at the neighborhood arthouse.

A half-decade later, and things just aren’t the same. There are now
many children to provide for, not to mention a role model to be. So,
when my older son and I scooter past the East Hollywood bootleg man
with his wares laid out on a blanket, we look at the titles and I
tell the boy how the product came to be. I tell him not just about
the Italian Spider-Man, but also the muddled Fahrenheit 9/11. And,
sure, he wonders why we can’t buy Willy Wonka and Episode III. I
explain the desire away, and we don’t buy. I’m older now. I got
responsibilities yo.