Tag Archives: work

My Time at TLA Video

The past ten years were host to the great­est chal­lenges and joys of my life. I start­ed the decade as a tough-mind­ed grad stu­dent at the New School for Social Research. Some­where along the way I turned an unpaid hob­by into a career. Crazy, huh?

In between times, I made the best out of under­em­ploy­ment, teach­ing myself about movies dur­ing a stretch as a video store clerk. I fell in love with film at TLA Video’s store at 4th and South Sts. The store closed ear­li­er this month. Need­less to say, it was a Philly insti­tu­tion that will be sore­ly missed by any­one who set foot in it.

I feel for­tu­nate to have worked with the peo­ple who made TLA Video a safe haven for cinephiles here in Philly. I can’t tell you how many cus­tomers thanked us for sim­ply being the loy­al oppo­si­tion to Block­buster. We knew who Wim Wen­ders was when the big box stores bare­ly car­ried for­eign titles. Sure, it was a low-pay­ing retail job, but at least it had a mis­sion and a clear iden­ti­ty. We were going to offer the sort of movies Block­buster edit­ed out of exis­tence, whether that was for­eign or adult or what­ev­er. TLA was every­thing Block­buster wasn’t.

The road got rock­i­er when Net­flix start­ed to bul­ly brick and mor­tar. When I think back to my time there between 2003-05, I swore I’d nev­er go to Net­flix. It lacked imme­di­ate grat­i­fi­ca­tion, I thought, dis­re­gard­ing all those times I went into the store only to dis­cov­er the movie I so des­per­ate­ly want­ed to see was cur­rent­ly rent­ed. I thought the mail was just a clunky way to deliv­er movies. How wrong I was. Cus­tomers loved it and we watched our busi­ness dwin­dle even in Net­flix’s ear­ly days.

I think the peo­ple who worked at TLA made it the insti­tu­tion it was. I was intro­duced to more off-the-wall movies by my co-work­ers than I have been in 3+ years as a Net­flix cus­tomer. Every­one had their area of exper­tise and our reg­u­lar cus­tomers sought out those of us they trust­ed most when they need­ed to see some­thing, but weren’t sure what to rent. It was a joy to help peo­ple find new and inter­est­ing movies to watch, and a greater plea­sure to dis­cuss them when they returned. It was the only thing we could offer that the com­put­er and it’s Amazon.com-esque rec­om­men­da­tions couldn’t.

Ulti­mate­ly, con­sumers chose con­ve­nience over that lev­el of cus­tomer ser­vice. Oner­ous late fees and the has­sle that came with them were enough to kill off the brick and mor­tar biz. Trust me: we hat­ed those argu­ments as much as you did! The brick and mor­tar busi­ness tried to accom­mo­date this cus­tomer with ter­ri­ble results. There was no price point that would work for a com­pa­ny with the sort of over­head TLA had.  What made TLA Video spe­cial will ulti­mate­ly kill it off. The video store will not die with dig­ni­ty, but rather a slow, lin­ger­ing death at the hands of Net­flix, Red­box, and the mot­ley offer­ing from your cable provider.

When TLA laid me off in 2006, I was hurt most because I real­ly believed in what they hoped to accom­plish. It still hurts. I’ve watched help­less­ly as they’ve laid off many of the peo­ple who made the com­pa­ny great. I’ve since moved on and am very hap­py where I am, but I still miss the ide­al TLA rep­re­sent­ed, even if it set a stan­dard no busi­ness could live up to in today’s economy.

I think what’s strangest of all is how I will strug­gle to explain what a video store was to my son when he asks about the jobs I’ve held. Are knowl­edge work­ers at the shal­low end of the jobs pool des­tined to go the way of the milk man?

Why I Love Where I Work

I know I’ve been talk­ing a lot about beer and the music indus­try here, but I want­ed to stop for a moment to talk a bit about my work. Since I got back from my long over­due trip to Den­mark, I’ve been invit­ing bands into the Com­cast Cen­ter for inter­views and ses­sions in our lounge, CIM City. Last week, I had Mastodon in to talk about their new album, Crack the Skye. This week the Ther­mals came in to talk about their new record, Now We Can See, and they were nice enough to play a few songs, too! It’s been some­thing of a life­long dream real­ized and it would­n’t have been pos­si­ble with­out being sur­round­ed by peo­ple who weren’t only will­ing but excit­ed to work on projects like this. It’s impos­si­bly cool!

It’s also intense­ly reward­ing. I’ve been thrilled to talk to bands I love in a free­wheel­ing inter­view style that real­ly cap­tures their per­son­al­i­ties and brings fans clos­er to them and their music. I can’t wait to share clips from both shoots with you!

What else have I been up to? I’m get­ting back to writ­ing more often now that I have a great intern help­ing me with the day-to-day issues at comcast.net/music. I’d love to get back where I was before our last crop of interns left, when I was writ­ing some­thing every day that could be fea­tured some­where on the music page. It’s a chal­lenge to pro­duce mate­r­i­al that real­ly res­onates with an audi­ence that’s grown accus­tomed to a steady diet of gos­sip, but when artists like Bruce Spring­steen are plagued by Tick­et­mas­ter, there’s a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to speak out about the ways in which the music indus­try is still pun­ish­ing fans at the very moment they should be falling over them­selves to please them.

Last­ly, I record­ed my first voice-over yes­ter­day. This, too, is some­thing of a life­long dream. Peo­ple have been ask­ing me if I’ve thought about doing radio for years, so when I got a chance to read for a forth­com­ing web series on Fan­cast, I leapt at the chance. It’s a real­ly fun con­cept that gave me a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to read in my best Movie­fone voice, which I don’t do near­ly enough these days. I’ll be sure to post that here when it goes live. I’d love to hear what you think.

None of this would be pos­si­ble if I weren’t sur­round­ed by great peo­ple who are will­ing to take a chance on pro­duc­ing the sort of music con­tent I think appeals to peo­ple who love music…like me!

I’m Interviewing Mastodon Today

Today is a real­ly excit­ing day and not just because it’s Fri­day and the sun is final­ly shin­ing. I’m bring­ing Mastodon into the Com­cast Cen­ter to talk about their new album, Crack the Skye! I know that inter­view­ing a band on tour isn’t that big a deal, but it’s a major step for­ward for comcast.net/music as I try to work more orig­i­nal music con­tent into my work­flow. The idea of hav­ing reg­u­lar inter­view and per­for­mance fea­turettes is one I hope bands, labels, and fans will appre­ci­ate. Of course, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of my face being some­where in the video on demand music fold­er is excit­ing as well.

I know. I used the word “work­flow.” If you’re pro­fes­sion­al­ly involved in any aspect of the music busi­ness, espe­cial­ly in edi­to­r­i­al, you already know how dif­fi­cult it is to do this sort of thing when peo­ple are clam­or­ing to find out whether or not Madon­na will be allowed to adopt in Malawi. Take my word for it: it’s hard.

Hav­ing said that, the Ther­mals are com­ing in next week to play a few songs for us before their show at John­ny Bren­da’s next Tues­day night. I’m real­ly look­ing for­ward to that, too! It’s an excit­ing time. Now the key is just build­ing momen­tum. Wish me luck!

A QUICK PROGRAMMING NOTE

I’m writ­ing about pol­i­tics again for the first time in for­ev­er here. I’m cov­er­ing the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion and so far it’s been a lot of fun. When you’re not teth­ered to any par­tic­u­lar pol­i­tics, events like this can only be viewed as a laugh riot. In short, my view of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty remains unchanged.

Where are peo­ple fol­low­ing con­ven­tion cov­er­age? I’ve been out of the loop on good polit­i­cal blogs for quite some time, but I’m cau­tious­ly dip­ping my toe in the pool. Hit me with your rec­om­men­da­tions in the comments!