The summer after I got out of the Ranch I made the only mistake I still regret. A video camera case full of old video tapes, tapes taken from 5th grade to my Junior year of high school, were stolen from the closet at my dad's house. I regret not protecting those tapes like my dear life depended on it. Growing up, I was always the kid with the video camera capturing every moment of my upbringing - from my first movies with action figures, to the first time Tony and I got caught smoking pot, to me running around my backyard on mushrooms - I tried to capture everything.
While I was at the Ranch, in order to graduate, we had to progress through a series of four different levels. To make it to the next level, we had to give a presentation reflecting the progression of our recovery. For my Level 4 presentation, I decided to edit together a movie of a typical high school night for me. From the old camera bag, I stumbled upon a tape of one single Friday night, recorded mostly from my perspective, though I do appear for a few seconds here and there...
Well, I was browsing through an old hard drive of mine tonight and came across that very video. It is the only existing footage from that bag of tapes. I was stunned in a way. I had forgotten how different things had been. I mean, there are friends of mine who are already dead in it. Gosh, it didn't even seem that long ago. The video starts off with my good friend Keegan and I, sitting in the room Robby and I shared at my dad's house. Robby and Jessica are playing Mario Kart. We leave to go to Gray's. Then Mike's. Robby gives me money to buy him liquor. Back to Gray's. We steal Robby's alcohol. Back to my house. Back to Gray's...
I think the most amazing part of the video is it shows the natural deterioration of the night. It starts off kind of fun, aside me being depressed about Jessica... but then everybody gets so fucked up they start yelling at each other. It's kind of sad, really. The whole video ends with my friend Scott giving a monologue, which he used to do a lot, and shows the backward-ass justification of why we all did what we did...
Anyway. I was kind of blown away. I thought I would share it with you. That's what blogs are for, after all, right? Anyway. Here you go:
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2 comments:
It is kind of sad. Even though you don't have any of the tapes, at least you have this video. I think that's enough to remind you of how things were.
like a knife in the heart
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