If you’re reading this column, you may have just been through the gauntlet known as “Black Friday.”
We all know the drill. You find out that certain stores are selling something for the holidays that is vital to someone’s happiness. You get up in the middle of the night after Thanksgiving when you should be comfortably sleeping off your feast, gird your loins for battle and head out to a local shopping area to try to get ahead of the other shoppers.
You locate your objective and in a military-like operation you grab it and spring to the cashier where you make it yours and yours alone.
After doing this several times, you head home to pass out again, maybe to have a turkey sandwich.
Black Friday is a very curious institution. In the name of being a good family member or friend, we risk our bodies and sanity to the crowd by becoming a gift predator.
I wondered just how the day came about and according to Wikipedia, “The earliest known use of “Black Friday” to refer to the day after Thanksgiving occurred in the journal, Factory Management and Maintenance, for November 1951, and again in 1952. Here it referred to the practice of workers calling in sick on the day after Thanksgiving, in order to have a four-day weekend. However, this use does not appear to have caught on. Around the same time, the terms ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Black Saturday’ came to be used by the police in Philadelphia and Rochester to describe the crowds and traffic congestion accompanying the start of the Christmas shopping season. In 1961, the city and merchants of Philadelphia attempted to improve conditions, and a public relations expert recommended rebranding the days ‘Big Friday’ and ‘Big Saturday’; but these terms were quickly forgotten.”
I like the term “Black Friday,” as it denotes stores going into the black financially, as well as a sort of ominous element; perhaps a bit of a mystery.
“Will I find what my kid wants or not?” is the question the name evokes.
I used to think there isn’t a Black Friday sale in existence that could lure me from my day off after Thanksgiving – although this year there was no day off – until several years ago.
That’s when I found out Vinegar Syndrome had a Black Friday sale.
Vinegar Syndrome? That’s the name of a condition in which a print of a film has started decaying and releases the aroma of vinegar. It is also the name of a company that works with producers to preserve, restore and release low-budget exploitation films – a subject near and dear to my film fan’s heart.
The films are fun and funky. Some have some element of name recognition, while others are complete discoveries.
For instance on my last trip – I go every four to six weeks – I found a remarkable film about which I knew nothing: “Six String Samurai.” This 1998 film is part a homage to the “Wizard of Oz,” part a post-atomic war science fiction tale and part a martial arts film. Toss in some rock and roll and you have a movie that is wildly inventive and fun.
The film had limited release to theaters and then a release on VHS in 1999. The Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray is its first digital release and is a beauty with great extras that recount the making of the film.
I discovered the company years ago as they would set up shop at horror film conventions. When I found out several years ago the company operated a factory store – for lack a better term – I was eager to go to it.
It’s only 90 minutes away in beautiful downtown Bridgeport, CT, and it is paradise for a guy like me. It sells not just their own product, but movies from other companies as well. It also has used DVDs and Blu-ray at great prices as well as vinyl record and VHS tapes.
Like every other retailer, they have Black Friday deals, which can be found on their website. I like to go in person because I can go through their entire inventory.
It’s a great little road trip with a newly added stop at Katz’s Deli in Woodbridge, CT. How can you beat movies and pastrami sandwiches?
Hey, there is a movie with Boris Karloff from 1940 called “Black Friday.” I’ve always wanted to see it. Wouldn’t it be great if I found of copy of “Black Friday” on Black Friday?
I hope your shopping went well this year.
