Down With Netflix! Down With Redbox!

Sure, they're convenient when you're too stoned/tipsy/lazy to get up and go outside very, very busy, but have Netflix or Redbox -- or for that matter Hulu or Vimeo or even freaking Blockbuster Video -- ever given you free beer, like, for free? Thought not.

That's why we're as crazy-mad happy as two kaiju eiga's on a week-long Roppongi crank binge to remind you that Saturday is the 2nd Annual International Independent Video Store Day! So for the sake of all that is analog and digital (but not streaming, never streaming), pay a visit to local heroes Vulcan Video and I Luv Video on October 20, and swill a frosty beverage while choosing from a selection of videos and DVDs unparalleled this side of Quantum L-Space theory.

As much as we love (to hate) the Internet and all that it's given us, the city of Austin, in particular, was built on analog video and all the weirdness that that implies.

Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi and roughly two-dozen of his early shorts were edited using dueling VCRs, and if it weren't for those long-gone video stores of yesteryear - 'sup, Videoasis? -- we'd probably never have discovered David Lynch, Run Run Shaw's eclectic film background, or the joys of three-times-a-decade multi-platform upgrades. (Also, there would probably be no Wu Tang Clan, and for sure no RZA.)

It's all too easy in this age of instant connectivity to forget the pure, unadulterated fun to be had skulking around a non-virtual video store, uncovering and discovering future filmic favorites that will stick with you forever, or at least until you get home and wash that plastic-y scented dust from your fingertips.

Like bookstores and public libraries, independent video outlets have taken a massive hit in the over the past decade, thanks in no small part to Netflix and Redbox's success. But just as a Nook® is not a book, watching a movie via a download/torrent/streaming file is not the same thing as actually getting on your fixy and two-legging it down to Vulcan or I Luv to sift through the shelves. Where, by the way, they will have free beer for you, constant viewer, this Saturday. Take it away, Charles Edward Cheese Band!