A steady stream of movie-minded customers — many bearing their lengthy wish lists of titles to snag — hit today’s preview of Audio Video Plus’s closeout sale. And learned that storefront operations at the shop at 1225 Waugh will be pretty much ceasing. But not entirely: Sales will continue from the location via the internet and randomly occurring open house days TBD, a store manager declared on Friday. Meanwhile, the rarely full parking lot is getting a bit more of a workout, as are the film collectors racing through the still-stocked aisles and vying for remaining packaged and rental copies of the “Movies and More” touted on a banner above the entry. The preview continues 11 to 7 Saturday.
- Previously on Swamplot: Audio Video Plus on Waugh is Clearing it Out
Photos: CALwords
Anyone go? How much were they selling the VHS for? Did they say where online to go? Details! Details!
Never understood how this place stayed in business so long, its along my daily commute and I almost never saw a car parked in the lot.
This is a real loss to Houston. This place was possibly the largest rental collection of videotapes left on the planet- with between 50,000 and 70,000 titles. My Houston experience was so much the richer for all of the bizarre forgotten tapes- obscure French movies from the 70s, inexplicable training films, forgotten Annie Sprinkle movies, or who knows what you’d come up with looking through the 500 pages of sheet protector-ed printouts to see what images you’d put in front of your mind that week, at 5 movies for $5.99 for a week. That place was a time capsule for culture.
So Houston that on the same week we lost Audio Video Plus, Wal Mart opened down the street. We lost Chances and got freakin yuppie Underbelly, lost the 50,000+ DVD Hollywood video (perfect complement to the Audio Video Plus collection) and all we get is some jerky place yelling about fresh lard, and limousines blocking up traffic.
RIP KTRU-FM, Westheimer Street Festival is gone but not forgotten- Fiesta was traded for something more uppity yuppitdy, and a cajillion cool old houses are now craptacular beige boxes. Houston, WTF? We are building a paradise for pushy alcoholic rich people, but I for own mourn the gradual passing of the old quirky, unexpected, and above all _free_ Houston I moved here for and loved. Isn’t there someway we can convince all these BMW winos to make the 610 a no-go area once again? Maybe offer free cocaine for relocating back to The Woodlands?- It’d be so worth it. And meanwhile I’ll miss Tony, Shawna, and all the other cool cats at Audio Video Plus that knew more about B movies that nobody’s ever seen than anybody probably should.
And where the hell will tomorrow’s kids be without quality trash like ‘Computer Beach Party’, ‘My Father is Coming’, ‘dBase IV in The Home’, or god knows what other assumption-challenging cultural history was in those stacks? I know A/V+ never could have paid the bills, but maybe it’s time we ask why we tax places like this, like Chances, like all those classic homes that get put into a dumpster, why we tax them all right into oblivion? In an increasingly crowded world, do we really want the only survivors to be a bunch of rich people restaurants, bars, and clubs? Do we want to watch all the 3rd ward institutions dismembered, watch Eastwood become cool and then be demolished?- anything unique and not slathered in beige stucco living day-by-day with a target on its back? Sorry this comment is so long, but damn Houston.. WTF?