2001-07-15 - 12:45 p.m.

As a rule, guys like Stuff. Not like guys just pretty much tend to like stuff, where "stuff" means whatever you happen to be talking about, but rather, Stuff, like things you can own and use and—more often than we'd like to admit—lose or break. I'm like this, I admit it. I like gadgets and things like that. Kind of like the guys who have 152 piece ratchet sets and nothing to… um… ratchet, I buy things that I would really like to have a reason to use. Most recently that has gone to stuff for cooking. That's why I own a blender, standing bowl mixer, and an $89 dollar set of RevereWare pans.

I'm also a compulsive buyer. I see something I want, and if I have the money on me, there's a very good chance I will buy it, even if I know I shouldn't. This is especially true for movies and CDs. I buy them even if I realise later that I don't like them enough to justify paying for them. That's why I own the movie "American Pie" and the CDs "Wheatus" by the band of the same name and "Hangin' Tough" by the New Kids On the Block (all purchased in the last year, mind you. Though I have yet to listen the whole way through the New Kids CD. It's just too horrid).

And, like most guys, I drool over the things I can't afford. Especially big technological gadgets and cars. And yes, I realise how silly the second one is, since even if I owned the car, I wouldn't have the license or ability to drive it. But beautiful ones are still drool-worthy.

But yesterday, I found the one Big Technological Thing that I really and truly want, but can't afford that *doesn't* quite fit into that category. Or rather, I "found" it again. I've found it many times, and do every time I start browsing the Internet looking for digital cameras and camcorders. I look on various sites, Sony, Kodak, Polaroid. But I always end up back on Canon looking at this one.

Yesterday I found it because I was adding to the Amazon.com wish list that I've been working on. I'm going to put it on here, not so much because I actually expect anyone to buy me anything, but because I kind of think it might work well to give people a good look at me on a basic level. This is what I'm into for movies, books, CDs, Stuff. And hey, if for some reason you actually decide you *do* want to buy me stuff, I have nothing against that, either. But I honestly believe that that's not going to happen.

Anyway, back to the story at hand. Every once in a while I go looking for cameras, both still and video, that I want. Because my passions in life are writing, photography, and film, but I can write anywhere, on anything. I can go get a crap notebook and a pen at Ames for $2.50. $2.10 with my mom's employee discount. And then I can take that notebook and pen and go write, and it won't be any better or worse for the medium it's being done on. However, photographs aren't going to be as good with a Polaroid I-Zone as they will be with a $1,000 dollar digital camera. And film? Oh, this is where it gets interesting. I will not, I repeat, WILL NOT sacrifice quality of my filming to save a buck. If I have the money to spend, I *will* spend it. And that's why I don't have a camcorder yet. Because I haven't had the money yet that I feel I really need to get a sufficient camera.

In the movie "Pearl Harbor," they have the character of a man who happened to have a video camera and saw what was going on, so he jumps in the car with Josh Hartnett and Ben Affleck and rides to the fight just to film it. He puts himself in harm's way just to catch this incredibly important historical event. In "American Beauty" Ricky Fitts walks around with a small camera filming anything that he sees beauty in. In "TimeCode" the character of the eccentric female director person stands over a dying man and films him in his last moments.

I understand these characters. I identify with these characters. Well, maybe not the last one, I'd do something to try to help him, but the other two I do understand. If I were at Pearl Harbor, watching Zeros flying in and destroying everything around me, and there was nothing in my power to do but film it, that's exactly what I'd do. I'd be out there, risking being shot/bombed/crushed/any number of other fatal things just to catch it on tape, because it's a story that needs to be told, and there is no better, cleaner, easier way for something to caught as it happened than with film. Whatever the camera catches will never be lost as long as that film lasts. Memory can be wrong, people die, everyone makes mistakes. But on film, if it was there, it's always there.

That's part of it, but it doesn't really seem like all of it. There are those of us out there for whom film is achingly important. We think about it. We yearn for it. I think maybe it helps us see something we can't with our own eyes. It helps us focus, lets us hone in on the important things, the little things, without the distractions of the things around us getting in the way. Whenever I'm doing anything I look around everywhere. My eyes are almost always moving. If they aren't, then that means I've probably found something or someone I really want to look at. And even then my focus shifts here and there. But when looking through a camera, it's like whatever you are looking at has more meaning. Because—if you are actually filming something and not just holding a camera to your eye while you go through a normal routine, which I don't think anyone does anyway—when you're filming you have a focus. You have a Thing that matters. And rather than seeing *everything* as an nonspecific blur of things, you see it for the little things. The important parts. Like finally seeing the forest for the trees, so to speak.

And so, I need a camcorder. And every one I've ever used has left something to be desired for quality. And so I wait. I wait until I can see something that I truly feel will be Good Enough. And I've found it. The Canon XL1. I always find myself going back to this camera. I don't just *really* want this camera, I feel like I *need* this camera. It's an aching feeling like finding is means finding exactly what I've been looking for since the first time I borrowed my friend's grandmother's camcorder and made that crap no-budget spy film parody so many years ago. Later that night, we were walking around, filming random things that night, and a car went speeding by us, smelling of pot, right in the view of my camera. It stopped at the next stop light, went into reverse, and squealed backward halfway back to us, then stopped again and sped off. Nick and Ryan, my friends who were walking with me ran off, I stood there, filming it the whole time. Because it was interesting. It was something to watch, to remember, to hold with me. But when I went back, all it was on the film was a blur of lights in the dark. I didn't understand lighting, or focusing, or any of that at the time. And the camera wasn't enough to make up for it. I had this great moment on film and I *lost* it because of my mediocre skills and the less-than-mediocre camera. And from that point on I've always been wishing for a good camera. Something that can see what I see. And when I see the XL1, it feels like the thing I've been needing since then. If I had a driver's license and someone gave me $5,000 so I could buy either a car or a camera, I'd, completely without hesitation, be online ordering myself the XL1. I would stay on my bike for years, walking through the rain and snow, taking public transportation, humbly asking for rides, doing whatever I had to, if it meant that I would own this camera and be able to bring it with me wherever I go.

This isn't a want. It's a need. And some day I will have it.