9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Anything to pay the bills while waiting for a break, August 27, 2009
This review is from: True Porn Clerk Stories (Kindle Edition)
Years ago, Ali had a blog where she would write about the weirdness that happened at work. She'd tell us about the video store and casting calls and screenplays and she kept our interest and told a damn fine tale.
One day she up and disappeared.
Now she's back with the true tales neatly packaged to be carried on your commute bringing smiles and chuckles and perhaps an outright laugh or three. Though NSFW, it is the best thing to get you out of thinking that your job sucks.
Buy it, support Ali, maybe she'll write more true tales for us.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Do Yourself a Favor and Read This Book, August 26, 2009
This review is from: True Porn Clerk Stories (Kindle Edition)
Ali's witty and insightful take on the life of a video store clerk is infinitely readable. Blending her razor sharp wit, knowledge of anthropology, and her keen observational skills, Ali shares with us her view of the human condition as only she can. Expect to be amused, appalled, and agog.
And, if that's not a good enough reason to read this book then do it to find out how she handles the situation with the needy regular...
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny and insightful, September 28, 2009
From a comedienne who is also a clerk at a video shop that rents porn, you would expect funny anecdotes. Probably with a healthy side helping of sarcasm. When that comedienne/clerk is also an anthropologist, you might reasonably expect some insight into what is, frankly, a widespread yet rarely-discussed subculture in America--porn renters. If the lady also happens to be a talented freelance writer with some time on her hands and a computer, well, obviously there must be a pretty interesting blog somewhere.
Ali Davis delivered on all fronts, and now her True Porn Clerk Stories have been collected into a nice, tidy--funny--bundle. And yes, there is humor; the titles of the videos she handled, her nicknames for regular customers, the inevitable flare-ups of her temper. There is also an unexpected cache of laughs in her occasional treatment of "porn addicts" as the unwitting subjects of her anthropological analysis. (She's identified the castes, the society's rules, and the prevailing attitudes.) Even the stuff that is frankly pretty gross--prepare for fluids--has an aspect of surreal humor all its own.
More impressively, though, the stories are insightful. What makes Davis's take on the anecdotes so unique is that, while tough enough to deal with porn renters nine hours a day, she doesn't seem jaded. Granted, she gets pissed at thieves, public masturbators and self-important jerks with cell phones. She's no wide-eyed pushover. But somehow, incredibly, she seems optimistic about people generally, and approaches each new customer with professional courtesy and an open mind.
Her take on porn itself is interesting; as a self-described "First Amendment Feminist," she defends the right to make, watch, and rent porn, "as long as all parties are willing adults." However, there are instances--how could there not be?--where she finds particular tapes, situations, and customers obscene or disturbing. At the same time, she takes pride in the wide range of races, sexualities and, well, fetishes her store caters to. She champions the rights of her handicapped customers, and bewails society's and the adult movie industry's stubborn insistence that porn is for men, not women. It is interesting to see her strive, yearlong, to avoid making judgments and generalizations about porn renters--only to have visceral, instinctive understandings that some of her customers are "dirtbags."
You'll laugh, you'll cringe. You won't cry, but you will empathize, probably with people you wouldn't expect to. It's a normal person's view of a part of society that's still taboo, even though--as Davis points out--half of the people who rent movies rent porn. And that's why it's innately interesting. It's a great summary of a year's worth of minimum wage customer service, with a great range of humor an introspection thrown in. And the soundtrack's not half bad, either.
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