There aren't many people in the world who would willingly refer to themselves as geeks. Then again, there aren't many people in the world like Skip Elsheimer.
As founder and grand puba of A/V Geeks, Elsheimer is responsible for putting together a bi-monthly gathering where people watch, laugh at-and sometimes even learn from-old educational films usually made between the 1940s and '80s. The name, A/V Geeks, is a throwback to those kids in school whom the teacher always designated to go pick up the film projector from the storage room. And in watching one of his shows you can't help but feel like you're back in seventh-grade Earth Science class, trying to muffle your laughter while watching an outdated film strip on the dangers of smoking or paramecium or rocket ship launches-the ones with the voice-of-God narrator, the bad actors with even worse haircuts and the oversimplified messages. Difference is, at Elsheimer's shows you can laugh all you want.
"Most people, even when they were in school and the films were supposed to be serious, thought they were funny," Elsheimer says, "because the messages were bad or outdated." But Elsheimer also has a soft spot in his heart for these films. "It's kind of sad this old rickety technology is fading away," he says wistfully.
So Elsheimer's doing his best to keep this stuff alive. He's got driver's ed films. He's got science films. He's even got films on making films. His personal favorites are the ones he has on venereal disease-including a silent one from 1918 and one animated by Disney. He's in the process of writing a book based on these films, and he already has a name: Cinema VD-Sins, Sex and Sores.
Elsheimer's not afraid to admit he has a bit of an infatuation with educational films. "Oh yeah, it's definitely an obsession," he says. When you enter his house, there's no questioning the validity of this statement. Stacks and stacks of metal film boxes-about 7,000 of them-line every room of his house, including his bathroom. On a stranger note, there's also a vandalized baby CPR dummy tacked to the wall that greets you when you walk in, and a couple more CPR dummies wedged into different nooks and crannies around the place. Elsheimer buys them at the same school auctions where he gets his films and then dresses them in high-school band uniforms. Don't ask.
"I think Elsheimer's sincerity in his zealous pursuit of educational films makes you believe that he probably thinks it's perfectly normal to spend dozens of hours a month watching reels of this stuff in the basement, and that the rest of us are missing out on the fun," says Chris Sims, Program Coordinator for Exhibitions at the Center for Documentary Studies.
While it might be a stretch to describe Elsheimer's pursuits as "perfectly normal," the man does have some pretty cool stories. For example, in the 1950s, Disney released White Wilderness: Lemmings, an educational film documenting the lives of these furry little animals. In its climactic ending, dozens of lemmings jump off of a cliff and into the Arctic Sea in a mass frenzy. The last shot of the film depicts little dead lemming bodies bobbing in the water.
But lemmings committing mass suicide is a myth, so how did filmmakers capture it? An investigation in the 1980s found that Disney staged the event, pushing and tossing the lemmings off the precipice to their violent death. Elsheimer says its referred to in the industry as "The Lemming Snuff Film." This is the kind of stuff he thrives on.
But educational films aren't the only outlet for Elsheimer's brand of humor. He publishes a zine called Preparation X three times a year that he distributes at local coffee shops and record stores. The title is a synthesis of Preparation H and Generation X. Elsheimer says that part of the reason he decided on the name is because he's heard that Preparation H is the single-most shoplifted item in the United States.
The zine is an eclectic mix of mostly humorous and satirical pieces about things like blow-up dolls, local foreign food markets and North Carolina "Crime Against Nature" Laws. Elsheimer describes the zines as "good bathroom reading."
The most popular issue of Preparation X was themed "Childhood Sex" and contained anonymous submissions about sexual things that happened to people when they were children. Elsheimer says that often people don't think about children as having sexuality but, in truth, kids naturally explore, as evidenced by 'playing doctor' and such games. One can't help but be reminded of the hacked-up baby CPR dummy in his entry way.
But despite the sometimes offbeat and warped nature of Elsheimer's humor, he says he hasn't had any vocal naysayers. "I guess most of my critics don't show up," he says. "I didn't make the films and I'm showing them to generate debate-either positive or negative. Almost every show I program has at least one little 'shocking' part. It keeps people alert."
One thing's for sure: It's hard not to develop some kind of an opinion about Elsheimer. Some, like Sims, think Elsheimer is brilliant. "He's a prophet a prophet whose gospel consists of things other people would throw away or wouldn't notice," Sims says.
Some, like A/V Geeks 'groupie' Jason Sullivan, view Elsheimer as a historian of sorts, someone who uses films from different generations to show us how people's lives have changed. "Elsheimer's got thousands of films stored away, and that lets him make really nifty shows by grouping different films together, and I guess that's the main reason I go-to see how the films relate to each other in a given show," Sullivan says.
In the end you might say that Skip's a lot like a 30 year-old film strip-a little warped, but the light still shines through.
Elsheimer's A/V Geeks shows, which he has been presenting regularly for two years, take place on the second Friday of every month at the University's Center for Documentary Studies and the third Thursday of every month at the Lump Gallery in Raleigh. For more information, see calendar, p. 11.
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