The Bootlegger
(December 31, 2009)

One Saturday I found myself strolling along the streets of a small section of town called Shanghai Village. As I meandered through the hustle and bustle of the sidewalk sales, I came upon a young twenty-something sitting on a Hudson Bay blanket on the sidewalk. He was surrounded by movies.

“Mademoiselle, would you like to buy a movie? Two for $5.”

I looked down at the movies.

“Hey, they’ll all the same movie! Why would I want two?”
“Maybe to give to a friend? You seem like a very generous woman.”

I gave the man the evil eye.

“Okay, you got me. For you... 3 for $6!”
“It’s still the same movie! Why don’t you have a better selection?”
“Better selection? Sure, I could give you a better selection like the other bootleggers on the streets but I’m different. I actually film these movies.”

He picked up a movie.

“This ain’t no low grade bit torrent, low light, bad sound with Latvia subtitles. This is the real deal. This is directly from Air Canada.”
“Air Canada?”
“Yeah, you heard me, Air Canada. Air Canada now has these amazing touch screens on every seat. You can select all sorts of movies – including Hollywood movies before their DVD release. I simply pick a movie, and film it during the flight. I feed the audio directly into the camera. No heads appearing, no whispers. It’s the perfect bootleg. This DVD is the best bootleg copy you will find on the street today. I’d bet my career on it.”

“Is this your career?”
“Absolutely. You got a problem with that?”

“No not at all...”
“That’s right. And it’s a great career. I fly all over the world. The longer the flight, the more movies I can film. But the long flights cost more money so lately I’ve been sticking to the shorter ones. Film half the movie on the departure and the remaining half on the return.”

“How can you afford the flights?”
“Seats sales baby! Thank goodness for West Jet and Porter Airlines. It’s all about competitive competition. ”

“What’s your name?”
“My real name is PJ Bartholomew Hacken.”
“PJ B Hacking?”

“Yeah, it’s a little too obvious so my professional name is PJ McHacken. Much more discreet. So how many DVDs did you want to buy?”

Before I could answer, my new bootleg friend PJ McHacken saw a policeman strolling down the street. With one quick moment, he wrapped up his bootleg DVDs into his blanket.

“So long Mademoiselle.”

With that he disappeared down into the sewer.