It was an experience marked by brief periods of disappointment and punctuated with feelings of ecstasy and triumph. It was a communal experience. It was an experience when boyish innocence was lost, only to be replaced by deeply-rooted bonds of brotherhood.
My first Sony Experience was also the first time I watched an R-Rated movie. With my hot-blooded cousins.
Our first Sony Betamax was massive, heavy enough to sink a small boat. The elephantine video cassette player sat squarely inside a wooden rack inside my parent’s bedroom. The player stayed immobile for years testing the structural integrity of a wooden rack custom-built using discarded parts of an old bed. The rack creaked, sighing from strain, every time we pushed the eject button. We had to buy a cheap, plastic Sonly rewinder because rewinding using the machine would cause mini vibrations enough to disintegrate the poor old rack.
Because it was practically bolted inside my parent’s bedroom, we could only watch pre-approved movies in the company of our parents. I remember watching Teen Wolf and Scott Baio’s Zap, especially the scene when everyone inside the campus magically lost their clothing. But I pretended to cover my eyes when that happened.
Because it was that heavy, I couldn’t smuggle the machine out of my parent’s bedroom.
And then my cousin’s spent a summer in our house. And that’s when we hatched our insidious plan. Our house, during summer afternoons becomes unguarded. It becomes a place without adults.
Because my cousins were sick and tired of a slam-dunking werewolf, they wanted to maximize that chance to see something a bit more risqué. For them, it was a rare chance when there was equipment available. Because when that time came when they had to go back to the province, they would have to settle watching a B&W TV set powered by their jeepney’s battery.
On that afternoon when boys became prurient boys, together with two of my cousins, we smuggled a Sony Betamax an R-Rated tape with Barbara Carrera and installed it in my bedroom with a 14” TV.
It was a splendid time and it was over in less than 5 minutes.
The Sony Betamax definitely gave significance in my life just like the Sony’s World’s First Smallest, Lightest and Slimmest Full HD Camcorder: TG1 Handycam, which my cousins and I can use to record our most memorable moments.
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