ROX

Do That Thing with the Videotape [mp3, 0.5MB]

Wed, 09 May 2012 02:33:34 GMT

Impromptu.

ROX Season One DVD Release Party & 20th Anniversary Celebration

Wed, 02 May 2012 15:57:33 GMT

Yes, it's true. We're having a party and you're invited.

It's the official ROX Season One DVD Release Party & 20th Anniversary Celebration.

This momentous event will take place Tuesday July 3rd, 2012, 8pm, at the Comedy Attic in Bloomington, Indiana.

So what are you waiting for? Get your tix now.

-- by B

Classic

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:58:48 GMT

For me, this video is classic Christy Paxson. Like all the videos I made, it could have been edited a lot tighter. But it has some great bits of Christy improv. My favorite part is the sequence starting from the fake smashing into the trash can and leading into the dress store where Christy slips into a character performance using the red & white dresses as props.

I also remember that Christy told me that the grimace she has near the end wasn't about the woman walking behind her, as it appears, but was about some kitschy thing they were selling.

We got a lot of flack from the Mall after the fact. They must have had complaints from Pass Pets about our filming there. They told the TV station they didn't want anyone filming in there again without permission. So, when we made a later video at a drug store on Mother's Day, we hid the camera in a shopping basket.

-- by Eric White

Fallout

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:57:25 GMT

Eric and I wanted to get shots of the poor bunnies trapped in cages at the pet store in the mall for sure, then there was all this “antiquey”' stuff around that was imminently questionable...

Anyway the fallout from the show was unreal. The mall called me and said, “Hey you shouldn't have said that stuff about the mall, while in the mall.” So they created a policy supposedly that bans videotaping in the mall... I argue the old public square kinda thing, and they claim it's private property. Of course private property usually beats a
social sentiment.

They went as far as to call me where I worked at the local paper (HT) and threaten to pull their advertising because of my little shenanigans. All I really remember about the conversations with the mall was me stating, “Well ultimately I guess we have two different definitions of what comedy is.” I mean really they were so mad at me acting like the Mall was actually going to lose business because of my “observations.” It was all like Bloomington meets Mayberry in a dark alley with Abbie Hoffman.

-- by Xy

Christy Paxson Easter Special [Other, 0.0MB]

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 16:53:17 GMT

Starring Christy Paxson of the Christy Paxson Show in Bloomington, Indiana. Christy Paxson theme song by Bill Cameron.

"Participate in your own manipulation." -- Emergency Broadcast Network

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 10:03:43 GMT

Way way back in the days of yore, I used to hang out in my former hovel inputting not only ROX at some length but Video Show and all the other stuff on CATS, oftentimes well into the night.

Granted, I tended to be in a pretty heavily altered state during most of those screenings, but the most notable aspect that hit me upside the head from all that was from switching back to regular television on the other channels afterward, and seeing immediately how obviously phony and manufactured and manipulative nearly all of that was (and remains so to this day).

-- by W. Owen

Communication and Self Expression

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:49:39 GMT

The only degree I actually have, though this conflicts with the information on my resume, is in TV and Radio Broadcasting. My interest in this field was in front of the camera. My thought was if I understood behind the camera activity, it would help me with my work as a talent, and empower me to create my own unique opportunities.
I ended up being in and out of the video biz over the years. The professional jobs I was getting behind the lens were not helping me get in front of the lens. ROX was my first real chance to combine the two disciplines. I moved to Chicago and then to Taiwan, post hiatus, to keep the “performance career” rolling. Though I achieved a working actor's success on the island there was as much dissatisfaction as there was financial stability. That's when it finally struck me that my interest in theater and video was to express myself, not to make a career. This completely set my creativity free. It inspired me to write and perform my first one man show in Taiwan and what continues to drive me to write my next one...along with a list of other projects already being blueprinted. This is an element that is missing from Theater and Television programs in schools and universities all over. Creating for creations sake, not that either actually prepared me for gainful employment in the first place...

-- by TBlack

TV � Communication or Manipulation?

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:32:02 GMT

First published in Emoticon: community notes, circa 1998

by Bart Everson ("Editor B" of ROX)

I've produced TV independently for a most of the '90s. My personal bankruptcy proceedings were finalized this July. It's a tough field to break into.

These days I'm back in school, in the Department of Telecommunications at a Big Ten university. It's kind of strange to get formal training in something I taught myself.

Since my enrollment began, I've had a few wrangles with one of my professors about the nature of electronic media. Specifically, she sees media as a means to "manipulate the audience." You might call my prof cynical, but for the bulk of commercial TV programming, she's right. Manipulation is the business of mainstream TV production.

Consider TV as we know it. A crew of talented people do their darnedest to make an interesting program, so that an audience will stay glued to the set. Commercials are interlarded between scenes encouraging people to buy things. It's an almost Pavlovian manipulation of behavior. For all the sophistication of the copywriters, the whole model is crude and insulting to the intelligence of many viewers. So people flip the channels when a commercial comes on. You know the routine.

There may be no passion, no rancor, no perverse impulse driving the production of a TV show. It's a business proposition, and a big business it is. The more people who are involved and the more money there is to be made, the less chance there is for communication from the heart. Manipulation is the order of the day, just as my prof says. Our increasingly cynical, skeptical, media-savvy citizenry probably agree with her.

This only makes sense. Consider the source: our culture, dominated as it is by big corporations. Logic dictates that a medium of such power serve the interests of the most powerful. But the manipulative nature of TV is inherent in our culture, not in the technology of TV itself! As a TV producer I've come to regard my work as communication as much as anything else. I make TV for entirely different reasons than those discussed above. I've got something to say. I've got some things I need to get off my chest somehow and TV is just one of many ways to accomplish that. I want to use this medium to communicate, not manipulate.

As I said, big media is and must be manipulative in nature. The ONLY way around this problem, if you choose to see it as a problem, is to stay small. On the Web we find the smalltime webcaster making TV available to the world. They are driven not by money (what money?) but by a need to communicate. Many are without talent. But those few who have the drive to communicate and the talent to do it well may find a larger audience through the Web.

My point: television can be a means of communication. Webcast content creators who communicate to their audience (rather than 'merely' entertain them) will surely be the ones who succeed.

Geek Page

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:20:31 GMT

(Editor's Note: This is the original 'geek page' written by MBone which went up on our original website. Prob'ly written in April of 1995. It's completely obsolete now, of course. But it is a good snapshot of where we were when we got started on the web.)

Technical Shit
For Geeks Only
by MBONE

For those of you who must know the details of how this page is put together, here it is.

The ROX Quarry is produced on a 33 MHz 486 PC compatible running Linux. The current server machine is a Pentium P-90 machine, also running Linux and NCSA httpd v1.3.

All HTML code is written by hand because I haven't seen any editors that seem worth my while, yet. Most of the images were created by B with a Video Toaster equipped Amiga. Once I get the images on my Linux machine, some further processing is necessary. I use the pbmplus package to convert the frame grabs from the rgb format to ppm format. I then use xv to do some resizing, color quantization, and conversion to gif format. I use giftrans to create transparent areas on the images and giftool to make them interlaced.

The video is digitized on a Macintosh Quadra 840AV where some minor editing is done using Adobe Premiere 4.0. The quicktime files are compressed using the Cinepak format and flattened using MovieShop 2.0. Our original intention was to provide the video in both quicktime and mpeg formats, however, converting to mpeg proved to be a problem. The only conversion program I could find (for free) was for the Macintosh, and it turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. If you know how this can be done, preferably on a Unix machine, please contact me.

More time has been spent on trying to solve file transfer problems than actually writing HTML. It seems our video digitizing machines were on a broken network. We couldn't transfer 1 minute of video and we had 30 minutes total. So we had to find a tar program for the Mac to write DAT tapes that we could read on the Linux server. After some trial and error with the block size, we managed to make all the video available on the net.

-- by MBone

J, Just Stay the Fuck Out of My Head!!!

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:39:10 GMT

These two guys have a show on the public access cable TV channel here in town. They believe their program has deep merit and virtue and educates all who view it. Or they believe they uncover new and undisclosed injustices within society and expose them in an entertaining fashion. Or they believe they're fun and entertaining, smiting us with their sharp, sophisticated wit and sarcasm. Or they just want to jerk off as they watch themselves on the screen thinking, "I can't believe people go for this shit."

Whatever their desire, one thing is for certain: the fuel that drives the show is alcohol. Ethyl alcohol. Ethanol, next to coffee and TV the most abused drug on the planet.

It's called "Rox," as in "on the Rox," as in 'gimme a shot of "Jack" on the "Rox" or "I'll have J&B on the Rox." It's ice. They're cool. They're dripping wet. They're basically transparent. Yep. Ice.

This guy called "B" says he edits the show. After three years he's only gotten better and so has the pace and entertainment value of the show. "J" mixes drinks and stutters about why they're doing what they're doing. A whole host of other slacker types with deeply troubled visions and other dysfunctional traits cavort throughout an episode at "B's" whim and their own insistence on being videotaped.

Sound like fun? It is.

I've been there. I've seen it all; pre-production meetings, script editing, casting, makeup, dress rehearsal, opening night, tears etching rivers in the pancake as they read the night's reviews.

Time after time, they come up empty-handed. Why? As I said, the show can't go on without alcohol. Alcohol. Alcohol. Look at it. You can't spell it without a "ho." What is the "ho" on "Rox"? Sadly, it's the bartender, "J." Oh, sure, good banter, comedic grin, charming presence, jutting, shining forehead — but is this guy a bartender? Hey J! Ya gotta get the nozzle in the tank! Is an ounce a cup or a pint? Is vodka a good substitute for gin? Who the hell has ever mixed a drink with ginger liqueur? Do you make drinks you like? Ever? How come your viewers consistently make better drinks than you? Is Dextromethorphan a legitimate mixer? Define "mixture," "compound," "emulsion." Draw vinyl chloride. Do you give a damn at all!?

OK, sorry. I'm ranting a bit. But I have a right. As a college graduate with a telecommunications degree and an eye for production, I have no idea what "good" is. But as a professional brewer of beer with deep physiological needs I can say that "J" satisfies like no other bartender can — like, not at all.

J, you use the worst alcohol money can buy; and when you do use something worthwhile (who do you get to buy you the good stuff?) you either mix it in such disastrous proportions that the drink tastes like razors, or you combine it with totally unsuitable mixers. You regularly use the wrong style glass for the drink you're making. Often it's a dirty glass as well. Or maybe it's a trash can. Yes, dear Reader, place your eyeballs back in your head. I have actually seen J mix a drink in a 40 gallon trash can partially filled with fly maggots. I know for a fact that he only pretended to drink a sample from the can. Hey J! What do you think your viewers are — fools!?

Haven't we had enough shoddy journalism for one century? Don't we have enough to question in this world without having to doubt our seemingly trustworthy bartender? Doesn't this just smack of the Real Downfall of Society?

Again, I digress. My only friend, Little Timmy Flebeezy, ("The Boy with Half a Brain," starring Timmy Flebeezy, 1967) says maybe J is a buffoon on purpose, simply for the entertainment value. Histrionics and alcoholism? Hardly. It is obvious that J wishes to subvert his viewers. A simple mind is one thing but a simple mind drunk on bad booze mixed in the wrong proportions is directly controllable via phosphorescent media. Videodrome. Yea, sure, yuk it up as you plunge down your throat vile concoctions of J's insidious design. Will you remember what you did that night? Will you laugh at the tragedies of the morning news? Is it all the other guy's fault? Well, maybe it is, but where was he last night? Partying? Watching TV? Drinking alone? Drinking noxious brain- controlling swill through an electronic screen?

Just look out for this "J" guy, okay? You think he's sweet and goofy and cute and just a dope but when you wake in a pool of someone else's blood with static on channel three and a really dirty , sticky glass in your hand, don't say I didn't try to warn you.

Of course, maybe that's a good start for your own TV show...

-- by Russ

Hangin' with 13ers

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:31:10 GMT

This is a genuine academic paper submitted for class credit at Indiana University circa 1994.

Hangin' with 13ers

by Allan Murphy

I elected to study a group of Bloomington people in their early to mid twenties. My principal informant was Bart Everson, who, along with friend Joe Nickell, produces a weekly counterculture television program which airs on the local community- access station.

"ROX" is a comedic, stream-of-consciousness look at slacker life as lived by Joe and Bart (J & B) and their creative circle of friends. Between them, Joe and Bart write, tape, edit, and are the principal actors in the program. I felt that, given their creative bent and their ability to observe and comment on the lifestyle in which they are immersed, they might provide a rich perspective on their generation...or at least the subset to which they belong.

I was not disappointed. I began by shadowing Bart at his "day job", telemarketing for DialAmerica. With computer assistance, Bart called and pitched prospects to buy Time-Life educational books for children. Although a repetitive, tedious job, Bart did it well and made several sales while I observed him. When questioned, he said he "didn't mind" the nature of the work, but allowed that he skips work occasionally "when I just can't get out of bed." The job is a necessary source of income, as the television show produces no revenue. Bart's wife is a graduate student with sporadic employment, so they live on a marginal income, as do many in their group of friends.

I later observed Bart on two occasions as he edited tape for the television show. Although tape editing is in many ways as tedious and repetitious as telemarketing -- as Bart admits -- his demeanor is entirely different. This product is his, and he becomes very absorbed in finding just the right place to cut from one shot to the next, in coming up with the funniest, most appropriate subtitle for the scene. He loves this work and has a lot of ego and pride bound up in the final result, like most videomakers. It's what he wants to do for a living.

This is in counterpoint to Howe/Strauss' observations about 13er attitudes toward work: that 13ers do not exhibit commitment or loyalty to an occupation, that they see it merely as a means to money, that their only work imperative is "just do it." (When asked about that axiom, Bart dismissed it as "a Nike advertising slogan.") True, Bart's current job is telemarketing, to which he has no emotional attachment, but his profession is videomaking, to which his emotional commitment is quite high. Of course, not every 13er will get the chance to watch the creative fruits of their labor every Tuesday night at 11p.m. in the company of their friends, either.

The centerpiece of my fieldwork was a day-long outing with Bart, Joe, and their friends to Lake Monroe to tape much of the content of what proved to be the most controversial episode of "ROX" yet aired. Joe and Bart had decided to center an episode on marijuana, its place in their lives, and the rationality of laws against it. So, a total of nine or ten of us went for an afternoon hike in the woods near the lake with beer, joints and camera in tow.

Joe videotaped as we walked, and continued taping when we stopped to take breaks. Members of the group would alternately talk, seriously or humorously, about their feelings about pot and pot laws, or would suddenly go into a "character" (redneck, policeman) and do a vignette on the societally approved view of marijuana ("Wull, ah think it's just turrible, all them freaks a- smokin' that demon weed an' jumpin' out the windows of Ballantine...").

One of the group invented a character named "Kernie" -- a local outdoorsman/good-ole-boy, with a funny delivery reminiscent of Jim Varney's "Ernest P. Worrall" character: "Nature is our friend. And, as you know, marijuana is part of nature. So marijuana is our friend...and remember, you heard it on "ROX!" Others in the group would then play to the Kernie character, asking him questions or responding to his remarks...as the camera rolled.

Much of the performance was "close to home" -- members of the group tended to play themselves, and they slipped in and out of character easily...with no distinct line between their own personality and the characters they assumed. If not for the camera, they would simply have been a group of (rather creative) friends out for a hike. In keeping with the episode's theme, members would interrupt their soliloquies from time to time to take a long toke on-camera.

Although much of this was played for laughs, a social and political point of view clearly emerged: marijuana is recreational, non addictive, non lethal, and should be non-criminal. In later conversations with members of the group, I discovered a strong political commitment to this issue, and a desire to do something about it. The finished tape of the program interwove these "toking through the woods" scenes with an interview with the chief of police, a scene of J and B smoking a joint in front of the Justice Building, and anti-drug-law commentary.

I also spent time with Bart and friends at Cultureshock, an annual music- and-arts fair in Dunn Meadow. I observed their verbal by-play with a steady stream of acquaintances who came by the "ROX" booth/table in the Meadow. Terry, one of the group, was approached by a woman acquaintance he hadn't seen for some time. She launched into a litany of recent psychodramas ( drug bust, romantic difficulties) while Terry listened sympathetically. Like his friends, Terry is not judgmental about individuals; he has great empathy. He may hate society's injustices and inconsistencies, but he genuinely likes people. He is an innocent abroad, and naturally plays that role in many a "ROX" episode. In one show he is seen getting his nose pierced and marveling at the experience.

My final get-together with the group was for supper and talk at Bart and Joe's on the evening of the last "ROX" episode of the season. Things were a bit electric, due to the huge amount of publicity the marijuana episode ("J & B Get Baked") had generated the preceding week. Indiana news media had played the story big, resulting in the N.Y. -- based Howard Stern radio show airing a sound loop from the program that very morning. MTV was said to be interested, as well.

Bart discussed plans to prepare a demotape from the just-concluded season. The timing was perfect, he felt, to try to parlay the show and its newfound notoriety into a commercial opportunity, perhaps with one of the dozens of new special-interest cable networks on the horizon. And he had the time to think about that now, since the evening was also to celebrate the end of a season's worth of programs. Whether "ROX" would return in the fall for a third season was also a topic of conversation...and may be contingent on those commercial opportunities being explored.

We grilled hamburgers and talked. As we did so, more members of the group arrived, and people updated one another on Howard Stern, MTV, et al. There was a sense of excitement, and accomplishment ("It's a season wrap!") but also a feeling of unsureness about what would come next. The question then asked of me: What have I concluded about the group, as a result of my field study?

I replied that I couldn't generalize, but I saw some real differences between Howe/Strauss' observation, and my own. 13th Gen seems to cast 13ers as apolitical, marginally educated, antipathetic to work and fixated on money and junk culture. "Hell, Bart doesn't even watch television, except for his own show!" I said. And I said I saw the group as politically aware, and intent on creating its own culture, rather than accepting one that has been manufactured for them.

If they appear to question all social and political structures (and they do), it seems to be due to a feeling that it's their turn to improve and redefine those structures. I told them that my generation (the Boomers) went through a similar passage in the Sixties, and that it made me feel good to know that the fight goes on...that the fight itself apparently is cyclical, perhaps eternal.

And I realized that I had come to admire and like them. For maybe the first time in the process, I had none of the moments of discomfort that being "the older generation" can bring. That was certainly due in part to their gracious efforts to make an aging Sixties radical feel right at home.

But, when it came time to sit down communally to watch the final episode of "ROX", I said my farewells. I would have again been an outsider, because it is their show, their experiences; they deserved to watch it together, without the distraction of an "observer." But I was torn. It would have been great fun to watch them watch themselves.

I did race home to watch the show on my own television. And every time I laughed, I knew that the gang at J & B's was laughing along with me.

-- by B

Xy Draws Laguz

Fri, 11 May 2012 02:36:13 GMT

Unseen forces are active here, creative and fertile powers of nature.

Do That Title

Wed, 09 May 2012 02:35:48 GMT

Title frame for another bizarre segment of ROX.

Real Rocks

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 01:19:11 GMT

What other mixologist would go to such stupefying lengths in service of his craft?