ROX

With our eighth episode a number of components clicked into place, so much so that I like to think the first season of ROX truly begins here. The previous seven episodes were just a warm-up. We were dislocated and restless. I had broken up with my girlfriend; J and I had moved in together to an upstairs apartment at 521 N. Washington, an old, tall house covered with sky-blue vinyl siding. Thus, this was our first show that wasn't shot in J's basement at 711 E. Cottage Grove. We didn't know where to shoot the show, and so we ended up shooting all over the place. (J: “That's what she said!”) We shot segments in the attic of our new apartment, and in the kitchen, and in the bathroom, even on the roof — just about everywhere.

The term “family values” was getting a lot of play in the media in the summer of 1992, after Dan Quayle made his famous Murphy Brown speech. John Byers, a local firebrand who worked at the public access television station in Bloomington where ROX first aired, suggested that we do a show on this theme. And we did. This was the first episode we shot in the attic of our new digs, 521 N. Washington. It was a little hot up there in August, but we would return to the attic for about five more shows in the fall. MF ran the camera for us. I think she was still staying with us at that time. There are a few elements of this show that are not properly credited. The breast pump video was dumpstered by Mr. G. The “Family Values Explained” dialog, which may appear to be spontaneous, was actually a reading from Matt Groening's Life in Hell comic strip.

Exactly what's going on in the “Personal Hygiene Episode” (ROX #10) may not be readily evident to the casual viewer. Clearly, we're visiting our friend Mr. G in the hospital. We called him Camera Operator A at the time, and indeed he shoots this entire episode — from his hospital bed. But why is he hospitalized? We never explain this, though Mr. G makes an attempt: “I crashed on my bicycle, and now I'm paralyzed from the chest down.” He's laughing while he says this, which might lead viewers to conclude that he's joking. That's an entirely reasonable conclusion, given that everyone seems to be having a jolly good time. Surely the mood would be a bit grim if our friend had really suffered such a traumatic injury. And yet that's exactly what happened. Mr. G was riding his bicycle on a trail in the woods. He took a bad tumble and severed his spinal cord. He was paralyzed, with little hope of regaining control over the lower half of his body, and he'd been in the hospital for a week or two by the time we made this show. The episode title was Mr. G's idea. In fact, I'm fairly certain that it was Mr. G's idea to make this show in the first place. We were amazed at Mr. G's high spirits, and we thought he must be in denial. But in retrospect, and upon repeated viewings, I've come to realize that making this TV show was a part of the healing process. This was one way for Mr. G to re-assert his identity in the face of major trauma. Because even after all that, Mr. G is still Mr. G. This episode shows that he's still the same good-humored, cantankerous, contrary guy that he was before the accident. This experience taught me something about the redemptive power of art.

The Have Fun Club, of which we were proud members, had organized a “Festival of Fools” for this day. But in truth that organization consisted of little more than the printing of a flyer and a trip to Big Lots for supplies. We had no idea if anyone would show up for the event. Probably not. Luck was on our side, however. By a fortuitous coincidence, the three-day Anarchist Picnic was reaching its climax on that same day. A contingent of freaks arrived from that event and turned our parade into a raging success. It was also lucky in another way. Local videographer Eric White got wind of the event and turned up with camera in hand. I cut his footage together with the stuff I shot, the first of numerous collaborations and the beginning of a friendship that persists to this day. Eric also met Rachel Whang at the parade, the beginning of a relationship that was documented sixty-seven episodes later in ROX #78.

Those cool mirrored shades J's wearing in our “Peace & Justice Special” were actually my prescription sunglasses. Since my eyesight is considerably worse than his, J was totally blind with them on. He was probably on some sort of drug that dilated his pupils. I recall that I had to shoot the interview at the Peace & Justice Center twice because there was no audio on the first attempt. Our visit to the neighbor's house yielded further evidence that people were actually watching the show: We got recognized by a complete stranger for the first time, and we actually caught it on tape.

The entirety of “J&B Unmasked” was taped at 521 North Washington. You can't tell, though, because we cleverly tacked up one of my black bedsheets in the background, to give a suitably spooky Hallowe'en ambiance to the proceedings. J makes reference to an article in the Herald-Times that mentions us. I'm not sure what this might have been. According to my files, the first article mentioning our show appeared in February of 1993 — three and a half months after “Unmasked.” J also mentions that a fan gave him the leather jacket he's wearing. That was just a joke. I think that was my leather jacket, which I got in Sweden. It was pretty filthy. I used to joke that a biker had been killed in it. But it never quite fit properly on my long, long arms.

We shot ROX #15, “Congrats to Clinton,” a week before the actual election. We didn't know for sure that he would win, and in fact we interviewed a guest who was sure that Bush the Elder would be victorious. But we knew that the show would not be televised until just after the election, so we spoke boldly, as if we knew what had happened. Of course, we were right, and our Republican guest was wrong. And for the next few months we were happy. Yes, I voted for Clinton in 1992. I even took a video camera into the voting booth with me and recorded myself pushing the button. Have you ever seen someone actually voting on TV? Incidentally, the NWA soundtrack I laid down on top of this video generated almost as many irate calls to the station as any of our more notorious escapades. I had never considered myself a big booster for the Democratic Party. In fact, I voted for Lenora Fulani in 1988. But I guess we got fooled by the Clinton campaign. We believed the hype. As I said, we were happy for the next few months. Bush the Elder was on the way out, and a Democrat was coming into the Oval Office for the first time in my adult life. Just after his inauguration, when Clinton said gays should be allowed in the military, I felt vindicated. I had voted for the right man! Here, surely, was man of conviction, who would stand up for what's right. How silly that sounds now. It was only a matter of days before Clinton caved on the issue of gays in the military, and we got our insipid “don't ask don't tell” policy that stood until Obama finally took corrective action. Over the coming weeks and months, I would gradually lose all respect for Clinton, long before his sexual escapades with Monica Lewinsky came to light. Frankly, I don't care about the man's sex life. It was things like NAFTA that really tore it for me. I came to regret ever voting for Clinton, and in 1996 I wrote in Ralph Nader instead.

: I quit my job as a telemarketer in November of 1992 so I would have more time for sex and drugs. This was the inspiration for ROX #16, which we called “Out of Work, Out of Mind.” I had been working part-time at DialAmerica Marketing for two years. This was a job which I frankly hated, but it was relatively easy for me. I quit with hopes of getting work as a production assistant at the community access televsision station where I was spending a lot of time working on a certain TV show. That didn't happen. In fact, I hardly looked for a job at all. I was too busy having fun. When I ran out of money in January of '93, I went back to DialAmerica and they gave me my job back. All told, I worked there for seven years, off and on. Without this part-time source of income, I would never have been able to devote so much energy to ROX. But I didn't know any of this when we shot ROX #16. I was more concerned with getting J to improve the quality of his drinks, which were sucking pretty badly. To that end, I checked a recipe book out of the library, from which tome the three orange-flavored drinks in this episode are drawn. J spilled liquor on it, naturally. But the drinks were quite good. There's little rancor here. We did not dwell on the miasma of misery that is the telemarketing industry. That seems amazing to me in retrospect. I suppose we were not as bitter then as we are now. Years later, word of this particular episode got back to my branch manager. He called me into his office and asked what it was all about. I told him quite honestly that there was nothing critical of DialAmerica in the show, and he was satisfied with that. Also of note in this episode are a lot of firsts: Our first real fan letter. The first edition of “J&B's Video Erotica.” And the very first appearence of TBlack, here credited simply as T.

This episode is not the finest in the J&B on the Rox series. In fact, it could be the most embarrassing. Oh, there are a few moments of clever repartee, a little bit of Bloomington contextualization that reminds us of the place and time in which the episode was made. But there are shortcomings galore herein. Conceptually, the show is lacking. It's basically just us hosts sitting in our new attic, yammering about what we're thankful for.