BREAK OUT YOUR BONG; KILL YOUR TV

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From: rox@rox.com (the stoned age of television)
Subject: BREAK OUT YOUR BONG; KILL YOUR TV
Date: 1995/04/18
Message-ID: <3n1epb$lil@news.missouri.edu>
distribution: na
approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
followup-to: alt.activism.d
resent-from: rich
organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu


****BREAK OUT YOUR BONG; KILL YOUR TV****

	From the creators of "J&B Get Baked" and 
	 "The Overt Promotion of Anarchy," the 
	   world's first Internet TV series

     Experts have long agreed that the TV of the future will more 
closely resemble the Internet than TV "as we know it." Specifically, 
beyond 500 channels will be NO channels, just databases, from 
which viewers may download and watch whatever they want, 
whenever they want. 

     This week, the future arrives...on your desktop.

     A public-access TV program based in Bloomington, Indiana, 
will become the world's first on-demand Internet TV series, 
beginning Tuesday. ROX, "a nutty, bohemian blast of 
irreverence and imagination" (Indianapolis Star), will be available 
to computer users around the world--twenty-four hours a day, 
seven days a week, via the World Wide Web.

     "We've been working toward this event for about a year and a 
half," says ROX co-producer Joe Nickell. "When I found out we were 
gonna premiere this month, I was so happy I nearly spilled 
my beer."

     Over the course of three years on public access, ROX has 
earned regional and national recognition for its wacky humor and 
cutting-edge style. The program has been featured on MTV Music 
Television, the Howard Stern Show, VideoMaker, the Gary Myers 
Show (Chicago), and in virtually every print and broadcast 
medium in Indiana.

     "ROX focuses on the trials and tribulations of a roving band 
of mid-twenties hedonists," explains Nickell. "It's improvisational, 
reality based...kind of like *Friends* in *MTV's Real World*, 
trying to avoid the *Cops*."

     On Tuesday, April 18, ROX episode 85, titled "Global Village 
Idiots," will premiere on the ROX Quarry 
(http://www.rox.com/quarry/). Featuring mixed-drink recipes, 
full-frontal nudity, neural digitizers and frog-gigging, the thirty-
minute episode of ROX will pioneer a new form of entertainment: 
hyper-television. 

     ROX Editor Bart Everson explains: "most TV shows present 
you with a linear stream of information. If you don't want to see 
the opening credits...too bad. 'Global Village Idiots' will be 
different, because it will allow people to download and view the 
different sections of the show in whatever order they wish. It is 
non-linear, or hyper-textual."

     After the premiere of "Global Village Idiots" on the Net, 
a new ROX episode will become available on a weekly basis. 
"The ROX Quarry will be a multi-media cabaret of fun and 
information," says Nickell. "People will find everything from still 
images and video, to interactive drinking games. Every week, 
there's something new."

     For more information, or to join the RoxList e-mail list, 
contact ROX at <rox@rox.com>.



****FACTS on the ROX****

J, Joe Nickell, a native of Kentucky, came to Indiana in 1987 with high 
hopes of becoming a classical timpanist. He lost the hopes very quickly, 
but has remained high ever since. Joe graduated Phi Beta Kappa from 
Indiana University in 1991, in Anthropology and English; upon graduation 
his parents gave him his first video camera. Freshly inspired and 
typically tipsy, Joe promptly dropped out of society and became the 
blabbering Bartender and co-producer of Rox.

B, Bart Everson, 28, was raised in a shopping mall in Greenwood, 
Indiana. While squandering his parents' money at Indiana University, 
Everson was arrested twice, for Public Indecency and Conversion. After 
completing his public restitution at the local cable access station, 
Everson decided to pursue a career in television. Editing Rox is now his 
full-time job.

ROX is a weekly cable access TV show which airs every Tuesday night 
at 11 pm on Bloomington (IN) Community Access Television, and every 
Wednesday at 4 pm and Thursday at 5 pm on the Indianapolis 
Community Access Network. 

ROX reaches computer users around the world via the ROX Quarry, 
on the world-wide web (http://www.rox.com/quarry/). Rox is a 
reality-based program which endeavors to hold up a mirror to 
the community of Bloomington.

	Number of Episodes produced to date: 85
	First episode aired: July, 1992


*Awards & Honors*

In addition to the following awards, Rox has been honored by profiles and 
features on MTV Music Television, The Howard Stern Show, NUVO 
Newsweekly, Bloomington Confidential and virtually every central-
Indiana print publication, TV station and radio station.
*Citation Award, Indiana Film Society 1994 Film & Video Barbeque
*Finalist, 1994 Hometown Video Competition, sponsored by the Alliance for 
     Community Media
*Best Local Television Show, 1994, 1993 and 1992 Best of Bloomington 
     Reader Survey, Bloomington Voice
*Favorite Local Celebrities, 1993 Best of Bloomington Reader Survey, 
     Bloomington Voice
*Best of Show & Best Independent/Experimental production, Indiana Film 
     Society 1993 Film & Video Barbeque


*Hot off the presses*

"What Hunter S. Thompson did for--or to--journalism, these guys are doing 
to television."
	--The Ryder

"At once a revealing slacker diary and satiric tour-de-farce of the 
Bohemian lifestyle...Their language is satire, subterfuge, subject-
ivity, and a refreshing dose of self-deprecation."
	-- NUVO Newsweekly

"These Funky Young Cyclops of the Small Screen steep into our 
consciousness like a big jar of sun tea. Slowly, we have grown to 
know these guys...Generally, television has usurped the fire we once 
gathered around, supplanting tribal consciousness with fragments of 
individuality...J&B are handing the fire back to us--or at least the 
firewater."
	-- Bloomington Voice

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