Category: Archive

Streaming June 28th: Episodes 403 – 406

Episode 403: Guns and Violence (12am, 7am, 2pm, 9pm CDT)

Episode 403 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Guns and Violence” and features the following segments:

02:02 “Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms” by Eddie Becker. Steve Higgins, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, opens up a vault that houses the most complete library of guns known to exist. Ed Owen, the chief of the Firearms Technology Branch, displays a variety of guns — from a homemade machine gun to an assassin’s brief case.

05:34 “Machine Gun Extravaganza” by Kathie Robertson. Gun enthusiasts at play with the following information superimposed on the screen: ” Excluding the military and the police, there are more than 200 million weapons in the U.S.” “Approximately 70 million are handguns… The number of youths killed with firearms nearly doubled between 1984 and 1989… The majority of U.S. guns are not registered or traceable… and Americans have more handguns than hair dryers.”

06:12 “Gun Man” by Garth Roger Bacon. Michael Schultz in Unity, NH, displays his extensive gun collection: “I use them to hunt, target practice. To me, they’re like toys… It’s a hobby.” When asked if there would be less killings if guns were outlawed he responds, “Hell no, it’d be so much easier, there’s always going to be people with guns. That’s a bunch of horse shit. If they took guns away from the people and the police, shit, you could kill anybody you want… What are they gonna do? Run down the road and mace you?… in the military, they tell you never to surrender your weapon.”

08:20 “Weekend War Games” by Patrick Creadon. In Millington, Illinois, weekend warriors engage in combat with paint guns. One participant takes a glob of paint in the face. “You’re splooged,” says Pat. “I’m dead,” says the soldier.

09:11 “Playing Guns” Jody Procter and Kit Sibert. In a forest in Eugene, Oregon, kids play with guns. When Lucas Mautino is asked if he likes to play with guns, he replies, Occasionally… I like to die.” Ian Cassidy Rondeau says, “I’m trying to get rid of my guns… I don’t like them that much. They use them to kill people.”  Lucas pumps Ian full of imaginary bullets.

10:10 “L.A. Homeboys” by Nancy Cain. In Los Angeles: Ray Anthony Oropeza says, “my favorite [childhood game] was [pretending to kill] somebody, I remember that… Now it’s not a game anymore. It’s so real; it’s really deadly. It’s not even worth looking back and laughing anymore. It’s not a joke anymore.” Anthony L. Martin: “I don’t want to give up. I refuse to give up. Sometimes I sit around the house and think ‘I’m gonna die fighting’… It just breaks your heart.”

12:20 “Paxton Quigley: Armed and Dangerous” by Maxi Cohen and John Axelrad. In Long Beach, California, Paxton Quigley teaches women how to shoot guns and defend themselves. She says, “Women are becoming tired of being victims. They’re saying, ‘Enough is enough.’ They’re saying, ‘I never want this to happen’ or if it has happened, they’re saying, ‘It’s never going to happen again.’” When squeezing the trigger Paxton encourages her students “to make it sexy.” At the target range, one student looks at the result of her shooting, “This guy would have been dead many times. It was fun, too.”

15:41 “Spy Shop” by Skip Blumberg. A t the Quark Spy Shop in New York, Skip Blumberg videos himself being videotaped by a hidden camera in the store’s front window. Melinda Meals says that the store specializes in counter surveillance equipment. She displays a variety of discreet video and audio equipment. The clients range from people who want to check on their baby-sitter to businessmen who want to protect their ideas. One customer buys a “coyote stick” to fend off muggers. Norman Buitta, the president of the company, displays bulletproof clothes and contests that “nothing has changed all that much… The body armor has replaced the shield.” The recession has helped increase business.

22:19 “Scott and Nancy” by Robbie Leppzer and Sara Elinoff / Turning Tide Productions. Scott and Nancy Girard, married for 18 years, discuss the effects of domestic violence on their lives. Scott: “We’ve been trying to survive as the American family, which is basically a pipe dream at this point.” Scott talks about how his frustration built up and Nancy relays her feelings of how Scott made her feel she was always doing the wrong thing. Scott: “I exercised my attitudes to try to control her.” Nancy on reading a book on battered women: “I read a chapter on emotional abuse. Each thing in there happened to me… Females are taught, ‘Don’t rock the boat. Don’t upset the Man.’”

28:33 “Armed Women” by Nancy Cain. In a class on self defense, Sean Collinsworth demonstrates how easy an attacker can take away one’s gun. Kim Kralj relates a story on how she was attacked. Pirie Jones says, “We make the mistake of expecting the man to protect us. I needed to develop the independent side of me that says ‘I can take care of myself’.” Candace Brown says she keeps her gun in bed with her. Lynne Levin shows off her .357 Magnum. Pirie Jones says, “I had to make the commitment that if I had a gun I was going to use it… I’m the type of woman who will walk around a bug… I believe in life. But I also believe in my life.” Lynne Levin points her gun and says, “I’m prepared not to have myself killed or harmed.”

31:56 “Lt. Wayne Wiberg” by Joe Cummings, Scott Jacobs and Tom Weinberg. Lt. Wayne Wiberg of the Chicago Police holds a Tech 9 and says that this gun is “the Saturday Night Special of the ’90s… You’re not going to go deer hunting with this sucker. I’m sorry, if you do you’re going to be eating a lot of bullets.”

32:32 “Handgun Control” by Eddie Becker. David Weaver, a volunteer for Handgun Control, tells an answering machine about Referendum 006, which would make manufacturers of semiautomatic firearms liable for the harm they cause in Washington D.C. On the Tech 9, he says, “The maker of Tech 9 knows that his firearm is being used in crime… He continues to sell it without any regard to the consequences. Everybody but the maker of these guns pays a price.” The referendum passed.

34:45 “Ed Baker” by Appalshop / Andrew Garrison. In Whitesburg, Kentucky: Ed Baker has been making custom shotguns since 1968. He says, “Guns are not to kill. They’re to entertain. If they could fight wars with their fists, it’d be fine, or other sanctions – economic sanctions. No point in taking one man’s life.”

37:36 “Gun Toy” by Maxi Cohen. A toy soldier crawls on the pavement.

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Episode 404: Country Living (1am, 8am, 3pm, 10pm CDT)

Episode 404 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Country Living” and  features the following segments:

01:13 “Evan Thompson” by Jim Mulryan and Tabby Mulryan. Somewhere in Nevada, Evan Thompson comments on the stereotypes city dwellers have about country folk: “[They think of us as] redneck, gun wielding, madmen that want to shoot all city people probably. I think Hollywood portrays us as not having a whole lot of brains. . . I think they see us as not knowing a whole lot. Yet if they come in from out of the city and we watch them, we think, ‘Oh boy, no wonder you’re all killing each other. You’re all a bunch of wackos.’ We like people, but we don’t like neighbors. I think that’s like most country people. They like people but don’t want to live next door to them.”

03:30 “Turkey Neck Bend” by Robby Henson. A glimpse of life in a small town in Southern Kentucky. Ed Schmidt plays the Dobro. He says, “This is the way I want to live.” Robby: “What do you consider yourself?” Ivan Coe: “I’m a hillbilly.” Robby: “If I had you say that on my film some people would say I’m promoting negative Kentucky stereotypes.” Ivan: “Well, I guess you can’t. What is a hillbilly? I guess any description you’d give would very well fit me, wouldn’t it?” Robby: “Well, I guess, but I don’t see three cars on blocks.” Ivan: “Well you just didn’t look too close.” Lloyd Smith and Ivan play banjo and guitar. Lloyd says, “I really enjoy going down the road and throwing out a beer can or a Pepsi can… It helps the poor people.” Parishioners sing a hymn at the Church of Christ… Jason Dodson takes care of the cemetery… Kettle Kreek Jack says, “Peoples moving too fast… I like to take my time and figure things out. Yes sir, there’s something to that.”

09:30 “Diving Mules” by Skip Blumberg. At the Orange County Fair in Middletown, New York, controversy beaks out at a mule diving exhibit. An animal activist claims that the mules are trained with electric cattle prods. The woman who trains the mules says th at they only use mules that like the water. When asked if the activists love animals, the mule trainer says, “I don’t think they love animals. If they did, they’d move out of the city where they keep their little dogs and cats in their little condos and apartments and move out on a farm where they could enjoy them.” The protester says, “People can say they love their wives and beat them.” The mule trainer: “We love the animal activists. All they do is get us a lot of work.”

14:56 “Country Fiddle and Banjo Contest” by Andrew Jones. In Lowell, Massachusetts, a fiddler and a banjo picker belt out a Cajun tune.

15:51 “Roaring Springs, Texas” by Kathie Robertson. Joey Thacker, the mayor of Roaring Springs, comments on the economics of rural life forcing people to the city. Bennie Dillard, rancher: “I don’t think we’ve missed anything. If I have I don’ t know what it was.” S.N. Fletcher: “You bet you miss a lot. You’re not angry. You live longer.”

18:48 “The Valley” by John Schwartz. Ken Salazar, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, talks about growing up in Colorado’s San Luis Valley. Despite moving to the city, he still calls the Valley his home.

20:21 “Happy Harvest” by Jim Likowski and Bonnie Thompson. In Riverside, Iowa: Marge and Jerry Sweeting talk about the rewards and downfalls involved in farming. Archival farm footage is interspersed throughout as Judy Garland sings “Happy Harvest.”

24:06 “Pyrenees Portrait” by Esti Galili Marpet and Bill Marpet. In Villeraze, France: An old man talks about his family’s roots in the area, “When the old people die, it’ll be all over… soon Villeraze will be just a place for tourists.” An 85-year-old woman points to the microphone and asks, “Are you taking my picture with that?”

27:14 “Coyoteland” by Jay April. In Los Angeles, California: A woman recounts the tale of a coyote stealing her dog form the backyard. Louis Dedeaux, L.A. wildlife specialist, says that once coyotes start eating domestic pets, it becomes a regular part of their diets. Louis on coyotes: “They’re really a good animal. We’re building and crowding them in.” Lyla Brooks, a California Defender of Wildlife, says, “People don’t know how to coexist with wildlife. It’s a people problem.” In the meantime, Louis checks his traps. Lyla: “As a rule I don’t like trappers, but you seem like a likable fellow… I’m surprised he picked up this profession. He should do something else.” Louis: “I can monitor it in this profession. It’s gonna happen anyway. I can make sure it’s done as humanely as possible.” Louis drives through a construction area and says, “This is why I’m trapping. They’re gonna build more homes, take up more space and bring in more domestic pets.” Louis catches a coyote in a trap, “It’s a necessary evil… What justifies it for me is the pets I save… I might have to take a life to save ten.” With the camera focused on the door of the animal regulation truck, Louis shoots the coyote. Louis lets go “our friend the gopher snake.” Jay: “You must like that part, letting something go?” Louis: “It’s the best part of all.”

35:56 “Sharkey’s Cowboys” by Jim Mulryan and Tabby Mulryan. In Gardnerville, Nevada: Sharkey Begovich praises the courage of the original cowboys: “A cowboy has to survive from the day he’s born to the day he dies… They’re a vanishing breed… Honor is a thing of the past.”

39:22 “Free from Babylon” by Gustavo Vasquez. Treehouse Joe grew up in Brooklyn, learned construction, fought in Vietnam, set up a construction business in California and found that he was making “lots of money” but was “very empty inside.” That’s when he “decided to do it another way and live in nature.” Near San Diego, he lives in a tree house. The notion of fostering a symbiotic relationship with the tree guided the design: “If I drive a nail into it’s skin, I’m not really giving it much consideration. The tree happy? It doesn’t even know I’m here.” He used the scraps from construction sites in the area to build his home: “Babylon doesn’t want things for free. Babylon wants money. So I come take the scrap wood that they call garbage and I build four castles, four temples with Babylon’s waste. There’s a place for all of this waste, but Babylon doesn’t know what to do with it. We have to start changing our ways. We cannot accept what Babylon gives us. They give us something and call it ‘right’… It doesn’t work that way. We have to start defining our powers… and redefining our ways.”

45:36 “Too Old to Die Young” by Magda Cregg. A music video on the destruction of the Redwood Forest. Features archival logging footage and scenes from Earth First! demonstrations. “Death rides a logging truck.”

48:50 “Doug Peacock” by Jimmy Sternfield. Noted environmentalist Doug Peacock (a.k.a. George Hayduke): “The overriding issue is not taxation. It’s simply the survival of the planet itself… We’re going to go down the tubes. Our grandchildren might not even have the chance of a life and maybe it’s not a life worth living. That is the reality… We’re not going to have too many elections where we have the chance to talk about other issues. If all the powerful countries on Earth took all the resources they put in military, nuclear war and transferred that into making the planet a better place to live, we’d have a chance… Maybe just 50-50. The odds are just that bleak and that’s what oughta be talked about.”

50:47 “Good Man in the Woods” by Michael Loukinen. In Upper Peninsula Michigan: A one-armed man recounts the story of when he lost his arm. Beca use of his handicap, he could not find work, so he decided he would never ask anyone for a job again. He decided to start his own business, a sawmill: “When you’re young, you’ve gotta blaze your own trail. Once you make up your mind you have to be so bullheaded you don’t give up.”

56:09 “Country Road” by John Antonelli, Will Parinello, and Doug Weihnacht. In Kyoto, Japan: Zen monk Soen Ozaki sings “Country Road.”

56:30 End Credits.

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Episode 405: It’s A Mall, Mall World (2am, 9am, 4pm, 11pm CDT)

Episode 405 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “It’s A Mall, Mall World” and features the following segments:

02:27 “Century Mall Time Lapse” by Dana Hill. Time lapse scenes from the Century Mall in Chicago accompanied by the Talking Heads’ “Slippery People.”

03:15 “Mall History” by Bob Hercules. Southdale Mall in Edina, Minnesota was where it all began. They opened their doors in October of 1956 and business is still going strong. Archival footage accompanies this look back at the beginnings of the post-war generation’s quest for convenience.

04:02 Archival Footage of a family preparing for a barbeque. “These are your neighbors taking time for leisure, time for modern living.” Part of the fun entails bringing the television outside: “The television set is in tune with the times…It’s portable.” Footage provided by White Production Archives.

05:27 “William Kowinski” by Tony Buba. Author of “The Malling of America”: “There was a need for a psychological bomb shelter, places where people felt safe… cut off from the worries of the outside world.”

05:50 “Orientation Tape #1” by Dan Walworth & Mark Daniels. Over scenes from a mall, a woman’s voice says: “Luxuriate in the abundant riches of an available world. We know what you want and we want you to want it.”

06:30 “Jody Procter Goes to the Mall” by Jody Procter & Kit Sibert. Jody Procter goes to the Valley Center in Eugene, Oregon; “One of the things I’ve always been interested about in malls is the whole concept of air. Not only is the air not exchanged, but there’s some chemicals in the clothing that give of some strange noxious gas. It all combines as a sedative to put your economic anxieties at rest. I felt like I w as gonna come in here and hate this place. You gotta say, this is what people want. All the poverty, all the homelessness, all the things you don’t want to see. You don’t want to see beggars with big sores on their legs… There’s no panhandling going on in here. Actually I hate malls. I really do hate them. To be a member of this club, to really feel like you’re a part, you gotta have one of these.” (Jody flashes a Visa card).

10:28 “Joel Garreau” by Eddie Becker. Garreau, a writer for the Washington Post: “That’s why we invented them: to have people spend two or three or four hours in a pleasant environment exchanging money for goods.”

10:45 “Mall Rats/This Week in Joe’s Basement” by Joe Winston and Bob Hercules. Young teens comment on their rituals at the mall. Mall employees, ex-mall rats, impersonate their former rodent-like selves. William Kowinski sings “Mall Rats” over video of its subject. At Lincoln Mall in Matteson, Illinois and Northbrook Court in Northbrook, Illinois girls say they’re looking for guys, guys say they are looking for girls.

13:26 “Mall Walkers” by Bob Hercules. Senior citizens walk laps around the Southdale Mall in Edina, Minnesota to exercise and socialize.

16:10 “Psychic Fair” by Skip Blumberg. Skip Blumberg visits a mall in New Rochelle, New York. “I’m not afraid of the escalator,” he says. Cynthia Zweibel, a tarot card reader, stumbles as she predicts the future of malls, “I think malls will go through tremendous change…” Skip: “Are these particularly bad cards to read? Do you want to try again?” Frank St. James, psychic and medium: “I see them (malls) going through a lot of problems. It’s like a hit movie. A new one comes out. Everybody goes there and the other one dies. We’re going to have a mall crisis around ’94.” Palm reader Catherine Zizzi looks into “The 90’s” future: “There’s a real need for people to come in contact with their inner-selves and this is the way to do it.”

20:30 “Muzak” by Nancy Cain. At the Fashion Island in Newport Beach, California: Pete Thalman, chief engineer of Muzak, reveals the hidden acoustic rock speakers throughout the mall: “All they know is they start feeling a warm atmosphere.” Deena L. Thompson, general manager of Muzak: “We want people to feel better about themselves, feel better about what they’re doing, lower their stress level. We want to lower their fatigue level to make them want to go into a store and, yes, it increases profits.” Pete Thalman introduces the master control system and claims that he listens to Muzak in his spare time. Deena Thompson denies any use of subliminal messages: “That’s illegal.”

24:19 More from “William Kowinski.” “The mall is very tightly controlled. Some things that would be able to be expressed in a public place would not be permitted in a mall.”

24:48 “Judith Martin” by Bob Hercules. Judith Martin of the Urban Development Department at the University of Minnesota: “It is not a public space. You don’t have the right to stand inside a mall and mouth off a bout any political issue you might be interested in. It’s not like a public city street.”

25:23 “Bob Peck” by Eddie Becker. Bob Peck, Washington, D.C. ACLU: “If we want to influence people. If we want to be true citizens of democracy…We have to be able to reach the people. If we don’t have our 1st Amendment rights to meet the people, the 1st Amendment becomes a shell, not what it was intended to be.”

25:43 “Act-Up Goes Shopping” by Judith Binder. Kathleen Chapman explains what Act-Up will be handing out at the mall: safe sex guidelines, a pamphlet on why women are vulnerable to AIDS and condoms. Mauri Tasne on how she got involved in AIDS activism: “I’ve had a lot of friends die. I got educated real quick. By getting educated, I got angry.” At the Sherman Oaks Galleria in The Valley, Mauri and other activists hand out information. One girls says to her, ” Wouldn’t you agree that abstinence is better?” She responds, “Read it so you have all the information. If you’re going to abstain, you won’t need the condom.” A mall spokesman tells them to leave. On their way out they continue to pass out info. She offers condoms to a man and his son. The man: “No, not hardly.” The son: “Thank you, maybe next time.” Mauri mocks the boy: ” I don’t want my Dad to see me take the condom, but I want one.” The y move the operation to the Fashion Square, where they are quickly spotted by Jack, the security guard, “I have people passing out things without permission,” he says to his walkie-talkie. Mauri and her friend leave as the Muzak plays “Little Drummer Boy.”

30:05 More from “Bob Peck.” “I suspect sometime in the future the Supreme Court will have to reconsider if 1st Amendment rights apply in a mall.”

30:28 “Orientation Tape #2” by Dan Walworth & Mark Daniels. Over scenes from a mall: “Everything has been leading to this moment. It has all been done for you. Yet without your heartfelt participation this remarkable edifice could not last for a day, not for a minute.”

31:34 “Carmarillo Mall Protest” by John Axelrad & Maxi Cohen. In Carmarillo, California: Alan Camp, the attorney for Sammis Co. proposes an outlet mall to the Carmarillo City Council, “I do not believe there’s a sounder mix for an urban use on this particular piece of property that’s going to suit your city’s best long term interests.” Many of the small town’s residents disagree. Bill Kobrin: “We’re here to kick ass… There’s no way we’re going to allow our way of life to be partially or negatively impacted by a factory outlet mall.” Lin Anderson: “We’ve always had agriculture. The people who move here, move here for reasons and it’s not asphalt and concrete.” Cyndi Schutt: “We have the type atmosphere where everybody knows everybody. We don’t want to lose that.” Alan Camp notifies the city council that the Sammis Co. is withdrawing their proposal. Lin: “I’m flabbergasted… I thought we were still in for a long battle. They know what they’re up against.”

35:52 “Woodfield Mall” by Bob Hercules. At the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Illinois: senior citizens arrive via bus from Evansville, Indiana (6 hours away) to shop… “I don’t sit at home and look at TV. I want to go out someplace… Go shopping, go see a show.”

36:40 “Russian Kitchen Talk” by Heather MacDonald. A look at the food lines of Leningrad: “Yesterday in the line for sausage a woman was beaten up and she was okay, but in the line for macaroni a woman was beaten up and taken to the hospital for a cracked skull and something else.” “This line teaches you to hate everyone that’s ahead of you.” A young woman says that some people are offended by Westerners videotaping the lines, “[They say] ‘ You should take their camera and break it over their heads’… I don’t have that kind of pride for the country… It’s not shameful for me. These lines don’t define the face of the nation.” A man says, “It’s hard for you to understand because you are from America… ‘What a nice day for business’… The Soviet Union is not America.”

39:35 “Inside” by Van McElwee. A twisting, turning ride through a cavernous mall with the sound of a low industrial roar.

40:03 “Mall Phobia I” by Bernie Kaminski. Nellie Tomic says, “I avoided going to malls by myself for the last 12 years.” With the aid of her therapist, Florette Kahn, she ventures into the Garden State Plaza. Florette Kahn comments on the difficulty agoraphobics have with going up escalators.

41:55 “Mall Phobia II” by Maxi Cohen. Lou, an agoraphobic, says, “It’s not a rational behavior. That’s what makes it difficult for non-agoraphobics to deal with. They look at you like you are not dealing with the full deck.”

42:34 “Mall Phobia III” by Bernie Kaminski. Nellie Tomic and Mary Cortazzo engage in breathing exercises to keep their anxiety levels down. Nellie: “Shopping’s not a big thing for a lot of people, but if it’s something you can’t do, you don’t take it for granted.”

44:06 More from “Inside.” Reprise of the twisting, turning mall innards.

44:17 More from “Joel Garreau:” ” An American will never walk more than 600 feet voluntarily without getting into an automobile. You’ll never be able to see how far it is from one end of the mall to the other. They’re going to extraordinary effort to break your line of site. They know if you knew how far it was, you’d leave the mall, get into your car and drive to the other end of the mall, then come back in.”

45:09 More from Judith Martin. “Malls are comforting because we know what to expect. If you want some place to go to that you will walk into and say, ‘Oh this is okay.’ I think they do t hat for all people.”

45:30 More from William Kowinski. “It was kind of like this spaceship. It was there because of technology made it possible. The mall is Main Street in a spaceship.”

46:18 “Mall of America” by Bob Hercules. A look at the Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis. Scheduled to open in August of 1992, this mall will be the largest in the world. Following an industrial promo, James Goggan, the architect, talks about his creation. Maureen Hooley from mall P.R. hypes design models of Underwear World and other mall attractions. Judith Martin comments, “It’s a real toss-up if the kind of projections made for the Mall of America will hold up.”

49:36 More from William Kowinski. Kowinski says that malls are feeling the excesses of the ’80s.

49:57 “Dr. Louis Masotti” by Jim Mulryan. Dr. Louis Masotti of Northwestern University comments on the number of department stores that are filing for bankruptcy.

50:40 More from Joel Garreau. Comments on the “single purpose” nature of malls.

50:56 More from Judith Martin. “How much of this do we need in one area? Do we need to keep replicating this as the city expands further and further out?”

51:13 More from Dr. Louis Masotti. “We’re probably over-malled and under-stored in an economy in which there are fewer people with a disposable income. So we’re going to see some radical changes.”

52:57 More from “Jody Procter Goes to the Mall.” Jody Procter at the Valley Center in Eugene: “Do you remember where we came in? This all looks the same to me. Do you know where the Emporium is? The air here is full of subliminal messages in sub-audible tones… The words are ‘buy,’ ‘do not shoplift’ – elephants talk in that same language… [walks out of the mall] Back to the real world… All subliminals, the air, the combination acts as a mood altering tranquilizer. It’s sort of an effort to come out here. I’m outta here.”

56:37 “Edmonton Mall” Industrial promo for the West Edmonton Mall in Canada Complete with a water park. Under credits.

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Episode 406: The American Way (3am, 10am, 5pm CDT)

Episode 406 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “The American Way” and  features the following segments:

02:23 “90’s Video Poll” by Nancy Cain. In Yorba Linda, California at the birthplace of Richard Nixon, a tourist responds to the question “Who would you trust to be President?” Answer: “I would support whoever supports family values. That is really the bottom line.”

03:12 “Patrick McDougall” by Patrick Creadon. In Chicago: “I don’t know too many politicians I would trust. I might consider voting for someone new to the scene.”

03:40 “Julie Harding” by Jay April. In Los Angeles: “My name is Julie Harding. I’m a legal secretary and I’m also a bridge tournament referee. I think Frank Zappa should be President because he can carry a tune and he eats his broccoli.”

03:56 “Political Posture” by Bill Tunnicliffe. Spoof of a political ad styled like a Calvin Klein commercial.

06:00 “James ‘Bo’ Gritz” by Jim Mulryan. James “Bo” Gritz, the most decorated Green Beret of the Vietnam War and the role model for “Rambo,” discuss his Presidential aspirations with a radio interviewer: “People say, ‘Well, Bo, what chance do you think you have against the establishment?’ My return is, ‘What choice have you ever had?’ I honestly believe that America, like Rip Van Winkle, is waking up now. It’s been about 40 years. People are scratching their backsides, rubbing their eyes. They’re asking, ‘What’s been going on while I’ve been asleep?’ Politics is about two layers lower than whale manure and if you want to get dirty, just get in the political hog pen. I believe D.C. is the one more hill that we’ve got to take and prefer to call it Washington, the District of Criminals. It’s time the government learned who they are working for. We, the people are back.”

08:46 “Red, White and Blues” by Howard Heitner. Different peoples comments on America and the flag are juxtaposed over various images of Old Glory: “The Pledge of Allegiance and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence represent something that’s very beautiful and very fair and principles of a democracy, but I don’t think that is the reality of how we live or what we live under. The reality is money and the quest for power… Greedy Americans… Americans are lying bastard cut-throats… I don’t think the U.S. government has really done the right thing to other people… An aggressive nation meddling in affairs they really shouldn’t be involved with…They’re always very proud to suppress, they’re always very proud to beat… They wave the flag and everybody’s supposed to jump up and down… A lot of people died to uphold the ideas the flag represents. To me it is disrespectful to see the flag burned…”

12:53 “Echo Man” by Nancy Cain. At Venice Beach: Echo Man belts out his unique rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” and then asks for tips. “This isn’t Disneyland,” he declares.

13:32 “Timothy Keating” by Jay April. In Los Angeles: “Jimmy Carter should be President. He’s a proven winner. He’s the only President I voted for who got in and he’s had the most graceful retirement of any President living.”

14:05 “John Nolan” by Jay April. In Los Angeles: “I don’t see anyone with integrity on the horizon… How about C. Everett Koop. He’s a doctor, the country’s sick and at least the man has some integrity, which the rest of that bunch don’t.”

14:39 “Robert Clark” by Patrick Creadon. In Chicago: “One that strikes me as trustworthy is Ralph Nader. He has a sense that business leaders are not to be trusted and a healthy skepticism of the powers of government.”

15:20 “Ralph Nader” by Bill Stamets. Ralph Nader is shown from a behind scenes view while being interviewed at WMUR, a New Hampshire TV station. He is running as a write in candidate in the New Hampshire primary. “There’s too much power and money in too few hands in this country. We’ve got to develop new reforms that will give voters, consumers and taxpayers more power to shape the future of this country. The problems about the candidate running around in New Hampshire now is that they can’t deliver because the forces are all stacked against them.” After the interview he complains about only being given two minutes to lay out his ideas, “You have to talk in very quick soundbytes and it was pretty contrary to the kind of reflection on the important issues facing this country and the world that communication systems should permit. The public airways are not really accessible to the public. That’s why we need an audience network. We can’t let television be trivialized and marginalized. We have to open up television to an intelligent community of citizens who will learn how to communicate to one another through this electronic medium through other than quick eight second bites, if you’re lucky.”

17:51 “How They Saw The New World” by Larry Kless. An experimental, artistically rendered anchor man comments on the powers of television, “Once upon a time television was supposed to operate in the public interest. But lo and behold, it has captured the public and made it a product, which it sells to advertisers. In the process TV has become the nation’s primary information machine.”

18:22 “Ike For President.” An animated campaign commercial for Dwight Eisenhower.

19:16 “Pay No Attention To Those Men Behind the Curtain” by Todd R. Smith. A fictional meeting of members of the White Men’s Club: “Do you understand why all these groups are trying to stir things up?… Look we’re in the club, the White Men’s Club… Stupid name… Let’s face it, we don’t pay much attention to this club… Our rules aren’t even written down. We just obey them… We don’t whine about equality, because this is democracy… Anyone can succeed. We just hire the best candidate for the position… The fact that more white men possess the qualities we look for is nothing to make excuses about… But we don’t like to talk in terms of race or color, sexual preference or religion. After all, we’re just people.”

21:23 “Wally Nelson” by Robbie Leppzer. While gardening in Deerfield, Massachusetts, Wally Nelson comments, “I will not vote. I consider it a waste of my time.” When asked if there is democracy in America he responds, “I’ve lived in America all my life and I’ve never seen democracy, so I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

23:58 Ronald Reagan clip. Reagan from 1980: “There are those who question the way we choose a president, saying the process places difficult and exhausting burdens on those seeking office. I have not found it so.”

24:17 “Bill Clinton” by Bill Stamets. At a campaign rally in New Hampshire, Bill Clinton, governor of Arkansas, says, “Running for president is a very humbling experience. And some days it’s hard to convince yourself that anyone deserves to be President.” Clinton is directed by photographers to walk toward them in a parking lot. “Then we want you to do it on rollerblades,” one of them says. Clinton to a crowd on the campaign trail: “I do believe since you are the first primary in the nation, you have a heavy responsibility to make all the politicians who come to this state in both parties go beyond rhetoric and thirty second ads and tell you what they would do if they were elected president. ” Clinton plays billiards and goes bowling. At the bowling lane, he thinks he has just knocked all the pins down, “How can that happen? I hit it right down the middle. Didn’t you think I was going to get that one?”

26:28 “Uncle Sam Falls” by Bill Stamets. A humorous clip where a mannequin dressed as Uncle Sam topples over and people scramble to right him.

27:03 “Sex and Politics” by John Axelrad. Dr. Susan Block, a disk jockey who hosts a sex radio talk show and presidential candidate, explains that she is a candidate who will be open about her sex life. She further explains that being sexually conservative does not mean being a competent president.

29:40 “Hot Water” by Jim Mulryan. John Boehn talks while sitting in a Victorville, California hot spring: “If you watch as people deny themselves sex experiences their faces tighten up. They’re angry all the time because they’ve seen the sex stimulation and it’s beauty, but the y never have any access to it. Look at priests. Their upper lips go, unless they’re priests who have found a good buddy. If they continue it, their lower lip goes also. Look at the lips of some of the people determining our laws. Look at Kennedy. He’s living. Those people have a serious disadvantage in the political arena. . . We destroy a man, he can be politically brilliant, he can be a wonderful man, he can have marvelous ideas; but if he went to bed with the wrong person, well forget it, he’s out. To make ‘sex’ a dirty word so that people can’t experience it, except under the terms defined by law. I think it’s an abomination. It’s cruel and disgusting.”

30:38 “Positive Motion” by Andy Abrahams Wilson. People with AIDS use a cooperative dance class as a kind of therapy. Over scenes from a dance: “The virus keeps us apart and shows me my strength, joins me with you.” Participants in the group give personal statements: “I don’t know what to do with all of this. As hard as I want to stuff it all away, it keeps knocking in, it keeps pounding away and I don’t know what to do about it some days.” Another one comments: “I’ve been walking around and all the people who are in my head, around me, are dead. So many of the people I have a good time with aren’t here. It’s just hard for me this week. I’m glad I’m here because I’ve got friends here.” The group dances.

35:45 “Eileen Myles” by Skip Blumberg. Another alternative candidate for president. Myles says she will talk about topics that the other candidates won’t address.

37:47 “Joe Begley” by Appalshop. In Blakey, Kentucky: “I don’t see any leadership and I see greed and suspicion and selfishness and when it’s like that nobody can survive. The people in Washington know nothing about reality.”

39:16 “Panama Girl” by Che Che Martinez. In Panama, a little girl sings a song, “It’s said they came in three ships to discover what we knew was our land. Now they’re calling it the encounter of two worlds. There was imposition, destruction and the sacrifice of our people. They are saying they brought civilization, what about the syphilis and colonialism they left us?”

41:08 “A Matter of Conscience” by Robbie Leppzer. In Colerain, Massachusetts, Betsy Corner comments on the arrest of her husband for his refusal to pay taxes and the seizing of their home by the Federal Government: “We refused to pay our Federal taxes because one half of those taxes go to past, present and future war making. We don’t want to pay for killing. We don’t want to pay for nuclear weapons, genocidal weapons, nor intervention in countries where we don’t belong.” In the Hampshire County Jail in North Hampton, Massachusetts, Randy Kehler is incarcerated: “I’ve been to Nicaragua twice in the last five years and I’ve seen the results of our military policies there. The killing still continues in El Salvador>, financed and supported by our country. Then there was Panama and before that Grenada and last year the horror of the Persian Gulf slaughter and I don’t think that’s going to be the end. It’s going to keep going, keep going, keep going.” Betsy says they fill out their tax forms and figure out what they owe and give 50% to charities that help victims of war and 50% to local groups “who have lost out because our priorities are skewed priorities.” Randy: “Killing is wrong… Nobody can tell me that it’s right. If that’s not right, to refuse to be a part of it must be right.”

45:09 “Joan Jett Blakk” by Bill Stamets. Queer Nation presidential candidate Joan Jett Blakk: “The Republicans and Democrats: I think they’re all the same myself. That’s why we have the Queer Nation Party. It’s different, it’s just different. [Republicans and Democrats] pretty much think the same way, but they tell you they think differently. I’ll be the only president that answers the phone myself.”

46:09 “Jody Sibert” by Nancy Cain. In Santa Monica, California: “Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis… No laughing… I meant it… I haven’t even seen the movie, but that’s how much I trust them.”

46:36 “Congressman Jose Serrano” by Eddie Becker. “I’d like to see someone like Jesse Jackson run for one specific reason. If someone like him does not run who will put on the table the issues of the poor?… If this country can liberate Kuwait, why can’t it liberate the poor of the South Bronx?”

47:27 “John Eric Priestly” by Jim Mulryan. On the curb in Los Angeles: “It’ s not economically feasible to liberate black people. White people can say whatever they want, but they do not want to be under the supervision of nobody black. Period.”

48:33 “Tom Laughlin” by Garth Roger Bacon. Presidential candidate Tom Laughlin (a.k.a. Billy Jack) comments on Americans’ lack of interest and the lack of choices they have in the political process. According to a poll his staff conducted on the streets of New Hampshire, more than 87% of the people “detest” all of the candidates. He proposes that it will take someone from outside of the political system to make a change.

50:24 “Tony Fitzpatrick” by Patrick Creadon. The artist at work: “I think you would have to look at the kind of guy who would want to be president. Doesn’t that scare you? By the time they get up the food chain, they’ve hocked every bit of their soul, every principal. Those guys have whored out every bit of their humanity just to get in a position to be elected. So, it’s a matter of which scumbag do you want? Why don’t they tell us who’s really running this country? AT&T, IBM, Dow…”

52:06 “The Motorcade Sped On” by Mass Media. Archival footage of JFK slickly edited and set to a beat.

54:46 “Blase Bonpane” by Nancy Cain. Dr. Blase Bonpane, peace activist: “We don’t have a relationship between church and state, but we have a relationship between media and state.”

56:18 Excerpt from “Nixon Resignation.” From the White House pool feed. Moments before Nixon resigns in 1974: “My friend Ollie always wants to take a lot of pictures. I’m afraid he’ll catch me picking my nose. You wouldn’t print that, would you Ollie?”

56:42 End Credits.

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THE 90’s Election Special: The Primary (4am, 11am, 6pm CDT)

The first of three election specials from the award winning series, The 90’s. This episode focuses on “THE PRIMARY” and features moments from the Illinois presidential and senatorial primaries, featuring Bill Clinton, Jerry Brown, Paul Tsongas, and Carol Moseley Braun. The producers tend to stay away from the regular news type footage and find the human interactions and the moments when the politicians are off their guard.

00:14 Cold opening with David Wilhelm. “Our plan from here is to go on, win Illinois and Michigan, go on and win the nomination and win the White House… Actually those are our goals. I would tell you the plan, but I would have to kill you.”

00:32 The 90’s opening

01:24 The Shot. Super Tuesday: March 10, 1992: Clinton advanceman Tom Hart orchestrates the preparation for the evening’s victory party, paying special attention to “The Shot.” His job is to arrange the photographers so that none of the members of the media appear in the official television coverage.

05:23 Paul Tsongas at Harper High School. Tsongas talks casually with Skip Blumberg as he signs autographs. Skip: “Everybody says you’re a real guy, is it true?”

Tsongas: “No, I’m just fake, all plastic… People said I’m not telegenic but it turned out to be an advantage.”

Skip: “Is there a part of the process that pushes you to be phony and plastic?”

Tsongas: “People can do it that way. Certainly there’s a precedent for that.” Tsongas signs his pamphlet “A Call for Economic Arms,” can’t find a taker, then gives it to Skip.

06:52 Jerry Brown Media Tour. Jerry Brown conducts a satellite TV media tour. The woman working the phone switchboard is baffled by her task. She is asked what her qualifications are. She responds, “I’m a Jerry Brown supporter.” Brown is quick to respond to a question about the possible contradiction between his desire to “throw out” all the crooked politicians and his background from a political family. “That’s how I know how rotten it is.”

08:33 The Senate Race. Voiceover: “Beyond the presidential primary, the most visible contest in Illinois was the attempt to unseat Democratic Senator Alan Dixon by Carol Moseley Braun and Al Hofeld.” Braun describes her underdog status: “It’s $280,000 a week to do TV. They’ve been on since Christmas. I just have to run an old-fashioned, she’s-the-best-candidate campaign. It seems to be working.” To a crowd, she says, “The feeling is there that we can do better than we’re doing…There’s something wrong with our system when people are excluded from the largest legislative body in the country.” Terry Peterson, a 17th Ward organizer, puts up fliers and talks: “Chicago sets the trend for the rest of the U.S. If you look at the election of Mayor Washington, you’ll see an increase in voter registration as well as participation all over the United States. We’ll all be motivated to get out there this time.” David Wilhelm tells us, “The worst time of a campaign is when the phone doesn’t ring. We’re busy right now, that’s good. I’d rather manage growth than decline.”

13:15 The Beasley School. Bill Clinton visits the predominantly African-American school on the South Side of Chicago. Opens with children singing “Everybody wants to know/about Beasley School.” David Wilhelm offers his spin on Clinton’s visit to Beasley in contrast to Tsongas’ visit to Harper High, “[Clinton ] talks about parental involvement, making the most out of opportunity and personal responsibility and he really connected with the kids and with the parents. Paul Tsongas goes to a similar high school and talks about capital gains, tax cuts and the need to provide business incentives, and people looked at him like…” Hugh Hill, WLS-TV Political Editor, says of Tsongas’ visit to Harper High, “This guy’s got to be a loser. I mean, Jesus, he comes here to Illinois where he absolutely needs to win. He makes one stop and he’s gone.” Jerry Brown goes on WVON radio, but his appearance is interrupted by news that congressional candidate Mel Reynolds has been shot.

20:06 St. Patrick’s Day. We see the parade and talk to the marchers, including the Queer Nation’s candidate for president, Joan Jett Blakk, Hillary Clinton’s brother Tony Rodham, and Niki Tsongas. Mayor Richard M. Daley says, “The Democratic Party today is a party made up of people who do not identify with the elephants or donkeys of America. People are much more independent… The Roosevelt era is over in this country, so they identify with an individual.” Poet Barbara Barg says, “Primaries are like primers for the election. It’s like a Miss America pageant. There’s the swimsuit competition, the talent competition, you have to answer one or two supposedly substantive questions. You have to keep your smile right… It’s essentially a Mr. America contest… It has nothing to do with real issues.”

23:59 Carol Moseley Braun at Operation PUSH rally. A woman tells Braun to elevate her feet at night. Braun replies, “I’ve been doing that ever since you [first] told me that.” At the rally, Braun says, “We’re in striking distance of the incumbent. We can do this. We can actually do this.” Hofeld Media Adviser, David Axelrod, offers his spin on the Senate race. “Dixon and Hofeld are beating the hell out of each other. They’re both losing votes. The third candidate, who has no resources and really hasn’t been running much of a campaign, is benefiting from it; not because she’s above the fray, but because she’s below the fray.” Gloria Steinem presents a $1000 check to Braun: “We have enemies in the Senate. We have a few people who are not enemies, but we don’t have anybody who’s our friend. We don’t have anybody who understands. That’s who Carol is.” Bill and Hillary Clinton make an appearance at the Apostolic Church of God. At the Church of God in Christ, Tsongas has an awkward moment when he is prevented from putting money in the collection plate by the minister.

27:49 The Money Man. Fundraising at the Clinton headquarters. David Wilhelm: “We had an extraordinary week. The message all week was ‘We understand Chicago and we understand the problems that average Chicago folk face.’” Meanwhile, Rahm Emanuel, National Finance Co-Chair, works the phones for cash. Amy Zisook, the other co-chair, says, “Most people who we raise money from don’t want anything… They just want some excitement and they want to feel important.”

29:44 Roger Clinton’s band. In Hollywood, on the set of “Designing Women,” Roger Clinton, Bill’s brother, backed by his band “Politix,” sings the Traffic classic “Feelin’ Alright.” Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, the show’s co-executive producer, comments on her close relationship with Bill and Hillary and her fundraising tactics. When someone gives less than $1,000, “I always say, ‘You can save yourself a lot of agony and pain, if you just finish writing the check now.’”

32:44 Clinton headquarters. Rahm Emanuel works the phone and comments on the importance of giving Clinton as much time as possible to get votes as opposed to raising money. Tsongas rally. Tsongas says, “We’re not the machine. We’re the message.” He says the campaign has raised $1,000,000 in the last 12 days, more than all of 1991.

35:09 The Debate. David Wilhelm defines the other candidates’ strategies: “There’s a lot of desperation on their part… In an attempt to win a state today, you may lose so much of your character that you can’t bounce back.” He maintains the secrecy of the infamous “Plan.” “It’s like Nixon’s plan to get us out of Vietnam. You have to be elected first, then I’ll tell you six months later.” At a TV debate, Jerry Brown accuses Clinton of funneling state business to his wife’s law firm, which causes a heated exchange. At the press conference after the debate, Tsongas says, “I found it very distasteful. Those two got in a dispute you all are going to use on the news and I’m out of the picture… I was gonna run in between them”… Wilhelm offers his spin to the press, “When people are behind in the polls they’ll do crazy things.”

38:17 President Bush arrives. A press member comments on how the Secret Service keeps the President out of question-answer scenarios. Bush is introduced at the Polish National Alliance, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m most privileged to introduce our number one freedom farter—fighter—and the most popular American in Poland…” Chicago Tribune White House Correspondent Ellen Warren sports her one-eyed telescope, “Sometimes we’re kept so far away that the only way we can see him as more than a pinhead is with this device.” Press members show off their ladders of choice. Michael Maruzzi of the Coalition to End Homelessness says, “President Bush is having a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser and we have 100,000 homeless people in this state.”

42:57 Election Day. At a CTA L stop, 17th Ward organizer (Alderman Alan Streeter’s Chief of Staff) Terry Peterson encourages people to vote. Bill Banks, 36th Ward Committeeman, talks positively about the work done by David Wilhelm for Mayor Daley during his election bid. David Wilhelm offers his opinion on the day’s result, “For the first time in a long time, maybe since Bobby Kennedy, we have a real coalition of white ethnics, downstate rural voters and black voters. It’s been unifying rather than divisive… It was The Plan. See, The Plan worked.” Warren Mitofsky, Voter Research and Survey Exit Poll Director, talks about the historical significance of exit polls. “We don’t know if Abraham Lincoln got elected because voters were opposed to slavery. We have no idea. Today we know that Ronald Reagan got elected not by a conservative mandate, but by a rejection of Jimmy Carter.”

46:33 The Results Are In. At the Braun suite, excitement brews with the news that “the race is too close to call.” Advanceman Tom Hart talks to photographers, “I just don’t want to screw up The Shot.” Wilhelm heralds Clinton’s ability to “pull disparate factions of the Democratic coalition together.” With 40% of the precincts in, the Senate race is a virtual tie, prompting Braun to say, “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?” Dixon gives his concession speech: “I had a wonderful public life. I enjoyed every golden, beautiful minute of it… It was a great privilege and honor to be yours – for decades.” Clinton casually talks to reporters. “Tsongas is in Connecticut. Brown is in Wisconsin. It’s back to divide and conquer.” Braun supporters dance to “We are Family.” Braun says, “When they said, ‘You don’t have the money,’ we said , ‘In a democracy, it’s how many votes you got.’ When they said a woman couldn’t serve in the U.S. Senate, we said, ‘Wrongo.’” We also see Clinton’s victory party at the Palmer House Hilton and an intimate, behind-the-scenes portrait of him performing for news broadcasts around the country.

56:18 End credits with shots of Clinton posing for a camera.

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THE 90’s Election Special: The Convention (5am, 12pm, 7pm CDT)

The second of three election specials from the award winning series, The 90’s. This episode is called “THE CONVENTION” and features moments from the Democratic National Convention in New York and the Republican National Convention in Houston in 1992. The producers tend to stay away from the regular news type footage and find the human interactions and the moments when the politicians are off their guard.

01:18 Opening.

02:33 “Stoney Burke at GOP Convention” by Bob Hercules. Comedian/activist Burke confronts various Republicans before and during the their convention. He asks straightforward questions about homelessness, and other social issues.

09:07 “Alvin Toffler” by Jim Mulryan and Tabatha Mulryan. Toffler, author of “Future Shock,” talks about alienation in the American and Global political systems. He says that we only have the appearance of democracy.

10:56 “Inside the Clinton Command Post” by Scott Jacobs. Clinton Command Trailer with John Hart, Chief Delegate Tracker. Numerous Clinton campaign workers monitor each major TV news network from Clinton’s Command Trailer. Jerry Brown supporters demand that he be given a chance to speak at the convention. John Hart, Clinton’s Chief Delegate Tracker, orders delegates from other states to drown out the shouting of Brown supporters. Clinton campaign worker strategize about how to suppress Brown supporters. John Hart: “Governor [Jerry] Brown will have two opportunities to speak on Wednesday night…what [Brown supporters] are engaging in is a debate over dates and times…Our official response…is anyone who is not ready to endorse [Clinton] is not ready for primetime.”

18:43 “Political Buttons” by Eddie Becker. Button collectors at the convention show off and trade some of their buttons.

19:49 “Houston T-shirts” by Robert Zeibell, Tomas Krejci, and Bart Weiss. A man at the republican convention sells t-shirts with slogans attacking the “liberal media.”

20:17 “We Bought the T-shirt” by Merrill Aldighieri and Joe Tripician. A musical spoof that pokes fun at activist merchandising.

22:40 “Coal Miner” by Eddie Becker. J. R. Hamlin, a coal-miner and single parent, talks to Becker at the Democratic Convention. He says he is supporting the democrats so that his daughter can have a future and to ensure health care for all the working people in America. He also says we need a new president.

23:16 “In the Shadow of the Convention” by Art Jones and Mark Ledzian. Two African-American NYC fireman talk about racism.

23:44 “Homeless in Aurora” by Steve Martini and James McCarthy. A homeless man says all he want is a job.

23:59 “Woman President” Various people discuss the need for a female President.

24:50 “W.A.C. Wheat Pasting” by Jules Backus. Members of the Women’s Action Coalition engage in an illegal poster campaign to raise awareness for their causes. A man harasses them for breaking the law and threatens to call the police.

27:29 “Topless Demonstration” by Skip Blumberg. The cameras are turned on some of the action that is happening outside of the Democratic convention hall in NYC; including topless dancers advertising a strip club (and women’s rights advocates that oppose the objectification of women), and various demonstrators. A CNN cameraman is interviewed about objectivity in reporting.

30:36 “What Happened to Larry Agran?” by John Axelrod and Brian Logan. Larry Agran, a democratic candidate for president, complains that he received no media attention during the election, even though he was on the ballot in forty states. He says he was discriminated against by the press – including being cropped out of news photos of presidential candidates.

34:13 “National Anthem” by Skip Blumberg. Aretha Franklin sings the “Star Spangled Banner” at the Democratic convention.

34:46 “American Samoan Delegation” by Skip Blumberg. Daniel Langkilde, an American Samoan Delegate travels 13,000 miles to the Democratic Convention in New York City. As someone definitely outside the Beltway, Daniel talks about issues facing Samoans and their system of government. “[We have] a chief system… unlike the Convention, the final decision is made by the chief. When things don’t work the democratic way, you laugh, because it would have worked the Samoan way.”

39:24 “W.A.C. in Houston” by Robert Zeibell, Tomas Krejci, and Bart Weiss. The WAC drum core demonstrates outside of the Republican Convention in Houston. They demand that women’s issues be addressed by the Republicans.

40:56 “[G.H.W.] Bush Statue” by Robert Zeibell, Tomas Krejci, and Bart Weiss. Bush supporters comment on a bronze statue of the 41st president and talk about how they feel about the man himself.

42:02 “Ian Shoales” by Starr Sutherland and Jules Backus. Shoales, a writer/humorist satirically speaks about “family values.”

43:06 More from “Stoney Burke…” Burke interviews people at the Republican convention about the implied meaning of “family values” – “what is that a code for?” He goes on to interview Sonny Bono, Bruce Willis, and other celebrities in attendance.

50:09 More from “Inside the Clinton Command Post.” We watch from inside the trailer as Bill Clinton wins the democratic nomination.

54:21 “Don Novello” by Eddie Becker. Actor/comedian Don Novello, who is also a delegate for Jerry Brown, says that although Clinton is young, he might as well be a part of the old guard: “[Clinton’s nomination is like] the torch being passed to a new generation – underneath the table. The torch is being slipped to another generation … There’s nothing new here.”

54:48 More from “Stoney Burke …” Burke stands at the podium and declares himself a candidate for president.

56:14 End Credits.

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THE 90’s Election Special: It’s Debate-able (6am, 1pm, 8pm CDT)

“It’s Debate-able” features an inside look at the 1992 presidential debate in St. Louis and the various media tactics the candidates used to their advantage. Segments include video from candidates’ debate prep, spin rooms, satellite tours, and commercials.

00:00 Opening, The 90s 1992 Campaign Special.

01:35 Bush Headquarters. Several Bush supporters and campaign workers are interviewed in and around Bush headquarters in Washington D.C. David Carney: “Fifty percent of the people in the country are yet not committed to a candidate…that gives us a good chance…”

04:38 Debate Prep. Clinton in debate preparation in Kansas City, MO. We watch as Clinton advisers set up a stage for a mock debate, discuss various debate strategies, and follow the press to a Clinton photo-op.

13:43 Flashback – New Hampshire. Flashback to February of 1992. We follow the press as they follow Clinton in New Hampshire. The Clintons meet a little girl named Destiny, Hillary on the bus, Clinton bag.

15:50 Bush Arrives. St. Louis, MO. President G.H.W. Bush arrives in St. Louis for the first of three Presidential debates. His supporters wait anxiously for him at the Airport.

18:52 Setting the Stage. We watch as various news outlets make their last minute preparations for the debate. Several reporters also comment on the spin-doctors for each campaign. We see some of the doctors at work.

24:50 The First Debate. A series of sound bites from the first debate on October 11, 1992 at Washington University in St. Louis, MO.

27:11 The Spin Room. A post-debate view of the spin-doctors representing each candidate. Each candidates’ various representatives claim that their candidate won the debate.

30:45 David Halberstam. Author David Halberstam likens the U.S. deficit that was created during the Reagan/Bush administrations to a Russian missile headed toward the U.S.: “It’s in the air, it’s getting larger, getting faster…if you think of [the deficit] like that you’re scared, and with damn good reason.”

31:51 Satellite Tours. We watch as Clinton spin-doctors conduct one interview after another via satellite. Each repeats key phrases (“Clinton met all of his strategic goals for the debate”) in every interview. We also follow CBS News producer Susan Zirinski has she pushes her team to get the debate coverage on the air. NBC News reporter Jim Miklaszewski defends the increasingly common practice of distilling a candidate’s message into 7-second sound bites.

38:26 Vote Commercials. Gregory Peck, Kirk Douglas, Janet Leigh, and Sidney Poitier appear in a vintage commercial that urges people to vote.

39:30 Why People Don’t Vote. A segment examining the reasons people don’t vote. Voter apathy experts, and non-voters are interviewed. An expert claims the most common reason given by non-voters for not voting is because they are not registered.

44:48 The War Room. A visit to Clinton Campaign headquarters in Little Rock, AR., known as “The War Room.” The young age of the campaign workers and the embrace of technology is focused on.

48:30 Flashback – Getting In. This segment features video correspondent Eddie Becker on the phone with Bush/Quayle campaign coordinator. Becker is attempting to gain access to Bush/Quayle HQ, but the campaign is resisting. Eventually they inform Becker that cameras will be allowed to take pictures, but no audio is to be recorded.

50:16 My Home Town. Video correspondent, Andrew Jones takes on a tour of Richmond, VA, his home town. He brings us to the housing project where he lived as a child, and to the wealthiest white community where he gives a message to the candidates.

54:38 Credits roll as Joe Cummings reads some viewer response letters.

Streaming June 27th: Episode 305 – 402

Episode 305: America: Life, Liberty, And… (12am, 8am, 4pm CDT)

Episode 305 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “America: Life, Liberty, And…” and  features the following segments:

1:45 “Waiting for the American Dream” by Skip Blumberg. While waiting in line at the immigration office in New York, people from all over talk about America. A German woman says, “In America nobody cares what you do as long as you pay your bills.” A man from Ecuador: “Anything you need you can get it over here. You can get it right now.” An exiled politician from Guyana gets his fingerprints recorded. Skip buys the “Video Guide to Becoming an American Citizen” and plays a little of it.

8:09 “Sylvie” by Esti Marpet. A French woman says that the French are too cerebral and they don’t make things happen like Americans do.

8:47 “Foreign Press Center” by Eddie Becker. Controversy breaks out at the Foreign Press Center (part of the United States Information Agency) in Washington where director Jim Pope says, “People are surprised that we have no control over the writers – it’s none of our business.” Seema Sirohi of India’s “Telegraph” wrote a story on General Dynamics’ proposed plan to use nuclear weapons in India in the event of a war with Pakistan. She argues the story’s validity with Pope, who has yet to read it. Upon reading the story, Pope concludes that it is inaccurate and that Sirohi misconstrued the significance of a defense contractor’s rationale in its attempt to sell weapons to the Pentagon. In a separate interview Sirohi counters, “These people who sit in their think tanks and justify new weapons systems whether the world needs them or not, they just treat countries like little places on a chess board. No war has taken place in the U.S. in this century. They don’t realize that war means a lot of death and destruction, a lot of pain.”

15:16 “Peter Schwartz” by Starr Sutherland. Peter Schwartz of the Global Business Network talks about the failures of the U.S. government and concludes, “The world needs the abilities and leadership of a competent Washington.”

16:55 “Tarzan Anderson” by Jim Mulryan. Tarzan Anderson talks while gambling in Nevada. “Our system is completely opposite of what it’s supposed to be. We’re losing the planet. We lose the planet, we lose our lives. We’re gonna kill ourselves. They figure, ‘I’m gonna be dead. Leave it to the next generation.’ Now people are starting to think about taking care of the planet, which is good. We just gotta get more people involved. We’re supposed to be able to think. We don’t have to take ourselves out, but we’re going to. It’s basic nature. It still comes back down to money.”

22:40 “Wagon Ho” by Bianca Bob Miller. Music video for the song “Wagon Ho” by Raunchy Bob Yup Yup.

24:20 “Slices of a Strike” by Manhattan Media. A look at the Daily News strike in New York. Strikers harass the scabs, “You rotten dog, you scum bag, you low life bastard.” “We’re proud of what we’re doing,” says a replacement worker. Another replacement worker says, “Each person has to do what they have to do. That’s one of our constitutional rights. Why call me names because I’m choosing my own stand?” Robert Maxwell of Great Britain buys the paper and declares at a press conference that he expects a profit in the first year of operation. Of course, lots of jobs will be eliminated.

30:31 “Laura Flanders” by Rosalyn Baronio. Laura Flanders, a prominent feminist journalist who was born in Great Britain, claims that a British accent is practically synonymous with intelligence in America, but says that “the British deserve more suspicion than that.” Nonetheless, after living in a cockroach-infested apartment in New York she doesn’t buy the myth of American luxury; instead she sees the U.S. as comparable to a third world country.

32:23 “Super Barrio” by Che-Che Martinez and Marco Vinicio Gonzalez. Transformed by a mysterious light, a Mexico City street vendor turns into Super Barrio. The masked crusader defends poor tenants against greedy landlords and urges new forms of popular organization as the most effective means towards change.

35:19 “Todd Alcott” by Skip Blumberg. 90’s regular, Todd Alcott rants: “I’m a man. I’m an idiot. It follows. Have you ever looked in someone’s eyes and been reduced to the size of a pin? This is flesh. This is all they gave me. I didn’t get a book of rules. I didn’t get a wise old mind I didn’t get a mind that can see into the future, that can tell me things like: These feelings will die. That lovemaking will become rote and tiresome. That I‘ll lose interest. That we will get into fights over things like white out. It’s not meant to be known. It’s a feeling. I’m a man. I’m an idiot. It follows. I’m trapped in the jaws of love.”

39:03 “Willis Conover” by Eddie Becker. Willis Conover, the disc jockey for Voice of America’s Jazz Hour, talks about the parallels between jazz and American culture.

43:12 “Alexander Kosolapov” by Esti Marpet. Alexander Kosolapov, a Soviet artist living in New York, juxtaposes American icons with Soviet slogans and symbols.

44:59 “Legal Services” by Skip Blumberg. Attorneys for Legal Services in New York strike for better working conditions and pay. “Right and decency is more powerful than the bastards who want to put you down,” says Sam Meyers. Various workers talk about the need to make Legal Services a more attractive career option. Tony Feldmesser (a.k.a. Tokyo Tony) addresses the heads of Legal Services in the building, “You can’t run. You can only hide. You’re on the wrong side. So come down here with your friends. We are your friends.”

49:13 “Haiti” by Ludger Balant. A Haitian child talks about America: “Americans are thieves for a little bit of oil. They fight with each other and keep everything for themselves. Once you have something Americans have their sights on taking it away from you. They want to be the only ones who have anything. That’s why the world is in chaos.”

50:36 “Joe Begley” by Appalshop / Mimi Pickering. Joe Begley, who lives in Kentucky, talks about democracy: “We’re supposed to have a democracy. I believe in the Constitution of the United States as much as any man living. I hope it’s never amended or fooled with in any way, unless something more drastic comes along. Like John Kennedy said, we got a democracy, but sometimes it doesn’t work for the benefit of the people.”

51:22 “Il Gorini” by Don Reed. Kelly Bixler talks about her discovery of an Italian street person who is more than he seems. He sits on the street covered in birds, yet he is a free thinker , artist, and inventor. Bixler talks about people like the bird man, “I think they’re artists. They’re putting out a lot of information. People think they’re insane. I don’t think they’re insane. Maybe they know something we don’t know.”

54:48 “Vietnamese in America” by Fred Bridges. Vietnamese-Americans talk about the importance of maintaining the heritage of their homeland while analyzing what’s good about America.

56:24 Mexican music with homemade instruments by Che-Che Martinez and Marco Vinicio Gonzalez under credits.

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Episode 306: Race And Racism – Red, White, And Black (1am, 9am, 5pm CDT)

Episode 306 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Race And Racism – Red, White, And Black” and features the following segments:

01:09 Cold Open from “This Week in Joe’s Basement,” a cable access show in Chicago. A man on the street is asked what he thinks of black people. “I got a difference between black people and niggers. Niggers are gang bangers. Black people are people who have respect for other people…I like black people. Niggers, I don’t like.” A friend comes up and is asked what he thinks of black people. He replies, “I don’t like ’em” and walks away. The first man explains his friend’s views, “Some people have different opinions. He don’t have a difference. He don’t like blacks period… It’s just the way I was raised — my mom and dad. Well, really my dad, he was like that. I always heard ‘nigger’ come out of their mouths. I pretty much ran into that.”

2:01 The 90’s opening.

02:50 “This Week in Joe’s Basement” by Joe Winston. A man-on-the-street interviewer asks African Americans what they think about white people. The first, a half black, half white University of Chicago student laughs at the fact that the interviewer assumed he was black. A second man explains his trouble respecting white people due to persisting racial inequalities.

04:13 “On the street in Los Angeles” A woman in Los Angeles comments on the impact the publicity surrounding the Rodney King beating will have on black children. “Which is the child going to be more afraid of — the cop or the crack dealer on the corner?”

04:36 More from “This Week in Joe’s Basement”. A black woman comments, “To me there’s nothing wrong with the white people. I love them just as I love the blacks.”

05:02 “Do Y’all Know How to Play Dixie?” by Lisa Guido / Starfish Productions. Members of the Ku Klux Klan enjoy a down home music jam with their families while chilling headlines of racial terrorism across the country from 1980-1989 appear at the bottom of the screen.

09:05 Excerpt from 1940’s Anti-German propaganda film. The film depicts a distinguished-looking professor addressing a class of young German students: “There is no scientific proof that there’s any correlation between a man’s racial characteristics and his native ability or character… We must judge each man as an individual…” As he relays this controversial information, soldiers burst into the room to remove him. As they approach, he remains defiant: “And remember that there is no master race. That is a scientific truth! Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying!”

10:15 “Helen Wray and Sammy” by Jeff Spitz. Helen Wray sings about America’s immigrant history to her great-grandson, Sammy: “Columbus discovered America in 1492 / Then came the Englishmen and the Dutch, the Frenchman and the Jew… Then came the Swede and the Irishman / who helped the country grow / They keep a’coming and everywhere you go… If you’re riding on the subway train / And find that there are no seats / You’ll find they are taken by the Argentines, the Portuguese and the Greeks…”

11:16 “La Conversacion” by Deep Dish TV. A phone call between Guillermo Gomez-Pena in San Diego and Coco Fusco in New York who talk about the societal concept of the American melting pot. “The problem is that the blacks, Latinos, and the Native Americans have never been part of this cooking project.”

12:34 “Mohawk Crises at Oka” by Robbie Leppzer & Sara Elinoff. In Kanehsatake, Quebec, the Mohawk Indians have resisted the government’s attempt to take away a part of their sacred burial ground in order to build a nine hole golf course… A spokeswoman for the tribe says: “This is a community. This is not a house under siege. This is a whole community… Canada has violated international law, yet they condemn Iraq for the invasion of Kuwait. What kind of hypocritical government do you people agree to live under?”… Rick Hornung of the Village Voice comments on the crisis and its outcome with accompanying pictures of the Mohawk surrender depicting the unnecessary brutality executed by the Canadian troops.

18:47 Excerpt from “American In-Justice” by Denis Mueller & Deb Ellis. In 1969 Malcolm X says: “In America, democracy is hypocrisy… If democracy means freedom, why aren’t our people free? If democracy means justice, why don’t we have justice?” In Oakland in 1968, Black Panthers march and chant, “I am a Revolutionary.”

19:38 “Gil Scott-Heron” by Skip Blumberg. Gil Scott-Heron explains the meaning of his famous saying: “What that catch phrase – ‘the revolution will not be televised’ – what that was all about: The first change that takes place is in your mind. Your have to change your mind before you change the way you live… The thing that is going to change people is something that you can never capture on film.”

20:57 “Rose Auger” by Robbie Leppzer. Rose Auger, a medicine woman living Ecuador, urges Aboriginal peoples of the Americas to restore the spiritual balance to the world. “The world is really messed up. If we do not begin to act on it, the we are all going to be destroyed. The people of the modern society… to me their spiritual God is money and power… That’s not the way we’re supposed to be.”

23:43 “Between Two Worlds: Hmong Shaman in America” by Taggart Siegel & Dwight Conquergood. This piece examines the situation of the Hmong community in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago and Milwaukee, WI. This group is among America’s most recent immigrants. The videomakers profile a few individual Hmong before showing a healing ritual for a severely premature baby, which involves the sacrifice of a cow.

28:14 “Prof. William King commentary” by Jimmy Sternfield. “Capitalism is predicated on the principle of exclusion. Democracy is predicated on the principle of inclusion. So you gotta decide which one. You can’t have both.”

29:08 “Drive Through Watts” by Jim Mulryan. In a pickup truck driving through the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, James Woods, an African American man, and Matthew Lang, a white man, discuss racism in America. According to Woods, “Racism in America is like a disease, like alcoholism.” He lists the stages of dealing with alcoholism, emphasizing the prevalence of denial, in order to imply that most Americans are racist yet do not realize it. He discusses the difficulties faced by young African-American men who are looking for jobs, insisting that a white man with the same qualifications will always be chosen over the black man. Lang does not believe that racism is as extreme a problem as Woods claims, instead attributing the rampant unemployment of African-American males to other issues, such as poor education.

32:08 “Prof. Rudolph Acuna commentary” by Nancy Cain. Prof. Rudolph Acuna of California State University at Northridge refers to the recent act by the U.S. Government of forgiving 70% of Poland’s debt. He claims that at the same time that the U.S. was being so generous to this European country, services for minorities within the U.S. were suffering. He finds this to be part of a larger system of injustice against minorities. “It’s a white on white game.”

32:44 “Manufacturing the Enemy” by Ludger Balant and Gulf Crisis TV Project. This piece attempts to explain the mechanisms by which the U.S. government dehumanizes a group of people in order to gain support for military campaigns against them.

34:35 “Dr. Joel Kovel commentary” by Johnnie Jones, John Schwartz. Kovel explains his view that racism is an underlying structural problem that cannot be addressed simply by changing public opinion: “Racism will not disappear until the institutional forces that support racism disappear.”

35:32 “Ethnic Notions” by Marlon Riggs. A piece examining a racist cartoon from 1941 that depicts shameful stereotypes of African Americans.

36:39 “Matty Rich” by Maxi Cohen. Filmmaker Matty Rich describes the importance of media representations in developing public opinion. He says the only white people he saw as a child growing up in the projects were on The Brady Bunch. Subsequently, he grew up thinking that white people had no problems. “TV has a big effect on a lot of people. TV controls a lot of people’s minds in the way they think about another class… For many years, black people have been portrayed as drug dealers and pimps. And people think this is what we’re really like… As a black filmmaker, you have to say something positive. You owe it to your community to say something worthwhile.”

38:48 Excerpt from “Straight out of Brooklyn” by Matty Rich. A scene from Matty Rich’s first feature film. A black couple argues about how to make it in America. “There is no wrong way out of here. Look over there. [Points to Manhattan skyline.] You see that? You think they did that the right way? Know how they did that? By stepping on the black man, by stepping on the black family…”

39:30 More from “Driving Through Watts.” Lang and Woods argue about the importance of names and political correctness. Lang: “I’m not going to call you African-American… It’s a pseudo-statement.” Woods replies, “I call you what you want to be called.” “Call me Baby Doll,” says Lang, to which Woods says, “Baby Doll, I don’t mind that at all.”

40:03 “Black Memorabilia Show” by Eddie Becker. A visit to a convention of black memorabilia collectors in Washington, D.C. Collectors debate the issue of whether painful representations of African Americans should be buried or saved as reminders of the past struggle. A black woman points to a collection of “colored” restroom signs and says, “We need to have these up in our home so our children know.”

42:28 “Framing the Panthers” by Chris Bratton, Annie Goldson. This piece examines the FBI campaign targeting the Black Panthers and black civil rights activists, dealing specifically with the struggle of Dhoruba Bin Wahad, a Black Panther who was imprisoned for 19 years before having his sentence overturned. From jail, Wahad explains the FBI ‘s method of influencing public opinion: “The first thing you have to do to oppress a people is to denigrate their humanity.” His interviews are intertwined with archival footage from FBI training films and footage of Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and social service programs run by the Black Pant hers. Huey Newton claims, “The police occupy our communities like a foreign troop occupying a territory.” We learn the history of Wahad’s arrest and court appeals, followed by his triumphant release from jail in 1990.

49:35 “Mandela in America” by Globalvision. Betty Shabazz (Malcolm X’ s wife) and Winnie Mandela (Nelson Mandela’s wife), talk about the legacy of Malcolm X.

50:24 “El Dorado Park, South Africa” by Andrew Jones. A piece about El Dorado Park, S.A., a “colored” township where blacks (and other ethnic minorities) were forced to live under apartheid. There are currently 300,000 residents. Jones interviews various “colored” individuals (who may be black, Indian, Chinese, or any combination), who describe the indignities of apartheid. One man points out the racial codes listed in every passport. “Black to us is not a skin color, it is a political position.” A black man concludes, “I have outgrown apartheid. I am a man. Period.”

54:43 “Fran and Tak” by Skip Blumberg. Fran Korenman talks about her mother’s reaction to her husband Takayoshi Yoshida. She says it was easier for her Jewish mother to deal with their interracial relationship when Tak demonstrated a minimal knowledge of Yiddish.

55:46 “Charles Cooke” by Jay April. Charles Cooke, a Chumash Indian Chief, is asked about his feelings about involving whites in his struggles for Native American rights. He replies, “You have to have the camaraderie, that fellowship, that brotherhood. That creates this type of thing where people have to come together.”

57:04 Contact information for The 90’s, then Gil Scott-Heron’s song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” plays while footage of protesters are shown under the credits.

58:43 End of tape.

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Episode 307: Video Kids (2am, 10am, 6pm CDT)

Episode 307 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Video Kids” and features the following segments:

00:20 Cold open with Jade Carroll. “TV woos you in – you watch it and sometimes you become a TV addict!”

01:13 “Martha Dewing” by Skip Blumberg. Martha Dewing, editor of “Children’s Video Report,” cites some frightening statistics on the prevalence of TV in children’s lives. She says that parents don’t want their children to be exposed to violence on television, but it happens through ignorance.

02:33 Except from “Where the Wild Things Are” by The Maurice Sendak Library, C.C. Studios. From “Choosing the Best in Children’s Video” by Joshua Greene. Animated version of the children’s book.

03:17 “Jade Carroll and Molly Kovel” by Dee Dee Halleck. Jade and Molly, two young girls, review the findings of a “Weekly Reader” survey of 5th and 6th graders. This survey cla ims alarming levels of television viewing amongst children in this age category, including the fact that 23% call themselves TV addicts. However, the girls proudly proclaim themselves to be above this trend. As for Jade: “I’ve gone months without watching TV.”

05:51 “Media Class” by Appalshop and Suzie Wehling. A survey of the communications program at Whitesburg High School in Kentucky. Despite being located in one of the poorest counties in America, they have a newspaper, a weekly radio show and a video class. One girl comments as she puts the paper together: “The reason people put what we do down is because we’re doing stuff better than what they’re doing. They’re kind of amazed we got the skills to do that.”

10:15 “Rockin’ Robin” by Robbie Leppzer. In Holyoke, Massachusetts, four girls sing and perform “Rockin’ Robin.”

11:10 “Steve Delvecchio” by Joshua Greene. From “Choosing the Best in Children’s Video.” Steve Delvecchio, a children’s librarian in New York says, “The problem is not that they don’t watch enough video, but the problem is they’re not involved enough in books… The parents probably care, but they’re not around enough to enforce control.”

11:48 “Beauty and the Beast” by Hi-Tops Video/Lightyear Entertainment. From “Choosing the Best in Children’s Video.” A glimpse of an animated version of “Beauty and the Beast.”

12:08 “Michael Sporn” by Joshua Greene. From “Choosing the Best in Children’s Video.” Producer and director Michael Spoon says, “Cartoons shouldn’t talk down to kids. Smurfs are Smurfs and I guess they’re supposed to be appreciated. But I think they’re what adults think children want to see.”

12:48 “Ariana” by Skip Blumberg. Two little girls are asked what tape they’d like to rent at the video store if they could rent anything. The girls want to see “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover” because it is NC-17 and they want to know what adult movies are all about. The girls think that adults are trying to hide funny parts and scary parts from them and that children are missing out on these funny things.

14:43 “Quartet Allegro” by Jacqueline Kinney. A quartet of teenagers performs Pachebel’s “Canon.”

15:48 “Philip Morris Protest” by Skip Blumberg. Skip Blumberg talks to the security manager (who is smoking a pipe!) at the Philip Morris headquarters in New York about getting an interview, but he is denied on the grounds that he has no press credentials. A group of protesters surround the headquarters. Their grievances include the way Philip Morris targets children and they demand a stop to advertising near schools and playgrounds. Children make up a large portion of those protesters. Anti-smoking activist Rev. Calvin O. Butts attempts to lead a coalition that includes Chicago community activist and Catholic priest Fr. Michael Pfleger to speak with the heads of the company. They are denied. Butts promises to return and take over the building.

23:51 “Erica Becker” by Eddie Becker. Erika discusses the issue of teen smoking with her father. She says, “Kids do things that are bad because their parents don’t let them do stuff… I have friends who are smoking because their parents don’t want them to smoke.” Her dad counters, ” So you’re saying you don’t smoke because your parents encouraged you to smoke?” She replies, “No, but they say, ‘It’s your life. You can ruin it if you want to.’ “

24:44 “Mixed Messages” by Kathy Brew. An experimental piece examining the messages that the media sends to girls and women. Opens with “Que Sera Sera” over archival footage depicting stereotypical images of femininity. The rest of the piece is a dreamy, reflective meditation on the power of images.

28:26 More from “Martha Dewing.” “We have to remember as adults that the kids are experiencing things now – they don’t have any point of reference from three years ago, ten years ago – they’re watching TV!”

28:46 “Copeira” by Bart Friedman. Scenes from a class of young people learning the acrobatic martial art of Copeira in Salvador, Brazil.

30:28 “Dr. Melanie Tarvalon” by Starr Sutherland. Dr. Melanie Tarvalon, a pediatrician, says that black youths between 15-25 have a better chance of being killed than graduating from an institute of higher learning. “There’s nothing connected with color that makes African-American youth engage in violent behavior… This is a society that has violence everywhere you turn… I think its a mistake to blame African American youth for the violence that occurs in our communities.”

32:13 “Sean Parker” by Fred Bridges. Ex-gang member Sean Parker warns a group of students against getting involved in gangs: “Gang banging will take you further than you want to go, make you spend more than you want to pay, and keep you longer than you want to stay. Gang bangers don’t live to become administrators or doctors and they don’t live to become lawyers and judges. They live to become prisoners… or you will find them in the grave…”

35:00 “Schooled Down Home” by Teresa Tucker-Davies. Piney Woods Academy in Mississippi orchestrates a program that brings down kids from Chicago housing projects to live in a safer environment. Philip Woods, a student in the program says, “Everybody should get an opportunity to go down there and get a taste of that atmosphere down there… I thought I’d have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life [to make sure that there was no one behind me].”

38:57 “Backyard Home Schooling” by Ben Swets. A woman talks about her reasons for deciding to school her children at home, emphasizing love and human experience over strict traditional learning. She teaches other children besides her own and claims to have had success with children who were being left behind in the public school system. The kids agree that there are benefits to being schooled in such a customizable setting, which allows them to work at their own pace and reduces pressure to conform to other students’ learning styles. They emphasize that they do not move on until the student fully grasps the material instead of just having briefly memorized enough information to pass a test.

44:12 “Peter Bloch” by Maxi Cohen. Peter Bloch demonstrates a Compact Disc Interactive (CDI) program which he helped design as a computer tool for children’s education. He feels that kids interact best with learning tools that replicate video games.

47:11 “Irian Jaya” by Mary Lou Witz. Kids in Irian Jaya, Indonesia scramble after a yellow balloon.

47:30 “Betty Aberlin” by Skip Blumberg. Aberlin from “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood ” claims her success in children’s programming is due to her arrested state of mental development, claiming she functions better in “make believe” than in reality.

47:48 “Cheers Kids” by Skip Blumberg. In Brooklyn, a troupe of young girls perform a rhythmic cheer: “Hey Champions, ready for the first beat? Pick it up and bring back down…”

49:14 “Capital Children’s Museum” by Eddie Becker. In Washington D.C., we visit the animation lab at the Capital Children’s Museum. Kids prepare the animated explosion of New York: “It’ll be funny to look at New York sink” … Chris Grotke talks about 5-year-old David Cook’s piece, “The New Exciting Galaxy of Space Dog and Space Kid” from which some excerpts are shown.

53:06 “Boy with a Microphone” by Bill Stamets. Shelton, Washington. A little boy with a microphone wanders around, interviewing residents of a farm. He comes across some pigs and asks, “What do you explain?” The pigs oink, to which he replies, “Pigs, they don’t explain anything. They’re just pigs.” He then tells the pigs to shut up when their oinking interrupts his investigation of a toy box.

54:29 “Peggy Charren” by Joshua Greene. From “Choosing the Best in Children’s Video.” Peggy Charren of “Action for Children’s TV” says, “In my wonderful future children’s world, children’s television will be as diverse as the material in a good children’s library…”

55:08 An excerpt from “The Mouse and the Motorcycle” by Churchill Film. From “Choosing the Best in Children’s Video.” A live action version of the book featuring a mouse on a motorcycle who entertains a boy in bed.

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Episode 308: The Anti-War Tapes (3am, 11am, 7pm CDT)

Episode 308 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “The Anti-War Tapes” and features the following segments:

00:39 Cold open in which the Edwin Starr song, “War,” plays as a soldier points out a bullet hole in a helmet, then throws it into a creek.

01:55 “Piece of Mind” by Atriom Productions. Videomakers travel across the country attempting to capture the opinions of the nation as the U.N. deadline for Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait approaches. In San Francisco: “They [Congress] will delay allowing Bush to go to war”…”It’s time for every able-bodied citizen to fight”. In Reno: “I’ve killed. I’ve killed in ‘Nam…I saw no use in it…According to the military, you’re expendable”. In Salt Lake City: “I don’t think we needed it. We just didn’t need it [she cries]…The oil companies are the only ones who are going to profit. Are you going to profit?” In Wyoming: “Maybe it’s time to show the rest of the world what we’ve got and what we can do.” In Chicago: “I don’t trust the government. George Bush is a CIA man. Why should I believe what he tells me?” In D.C.: “This propaganda machine in the U.S. is equal to that in Iraq” …”George Bush has put me in the position that what I believe is considered out of the realm of possibility.”

10:45 “Inside Iraq” by John Alpert, Maryann DeLeo. Prior to the ground campaign in Iraq in early February 1991, John Alpert and Maryann DeLeo were the only American television crew in Iraq other than CNN. This footage was smuggled out of Iraq and not screened by Iraqi censors. The president of NBC would not allow it to be shown and declared that Alpert, a reporter who had a 14-year history with NBC news, would not have his tapes on NBC again. This airing represents its national broadcast debut. The footage reveals the effects of the war on the civilian population. We see demolished homes and businesses, casualties, injuries, pain, and outrage.

16:53 “War Essay” by Andrew Jones. An impressionistic view of war shot in Iraq and Jordan shortly after the end of the air and land war. We see images of demonstrations, the dead and wounded, the mourning, and the outraged.

22:41 “Trident Submarine Demonstration” by Jay April. In 1979, protesters demonstrate against the maiden launch of a Trident Nuclear Submarine, confronting those attending the gala event. When asked why we need this type of weapon, a woman attending the launch replies, “What do we need it for? To scare everybody else!” The videomaker responds, “What if it’s used?” and hears, “So what?”

24:38 “Dr. Blase Bonpane” by Nancy Cain and Jody Procter. Dr. Blase Bonpane, organizer for peace, comments: “Those who revere the past never repeat the past…People come along like the Bush-Baker twins. There is no reverence for the past. There is a profound ignorance…Empire never learns…Because you work from power, you cannot learn…”

26:37 “Straight Talk” by Robbie Leppzer. A documentary about Vietnam Veterans who are trying to counteract glamorous images of war put out by the military. This group goes to high schools in Massachusetts and tells true war stories of horror and suffering to the segment of the population most actively recruited by the military. “The military is not restricted by the truth and we are.” Al Miller: “I’m often at tears or close to tears when I talk about these things, and that’s not part of the masculine myth, is it? Rambo don’t do that shit. But it’s okay with who I am and who I want to be.” Thom Masterson: “History is not about the great leaders. It’s about the little people who suffer the consequences. Something has to be done to counter that image of war being something that’s a glorious endeavor. It’s not. It’s just a waste.”

34:48 “Ecofeminist” by Eddie Becker. At an antiwar demonstration in Washington D.C. on January 19,1991, a woman says: “Patriarchal state male-identified systems of ruling are constantly at war. That’s their basis. They’re violence prone. That’s why we have to more towards women-oriented, women-identified ways of dealing with people. Men are violence prone. Not inherently, but that’s the way it is now. They cannot stop fighting. That’s the way they resolve their conflicts and that is out of date. It’s passé. It’s gotta go.”

35:29 “Dear President Bush” by Herman J. Engel. A video letter sent to President George Bush in October 1990 by Alex Molnar, whose son was sent to serve in the Persian Gulf. “I kissed my son goodbye today”…”Where were you when Iraq was poisoning its own people with poisonous gas?”…”Is the American way of life, which you say my son is risking his life for, the right of all Americans to consume 25-30% of the Earth’s oil?”…”If, as I fear, you eventually order American forces to attack Iraq, it is God who will have to forgive you. I will not.” Christopher Molnar returned to the United States safely in March 1991. He has two years left to serve.

40:19 “Post No Bills” by Clay Walker and Marianne Dissard. A guerrilla poster brigade plasters Washington D.C. with posters depicting Dan Quayle coming out of George Bush’s head like a tumor. The text says, “Plan Ahead” in scrunched up letters. The piece opens with the audio of a classic Dan Quayle quote, “What a waste it is to lose one’s mind or not to have a mind is being very wasteful.”

42:34 “Ernesto Cardenal” by Nancy Cain, Jody Procter. Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal comments: “The president of the United States is not only the president of the United States, but he’s king of the United States, emperor, which means he also governs countries outside of his own nation.”

43:00 Excerpt from the documentary “Wintersoldier” by 20-20 Production (Home Video). A Vietnam veteran speaks candidly about his experience in the war. “They dehumanize you so much that the enemy is no longer a human being who has a wife and a child. He just becomes the enemy…When it comes right down to it, it’s not a man, it’s a target…I had to justify it some way because I was doing it. Then all of a sudden I realized, ‘No, there is no justification.’ What I’ve done is wrong, and I have to admit what I’ve done is wrong, and I have to tell other people before they make the same mistakes that I did.”

44:33 “War Essay” by Andrew Jones. Roving correspondent Andrew Jones recounts his first war experience, which occurred at the Burma – Thailand border while following revolutionaries fighting for democracy.

50:53 More from “Dr. Blase Bonpane.” “We have to deal with the ideology of militarianism… If it’s militarist, it’s anti-democratic. You have heard the President and the people who are with him speak of ‘kicking ass.’ This is hardly a democratic metaphor. I think they’d be happy to kick anybody’s ass as long as they disagreed with them.”

52:01 “Rosa Guillen” by Karen Ranucci. In Lima, Peru, Rosa Guillen says, “As feminists and Latin Americans, we are very afraid of the possibilities of war. We worry about people’s lives. As Latin Americans, we are afraid of this triumph of war. We never agreed with Kuwait’s invasion. The response of the United States with such forceful war is an answer that does not fit into a civilized world.”

53:15 “Third World USA” by Tony Avalos for Gulf Crisis TV Project. This film depicts the U.S. inner-city environment as comparable to that of a Third World country. A girl in New York’s East Village fetches water for her family from a hydrant.

54:33 “Allen Ginsberg” by John Schwartz. Poet Allen Ginsberg says, “What have we done and how are we going to make up for it? Hasn’t this been the end of the American century? Hasn’t this been the termination of the great experiment of American democracy? Hasn’t this been the flowering of Eisenhower’s prophecy that we should beware of the military industrial complex? Now it’s the military petrochemical atomic energy complex and it’s almost unbeatable.”

56:22 End credits.

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Episode 309: The Streets: Music And People (4am, 12pm, 8pm CDT)

Episode 309 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “The Streets: Music And People” and features the following segments:

00:55 Cold open: pigeons.

01:39 The 90’s opening.

02:19 “Downtown” by Mo Murphy. Mo Murphy sings the classic tune “Downtown” (with ’80s-style backing music) against a backdrop of drunks, bums, rats, hookers, trash, porno halls and drugs. “Downtown… Everything’s waiting for you.”

04:26 “Polka Dots” by Skip Blumberg. A delivery man loads polka dot dresses into his van via a cord that slides them down from a 5th floor window to the street. Skip asks the man what’s new in this year’s fashions. He replies, “Polka dots, a lot of Chiffon.” Skip retorts, “Yeah, that’s your company, but when you’re driving around on the streets, what are women wearing?” He says, “A lot of tights and tights with polka dots.”

05:17 “Shell Game” by Skip Blumberg. On the streets of New York, a con man runs a betting game.

05:39 “Earring Man” by Skip Blumberg. A jewelry store security guard sports a collection of studded earrings along the cartilage of his ear. “I guess you get a discount on earrings,” Skip says.

05:58 More “Downtown” music video by Mo Murphy.

06:49 “Across From City Hall” by Carla Leshne / Mission Creek Video. In San Francisco, Food Not Bombs attempted to open a free food line for homeless people, but the city shut them down for health violations and lack of a permit. We see various interviews with homeless people and activists. “What they’re saying is, you can eat out of a dumpster, but you can’t eat home-cooked food.” At a rally the homeless chant, “We’re tired; we’re hungry; we don’t like the government!” “How can they say you need a permit to help people who are hungry? ” “We have to change this value system so that human needs come first.”

10:50 “Robert Byrd” by Jim Mulryan. Robert Byrd, a homeless man, suggests that in order to deal with the problems of the homeless, everyone should take ten minutes out of his or her day to write a letter to the President. He then lists talking points for a sample letter.

12:43 “What Memphis Needs” by Alexis Krasilovsky. Poem over images of Memphis. “Memphis needs the National Guard gagging the media/Memphis needs more lady bugs in its magnolia trees… Memphis needs to have a wet dream.”

16:13 “Zimbabwe Homeless” by Andrew Jones. In Harare, Zimbabwe, videomaker Andrew Jones interviews Richard Raubenheimer, a white homeless man. When Jones expresses confusion about the number of white homeless men on the streets in Harare, Raubenheimer explains that most of these men are former Rhodesian soldiers. He says that many of these men face racism from black managers and are unable to find jobs, or are simply disinterested in working. In conclusion, Jones asks, “What’s special about being on the streets of Harare?” “Nothing. Nothing’s special.”

17:17 “The Old Balladeer” by Jim Passin. In London, an old man sings “The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen” as he accompanies himself with accordion. The music plays over time lapse city images.

19:22 “The Wastebasket” by Skip Blumberg. Fred Kent of Project for Public Space, discusses the surprising ways that people utilize the space around a wastebasket on a busy street corner in New York through the use of time lapse film.

21:06 “Fresh Fish” by Skip Blumberg. Skip Blumberg goes to the market to check out the fish. He asks which fish is the freshest, and the vendor points to a box full of live, squirming catfish. “That’s pretty fresh!” says Skip.

21:40 “Smogophobia” by Maxi Cohen. Maxi Cohen goes to a health food store to find out what kinds of remedies are available to counteract the negative effects of Los Angeles smog.

23:04 “What’s That Smell?” by Skip Blumberg. Doug Skinner sings and plays ukulele on a song called “What’s That Smell?,” a jokey sort of song about bad smells. “It’s so abrasive and is so pervasive that you don’t feel well…”

25:33 “Times Square, 1991” by Esti Marpet. The sights and sounds of Times Square. John Tumelty of the NYPD likens the West Side to a good ham sandwich. Prof. Vernon Boggs of City University tells us how to spot an undercover cop car. Prof. William Kornblum of City University says nothing pays as well as pornography and points out the Show World Center – “a department store of pornography.” A chess match leads to an argument.

27:42 “Third Avenue: Only the Strong Survive” by Downtown Community TV. A male prostitute points out little kids hustling around Times Square. A young boy under 10 years old says he’s “trying to make some money… look for some homos… When I was seven, I came here. I needed some money. I found someone, so I went with him.”

29:14 “Art Pushes, Art Provokes” by Pedro Carvajal. A guerrilla art group covers alcohol and tobacco billboards in New York with their own PSAs. Among them include: “McDonald’s: Better Living Through Chemistry,” “Censorship is Good Because *********,” and “AIDS: It’s Not Just for Gays Anymore.”

31:39 “Woman Walking” by Skip Blumberg. A woman walking down the street talks about how a woman should protect herself when walking on New York City streets. “If you take precautions you’re ok.”

32:37 “Womanaware” by Skip Blumberg. A self-empowerment workshop teaches women how to defend themselves on the New York streets. In a staged confrontation, a woman plants her cowboy boots into her attacker’s face. She then credits Womanaware for giving her self-confidence and teaching her to read the street. “If you can run – run,” she advises.

33:48 Excerpt from “Overnight Man” by Tom Weinberg. In footage from 1978, all-night Chicago street reporter Joe Cummings phones in a mysterious death that occurred on the subway: “The man is 25 to 40, fully clothed and… dead.”

35:00 “Chicago Musicians” by Kathie Robertson. Various street musicians perform on subway platforms in Chicago. A tap dancer dances to “Nobody Cares About Me.” Nicholas Barron sings his original tune “I Wish I Was a Bird” and comments on the importance of street performance as a means to develop as an artist. In the meantime, the Chicago Transit Authority tries to ban street performers.

38:27 “Project Troubadour” by Stuart Leigh. A group of American musicians and dancers travel to Brazil to entertain rural villages in the troubadour tradition, which involves bringing messages and stories through song from town to town. They discuss the importance of reviving this tradition. “After a performance, we feel bonded with the people.” On “The Day of the King’s Festival” one participant reacts, “I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t feel I had to understand it because I could feel it.”

42:44 “Todd Alcott” by Skip Blumberg. The 90’s regular, Todd Alcott, rants about his paranoid fantasies and inability to interact with society: “I’ve had enough. Some times when I see people on the street, they’ll follow salutations with ‘How are you?’ I don’t know how to respond to this. I usually get all goggle-eyed and say ‘I’m here!’ They usually take this as a smart remark, a cutting barb, an anti-social jibe. I don’t know what they want me to say. I am there, after all… I’m already interacting like crazy… Sometimes when I walk by an iron fence with spikes on top, I’m always afraid I’m going to trip and impale my head on the spikes… I’m afraid of the subway trains… I can’t remember the name of the place that I work… I am embarrassed. I am unhappy.”

45:14 “Times Beach” by Bruce Lixey. A documentary about Times Beach, MO. From 1972 to 1973 the city contracted Russell Bliss to spray the roads with an oil-based formula to keep the dust down. In addition to oil, the spray also had dioxin in it, the mos t toxic chemical known to man. The town has since been closed down and purchased by the U.S. government. An ex-resident points out some of the sites of the town, which have since been overcome with weeds. The government knew about the contamination, but the EPA waited until 1982 to test for it. The woman pulls out photographs of her family. Her 18-year-old grandson is deaf, her granddaughter has leukemia and all of her female children have “female problems” In 1992, the government plans to incinerate the town and turn it into a recreational park.

51:01 “Baby Stroller” by Skip Blumberg. Danica Kombol demonstrates the trials of using a baby stroller on the streets of New York.

53:07 “One Man Band” by Nancy Cain. In Venice Beach, Cedric Stokes plays the saxophone and drums at the same time.

53:42 “Blind Walk” by Skip Blumberg. Lilly Barry, a blind woman, talks about the problems she faces getting around New York. At a street corner, Skip says, “Should we go?” and starts her walking across the street. Just in time, he realizes, “I guess we shouldn’t. It’s blinking ‘Don’t Walk.’ That was so stupid on my part.”

55:04 “Betty Aberlin” by Skip Blumberg. In New York, Betty Aberlin points out metal armrests which the city has installed on park benches to keep the homeless from sleeping on them. She deadpans that they couldn’t sleep there unless “they were extremely thin.”

53:36 “Federal Express” by Skip Blumberg. Skip walks to Federal Express office and sends some tapes to “The 90’s.”

56:37 The 90’s Mailbag segment with Joe Cummings.

57:00 End Credits.

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Episode 310: Prisoners: Rights and Wrongs (5am, 1pm, 9pm CDT)

Episode 310 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Rights and Wrongs” and  features the following segments:

00:21 Cold open: A man describes the effects of incarceration: “Every time you go back out and come back in, it takes a piece of your mind with you.”

00:39 The 90’s opening.

01:24 “Norval Morris” by Kathie Robertson. University of Chicago law professor and criminologist, Norval Morris, comments on the disproportionately high incarceration rate in the United States and the implications that has about racial equality. He notes that England has about 98 prisoners per 100,000 people; Canada has 107 and the US has 426 – almost 4 times as many! He also points out that there are more blacks in prison in the US than there are in South Africa.

1:55 “22 Cents An Hour” by Kiro-TV / Jesse Wineberry and Michael King. From Walla Walla State Penitentiary where he is serving a life sentence for murder, Alvin Paul Mitchell describes his incentives for joining a gang at ten years old. Tormented daily by gang members, he decided he had to join one of them for protection, rather than continue getting beaten up every time he went outside. His initiation consisted of killing a person of his choice, gang member or not.

05:01 “Professor William King” by Jimmy Sternfield. The University of Colorado professor says, “When there are 23,000 murders in this country a year, it is time to reconceptualize murder as a public health issue, rather than a criminal issue. Treating it as a criminal issue puts us in the position of always RE-acting when there are murders.” King feels that if we were to look at the issue as one of public health, we would be able to treat the systematic problems that lead to murders and thus prevent them, rather than simply punishing the end result of those systems .

06:45 “Nevada State Prison” by John Slagle. An inmate discusses the ways he feels that the criminal justice system goes wrong. In his opinion, most prisoners are in jail because they weren’t reached at a young age and set on the right track. Instead, the system just waits until they commit a crime. “These penitentiaries were built because those people out there were not doing their job when we were comin’ up… There’s a lot of people here that can’t read or write – 33 years old and can’t read or write! Whose fault is that?” The community needs to grab kids off the street and give them something to believe in.

08:18 “Project Inside Out” by Steven Ivcich and Fred Marx. An intimate look at a therapeutic workshop at Chicago’s Cook County Jail. A group of prisoners describe the issues they struggle with in prison, such as pain, loneliness, regret, etc. in front of a large audience of inmates. Afterwards, they conduct a symbolic ceremony where they write down these problems on pieces of paper and deposit them in a large pot. This vessel is set afire, in a gesture showing the participants are letting go of these painful feelings.

11:57 “Clarence Lusane” by Eddie Becker. The author of “Pipe Dream Blues” says, “The incarceration of young black people has reached such high proportions that we are witnessing an entire generation wiped out.” Lusane compares the situation in the U.S. to other countries that have been criticized for human rights abuses. Despite our feeling of m oral superiority, we actually have higher incarceration rates than these countries. He suggests that this indicates that America is using jail in the place of social services.

13:14 “Giang Ho: Crazy Life” by Ahrin Mishan and Nick Rothenberg. Black and white fictional film. A young Vietnamese man describes his experience immigrating to the United States as a teenager. Soon after his arrival, it became apparent to him that white Americans were not accepting him. He joined a gang for protection and landed in prison. He recounts his regrets in voice over as relevant images show on the screen. “I have to listen to the same stupid shit day after day after day.”

14:52 “It’s About Time” by Joe Balter. An impressionistic view of life in prison set to Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine.”

16:33 “Barbra Franklin” by Jeanne Finley. Barbara Franklin, a prisoner at Carson City, NV for the last ten years, describes how she ended up in prison and her trouble adjusting to life in an institution. “I had a hard time with the establishment… the cops.” She was able to make it through that rough time because of the kindness of her fellow inmates, who have since become close friends. “These women took care of me like maybe nobody did before… It’s sad you have to come here to feel that kind of love.” She is scheduled to be released soon, and is very apprehensive about losing the relationships she has forged over the last ten years. “Some of my friends, they’re doin’ life… I don’t have any friends out there.” She reads a poem she wrote for her friends in prison called “How do I leave my sisters?”

20:46 “Alexa Freeman commentary” by Eddie Becker. Freeman, an attorney with the ACLU, says that the majority of women in prison don’t need to be there. “I think our policy of incarceration is insane. As a result of this policy we’re training people to do nothing except go back to the same pattern.” Speaking candidly, she admits that the only solution in her mind is social and economic revolution, which will put women on equal grounds with men.

21:45 “Mumia Abu Jamal” by John Schwartz, Annie Goldson, Chris Bratton and Lamar Williams. An investigation into the incarceration of Black Panther co-founder Mumia Abu Jamal. Jamal was convicted of killing two policemen during a 1968 demonstration in South Philadelphia protesting a visit by Alabama Governor George Wallace. Despite his conviction, many people feel that Jamal was the victim of a corrupt judicial system. An attorney for the Partisan Defense Committee says there is no physical evidence tying Jamal to the crime. “His case is symbolic of the race bias and the class bias that is inherent in the judicial system.”

25:24 “Super Maximum Security” by Bob Hercules and Rich Pooler. A visit to Marion Federal Prison in Marion, Illinois. Warden John C. Clark explains that Marion Prison helps to preserve order in the rest of t he prison system by taking the most disruptive inmates from other prisons and holding them under tight security. In contrast, the inmates interviewed seem quite benign and mostly complain about oppressive boredom and a feeling of uselessness. One inmate says, “It’s not what it used to be – the types of prisoners have changed, they say it’s dangerous – how many have tried to escape? I’d say the biggest thing about this place is the reputation – real overrated.” Despite the warden’s claims that they have no political prisoners at Marion, all of the men interviewed claim to be in this high security prison because of political activities.

30:58 “The New Lake County Jail” by Jim McCarthy and Steve Martini. A peek at the new Lake County Jail. While on kitchen duty making french fries, an inmate says he likes the new prison better because the guards are more in control. “If you respect the guards, they respect you back.” This makes the prison safer and less hostile, compared to the old prison, where the inmates were in control. At the old Lake County Jail, a guard gives us a tour of the empty cells. He tells of one inmate who was so dangerous, he had to have his food pushed in to his cell from far away so he wouldn’t attack the guard through the bars.

33:13 “Jeanne McKinnis” by Jeanne Finley. McKinnis, a female inmate at Carson City, NV, gives a tour of the “kitchen, vanity, and bathroom area” of her shared cell. Unlike stereotypical male jail cells, hers looks like a regular woman’s bedroom, filled with accessories and photographs. She shows us how she’s learned to cook all sorts of meals in one hot pot. “When I get out, I no longer need a stove… I can cook a pot roast in here!”

34:38 More from Norval Morris. The University of Chicago criminologist says any intelligent citizen, given a map of their city, can easily point out the high crime areas. “It isn’t that we don’t know – we do know. It’s what to do about it.” We need to work on health, welfare, unemployment, etc, in these areas in order to reduce crime. “It’s not an excuse for people committing a crime; I just think we need a reasonable assessment of what the problem is.”

36:01 “We Love You Eric” by Kathie Robertson. Young black males incarcerated in Cook County Jail attending a special class led by Chuck Rankin, a teacher at the prison. He urges the inmates to “have purpose in [their] lives.” One inmate, Eric, says he was wild. The group circle around Eric and tell him “you can make it; be positive; we love you Eric; we love you brother.”

41:03 “Jefftown” by Missouri Department of Corrections. Inmates in a Jefferson City, Missouri prison learn how to use a camera, sound and editing equipment to make TV for other inmates. Members of the video crew say they feel like a family, all living and working together. Some of the “viewer inmates” say “TV is my life support system… without TV I don’t think I can maintain my sanity” and “I can go around the world in my cell through TV.”

44:39 More from “Norval Morris.” Morris tells us that while the crime rate has remained stable for the past decade, incarceration rates have doubled.

45:21 “John Daleb” by Candid Video / Garth Bacon. 21-year-old ex-inmate says its time to grow up and lead a better life. He started working for the town and got himself a house. He says, “I’ve done something for myself since I’ve been out these past four months. “He feels prison is non-rehabilitative, violates constitutional rights and describes the way “life prisoners” are put together with prisoners just waiting to be transferred to other states.  “Do you think they care what they’re doing to you? They’re doing life… What does it matter to them?”

48:56 More from “Alexa Freeman.” ACLU attorney says whatever gains were made to make prisons in the ’70s and ’80s in line with constitutional provisions have been eroded by the overcrowding problem. “The public is willing to give the money to build prisons but not for rehabilitation of prisoners… incarceration is not effective in stopping crime.”

49:46 “Prison Art” by Stephen Tyler and Neil Alexander. Sheriff Charles Foti of Orleans Parish and his art program for prisoners. The inmates beautify the city with their murals. one in particular on the Vietnam War. He describes the program as “symbolic restitution… attempting to give something back to the community so the community feels more at peace.”

53:16 More from “Super Maximum Security.” Oscar Lopez Rivera, prisoner at Marion for seditious conspiracy to overthrow the governments of the US and Puerto Rico, says the prison system in this country is very difficult to understand unless you are in it. “The level of dehumanization is great and getting worse. Prisoners are not given the tools to be productive in society once they are out.”

55:21 “Inside a Cell” by Bob Hercules. Prisoners’ eye view of a cell in Marion. The doors open to let the cameraman out.

56:27 End Credits.

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Episode 401: Taking Chances (6am, 2pm, 10pm CDT)

Episode 401 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Taking Chances” and features the following segments:

01:36 “Bungee Jump” by Patrick Creadon and Randy Jaffe. Patrick Creadon prepares to bungee jump from a crane. he has a camera taped to his hand to capture the moment in all its glory. “It’s not that dangerous, is it?” Pat asks. “You’re gonna be just fine,” replies the jumping aid… And he is, despite a slight “drunk” feeling.

07:16 “Lilly Barry” by Skip Blumberg. Lilly Barry, a blind woman, talks about the perils of negotiating New York’s streets. She says the best way a sighted person can help her is to “just ask me if I need assistance.”

08:56 “Lane Sarasohn” by Nancy Cain. Lane Sarasohn, a lottery player, picks the following numbers: years he has lived in home, his daughter’s age, his son’s age, years married, wife’s age and his age. He partakes in this ritual as “insurance against a lifetime of self incrimination.” Nancy asks, “Is it taking a chance to buy it or not to buy it?” “It’d be courting disaster not to buy it,” he replies.

10:03 “Visa Lottery” by Nancy Cain, Eddie Becker, Miguel Kohan and Fabian Wagmister. A look at the chaos surrounding the visa lottery. Attorney Vera A. Weisz helps describe how the lottery works. A post office box in Arlington, Virginia, handles the millions of applications, which they accept for one week. Of the 19 million applications received, 40,000 will get a permanent visa, 16,000 of these must be of Irish descent… Applicants discuss their strategies. Sending in 400 applications is not uncommon. Eddie Becker encounters an Argentinean camera crew. They say “The 90’s” is one of their favorite channels. Eddie suggests that they submit a tape. They happened to have shot tape of the riot that ensued at the post office the previous night, which is shown here. The masses surge toward the mail bins, their future determined by the bin they get their application in… A screen roll indicates that both the Senate and the House are working on an improved process. Meanwhile, the US Post Office grossed $5.51 million from this year’s lottery.

17:47 “We Play For Tips” by Esti Galili Marpet. On the streets in New Orleans, Doreen’s Jazz Band belts out the classic “Down in New Orleans.”

18:46 “72 Stories Up” by Nancy Cain and Hector Garcia. A window washer cleans pollution’s residue off a Los Angeles skyscraper. On the smog, he says, “It’s kind of unsightly, but it’s also home.”

21:58 “Breathing in L.A.” by Aron Ranen. Aron Ranen visits a Los Angeles air quality control maintenance station. They have a machine that filters the air at the same rate of the human lungs. John Quigley, the caretaker of the station, displays a black filter, which had been white just 24 hours earlier. “The air is getting better,” he says without a hint of sarcasm. At the Dublin Fundamental Magnet School, members of a sixth grade class comment on their troubles breathing in Los Angeles: “It hurts. Real bad.” A bunch of the kids display their asthma inhalers.

29:05 “Tovey Halleck” by Skip Blumberg. In New York: Skip Blumberg “burns some tape” on his way to see Tovey Halleck, an artist. “I guess every time I go out shooting I’m taking a chance. Who knows what I’m going to find?” ponders Skip. Tovey takes Skip to his “studio,” an outdoor sculpture/shed, where he forges iron into art. Skip asks him if he was taking a chance by his career choice. “I think some people aren’t cut out for it. Some people have to learn in a hands-on way,” he replies. “From the outside looking in, some people would say you’re taking a chance,” says Skip.

34:22 “Fire Dance” by Judith Binder. In Bali, Indonesia, natives chant around a fire.

35:25 More from “Lane Sarasohn”. Lane Sarasohn, the lottery player, says, “I saw a guy on a PBS documentary who said, ‘Look, this is America. You can win the lottery and tomorrow be a millionaire.’ That’s not the American Dream. The American Dream is a house, a car, two kids and a dog. Now the American Dream is never having to worry about money again.”

35:29 “Bingo: You Betcha” by Suzi Wehling. In Cleveland: Sandy Collins gives a tour of a temple/bingo hall. She introduces us to the staff and various players. Tom Marzella says that bingo is the fourth largest form of gambling in the U.S

41:46 “Pat Arbor” by Tom Weinberg and Patrick Creadon. Pat Arbor, a soybean trader at the Chicago Board of Trade, says, “The risks we underwrite are different than the risks of a bingo parlor or Las Vegas. You don’t have to turn a card, you don’t have to roll a dice. The farmer, however, does have to plant the grain, because we have to eat. As soon as the farmer plants the grain a risk is created. All we do at the Chicago Board is underwrite that risk. We do not create that risk, the risk is already created.”

42:37 “From the Horses Mouth” by Jay April. A trip to the race track yields a collection of gamblers talking about the topic they know best. “What’s the biggest chance you ever took in life?” asks Jay. The man responds, “Getting married.”

46:02 “Simian Sapien” by Ben Arie Swets. Ben Swets straddles a rope that is strung up between some trees. Voiceover: “From my earliest memory I always identified myself as a monkey… I’m 33. I always enjoy climbing as much as I can… When you’re climbing trees, you’re climbing something very tall, very embracing, very nurturing.” Meanwhile he rips branches from this majestic life giving force as he frantically makes the endeavor to move form one tree to the next. While overcompensating for his frailty, Ben attempts an acrobatic move, only to fall to the ground. The cameraman fails to capture this pivotal moment. Ben continues his monologue from a hospital bed: “I was living on the edge… It probably was an ego problem… I was immediately ashamed… It’s too bad nobody got videotape of it.”

49:42 “John Schuchardt” by Andrew Jones. John Schuchardt, a former captain of the US Marine Corps, recounts his story of speaking up against the Gulf War while President Bush attended church in Kennebunkport, Maine. “We understand the church to be the place where urgent moral concerns belong and ought to be addressed… I stood up and said, “I have a concern… We must think of the 18 million people of Iraq… We must think of what it is to be bombed by 2000 planes a day’… Someone shouted for me to sit down and the congregation rose up to sing ‘God Bless America’ to drown out my voice. I continued, ‘I will speak for those who are suffering. Before we sing the Lord’s Prayer I have a word’ and it was for that statement that I was assaulted by the chief of police. I was expelled from the church. I lifted my voice and spoke, ‘I am the voice of the voiceless. Stop the bombing. Stop the massacre’ I was charged with disorderly conduct. They used the law as a weapon. They felt their purpose was to prohibit anyone from talking in front of the Commander-in-Chief.” Footage of Schuchardt being dragged away is also included.

56:25 End Credits.

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Episode 402: Getting Older (7am, 3pm, 11pm CDT)

Episode 402 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Getting Older” and  features the following segments:

02:15 “One to One” by Erna Wine Maurer. “The Singing Ukeleles,” a senior citizen musical group, perform and talk to a group of high school students. One man says, “We must never lose the opportunity to communicate. I’m sure we have a lot more in common than we realize.” A girl with her hair dyed pink comments, “We’re supposed to be respectful toward you, and I am; but, when you talk about war and all you have left us… You haven’t left us with very much.” A man responds, “I almost said the identical words to my father when I was her age. Every generation has felt they have inherited problems.”

04:59 “Taxi Driver” by Skip Blumberg. Skip Blumberg and a cab driver in New York talk about how old they each felt at different ages in their lives.  Skip: “When I was 10, I felt like 12. When I was 20, I felt like 25. When I was 30, I felt like 25. Twenty-five lasted a long time.”

05:59 “Chicago Kids” by Tom Weinberg and Patrick Creadon. Inner-city kids in Chicago talk about the best age to be. One girl replies, “Thirteen. Then you can do more things. When you grow up some people be on drugs and beat their kids a lot. Then the state has to take them away. That’s why I like to be young.”

07:36 “William Strauss” by Eddie Becker. William Strauss, author of Generations, comments on how Baby Boomers have grown up in an age where he government is more concerned with the elderly than with the youth, “In order to continue progress, you want to be kindest of all to your future. You want to care about children first. We were doing jut the opposite. It was terrible. It’s not that being kind to seniors isn’t kind and good. I can’t accept that it didn’t come as a conscious social choice to ignore the future.”

08:45 “I Wish I Were a Princess” by Terry Strauss / Coleman Advocates. Crystal, a young girl who grew up homeless in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, remembers what her life used to be like: “My mom was gone for a long time at night hustling money. She wore mini-skirts and tight shirts. She didn’t always get arrested, but sometimes she did. My mom was in jail… and we couldn’t touch her.” Crystal on the day she was adopted: “It felt good… I was for sure not sad then.”

11:01 “Hannah and Rachel” by Jeff Spitz. Hannah Joravsky, a 3-year-old, is on her way to the hospital to meet her new sister, Rachel. At the hospital, she demonstrates how big her mother looked when she was pregnant. She gets very excited: “I pee-peed, but that’s okay… That’s okay, Daddy can clean it up … Hannah holds her new sister and in response to the suggestion that “she’s beautiful,” Hannah answers, “She’s pink.”

13:53 “Brady Boomers” by Alene Richardson and Beverly Ginsburg. Over home movies, people in blue boxes a la “The Brady Bunch,” respond to questions about the show that shaped a generation. In response to the question “was your family like the Brady Bunch?,” one guy says, “My father was a communist and my mother was a sexually fixated neurotic.” In answering the question, “did you want your family to be more like the “‘Brady Bunch’?,” responses included, “I had fantasies… It never happened” and “I think I’ll take a real family over what I saw on ‘The Brady Bunch’ and I didn’t like ‘The Partridge Family’ either.”

15:28 “Real Live Brady Bunch” by Skip Blumberg. Julie Phillips, a writer, says, “We all watched the same episodes of ‘The Brady Bunch’; people of the same age and the same generation, and so we all feel as though we accomplished something together, done something together. When in fact, we were all spoon fed the same crap. It helps us to relate to each other, but that doesn’t make it good.” Jill and Faith Soloway, the co-creators of the off-Broadway hit “The Real Live Brady Bunch” talk about the play and their aspirations. Jill says, “A lot of people have had bad feelings: A play about ‘The Brady Bunch’? How stupid. But the play kind of makes fun of ‘The Brady Bunch’.” Members of the cast introduce themselves. Julie Phillips, the anti-nostalgia voice, and Jill Soloway, the resurrector of schlock TV, engage in a mock boxing match.

20:03 “Red M & M’s” by Bianca Miller. Singer Bianca Miller laments the loss of her favorite things: “I used to love red M & M’s until they said that they could kill me / Red dye number 2, I love you / And speaking of carcinogenics / Whatever happened to cyclamates / That they put in Fresca back in ’68…”

22:39 “Older Overnight” by Gary Glaser / The Selluloid Group. A teenage-mother describes how hard it is to bring up a child: “Everything I do I have to think of him first… Being a parent is really hard… It looks fun on the outside, but not on the inside.”

25:20 “Mary Ellen Serritella” by Judy Markey. In Skokie, Illinois, Mary Ellen Serritella talks about taking care of her elderly mother. “It certainly isn’t perfect. It certainly isn’t good all the time. I don’t know what else to do.”

29:13 “Gaston” by Eric Boutry. In Paris, Gaston, a 97-year-old man, performs on the trapeze. His trainer recounts the first time he met the agile senior citizen.

31:27 “Rix Bears” by Skip Blumberg. In Upstate New York, Albert Rix, 72, trains bears. Despite his age, he doesn’t plan on slowing down. The bears whistle and stick their tongues out on command.

34:15 “Stop me before I love again” by Betty Aberlin / Society of Late Blooming Flowers. Clearance Blouse (a.k.a. Betty Aberlin) reveals the state of her love life. “Stop me before I love again… Sometimes, I think my true love died in Vietnam… The available guys are scarce and the unavailable guys are a hassle… That’s what I really like to be – needed – to find someone that has more problems than I have… It makes me feel so together… Last night I heard this bump, and there was this guy laying right in the middle of the street. He’d been hit by a truck… I ran out in the street and here was this beautiful guy… His nose was filling up with blood… He was wearing these exquisite cow boy boots — sea snake. At first I thought he was, you know, gay… I kept talking to him… Then I realized he was dead. I’ve gone out with some pretty dysfunctional guys, but I’ve got to draw the line at dead.”

37:29 “Libido” by Liz Cane. Over film footage of couples dancing and a Sierra Club excursion, senior citizens talk about their sex lives… “We have excellent activities, so we both experience orgasm.”

41:54 “Looking Young” by Tobe Carey and Meg Carey; also “Linda Burnham” by Esti Galili Marpet. To be gray or to dye is the question. Meg Carey dyes her hair to hide the gray: “It makes me feel younger when I’m done, it makes me feel older that I’m doing it.” On the other side of the coin, Linda Burnham keeps her hair long and gray: “You can be gray, but you can still be youthful and contemporary in your approach to life.”

Streaming June 26th:  Episode 216 – 304

Episode 216: Invasions and Revolutions (12am, 8am, 4pm CDT)

Episode 216 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Invasions and Revolutions” and  features the following segments:

01:59 Excerpt from “Invasion in Panama: Legacy of a Massacre” by Barbara Trent and The Empowerment Project. An excerpt from a documentary examining allegations of widespread civilian killings committed by U.S. troops during the 1989 invasion of Panama.

07:08 “Century City” by Nancy Buchanan and Sue Kurvink. A protest for assorted liberal causes outside a fundraiser for Republicans in Los Angeles. The protesters try to coax Republicans in formal wear on balconies to join them with the chant, “Jump, Jump, Jump…”

08:16 “Black Consciousness Movement” by Andrew Jones. Various leaders of anti-apartheid movements in South Africa talk about their struggle. In Johannesburg, protesters sing and dance while boarding a bus.

15:13 “Krishna vs. Christians” by Nancy Cain. A short video about a Hare Krishna parade in Venice Beach, California and the Christians who are on hand to protest it.

23:10 “Israeli Soldiers” by David Cort. Israeli soldiers discuss their moral hangups with the fighting in Gaza: “I can’t see how a soldier can aim at a child…We don’t have anything to do here. I think many Israelis, not the majority, would happily give it back to Egypt.” Another soldier: “I don’t want to kill anybody. Maybe if someone wants to kill me I should kill him and feel good with it… Maybe it’s the natural thing to do…Maybe I’m too sensitive.”

26:10 “Peat Bog Soldier” by Diane Weyermann. A portrait of Eddie Balchowsky, an American soldier who lost his right hand during the Spanish Civil War. He tells of his injury and his battle with drug addiction.

30:42 “It’s Our Pleasure to Serve You” by Laurie Anderson. Satirical monologue on military spending. “But like all military research that goes over budget they keep reminding you, ‘Yeah sure we went a few billion over, but think of the spin-off technologies – tin foil, spray-on cheese. You’d never discover this stuff without spending some extra cash.’”

31:57 “Namibian Independence, 1990” by Nancy Buchanan and Michael Zinzun. An interview with Rev. Peter Lamoela. He talks about the experience of raising the new flag after Namibia won its independence from South Africa in 1990. “I was rather glad America didn’t send George Bush. That would have been a low point… He is giving a whole lot of bandits sophisticated ammunition to fight us… how thankful he didn’t come… The world has made my people a whole lot of beggars.” A band leads celebration of independence.

36:13 “Habitat for Humanity”by Nancy Cain. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter help put up a house for a black family in San Diego. Picketers protest because an environmental impact survey wasn’t conducted at the construction site.

40:12 “Manic Denial” by Hal Rucker. This animated short chronicles the events that lead to one woman’s involvement in an antinuclear weapon protest. She remembers watching films about the Holocaust in school and how she didn’t blame Hitler, but the masses who allowed it to happen. They are ostrich people, she said. Similarly, her uncle ignored a missile silo right next to his farm. She gives a talk on denial at the hospital where she works…”How many times must we see a mushroom cloud before it doesn’t mean anything anymore?” She decides to stage a protest and sets up 100 life-sized cardboard ostriches around her small town. She and her accomplices wake up everyone they can with civil defense sirens to alert them of the impending nuclear war…just to make people think.

48:50 “Prison Dialogue Continues” by Wendy Clarke and Shauna Garr. Prisoners from Chino Prison in California perform a rap that emphasizes the importance of staying in school. A few other inmates just talk to the camera: “If you intend on hurting someone else with your dreams, you’re going to end up in prison.” California high school students respond with their own video tapes – “I just want to say that it’s great that all of you want us to stay in school, but I just want to say that school really sucks.”

52:28 “What Drives Disneyland” by Nancy Buchanan. Pixellated video from Disneyland. The message: that when people come to Disneyland they are immediately homogenized.

54:05 “The Human Race” by Aashid. Aashid performs a song highlighting the world’s problems. “What’s wrong with the men of the world/maiming and killing and raping little girls…The human race is the happening thing.”

55:34 End credits.

58:39 Promo for The 90’s.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; editor, John Grod; outreach producer, DeeDee Halleck; “Hare Krishnas” and “Habitat for Humanity” by Nancy Cain; 90’s correspondents, Skip Blumberg, Esti Galili Marpet, Starr Sutherland and Appalshop; “Panama Invasion” by Barbara Trent, The Empowerment Project; primary camera, Michael Dobo; primary ediotr, Gary Meyer; “Century City” by Nancy Buchanan and Sue Kurvink; send Prison Dialogue tapes to: California Institution for Men, Box 128, Chino, CA 91710, Attn: Arts / Tom Skelly, Wendy Clarke; “Albert: computer animation” by Mark Stpehen Pierce; 90’s West, Nancy Cain, Chief, Judith Binder and Jody Proctor; production administrator, Linda Schulman; business affairs, Eric Kramer; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; production assitants, Pat Creadon, Brian Strause and Melissa Sterne

Additional Credits:

paintbox, Rich DuCasse; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; titles & effects created at Independent Programming Associates; opening sequence produced by John Anderson; opening film sequence by Tom Finerty; original music by The Cleaning Ladys; for KBDI, director of programming and production, Diane Markrow; post-production facilities, The Center for New Television, Chicago; funded in part by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Instructional Telecommunications Foundation, Inc.; copyright 1990 The Center for New Television

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Episode 217: Life in the Grey Areas (1am, 9am, 5pm CDT)

Episode 217 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Life in the Grey Areas” and  features the following segments:

00:55 “Advice Ladies” by Skip Blumberg. Women who give advice on New York City streets warn us: “People are doing the wrong drugs. Instead of all the good drugs that they did in the ’60s they’re doing drugs that mess you up, like crack and heavier versions of crack. If people just changed their drugs, everything would be fine.”

1:49 “Agribusiness” by Gary Glaser. A glimpse into a greenhouse full of cultivated marijuana plants with accompaniment from Neil Young: “Homegrown is a good thing/Homegrown is the way it should be.”

02:20 “Wavy Gravy” by Pat Creadon. At Weedstock in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, Wavy Gravy, the perennial countercultural figure, speaks about legalizing marijuana. He says: “Let’s get real, herb should be legalized, I’m tired of my friends getting put away for smoking a little herb. Part of my spiritual life is smoking herb.” “The ’90s are the ’60s standing on their head.”

03:51 “Indian Alley” by Jim Mulryan. Homeless, alcoholic Native Americans talk about their problems on the streets of Los Angeles. Conrad Hunter: “We drink so much, the thing is we’re losing each other…We sold our buffalo hide…just for the alcohol…It makes me feel real good. When I open the bottle. Drink…I don’t care about nobody but myself…but now when I’m kinda sober, I realize who’s hurting who. I’m hurting myself.”

07:56 “Gray Area III: Rhythm and Form” by Gregory Anthon. To the beat of drums, black and white graphics flash across the screen and develop into photographs superimposed upon each other – a collage of humanity.

09:08 “Rev. Calvin O. Butts” by Esti Galili Marpet. Rev. Butts speaks: “The politicians really have no concern about the people of the United States of America…The only concern is with the dollar…If they can exploit America in this process they will…There really is no love for the children of this country…I think it’s a cruel hoax and I think it’s deception… It really approaches evil…The infrastructure of America is weakening, so we become vulnerable to our enemies. And the captains of industry and commerce will just go wherever they can to make their quick cash. “

10:55 “Bob Mustang on Capitalism” by Russ Miller. With the American flag sailing at his back, Bob Mustang performs a satirical monologue on the free-market system: “I’m Bob Mustang and I’m a capitalist. I’m talking about hands-off deregulation…It’s the gold. It’s the girls. It ‘s the wealth of nations…Adam Smith, a Scottish guy. We’re listening to a Scottish guy!?…Government. Get that government off my back. Get ’em off. Bob is trying to do some business…Essentially the rich get richer, the poor get poorer…Oh, don’t worry. The middle class. We’re the biggest company in America. Spill a little oil, it’s alright, we’ll bend over and pay for you. We’ll pay…Hey. the S&L’s break…Don’t worry, we’ll pay…We got plenty of money. We’ll take it. Bend over, we’ll take it – give it to me…Marijuana is a big cash crop…We don’t want to legalize it. It would mess up what? Capitalism…If you legalize that price will drive you right down. That’s the framework in which we operate here.”

15:52 “Street Drugs” (AKA Father Bill Davis / Christic Institute) by Eddie Becker. Father Bill Davis spent the last ten years in a poor, drug-infested neighborhood a stone’s throw away from the nation’s capital in Washington D.C. He’s outraged at the government’s “war on drugs.” Davis comments that “It’s just a PR campaign… how can we purport to have a major war on drugs when foreign policy supports drug cartels?” He is convinced that drugs are only part of the problem – unemployment, housing conditions and hunger are the real issues. “People who have very few choices in their lives are told to say no,” he says.

19:00 Richard Dennis, chairman, Advisory Board Drug Policy Foundation, speaks: “The current drug policy is doing kids a disservice…it’s saying that all drugs are the same and it’s setting up kids to have endless doubts about what authority figures say and if they can be trusted. Minority neighborhoods are being used as staging zones for drug warriors to attack dealers in order to protect people in the suburbs from themselves…the War on Drugs is regressive.”

20:07 “Dope Dealer” by Allah’s Army, The Empowerment Project/Portiflex Media Center. An anti-drug rap performed by little kids and a few adults.

23:27 “Tom McKean” by Joel Cohen. Ex-cocaine addict McKean does open line radio and talks to school kids in Chicago’s inner city about how to avoid peer pressure and drug use. He says that “government is not the answer, prison is not the answer, rehabilitation is the answer…The reason we do drugs is because we live fast-paced lives and we have needs and we don’t know what to do…Kids need to be loved off drugs.”

27:25 “Weird Amsterdam” by Charles Gatewood. A comedic monologue about the culture of Amsterdam.

31:39 More from “Wavy Gravy.” Gravy tells us of his dislike for cocaine.

32:18 “Crackfish” by Byte By Byte. Computer-generated fish are blown up. PSA warns: “Crack gets you out of school. Permanently.”

32:06 “Spraypaint” by Nick Gorski. Artist Scott Williams cuts out the dark parts of photos and spray paints over the stencil. Stephen Barr, video producer and agent, “His art is really what popular art should be. Why does that Geisha Girl have a kimono over the Elvis Presley image? That’s making the biggest pop cultural statement you can make, because Elvis Presley is the ultimate American icon and Japan – we have this stereotype of Japan – with this culture that’s thousands of years old versus this American pop culture. They just collide into this surreal accident.”

38:11 “Bombing Los Angeles” by Gary Glaser. Kids talk about their graffiti art and the police harassment they deal with. During filming, an angry owner tries to get them off his property and a debate ensues, culminat ing in the classic rebuttal, “If you think it’s artwork, do it on your own house and see what your father does.”

43:40 More from “Gray Area III.”

42:24 “Robert Sundance” by Jim Mulryan. Robert Sundance on the DTs, “I didn’t know if you cut yourself off from booze, you’d get withdrawls, which is the DTs…It was a horrible experience. After you go through them 50 or 100 times you kinda know what to expect.” He goes on to say that the secret to success for the Native American Indian is sobriety. Only then will the Native American be able to rightfully control his affairs. “We should be getting something out of all our natural resources which are being stolen from us. The federal government doesn’t want that to happen. So alcoholism for American Indians is a conspiracy between the United States of America and the giant multinational corporations who want to get into the treaty lands and exploit the resources. The genocide of today is alcoholism.”

47:00 “Ain’t Gonna Pee in the Cup” by Bianca Miller. A comical, anti-drug testing music video.

49:15 “Captain Ed” by Chuck Cirino. Captain Ed takes us through a tour of his head shop in Los Angeles. As the camera pans a selection of bongs and other paraphernalia, Ed says, “These are the things that they want me to stop carrying. We’ve been an honorable business, we’re under the gun. My business shouldn’t be harassed.” In the black light room Ed talks about voting, “If Byrne votes in 1992, they’ll give us what we want the next time around…If you don’t use it, you’re gonna lose it…If we vote, they’ll be on our list.”

53:49 “Portrait of a Modern Day Minstrel” by Douglas Lunsford. Michael Stanley Rizza plays the Dobro guitar and sings on a couch in an oil field.

56:33 Joe Cummings reads Viewer Mail under the end credits. “Yes, good news, PBS has scheduled The 90’s in prime time starting in April.”

58:33 Promo for The 90’s.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; editor, John Grod; outreach producer, DeeDee Halleck; “Rev. Calvin O. Butts” by Esti Galili Marpet; “Street Drugs” by Eddie Becker; 90’s correspondents, Skip Blumberg, Nancy Cain, Andrew Jones, Starr Sutherland and Appalshop; “Wavy Gravy” by Pat Creadon; “Dope Dealer, with Allah’s Army” by Empowerment Project / Portifex Media Center; “Crackfish” by Byte By Byte; “Robert Sundance” by Jim Mulryan; “Modern Day Minstrel” performed by Michael Stanley Rizza; 90’s West, Nancy Cain, Chief, Judith Binder and Jody Proctor; production administrator, Linda Schulman; business affairs, Eric Kramer; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; production assitants, Pat Creadon, Brian Strause and Melissa Sterne; Voice of THE 90’s, Abby Polonsky; special thanks, Joe Angio and Channick Broadcasting

Additional Credits:

paintbox, Rich DuCasse; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; titles & effects created at Independent Programming Associates; opening sequence produced by John Anderson; opening film sequence by Tom Finerty; original music by The Cleaning Ladys; for KBDI, director of programming and production, Diane Markrow; post-production facilities, The Center for New Television, Chicago; funded in part by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Instructional Telecommunications Foundation, Inc.; copyright 1990 The Center for New Television

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Episode 218: Global Warring (2am, 10am, 6pm CDT)

Episode 218 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Global Warring” and features the following segments:

01:29 Keven Heuer by Dee Dee Halleck. Halleck interviews 19-year-old U.S. Marine Keven Heuer while in a plane taking him to the Persian Gulf. “I’m going over there. I may die. You have to prepare yourself for that.”

02:47 “A Matter of Conscience” by John Luvender. Bill Short is a Vietnam veteran who collects oral histories and photographs of people who resisted the war, like he eventually did. “Part of me carries some guilt for not having fulfilled my sense of duty…I felt my youth had been stolen from me…I think the greatest strength about this country is we have that freedom of conscience. I think one of the things our project does is it fills a void in the historical perspective. It’s important we have a complete understanding of that war so that we know if we get into war again the reasons are clear. The greatest disservice we can do to future generations is be quiet about what the war is really about.”

07:13 “Into the Sand Trap” by Paper Tiger TV. A George Bush impersonator “golfs” his way through previous war courses and slices into the current “gulf” crises.

07:56 “Invasion of Panama: Laboratory of Death” by The Empowerment Project. The evidence suggests that the U.S. military used laser weapons during the invasion of Panama. Jose Morin of the Center for Constitutional Rights speaks of “the severe destruction of facial features” of some of the casualties. One survivor says, “They’ve been using us like guinea pigs in a laboratory.” Robert Knish, Executive Producer of “Undercurrents” talks about the unusual wounds found on some bodies: “The physicians described the head as soft and squishy.” Ramsey Clark, former U .S. Attorney General says there was “experimentation of weaponry we haven’t conceded was used.” U.S. Department of Defense footage is also included.

12:54 More from Keven Heuer. Heuer casts gloom on the Persian Gulf crisis: “I don’t think they’ll use nuclear weapons except as a last resort. If Saudi Arabia wants to use chemical warfare, as we know they are well capable of doing, we’d have no other choice but to use nuclear weapons.”

13:29 “Viva Futbolito” by Robbie Leppzer/Turning Tide Productions. A profile of a group called “Footbaggers for Peace” who use footbag as means to bridge relations with the people of Central America. “The young people in [The U.S.] are playing footbag, enjoying footbag, so it symbolizes what is hip, what’s cool and fun, what’s in style; yet it also ties into this historical love of foot games that the Central Americans have. The footbag is quite incidental to what we’re doing. It happens to be a good median to break the ice. What we’re doing here is planting seeds for an alternative relationship between Gringos and Central Americans. It gives me hope that common citizens can do something.”

20:55 “The Heart Broken in Half” by Taggart Siegel and Dwight Conquergood. In Chicago, members of the Latin Kings, a street gang, mourn the loss of one of their own, Negro. Negro was beaten severely by a rival gang and died the next day. An intricate part of the mourning process includes graffiti memorials throughout the neighborhood. Members translate the meaning of various symbols. Home video of the funeral and of Negro when he was alive is included. “He wanted to fight them one on one like a brave men does it, like a Latin King does it.” In front of a graffiti memorial a gang member says, “We throw beer in water for Negro. We pray for Negro to look out for us. It’s like a church for us.” “We write our love on the wall.”

28:10 “Malvin Hobley” by Jimmy Sternfield. In Denver, Malvin Hobley, an African-American in his early twenties, warns against getting involved in gangs. “We have so much negative looking at the black male. Anything that happens, either a black male did it or it’s gang related. You know it’s not true. I know it’s not true. What the media needs to do is get on the hype tip and find out what’s getting these young boys and these young girls into this gang business. If they wanted to stop it, it would have been stopped by now. It’s just a way of getting us to go against each other. It makes the job easier for them if you know what I’m talking about. There’s a better way we can go.”

30:14 “Tortilla” by Turning Tide Productions. Guatemalan women make tortillas.

31:22 More from Keven Heuer. “My job is to go out and report the size, activities, weapons, vehicles, things that nature to the battalion. We will be behind enemy lines before the actual combat would happen.”

31:53 Leslie Marie Watson of Amnesty International at Louisiana State University comments on “the strong and broad-based” antiwar sentiment throughout the nation and the need to channel that sentiment into a persuasive “no blood for oil” message to President Bush and Congress.

32:48 “The Party’s Over” by Steve Schecter. Juxtaposed with music from Moscow street musicians, scenes from protests during the 28th Congress of the Communist Party reflect the new freedom of expression allowed in the USSR. An ex-KBG leader and current populist hero due to his criticism of that agency addresses a crowd. “The U.S. influenced me not by it’s materialist wealth, but it influenced me as I saw the black population in the ’60s rise for their rights and achieve justice for at least a large part of their people.”

39:06 “Jolly Boys” by Soviet Central Television/Audrey Knishev. An excerpt from one of the most popular comedy specials on Soviet TV explores individualism in the USSR with the use of some interesting video techniques. “Everyone lives in his own shell – dust proof, water proof, shock proof.” Life is compared to a game of billiards, with a huge ball rolling and careening throughout Moscow. “I am General Secretary and only member of my own party. I am not in love with myself, just infatuated, It’s not a sin to be in love with yourself as long as you love those around you. If I want to escape from you I simply close my eyes and you don’t exist.”

43:58 “Swords Into Plowshares” by Terry Moyemont. In Vizari, Crete, a blacksmith makes a plow, then watches video of himself at work, prompting shots of ouzo for everyone.

46:05 More from “Kevin Heuer.” “The Philippines cannot survive without our military bases there. The communists don’t want us there. When our lease is up they may try to stir something up. If they do it could be a real hairy situation over there.”

46:48 “Coup D’Etat” by Nick DeoCampo. There are 16 U.S. bases in the Philippines and their lease is up in 1991. There is evidence that nuclear weapons are being stored there, making a country that has no enemies a prime target in a nuclear war.

48:58 “Don’t Go Too Crazy” by Stewart Ellis. Animation. Rollo, a hideous scab of cartoon character holds a toon in his hand and asks if he is ugly. “Monstrous, perhaps, but not ugly,” he replies. Rollo stuffs the character into his mouth and eats him. A “sports quiz” asks if it would have been better to have agreed with Rollo and not get eaten. “You make the call.”

50:36 “North Korea 1990: A Quick Trip” by Andrew Jones. An impressionistic, and one-sided look at Korea highlighted by U.S. atrocities during the Korean War.

56:03 “Todd Alcott” by Skip Blumberg.  The 90’s regular Todd Alcott rants: “The end of the world. I’m awake, I’m alive. That’s why the end of the world hasn’t come yet. I’m breathing. If I inhale and exhale I can keep the world from ending… I don’t mind doing it for people. I consider it a service.”

57:28 “Moscow Violin” by Skip Blumberg. A woman holds the bow while a violinist plays as end credits roll.

59:21 Promo for The 90s.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; editor, John Grod; outreach producer, DeeDee Halleck; “North Korea 1990: A Quick Trip” by Andrew Jones; “Todd Alcott” and “Moscow Violin” by Skip Blumberg; 90’s correspondents, Eddie Becker, Nancy Cain, Esti Galili Marpet, Starr Sutherland, and Appalshop; “Kevin Heuer” by DeeDee Halleck; “Invasion in Panama” by Barbara Trent; camera, Michael Dobo; editors, Anselmo Mantovani and Gary Meyer; “Tortilla” by Turning Tide Productions; “Malvin Hobley” by Jimmy Sternfield; “Don’t Go Too Crazy” by Stuart Ellis; “Into the Sand Trap” and “Leslie Marie Watson” by Paper Tiger TV and Gulf Crisis TV Project; “Albert: Computer Animation” by Mark Stephen Pierce; 90’s West, Nancy Cain, Chief, Judith Binder and Jody Proctor; production administrator, Linda Schulman; business affairs, Eric Kramer; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; production assitants, Pat Creadon, Brian Strause and Melissa Sterne; Voice of THE 90’s, Abby Polonsky; special thanks, Shu Lea Cheang and Channick Broadcasting

Additional Credits:

paintbox, Rich DuCasse; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; titles & effects created at Independent Programming Associates; opening sequence produced by John Anderson; opening film sequence by Tom Finerty; original music by The Cleaning Ladys; for KBDI, director of programming and production, Diane Markrow; post-production facilities, The Center for New Television, Chicago; funded in part by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Instructional Telecommunications Foundation, Inc.; copyright 1990 The Center for New Television

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Episode 219: Love, Marriage, And What Follows (3am, 11am, 7pm CDT)

Episode 219 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Love, Marriage, And What Follows” and features the following segments:

1:10 Cold open with Mary LeRaven. “Of course, when you find that the marriages do last and work out, you find that there’s something wonderful in a man’s pants.”

1:20 90’s opening.

2 :03 “I Do” by Catherine DeSantis. Various couples discuss societal portrayals of marriage and how they relate to their own marriages.

07:51 “Houston” by Nancy Cain. Houston is a young fashion designer. She talks about a dress she made from a tablecloth she found at a garage sale and the chain link accessories which she got at the hardware store. About her training: “We go to college. We spend $50,000 and what we learn is to think like little kids again.”

10:09 “Dateless” by Gary Glaser. A female performer does a monologue endlessly rehashing the reasons why she has been single for the better part of a decade.

15:45 Excerpt from “The Kissing Booth” by Merrill Aldighieri and Joe Tripician. Excerpt from a documentary about kissing, featuring interviews with poet Emily XYZ and South African musician Spider.

17:10 “John Lykes” by Jim Mulryan. An interview with a former womanizer about his obsession with sex, conquest, and women. “I remember one day in the ’70s I made love to four different ladies in one day…I’m not boasting; I just think it was a pretty special day…I was quite a predatory guy. When I saw a woman I wanted it was like seeing a piece of pizza I wanted to eat…I see in myself a change, a very very healthy change…It’s the person inside — that’s what is really beautiful…I think getting to know someone [is what’s important]…You know, a great connoisseur from France or Italy would take a glass of wine and savor it on the tongue before swallowing it. It’s not just gulping down the wine in great lusty drafts that satisfies you, it’s the flavor, the bouquet, the nuance.”

19:56 “Safe Sex Slut” by Carol Leigh a.k.a. Scarlot Harlot. A satirical music video picking on the nation’s obsession with safe sex: “I fasten seat belts to stay alive/I never drive past 55/I watch TV/I don’t hang glide/I never drink insecticide/Safe Sex!”

21:17 “Mary Le Raven” by Jim Mulryan. An older woman who makes art out of bones talks about her sex life and her art: “My husband died so soon, I think I snapped the life out of him… ‘Cause we had sex in the morning and sex in the evening, sex at lunchtime…and we did it because this was love and we liked what the other had.” Later she sings a song, “Bones is my business…I do any thing with bones…I got ’em with clothes on. I got ’em with clothes off…” She holds up a doll with a prominent erection and explains how she happened upon the bone that serves as the penis. Mulryan asks, “What do women think when men have penises like that?” She answers, “Well, the smaller ones they think less of…The large ones they worship…The men folk in my family carry the right kind…Of course, when you find that the marriages do last and work out, you find that there’s something wonderful in a man’s pants.”

27:16 “AIDS PSA” by Gran Fury. An AIDS PSA with the message “Kissing doesn’t kill. Greed and indifference do. Corporate greed, government inaction and public indifference makes AIDS a political crisis.”

28:01 “Teenage Pregnancy” by Fred Bridges. Counselors and black teenagers from Chicago talk about pregnancy. An anonymous woman: “Babies was not one of my choices of what I was planning to do with my future. I wanted to go to medicine school and be a nurse, help people…With a baby it’s going to be a lot harder and not so easy now…I was pregnant when I was twelve. I had the baby in the beginning of my 8th grade year. The father is 18 now. He recently made 18.” Ora Zachary, a social work assistant says, “98% of them do not finish high school…They have the second child before age 18…Their parents say, ‘I helped you with the first one — You have to come home and take care of you own kids’…It’s at the crisis stage at this point.”

33:34 “Cabbage Patch Delivery Room” by Paper Tiger TV. Babies are delivered at the Cabbage Patch delivery room. The policy: “No returns, No exchanges.”

34:54 More from “John Lykes” by Jim Mulryan. “The Hindu religion embraces sex as being godly. As a matter of fact, on the wedding night in a Hindu marriage, the man conceives of the woman as being an incarnation of a goddess, the woman envisions the man as an incarnation of a god…Their physical contact is very refined…the point being about tantric sex — this person, this partner, is there to assist you in your evolution…The ultimate in tantric sex is during the act of coitus when the man is inside the woman, he should be inside of her for at least a half hour, without ejaculating, remaining firm inside to point where the energy begins to move…and they leave their bodies in a state of bliss.”

37:09 “My Dad, Bob” by Vicki Polon. Polon interviews her newly-single 81-year-old father who is getting into the dating game. He has already placed a personal ad and has formed a steady relationship with a 30-ish young woman. “The best advice I can give any man is stay single and raise your children the same way.”

39:50 “Nimrod Workman” by Appalshop. A retired coal miner talks about his long marriage.

44:47 “Leaving the 20th Century” by Max Almy. An ironic portrayal of dating in the ’90s. “He left because there was nothing good on TV…She left because she was overeducated and lost her grant.”

45:42 “Finding Our Way” by Nick Kauffman Productions. Twelve heterosexual, bisexual, and gay men between the ages of 27 and 71 retreat for the weekend to talk about their sexuality in a therapy-like setting. The men are surprisingly candid and emotional about sex: “I feel the closest to someone when I’m making love to them…I like getting to know someone’s psyche, emotions.” “I like the smell, taste and messiness of sex.” “I’d like to have a woman without being judged by her, even though I have a preference for men.” “I’d like to have sex and not worry about dying.”

47:57 Excerpt from “Making it in Hollywood” by Tom Weinberg. Cissy Colpitts, an aspiring actress in Hollywood, tap dances outside.

48:26 “Love Connection” by Jay April. A backstage view of the show “The Love Connection.” People discuss the difficulty of dating is in the ’90s. We watch some of the show and interview contestants backstage plus Eric Lieber, executive producer.

56:44 “Wedding Dance” by Bob and Stacie Chukerman. A couple dances at their wedding to “Memories,” the theme from “Cats.”

57:04 End Credits.

58:55 Promo for The 90s.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; editor, John Grod; outreach producer, DeeDee Halleck; “Houston” by Nancy Cain; “Love Connection” by Jay April; “Nimrod Workman” by Appalshop; 90’s correspondents, Eddie Becker, Skip Blumerg, Esti Galili Marept and Starr Sutherland; “John Lykes” and “Mary Le Raven” by Jim Mulryan; “AIDS PSA” by Gran Fury; “Leaving the 20th Century” by Max Almy; “Making It in Hollywood” with Cissy Colpitts; “Closing Credits” by Bob & Stacie Chukerman; 90’s West, Nancy Cain, Chief, Judith Binder and Jody Proctor; production administrator, Linda Schulman; business affairs, Eric Kramer; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; production assitants, Pat Creadon, Brian Strause and Melissa Sterne; ordinary thanks, Joan Adelamn, Channick Broadcasting and John Tondelli

Additional Credits:

paintbox, Rich DuCasse; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; titles & effects created at Independent Programming Associates; opening sequence produced by John Anderson; opening film sequence by Tom Finerty; original music by The Cleaning Ladys; for KBDI, director of programming and production, Diane Markrow; post-production facilities, The Center for New Television, Chicago; funded in part by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Instructional Telecommunications Foundation, Inc.; copyright 1990 The Center for New Television

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Episode 301: Money, Money, Money (4am, 12pm, 8pm CDT)

Episode 301 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Money, Money, Money” and  features the following segments:

3:05 “Bureau of Printing and Engraving” by Eddie Becker. Becker visits the Bureau of Printing and Engraving and talks to the bored workers. When asked about the best part of her job, an assembly line worker replies, “There is no best part. When I get bored, I stand up.” He goes to the Federal Reserve, where an interview he had scheduled has been canceled. “Everyone I have been interviewing about the Federal Reserve says the Fed prefers to operate in the shadows, in the dark, away from the scrutiny of public view. Within these hallowed halls bizarre rituals with money took place.”

9:09 “Joel Kovner” by Nancy Cain and Judy Procter. At the First Professional Bank in Santa Monica, California, bank president Joel Kovner gives a brief tour of the vault. “Before the bank opened we played monopoly with real money.”

12:09 Prof. Paul Nadler commentary by Skip Blumberg. Nadler explains how bank loans have changed with the existence of fixed interest rates. “Savings and loans started as a family financial center. You brought in your deposits and they’d make mortgage loans. It used to be what you’d call a 3-6-3 business. They’d take your money at 3, they’d lend it back to you at 6, they’d be on the golf course by 3. It didn’t take much talent to run a savings and loan. Basically where the money went – they were paying it out, paying it out and not earning it. They refused to admit they were dead, making it the biggest scandal in American financial history. “

15:19 “Sarah Ogan Gunning” by Appalshop. Gunning, an Appalachian folk singer, sings “I Hate the Capitalist System.”

16:59 “Ed Sadlowski” by Tony Judge. Ed Sadlowski, of the Steelworkers union in South Chicago talks about the economic disparities in the United States. “The real question at hand is the distribution of wealth. Look at the situation of health care in this country. It’s criminal. Yet who’s opposing it the most? The insurance companies. A few years ago if I said we needed a national health insurance program the Lee Iaccocas call me communist, socialist, everything else in the world. He’s not championing the cause. He’s on my side for a change. To share that wealth is to share power. When you start talking that way, pal, they put you up against the wall.”

18:24 “Andrew Jones in Iraq.” Jones talks to us from a peace camp in Iraq where an international group of protesters have formed a human shield between armies to attempt to prevent the beginning of the Iraq War. “I’m a black American and Bush had astutely put the deadline [for Iraq to pull out of Kuwait] on Martin Luther King’s birthday, January 15. Bush was assaulting an idea – an idea of peace…it could have been January 18, January 20, it could have been any day. I was pissed off at him for desecrating Martin Luther King’s birthday.”

25:32 More from Prof. Paul Nadler. “One of the problems with America is we live in a world where everything has to be solved – instant journalism, instant success. A guy makes a speech and within one minute a reporter has to analyze it…What have we done to this country?”

26:02 “John Stiles” by Judith Iam. After holding up traffic with his horse and buggy, John Stiles comments on the people stuck in their cars. “It’s the lonely crowd. How lonely it must be. All by yourself, locked up in a machine, traveling through time, experiencing none of the space, with half of reality eliminated from your experience.”

27:22 “Susan Cohn” by Skip Blumberg. On Broadway in New York, Susan Cohn, a career counselor, talks about American cultural domination and the people’s differing definitions of what it means to be rich.

28:38 “Aos Donos Do Destino” by Joao Ribeiro. The first music video from Mozambique features the vocals of Elvira Viegas and a large cast of dancing children.

32:40 Andrea Carmen speech by Robble Leppzer. “At the heart of the struggle is a conflict of world view. We could talk about the indigenous world view and the corporate world view. The indigenous world view looks at this world as something that is alive. The corporate world view sees the world as something dead, something to be used and to be used as profit. The corporate executives of the world are holding us all hostage. If somebody came into your home and pointed a gun at your children, you would act. Don’t you feel that desperation that we feel?”

34:55 “Eco Rage” by Robbie Leppzer. A look at a demonstration on Wall Street the day following Earth Day, 1990. “We got the power to save the earth,” chant the protesters. They clog up traffic with trash cans and bike racks and encourage Wall Street workers to take the day off. One protester is mercilessly beaten by the New York police after feigning to stop traffic in the street.

37:12 Todd Alcott by Skip Blumberg. 90’s regular Todd Alcott rants. “It used to be if you needed furniture you made furniture. Everybody had the skills they needed to survive. No one makes things anymore, they have jobs. They work at an office…not to produce a thing, but to make money to buy things. We’re disassociated from our own possessions. Can you make a shirt? I can’t. We have no connection to things and how they’re made. Consequently we have no connection to each other. Money has become the fifth element. It can cancel out the other four because it can take their place at any moment. You don’t need to tame fire anymore. You just need to pay your gas bill. The Indians used to think the earth was sacred. It was holy. Anyone will tell you today that it ‘s just capital waiting to be exploited. The whole planet is a business, Earth Inc. Assets 48 kazillion dollars. What is that?!! Is that a reason for opening your eyes in the morning?…”

40:11 “Bowery Forger” by Dee Dee Halleck. Blacksmith Tovey Halleck at work in the Bowery.

40:46 “Test the West” by Simone Shoemaker. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germans experience a free market economy for the first time. We interview a woman who is trying a fast food hamburger for the first time. “My husband would throw me out [if I served him this for dinner].”

43:27 Harry Magdoff commentary by Esti Galili Marpet. Magdoff, an economist, talks about the problem of homelessness in the United States. “There’s no reason that with the resources this country has that there can’t be homes for the homeless. When it came to the Second World War we had to build very quickly. It was achieved relatively simply and in record time, but it was for war, it was for destruction. In times of peace, the possibilities are all here.”

44:50 “Built into the System” by John Schwartz and Johnnie Jones. A glimpse at the homeless situation in Denver. There are plenty of empty homes, but also a huge number of homeless people. Kathy, a single parent with two children, talks about losing her job and rapidly becoming homeless.

46:39 “Ruth Handler” by Judith Binder and Jody Procter. Handler, co-founder of Barbie dolls, now produces prosthetic breasts for masectomy patients with a company called “Nearly Me.” She explains her history of how difficult it was for her after she lost her breasts while giving us a tour of the factory. Handler shows us her prosthetic breasts, literally unbuttoning her dress and taking them out of her bra.

52:38 More from Ed Sadlowski. “There has never been a man who has worked for another man who was paid his due. People bitch about a ballplayer getting a million dollars a year playing second base for the White Sox. When I take my grandkid to the ballpark I don’t take him to see Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn. I go there to see the ballplayer play. Why shouldn’t the ballplayer get the dough rather than two guys sitting in a skybox somewhere?”

54:00 “The Money Man Monument” by Doug Michels. A satirical piece featuring a mock meeting of fundraisers for the Money Man Monument, a skeleton in a suit placed in a tube of money on Washington DC’s Mall – “a permanent tribute to green power and the American Way.”

54:58 More from Prof. Paul Nadler. Nadler talks about the change in tax laws and how 90% of Americans pay more social security tax than they do income tax.

56:13 Wally Nelson by Robbie Leppzer. Wally Nelson has not paid his income tax for 42 years. He refused to fight in WWII and was jailed. “If I refused to let my body be drafted for killing, I should not let my money get drafted to pay for killing. We do not have to feel we are powerless.”

57:31 Montage of images from the show to the tune of Irving Berlin’s “Can You Use Any Money Today?” plays under credits.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; 90s correspondents, Appalshop, Eddie Becker, Skip Blumberg, Fred Bridges, Nancy Cain, Andrew Jones, Esti Galili Marpet and Jimmy Sternfield; “Bureau of Engraving & Printing” by Eddie Becker; “Joel Kovner” by Nancy Cain and Jody Procter; “Paul Nadler,” “Susan Cohn” and “Todd Alcott” by Skip Blumberg; “Sarah Ogan Gunning” by Appalshop; “Ed Sadlowski” by Tony Judge; “John Stiles” by Judith Iam; “Andrea Carmen” and “Wally Nelson” by Robbie Leppzer; “Bowery Forger” and “Tovey Halleck” by Dee Dee Halleck; “Harry Magdoff” by Esti Marpet; “Ruth Handler” by Judith Binder and Judy Procter; “Money Man” created by Doug Michaels; outreach producer, DeeDee Halleck; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; production administrator, Robyn Hensel; assistant excutive producer, Patrick Creadon; assistant producers, Andrea Be, Anita Padilla, Melissa Sterne and Brian Strause; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; 90’s west, Nancy Cain, Chief, Judith Binder and Jody Proctor; Voice of THE 90’s, Ricki Katz; video production, Patrick Creadon and Joe Angio; special thanks, Tony Judge, Don Reed, Chuck Olin, Channick Broadcasting, Ed Reardon, Despres, Schwartz & Geoghegan; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; title music, Gary Klaff; additional music, Alan Schulman and John Anderson; original graphics, Independent Programming Associates, Richard DuCasse; “Albert,” computer animation by Mark Stephen Pierce; off-line editing, Center For New Television, John Grod and Mirko Popadic;  production administrator, Linda Schulman; business affairs, Eric Kramer; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; production assitants, Pat Creadon, Brian Strause and Melissa Sterne; ordinary thanks, Joan Adelamn, Channick Broadcasting and John Tondelli; on-line editing, Michael J. DeLazzer

Additional Credits:

post-production audio, James Guthrie; electronic graphics, Barbara Shintani; executives in charge of production, for KBDI Diane Markrow, for WTTW C. Patterson Denny; a presentation of KBDI / Denver, WTTW / Chicago; MCMXCI Fund for Innovative TV, All Rights Reserved

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Episode 302: It’s Only TV (5am, 1pm, 9pm CDT)

Episode 302 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “It’s Only TV” and  features the following segments:

0:36 “New York TV Demonstration” by Skip Blumberg and Esti Marpet. At the ABC building in New York, Peter Jennings is questioned by a protester about the major networks’ failure to cover the antiwar movement. “You’d never know there was an antiwar movement from watching the news,” says the protester.

1:12 The 90’s opening.

2:08 More “New York TV Demonstration.” The story begins with Skip covering the media covering a protest against the media but also includes comments from protesters. Betty Aberlin of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” fame begins, “When people over the years ask what Mr. Rogers is about I joke and say he’s kind of like the flip side of Big Brother. When I see our president playing Mr. Rogers in his talk of a kinder, gentler I-don’t-know-what or his talk of the darnest search and destroy mission, I must say the resemblance is a little too close for comfort.” Bill Schaap of “Lies of Our Times” talks about the simplistic nature of the news and how “news is distorted and shaped to fit the establishment.” Poet Allen Ginsberg, on his way to a birthday party, comments about the media over the noise of the street demonstration.

13:54 Todd Alcott by Skip Blumberg. The 90’s regular Todd Alcott rants: “Good evening, this is the news. I’m an anchor. You can tell by the outfit. If I were a commentator, I’d be thirty years older. If I were a weatherman, I’d be fat. If I were a sportscaster, I’d have a really bad haircut. If I were a war correspondent, I’d wear a safari costume. Through the miracle of television we can bring you the news when it happens, as it happens. We will bring you the news quickly and accurately just as soon as the government says we can. We assault you with so many contradictory messages you don’t know what’s going on at all. You don’t know if anything is real. Look at my hand, there are pieces missing from my hand. I’m dissolving in a blizzard of lies.”

15:51 “Daisy” by Nancy Cain. Elderly woman named Daisy performs blues music at Venice Beach.

17:25 “At Home with Howard Rosenberg” by Nancy Cain. Los Angeles Times television columnist Howard Rosenberg talks about television. “‘Frontline’ is one of the few places on public television that you can find anything with any balls.” He watches four TV sets simultaneously: “And despite that I’m relatively sane.” “Shopping channels. They’re a real kick. I find myself watching them a lot. Some of the people on there are really good salespeople. Cathy, she’s incredible, she’s amazing.”

23:58 “Switching Channels” by Nancy Cain. Nancy Cain switches through the channels, coming up with gas mask after gas mask scene. When the shopping channel appears Nancy says, “Cathy where’s your gas mask? Come on girl!”

25:15 “Peter Poppoff Revealed” by Aron Ranen, from 1986. A look at how televangelist Peter Poppoff tricked viewers with miracles through the help of a radio transmitter in his ear controlled by his wife backstage. We hear the transmissions of Poppoff’s wife cuing him from backstage while we see him acting on her information. “Take a few steps to make the Devil made,” he says. He then throws an arthritis-stricken lady’s cane like a javelin: “You’re not going to be needing that anymore.” In the meantime, his wife tells him things like addresses and names to give him that omniscient aura. Various congregants are confronted with the tape of his radio transmissions. One says, “It really makes me believe less in him,” while others are more unwilling to believe that Poppoff is a fake. Poppoff himself is confronted in an interview about his exploitative nature, to which he replies, “Are cigarette ads exploiting their audiences? You could say yes.”

33:27 “National Religious Broadcasters Convention” by Eddie Becker. Dave Bradshaw of “World View Perspectives” comments on television: “When I do watch television, I enjoy watching Public Television because it is in many ways educational. However, you have to understand that there’s a world view that shapes the production of that program. Christians should lead the environmental movement more.” Eddie: “I asked you about television.” Bradshaw: “I got off on a little tangent there. By design, television has encouraged us to stop thinking. It’s proven that our brain waves actually slow down after watching hours and hours of television. We’re giving ourself over to the media. I personally think that NBC, ABC, all of the networks are linked in to the New World Order. We have to understand, as Christians, that the media has a world view. There’s no such thing as totally unbiased reporting. Television has not done a job in helping us to develop any kind of our own world view.”

36:06 More from “Channel Switching.”

36:43 Bob Mustang by Russ Miller. Bob Mustang is at a windmill field in the desert and performs this monologue. “This show is a satellite feed via satellite. TV was created by man for man to use, like a screwdriver or a hammer or a wrench. It’s something to manipulate something with. TV is a tool. You can take a hammer and nail something to the wall or you can beat somebody’s skull in with it. Same idea. It’s not the tool, it’s who uses it. The man on the TV is going to force feed me the junk I don’t want. And behold the man who came from the TV screen. Start praying to a new god.” He walks away and asks, “Are you still watching?”

39:38 More music from Daisy on Venice Beach.

41:08 “Making Waves” by Karen Ranucci. In La Paz, Bolivia there is no garbage pickup, no sewage system, no running water and a plethora of street children. A Canadian-based group called ENDA has developed a video workshop to help the street kids get a different view of their reality and to discover that they have other talents than shining shoes.

46:24 “Peter Stranger” by Nancy Cain. Peter Stranger, an advertising executive involved in the Joe Isuzu commercials, talks about that campaign’s success. The actual character of Joe Isuzu (played by David Leisure) is interspersed throughout. “I’m not sure if this was genius or dumb luck. We tapped into the nation’s consciousness. There was a mood going on at the time. Wall Street was booming and 26 year olds were making $400,000 a year. Joe Isuzu was a liar. He was the most honest car salesman out there. He mocked the chest beating that was coming from the standard auto manufacturer – ‘and I’m no Joe Isuzu’. We just loved it when he was doing that.”

48:17 More “At Home with Howard Rosenberg.” Rosenberg expresses his concern that the news media does not consider their own impact on the American people. “You see the war on television, but you did not see the war on television. I’ve seen people on television die before my eyes and the scariest part is not so much seeing it, the scariest part is seeing it and not feeling anything.”

51:45 More “New York TV Demonstration.” Peter Jennings is surrounded by protesters who question him about the networks’ failure to report the war accurately and the lack of antiwar news. When asked what he’s doing there he says he’s trying to cover the story. “Accurately?” asks someone. “I’ll let you be the judge of that,” Jennings replies. “You’re not doing a very good job so far” is the response.

55:25 “Big Screen Delivery” by Nancy Cain. A big screen TV is delivered to a home while the music of the Muddy Bottom Blues Boys plays under credits.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; program producer, Nancy Cain; 90s correspondents, Appalshop, Eddie Becker, Skip Blumberg, Fred Bridges, Nancy Cain, Andrew Jones, Esti Galili Marpet, Jimmy Sternfield and Starr Sutherland; “New York TV Demonstration” by Skip Blumberg and Esti Galili Marpet; “Todd Alcott” by Skip Blumberg; “Daisy,” “Howard Rosenberg,” and “Peter Stranger” by Nancy Cain; “National Religious Broadcasters convention” by Eddie Becker; “Big Screen Delivery” by Nancy Cain, music by The Muddy Bottom Blues Boys; “Joe Isuzu” by Della Famina McNamee, Inc., starring David Leisure; production administrator, Robyn Hensel; business affairs, Eric Kramer; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; production assistant, Melissa Sterne; 90’s West, Nancy Cain, Chief, Judith Binder and Jody Procter; Voice of THE 90’s, Ricki Katz; “Albert,” Computer Animation by Mark Stephen Pierce; original graphics, Independent Programming Associates, Rich DuCasse; title music, Gary Klaff; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; off-line editing, Center for New Television, John Grod

Additional Credits:

executives in charge of production, for KBDI Diane Markrow, for WTTW C. Patterson Denny; on-line editor, Michael J. DeLazzer; electronic graphics, Barbara Shintani; post-production audio, James Guthrie; a presentation of KBDI / Denver, WTTW / Chicago; MCMXCI Fund for Innovative TV, All Rights Reserved

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Episode 303: Bartalk (6am, 2pm, 10pm CDT)

Episode 303 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Bartalk ” and features the following segments:

1:17 “Time Lapse Bar Footage” by Mark Zero. Time lapse scenes from a New York bar with music by Big Bill Broonzy.

2:02 Tony Fitzpatrick and Mark Levinson by Tony Judge. Two reformed drinkers talk about their experiences with alcohol at a Chicago bar. Tony Fitzpatrick leads the conversation: “The last drink I ever had was 8:30 October 5, 1983, eight thirty in the morning. All I can remember is that I looked up and the ceiling was black – the ceiling was painted black so it wouldn’t show the smoke. And I thought, ‘This is like a tomb.’ I felt like I was dead. That day I checked myself in. I was 24 years old when I quit. What I miss about bars, I guess, is the kind of idealized thing you see on “Cheers.” They never show someone puking their toenails out at 5 in the morning – ‘Yeah, it’s Miller Time.’ I can count on one hand the friends that I had before I quit who are still friends. Part of my history is in these saloons and I can’t get away from that. To pretend that it never happened and to live in fear of a drink, that’s not sound either. Sometimes these rooms bring out the best in human beings and sometimes the worst. [Tony Judge: “Don’t mind if I have a beer?”] Get this guy a beer and I’ll have a sarsaparilla.”

7:37 “Random Positions” by Jo Bonney and Ruth Peyser. Animated video featuring bar pick-up lines. Includes a performance by Eric Bogosian.

8:38 “Peaches” by Eddie Becker and Danese Seals. Peaches, a bartender from Washington D.C., talks about the dangers of looking for a long-term relationship at a bar. “Any woman who feels they’re going to meet their mate, their partner, in a bar, they’re wrong. They’ll never do it because men are there for one thing and one thing only. If they went there by themself, they’re gonna pick up someone and take them home. They start with the prettiest girl in the bar and before the lights are up, they’ll take the ugliest woman. It’ll never work. Go to church, meet someone nice.”

9:39 “The Dating Game” by Fred Bridges. A look at “The Dating Game,” a bar in Chicago frequented by the upwardly mobile black community. “Congressmen (Gus Savage), aldermen, everyone comes here,” says the hostess. The ladies’ room attendant showcases the line of available cosmetics, combs, munchies and undergarments. “We don’t discriminate, we do take care of the larger figure,” she says.

14:07 “Mike Royko and Studs Terkel” by Tony Judge. Studs Terkel interviews Mike Royko about bars as they sit in a Chicago neighborhood tavern. Royko: “A tavern is much more than a place where you get a drink. You can buy a pint at the liquor store and have a drink on the street corner. The neighborhood tavern served a lot of functions: community center, social center, political debating hall, the country club for the working guy, group therapy. [Studs: What you’re saying is the social aspect is missing today?] Well the saddest thing I’ve ever seen, well not the saddest thing I’ve ever seen, we’re talking in terms of drinking patterns, is guys who rush in the big commuter station (Union Station) and run over to a cafeteria and get a double martini in a styrofoam cup and they go rushing off to get their train. If he lived in the city, he’d walk home, go to the place on the corner, sit down and have a relaxed drink.”

18:21 “The Fox” by Jay April. In Brentwood, California, The Fox entertains a drunk bar crowd with sing-alongs and tricks like drinking a beer standing on his head.

19:50 “Whiskey Bend” by Chuck Cirino and David Nichols. A glimpse into a neighborhood biker bar.

21:58 “Cut Time” by Sarah Bleakley. A look at a the bar scene on New York’s Lower East Side. The lead singer from Two Minutes Hate says, “Rock ‘n Roll is about a kid with a guitar playing a song. That’s all it ever was.” The Gamma Rays, an all female band, sing “It’s Not a Safe Life.”

24:11 “At the Bar” by Laura Greenfield and Gary Glaser. A stylized depiction of bar scenes with voiceovers of people talking about alcohol. Q: “What’d ya drink?” A: “Vodka tonic and beer.” Q: “Both at the same time?” A: “Depends on my mood really. If I want to get really drunk, I do both.”

24:58 “Conrad Hunter” by Jim Mulryan and Arlene Bowman. Native American Conrad Hunter talks his alcoholism. “It [alcohol] makes me feel real good. Inside my mind when I open the bottle, it’s getting the whole thing out of my head. I don’t care about nobody other than myself, but now when I’m sober, I realize who’s hurting who. I’m hurting my self. Probably tomorrow I’ll be lying in the alley, dead…After talking to you people, I think I’m gonna go upstairs and get myself into a program, because this is not really like me.” Three months later Conrad is on the wagon and enjoying his return to making artwork. “I feel more happier than I did before. I get more out of life. I got an emotional problem sometimes. I don’t like to deal with other people other than myself. Right now, I’m just trying to work on that problem. I fell off the wagon a couple of times, but I intend to stay on.”

31:16 “Peter Fogel” by Skip Blumberg. In NYC, bartender Peter Fogel talks about the tendency of patrons to unload their problems on him. “What blows me away about this job is you see a lot of people on TV or in movies, people you idolize will come in here and start telling me about their problems. I get the problems of the stars. They have problems, too. The drinks loosen ’em up a little bit.”

32:45 “Zulu Ball” by Stephen Tyler. A look at the celebrations of the Zulu Ball during Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

34:49 “On Main Street” by Judea Herbstein. Mary Tamaki, owner of the El Paso Club, a bar in a seedy area of Los Angeles, talks about her business. She says: “It was kinda like bringing what was out there on the streets inside. We wanted to make this more like a haven, a place to carry on their business. We have a few girls who hang out here, who even work here, who are prostitutes. If they don’t do it here, it’s none of my business.” Linda, a junkie, says the only way you can get off drugs is if you want to stop. She says her 17-year-old child committed suicide due to her drug use. Tamaki admits that as much as she loves her bar, she ‘s actually getting rid of it. “Actually, I decided I was going to sell it. My attachment to the place has gotten out of hand. It’s taking a toll on me. I get really involved and I can’t get on with my own life.”

41:14 “Rat Pack” by Fred Bridges. Members of the Rat Pack, an organization of professional men in Chicago who want to help the black community, talk about their goals: “Years from now if we don’t do something, we’ll have a population of all black women and no black men.”

44:05 “Tradition” by Appalshop. Documentary about making moonshine.

45:51 “Nobert Hicks” by Jim Mulryan. Nobert Hicks, a reformed alcoholic, talks about the toll drinking took on his life: “Some of the reasons I drank is because I couldn’t live inside my own skin, I didn’t want to live inside myself. I couldn’t stand my own self, so I drank on and on and on. I didn’t have to have any reason to drink. Any reason was good. Better no reason to drink than a reason because then I got drunker. Every day was a holiday. I was never a social drinker – I never drank a few sips and put it down. I drank to get drunk. In a bar, I lived out my fantasies. I lived i n my own head. I’d drink that drink and I’d look around and it was dark. And in the bar I could sit and live those fantasies in a glass, and I could see myself with the pretty girls, with the money, with the nice cars…It feels really good to work. The first six months of recovery I couldn’t work very much. I couldn’t drive a nail. If I try living in tomorrow I’d probably get drunk. One day at a time, just like they say. I do not dwell in the problem. I dwell in the solution.”

55:23 “John Lee Hooker” by VT Productions. John Lee Hooker plays the blues under the credits.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; 90s video correspondents, Appalshop, Eddie Becker, Skip Blumberg, Fred Bridges, Nancy Cain, Andrew Jones, Esti Galili Marpet, Jimmy Sternfield and Starr Sutherland; “Time Lapse Bar” footage supplied by Mark Zero; “Tony Fitzpatrick & Mark Levison” and “Studs Terkel & Mike Royko” by Tony Judge; “Peaches” by Eddie Becker and Denase Seales; “The Dating Game” and “The Rat Pack” by Fred Bridges; “The Fox” by Jay April; “Conrad Hunter” by Jim Mulryan and Arlene Bowman; “Peter Fogel” by Skip Blumberg; “Nobert Hicks” by Jim Mulryan; “John Lee Hooker” by VT Productions, distributed by Rhapsody Films; video production, Jim Morrissette, Scott Jacobs, Joe Angio, Patrick Creadon and Alfred LiVecchi; outreach producer, Dee Dee Halleck; assistant producers, Andrea Be, Antia Padilla and Brian Strause; production assistant, Melissa Sterne; assistant executive producer, Patrick Creadon; production administrator, Robyn Hensel; business affairs, Eric Kramer; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; 90’s West, Nancy Cain, Chief, Judith Binder and Jody Proctor; Voice of THE 90’s, Joe Cummings

Additional Credits:

original graphics, Independent Programming Associates and Rich DuCasse; title music, Gary Klaff; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; off-line editing, Center for New Television, John Grod; special thanks, Lawry’s Tavern, Fred Mulberry, The New Dating Game, Red Velvet Room Productions, Dee Davis, Chickrick House and Mayflower Motel; on-line editor, Michael J. DeLazzer; post-production audio, James Guthrie; electronic graphics, Barbara Shintani; a presentation of KBDI / Denver and WTTW / Chicago; copyright MCMXCI Fund for Innovative TV, all rights reserved

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Episode 304: You Are What You Eat (7am, 3pm, 11pm CDT)

Episode 304 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “You Are What You Eat” and features the following segments:

0:15 “Islander Restaurant” by Eddie Becker and Danese Seals. Addie Green, owner and chef of the Islander says, “You are what you eat. If you eat like a swine, you’ll act like a swine.”

1:08 “Cape May” by Maxi Cohen. Senior citizens on a beach list the foods they’ve been eating while on vacation.

2:12 “Michael Jacobsen” by Eddie Becker. Jacobsen, of “Science in the Public Interest,” talks about the changes in the diet recommended by the government. “Twenty years ago, the focus of nutrition was eating a variety of foods. Well, who didn’t eat a variety of foods? In the 1970’s, 1980’s, and the 1990’s, it’s excesses that caused problems. In 1980, nutrition policies of the government changed. They got rid of ‘just eat a variety of foods’ and replaced it with a policy that said don’t eat too much fat, too much cholesterol, too much sugar, and people are beginning to get the message.”

3:30 More from “Islander Restaurant.” Addie Green, owner and chef, talks about the importance of eating right: “A lot of people are trendy. We carry this body with us to the end. It’s not just a matter of money with me, it’s a matter of nutrition. I can’t wait for the day when fast food chains turn around and realize that they breed contemptuous adults.”

6:59 “Salad Bar” by Skip Blumberg. Doug Skinner plays his ukulele and sings the praises of the salad bar: “We will wander from bin to bin / and ponder the things within.”

8:59 “Yam Man” by Jim Mulryan. Ben Swets, the Yam Man, goes to the warehouse to collect his monthly supply of tubers. Upon inspecting the merchandise, the Yam Man marvels: “They are solid, they feel good. They’re beautiful. It is amazing, this came out of the soil. The dirt converted this, spawned this, like a cyst, like a thing that grew inside an oyster.”

13:24 “Wax Food” by Chip Lord. In Tokyo, Chip Lord scans a window display at a coffee shop: “You realize this is all made of wax… here’s your $3 cup of coffee, $5 banana split and $3 Coca-Cola.”

14:08 “Jim Bouton” by Marty Goldensohn. Jim Bouton, ex-pitcher and author, talks about ballpark food while eating lunch at a sushi restaurant: “The best vendors are in Yankee Stadium. They say things like ‘Cold beer here, Peanuts – How many?’ It’s not a question of whether you want peanuts, its only how many. You have to order something from these guys. The most interesting vendor was a guy in California used to proceed everything he said with ‘shunimaguy’ – ‘Hey, shunimaguy hot dogs, hey shunimaguy peanuts.’ I have no idea what shunimaguy means. You can‘t question the marketing. They’ve field tested a lot of approaches.”

15:53 “Bob Mustang” by Russ Miller. Bob Mustang throws a baseball around and then talks about baseball, hot dogs and America: “Hot dogs are kinda like America: You take a hot dog, it’s all the stuff – all the fat , all the salt, all the entrails. You wrap it all up in a hot dog; it’s the best food snack food in the world. Is it healthy? No. Is America healthy? No.”

17:39 “Oscar Mayer Weiner Mobile” by Matthew Gilson. The Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile rolls down the street.

17:52 “A Taste of Soul” by Fred Bridges. Aris Piper, co-owner of Army and Lou’s Restaurant in Chicago, a healthy soul food restaurant, presents two customers with the “Taste of Soul” combination platter and explains the romance behind the food: “It makes lovers. We’ve had engagements over ham hocks. We’ve had love affairs over black-eyed peas. ‘Oh, I love you baby, that was such a good meal.’ “

20:29 “Chinese Noodles Backwards and Forwards” by Skip Blumberg. In Vancouver, British Columbia, Chef David Yang prepares Chinese Noodles both backwards and forwards.

23:54 “Night and Silence” by Alter-Cine. While troops in the Middle East are poised to fight, a thirty-year war continues in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Eritrean Nationalists have resisted the Ethiopians’ attempt to take over their land, which is the gateway to the Red Sea. Food has been targeted for destruction throughout the war. The port in Massawa has been bombed so often that ships no longer travel there. Having sold their livestock and even their seed, families scour the dirt looking for wild grain to provide their next meal. “Millions of people starve, yet they [the government] can afford bombs.”

29:17 “Gail Smith” by Eddie Becker. Gail Smith, a development consultant in Washington D.C., talks about the Ethiopian famine. She claims that aid groups react to famine in the wrong way, distributing food instead of seeds or ways to gain the means of production. She explains that famine is not a singular event, it is a process that occurs over many years as war forces farmers to gradually sell off livestock and tools, reduce production, and eventually eat their seeds. “What we tend to do is look at a famine as an emergency. You hope they’ll get off of your television screen, the starving will go away, you stop feeling guilty, then you forget about it. Once you sell of the means of production – you eat the seeds – then you start to starve to death.”

31:22 “Midnight Mission”by Judith Binder and Jody Procter. A glimpse into the Midnight Mission, a free cafeteria for the homeless in Los Angeles. The cook says, “We only have one rule – that is to behave yourself.” He cooks for 1500 people a day. “I be hungry and I like to eat. This ain’t gonna fill me up,” complains a guest. Another homeless man talks about looking for a job, “When I get money for bus fare, I’ll get on a bus an look in a different area. That’s hard to find. That’s hard to find.” For a contrast, we visit Asylum, a ritzy restaurant in Beverly Hills. “An entree costs $15-20. It’s very reasonably priced and it’s lots of fun.”

33:57 “What We Ate On Our Vacation” by Paul Chen and Laurie Kaiser. Kaiser treats Chen to a trip to Hong Kong so he can “relive those moments of eating that my taste buds had forgotten.”

36:52 “Alfred Johnson” by Nancy Cain. Alfred Johnson plays the piano in Venice Beach and sings a tune about desserts: “Good loving just don’t last / But I got plenty of pounds to prove that good cooking do.”

39:01 “God’s Love” by Esti Marpet. God’s Love is a volunteer-run program in New York that brings hot meals to people suffering from AIDS. Eleanor Doefler, a recipient of the service, says, “The love. That’s the cure. The volunteers come up with these sweet smiles and share maybe a joke and that’s delivered and it makes a difference.”

42:12 “Reggae Rappers”by Andrew Jones. Scrapehead and Ganjati, a popular reggae rapping duo in Jamaica, sing and talk about their music. They sing the praises of their native land: “Jamaica nice, Jamaica nice / It’s the land of sugar and spice.”

47:46 More from Michael Jacobsen. Jacobsen declares Burger King’s Double Whopper with cheese “quintessential junk” and holds up a beaker filled with 14 teaspoons of fat, explaining that it’s the same amount as in the Whopper.

48:29 “The Best of Everything” by Ben Swets. A profile of Dr. Pietro Rotondi, vegetarian guru and medicine man. He says, “We eat the best of everything. Too bad this kitchen isn’t about 50 times as big as it should be. I’d show the world how to eat, how to live long, how to be happy and everything else that’s good for you.”

51:51 “Anna Weinberg” by Tom Weinberg. “A sandwich is better for you than Ruffles. Raisins are better for you than crackerjacks. Figs are better than frog legs. [How do you know?] I don’t know. I’m just saying stuff.”

52:24 Footage from “Once a Star”. Minnesota Fats reminisces about a guy he used to know in New York who was a “junkie for figs.”

53:01 “Date Festival” by Skip Blumberg. A visit to the Date Festival in Indio, California. The highlights are the ostrich and camel races.

56:22 Cooking a cheeseburger at the Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago under credits.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; 90s video correspondents, Appalshop, Eddie Becker, Skip Blumberg, Fred Bridges, Nancy Cain, Andrew Jones, Esti Galili Marpet, Jimmy Sternfield and Starr Sutherland; “Michael Jacobson” and “Gail Smith” by Eddie Becker; “Islander Restuarant” by Eddie Becker and Danese Deals; “Salad Bar, performed by Doug Skinner and Carol Benner” by Skip Blumberg; “Wax Food in Tokyo” by Chip Lord; “Jim Bouton” by Marty Goldensohn; “Weinermobile” by Matthew Gilson; “Chinese Noodle Making Backwards and Forward at Yang’s Chinese Restaurant” by Skip Blumberg; “Food Song, performed by Alfred Johnson’ by Nancy Cain; “Just Saying Stuff About Food” by Anna Weinberg; outreach producer, Dee Dee Halleck; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; production administrator, Robyn Hensel; assistant executive prodcuer, Patrick Creadon; assistant producers, Adrea Be, Anita Padilla, Melissa Sterne and Brian Strause; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; 90’s West, Nancy Cain, Chief, Judith Binder and Jody Proctor; Voice of THE 90’s, Ricki Katz; video production, Patrick Creadon; special thanks, Billy Goat Tavern; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; title music Gary Klaff; additional music, Alan Schulman and John Anderson

Additional Credits:

original graphics, Independent Programming Associates and Rich DuCasse; “Albert,” computer animation by Mark Stephen Pierce; off-line editing, Center for New Television, John Grod; on-line editor, Michael J. DeLazzer; post-production audio, James Guthrie; electronic graphics, Steve Miller; executives in charge of production, for KBDI Diane Markrow, for WTTW C. Patterson Denny; a presentation of KBDI / Denver and WTTW / Chicago; copyright MCMXCI Fund for Innovative TV, all rights reserved

Streaming June 25th: Episode 208 – 215

Episode 208: Relationships, Sexuality, And Some Revolutionary Ideas (12am, 8am, 4pm CDT)

Episode 208 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Relationships, Sexuality, And Some Revolutionary Ideas” and  features the following segments:

01:00 Cold opening with Walter Teague.

02:27 “My Dad, Bob” by Vicki Polon. Polon interviews her newly-single 81-year-old father who is getting into the dating game. He has already placed a personal ad and has formed a steady relationship with a 30ish young woman. “The best advice I can give any man is stay single and raise your children the same way.”

05:03 “Finding Our Way” by Nick Kaufman Productions. Twelve heterosexual, bisexual, and gay men between the ages of 27 and 71 retreat for the weekend to talk about their sexuality in a therapy-like setting. The men are suprisingly candid and emotional about sex: “I feel the closest to someone when I’m making love to them…I like getting to know someone’s psyche, emotions.” “I like the smell, taste and messiness of sex.” “I’d like to have a woman without being judged by her, even though I have a preference for men.” “I’d like to have sex and not worry about dying.”

09:57 “Horse Breeding” by Joe Cummings and Ricki Katz. Joe Cummings visits the Garden Prairie Horse farm and learns about breeding horses. He closes the program this summary: “So that’s how horses do it. That’s the whole secret. They don’t know each other too well, they know each other from around the stables and out here in the field, but uh, they just got together and did their thing. And they’ll know in 48 hours if it took, and if it didn’t, then Little Petal and Flying Rich get together again. And they do what folks do…they make it!”

13:21 “The Romance of Reorganization” by Alison Morse. An animated sperm ballet.

15:04 “Sexual Roulette” by Samuel Warren Joseph. A melodrama about AIDS made during the time when AIDS was still seen as a gay disease and there was no real treatment. The message is that infidelity is now a deadly game.

32:37 An excerpt from “A Trip to Moscow” by Skip Blumberg. In this segment we’re on the plane to Moscow. We see passports, customs and we meet a Yugoslavian TV producer who complains about the “bureaucratical behavior” in her country. “Although the Iron Curtain is coming down it’ll take time for the ordinary person to feel the difference.”

39:59 “Revolutionary Music from Tigray” by Eddie Becker. While Becker was visiting Ethopia to document famine, the country was in flux as rebel groups fought the military government for control of the country. Becker shoots a band of rebels singing war songs, lead by a young boy with a machine gun. The lyrics are translated later in the program.

43:47 “Homes For Sale” by Anne Lewis and Appalshop. When the mining company that owned the town of Trammel, VA, decided to let go of its holdings in auction, the residents were faced with the risk of losing all of their homes. This tape documents the auction of the houses and the work of the town to buy as many homes back as possible.

50:15 “Cars and Owners” by Chip Lord. Phil Garner shows us his “Nauti-mobile,” a 1968 Buick that has been altered to function as both boat and car.

52:05 “Dan Quayle: Golf Your Way to the Top” by Gross National Product.

52:48 “Earth Day Nun” by Dee Dee Halleck. At 1990 Earth Day celebrations in San Diego, a black nun expresses frustration that activists are ignoring domestic issues. “We’ve freed Mandela, we’ve helped Nicaraguans… can we get down to racism now?”

53:42 More from “Revolutionary Music from Tigray.” We see the performance a second time with the lyrics translated. “Be the first to fight in the front line…Unite… Be courageous, the struggle continues…”

55:04 Joe Cummings reads from The 90’s mail bag over end credits.

58:10 promo.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; editors, Mirko Popadic and John Grod; outreach producer, DeeDee Halleck; “Weekend in Moscow” by Skip Blumberg; “Tigray Musicians,” Boomerang,” and “Walter Teague” by Eddie Becker; “Homes for Sale by Anne Johnson” by appalshop; 90’s correspondents, Nancy Cain, Esti Marpet and Starr Sutherland; “Golf Your Way to the Top” by Gross National Product; “Earth Day Nun” by DeeDee Halleck; associate producers Joe Angio and Ricki Katz; production administrator, Linda Schulman; business affairs, Eric Kramer; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; video production, Pat Creadon and Jim Morrissette; Voice of THE 90’s, Ricki Katz and Joe Cummings; Faces of THE 90’s, Kristin Graziano and Jesse Weinberg; special thanks, Herb Channick, Phil Garner, Kenny Reff and John Simmons

Additional Credits:

paintbox, Rich DuCasse; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; titles & effects created at Independent Programming Associates; opening sequence produced by John Anderson; opening film sequence by Tom Finerty; original music by The Cleaning Ladys; for KBDI, director of programming and production, Diane Markrow; post-production facilities, The Center for New Television, Chicago; funded in part by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Instructional Telecommunications Foundation, Inc.; copyright 1990 The Center for New Television

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Episode 209: Kids, Schools, And Learning (1am, 9am, 5pm CDT)

Episode 209 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Kids, Schools, And Learning” and  features the following segments:

01:53 “Plamondon School” by Kathie Robertson. On Chicago’s West Side, principal Guadalupe Hamersma talks about the troubles facing low income urban schools. “It’s a mistake excusing ignorance because of poverty. I really feel that if you have high expectations and find ways to help kids meet those expectations, kids will achieve.” She also feels that these kids should not be concentrated in poor schools but instead should be integrated into schools in wealthier communities. “I feel it’s important for kids have to get out of their neighborhood because the resources are so limited.”

10:07 “Sebastian & Molly” by Dee Dee Halleck. Two kids sing parodies of children’s songs that have been altered to feature the demise of teachers. Sebastian sings: “On top of the chalkboard, all covered with blood, I shot my poor teacher with a .44 slug…” Molly adds a tune dedicated to her teacher Miss Owens: “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream, throw your teacher off the boat and listen to her scream!”

12:18 “Apple Juice” by John Bruce. A glimpse at New York City youth skateboard culture.

18:54 Leon Lederman commentary by Ricki Katz. Lederman, a Nobel Prize winning physicist, speaks about the poor state of education in America. “In the ’60s we were making the best cars, the best machines, and then all of a sudden we weren’t anymore. School systems around the world were get ting better than us. Something happened to this country in the late ’60s to do with the Vietnam War. It created a malaise in our students, it created a dropout mentality. I don’t think you can blame it on one thing, but that was a sort of milestone, one from which we have never recovered. Our text books were watered down, we neglected our teachers’ salaries. Right now we’re spending more per capita per year than any other country – $380 billion a year on higher and lower education. We have to turn the education system around, but we have to ‘leverage’ money very carefully in order to fix it.”

21:40 “Hard Times in Our Country: The Schools” by Anne Johnson/Appalshop. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared an all out war on poverty and promised increased support to schools in rural areas. Today rural Appalachian schools are being forced to close and children are being bussed to urban schools. Rural residents speak of how this is changing their communities. “When schools leave the community, people leave too. Urban governments are telling rural educators how to educate.” Ron Eller comments: “We are creating two-tiered society: one with the skills and opportunities to succeed, and the other with little hope for employment and little control over their lives.”

29:24 Bill Ayers commentary by Jim Morrissette. Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and former member of the radical group The Weather Underground, speaks about education. “In many ways schools are very effective. They function as large sorting machines, sorting kids out along class, racial and gender lines. We complain but we never fix them. I want them to not train people to fit into hierarchies, I want them to train students to participate fully in a democratic society.”

31:18 “Harbor College” by Nancy Cain. In Los Angeles, Cain visits a “college” for grade school kids that teaches stock market history, finance and business.

34:50 Murray Bookchin commentary by Luana Plunkett. Writer / activist Bookchin speaks about the misconceptions people have about education. “Education today is confusing the accumulation of information and data with the pursuit of wisdom. We are not becoming wiser, we are learning a lot of data that has no meaning, no relevance. Education should provoke, should stimulate the student to thinking. What we call education to day is, in my opinion, nonsense!”

36:21 “Education President” by Gross National Product. This satire pokes fun at President George H.W. Bush, the self-acclaimed “education President.” Bush reads the story of “The Emperor’s New Missile Defense System.”

40:32 Bill Ayers commentary continued. “Most teachers teach for the right reasons – they’re altruistic, optimistic and they love kids, or they love the world, they love art, mathematics, or music enough that they want to share this with kids. Their motivation is transformation. But they go to colleges of education where they effectively ignore that or beat it out of them. So they become involved in structures which reward obedience, conformity and being a clerk. School systems are becoming enormous bureaucracies toppling under their own weight.”

42:37 Dr. Dennis Littky commentary by Richard Watrous. Littky, an author and education reformer, speaks about the keys to success in education. “The same characteristics that make a business successful make a school successful. The same traits that make a good leader in business make a good leader in education. I think sometimes people think of a school as this soft place and IBM as this hard place. It all comes down to respect – respect for teachers, respect for students. This does not mean being nice to them, it means giving them the power to be.”

44:13 “William Wilson” by WTTW. Wilson, a music teacher at Hubbard High School in Chicago, won a Golden Apple Award for excellence in teaching. His philosophy: “I never accept the word can’t. I say ‘erase that ‘T”.” His students report on Wilson’s unique teaching style. “He treats everyone like his own child. So we have three parents: mother, father, and Mr. Wilson.”

47:18 “Public Education: It’s a Bull Market” by Hobart Swan. This tape traces the history of business involvement in education. In April 1990, the California State Assembly made a historic recommendation allowing Channel One, a commercial news station, to broadcast in public school classrooms. If this recommendation becomes law, commercials for candy bars and potato chips will become part of daily curriculum. However, this may not necessarily be a new thing. Public school children have always watched industrial films produced by private companies. In years past, children learned about electricity from electrical companies, ecology from lumber companies, and nutrition from sugar companies.

53:50 “Gravity” by David Wechter & Michael Nankin. A comedic spoof of educational films that claims scientists have found out that gravity is running out. “We all must do our part to conserve gravity.”

55:54 More from Leon Lederman. “TV is a tremendous force. It could do a lot of things. The typical scientist is portrayed as a weirdo stroking a cat and talking with an accent. TV owes an obligation both to entertain and to teach. We need he roes in science, we need good role models so kids can say this is not a nerd operation.”

57:05 End Credits.

58:55 :30 promo.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; editor, John Grod; outreach producer, DeeDee Halleck; “L.A. Kids’ College (Hi-8 mm)” by Nancy Cain; “Hard Times in the Country: The Schools (3/4″) By Anne Johnson” by Appalshop; 90’s correspondents, Eddie Becker, Skip Blumberg, Esti Galili Marpet, Phil Morton and Starr Sutherland; “Plamondon School (Hi-8)” by Kathie Robertson; “sebastian & Molly (Hi-8)” by DeeDee Halleck; “Applejuice (Super-8 Film)” by John Bruce; “Dr. Leon Lederman (Hi-8)” by Ricki Katz; “Dr. Bill Ayers (Hi-8)” by Jim Morrissette;  “Murray Bookchin (VHS)” by Luana Plunkett; “Education President (3/4″)” by Gross National Product; “William Wilson (3/4″)” by WTTW / Chicago; “Dr. Dennis Littky (VHS)” by Richard Watrous; “Public Education: It’s a Bull Market (S-VHS)” by Hobart Swan; “Gravoty (16mm FILM)” by David Wechter & Michael Nankin; “Closing Credits (S-VHS)” by TWTV; associate producers Joe Angio and Ricki Katz; 90’s West, Nancy Cain, Chief, and Judith Binder; production administrator, Linda Schulman; business affairs, Eric Kramer; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; production assistants, Pat Creadon and Brian Strause; production interns, Carolyn Faber and Chuck Kesl; Voice of THE 90’s, Ricki Katz; Faces of THE 90’s, Kristin Graziano and Jesse Weinberg; special thanks, Foundation for Excellence in Teaching, Mary Meyer School and Lewis Freedman

Additional Credits:

paintbox, Rich DuCasse; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; titles & effects created at Independent Programming Associates; opening sequence produced by John Anderson; opening film sequence by Tom Finerty; original music by The Cleaning Ladys; for KBDI, director of programming and production, Diane Markrow; post-production facilities, The Center for New Television, Chicago; funded in part by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Instructional Telecommunications Foundation, Inc.; copyright 1990 The Center for New Television

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Episode 210: Love and Caring, Children of War (2am, 10am, 6pm CDT)

Episode 210 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Love and Caring, Children of War” and  features the following segments:

2:08 “Children of War” by Wendy Appel, Alan Barker, & Dana Gluckstein. Students from war-torn countries gather at Beverly Hills High School and tearfully describe the situation in their native countries. A student from Lebanon recalls, “My country has been at a war for 15 years. There is no water, no gas, no electricity and no place to go.” A student from Iran tells how she lost her grandfather and her best friend in a bombing attack. A South African student refuses to be photographed or identified because she claims it is dangerous for her to complain about her country. “It’s not my fault I’m black, I didn’t choose to be black.”

10:01 “Little Space Man” by Stuart Ellis. Animation.

12:30 More from “Children of War.” Students discuss how they can bring about peace and the importance of education to prevent future wars. A Latino student describes his fight for equal education in a U.S. high school where the attitude is “You’re not gonna make it, so why try?”

16:48 “Why There Is Misery” by Nancy Cain. Tara Proctor, a young girl, tells a fable. An old woman called Auntie Misery is harassed by a gang of rowdy boys who throw rocks and sticks and smash her beloved pear tree. One day, the woman generously offers shelter to a stranger who in exchange grants her a wish – whoever touches her pear tree gets stuck and can’t come back down. The boys come back, get stuck and promise never to bother the old woman again. Sometime later a dark stranger comes to call. It is Death. In a desperate attempt to escape him, the old woman asks him to fetch a pear for her. He gets stuck in the tree and the world becomes overpopulated and miserable because everyone is immortal. Although Auntie Misery eventually let death out of the tree, she was granted immortality, and it is because of her that misery lives on in the world today.

22:26 “Tarayana” by Stuart Ellis. Animation.

24:42 “Love Tapes in Santa Barbara” by Wendy Clarke. Clark set up a booth where people could discuss love in front of a video camera. This clip involves a couple who discuss how ridiculously happy they are with each other. “If you’re in love you just know how the other person hangs the toilet paper.”

28:29 “Weird Amsterdam” by Charles Gatewood. A comedic monologue about the culture of Amsterdam. Followed by a more documentary-styled segment shot in a public square in Amsterdam where druggies and freaks congregate. A woman with a nose-ring, black leather, and bare breasts exclaims, “I don’t know what it would take to be weird here.”

38:01 More from “Love Tapes from Santa Barbara.” A man enters the booth and defines love as described in the Bible: “Love is patient, love is kind…”

41:21 “Guerilla Poetry” by Nancy Cain. Homeless poets from Skid Row in Los Angeles convene to perform their work.

47:45 “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Nancy Cain. Tara Proctor sings the Billy Joel song.

48:26 More from “Love Tapes from Santa Barbara.”  A young woman describes the “closest she’s come to love,” the love between friends having a wild experience on an island. They ran naked through the woods and chased each other with a bottle of whipped cream.

51:42 “Nose Hair” by Stuart Ellis. Animation.

51:49 Paul Krassner commentary by Nancy Cain. Krassner gets a massage and tells how he trained himself to “laugh at pain” while visiting the Kyopis Indians in Ecuador.

55:15 “Five Guys Named Moe” by Charles Gatewood. In Amsterdam, marionettes perform in a five piece jazz band.

56:15 End credits.

58:36 :30 promo.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; program producer, Nancy Cain; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; editor, John Grod; outreach producer, DeeDee Halleck; “Why There is Misery,” “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” “It’s Torture, But It Works,” and “Homeless Writers Coalition, Guerrila Poetry Event, part of Pipeline’s Visions Project, Participants: Hyesuk, Clyde Casey, Dino, Southern Comfort, K. O., Russ Garner and Alexander Anderson” by Nancy Cain; 90’s correspondents, Appalshop, Eddie Becker, Skip Blumberg, Esti Marpet and Starr Sutherland; “Children of War” by Wendy Apple, Alan Barker & Dana Gluckstein; “Little Space Man” by Stuart Ellis, Music by Fred Parotaud; Tarayana by Stuart Ellis, Music by Anna Homles, Music Produced by Ethan James; Nose Hair by Stuart Ellis; Love Tapes in Santa Barbara by Wendy Clarke;  “Weird Amsterdam, Five Guys Named Moe” by Charles Gatewood; associate producers Joe Angio and Ricki Katz; production administrator, Linda Schulman; business affairs, Eric Kramer; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; video production, Pat Creadon and Jim Morrissette; production assitance, Natalie Frutig

Additional Credits:

paintbox, Rich DuCasse; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; titles & effects created at Independent Programming Associates; opening sequence produced by John Anderson; opening film sequence by Tom Finerty; original music by The Cleaning Ladys; for KBDI, director of programming and production, Diane Markrow; post-production facilities, The Center for New Television, Chicago; funded in part by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Instructional Telecommunications Foundation, Inc.; copyright 1990 The Center for New Television

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Episode 211: Everyday Addictions: Alcohol and Nicotine (3am, 11am, 7pm CDT)

Episode 211 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Everyday Addictions: Alcohol and Nicotine” and  features the following segments:

2:02 “California Highway Patrol” by Nancy Cain. We follow a Sgt. Gordon J. Graham on his traffic rounds. He explains the dangers of drinking and driving and shows us how to spot a drunk driver.

7:19 “Drunk Driving Stories” by Nancy Cain. John, a former alcoholic, describes the reckless behavior he engaged in while drunk.

10:37 “Hollywood Handshake: OK Bubbye” by Bianca Miller. A music video.

13:12 Alison Dunn commentary by Kathie Robertson. Dunn, an addiction counselor, informs us about the types of addiction. “There are two distinct kinds of addiction – substance addiction, such as addiction to caffeine, nicotine etc, and process addiction, which is an addiction to gambling or sex or relationships, etc. Addiction is a spiritual disease, it removes us from ourselves and causes us to feel powerless, it causes us to be out of touch with ourselves and what our life is really about.”

14:58 Tony Schwartz commentary by Skip Blumberg. Schwartz, a media activist, shares the philosophy behind some of his anti-smoking commercials. According to him, the most effective means for personal change is shame, and the key to successful radio and TV campaigns is to harness this shame.

22:37 Rev. Calvin O. Butts commentary by Skip Blumberg. Rev. Butts, an anti-cigarette activist, talks about his efforts to pressure tobacco giants to stop advertising. “The sale of tobacco and alcohol diametrically opposes life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Smoking kills!”

26:40 Australian anti-smoking commercial.

27:08 Vintage Muriel cigar commercial.

27:30 Nazareth’s Storefront Smoke Lounge, Beverly Hills, CA by Jay April. A group of cigar smoking men rail against antismoking propaganda. “Where can a man smoke a cigar these days?” They reminisce about the elegant cigar smokers of old like Orson Wells, George Burns, Winston Churchill, etc. “It’s sad today, the public is learning that smoking is terrible for them. It’s a knee-jerk reaction. It’s just like Prohibition!”

33:00 More from Tony Schwartz. We watch one of Schwartz’ commercials and hear his opinion on the legality of smoking. “Cigarettes shouldn’t be outlawed. A lot of people are addicted and need to smoke, and they should smoke in the privacy of their own home or outdoors. Your right to smoke ends when it affects my nose, my heart, my lungs.”

34:49 “California Highway Patrol” continued. Sgt. Graham pulls over another suspected drunk who turns out to be simply a bad driver driving a group home from church.

36:21 “Do You Like What You’re Driving?” by KDN Videoworks. In Detroit, the lottery advertises by enticing folks to buy tickets to upgrade what they drive. We meet interview obsessive lottery players and store clerks who have sold winning tickets.

39:36 “Opium in Thailand” by Bart Friedman & Charles Gatewood. We go to an opium field and learn how it is harvested and consumed.

42:58 “Rumba” by Charles Wiener. A spoof where people testify to their Rumba addiction.

47:57 “California Highway Patrol” continued. Sgt. Graham follows a car that is breaking excessively and changing lanes unnecessarily. Not a drunk driver, however, just a nervous girl. “Girls very rarely drink and drive…they don’t have anything to prove.”

49:35 “Drunk Driving Stories” continued. A young woman named Allison relates the drunk driving incident that finally convinced her she was an alcoholic.

51:45 “California Highway Patrol” continued. Sgt. Graham apologizes for not catching a drunk driver yet. He pulls over another weaving car and finds his drunk. We witness the sobriety tests and the arrest.

53:03 Excerpt from “George Talking Straight “by Marian Marzynski. Documentary about an amiable small-town drunk.

54:45 More from Tony Schwartz. Schwartz tells us about a particularly controversial radio spot which he recently created to warn against drunk driving. The spot graphically describes a body being crushed in a car crash in order to scare the listener. “Your front bumper and grille is smashed. Your body hurtles forward at twenty times the force of gravity. Your knee joints snap. You are impaled on the steering shaft. The jagged steel punctures your lung and inter-costal arteries. Your head smashes into the windshield. Blood spurts from your lungs. You are now dead. Please don’t wait for your luck to run out – don’t drink and drive.”

56:24 Vintage beer and cigarette commercials under credits.

58:50 :30 promo.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; editor, John Grod; outreach producer, DeeDee Halleck; “California Highway Patrol” and “Drunk Driving Stories” by Nancy Cain: “Tony Schwartz” and “Rev. Calvin Butts” by Skip Blumberg; “Nazareth Smoke Lounge” by Jay April; 90’s correspondents, Eddie Becker, Esti Galili Marpet, Phil Morton, Starr Sutherland and Appalshop; “Alison Dunn” by Kathie Robertson; “Do You Like What You’re Driving” by Bill Kubota & Doug Susalla; “George Talking Straight” by Marian Marzynski; smoking statistics from Barron’s, a publication of Dow Jones & Company; associate producers Joe Angio and Ricki Katz; 90’s West, Nancy Cain, Chief, and Judith Binder; production administrator, Linda Schulman; business affairs, Eric Kramer; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; production assistants, Pat Creadon and Brian Strause; production interns, Carolyn Faber and Chuck Kesl; Voice of THE 90’s, Ricki Katz; Faces of THE 90’s, Kristin Graziano and Jesse Weinberg; special thanks, California Highway Patrol and Abyssinian Baptist Church

Additional Credits:

paintbox, Rich DuCasse; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; titles & effects created at Independent Programming Associates; opening sequence produced by John Anderson; opening film sequence by Tom Finerty; original music by The Cleaning Ladys; for KBDI, director of programming and production, Diane Markrow; post-production facilities, The Center for New Television, Chicago; funded in part by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Instructional Telecommunications Foundation, Inc.; copyright 1990 The Center for New Television

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Episode 212: An Impressionistic View Of Life In Japan (4am, 12pm, 8pm CDT)

Episode 212 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “An Impressionistic View Of Life In Japan” and  features the following segments:

2:23 “Trip to Japan” by Jane Aaron. Aaron takes us to see Japan.

5:07 Japanese commercials.

7:36 Jon Woronoff commentary by Eddie Becker. Woronoff, an author and businessman, talks about foreigners’ misconceptions about Japan. “The reason foreigners are fooled about Japan is because there are two levels of perception in Japan. One is called “tatumai” and it means “illusion,” or what one likes to consider things being. The other is called “honei” and it means “truth,” or the way things actually are in practice.  When the Japanese speak to foreigners they speak “tatamai” – they say that things look better than they really are, that everything in Japan is harmonious, tranquil and peaceful. When they speak to Japanese, they speak “honei” – that is, they speak the truth and this is the way it is in their written articles and in the television media.”

10:50 “The Zenshuji Zendeko Drummers” by Nancy Cain. A team of Japanese boys play drums in Los Angeles.

11:13 “Japanese-American Internment.” A look back at the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Featuring a vintage propaganda film starring Ronald Reagan and later footage of him offering reparations to the victims of internment. Frank Emi remembers this dark period of American history. “Our Civil Rights were stripped away even though Naval Intelligence and FBI had completely cleared Japanese-Americans of any espionage.”  He remembers that even liberal politicians like Earl Warren jumped on the bandwagon. “Reagan’s pardon took over 40 years…it took too long!”

16:19 “The Zenshuji Zendeko Drummers “by Nancy Cain.

16:54 Japanese commercials.

17:38 “Yen For Baseball “by John Antonelli and Will Parrinello. Docmentary about newly formed Japanese baseball teams. American managers and umpires comment on Japanese ball-playing style while Japanese fans name their favorite players. An American accouncer comments, “They’re so kind and courteous. They don’t want to embarrass anyone, if we win, let’s win 2-1, it’s okay to tie the game.”

23:18 “Trip to Japan “by Jane Aaron. In Hiroshima, Aaron searches for a Western-style toilet.

23:47 Japanese commercials.

25:44 Paul Igasaki commentary by Eddie Becker. Igasaki warns of a resurgence of anti-Japanese prejudice or “Japan bashing” in the United States.

27:44 May 1990 commercial by the Tri-State Pontiac Dealers Association urging Americans not to buy Japanese cars.

28:15 Paul Igasaki commentary by Eddie Becker. Igasaki shows us examples of anti-Japanese imagery in American advertising.

29:42 Oklahoma commercial. Businessmen from Chickasha, OK, advertise free land to Japanese businessmen to move an industry to their town.

30:32 Jon Woronoff continues to dispel myths about Japan. “Not all Japanese companies offer lifetime employment, only the large Japanese companies don’t lay off workers. Small companies, on the other hand, have to fire massive numbers of people.”

31:05 In a clip from Japanese TV (NHK), a Japanese manager counsels a worker out of his job.

32:07 Ralph Nader commentary by Eddie Becker. Nader decries the failure of American capitalism. “In 1980, the top executives of Fortune 300 companies were earning forty-five times what entry level employees were earning. Today it’s ninety times as much. In Japan, the head of Toyota earns eight times what an assembly plant worker earns. We’ve had a massive failure of our managerial class here in the U.S.”

32:38 Images from Japanese automated assembly lines.

33:04 Japanese commercials.

35:14 “Fertility Festival” by John Durbin and Jason Simas. Documentary about an annual Japanese festival celebrating male fertility.

37:05 Japanese cooking show featuring fresh mushrooms.

38:15 Japanese commercials.

38:45 Music video for the song “Sushi Baby” by Bianca Miller.

40:00 Japanese girl eats in some sort of a petting zoo.

40:15 Japanese commercials.

40:43 “Doug Michels on Japanese TV.” Michels is seen on Japanese TV talking about his projects such as Cadillac Ranch, an art piece done by The Ant Farm, and Bluestar, a futuristic think tank in space, and a proposal for a 50’s-style theme park, Cadillac Fin, in Japan.

44:59 “Toothman,” a Japanese cartoon.

46:50 Japanese commercials.

49:29 “Trip to Japan” by Jane Aaron. Public transportation.

49:50 More Jon Woronoff commentary. “The worst New York subway situation is nothing compared to Japan. In Japan , the subways are filled to four or five times capacity. They actually have “pushers” – people who push passengers into the trains. It’s mind-boggling. Japanese people travel this way day in and day out. Americans couldn’t stand it. They would get claustrophobic.”

50:56 Japanese commercials.

51:54 “Trip to Japan – Peace Park in Hiroshima” by Jane Aaron. Over visuals of Hiroshima’s Memorial Park, Harry S. Truman’s voice explains the dropping of the Atom bomb. “I never had any qualms about it. I wanted to end the war in victory with the least possible loss of U.S. lives. The bomb was just another piece of artillery, and as Napoleon once said, ‘The Lord is on the side with the heaviest artillery.’” Truman’s nonchalance is contrasted heavily with the testimonial of a Japanese woman describing the death of their countrymen from radiation poisoning.

54:49 Ronald Reagan acts in more U.S. government industrial films.

55:47 “The Zenshuji Zendeko Drummers” by Nancy Cain plays under credits.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; editor, John Grod; outreach producer, DeeDee Halleck; “Zenshuji Zendeko Drummers” and “Frank Emi” by Nancy Cain; “Jon Woronoff,” Paul Igasaki” and “Ralph Nader” by Eddie Becker; 90’s correspondents, Jay April, Skip Blumberg, Esti Galili Marpet, Phil Morton, Starr Sutherland and Appalshop; “Trip to Japan” by Jane aaron; “Inuyama Fertility Festival” by John Durbin & Jason Simas; associate producers Joe Angio and Ricki Katz; 90’s West, Nancy Cain, Chief, Judith Binder and Jody Proctor; resident journalist, Gary Covino; production administrator, Linda Schulman; business affairs, Eric Kramer; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; production assistants Pat Creadon; chief critic, Brian Strause; production interns, Carolyn Faber; Voice of THE 90’s, Ricki Katz; Faces of THE 90’s, Kristin Graziano and Jesse Weinberg

Additional Credits:

paintbox, Rich DuCasse; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; titles & effects created at Independent Programming Associates; opening sequence produced by John Anderson; opening film sequence by Tom Finerty; original music by The Cleaning Ladys; for KBDI, director of programming and production, Diane Markrow; post-production facilities, The Center for New Television, Chicago; funded in part by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Instructional Telecommunications Foundation, Inc.; copyright 1990 The Center for New Television

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Episode 213: Fun and Games (5am, 1pm, 9pm CDT)

Episode 213 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “Fun and Games” and  features the following segments:

0:08 Kit Sibert commentary by Nancy Cain. Sibert, a social worker, has this to say about personal fulfillment. “Everybody has a sense of humor, but it’s infinitely varied and what you do for fun is infinitely varied. What’s the common denominator? It has something to do with what’s liberated inside.”

1:20 “Spare Time” by Alix Litwack. Documentary extolling the virtues of bowling. Ray Bluth, Hall of Famer, explains, “It allows people to do something together. You can be old or young, an executive or an ordinary guy. Bowling lets you forget your problems.” We visit Epiphany Lanes, in the basement of a church in St. Louis, where some old-timers extol the virtues of the game. “People who don’t bowl don’t know what they’re missing. I wouldn’t miss my bowling night unless there were a death in the family or one of my kids got married. Thank God I’m still alive and able to bowl!!”

6:13 “Mountain Biker “by Nancy Cain. On Piuma Road in Malibu, California, Greg Hodal pedals uphill. “I’m just trying to do as well as I can each time and go as fast I can.”

6:53 “Fiesta de San Fermin” by Esti Galili Marpet. In July, 1990, at Fiesta de San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain we share the excitement surrounding the annual Running of the Bulls. There ‘s singing and dancing in the streets and we end with a bullfight.

10:30 More from Kit Sibert. Sibert says that movement and exercise are fundamental to letting go of anger (which is the first step to having fun).

11:43 “Midnight Basketball League” by Pat Creadon. At the Henry Horner Homes in Chicago’s West Side, African American youths play basketball every Tuesday and Thursday at midnight. Vincent Lane, Director of the Chicago Housing Authority, explains that this activity is successful because the “kids are in the gym and off the streets.”

18:29 “The Fun Zone” by Ken Brown. Stop motion animation and images of Coney Island amusement park.

19:13 “Electronic Cafe” by Wendy Appel and Alan Barker. In Santa Monica, California, Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz have developed a model for a community level teleconferencing center, using inexpensive videophone technology. It’s an immediate and informal method for people around the world to learn about each other’s culture. They connect with people from Nicaragua and Russia. “These electronic meetings are bringing as much excitement today as the black and white Sony Portapak brought to independent television in the late ’60s.”

25:07 “Busia and Cioc” by Valjean McLenighan. A clip from a video shot in 1970 with a black and white Portapack. An 80-year-old Polish immigrant shares her disappointment with America: “I was a slave in Poland and I heard America was a free country. I worked terrible hard here for nothing and was treated like dirt.”

25:40 More from Kit Sibert. Kit Sibert talks about how she personally has fun. “When I’m with somebody and laughing, I’m having fun. But I resist having fun. I love going to the beach and body surfing but I never want to go. And yet when I get there and start doing it it’s always fun.”

28:45 “Maxwell Street Market” by Joe Angio. A short portrait of the Chicago institution with music and dancing on a Sunday in June 1990.

29:22 “Mountain Biker “by Nancy Cain. Greg Hodal is riding his bike and huffing and puffing: “This is exciting time – under sixteen minutes to Twin Poles.”

29:45 “Mountain Man” by Phil Morton. Paul Boruff denies that he ‘s a real “Mountain Man.” “There are very few people who honestly deserve the title of ‘Mountain Man.’” Boruff claims he’s “just a “performer,” then demonstrates loading gun powder in his gun, and sings “I Call The Wind Mariah.”

32:01 “Baseball City” by Nancy Cain. In Agoura Hills, California, Jody Procter practices in a batting cage and talks about the American obsession with baseball. “Baseball is a secular religion. Three million people a year go to see the Dodgers play at Dodger Stadium. I like the whole thing about baseball. It locks me up to a thing that goes deep in my life. It summarizes everything I feel about security.”

38:25 “Elephant Games” by Skip Blumberg. Elephants perform tricks in Surin, Thailand.

43:11 “World Cup Fans” by Luca Celada. A glimpse of Italian-style soccer at the World Cup in 1990.

44:14 American children play soccer, while their parents encourage them from offscreen.

44:32 Bill Wade, an ex-NFL quarterback, comments on how soccer will overtake other sports in terms of popularity. He thinks that it is “dangerous” that soccer will overtake American football: “…football is important to [the USA]…way beyond what most people think.”

45:03 “Boomerang” by Eddie Becker. Becker runs in to a man tossing around a boomerang in a park in Washington, D.C.

46:51 “Democratic Nominee Board Game” by Gross National Product. A satirical look at the search for a Democratic Presidential candidate.

47:54 More from Kit Silbert. Kit Silbert offers more advice about fun: “To lie on the couch and read is relaxing, but it’s not fun. It’s a cerebral experience. Fun has to be sensual.”

48:34 “The King and Di” by Judith Binder. A woman ordered a sex toy on a lark and talks about her experience with this sex substitute. “It’s the secret to abstinence and total happiness. The only problem is that it could become addiction and the sad part is that you can’t hug anybody afterwards and you can’t give love.”

53:30 Sweet Honey in the Rock performs “Seven Day Kiss” on stage by Michelle Parkerson. From “Gotta Make this Journey.”

56:17 “Mountain Biker” (under credits). Our biker coasts downhill and talks to his bike, “Well you won the race, eh big boy?” Also with audio of Joe Cummings reading letters to The 90’s.

58:55 End of tape.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; editor, John Grod; outreach producer, DeeDee Halleck; “Mountain Biker,” “Kit Sibert,” and “Baseball City” by Nancy Cain; “Boomerang” by Eddie Becker; “Elephant Games” by Skip Blumberg; “Fiesta de San Fermin” by Esti Galili Marpet; 90’s correspondents, Jay April, Starr Sutherland and Appalshop; “Midnight Basketball” by Pat Creadon; “Maxwell Street” by Joe angio; “World Cup Fans” by Luca Celada; “Sweet Honey in the Rock from: Gotta Make this Journey” produced by Michelle Parkerson; associate producers Joe Angio and Ricki Katz; 90’s West, Nancy Cain, Chief, Judith Binder and Jody Proctor; production administrator, Linda Schulman; business affairs, Eric Kramer; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; production assistant Pat Creadon; chief critic, Brian Strause; production intern, Carolyn Faber; video production, Media Process Group and Chip Lord; Voice of THE 90’s, Joe Cummings; Faces of THE 90’s, Kristin Graziano and Jesse Weinberg; special thanks, Bob Vasilopoulos, Norm Potash and Sam Silberman

Additional Credits:

paintbox, Rich DuCasse; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; titles & effects created at Independent Programming Associates; opening sequence produced by John Anderson; opening film sequence by Tom Finerty; original music by The Cleaning Ladys; for KBDI, director of programming and production, Diane Markrow; post-production facilities, The Center for New Television, Chicago; funded in part by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Instructional Telecommunications Foundation, Inc.; copyright 1990 The Center for New Television

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Episode 214: The Environment and Our Oceans (6am, 2pm, 10pm CDT)

Episode 214 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “The Environment and Our Oceans” and  features the following segments:

0:50 “Advice Ladies” by Skip Blumberg. A trio of women sit out on the streets of New York City dispensing free advice. “Ecology: I think it’s the big issue for the 90’s. People are really concerned with the environment because it’s starting to affect us personally.”

01:36 “Malibu Surfers” by James Mulryan. Glenn Henning, a surfer, talks about the polluted and disease-riddled ocean as he floats on his board, waiting for the next wave. “We’re actually seeing the very first stages of the Greenhouse Effect, the very first stages of long-term pollution starting to effect the health of people who are supposed to be healthy. Surfers in Malibu are actually coming down with diseases that doctors are unable to diagnose. Everybody’s causing the pollution and everyone’s going to have to figure out what they personally are going to do about it.”

04:44 “Redwood Forest” by Jay April. Jay April visits Redwood Country and encounters different opinions on the timber industry’s notion of progress. Earth First has been protesting the rapid pace at which the timer industry has deforested the region and call for a policy of “sustained yield.” One environmentalist notes that the forest has already been reduced to 4% of its original splendor: “Some of us question if Redwoods as an ecosystem can survive at all.” An argument ensues between lumber workers and a lone protester. One worker claims that cutting down trees is like harvesting a garden.

13:00 “Uncle Sam Falls” by Bill Stamets. A humorous clip where a mannequin dressed as Uncle Sam topples over and people scramble to right him.

13:35 “Base Jumping “by Kerry Appel. A rare breed of adventure seekers are caught in action as they illegally jump off a building and a radio tower with the help of a parachute. Voice-over: “I think these guys do it for their own reasons and don’t feel compelled to ask permission or explain their actions.”

16:17 “Balbina: Mark of Destruction” by TV dos Trabalhadores. Set in Manaus, Brazil at the heart of the Amazon, the video opens with a montage depicting the poverty, destruction, and pain that has plagued the region. The people of Manaus are suffering the consequences of their designation as a tax-free zone. Originally conceived as a means to attract industry and create jobs, the tax-free policy has been an advantage only for big business. As industry expanded it became necessary to use alternate sources of energy, leading to the damming of a tributary of the Amazon River. Massive pollution followed, ravaging the ecosystem and destroying the lives of those people who depended on the river for their existence.

24:40 “Todd Alcott” by Skip Blumberg. 90’s regular, Todd Alcott rants: “You know what they’re talking about now? – the Greenhouse Effect. They’ll be growing peaches in Siberia, here we’ll be roasting weenies on the car hoods… So I’m gonna destroy the world if I put Right Guard under my arm pits. Believe me. God help us if I didn’t…Here’s what I’m saying, five years ago these scientists were telling us about the Ice Age… okay, where’s the ice? Wasn’t here when I woke up. Hope it doesn’t wreck my car… Maybe this Greenhouse-ozone thing is keeping away the ice. Greenhouse. Ice Age. Which do you want? Me? I look better in summer clothes.”

26:28 “Santa Monica” James Mulryan. John Young, a long time surfer and cancer victim from Santa Monica, reads a sign on the beach that warns of potential contamination. Drain pipes spit sewage out in the ocean near favorite surfing spots. “Every major city street in Los Angeles dead ends in Santa Monica. I would think every major drain also dead ends in Santa Monica… The man in East L.A. changing his oil and thinking ‘it’s cool, I’ll just dump it down this storm drain’… He doesn’t realize that in a week we’re out here sucking it up… We’ve had lifeguards on this beach die from the contamination… This is Santa Monica, welcome to it, and be ready to read our sign.”

30:51 “‘Clean Dan’ Grandusky” by Jimmy Sternfield. A builder from Denver, Colorado voices his concerns about environmental change, likening the current situation to a global war. “The significant problem with the urban landscape is our cars, our highways. World War III is being waged right now. We are the last generation who can save the planet.”

32:36 “Control Emissions” by Paul Tassie. A PSA in which a dog rebels against a car’s excessive exhaust by clogging up the muffler with a potato, causing the car to shoot into the air. “Control emissions, won’t you? Thanks,” says the dog.

33:34 “Zeke’s Heap” by Jay April. Segment about a communal compost heap run by Tim Dundon, aka “Zeke the Sheik.” The county health department is trying to force the removal of the giant compost pile, claiming it is a public nuisance. The people in the town organize a protest to save the heap.

31:51 “One Man’s Trash” by Dee Dee Halleck. Two little girls sing “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

38:29 “Steve Brill: The Wild Man” by Esti Marpet. In Central Park, New York City, the “wild man” conducts tours pointing out edible plants and teaching about conservation. In 1981, when he was leading tours in New York’s parks, he was arrested and charged with criminal mischief for picking plants. After that, he made a deal with the city and now he’s an official Park Department employee. His advice: “Enjoy this planet, it’s yours to partake of, it’s yours to protect.”

45:02 “North Pacific Driftnet Expedition” by Greenpeace. Ben Deeble, a Greenpeace representative, discusses the ecological devastation caused by driftnet fishing. Each year nets kill 1,000,000 sea birds and 120,000 dolphins, not to mention just about everything else that gets in the nets’ path. However, legislation is currently pending to limit this type of activity. One bill proposes to prohibit the nets altogether, while “The Tuna Labeling Act” would force tuna caught by the nets to be labeled as “dolphin unsafe.”

46:36 “Diving Fundamentals” by Jonathan Giles. Artistically manipulated video showing the wrong ways to dive.

47:16 “Anthony Kiedis” by James Mulryan. Anthony Kiedis, lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, visits the beach: “When the UFO’s come down they see our oceans and they say, ‘Look at all these creatures’… and everyone’s hugging each other and swimming through this liquid space atmosphere and they’re having a good time. And the people get to go swimming and surfing and sail boating and its just beautiful out here and the idea that some guy in a office is sitting behind his desk saying, ‘How can I make a few million dollars… Well maybe if I cut the cost and pollute a little more’… I don’t want my kids to come out of the water and get into some sort of detoxification booth, because it takes all the fun out of it.” He then raps the tune “Green Heaven” (The smile of a dolphin is a built feature/They move in schools/But everyone’s a teacher…)

50:18 “Popeye “by Eddie Becker. At the Earth Day celebrations in Washington, D.C., Popeye joins the ecology movement. “I’m Popeye the sailor man, I recycle my spinach can… Anyone who pollutes the air, earth, or ocean is nothing more than a criminal!”

50:51 Excerpt from “Garbage Mountain” by Nancy Cain. In Los Angeles, California, Jody Procter takes us on a tour of a garbage dump and shares his reverence for what is found there.

55:33 “Four on the Floor” by Sandy Smolen. A classical music quartet plays while cars are crushed at a junkyard.

58:16 Promo for The 90’s.

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; editor, John Grod; outreach producer, DeeDee Halleck;  “Redwood Forest” and “Zeke’s Heap” by Jay April; “Popeye” by Eddie Becker; “Wildman” by Esti Galili Marpet; “L.A. Dump” by Nancy Cain; 90’s correspondents, appalshop, Starr Sutherland and Skip Blumberg; “Malibu Surfers,” “Santa Monica,” and “Anthony Kiedis” by Jim Mulryan; “Uncle Sam Falls” by Bill Stamets; “‘Clean’ Dan” by Jimmy Sternfield; “Control Emissions” by Paul Tassie; “One Man’s Trash” by DeeDee Halleck, with Molly Kovel and Chandeen Wardell; “Four on the Floor” by Sandy Smolen; 90’s West, Nancy Cain, Chief, Judith Binder and Jody Proctor; production administrator, Linda Schulman; business affairs, Eric Kramer; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; production assistants Pat Creadon, Brian Strause and Melissa Sterne; special thanks, Karen Ranucci and Karen Hirsch; Voices of THE 90’s, Joe Cummings and Tony Judge

Additional Credits:

paintbox, Rich DuCasse; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; titles & effects created at Independent Programming Associates; opening sequence produced by John Anderson; opening film sequence by Tom Finerty; original music by The Cleaning Ladys; for KBDI, director of programming and production, Diane Markrow; post-production facilities, The Center for New Television, Chicago; funded in part by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Instructional Telecommunications Foundation, Inc.; copyright 1990 The Center for New Television

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Episode 215: The Video Revolution (7am, 3pm, 11pm CDT)

Episode 215 of the award-winning TV series The 90’s. This episode is called “The Video Revolution” and  features the following segments:

90’s Cold Opening featuring an excerpt from the 1972 video “Four More Years” by TVTV. In this clip Walter Cronkite is being interviewed. Cronkite: “Introspection is not good for a journalist. I’ll tell you that you’d be much better off if you didn’t pay any attention to it at all.”

02:32 “Beat of an Urban Drum” by The Lies Brothers. Native Americans discuss the difficulty in maintaining their heritage and traditional ideals. “We’re individuals, and that’s what’s wrong with American society. You have to pretend. You have to be plastic. You have to be what someone wants you to be.” One man comments on the difficulty maintaining the heritage taught on the reservation upon entering the outside world – “You walk two paths. You get so you don’t trust people. You get so that you try to hide that you’re a Native American.” An anecdote: “I did see a white man when I was ten. I found him drifting on a beach. He said he hadn’t had anything to eat for a week. So I said, ‘There’s food all over, why don’t you eat?’ He said he didn’t know how to find it, so I made him a great meal from all over the forest. He gave me a ten dollar bill which I carried around for about three years, because I had no use for it”. Concluding poem, “Ruined”: “You have ruined me white man/You really don’t want me in your world and/You have made me unfit to live in the red man’s world.”

09:05 “Video is Television” by Antonio Muntadas. A cerebral piece that comments on television as an illusionary image. The statement is accomplished through close-up of the television’s screen, revealing the fragmented dots that make up the picture.

10:26 “New York Cabbie” by Skip Blumberg. Robert Demella, a NYC cab driver, rants about various subjects. On how to avoid getting scammed: “You don’t pick up drunks, teenagers or seedy types.” On TV: “Only good for news…I’d like to take a sledgehammer and smash the TV…The TV set is the downfall of Western Civilization…People don’t read anymore, people don’t talk anymore, people don’t think anymore…Our generation that grew up on TV is the STUPIDEST generation to come down the pike.”

12:21 Excerpt from “Did They Buy It? Nicaragua 1990 Election” by Committee for Labor Access. An excerpt from the documentary about the 1990 presidential elections in Nicaragua. It is unique because it focuses more on the foreign (i.e. U.S.) media coverage than on the events themselves. In this excerpt we watch reporter Ed Rabel of NBC News practice his lines. Rabel realizes the impact his coverage has: “The only thing any of us reporters has is his integrity and his accuracy which he brings to bear”… A journalist quotes Bernard Cohen: “The press doesn’t tell us what to think, it tells us what to think about.” The piece ends with a portion of the broadcast seen on Nightly News.

17:00 More from “New York Cabbie.” Demella continues: “I hate sound bytes. I hate 30 second political commercials. It makes me want to take a sledgehammer to the people hoisting it on us…I can smell a fraud from a mile away. That’s my business…When I get a passenger and they’re just too friendly, I go, ‘You got any money?’”

18:35 “Taiwan Demonstration” by Green Team. Based on the premise that different ideologies produce different coverage of the same events, we look at two broadcasts concerning protests in Taipei. The Green Team’s coverage portrays the farmers and the students as the victims of police brutality, while the government controlled report suggest that the people “totally lost their heads” and were the instigators of the violence.

22:44 “Mountain Vision “by Susan Wehling. Anne Johnson, a TV producer from Appalshop in Kentucky, comments on the importance of television as a tool in representing people who are otherwise denied a voice. We see short clips of people featured on her show, from Minnie ‘s Gourd Museum to Everett Akers (“They have taken our rights. They have taken our freedom” — on strip mining in Kentucky). Johnson says that changing the way people perceive things is the root of societal change.

26:48 “Les Brown” by Kathie Robertson. Brown, a motivational speaker, comments on TV ‘s violent nature and its ability to desensitize people. He criticizes the media for emphasizing the negative and not being committed to positive change.

28:01 “Free Speech” by Skip Blumberg. On the streets of New York City, a spokesman attracts a crowd with his advice to blacks and Latinos to avoid assimilation and support only black and Latino businesses. A white policeman tries to disperse the crowd but is denounced: “The man has a right to voice his opinions, and we have a right to listen!”

33:45 “It’s Our Pleasure To Serve You” PSA by Laurie Anderson. Satirical look at nationalist songs in which Anderson analyzes the absurdity of the lyrics of our National Anthem as well as its “B-side,” “Yankee Doodle” — “truly a surrealist masterpiece… If you can understand this song you can understand anything that happens in the art world today.”

35:33 Electronic Visualization Lab Demo. A look at the visualization of mathematical objects through the aid of computers, with Dan Sandin. At the University of Illinois at Chicago they “explore logarithms so complicated that if computed on a standard PC your grandchildren would still be waiting to see the results.”

38:07 “Japanese TV Commercial.” A chorus of singers in outrageous costumes hail the praises of a Sony CD player.

38:36 “Cuba Vision” from the Cuban television show “When I Grow Up.” A child’s fantasy profession, in this case painting, is explored and glorified. Syrupy classical music sets the tone as a child is initiated into the world of house painters.

40:22 “ASTN Sales Meeting” A satellite-delivered series broadcast to car dealers across the country, complete with a news anchor and co-hosts, dealing with issues such as “how to conduct interpersonal relationships within a sale.”

41:01 Dee Davis commentary. “Maybe we could make television a little better if we thought of it not as a way to sell things, but as a way to change people’s lives, a way to give them new enthusiasm, a way to energize them, to cure the sick and make the lame walk.”

41:24 “Deep Dish TV” by Dee Dee Halleck. Halleck fixes a pie while discussing the importance of public access television in the exercising of First Amendment rights. “It’s participating actively in communications.”

42:00 “Taiwan TV” by Green TV. From the “Green TV” station in Taiwan, a covert broadcast operation. Students are shown tossing televisions in protest of the government takeover of the media. “TV media is the tool for the public. The government now controls the media. Today we break through this monopoly with practical action.”

Main Credits:

executive producer, Tom Weinberg; producer, Joel Cohen; chief bureaucrat, John Schwartz; editor, John Grod; outreach producer, DeeDee Halleck; “Robert Demella,” “Free Speech,” and “Todd Alcott” by Skip Blumberg; “Robert Demella” by Esti Galili Marpet; “Don Cherry” by Starr Sutherland; 90’s correspondents, Nancy Cain and Appalshop; “Beat of an Urban Drum” written and directed by Leonard A. Lies; line producer, Michael D. Lies; “Taiwan Demonstration” by Green Team; “Les Brown” by Kathie Robertson; “Panama Invasion” by Barbara Trent, The Empowerment Project; primary camera, Michael Dobo; primary editor, Gary Meyer; “Albert: Computer Animation” by Mark Stephen Pierce; 90’s West, Nancy Cain, Chief, Judith Binder and Jody Proctor; production administrator, Linda Schulman; business affairs, Eric Kramer; network builder, Jonathan Cohen; video production, Tom Vlodek, Pat Creadon; production assitants, Pat Creadon, Brian Strause and Melissa Sterne; special thanks, Shu Lea Cheang, Minday Faber and Robert Feder;  Voices of THE 90’s, Tony Judge

Additional Credits:

paintbox, Rich DuCasse; major collaborator, Scott Jacobs; titles & effects created at Independent Programming Associates; opening sequence produced by John Anderson; opening film sequence by Tom Finerty; original music by The Cleaning Ladys; for KBDI, director of programming and production, Diane Markrow; post-production facilities, The Center for New Television, Chicago; funded in part by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Instructional Telecommunications Foundation, Inc.; copyright 1990 The Center for New Television