Public Access Television

I missed the "Golden Age of Public Access Television" (if there ever was such a thing), so I can't say that I've watched too much of it. The little I have been exposed to gives me the impression that it's about 90% bargain basement televangelists too broke-ass to hook up with the big-haired grin monsters on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, with the rest divided between prerecorded town hall meetings, Spanish-language hip-hop shows that can't get over the Green Screen effect, and college courses with a beardy professor talking to a half-empty room and a single camera.

Apparently it wasn't always like this. Apparently, back in "the day" you could catch all sorts of crazy shit that slipped through the cracks, things that weren't entertaining on the same level of other television programs so much as they were fascinating on the level of "what is this and why was this made." There is a lot of that sort of thing to be found in the world of low-budget video'd what-the-fucklery today, of course; that's about 90% of YouTube videos right there. But the difference is, with YouTube you've pretty much got to be looking for something to find it, or at least looking for something similar, and there's probably going to be a description next to it, and people commenting below to give it clarity, and a list of related videos to further frame it. In other words, even the most random and bizarre YouTube video is basically dripping with context. And as I've said before, context ruins everything.

Honestly, is homemade pseudo-Dada too much to ask for on the public airwaves in the 21st century? Basically I just wish I could have been aimlessly flipping through channels at two AM in a random bout of insomnia 20 years ago and come across something utterly bizarre and inexplicable, something untainted by logic or reason that would shake me out of my fog and then make me wonder for the rest of my days what on earth I had seen. Something like this:



If you're wondering? Yes, I did write this whole post just to have a reason to share that clip. The more I watch it the happier it makes me. I'm starting to worry myself.