Calling out for help with Marian’s TV show.

A step by step way to get ‘Marian Call: Live at Pandemonium Books’ on your local cable station.

Want to help distribute a Marian Call Concert? Read on below…

Hi – I’m Tom, and I’ll be your guide to getting our friend Marian Call’s concert on your local PEG (Public/Education/Government) Television station in the USA.

First – let’s find out if you have a Public Access Station local to you. If you do, you should well on your way. Local viewers usually can’t be denied access to playback of programs they submit if they live in town. If you do have issues with a local channel, contact me at (boffoyux at gmail dot com) and I can help walk you through the process. (Look for Public Access Channels. Gov’t channels don’t usually play outside programs, and the Educational channels usually just play school related shows. There are some combo channels, but it depends on where you live.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_access_TV_stations_in_the_United_States
or http://communitymediadatabase.org/

Call or email your local station about how to place a program on the air.

Many have forms and policies online to walk you through a submission process. Most times if you are a local resident, it involves filling out a form to be a local ‘producer’ and then you can submit programming to air on the channel.

This show is released under a Creative Commons license BY-NC-SA . Content is Copyright Marian Call, with the production created by Tom Giarrosso in affiliation with Salem Community Television. This program may be freely duplicated and distributed under the creative commons license, but can not be sold.

(Basically you can air it, copy and distribute it for free as long as all attributions are kept with the program, but you can’t sell a physical copy or put ads in/around it during rebroadcast.)

I’ve got a rainstick, and I’m not afraid to use it!

How to get a copy of the show –

If your PEG station is a member of the Alliance for Community Media (many are), they can download it free from CMDA – search ‘Marian Call’, and they can download an MPEG2 version that is the standard for computer playback at most stations.

The MPEG file is also available for PEG stations at http://www.pegmedia.org – search for Salem Community Television / SCTV17

Or, you can download the .iso file at this mirror site
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B8Udmyf_bBOLbFJXcE1VUVRXbmc
which you can burn a DVD and hand to your local station for playback. Burning a DVD from an .iso file is built in to Windows 7 and there are several free software packages you can use – here’s one FAQ for burning an .iso DVD

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/ht/burnisofile.htm

I wonder how many stations will play me?

Why am I doing this?

To be honest, I’ve met a number of people struggling to get their music out to find an audience, and see this as a unique way to get new people to sample their content. I’ve been involved with PEG programming for many years, and it’s something most artists overlook or aren’t aware exists as a venue to expand their audience at a minimal cost. Also, it’s fun to pay things forward.

There are challenges to this approach, but it’s similar to streaming your material for free. The stations get free quality programming to play, and the artists get exposure to new markets and hopefully people who will support them while touring. Win – win for everyone. I’m hoping this will be the first of a series of self producing artist concerts from friends I’ve met on the internet and the various music competitions I’ve been involved with. (Masters of Song Fu, SpinTunes, Song Fight)

I would appreciate help spreading the word on this, and an email on the location and station you’ve gotten the show on. I’ll put together a Google Map on stations that will be playing the show (so far, 4 have shown interest and downloaded the show this week on their own)

I’m hoping for 100 stations to play the show by September. With over 2000 PEG access channels in the US, (About 1/3 of them Public Access Channels) I think we can hit this goal and then some!

Thanks for the help

Tom Giarrosso

Boffo Yux Dudes

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Elvis on the Run – The IRS version

Elvis tries to do the right thing – The IRS Help Line call – 1991

Elvis and the IRS – Click to download

In one of our return trips back working at WHEB-FM, we happened to rejoin during a time of transition – The current Program Director and Morning Guy, Jeff Left, was moving on, and we were told a high caliber morning guy would be coming in to replace him. In the end, they chose Bob Wolf.

Let me make this clear – Bob is a great guy and friend – he’s talented, and does an awesome morning show. But when we were tossed together, we tried, but kept butting heads in getting something that worked. Afterwords, we found out management was telling him to do the exact opposite of what we knew was working… and he was caught in the middle of it. We tried to make a go of it, but after they limited our character bits, and then our production segments, we knew there wasn’t much left there to try, and we moved on to EJ’s Salisbury studio to continue our syndication work, leaving behind ‘The Fox and the Wolf’ to morning show history.

One thing we did do – mainly in desperation – was phony phone calls – Bob used them as a staple of his show, so we tried a few off the cuff… but of course, we couldn’t just do a simple prank and then hang up. Instead, we’d try to do stuff like have Pat do his Elvis, and try and call Manuel Noriega just after the rigged election, but before the invasion. We called Lloyds of London as Jack Nicholson attempting to insure his wiener for a million bucks. And we did this one…

Elvis calling the IRS help line, trying to turn himself in.

I can’t believe how natural this all progressed, and also that the fact we figured out exactly when Elvis would be eligible for Social Security before the call. That fact came in very handy.

Enjoy.

Low Tech Commercials in a High Tech World

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOHRRoVlqr8]

1 900-On Hold commercial

 

In the 90’s there were a lot of those 976 and 900 numbers playing late at night on TV. Mainly for lonely people to talk to someone, or to find a way to part you with your money. It was a ripe subject for a number of bits – this one was a little more technically difficult for it’s time… I think we used an Amiga 2000 to make the graphics, but did it all live through the switcher. It was blocked out in sections, and pieced together to make the final product.

Pat’s surfer dude still makes me laugh – the double take is a classic.

I did like this genre – we did a bunch of radio bits on this theme.. I’ll have to dig them up. Enjoy.