Atomic TV

Baltimore City Paper
Cloud Watching: At Ground Zero
with Public-Access Atomic TV
by Raymond Cummings

Box Set: "Grape Ape" (left) and Scott Huffines on Atomic TV

If you're ever insomniac enough to still be up at 1 A.M. after a Saturday night sipping a warm microbrew, flip on the idiot box and click to Channel 42. if you're without cable, you'll get numbing, guileless static or, worse, infomercials. But people who can get Baltimore City Access Cable (BCAC) will be sent sprawling into the pop-culture meltdown of Atomic TV, a steaming bowl of audiovisual gumbo made with ingredients as old as 1950s training films and as fresh and local as last week's happenings in Fells Point.

On Atomic TV Tod Browning's 1932 carnival-sideshow drama "Freaks," rub shins with strait-laced 1950s kids learning "good posture habits" (or practicing fire drills to 70s funk) while a bearded, shirtless, local eccentric known only as "Grape Ape" (captured on film at this year's Cross Street Summer Festival) rails about Led Zeppelin and postatomic survival; elsewhere the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion goes ballistic in the Weird Al Yankovic directed video for "Wail," the first single from the band's album "Now I Got Worry." And there's a guy shooting firecrackers out of his penis! Now he's doing it again! And again! What the hell is going on here? According to Scott Huffines and Tom Warner, Atomic TV's "deadbeat biological fathers," (as described in the show's press material) it's entertainment. Weird--even lurid--entertainment, some might say, but these are likely to be the same people who would be shocked and confused by the special-interest zines and comics on sale at Huffines' Atomic Books store in Mount Vernon, where the pair edit, splice, and craft noncopyrighted footage into hour-long programs. To date three Atomic TV episodes are in the can, six more are in the works, and 15 others are mapped out.

They've found it pretty easy to recruit local talent. Huffines says he's been accused of exploiting people, but claims that people such as "Grape Ape" and an exotic dancer they filmed approached them. "The majority of people, once they see you with a microphone and a camera, will stand in line waiting for their chance to be on television," Huffines says. Warner (an occasional City Paper contributor) always keeps a video camera with him because he says he doesn't "really experience life until I have to rewind." They caught the "Penile Knievel" bit at a party.

Atomic TV officially debuted on BCAC on July 19, but Warner and Huffines have been pulling ideas and resources together for more than a year. "We took the [TV-production courses at Coppin State College] last winter and we've just been compiling stuff," Huffines says. Originally they wanted to do a zine, but recognized video as a more immediate way to express themselves; both men cite John Waters' films and Howard Stern's early WOR television show as influences.

The classes required Warner and Huffines to spend a good deal of time in the BCAC studio. "Lately, Warner says, our [BCAC] instructors, Ron Israel and Dennis Roberts, who are responsible for getting everyone's tapes on the air, had been asking us when we would ever get an episode ready to air, since they were anxious to see what we put together. Finally things came together, and now we have a new episode each week to hand in."

The two auteurs raided their video collections for material. 'There's so much old public-domain footageÖ there's hundreds and hundreds of old public-domain tapes from the 40s and 50s," Huffines says. People are selling them through mail order, and people are selling them at sci-fi conventions, and there's no copyright on them." 'While the lack of copyrights has allowed Warner and Huffines a certain creative freedom-and it doesn't hurt that Atomic TV is nonprofit--they do have to get permission to use some clips. "We actually get a lot of clearance through the wonder of E-mail," Warner says.

One thing that's very important to both men is keeping audiences interested. Warner, who has been involved in cable access before, opposes television dominated by talking heads"--"boring, static, and it just doesn't hold your attention," he laments. In showing clips from Freaks, interviews with members of the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow, and the like, Atomic TV wants above all to entertain, and to present an alternative to the formulaic fare around the dial.

Most rock bands, no matter how well they play, tend to make for dull TV, Atomic TV's creators say, which is why Huffines refuses to air footage or videos of local bands unless they have some freakish, GWAR/Alice Cooper-esque angle.

The men behind Atomic TV say there's room for more offbeat programming on Baltimore City cable. "There's not a whole lot going on with Baltimore public access," Huffines says. "I mean, Coppin's got all the facilities, and they make it available to everybody, and they run the ads, butÖ there area lot of church shows. My favorite is "Gospel Aerobics." Other programs on Channel 42 include Cosmic Visions (aimed at a comic-book/sci-fi audience), the cooking show Sashay Gourmet, and l4 Karat Cabaret, which features performers from the downtown avant-garde showcase of the same name.

The times of the Atomic TV's airings are currently in flux, and Warner says the station's programming would enjoy more support if a weekly schedule existed. "If people knew when to tune in, I think there would develop an audience for [each] different niche." A BCAC spokesperson says a printed schedule will probably be available within the next month.

Though the show is on cable, its founders are offering episodes through other means--rental copies are available at Atomic Books, Video Americain, and Reptilian Records. Says Huffines, "That way, even if it's not on everywhere, or if everybody doesn't have cable, they'll still be able to see the show.