Originally published at: Watch this badass cable access host from 1999 make short work of troll callers | Boing Boing
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Couldn’t watch more than a few minutes without losing any faith in humanity.
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Austin’s cable access shows were legendary. A couple I remember by name were the Old Biddy Show, and Carmen’s Banana Show (you can find several episodes by name on Youtube). And besides the crazy freak shows there were some excellent music video shows. I still have some VHS somewhere with amazing late 90’s techno/trance and mesmerizing computer generated graphics of the time.
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She was awesome - “Who wouldn’t (duh)?”.
These shows were a small window into society’s darker side, a window that widend exponentially with the advent of social media.
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Many years ago, our company hooked us up with one of the PBS stations in L.A. (KLCS?) and arranged for employee volunteers to answer phones during one of the station’s telethon airings. The host that night was a sitcom actor who I knew nothing about then and still don’t now; so not into sitcoms. She was Asian, young, pretty, and perky; upon being told our company name, she proceeded to have fun with it and yelled, “Boing-boing me!” WTH!. Once our telethon segment started she was all business, then calls began to come in. Earlier we had been warned that crank and obscene calls were to be expected; we were advised to quickly hang up on them. Almost everyone in our dozen or so group got such calls. I got only one, a creep who called to discuss our host’s looks… “ugly”, he said. Partway into his spiel I told him I could see his phone number on my station phone and that I would… then he hung up. Our station phones did not have caller ID then. Others in our group received similar calls. Interesting night.
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2:25 - I almost lost it. She’s absolute gold. But overall this is difficult and distressing to watch. I hope she had Caller-ID and biker friends.
Back in my cable days no way my boss would have allowed a show like this. Call-ins were so risky, and we didn’t have a 3-second delay like radio. Wish I worked in Austin, I could have unleashed my madness.
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Phillip is somewhat less endearing, it seems.
Around 39:30 isn’t like Slackers; it is Slackers.
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man… Austin Public Access was the best. From full-on XXX Porno to fantastic music video shows to the horror that was Race & Reason. Full on libertarian television representing all of the tax payers.
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She has ice in her veins. Still, this sounds like the same three callers goofing around with their voice just to carry on with their haphazard campaign of harassment and Beavis and Butthead impersonations.
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that was the best possible answer!
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That one threw me, they seemed legit in their request. I went to look it up before reading the comments and… it was a real band of the era! 
Of course, it’s not a request show, so she can’t be expected to know about them. 
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Check out their music video “Dog Door”. Tom Waits sings on that one, and the video was made by the Brothers Quay.
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Accepting calls live can always have it’s problems:
She is in black and white on a show shot in colour?
…because YT wants my personal data to prove how old I am before it will let me watch it.
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Same. I refuse to watch any videos like that not in incognito mode. Well, no way to watch this then.
ETA: incognito mode so I can watch it while logged out without having to log out each time
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Looks like it!
Yup, I’ve learned too much about internet privacy on BoingBoing over the years to fall back now.
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