12. Ethnography 266: The Carney: Business or Art? (1:00:00)

Fri, 4 Jun 1993 15:12:26 -0400

BGCC #12: This is one of favorite classes, and possibly our best, due to the appearance of guest lecturer Herbert I. Schiller. (That’s him in the dark glasses.) We had always wanted to do something with our mentor, and considered posing him as a media “guru,” turban and all. This was more fun: touring the Del Mar Fair as Herb comments. An exceptional learning opportunity. To provide even more political context to Herb’s Marxist critique, we interspersed opposition TV commercials from the Salvadoran elections; the tagline, in Spanish, is, “Under the boot, the vote is not valid.”

11. Culinary Arts 266: Buns or Gutters? (1:00:00) or, Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Fri, 28 May 1993 23:06:28 -0400

BGCC #11: By this point, we’re really having fun experimenting with the medium of television, “showing the seams” as DeeDee Halleck would say. Or, as we would say, “We’re not fooling anybody.” This lesson features several instances of self-reflexivity, including Brett & Gene appearing on someone else’s public access TV program; Brett reading from the class reader from the class reader itself; and, during the closing credits, a photo montage of our intern, Rochell, editing the closing credits.

10. Media Studies 266: The Romanticization of Kidnapping (1:09:35) or, “I’ll go to Gusto the body snatcher — he owes me a snach!”

Fri, 21 May 1993 15:10:27 -0400

BGCC #10: Wherein we shoot most of the lesson with the lens cap on, because we forget to take it off. Showing the inside of a lens cap for the better part of an hour actually elicited a lot of angry reactions from callers. More than one viewer thought it was a nipple. This was also the week we discovered the sound effects machine. The subtitle gag is an homage to Zero Mostel.

8. International Relations & Pacific Studies 266: NAFTA & the Migrant Worker (50:30) or, Prosperity is just across the border.

Fri, 7 May 1993 19:08:30 -0400

BGCC #8: An exercise in showing, not telling. Without speaking, we trace the path Mexican migrant day workers take from the arid border, through downtown San Diego, to the artificially lush homes of wealthy Del Mar in North County. We leave the time counter on so that students can get a sense of how long this trip takes — and to think domestic workers go up and back in the same day, every day. This was when Congress was considering NAFTA, and politicians were telling Americans, Mexicans and Canadians that it would be good for everyone. The audio is taken from a popular Mexican Spanish-language radio station.

7. Religious Studies/Political Science 266: The Separation of Church and State (58:35) or, We all have our cross to bear.

Fri, 30 Apr 1993 13:15:05 -0400

BGCC #7: San Diego has not one but two large cros

6. Economics 266: Finding Work in the Peacetime Economy (50:00)

Fri, 23 Apr 1993 13:23:46 -0400

BGCC #6:

5. Art 266B: Art and the Community (60:00) or, I know it’s not good, but I like it anyway.

Fri, 16 Apr 1993 00:00:41 -0400

BGCC #5: Once we realized we could teach an hour without stopping — and therefore, without editing, which we were loathe to do — we decided to try a lesson where the camera moved for the entire hour. This would become our modus operandi pretty much thereafter, and we became quite good at presenting an hour’s lesson straight through. For this first attempt, we used an extra-long mike cord and ventured to Old Town’s Spanish Village, to explore the world of commercially-oriented art. To cover the slow parts, we included a Gypsy Kings soundtrack (it was, after all, Spanish Village). With this lesson, we also started including a telephone number as a ‘bug,’ trying to gauge if any of the public access audience was watching. We got a handful of calls, which, if you go by the standard wisdom of one call per 1,000 viewers, was pretty good. The most memorable call was from a guy offering us fishing passes at a local lake because the Gypsy Kings were his favorite band. It’s interesting to see what people take away from the lesson. Note the final shot, which reinforces the BGCC motto: “Everything in life is a lesson in irony.”

4. Meteorology 266: The Weather (59:00) or, Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything.

Fri, 9 Apr 1993 00:00:59 -0400

BGCC #4: With this lesson, we began experimenting with the medium of television. Gene thought of setting up the camera and not moving it for the entire hour; to do so without boring the students, he reasoned, we needed a “really beautiful image,” with action in the foreground, midground and background. Hence, the Pacific Beach locale. Watch for Gene’s cameo about halfway through the lesson; as well as the microphone cord finding its way into the static shot.

3. Consumerism 266: Commodity Fetishism and the Feeding Frenzy (60:00)

Fri, 2 Apr 1993 00:00:41 -0500

BGCC #3: Wherein we, inspired by our mentor Herbert I. Schiller, go to Horton Plaza to see what it’s all about, and get thrown out of the mall in the process. We thereby prove Herb’s point, so eloquently made in Culture, Inc., about the privatization of public space. The Bullwinkle immoosonator in the show’s opening was a student disc jockey from UCSD’s campus radio station.

2. Women’s Studies 266: Sexual Harrassment and the Co-ed (59:00)

Fri, 26 Mar 1993 00:00:41 -0500

BGCC #2: Wherein we travel across town to San Diego State University, to talk with some of the female co-eds about their experiences in this pateralistic society.

1. Art 266A: Art and the University (44:30) or, I don’t know if it’s good, but I know what I like.

Fri, 19 Mar 1993 00:00:33 -0500

BGCC #1: Our first lesson, deconstructing UC-San Diego’s Stuart Collection, which includes works by Nam Jun Paik, Jenny Holzer and Bruce Naumann. This lesson features a cameo by our professor DeeDee Halleck, of Paper Tiger TV fame, who declares, “You’re not gonna get an anti-art piece out of me.” Well, we tried. The role of art in public institutions would continue to be one of our favorite subjects.