The show lasted 13
weeks. We had no idea what we were doing. Ben Davis running the
switcher and providing visuals, Mark Capps with the smart ass remarks on
CG(character generator), Dan Heyman running around tweaking things and
laughing, and a few other people wandering in and out.
The
first few weeks were a fun mess. I was sitting down... a boring camera
shot... me with a turtleneck pulled up over my mouth... a mess.
The show had no name.
It
was something about the turtleneck I think. The callers didn't know
what to make of me, and I felt anonymously free to say what ever the
hell I wanted. I was quick to hang up on people... there were always
more people on the line... Hanging up on people was fun, and it made a
wonderful noise. After a while I started to vocally emulate the sound
when I hung up on particularly annoying callers. KONK! It caught on... We
knew we were on to something when people started calling in and begging
to be Konked... The show was then called Konk... Then slowly, the name
of the show started to become my name... and I was Konk.
Sometime
in those first few weeks, we decided that we wanted every episode of
the show to look completely different. Every live talk show on access
looked exactly the same(the only exception being Ask Livia Live) people
sitting in front of a blue curtain with the studio lights up full.
That's what our first few episodes looked like. The first thing I
thought of was to change the camera angle, but the studio cameras were
attached to pedestals and would only raise or lower about 18 inches. My
solution was to check out an additional camera and tripod and mount
it(sort of) to the top of a big studio ladder. It was definitely more
interesting than the standard studio cam shot. Kinda like a bank robber
decided to put on a show for the surveillance camera... and the
security guard watching had dropped some acid. Kinda like that.There was
no clear vision. Ben, Mark and I each were doing our own thing. And
like a most jam bands, a lot of the time it's just self indulgent crap,
but then everybody would sync up and something very cool would happen.
The turtleneck and the surveillance cam stuck, but everything else
changed from week to week. One week I'd be in a snorkel and flippers,
the next I be wearing a Shriner's Fez. Ben would be mixing in freaky 3D
demos off his commodore 128, and footage from old war documentaries.
Mark would be alternately making fun of me, the callers, and the
institution of television itself.
The show started the
week we invaded Iraq for the first Gulf War. I thought after the first
week that that was all we were going to talk about. But the caller's
were bored with it pretty quick. The caller's were crazy. We didn't
screen them. It was a kick after a few weeks when callers started
saying that they keep missing their Tuesday morning class because our
show was on till 3AM. People started writing us letters... How weird is
that? I can't imagine writing a letter to any television show, ever.
Eventually,(about
10 weeks in) we were getting bored... the callers all started to sound
the same, we were running out of things to do in the small studio, and I
realized that an upcoming show would fall on an April 1st. I started
thinking that it would be a good time to end the show and do something
else.
A prank, a hoax... a homicide.
Konk
was an ass, and his life had been threatened countless times in the
short life of the show... it made sense. We could rig some squibs, and
shoot some blanks, but there were problems. We didn't know anything
about how to do it, and technically the ACTV studios were on government
property and there was a law against having handguns in the building...
Not a rule, but a law. If I did the bullet hit live, people would
probably call the station, the security guard would come and check it
out, and I could be suspended, or worse.
Where there's a
will there's a way. I called the Texas Film Commission, and they
referred me to a weapons expert out of Houston. He had done a lot of
film work, including work on the first Robocop. He said he would do it
for under $200(gun, condoms, and everything). I was only making about
$160/week in my restaurant job, but it was worth it. The solution to
the second problem was the turtleneck. The problem with pre-taping the
show was it was a live call in talk show. With the turtleneck on
though, no one could ever really see me mouth moving. So, I could
pre-tape the video portion of the show, roll it in on Monday night, and
take calls live on the audio portion of the show right up to the point
where I get shot. So the plan was set, I would pre-tape the episode in
the studio, but a few days before. I scheduled the studio late on a
Saturday night, the studio was going to be mostly empty and I was hoping
the insulation in the main studio would mask the sound of the gunfire.
The taping went well, I set up the camera and lights and taped about
twenty minutes of me pacing around like I was taking calls. The effects
team showed up and wired me up with a squib in the front and back. I
wanted to stand sideways to the camera and have my chest and back
explode when the gun went off. My roommate Marc Savlov was the only one
of my friends who hadn't appeared on the show so I got him to be the
gunman. It all went very fast, we blocked it and rehearsed it a couple
times and went straight into it... he walks up, I'm a little surprised
that a stranger is in the studio, a few words are exchanged, he pulls
out a gun.. I'm visibly nervous. He points it at me, I asked him to
calm down, he shoots once and runs out of frame...
I'm on
the cold cement floor gasping for each breath, no acting necessary
thanks to the controlled explosives that I just paid someone to duct
tape to my body. I had instructed the efx crew to leave me alone after
the hit while I recorded my death scene. I had some of the control room
staff run in to my aid and sit with me with until the end.
It was week 13 of an experiment in no-rules television, and it was
about to come to an abrupt end. Konk's fate was sealed. I'd watched
him die dozens of times, from several angles.
If I had
the chance to do it over again, I would have done several things
differently. The lighting was too dark, and I was too far from the
camera. You couldn't really see the bullet hit very well. The squibs,
which cost me more than a week's salary and left me with softball sized
bruises on my chest and back, hardly register. The muzzle-flash of the
gun did look cool though.
Oh well, the amateurish nature of the production probably helped to convince people of it's authenticity.
11:55 April 1st, 1990
I
press play on a tape deck and fade in from black. The key to the whole
operation was that I was not going to be in the studio on April 1st. I
was going to be sitting comfortably in the control room with a hand
held mic while we broadcast a video that was taped and edited two days
earlier. The tape had no sound for the first 20 minutes or so, and then
transitioned to the death scene which lasted about 8 minutes. For the
first 20 minutes, I took calls live like a normal show, the viewer saw
me wandering around the studio wearing a turtleneck pulled up over my
mouth and nose. The angle of the shot and my distance from the camera
made it impossible for the audience to tell that video was not live.
The show is going smoothly, and I know it's getting close. I pick up
the phone, and it's a voice I recognize. He's called before, and we
have a brief conversation until I hear the taped audio fade in. I shut
up and fade out the live mic. There is a clear difference in the audio
quality and I'm worried that it's going to ruin it.
Marc
walks into the frame and the scene starts to play out. The guy on the
phone keeps talking. Marc pulls out the gun. The control room is
completely silent. BLAM! Konk hits the ground hard.
The
caller, annoyed and clearly not believing that it was real, says "Why
did this have to happen during my phone call?" I hang up on him.
A
girl runs in from off screen and frantically says "Keith, we've called
911, they'll be here soon... hold on, hold on." The guys in the control
room are laughing and say, "OK Keith roll the other tape"... "No," I
say, "Wait a minute..."
I cut the video to black, but
leave the audio up. The phone lines are full and blinking. Now the
audio is sounding more bleak, the girl is crying, I'm gasping for every
last breath. It's painful to hear as the seconds tick by.
"Keith,
roll the tape!" "No, not yet.." I start hanging up on people,
clearing the lines, they fill right back up, I hang up on all of them
again, and the phone line lights immediately come back on.
"KEITH! ROLL THE TAPE!" "ok... now." I push play.
The
tape they wanted me to roll in was the acknowledgment of the April
fool's joke. Two night's earlier when we did the death scene, we filmed
the whole process and I cut it the night before into a little
documentary of the preparations. It's hand held, black and white, and
is the first time the audience is going to see me without the
turtleneck.
About five minutes into the doc, the security
guard comes and tells me that there are policeman at the front desk
asking about a shooting. I walk down the hall and turn the corner to
find 8 cops carrying shotguns and semiautomatic rifles. They approach
and tell me that they had multiple 911 calls reporting that they saw
someone on the TV get shot. I start to explain the situation, "I'm the
one who was shot, but it's just a TV show." they're not getting it,
they're not really listening. They just got the call that an armed
gunman is shooting people at a local TV station, and their adrenaline
levels are through the roof. I take them to the control room to show
the documentary. They recall the two ambulances that have been
dispatched.
It's starting to sink in. Now they're getting upset.
They
want to speak to someone in charge, they want to see my license, they
do not want to go back downtown empty handed. I try to explain to them
that at a public access television station the producer(me) is entirely
responsible for the content of the show. If I were to broadcast
something obscene or illegal, I would have to face the consequences...
but, I did not do anything of the sort. It's 1am, and they want to wake
up someone. They get the security guard to call up the head of access,
and she confirms what I'm saying. She's not happy, and given my recent
history (suicide hotline), she probably would have liked them to arrest
me, but they had nothing.
Actually, they had one more
move. The biggest guy (I'm 6', so he was easily 6'5") pulls me aside,
and the other 8 cops holding shotguns form a tight circle around me...
Then they start with the yelling. I'm oddly calm. I hadn't planned on
the cops showing up, but I expected to get yelled at. I thought this
through, and I did nothing legally wrong.
A funny April fools joke turned into a little 'War of the Worlds'
They leave.
The
next night one of the TV news stations picks up the story and runs it
as the lead. This time they do not interview me, instead they go with
911 recordings and quotes from a viewer and the Mayor. The mayor called
my action 'Sick". Wow. The local newspaper and other TV stations
correctly identified it as non-news and didn't mention it, but this one
station ran it several more time that week. The local free weekly
decided to write a series of stories on access and featured my stunt on
the cover. This decision probably had more to do with the fact that my
housemates Ben, Mark, and Marc were all working for The Chronicle in
some capacity at the time, but it's a cool addition to the scrapbook.
So... it's been 20 years since the events described here.
Were
my actions irresponsible? Yeah... clearly... but I was 21 years old.
It was a youthful indiscretion.
Sen. Robert Byrd was a member of the Ku
Klux Klan, President George Bush was snorting coke and getting arrested
for DWI, and I was making TV.