The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 258

PAGE 43 Unsolicited tapes were rolling in ml I l)M Tr MdKMthnuin AT THE OPERA HOUSE A New Evening Magazine for Bay Area Subcultures By Mii havl CoMWg "newscene" approach to the 6 o'clock news. Local comic Dar-, ryl Henriques appears in the guise of such off-the-wall characters as. The Swami from Miami'' and "Joe Carcinogen! the Purple Poisoner." Tying the features together is KSAN newsman Scoop Nisker laying down a Seventies-cool rap as alternately sillyserious as his KSAN "Ultimate Last News Show." Gesturing at the TV screen. TODAY: 3PM WORLD PREMIERE LE REVE DE CYRANO McFaO N.n-Cuirm.ii This production made possible by gruri from Fidelity Savings 6 Law Association. ILDlSTRATTOchristcns.nH.yJn Q.a V.

(QUATTRO A VERDI) v. CONCERTO BAROCCO Special Added Performance! TONIGHT: SCARLATTI PORTFOLIO chn A SONG FOR DEAD WARRIORS Smum CIRCUS POLKA RobbimStMvinsky SERENADE BaUnchtneThailoy Tickets 2-M730 Mats3-s21 EveWPAS vouch, rs encouraged' Tickets at Opera Box Office; (415)431-12 10 anJ all major aw-ncies SF Ballet tickets are now available at BASS outlet itn hiding Bullock's and Record Factory BASS haw-By Thorn' (415) 835-4342365-52301408) 27-7S52. Sjmi FABR1CE FLORIN and some of his volunteer staff are gathered around a TV screen. They are watching a series of short comic scenes performed by a long haired hippie. One of the brief bits finds the hippie and a friend passing a marijuana cigarette back and forth as they engage in a Cheech and Chorig-styled stoned rap.

Another scene finds the young man confessing, in mock desperation, that he is going to 5H f3 I If mounTAin HomE music presents 1 If A BEIIEFIT. FOR QREEUPEACE II an elegant cuenmg if.tli r- 5 Stephen stats FABRICE FLORIN was out of a Job and for a long time I was wondering from week to week if I would be able to put the show together. Even now, money is not really coming in. My girlfriend supports me. But I know we've got something.

People write letters and call in." At 24, Florin has the look and hyperactive buzz of a college film student. Three years ago, he was sailing in the Bahamas and "Videowest" was just a hazy dream. "I was trying out adventure on sailboats," be recalls. "And the Robinson Crusoe trip didn't work out at all in" the Bahamas because the dollar is king over there. So I sold my boat and my two guitars and hitchhiked to San Francisco with the firm intention of doing something about television.

It's the most powerful communications instrument of our time. I wanted to do alternative TV. Put California's marginal culture on the tube. "Probably" what motivated me was that I didn't see any-. thing on TV that I liked.

The other thing that motivated me was the kids watching TV all day long. They're really into the medium. But all they see is junk. I felt there should be more creative television. "I think there is some potential in the medium of television.

We shouldn't rule it out. Ruling it out and saying I'm 'going to eliminate my TV is just like screaming in the desert TV is here. It's here to stay. You're not going to eliminate "Videowest" tends to emphasize the post-hippie culture. "We're addressing the needs of all the people who turned off their TV years ago.

People ho are young but who have been through the Sixties in some way," he says. "People who have been through the dope culture, the rock scene, radical politics. People who are still open to new things that are happening, new cultural events. "We're the spirit of the Sixties combined with the promise of the Eighties," says Florin. "Hippies were real people.

When they communicated, the idea was to be straight and honest with each other. So we have that "But we also have the promise of the Eighties. Technology, the future, science fiction stuff, the computer revolution. Star Wars kids, children of the space age." aoO wends. (outiitinq' mike finniqAn mith special quest Ocve iriASOh A BLACK TIE OPTlOtlAL EUE11T 1 SAIl FRAUCISCO HISTORIC FOX 11MR FIELD THEATRE ujith shewing oj a special Qieenpejce 1 Irti SATURDA1, line 9th SHOIPS 7 30pm and 11 00 pm cnCKETS- $20 00 (ALL SEATS TvESERUEDl Florin says, "We've been getting a lot of unsolicited tapes.

Video equipment is so accessible now that nearly anyone who wants to can make video tapes suitable for broadcast This kid called up a few weeks ago. He ow ns all his ow portapak equipment. He's only 17 and be knows more about video than Florin continues. "He's the new generation of TV viewerproducer. And that's who I think will be the revolutionaries of the Eighties.

These ids ith access to technology." When the hippie comic's tape ends. Florin leads the way backMo the small, one room office near Broadway and San-some that Videowest has just moved into. Things are in disarray. Telephones, not yet installed, sit atop overflowing boxes. Until a few weeks ago, Florin practically operated out of a briefcase.

Despite the new office, Florin produces the programs with borrowed portapak video cameras, an unpaid volunteer staff of 30 and an editing machine he has access to for only four hours a "When I started," says Florin, "I had no money, nothing. I take his life as a final act of video theater. "This is a tape some guy just sent us," says Florin. "We'll probably use some of bis stuff on the show." The show" is "Videowest," an alternative half-hour pro- gram broadcast on Channel 26 (L'HF) every Wednesday at 10 p.m. This Monday, a special hour-long "Best of Videowest" will be shown from 10 to 11 pm Fabrice Florin is the 24-year old creator of Called by Florin, "an "Evening Magazine' for the rest of us," Videowest uses the magazine format to present Bay Area subcultures: stuff that normally never makes it onto the tube.

Recent programs have included features on the bring-back-the-Sixties Tribal Stomp rock festival held in Berkeley last fall teenage skateboard dare- devils, the cultivation of marijuana, interspecies communication with hales and dolphins, female weight-lifters, space colonization, new wave rock band -Devo and Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Jamboree. On the lighter side, "Videowest" has presented two humorous "Bay Area Update" specials that parody the typical TICKETS available at BASS (dial (4141 E-tE 1-i-X I including Record Factory Jefla Jeans Ulity Houso in Hyatt Regency, and most OijHock s'oros TICKETRON at Montgomery Wards Sc i-S Emporium. CapweM San Jose and Santi Cru Bo CWca Nuil Thrams). Downtown Ticket Contorts id.moitwr fnaior agencies For information cut rjsb? In association tuilh Mornraq Sjn Proi.1 actions Datebook, Sunday, May 2.0, 1979.