So tell me about your show
D: BusS Stop?
Yeah, what is the show?
G: It's BusS stop.
C: BuuuussssS Stop
G: Shall we tell him why it's named that?
C: No.
G: It's our names - Brown, Uppman, Schwartz and Schwartz, so that's how we got the BUSS stop thing; first letters of all our last names. And it's a variety show. The last one we did was a series of short films that we made. We've done a threshing show and one totally music one, but we try to break it up. Steve Uppman is the technical one in our group; he's been doing TV almost his whole natural life. And Denny probably has the best photographic eye and Charlie does a lot of the writing and off-screen voice-over and I'm the only one left so they made me the host of the show.
C: We chose straws; Gary chose the short end and so he's in front of the camera.
To me it seems like this is a social thing for you guys. Could you tell me how you do it and what it's like working together?
C: Personally, I just love embarrassing Gary in front of a camera. And so does Steve, he has a lot of old scores to settle with Gary. Denny has the best running stride, so when we need someone to run, he does the running. The Schwartz brothers have great music talent; all the music behind the short films is original, and I'm mostly here for my ineptitude. I have no talent whatsoever.
What advice do you have to other people making or considering making public access shows?
C: It helps if you do it with people you can get along with. Obviously if you've watched the show you realize that our production values are very low, but our motto is to finish it.
G: We want to have a good show, but we want to get it done, basically.
C: Gary in the past made films…
G: …And I didn't finish them and we're actually using some of those films in the shows now, so I'm getting them finished. Editing on these digital machines is a whole lot easier than editing film - and a whole lot cheaper too.
C: If we can do it, anyone can.
BusS Stop is a standalone program so it doesn't have a regular time slot. Check the MTN program listings at www.mtn.org and look for it in the schedule.