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Season
1: Jail
Episode
1 - "What is Voicejail?" - The premiere
episode of the series, chronicling a group of slackers
in the mid-80's and their voicemail scene.
Episode
2 – "Drugs" - Drugs as escape,
recreation, dead end, and possible tool for enlightenment
in the world of the Voicejail.
Episode
3 – "Work Hell" - The Voicejailers
search for happiness and discuss their attitudes toward
work.
Episode
4 – "Manic-Depression"
- Mr. 1:15 discusses LSD, an appearance by
Uncle Bob and his house of psychotic women, Mr. Chemist
looks for a nude model, other surprises.
Episode
5 – "Dreamland"
– A one-hour episode that delves into the curious
subconscious world of dreaming. Different Voicejailers
recount strange dream experiences, nightmares and
night terrors.
Episode 6 – "Getting Together"
- One-hour episode: The Voicejailers struggle against
their own, and each others' reclusiveness, as they
try to work up the nerve to meet in person.
Episode 7 – "Voicemail
Security" - Paranoia and the need
for security in the Voicejail are theme.
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Season
2: War
Episode 8 – "Leap"
- Ronald crashes through the legitimacy barrier,
a takeoff of the movie 'Fight Club', Voicejailers
encourage each other to grow up and 'get a life'.
Episode 9– "Stupid"
- Includes actual 'party line' material when Ronald
Redball was an operator there, A talk show host becomes
a stand-up comedian.
Episode 10 – "Notes
from the Nuthouse" - Schizophrenic
mixes, stream-of-consciousness rants and ravings from
down in the warm, echoey depths of the Voicejail.
Includes Voicejailer Father Luke protesting an earlier
version of the series. Mixed by Angel D. Monique!
Episode 11 – "Breaking &
Entering" - Security breaks down
in the Voicejailas boxes are broken into by a phantom
phreaker. Features a xenophobic rant by The arch conservative
'Bay Area Representative'.
Episode 12 – "Eighty-Sixed"
- The Bay Area Representative is kicked off the system,
1:15 mocks one of Dennis Erectus's many 'last shows'
on now-defunct KOME, Redball experiments with voicemail
speech compression.
Episode 13 – "Weather"
- Alliances are tested amongst the shifting
tides of friendship in the Voicejail. Redball toys
with forwarding an incendiary message to Mr. 1:15's
roommate, Dr. Laura sells kiddy porn, a creditor's
wrong number message is re-edited and played back
to him.
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Season
3: Pluto
Episode
14 – "Plutonium" - First
episode of the Season 3 the so called 'Black Cat'
series. Includes miscellaneous telephoolery and radio
talk show host cut-ups.
Episode
15 – "How Does It Feel?"
- The exuberance and idealism of the 60's
meets the paranoia and cynicism of the 90's.
Episode
16
- "Helmut's Residence"
- A message by Mr. Chemist and Penis Boy sets off
Sledge's latent homophobia. Also, Redball as SNL's
Dieter, makes phony phone calls.
Episode
17 - "Monkey Pizza" - A melange of
aural oddities for your eardrums, without anchovies.
Studio shenanigans with Ronald, Joe Sledgehammer and
Mr. 115. Also, from 1980, two Voicejailers molest
an abandoned car in stereo.
Episode
18 - "The Ultimate End of Everything"
- A deleted box leads to panic in the Voicejail. Could
this be the end for our faithful crew? Includes the
conclusion to the running 'Black Cat' radio dramas.
Episode
19 - "Left & Right" - A look at
the clash of liberal and conservative values'on the
boxes'. Includes collages of news clips from both
Bush administrations including a cut-up of George
W. Bush's presidential acceptance speech.
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Season
4: Release
Episode 20 – "Joe's Place"
– Joe Sledgehammer and his roommate set up
dates with various women on the weekend, while a dismally
bored Mr. 1:15 and Ronald fill his mailbox with pleas
to get together.
Episode 21 – "Jonesin’"
– Mr. 1:15 turns to drink and becomes belligerent
when he has to go without marijuana for a week.
Episode 22 – "Rollercoaster"
– Mr. 1:15 philosophizes and contemplates
suicide on his 25th birthday.
Episode 23 – "Endorphins"
– Mr. 1:15 contemplates taking heroin, Redball
taunts Sledgehammer over his favorite TV show’s cancellation,
other surprises.
Episode 24 – "The Maze"
– An explicit hour long episode examining
the bleak world of Silicon Valley dating in the age
of AIDS and technological alienation. Includes remixes
of popular songs, and party line weirdness.
Episode 25 – "Perry Stone"
– Chronicling the days of Perry Stone on KSJO, a pre-Howard
Stern (at least in Silicon Valley) shock jock that
became a fixture in the Voicejail world. Included:
Joe’s mailbox number is mentioned on Perry Stone’s
show and is mistaken for a 'Perry Stone hotline' by
hundreds of inattentive listeners.
Episode 26 – "Coping Mechanism"
– Included: Mr. 1:15 reacts to an anti-drug
PSA cut-up on Joe's outgoing message, Ed Note and
Joe discuss the TV show ‘Sledgehammer’, and The Bay
Area representative rebuffs critical callers.
Episode 27 – "The Void"
– Mr. 1:15 hits a wall of existential futility, Redball
makes crank calls to directory assistance, Perry Stone
gets fired from KSJO leading many disappointed fans
to call Joe's mailbox, Sledgehammer imitates Mr. 1:15.
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Season
5: Riot
Episode 28 – "The
Shout" – Mr. 1:15, Redball, Mr.
Chemist and Joe prepare to go to Berkeley for a stint
on Negativland’s radio show, Ronald makes crank calls
and interviews the electronic voicemail voice: 'Voicejail
Betty'.
Episode 29 – "Falling"
– Mr. 1:15 imagines earthly life as a fall from ‘reality
heaven’. Also, boredom leads to a rash of telephoolery
and crank calls to directory assistance.
Episode 30 – "Instant Healing"
-
Lance berates Redball for having no life, Joe Sledgehammer
leaves messages while ringi9ng up customers at the
liquor store, 1:15’s drug poetry provokes reaction,
Melissa’s boxmate is threatened.
Episode 31 – "Hybrid"
– An outgoing message spoofs Rambo, The Bay
Area Representative answers questions from callers,
Mr. 1:15 is called up for jury duty, and a collage
featuring Art Bell talking to a six-fingered antichrist.
Episode 32 – "Callbox
Sunday" – Redball’s refusal to clear
out his mailbox leads to a competition between him
and Joe to see who can make the best outgoing.
Episode 33 – "Kert Rats"
– A remix of Star Trek samples, also Voicejailers
criticize Redball for constantly breaking things that
are lent to him.
Episode 34 – "Negativity"
– An outpouring of negative energy. Included:
Joe and 1:15 trade tongue-in-cheek threats, and the
pieces Spider and Buddy.
Episode 35 – "The Quake"
– Hour long season 5 finale: Messages in
the minutes and days after the Oct. 17th, 1989 San
Francisco Bay Area earthquake highlight this episode.
Also included: musical collages representing American
response to disaster and Mr. 1:15 gives a voicemail
soliloquy the day of the Sept. 11th, 2001 tragedy.
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Season
6: Short Stint
Episode 36 - "Land
of the Dead" - Fevered
meditations on God and death as well as harassment
of directory assistance and Star Trek's George Takei.
Episode 37 - "Red
Light District" - The
boys leave the comfortable confines of South Bay suburbia
and make a frightening foray into the mean streets
of San Francisco's red light district. Also, Arnold
Schwarzeneggar spoofs including Ronald being chased
around the voicemail system by Terminator model 50-10.
And, an extended version of Electromagma #1
featuring KFJC radio DJ Kalvin J. Krebs.
Episode
38 - "Mentally Deranged" -
1:15 challenges a threatening Voicejailer to come
over and kill him. "Bug' crawls inside
of your head. Homosexual panic abounds as the boys
cruise through The Castro district. Includes the single
Mentally Deranged, Ronald taunts Sledgehammer
by leaving messages on his answering machine imitating
Sledge's long-standing astonishment at every little
plot point of Quantum Leap and Star Trek--The
Next Generation. More weirdness.
Episode 39 - "Chaos Theory"
- Includes the
results of a 1991 phone experiment where Redball and
and Sledgehammer create a stereo phone mix with an
8 mile channel separation. Joe hacks into the Mitchell
Brothers adult movie theater's answering machine in
San Francisco and listens to the room monitor. Daniel
Sverdslow interviews a perplexed Stephen J. Hawking
on the Paranoid News Network. Other interesting surprises.
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Season
7: Life Sentence
Episode 40 - "2001"
- Hour-long season opener, originally broadcast on
midnight the night of 9/11/02, that takes a darkly
satirical look at the 365 days between 9/11/01 and
9/11/02 and what happened during that time. Combines
collage, commentary and dark humor.
Episode 41 - "Conspiracies, Coverups
and Crimes" - Prank phone
calls to and cut-ups of Dave Emory's One Step Beyond
show highlight this episode. Also another newscast
from PNN the Paranoid News Network and a piece on
the on again off again Star Wars program. For the
record, we here at NCN are really hoping Dave
has a sense of humor about all this but somehow we
are not holding our breaths. Time will tell.
Episode 42 - "Call Wait"-
Ronald is driven into a frenzy of frustration by a
combination of his hay fever medication and his inability
to get a hold of either Joe or Dave on the phone.
Episode 43 - "Our Man in England"
- Mr. 1:15 pulls up roots from the Voicejail
and from Silicon Valley and moves to England where
he gets married and settles down for a lifetime of
marital bliss. Joe's roommate complains about Joe's
cigar smoking.
Episode 44 - "Trucked"
- Trucks as a means to escape boredom, trucks as a
sign of manhood, trucks that you crash in over and
over again. Dadaist cut-ups. Psycho Jack notices Voicejail
coincidences. Ronald prank calls a guitar store.
Episode 45 - "Shut Up 'n' Play
Yer Voicemail Part 1" - An experiment
in non-experimentation. Voicemail without any effects,
fancy editing, drop-ins, cut-ups, echoes, special
features or satanic backward masking. Just raw, pure,
voicemail messages, the way they originally were,
for an entire episode.
Episode 46 - "Feel Beautiful"
- Psychedelic soundsscapes, both soothing
and intense abound in this largely abstract episode.
Episode 47 - "Squawk Box"
- From yesteryear: Ronald is taken to task,
on the air, by Don Joyce of Negativland for losing
his hard-to-replace phone equipment. Ronald tries
to get Dave to do the 'pee-pee dance', more calls
from Buckwheat's schizophrenic answering machine phone
stalker, and 1:15 talks more of his cats in England.
Episode 48 - "The Touch"
- 1:15, Ronald and Don Joyce of Negatvland perform
a sketch on Don's show Over the Edge. A teacher
phones a parent over an errant student. Commercials
from yesteryear, and the manically psychedelic collage
piece Semtex Pump by NCN.
Episode 49 - "Shut Up 'n' Play Yer Voicemail
Part 2 " - The second part of, well,
of part 1. Raw Voicejail. No fancy stuff. 1:15 performs
a performance piece of vengeance against those who
do not respond to messages. Musical outgoing messages.
Material from 1995. Included messages from Angel D.
Monique, the original host of the show that Voicejail
piggybacked on: Club Manic-Consciousness.
Episode 50 - "Escape" -
Mr. 1:15 reflects on his new life in England and his
cats. Last episode in the series(?).
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