Bonnie Bucqueroux, video camera at the ready, at the Quiet Waters workshop at MSU’s Livestock Pavilion - photo by Joy Zhao
Tonight (Wednesday night, March 20) at 9 p.m., I will be returning to public access television, after a hiatus of more years than I care to admit.
The good news for folks who remember my ill-fated WELM-TV show “From Left Field” - co-hosted with Karen Rahn and then Raymond Garcia - is that the new show will be nothing like my previous endeavor. (The highlights - or lowlights - of From Left Field are included in the video below. Warning: really really NSFW.)
My new show on Comcast Channel 16 is Lansing Voices, offering news and profiles on people in the community doing important, entertaining or intriguing things. The half-hour shows will appear on Wednesdays every week. Each show will air twice at that time and once again during the week, so set your DVR for Wednesdays at 9 p.m. so you can watch your friends and colleagues (and strangers) at your leisure.
The shows are part of the Lansing Public Media Center’s efforts to bring quality community broadcasting to Comcast customers. I was the lucky recipient of a Comcast-funded grant of high-definition video gear in exchange for which I will produce two half-hour shows a month for the next two years.
Shows already in the hopper for airing soon include profiles of feminist Ann Larabee, book maven Bill Castanier and wrestling promoter Chaz Brackx (below is a one-minute taste).
Another episode features best-selling author Charlie LeDuff (Detroit: An American Autopsy) when he spoke recently at Schuler Books in Eastwood. Below is just a taste of what Charlie had to say (warning NSFW).
One of my favorite shows offers a tour of Michigan State University’s Morrill Hall, which is slated to come down sometime this year. Stephanie Glazier of the MSU Center for Poetry and Mittlenlit’s Bill Castanier share memories and offer readings from the “literary graffiti” that dot the walls on the second floor, placed there by friends of the English Department who wanted to say goodbye. The show closes with footage from the recent L’il Darlins Vaudeville Show at The Loft.
I would like to urge you to watch a wrenching show on testimony from people who want Michigan to add Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to the list of conditions for which doctors in the state can prescribe medical marijuana. They testified at the State of Michigan Library on a snow day earlier this year.
I am also working on profiles of Autumn Rose Luciano (pinup photographer) and Rhea Van Atta (who will open her General Store in Old Town in May). And former East Lansing fire marshall Bob Pratt will tell you how to stay safe.
As this suggests, Lansing Voices attempts to capture life in Lansing by focusing on the people who live, work, play or visit here. If you have ideas for the show, please email me at lansingonline AT gmail.com. It has been fun to meet so many cool people already, and I cannot wait to meet more.
Way to rock it Bonnie! You are an amazing individual with so much creativity and zest for life. I admire your thirst for the new and different and the fervor with which you go about quenching it. I have no doubt that you will present the best of stories and give us all much to think about. I look forward to seeing you in front of the camera, not just behind the microphone! Get it Bonnie!