Another Air America Misstep...Is This Goodbye to Sam Seder?

I love Dan Pashman, (son of Lewis and Linda Pashman.) I got familiar with him as a producer and on air personality on Air America Radio. His work with Brendan McDonald during the Katrina disaster was stellar. They were a couple of, probably not so innocent, producers covering a vacation week for the hosts of late lamented Morning Sedition, when the dam burst and they were in the driver's seat. They did such a great job and their banter on various talk shows that they have produced since then, and particularly with Marc Maron, has been great.
I guess that also, the Dan Pashman laugh has been something that signals to fans of a certain type of comedy that we are all on the same planet.
So, I was sorta thrilled to hear Dan take over for Sam Seder's departing temporary producer, Joel from Al Franken's show. Are you following me?
I shoulda realized, though, that the Pashman laugh is not a sign of comedy anymore....Its a sign of the endtimes!
So, after a pretty straightforward Seder show today, Pashman was heard to say, on the Sammy-cam that had been inadvertently left on, they had to tape the promos for next week and that, after the holidays, Thursday and Friday of next week are their last shows. Pashman himself is moving to Laura Flanders show, which is probably, I'm guessing, moving to a daily slot where maybe we might have seen Maron at some point.
I wrote to the new director of programming, hired on just a a week or so ago, by the Green brothers, David Bernstein ,in my usual style, which is pretty intense and wordy (see my post from the last time they canceled Maron...was that almost a year ago?) and I was very happy to get a response pretty quickly.
The thing is that the response, while kind, thoughtful, and thorough, sort of goes against what I'm pretty sure is happening. Unless there are some last minute talks going on, the reply I got was either a bit of a snow job, or the words of someone who isn't fully into the job and up on whats happening yet.

So, while my own ears, and the ears of many of my fellow bloggers heard one thing come out of Pashman, David Bernstein claims that he will listen to listeners and station managers around the country in order to make a decision....a decison that I think has already been made.

I'm upset, but not as upset as I guess I have been in the past. I think I may be writing Air America off. It was a voice of reason in the darkness 3 years ago, and a grand experiment that was new and very real in a sea of crazy lies. Now, its become another hack network that needs to scramble to meet revenue requirements. I should add that those requirements are arbitrary and set by some business plan that shouldn't exist at all, considering what we're dealing with here.

If there is to be no fairness doctrine, and the FCC has moved again and again to allow conglomeration of media outlets, and then the liberal voice has been silenced methodically by the big bucks of the right, who have created a strong foundation over many years, and using bluster, lies, fear, and hate...and drama...to spin a story and a following that puts them not only in the black but in the driver's seat as far as the information getting out to the American people, then the American people have been robbed of their right to know....Is this not the Pony Express or the Guy riding into town shouting "The British are coming, the British are coming!"
Are Americans expected to live in a world of propaganda with an educational system that is hell bent on dumbing down the masses? Don't we have a RIGHT to hear both sides?...or is that up to the president and Karl Rove to decide?

Air America is as important to the American people as the assurance of a free flow of information and ideas. An assurance that has been stifled in a campaign by the right to ensure that the masses don't find out the truth. The lies that pass for "news" coming out of the likes of the Limbaugh's and O'Reilly's out there would be laughable of they weren't so tragically accepted as the gospel truth.
The fair exchange if ideas should be subsidized by the government if the marketplace does not allow for a balance.

Beyond that, whoever takes on Air America is not taking on an entity that is anywhere near to being profitable...and thats not the point....Just like funding failed campaign after failed campaign is about ideas, this project should also be looked at as a campaign. The return is not going to be something to put in the bank right away, but the social return will be great...and in funding this venture, the Greens will ensure themselves a great place in history as the Pony Express when the right would have cut off the news and the mail. Air America will surely become more important as the country turns more and more blue. So its a little troubling to me to have the programming manager email to me:

It is a business as well as a platform. Air America had a horrible financial showing and ended up in bankruptcy.
New owners have a mission of reviving the brand name Air America and making it a financial success, or else there will be no liberal talk radio at all.

He then went on to say that he was still going to talk to listeners and program managers around the country and then because "majority rules," he will make his decision.
This is a decision that seems to already have been made and I don't think that majority rules...usually in these parts, bullshit rules.

So, as much as I want to think that the new Air America owners get it, I expect that we are looking at more of the same. There will be a business plan that is not profitable and is reworked every quarter in the futile effort to try to wring something out of this mess, and the money brother will sink just as much money into a format that will resemble NPR and still not be profitable....The same amount of money risked on exciting and edgy talkers would at least make history and a statement.
Unfortunately, it looks to me that this thing is going to go out with a small fizzle rather than a bang....and the sad thing is that it doesn't have to go out at all.

Hopefully I'm wrong...hopefully they will pull a Maron/Seder show out of their butts, but I'm not counting my joy before its hatched.
I'm expecting a Mark Green Show, that will have poor ratings but will never be canceled, and more of the Thom Hartmann sort of somnambulists intelligencia shows.
What do these people have against comedy?? Why do liberals have to be so freakin' serious? A huge part of our inability to get anything done is that we take ourselves too seriously...as Maron put it "..progressive utopians with no sense of humor..."



Sam Seder is one of the best talkers on liberal radio right now, and he is funny and cool too...The Greens are fools if they let him go...lets hope they come to their senses, but I am sort of doubting it....In the meantime: Buy Sam's great book FUBAR. I have the book and the audio book and they are both great and make great gifts! Look for it in soft cover in the coming months too!




In bird news, the Parrot store is bulging with babies of all sizes and they are CUTE!! They even have EGGS in the incubator! I will have to get more pictures pronto.The baby bunnies are hopping around in their mini perfection (thats gonna end in a second as soon as they start to get big enough to become the poop factories that rabbits are.)
I know that Todd wasn't thinking about cuteness last night when he was up every 3 hours feeding pink squirmy birds, but hell, Will spent a few months waking every hour and didn't sleep through the night till...well, recently...(and then, welcome to the teen years, aka, you think you had it bad before this!...)
Todd says that every time he sees one of the little pinkys he thinks of buffalo wings! Now, of course, he is a bird lover, and is only kidding (so PETA folk, don't bother with the hate mail,) But they are so cute when they are naked and helpless...and then when they get their fuzz and pin feathers. I could be very happy with a job at the bird store as my final career move.
In the meantime, and while i work out the nasty details of my little life here, my breeding baby parrotlets are doing well (cute,) but they wont breed till next year. the beautiful breeding pair of Yellow Side Conures are comfortably ensconced in their new home, which I refer to as the den of sexual iniquity, complete with private nest box that I am thinking of outfitting with a night vision webcam for when and if I get babies...we'll see. Someone need to be getting some around here, so I hope they are getting busy!
For birds that have been breeding stock for the past 3 years, they are very nice, and only bite a little. They have an incredible interest in being part of the household and interacting....so I'm working towards taming them (which might hurt their breeding potential, but oh well...I think that every bird should have the opportunity to know what its like to be part of a family, if they can't be in the wild or in a huge aviary.)




Thats all I have. I could get in bed and just stay there for the entire weekend, but I think I'm going to try to go to a bird show tomorrow and then I have to go to the city on Sunday to bring the boys to the Origami USA club at the Museum of Natural History (where I am still hoping to have time to get to the evolution exhibit when it doesn't have a freakin' cocktail party going on,) see grandpa and do some stuff there, and hopefully head downtown to walk around SoHo with mom a bit. She found a great new store that I have to go to...today she brought me some of those Chinese articulated fish charms and a silver skull charm....and I need more STUFF...right???

Lets hope for some good news in the world, from Air America, and from whatever lucky media outlet(s) is/are gonna get Marc and Sam...

And maybe we need to think a little bit more about our rights, and the need to have as much information from both sides as is possible under law.