Quick Hits and Countdown to Election Wierdness...Marc Maron at Comix in NYC...

If American life lacks the punch of a reality show to the point that we demand larger than life puppets as candidates for our highest office these days; if Jerry Springer-esque family drama played out in oil wrestling is the thing we need to fill our check-out-line reading needs; maybe we shouldn't be so fucking surprised that we pay to fully costume the actresses and actors and that the production companies...er...campaigns stand on the sidelines with the storyboard and airbrush machine at the ready. No such luck for the McCain campaign which history may look at as really a night course in performance art 101 taught by some agitprop group found in Washington Square Park. It seems impossible that any professional politicos could have run thigns exactly this badly without it being part of some sorta joke. But then, the delusional current administration did at some point drink their own koolaid and after all that inmates/asylum stuff blows over, it will be anyone's guess if we can ever untangle what part of the nightmare thats gonna lave quite a hangover in this country for a long time to come. Whats left to hope for? Well, I hope that my son might be captured by Obama's hope thing in the way that I was captured by Jimmy Carter and before that the Kennedys, when I was a kid. Maybe he can feel some feeling of being able to shape the destiny of his world before the reality comes crashing in.

Sarah Palin may well be looking towards 2012, and for the appetites of the wingnut fringe, the ongoing Palin saga should be a great diversion while Obama races to deconstruct all that the Bushies have put in place. This, my friends, is not a joke. It would behoove us to keep the lunatic fringe that Palin will lead back underground with her in mind because if we don't there wont be any excuse. I tell myself that its gonna be a good time for me to pull back from politics and to try to work with birds and just be happy...but really, its probably not going ot be possible in the long run. I can always hope though, cant I?

With an unbelievable eleven days to go, Rachel Maddow is taking over the TV-box cable ratings game with her MSNBC show, proving that even a network run my the M$M has to listen when ratings talk. The American people surely have made it clear that they want liberal voices out there, and Rachel has risen to the top on sheer intelligence and star power. Its been fantastic to watch her rise. Tonight Keith Olbermann had Sam Seder on to punditize about snarky republicans spinning Obama's break to see his grandma into some sort of air mile thievery. Sammy immediately turned that silliness into how sick McInsane is in his cold assessment of "the life of the mother" being important in the abortion issue, spotlighting how fucking cold the radical right can be when dealing with real people as opposed to test tubes of cells....and how cold McCain is in general as he would say anything to get a few more votes. This delighted me because no one is better than Sam at pointing out wingnuttia in terms that draw us all together, along with Obama, shaking our heads in disbelief at the silliness of the children in their pretend world.

It occurred to me tonight that with Rachel rising, Sam is going to be moving into the spotlight more and more. At the same time, Seder and Marc Maron are breaking ground with their web based daily live show, Maron v. Seder 3PM EST, M-F, here. Maron is currently traveling cross country with the UK Guardian and talking to a remarkable array of people from all walks of life showing us the front lines in America up close and personal. Of course, Marc also has his way of pulling even the most far-out survivalists close, and helping us to see their humanity if not really understand it. Looking at our ever morphing culture along with Marc makes it all a little more bearable...and seeing things like the plight of homeless veterans standing on line for services with our own eyes is jarring and sad. This is merely a small glimpse of what the future will be like as we pull out of Iraq and the Guardian and Air America are doign a great thing by showing us some unvarnised truths. Maron v. Seder should be on cable or even network TV...I think that they would have to tone it down for network, so it probably belongs on HBO, Showtime, or FX, daily. In any case, look for Maron to also start turning up on Olbermann etc, as he is a tremendously smart commentator with a gift for explaining issues from angles that touch on everyday people while not being so wonky as to over intellectualize them.

Lucky New Yorkers will have the opportunity to see Maron on Friday the 24th and Sat the 25th at Comix in NYC...I'll be there at some point, tho I'm not sure which show yet...I'm in transit again from CT to NYC, and everything is in flux, as usual. Come on down and see our traveling correspondent in his element...its always fun, and Comix is a nice place. Its gonna be a rainy Saturday in NYC, and you know, I love me some weather...

See ya there!

c/p Briliant at Breakfast

Maron V. Seder Debuts Live Wed. Oct 1st, 2008

In the meantime, check here for the past vods that led to the messy birth of this thing. Technical glitches and growing pains aside, its a fantastic show and they guys have great chemistry. Add that to the fantastic and funny commentary therein on the state of things and you have a huge slice of what made early Air America great...and what alot of us have been fighting to get back for too long now!
Be sure to check back www.samsedershow.com daily before 3 PM to catch the warm-up shows live. I'm not sure of the schedule, but it's well worth it to see this thing unfold in real time. Congratulations, guys! We love you!

( hey, wait a minute...wasn't that Seder v. Maron for a minute there?...)

Want more?


c/p RIPCoco

Maron v. Seder v. CATZ: A special guest post

Jill from Brilliant at Breakfast here, with news from the Wandering Jews in the Progressive Radio Funny Desert.

The prodigal son is returning, and there was much joy and celebration throughout the land.

Ever since December 2005, and especially since the middle of 2006, those of us who have been carrying the torch for the late and lamented Morning Sedition have been waiting with bated breath for any news whatsoever that perhaps the suits at Air America Radio might have realized the colossal mistake that occurred 4,287 management changes ago (or so it seems), when Danny Goldberg decided that because he didn't like Marc Maron, one of the most popular shows on the network should be cancelled. Since then, the faithful Maronisti have been congregating over at PJ's place, skulking around comedy clubs hither and yon, and sitting through choppy VODcasts at Sam Seder's site, while our Two Jewish Heroes got screwed over by AAR again and again.

Perhaps it's because right now Air America is but a fading shadow, with only lowlights like Lionel and the earnest but dull Ron Kuby as marquee properties, now that Rachel Maddow is hitting the big time, and who knows how long she'll be able to handle a three-hour radio show (even a pre-recorded one) and a nightly network prime-time show of her own. Or perhaps it's the realization that Maddow is the last personality left on Air America with a following. But whatever the reason, the Powers that Be have decided to swallow their pride and Do What's Necessary to bring Marc Maron back to New York where he belongs.

And so, today, we learned that on Monday, August 25, at 3:00 PM Eastern Time, Messrs. Maron and Seder will be bringing their own unique brand of bickering, ferociously smart, often hilariously funny, "Hey Kids, Let's Put On a Show" video back to Air America (sort of). The VODcast will be shown at AirAmerica.com. There will be sketches, man-on-the-street interviews, political commentary and interviews, large doses of Teh Funny, and even Brendan McDonald from the old Morning Sedition board crew is back to produce the show. Maron is coming back to Astoria, with two of the Original Astoria Cats (my money's on Moxie and Monkey), returning to Where It All Began.

The show will run daily at 3 PM Eastern Time starting Monday, and will continue at least through the election. There are enough Maron and Seder fans out here that Sam's site was getting royally clobbered during today's VODcast, where the new endeavor was announced, so I have no doubt that with precious little marquee talent still in the stable, and two guys with some of the most loyal fans in radio, that this little venture into the future of broadcasting is going to succeed.

Presumably the show will be available as Video On Demand, so you'll be able to watch it any time; more on that is it develops. As this year's presidential campaign gets sillier and more trivial than ever, you'll want to have ready access in order to keep your sanity.

My cat Maggie was very interested in this development today:

...and wanted to IM Sam until I told her we don't have IM:

...and thought that the talk about the PUMA crazies was about cats:

(cross-posted, under a different title and with some differences, at Brilliant at Breakfast.

Seder v. Maron; Friday 8-22-08, 3 PM EST, LIVE! Be There!!

...Or check here for the video on demand (that's vod, baby!) of today's big announcement show (and you can always look at the evolution of past shows there too!)

Other reasons to be cheerful: Last day of the Olympics is so soon I can feel it!...God, was that 99% boring!
Driftglass dismantles Bill Kristol to hilarious effect here. Be sure to check the Driftglass Word Chipper (tm) in action!
Oh, I'm sure there are two or three other reasons, including the fall-like weather in the New York mornings, but Ive got to go and move the car.... meantime, here is a little bit of Drifty on Kristol:

Once he stood upon the brink of a brave, new Neocon order: so close to Wingtard Heaven he could almost smell the sweet perfume of a billion scary brown people (who just happened to be squatting on top of Our God Damn Oil) being nuked to shadows and dust, almost hear the triumphal march of Blackwater storm troopers merrily rounding up the last of the hippies. Negroes, queers, uppity wimmin and ACLU card-holders, almost touch the headstone over the grave where he buried the American Middle Class, and almost taste George Bush’s golf shoe on the throat of every other nation on Earth.

And he did it all by waving his little pen around.

Y'know, if you take away the ability to write (and/or read) this could be about W hisself.

See ya at 3!

c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

Marc Maron Plays a Stealthy Week at NYC's Comedy Cellar...

Last night I had the good fortune to catch Marc Maron at a sold out show at the Comedy Cellar in downtown Manhattan. It turns out that he's been doing a stealthy set or so there nightly for a week, with no word to the fan base. Its a pretty good lineup nightly there, though I am not the one to ask about stand up. I'm a fan of the Andy Kaufman brand of Mighty Mouse comedy, Morning Sedition bits, and very old Saturday Nite Live....I had a moment with Steven Wright's comedy but then I got sick of it very quickly.

Maron; call it a workout , call it laziness on his part that it didn't make it to the mailing list, call it sets too short to be crowed about as full shows...but then, the denizens of the comedy cellar certainly are on top of things because the venue has been sold out for early and late shows for the entire week. Maybe that's just the state of things in NYC nightlife, but on a Sunday at 10 we stood outside the club and people were coming by to ask if they could get reservations for the 11! Comedy Cellar is a well established place that holds only 160 people, and the lineup was pretty stellar, if you're into the stand-up thing, and its very old home for a road warrior like Maron who seems to know everyone everywhere that I've seen him! As always, I like the camaraderie around the clubs and ensembles often more than I like the stand-ups themselves.



Yeah, its been a while since I saw Maron do stand up, and Ive got to say that with everything happening in my life it was good to kick back with some of the funny (and some of the less-funny of the other comics sharing the bill with him, but oh well....)
As usual, Marc was funny and warm, and as usual also the material he does is ever evolving with the issues and where hes at emotionally...Hes got a great bit on McCain and what a crazy fuck he is...and also a good line on the gaze of Obama, and how hes seemingly looking at ...something...out there....
But the underlying theme in that short set was that you'd really have to be retarded to be undecided between crazy old fuck and intelligent young black man. The crowd roared in agreement with this...Marc went on to wonder when McCain would blow (knowing anger management issues intimately)...and that crowd reaction is a good thing. I hope that he gets the same reaction with this material in bigger settings such as Seattle's Bumbershoot festival next week where he will be appearing with the Satiristas; call it an informal poll.

Not that the liberal comedy crowds in NYC and Seattle are much to gauge the mood of the nation by, but I have to say that we all seem to be holding onto each other and holding our collective breaths about how close this race might be...and if its close, then what does that say about us? "Retarded?" (tm Maron)...yup! Cowards? Yup! Racist? Uh-huh!...and really, Anti-American! If McCain gets into office it will be the most unAmerican act ever committed by the American people as a whole...because what is going on, and has been going on here for the past 7.5 years is criminal and against everything we stand for.
...anyway, I hear that Burlington,VT might be a good place to build the self sufficient bunker for the next 8 years if McCain gets in....next stop Canada.



In other news, Sam Seder will be traveling to Denver to cover the Democratic Convention for Air America Radio. He promises interviews, video, audio and all sorts of good stuff...maybe even a week of Maron v. Seder, which is my absolute favorite show these days. It will be good to hear from Sammy, (and Marc too, of course,) as it seems that we've had a dearth of reasonable, intelligent, liberal talk...or maybe I just haven't been listening enough...Air America went from a 90% fantastic and groundbreaking lineup to the polar opposite, screwing people over along the way, in its short life.

When Air America began it gave hope to alot of us who felt totally frustrated and insane with this rogue leadership and their obvious lies. It was such a relief to find sane, funny voices that understood, and through that we found each other. The netroots is nothing to scoff at, folks. It may not be a huge landslide in the popular vote, but it is an active force of many intelligent (and some less so,) people who have the drive and desire to effect change. We're entering a time of hope and possibly empowerment now, which will only be effective if we quit turning on one another and keep our eyes on the prize. Its at a time like this that I treasure the likes of Maron and Seder in whatever form I can get them...because I'm even more disillusioned with not only the leadership but especially my own party. I've clung to the ideals of the spoken word, in whatever form its taken with the technology out there, because it made sense to me, and because I needed an outlet...anyone who knows me, knows that I have alot of words to let out! Going forward, I am again reminded by last night's show how important this discourse remains...
I look forward to anything that these guys have coming up...
Tune in for the next Seder V. Maron live and join the chat! Its a fantastic meeting of two minds that are quirky, tuned in, smart as all get-out, funny, and just plain fun! Watch this space for dates and times...sometime during the convention we should get an installment, and then, as usual, we play it by ear,depending on everyone's schedule (but rule of thumb is sometime Tuesday around noon-ish eastern time. But if you want to see the evolution of a hilarious and technologically groundbreaking workout of chemistry, intellect, and really funny glitches (especially Maron's reactions to them,) check here for the archives. Its not always smooth, and its certainly not perfect...but there is something very real there that works beautifully....and I, for one, want more!


c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

Sam Seder and Marc Maron; Air America's Wrestlemania Meets American Idol. What if You Threw a Contest and No-One Came?

Welcome to our very own American Idol-ish...sorta contest...In which we vote for our favorite voice of the left while Howie Mandell holds a phone up and excitedly makes offers from some "banker" dude. Vote early and vote often, kids! Stream it live and leave comments at Air America, (and check out the Sammycam, while you can, here. For a short version of the long story of the Sammer look here.) And there is always the comments accepted by PCollins@airamerica.com which may or may not ever register. Who knows? For someone who earned his chops in interactive media, he is certainly not all that interactive, even in a got your mail, thanks for the comment. auto-mail sort of way.

Such is the pathetic state of one of the very few outlets for the liberal voice left in this country. To watch the unraveling continue is heart wrenching...to see a "contest" where talented, passionate voices are akin to sheep to the slaughter (and Simon Cowell's name is even mentioned in the mailer advertising this little game,) and into the corporate grinder of another possibility that looks to be much like the last possibility was...well, lets just say that hope is not winning out anymore....and if the Whoopie Goldberg Happy Show doesnt sound feasible to soothe the masses, well, think again.

First of all, I should say that the choices are a little uncertain...who is actually in the running here? I don't know for sure. In the wake of the Randi Rhodes debacle, the new suits need to fill the 3-6PM slot, and its not enough for them that they have, under their very noses, the most shuttled around, loyal, and excellent, Sam Seder, but they have felt compelled to try out some celebrity hosts who couldn't possibly want the gig, and who have pretty much sucked so far. Just to recap for the latecomers; we have heard from Roseanne Barr, Joy Behar, Richard Belzer, and still to come is the duo of Ron Kuby and Ron Reagan, which might only be half bad, but, hell, all things equal why not just give Kuby a show late night or very early morning somewhere, not prime drive-time, fer' Christ's sake, and be done with it?

This week, our heroes, Marc Maron and Sam Seder, share the slot on alternating days. This whole thing is seemingly an audition for Maron, but there is no comparison between him and any of the others, except Seder, who is from the same crowd of comedians and comedy circuit. Their long relationship lends itself to a very nice shorthand and knowing grin sort of back and forth that works. Maron used to think that the two of them together might be too "Jewey," but I don't get that as much as I get their long relationship as very different brothers who approach things differently, but have the same jumping off point.

They each have a different approach which has its points, with Maron leaning more towards culture and variety with politics thrown in, while Seder is straight up politics with reflections on the work-a-day life we, most of us, share. Maron does more sketch comedy and is more inside his own head, which either reflects our collective neurosis, or just seems funny to the more balanced of us out there. Both are funny and real, and more importantly, both are Air America originals, and are actually what was that hopeful, new, edgy voice. When either of them appears on the network, the fans come out in droves. This is a no brainer, and why a competition is being set up is either high concept from around a conference table with communications school grads who think they have some creative edge, or some money making priming of the pump. Maybe celebrities impress advertisers? Only so long as listeners tune in.

The idea of audience input in this decision is quaint, to say the least, to those of us who have attempted to communicate with that organization in large numbers only to be ignored. In fact, the newsletter that broached this little experiment didn't even specify how one would vote for one or the other, and since, as far as I can see, the contest is between Maron, Seder, and possibly Kuby, I suppose they could be counting streams, or emails or...it just doesn't seem like they planned it too well. So, in case there was a question over in the home office, yes we want Maron back on the air however we can get him and within his own west coast constraints. Yes we want Seder in a 5 day per week slot. No we don't want any of your celebrities.


In any case, Sam Seder hosted Monday the 5th, and will host again on Wednesday the 7th. Marc Maron will host Tuesday the 6th, Thursday the 8th, and Friday the 9th. We were to hear a tag team of the two of them on Friday, but some glitch prevented it...too bad; these two are excellent together in their weekly VOD-cast, here, on Tuesdays at 11AM,EST.



My favorite Air America Radio sweatshirt says "...because we couldn't make this stuff up..." across the chest. The story of AAR will no doubt be told beyond what we know from the Left of the Dial documentary, which was full of hope at the raw talent and creativity of those early days of the creation of what was to be a strong voice for the left. Late last week on Hardball, the bland Mark Green, third "owner" of AAR, compared a John McCain presidency to Herman's Hermits; "Second Verse, Same as the First," with a stiff chuckle and nod to "pop culture." I was struck by how far removed he is from the current of modern society and what the meaningful touchstones of what remains of our culture might be, outside of the incestuous world of NYC politics, and the level that he just cant seem to get past. When I think of this guy and his ilk, I get a vision of furniture and lamps covered in plastic and slick young guys standing by the ropes of Studio 54, never to get in because of those damned bridge and tunnel shoes and gold chains. Its not something that I find necessarily bad; its a culture all its own, and a Brooklyn upbringing that I understand because I also grew up there. But it is like a time capsule and there is a sort of mentality and taste implied there, born of Tony Manero, rented limos, and power hungry failed politicians, picked last for the team time and again. New York City is a hard place to make your mark, and at some point maybe its best to stop trying so damned hard and look at the reality of whats in front of you.

The news that "new owners" were once again climbing aboard the sinking ss. AAR gave me little hope, especially when I heard that Green was being kept on. Still, I heard from a couple of different people on the inside that the new group seemed pretty smart and that there might yet be hope. I don't know; hope seems so distant these days in light of a paralyzed senate, unable to effect any real change without enough votes or enough balls to even speak up about criminals in the White House... and the infighting in the party which doesn't seem to have any sort of logical basis....the partisanship within the democratic party which was so clearly reflected in AAR management.... So, I didn't expect much, especially when the network seemingly set up and then took down Randi Rhodes. The whole episode was a horrible example of what is wrong with an entity like AAR being run by a bunch of pseudo politicians who are really home shopping moguls, posturing and posing as they try to figure out how to present the "left" side of things in as palatable and soothing a way as possible, so as to make money while appearing PC. Start-up media outlets seldom make money in the first 5 years. Outlets with a controversial message tend to need ongoing financial support; just ask Rupert Murdoch.

Whatever is going on over there resembles the divide in the democratic party in that someone's idea of how to fill a slot left empty by the network's biggest draw who is a concise, on point, broadcaster, that knows her stuff, is with guest "celebrity hosts" who are not only a little old and soft, but not especially up on the issues, while popular originals stand by. The messages from each of these categories of hosts is so completely different as to be almost representative of the differences between candidates.

AAR would be lucky if any of the original Air Americans or the celebrity guests would even consider a job with an outlet with this track record. I guess that performers, commentators, and the like are every bit as masochistic as their fans, and the message has to get out one way or another. I have no doubt that the cream will rise to the top here or elsewhere, and if this is where I part ways with AAR, then so be it. I lost my ability to care a long time ago....but I will stream the show...I will vote equally for Maron and Seder...and I hope that when this thing is over that AAR might be able to give a nod toward mistakes made, and start to rebuild what was once a pretty damned great line-up.

c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

Air America...What Could They be Thinking?...Sign to Let AAR Know That We Want Sam Seder on 5 Days Per Week!

Brave New Films has set up a petition to let Air America know that we want Sam Seder to have a 5 day per week show. Go HERE and sign. Then write to pcollins@airamerica.com and let him know what you think about the lineup, the celebrity guest hosts, and what this country needs as far as the liberal voice goes.

I'm not down on Richard Belzer, who is filling in from 3-6 PM this week in Randi Rhodes sold slot, but the problem with him is alot like the problem with Jerry Springer or Lionel; there is a lack of real reporting and deep knowledge of the issues there. They may be able to get guests or liberal callers, but they don't stretch our awareness of the issues much past what is on the normal news or in the paper. If you want a talker who is just there to lull you from a left sided viewpoint, then I can understand liking these guys. But of you want to be challenged, to think, to find out more about the surface story, and to find out what you can do about it, then Sam Seder is better for the network.

When the Green brothers took over Air America and put Lionel in the morning slot that had previously been Sam's, there was talk that the feeling was that Sam was too substantive and that there was a desire for...er...less substance in the morning. Now, already, Morning Sedition had proven that wrong as the numbers were good and climbing when the plug was pulled on that for no other reason than that one person didn't like it. And I would also say that the fact that there are a range of news programs in morning drive time disproves that as well. I think that its completely disrespectful to the audience to say that they should have less substance in that time slot. I suppose that a morning zoo with content would be nice...but one would have to rebuild that from the ashes of bad management decisions.

The thing is, that where maybe Randi Rhodes was maybe too wild for the new owners, and not enough of a Hillary soldier, (and good luck trying to find anyone who is anymore,)or they didn't like her contract, or whatever it was, to replace her with Richard Belzer who is a bit of a snooze, but might be fine in a night slot, is gonna alienate any listeners who haven't followed Randi but who tune in for a peppy afternoon show with a little anger and energy. I just cant imagine how the casting is done over there in the bowels of AAR, but the management of said casting and the way that the very talented Sam Seder has been treated, is deplorable if one wants to go for continuity and keep the audience that they have.

And in a nod to the brilliance of the late great Morning Sedition, Belzer had a Kent Jones character call in. Unless management is renewing Kent's contract, I find it in pretty strange taste...though I am not in that loop at all, so who knows what goes on...but the thing is, Belzer is not a sketch comedian of the sort that played those sketches originally. So the comparison is brutal, and the sketch didn't make alot of sense...and as much as Belzer is held in high regard in the liberal community, the comedy community, and the NYC community, he just didn't hit it right, leaving those of us who knew the origins of that sketch shaking our heads, and those who didn't wondering what the fuck that was. There is a need for more of the funny on AAR, but digging this stuff out of the vault and trying to recreate it is not the way to go. That's the recycled funny and it doesn't work unless the originals are called in to reunite with these characters; to do it right, you've got to build it new from the ground up, and with some very talented people who have the time to work together so its not so strange and stilted.

I suppose I'm pretty well finished with AAR. I wrote a pretty good second letter to Phillipe Collins, and I signed the petition....I don't know how much I can even care anymore...and as long as Mark Green is in on these decisions, and I keep seeing his face on Hardball and the like, I get an icky, sticky, smarmy feeling about the whole thing. The edgy coolness is all gone now...you only have to look at Green and know his history in NYC to hear that bell toll. So, I'm expecting the worst, and Ill be happily surprised if they do anything that makes sense. But we are not in an age of sense, and I can see that there is gonna be a time soon where all of the media content out there is going to be cobbled together by subscription, and delivered by WiFi (wait...get this...I ordered an 80 gig Zune!...more on that as it develops.)I really hope that Sam is offered a good, 5 day per week slot, with some job security, but I also know that he is so talented and so interested in the media of the future that not being saddled with AAR could be a good thing for him too. So, in the long view its exciting to see what he might do...its just that in the short term its going to be a real bummer not to have him navigating the decline and fall of the Bush empire, and the election and cleanup of whatever comes next. This is a season that I would hate to go through without his voice and point of view out there with me.

c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

Randi Rhodes Leaves Air America...Different Owners, Same Crap...Catch her on NovaM Beginning Monday!

Sometimes I get a nostalgic feeling for Air America Radio and how it appeared with its cool quirky hosts at a time when things were low in my life, very bad in the government, and no one was supposed to talk about things lest they be viewed as somehow unAmerican. Because I'm a fool, as my grandfather might say as he dragged his ancient self up the hill in front of the house to pull down the IMPEACH War Criminals sign, to prevent the fire bombers from coming, I was, at the time really itching to find out the truth. I was also interested in what could possibly be in the minds of people who lack empathy for others and I wanted to look hard at the truth of cognitive dissonance up close and personal, as I was seeing it all over the place. It was such a relief to hear these new voices find their ways in their new jobs and to hear a fresh message that was researched and carefully backed up as true.

Well, its been a long 4 years and most of the stand-out original voices have long ago fallen away in one way or another, mostly by foolish management decisions, and the changing face of who owns the network and their personal proclivities. And, honestly, its been painful to watch this thing get disassembled in bits and chunks like a toy, and as if it wasn't at one point, a long time ago, a vital part of information dissemination of the sort that we had when the fairness doctrine was in effect.
What started as a utopian dream; a great experiment, as I've called it before, has been dying a slow spiraling death for far too long.

So, it came as little surprise when last week Randi Rhodes was suspended for a stand up routine in which she used the word whore to describe Hillary Clinton and Geri Ferraro. It was during a show that she put on at an AAR affiliate in San Francisco and a few days later the AAR brass caught wind of it via a YouTube video, and they suspended her. What I found disconcerting about that was that the speech matched the venue and the crowd; its wasn't out of place for Randi to say something like that, and I don't know if rules had been set forth for her that she disregarded, but if they didn't want this sort of show, why would they book her? It seems that she was on the company clock and knew that the newest AAR owners were Hillary supporters, but it is just unlike the spirit of the Air America brand to try to shut down that sort of speech. Of course. its time to realize that the brand has changed; its now in a sport shirt and it visits Florida or the tanning booth; Its got a mean temper and is personally not well liked in political circles.

Yes, it seems that they Greens are still the public face of AAR, even though there is a new owner. The only major change so far is that the web site, which under the care of Sam Seder, is all new and fancy...its much better.
The rest? Well, Lionel is untenable, Thom Hartmann is more than a little slow and boring for daytime, and Randi has been on edge, seeming very unhappy, and ranting on and on as usual. Rachel Maddow has one foot at MSNBC, and I can't imagine that her future wont be in the visual media. I have to think hard to remember who else there even is out there, but I do love Ring of Fire, vanity project that it is at this point, and I adore Sam Seder and his Sunday show plus all his jumping around filling in.

And its there that I found myself today, after a hard week of trying to get medical care for a child who has crappy insurance (not y child even, but mine has crappy insurance too,) and stranger than fiction goings on around this homestead, listening to Sam filling in for the suspended Randi. I was heartbroken to see his surprise and outrage when he found out, on the air, that the brass had booked Richard Belzer for the slot next week. They hadn't told him before they leaked it to Huffington Post, and the whole thing sorta smacked of the sort of disrespect that they have shown not only to Sam all along, but to departed talent Kent Jones, Mike Malloy, and Marc Maron. It seems that no matter who the management is at this place, they lack the ability to treat their talent right.

In the old days, actors and announcers and the like were viewed as a commodity to be owned, and treated as so much disposable puppetry. But that is a very old fashioned idea, and the people who were originally recruited for this startup roller coaster ride are of a different ilk. It seems like it should be taken into account that the path that was forged by this group, and the hard work, threats, and unstable work conditions, were not nothing. Some of the original hosts relocated to New York leaving behind family, to work in a new medium that required alot of research and knowledge, besides just becoming comfortable in broadcasting. And for that, they got treated with something less than respect, and in some cases, with total disregard.

So, I'd like to see a little something come out of the new management of the new AAR. Start with Sam Seder and give him a regular weekday show. He is, without a doubt, the best talent that you have left there, and he only gets better. Thousands of fans will attest that he should be on weekdays over any star turn by Richard Belzer or anyone that you can rope into the position. next, Get Marc Maron back on a regular show immediately. Try a signing bonus in Marc's case, and a raise and bonus for Sam while you're at it. I would also strongly suggest that you start to give Rachel a little more budget. She not only is better with some sort of co-host, but she should be able to have Kent Jones with her (and he is, in so many ways, the signature versatile voice of AAR.) get rid of Lionel right away. He doesn't represent Air America Radio or progressives. Its hard to tell what he represents, and its even harder to figure out how he ever got on air with that voice!

I can understand that every new set of owners wants to put their mark on the station. I know that you have your program managers and specialists on board trying to figure out how best to put the interactive mode of AAR into effect and to make big announcements, but listen, you are best served by rolling the thing back and building on the initial foundations that were there before the shuffle began. The hosts never had the time that they deserved to move the numbers properly...and to expect a profit from a media outlet that was started from scratch, and one that has endured so much shuffling of lineup, is insane. Anyone who invests into an outlet like this expecting a return right away, or even in a couple of years, is dreaming. Where are the rich liberals who want to finance this thing because its sorely needed in this country? Why was this sold to the Green brothers in a questionable deal that allowed it to go for a fraction of the agreed upon price in cash, and then a payback to only certain debtors, while throwing the workers and talent under the bus? And now that the new owner, Charlie Kireker, is in place with additional money and suits, why are the Green brothers still on board?

If Kireker is there to infuse money into the business, then I hope to see some positive announcements very soon. If Sam Seder quits or is relegated to some secondary role again, I am just moving into a place where I further don't give a shit...I'm already there more or less...but I'm ready to move it over to NovaM, spend money there, and seek out podcasts that are produced in a way that doesn't hurt anyone (or do animal testing.)


For those reasons alone you would think that any one of the originals would deserve some higher level of respect. But, for some reason, each variation of management seems to lack basic skills in treatment of others...especially those who are on the air and having to juggle callers and concepts, timing and a ton of information. Its an incredibly hard job on many levels, and not the least of it is that its easy to get burned out in this atmosphere of bad government getting worse and having to roll with the punches in an industry that is historically rough.

For the life story of AAR check out Left of the Dial, available on my coolio roundabout widget over on the right side of RIPCoco, and also at any outlet you might prefer. Its such a great documentary, even if you're not a huge fan of this network...and it speaks volumes about lost opportunity and the kind of talent that the following management teams squandered.

Breaking: Randi Rhodes just appeared with Larry King Live and according to her statement, when the new owners were looking at the company and making their deal, they had a problem with the terms of her contract, in that they didn't have the power to fire her without cause. She refused to alter her contract and in the ensuing months they decided to send her on these stand up sort of appearances, and then suddenly found this instance of what they viewed as cause. They would not let her back on the air unless she agreed to amend her contract as they had originally wanted, and she refused. Since under her contract they do not have the power to fire her, she was to remain in limbo. But somehow she has a job beginning on Monday at NovaM radio, so she either had a standing offer, had been considering leaving, or she hustled and found a soft landing. Good for her! I am again happy that someone else got out alive, as I was with Maron (which doesn't stop me from hoping that these guys will prove me wrong and fix things,) and I continue to worry about Sam, who really deserves better treatment and more job security.

Good Luck to you all!

Bounce yer Boobies!

Are We All the Same? Rachel Maddow on the Differences Between the 3 Democratic Frontrunners...How We Decide...and all that...

We are the Deciders!
Today I posted some audio from Rachel Maddow's January 16th show, on my player over there. Rachel has spent the past week at MSNBC in the liberal's, gayz, and wimmin's only isolation booth, and during her moments on camera has been hammering her head against a wall of...I'm sorry, but the only way to describe it is stupidity... that prevails at that anchor table between Tweety and Pat and the other guyz, with Tweets scowling dramatically at Keith's every word. Yeah, Keith is the shining star over there, but he sure knows when and how to share the spotlight with really talented and smart people like Rachel. Hey, its not his fault if he makes all the rest of 'em look bad!

I understand that there is some deep need to get on with it, and that the job of the media has transformed from informing us into a service to expedite the wishes of the large corporations that have conglomerated any critical thought or problem solving skills that might be inherent in us, into an easy cartoon for the masses who are too lazy to think. But, before we sew this thing up, doesn't it make sense to, at least, know a few of the major differences between the 3 democratic frontrunner's? Isn't it worth a moment of thought in an election cycle that is drawing unprecedented crowds, and upsetting the control of powers that have put us in a box and decided for us for so long?

The reason that so many people vote against their own best interest is because they accept the fear and manipulation of the parties without doing even a little work to find out the basic stances of the candidates. We are somehow encouraged to trust our gut, and to go with the feelings that we personally have about a candidate, as if this is some sort of high school popularity contest.

Last week Sam Seder said something really helpful while on the air with a caller. He said that he doesn't believe that voting is about your own personal preference, as in which candidate that you personally like, is pretty, or whose views you like. Its about assessing all of the information that you have and voting on what works and is logical for the process and the country. This is absolutely true.
We live in a me, me, me society that encourages individuality and political correctness to an extreme that was probably unthinkable in the election cycles of the founders of this thing. In order to be a workable society, we have to consider what is best for the entire society...right?
This isn't just about what serves YOU personally, but what serves, not only the process, but the continuation of this imperfect union, and the society as a whole. If we consider that this country is only as strong as it's weakest citizen, and that we are supposed to be a country of immigrants, each giving a hand up to the one below, then a question arises about how this thing got twisted into a way for the rich to get richer and to hang onto their wealth while the poor, and increasingly the middle class, are getting the shaft. Capitalism cant possibly work over the long run unless the more fortunate and talented members of our society pay a scaled percentage of their earnings back in. If they use their position to hang onto an unfair share, (that's a relative unfair share...as in, not comparing it to the average middle class wage, but to what is above and beyond most of our wildest dreams, as in the percentage difference between the CEO and the lowest worker, and that sort of equation rule of thumb,) then they are pulling the foundation out from under the society that allowed them to build that wealth in the first place!

You may be able to build your McMansion on the hardship of others for a while, but this is really a house of cards, and one natural disaster or catastrophic illness could be a great leveler. So, unless you really have no feeling about who we are or what our aim is, or who your neighbor is and how the homeless man on the street could be your brother, you need to learn what is happening out there and have real reasons for why you're doing what you do...more specifically, why you are voting the way you vote.


Conservatism is not a bad thing at all, and it actually is part of the delicate balance and the checks and balances of our government, but fer' Christ's sake, at least know why you are a conservative....and try not to have it always end up back at your disdain of taxes and how you deserve somehow to have more money in the bank as opposed to people who cant go to the doctor or afford their medicine.
I spend more time than I'd like talking to people about politics, because I am the political one...you know, the one who knows whats what, and so its easy to get a quick and easy fix on whats happening without having to sit through Tweety and...er...the national news, every night. And, I have to say that I'm hearing, more than I like and mainly from middle class people who are working so damned hard to just make ends meet, that they are sick and tired of these immigrants and poor folks with their hands outstretched. Give them health care for free? No way!! School for their kids? No way!!
But, the long view tells us that, on the ground its different. Should you spend some time at say, an inner city after school program, or a food pantry, you might see that neglecting a shot or a checkup can result in long term costs to society that are much more than it would cost just to make medical care available to all. I also have been very troubled by the ongoing impact of Clinton's Welfare reform package and the lack of programs for children who have no place to go in the afternoon. I see kids wandering around with little parental oversight, parents working way too hard to barely get by, and the very real possibility passes by me each day, that our society is saving money on social programs in favor of long term care for teen parents and their kids in the same cycle. Very young girls pushing baby carriages, and girls sneaking to see their boyfriends even as parents tell them not to...what can a parent do if they have to work so many hours and there are no programs for teens in this entire city? If we don't do something preventative now, we are throwing away our most valuable asset of educated future generations.
Knowing what your opinion is and why is of the utmost importance. For those who say that its just too depressing or that it infringes on their life to worry about such serious things, I say that if you find this hard, then just wait until we ignore this for a few more generations.
And we all have the responsibility for future generations. Its not like, if you don't have kids yourself you shouldn't have to pay for schools, because the schooling you're paying for is as easily your own, as it is for the people who will carry on for you, regardless of if they are your flesh and blood or not.

I also have to say that I don't know where the idea came from that Americans are somehow deserving of an easier ride in life than anyone else on this planet. We are lucky to have an abundant country and power in the world, but to assume that we deserve to never be touched by what happens in the rest of the world, or what the fallout is from our actions, and alto of what got us where we are in the world order, is a little shortsighted. If its about being safe and ensuring our continued luck of abundance, then the long view is necessary for all of our citizens. We also have to be aware of what we've done on the path to where we are. It was the disregard of history and scholarly advice that got us into this war, and that we will be paying for for generations to come. There is nothing more powerful that having good diplomatic standing and a reputation as a good guy. There is nothing worse than being hated by the entire world because we've fucked up a country and made the worldwide terrorism problem worse.



So, no matter what your persuasion is politically, or what candidate of either party sounds good to you, look into what their platforms are now, in this cycle, and look at what they are saying.
If you are a republican or even just like McCain or any other the other clowns in that freak show, you're on your own over here. There is a ton of information out there, and its up to you to figure out what the proposed policies are beyond your impressions of the candidates, (locally, here is some of it.) Good hair or having been in a prison camp does not make for a great president, or even a passing one. A general feeling of liking or disliking someone doesn't pass for knowing what they are going to do at this critical juncture. Keep in mind also that anyone who wants to be president at this particular juncture is either half crazy or some kind of true believer. It is up to us to know which and of what before we go in the voting booth, or the folding table that we get here in CT now.

Regarding the democratic front runners, Rachel Maddow does a great rundown in the audio on the RIPCoco player from 01-16-08; The Differences Between the 3 Dem Frontrunner's. This goes beyond the woman vs. race vs. white guy line that we keep getting. These candidates are very different in how they would govern, and anyone who doesn't know the differences between them needs to look into it. A synopsis of Rachel's explanation of it might go like this:

Hillary Clinton is the candidate of change from within. She thinks that it is enough to have a Democrat back in the White House. She wants to work with corporations and within the structure of the government, as it is now, to create some programs that address the problems of the country. She is a party player and believes that lobbyists and large corporations deserve to be heard on the same level as regular citizens.
On the war, she wants to get us out, but foresees being in militarily for a long time and having a presence there via our embassy. She seems to want to reserve judgment on what exactly will be done until she gets into office. Even as she says that she will end it, it seems like there are no hard numbers forthcoming, except for a plan to begin within 60 days of taking office. There is alot of talk about our strategic interests in the region and fighting terrorism, but it sounds alot like the Bush agenda. Like most of what I hear from her, this position isn't really stated clearly; like, she has a plan but its not fully formed yet.

John Edwards is the candidate of change by force and power. He wants to turn the system upside down and try to return it to a more equitable distribution ideal. He sees the system as being in such a state of disrepair that it really needs to be changed. Edwards entire career has become one of working for the middle and lower classes and trying to right the wrongs that come about when unregulated capitalism is allowed to go wild. Edwards wants to re regulate the deregulated big businesses, (and particularly the insurance industry,) that Reagan was so sure would regulate themselves if the government just backed off. Hows that working? Its not! And the result has brought out the basest of human frailties and cruelty that anyone could imagine.
Edwards On the war: He wants to start to withdraw troops and get us completely out of the country within 9 months. He would order an immediate drawdown of 40,000 to 50,000 troops, and continue until we are out for all intents and purposes, leaving 3,500 to 5,000 troops to guard the embassy and humanitarian workers. He wants to keep sending the vetoed supplemental funding bill , with the timetable for withdrawal, back so that Bush has to veto it over and over, (this is an idea I like, because maybe the American people will start to look at what exactly is going on, and maybe we can make a record of this so that future generations know that this was Bush's war and his prerogative to stay there this long.) He wants to engage in diplomatic talks with all the countries in the region and hold peace talks. He also wants to continue to help Iraq train its forces. This plan still has a ways to go, in my opinion, but it does have that concrete withdrawal which will bring things to a head pretty quickly and lets the country stand up and figure out its leadership one way or another. The likely chaos that will ensue is not worse than dragging this out and having a slightly lesser level of the same over more months...it has to be done one way or another because we are clearly making things worse by being there.

Barack Obama is the great communicator candidate. he believes that only through communication and unification will this partisan country resolve it's differences and get anything done. Beyond that its a little unclear as to what exactly he will be able to do that is all that much different than Edwards. One thing is for certain, he is new and inexperienced, and he is sliding towards the center as this thing goes on. I would like to see more concrete plans from him. Pretty words don't mean much anymore.
Obama on the war: he seems to have a 16 month plan that involves bringing home 1-2 brigades per month, and not leaving a permanent base...that is, unless Al Qaeda build a base there...then its all out the window. One interesting thing is that he feels like we never finished the war in Afghanistan; its unclear if he wants go back there and finish or just keep strategic outposts in order to strike Al Qaeda when necessary. My opinion is that he may find that drawing down so slowly is more dangerous to the troops left behind and draws out a situation that may need to become chaotic before it reaches its own level.
And firewater always seeks its own level.





Products of the week:

Rapturewear (What will YOU leave behind?) is a real company...so I'm not suggesting actually giving them money. But some of their products are just too good not to share. Behold a sampling of their T-shirts!:


c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

Whats Up? Whats New? Whats Happening? Maron and Seder-a-thon!!

Here in the new south of Fairfield County, we're sweltering in a heat wave, and in the half hour before the Sam Seder Show, complete with the Sammy Cam (!!) I'm looking at whats coming up this week and...yeah, its Columbus day tomorrow which is another opportunity for me to sleep late (8 AM, big-whoop) and then I can rail about how much I hate Columbus Day and all it stands for; and I don't mean Italian-American pride either. I think they should just rename the whole shebang Italian-American Day, and call it a...uh...day!
Take back your pox blankets boys...put your scurvy teeth back in your smelly head, and vamoose. I'm sure that Columbus was a brave guy, and I know that its human nature to explore, migrate, to and take over other lands...we are warlike creatures and the only way to survive is to appropriate the resources that are out there. But, do we have to celebrate it? Give the Italians a day of their own, and give it a rest...

In great news for the liberal voice, (besides that Sam is about to be on, streaming here, or...good luck finding a terrestrial signal,) Marc Maron will be guest hosting the Rachel Maddow Show on Monday and Tuesday, October 8th and 9th; then he will be appearing at Comix Friday and Saturday, October 12th and 13th; then, on Sunday the 14th, at Union Hall in Brooklyn (for a short set,) and THEN Monday at Mo' Pickin's House of Satisfaction on the lower east side of Manhattan/Ave A. For those of you who were hopeful that this might mean something in the way of the Greens/AAR suits being smart enough to offer him a show, no such luck right now....Though I'm sure that your cards and letters and email couldn't hurt.

This guy is one of the hardest working men in showbiz, and if HBO-Showtime-FX or the like, don't give him his own talk show soon, there is no justice in the world... which there actually isn't, so there you have it....a perfectly Maron equation...
For those of us on the east coast who were sorta getting used to having that guy living amongst us, lo those couple-a years, we unfortunately are not gonna get him here in person for a whole extra week before his Comix gig. He is apparently taping the Maddow show from sunny LA-LA...and the quickly evolving Marc-Sammy VodCast that is offered live HERE every Tuesday at 11 AM, EST, can be done, on Marc's end, from anywhere...but is also being taped from LA. Just refresh the page a few times if you don't see both screens. Its a great show and its going to be really fun to watch it develop.

In the embarrassment of riches department of this coming week, Sam Seder is filling in for Mike Malloy at Nova M, Monday to Friday from 9PM to midnight, EST. Its almost like the good old days....but unfortunately AAR can't see the forest OR the trees...

As if THAT wasn't enough, Elizabeth: The Golden Age is opening on Friday!







Bird News: My lil' parrotlets laid 2 eggs...and they are tiny. Think of smaller than a mini marshmallow....and my second frizzle baby is still holding on in the incubator but I'm a little worried about that one. Its also really little!...Why do birds make me happy? I don't know...but I'm holding on to whatever happiness I can get my hands on these days...































And yes...theres more....theres always more...

Hit and Run...

Just a little bit of an update from the trenches here:
My kid is sick so I have had little time to write much besides drafts that don't get edited until I'm sure that they are stale and so far after the point as to be meaningless. But those of you who read this blog know that whats likely coming after this fiasco, if I'm not sick myself, will be more and more wonderful news from the world of little to no health insurance, and the shiny CT-insures-all-children bullshit line of my very own townie Joementum Lieberman, and sneaky-slippery Chris Shays.
One point about socialized healthcare: its not enough to provide a contract or to even pay for it for poor folks (and charge a pretty high premium to middle classers;) It doesn't work if NO PROVIDERS ACCEPT IT! The difficulties here are due largely to Blue Cross and their ilk making things so impossible, complex, and cheap as to have had just about every provider peel off as soon as they could, if they ever signed up in the first place. So (Hillary, pay attention here) you have to (re)regulate the insurance industry and either mandate participation or make it a workable proposition for the doctors involved....or hey, how about we put everyone on Medicare and mandate that providers take it?

Where is Chris Dodd on this? Everyone uses it as a shiny happy face in their speeches but who is addressing the reality of it?

Here's what Ive got for today:
The Sammy Show Widget to the right here is sporting the audio of the first installment of the one hour Seder/Maron Show, which to my ears, is great content-wise, and will be better technically if Sam continues on his current curve with the technology that he has been working with.

This is Hell is broadcasting 10AM to 1:30 PM EST from WNUR in Chicago and also available in archive podcast format. It's good stuff; long format, witty, not too NPR-ish, liberal political, interview stuff. I like it, I listen to it, I suggest it.


Those of you on the left coast should check this out:

TOWN HALL's Writers Bloc Hosts Author and Radio Commentator the Hon. Robert Reich

LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwire - September 21, 2007) - TOWN HALL LOS ANGELES presents Robert Reich, Author, "Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy and Everyday Life," talking with Marc Maron on Thursday, October 4, 2007. The event is the second program this fall for the new series TOWN HALL's Writers Bloc. Los Angeles literati have the opportunity to ask Reich about the current state of American capitalism......

Former Secretary of the US Department of Labor for President Bill Clinton, Reich is currently a Professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, a commentator on NPR's Marketplace, and author of 11 books.

Maron is a standup comic, actor, and writer known for his incisive cultural and political commentary, mystical ruminations, and neurotic insights into human nature. He is the co-founder of the alternative comedy event "Eating It" in New York.

When: Thursday, October 4, 2007
7:30 PM Program followed by Audience Q&A

Where: The Landmark Theatre
10850 West Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90064

For more information, visit www.townhall-la.org, Cost: $20

Pathetically sad T-shirt of the week"






More on that to come....












Frog of the week:

Marc Maron and Sam Seder to Begin Experimental Vid-cast...The Funny Returns and We Get to Talk Politics Too!

Maron & Seder: everyone's favorite liberal talk radio talk hosts who clawed their way to fame on Air America Radio by delivering the truth and the funny, are launching a new experiment in daring-do, anger, and magic, to bring their very own independent broadcast show, and their actual faces, into your homes and onto your players, via a new video-cast technology that Sam Seder has been playing around with on his much embattled and shuffled around, yet still beloved, Sam Seder Show/Seder on Sundays.


What started as the nicknamed SammyCam, was probably due more to Sam's love of tech and film making, and him trying things out than any grand plan to take over the world. But, it quickly turned into a fun and interesting glimpse into the inner workings of the technical side of broadcasting and also a live back and forth conversation with listeners during the breaks, with the audience on Sam's blog and instant messenger, with Sam making technical adjustments as he got feedback as to the video quality and streaming of the show, and also still talking politics. It seemed to me like it was only a matter of time before it took off, because Sam was running around Yearly Kos2 with a mission, trying it out during his audio interviews, (and Yes I did beg to sit in the corner of that room and watch, but he actually said...er...NO!...damn him!...not even for Joe Conason...)

I can only imagine how quickly this thing would have come together if Mark Green, the terrible new owner of AAR, hadn't taken Sam's daily slot away to give it to his buddy, who I wont even mention here because he makes me nauseous. But considering that he only had Sundays and a few odd trials, he has got it down pretty nicely.




















According to Sam himself, Marc Maron will be joining him on the unnamed-as-of-yet, experimental show that, though still in the planning stages, looks to be a must see/must subscribe to!
The duo will be trying out the format next Tuesday, September 25th, at 11AM EST, as they did this past Tuesday (Check Seder's page for an audio link to the rough first time trial... it will be posted soon,) with a dual screen, dual host, dual coast show, that will, when all the kinks get ironed out, offer a live version with viewer interaction, downloadable video on demand, guests, and who knows what else when you get those two together, working for themselves in a rather unregulated format. Expect politics and expect the funny...expect to feel better about the world in general. This thing will be available on a subscription basis, and I am so there, first on line, for it!
The details, such as cost and how subscriptions will be handled are still in their infancy....But I plan on supporting this no matter what cockamamie scheme they come up with.
Reached for comment for this piece on location in Vancouver, where he is performing at a comedy festival till the 22nd, Marc Maron said something to the effect of..."...its me and Sam on the screen talking about shit."...Which is code for Get ready for the Funny, People!!
More to come from the other coast as soon as he gets some ideas!!
Look for Marc at the UCB Theatre in LA on Oct. 5th and in NYC at Comix Oct 12th and 13th!
Check his page for details and additions!


I am just thrilled that out of the ashes of AAR we are going to see another interesting experiment...and who knows? Old Green might just figure it out somehow...I dunno...but miracles sometimes happen...right?


For a long time I've thought that this sorta streaming wireless content was going to be the wave of the future. I just finished listening to David Pogue's NY Times Circuits Podcast from August 17th, where he discusses radios that have WiFi chips on board. These chips make it possible to tune into any of thousands of streaming Internet radio stations or the Internet streams of terrestrial radio, not to mention podcasts, in pretty sterling clarity, depending on your WiFi setup or the public WiFi available.
I used to covet these very expensive and rare pieces of equipment, which were available at Dell for a while or on the Internet, but in short order, Air America Radio got killed by one Danny Goldberg and another Mark Green scavenging the wreckage, so I put it off until the prices came down.
Still, anyone who knows me knows that this is a big theme around here: Soon all phones will have these chips, all radios, even cheap ones, and the startup streaming content sites will wrestle the cream to the top. To that end Ive been working towards starting up something myself with content produced by my grandfather. That is still in the air, and its very possible that the technology has already gone beyond that old time audio in that, here come Vid-casts for the YouTube generation. Its still going to be all about content and the quality of the content; the talent of the players.
The adoption of this technology will happen passively and be as successful with non-technical people as the tech designers are at integrating a search/scan, and save option into even the smallest transistor radio.
I believe that the future world will have cities and towns with fully free wireless, with America likely lagging behind in our struggle to re-regulate big business and get back to a population that knows whats going on. As more places like Cosi pop up, with their free WiFi and good coffee/better food/comfortable atmosphere and couches, its going to become more and more silly to pay a corporation via Starbucks $10 to get online for a day.
And I do believe, as does my friend from YK2, (who I imagine might be a blogger secretly, as he has a sensitive job but alot to say,) who has been struggling to bring WiFi to another large city, that it is possible. My exasperation with the city of Stamford is that their "free" WiFi that stretches through downtown, past UBS Warburg and on to the train station where the masters of the universe converge with their handhelds on their way to run with the bulls, runs just to the edge of the poor part of town, where too many people cant afford even cable TV much less a cable modem or even a dial up. Add to that the news that the library's hours have been cut back due to budget shortfalls that have hit the schools and public services pretty hard, and here we are.
So, with the understanding that things have to change and my sure feeling that they will first gradually and then all of a sudden, I've been keenly aware of what can be done with the emerging technology and how much of an investment it is in the future to try some of it out.

The other thing that is crystal clear is that the screen is here to stay, and that these shows do great if offered in audio or video versions. When the iPod Nano suddenly has a nice screen and the iPod itself has jumped generations by getting rid of that silly phone part and keeping the touch interface, I am positive that Sam and Marc are investing in the right area of this tech curve. Whats the worst that can happen? Wasted time? Streaming content for their own site? ...not so bad...and besides the fact that we need those intelligent and funny voices in the public discourse,
The obvious is to see the popularity of some of the shows out there like Ricky Gervais in audio, and Diggnation in audio or video (big or small....very cool!) You bring some people and sponsorship follows... or your subscriptions grow and you can offer more content.

This is one show that I will be watching develop.

Reasons to be Cheerful...

Few and far between...I know...but, between the hilarious spectacle that was the Iowa Straw Poll, detailed at Brilliant at Breakfast by guest blogger extraordinaire JurrassicPork, and Markos himself appearing on Meet the Press to debate Harold Ford, centrist democrat, and the conversation this morning centering on the democrats turning on each other...well, its a good day in the news.
Add to that that our own Sam Seder will be broadcasting today, Sunday, 4-7 PM, from his bunker in an undisclosed location, along with the new embedded Sammy-cam that will allow him to put the window into the world o' Sam onto his blog page live....Not only that!!..Sam will be covering for Rachel Maddow on Monday from, I believe 6-8, and then on the same night, for Mike Malloy on Nova M, 9-midnight, both also available streaming via embedded Sammy-Cam!
Why am I so happy about this? I don't know....honestly, I have given up Air America. The new owners seem to have decided to offer a bit of programming, and use the rest to air infomercials and shows that they themselves host....
But I am looking forward to some good kick-ass commentary in the face of the clownish goings on in the republican race, and the flooding of the airwaves with democratic ideas via too many debates to count. I love to see this stuff make it on to the M$M just to somehow undermine the drip, drip, drip of disinformation that has lulled this country to sleep...

According to Young Turk Cenk
"we have no hope," The end is nigh....
Y'know, back when Reagan was president and in NYC there was an almost overnight influx of poor folks and AIDS patients living on the streets, and while watching the early groundwork be laid for what is coming down now, I felt that sort of despair. I don't know how actually young that Young Turk is, but even as someone who was not old enough to vote but who had been aware of the goings on in the country, I worked for Carter, and I then worked against Reagan/Bush.

While I welcome reformed conservatives to the table, it always sort of perplexes me when I see such despair. The things happening now are the result of years and years of republican planning and likely, if you were one of them, you were there at the inception. So, with that very large platform that Cenk has, I'd like to see a little more of the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps-take-your-Prozac and get to work attitude! Its interesting how someone who was previously opposed to the Democratic party, and who then supposedly embraced it, can seemingly easily bring up a certain amount of hate and disdain for those who are trying to undo something that, one could say, has been a long process supported all along by...er...you, Cenk!

The degree of my disdain for the toothless Democrats is indescribable. We are about to push into a second (third, depending on how you're counting) unimaginably stupid and reckless war - and they have no idea how to stop it. They are completely incapable of fighting back. I'm not even sure they know what's going on. They seem like feckless, clueless, sad little kids running around the hall as Vice Principal Cheney yells at them.

Yes, things are worse, and totally out of control right now....yes its bad...yes they suck...But did you really think that it was gonna be just that easy?
Centrists do not represent us any more than republicans at this point. And as glad as I am to hear the likes of centrists speak out in this way, I think that the point of the whole thing is that we cant expect a quick fix or any time when we wont have to apply pressure to these idiots. And I find it sort of childish to chew off your own leg to get out of the trap there, buddy.
When Folks like this begin wringing their hands in despair and making conclusive statements that its all over, I get moving. Not to dump it all on Cenk or anything, but it seems like this is a person who came late to the party, throws in the towel pretty easily, and then imagines that HIS article will be the one quoted on this in future years, because he was one person who KNEW this information.
Why does this stick in my craw?

Masonic...not, Shriners.....Day 2 at the Yearly Kos....

I wish I had more stamina....
Yesterday was a whirl and just plain fun! Jill got here as I was still gathering myself up from the exhaustion of home, travel, and all that...immediately went off for lunch with a friend, which included walking in the heat (no, I didnt go!) and stopped ot ge tme a long ethernet cable so I could stretch the computer to the bed. How does anyone sit at a desk all day anyway? It drives me crazy.
We walked around and hit the NY/NJ/CT caucus, which was nice in that people introduced themselves and some faces got placed with nicknames...but it turned out that it wasn't really CT., and I was the only CT there...in any case, we had to split pretty quickly to hit the Firedoglake caucus, which was sort of cancelled because of a room mixup, but outside we found Christie Harden Smith and a bunch of bloggers sitting around waiting for anyone who might show up to just say hi.
My experience with FDL, besides being a fan of their reporting, is through the Lamont campaign. There were some great people there, and the room opened up early so we could use it as a meet and greet...Bob Geiger was there with his friend John who is a Lawyer/Dr out of San Francisco, working on inner city health and nutrition issues, and we had some fun chatting and laughing with them...
I met Spazeboy and TBC from Myleftnutmeg
and they were talking to me about community blogging and how its great to contribute pieces...to which, I told them that they might want to take a look here before they go shooting off their mouths about all that, in that I tend to write LONG, and it may not be the right exact format for that sort of thing. I guess that there is alot of cross posting going on out there and I just dont know if I fit in that world. I am so much (too much?) more chatty and impressionistic than alot of what I see...and this was more a prelude to a book (not even about politics, but then isnt everything about politics?) than anything else....
But in any case, I like the people here and it feels great to be with so many like minded people who are so passionate and who touch so many other people....and many of whom have made a difference in the mess that this country is in and how we get our information...a huge difference.

On the other hand, there is a group of rock-star bloggers here who are a little too full of themselves and seem to think...as we used to say in Brooklyn...Who They Are!!
Its so clear to me that these people have a very important role in what has happened and in the evolution of information technology and writing. But the problem is that as they move along into the important work of TV punditry and book writing, they leave a gap if they arent able to recognize who else is out there. I often go on these big sites and see the "open thread," thing or a little blurb and then "comments," and, its not that I dont like comments...I love them...but there is a certain chat room quality to much of it, that is almost like SPAM that has to be sifted through. The social thing is fine, but I wonder where you draw the line in a gap filling medium that is so very important to the entire world at this point.
So, I would like to see more real writers being brought along, and recognition of that.
Since we are in a world where anyone can put material out there, it just seems like maybe some care should be taken to have real contributers from outside of the existing stale gene pool to bring in some fresh perspective.


Last night's keynote speech reminded me why I voted for Dean back then, and also how much I miss Sam Seder on the radio every day...not to mention that the comedians pretty much were just so-so, as opposed to Maron, who shoulda been here (were he not in Scotland at the Edinberg Comedy Festival for an entire month.) The food was great and most of the people were fun...and Howard spoke about how we have to make America great again in order to restore the global evolution that happens naturally when you have a force like America just being itself. Forcing your political system doesnt work, as if we needed that illustrated for us, and the best way to encourage democracy is to support other countries and show them what its like. It hardly makes sense to reverse our own constitution while trying to force some farcical democracy onto a country that has not gotten to the point where they want it so badly that they rise up themselves to get it.
I like to hear that kind of talk from our leaders. Its just too bad that the actions on the part of the party don't exactly represent what Dean is saying...so it all comes down to a very patriotic and stirring rah, rah speech...but what does it mean?



Air America Radio is represented by the "embedded" Sam Seder, who was featured in a smarmy email sent around to us ex-premium subscribers, as if they had sent a full crew with him to broadcast live from the Kos...no, no...Sam is taping interviews with his one producer, Lauren, in his hotel room with the likes of Joe Conazin...and what the fuck is Mark Green and his brother thingking with the new lineup announcement?...Oh forget it...Air America is dead to me...except for Sammy, Rachel, and Ring of Fire.
Cenk from Young Turks is here but its unclear what hes doing besides walking aorund being Cenk of Young Turks, and as if we didn't quite get it he came out in a change of wardrobe (again!...the guy has suits!) into a T-shirt that said Young Turks....


Tom Hayden is walking round, walking by, signing his book...and...oh there are so many, many things to do and people to see...but we have been so happy sitting in the lobby saying hi to everyone and blogging...
I guess we are now off to the What Happened to the Lamont Election...and then to one of Bob Geiger's talks about how to get your blog noticed, which Im less interested in the subject of than hanging with the fun people in the class.
I dont think Ive laughed this much in a long time or had more fun...
Maybe its a quirky and geeky kind of fun, but...I like it!

Off to the Yearly Kos...Welcome to Vincent Bird...John Edwards for President... and my Limited Experience With the Other America

Welcome to Vincent!! he is a baby Indian Ring Neck parakeet who has just come to live with us from Parrots & Co.. What can I say? Some things just make sense....and Vincent did.



















Well, one good thing about this whole mess is that life goes on...Gonzalez, Iraq, and the Hitler Youth who have been running important programs in our government, like HHS, run by this guy who threw back important reports that didn't have the correct political angle.












What makes this guy able to change reports about the health of the American public, and isn't it rather Third Riech-ian to force department after department to mention the success of Bushco a certain number of times in each paragraph...? How can this be??


























Here we are poised on the edge of the week that will feature the Yearly Kos, complete with all the major democratic candidates sniping at each other while looking sideways, shifty eyes to try to figure how that looks on them, and repositioning their bustles to march away with their various entourages...however that works....and I am slayed by the huge and disgusting specter of what Bushco has made of this administration and our constitution. Every blog, every television channel, for Christ's sake!!...every person that I meet on the street who sees my impeach button is just in sputtering disbelief. At least there is community in that, and there will be community at the Kos in that we feel that somehow we can do something in that all of our voices together have become very loud no matter how tiny any one of us is (thats me...the tiny one!)

Never have I seen such dripping contempt for the law, the branches of government, and the people, as I have with this crowd. The Nixon Whitehouse was absolutely liberal and socially correct, law-abiding and ...um...sweet, compared to this crowd. I just wanted a little something to sink my teeth into, not the fall of the empire!

















I'm living in fast forward and as usual I have too many irons in too many fires, and too many feet in different worlds. I've not been blogging much this week because every time Ive made a draft, it seems that life moves past that place and it all seems quaint.
So, yes, as of today I am apparently going to the Kos, and I wish I could say that Ive got all my chickens in a row and parrots standing at attention, but I don't...and this big messy life continues its course towards the nearest iceberg...if those even exist anymore. Maybe that's why the basement keeps flooding.
















Jill did a fantastic job of encapsulating the democratic debate, as she has also been doing a great week-in-review thing at The Crone Speaks blog, and will have it up later on as an alternative to the reruns on 60 Minutes.
The thing that struck me was that Edwards is getting fed up; I like him when he is fed up. When he says things like "aren't you just SICK of this?" it really touches me....I was sick of this from the get-go, and I want Bush out of office...people are dying, people are suffering, and our country is falling apart.
But more to the point is that I have been trying to navigate some very difficult necessities with Ben's family, and it has given me full exposure to just a tiny part of what the day to day is like for people in the other America.
For those of you who don't know Ben, he is my son Will's best friend,and has been a wonderful addition to just about every day of our lives in one way or another for the past 5 years. Lately its every day because, thanks to welfare reform, Ben's mom has completed a course in being a home care companion and now has intermittent work that she has to take in order to secure her benefits, which takes her away from Ben (her 6th kid, and the only one still at home...the rest are grown up,) and the 2 grandkids that she is raising. I'm talking about a job that begins early Monday morning and goes till Saturday morning, 24 hours per day.
Who cares for the kids? Well, if Bill Clinton and the idiots who pushed this idiotic reform through ever asked that, maybe we would have less of a problem with kids in the inner city caught up in drugs, gangs, pregnancy, or just slipping through the cracks and unable to get their work done.
An older gentleman, who is just wonderful, watches the children during the week at this point and one of Ben's older sisters has been around with her 3 kids, but he is old and she is screwed up, and her kids are problematic, and the house is too small.
I take Ben because I want him and also because I don't want him to be there, doing nothing, and unable to read because its too noisy. Some of the kids go to the city camp, and some hang around.
In general the grownups seem to be careful about not letting anyone go to the playground alone...but, how long can that go on? One girl is a beautiful, tall 13 year old, and one kid is a troublemaker...one of the cousins is a tiny girl who has been known to kill small animals, and the last time I saw the responsible older sister/mom person, she was sitting next to an open bottle of rum with a pack of Newports on the couch next to her, braiding a kid's hair painfully, and slurring about how she has lost her housing and is moving to Florida in a couple of weeks.

This is welfare reform up close. Mom is working, the programs are limited and there are few supplies because the high school kids come into the community center once a week and steal everything. The public school puts out its supply list in a week or so, and each list contains items that cost roughly $100 per kid if you get the cheapest items at Staples. Mom is not around, and the local Supermarket moved from 1 block from the "complex," to 2 miles away, across the street from another huge supermarket! So, Shoprite opened a humongous market on rt. 1, which was needed, and then Stop and Shop proceeded to close their store and move directly across the street. Where is the city planning committee when these things are decided?
The "Village" which was built on the rubble of the high rise projects that used to be a fortress against the cops are cute little streets, like cul de sacs, carved into the inner city, with white houses and some low-rise apartments and condos for sale, but are only notable in that they look good in a driveby or a flyover, but are so shabbily constructed as to be made literally of plastic. The door jambs are flexible plastic that have taken on the dirt of a million little dirty hands and when you go to press the doorbell the entire piece bends in and then pops out. The carpeting inside is white; enough said....the blinds are the cheapest mini-blinds and have long ago buckled under their own weight, much less being opened and closed. These small houses are "rented" to low income families who are giving a portion of their benefit check for rent, and so there is no extra money for upkeep. The city has seemingly done none themselves, except to keep the streets clean. There are no garbage cans on the streets nor are there mail boxes. One has to walk off the compound to go to the post office, much less the store or market.
Going to the market used to consist of walking 3 blocks and pushing a cart back, but now it involves walking miles in the heat and pushing a cart back or taking a cab. Of course, one or two towers of the old projects still stand up the street, so these people are the lucky ones. The gardens are well tended and the residents of this place show alot of pride in their homes.

recently, the police came to the house next door to Ben's to find a guy who had an outstanding warrant for ...um...murder. he wouldn't come out and a bunch of guys came outside, a crowd gathered, and the new crop of Stamford police academy grads tasered a bunch of guys and threw some people around. This is the house next door that always has very loud rap music coming from it. The Bloods gang has a problem with certain Haitians and has shot guns in and around this area....and Ben feels like it is all very safe there. There is a strong Christian Haitian community down there, but Ben's family are not church members, so they keep to themselves and with their small group of friends and family.

In the time that this struggle has been going on with Ben's mother's work. I have continued to do what I have always done with them, which is to be their friend and to have Ben here as much as he wants to be with us. I also have, for the first time, helped them with doctors and groceries.
A social worker who had hooked Mom up with the schooling and job that takes her away for entire weeks at a time was supposed to help get the Husky health insurance forms in...and let me tell you, these are complicated forms for ME to fill out...so, she found herself too busy and out of money and blood pressure medication. The doctor wouldn't fill it unless she went in and that cost $90, not to mention the medication cost. So, she ran out of meds and became so sick that she couldn't work, get food, get out of bed...and finally she called me and asked if I could front her the money to see the Doctor.

I did, of course, and I also got some food because the cupboard was bare! I then set about filling out the papers to get Ben health insurance from the state, and realized that she is also eligible as a caretaker...not to mention that the two grandchildren that she has custody of are already on it, and she should have been offered it long ago for her and for Ben. The problem is that the forms are crazy complicated and even with a highlighter and little stickies, its nearly impossible to get it all done in reasonable time when someone is gone 100% of the time during the weekdays.
This is welfare reform....and I am keeping Ben up here while the others are left down there....I check the food, bring groceries, and hope for the best. I give the caretakers there my phone numbers and they lose them over and over...and finally we have a number of where the mom is working, so we can reach her. She got a cell phone but it is a pay as you go which is expensive, and she is only making $500 flat per week, which comes out to around $4 per hour....Oh, did I mention that this job is only temporary? Previously it was only the weekends, it may change again at the drop of a hat...who knows? Part of poverty and living in that other America is that everything is intermittent and everything costs more. Takeout or delivery food when the market is too far, taxis because you have no car, pay as you go phone at as much as 25 cents per minute because you cant guarantee payment in order to get an account with a cell phone company or don't have a credit card because you were offered many in the past and..... This is how it is.
















Our social services that were so handicapped by the Reagan administration in the days of Manhattan with streets covered with the homeless and AIDS patients, have been dealt such a blow by this horrible administration that it is impossible to judge budget feasibility or where we stand in the larger picture of what social security was supposed to be in spirit in this country, and it is unclear to me if we can have any focus group look at things against the current backdrop and make improvements or to assemble a panel of great philosophical minds and try to remember what it is that America is...what we were...why we were formed...and what we want to be.













































John Edwards is the guy to bring that conversation back to life. He has kept a consistent message since before this mess began, and even when the handlers got ahold of him, he has stayed on message.


Look, the majority of the country is on board with the anti-war, anti criminal behavior by our elected officials deal, and I'm not saying that we should let up in any way, but the important things to get done past that are diplomatic and having to do with how we will survive as a society if we don't honor the weakest among us. Wasn't the point of the formation of America so that everyone could have a chance at some sort of a life and the opportunity to achieve much more than that. Weren't these ideas formed by people who were fleeing a monarchical system that ensured a permanent upper class that one could only be born to, and a permanent underclass? Our constitution and laws are supposed to protect the rights of all people, and the aim of this government is supposed to be to perfect the original aim of the idea that everyone has the right to fulfill their potential in full while living with rights and dignity. I know that someone out there will bring up slavery and women's rights, but the point to me is that we are charged with the responsibility of working hard to perfect the tendency of humans to do what is the selfish, barbaric, and crazy thing. Isn't religion largely based on that? And isn't our government also based on that as well? Its the striving to overcome our own tendencies and to give everyone a chance...that would have to include putting a check on unfettered ...anything....we do not have the moral strength to do this internally...right?

I want to discuss the wealth factor in the Edwards equation, but I may save it for another post, because I am hoping that the issue evolves into the reality that they are ALL wealthy, and that the image of the slick lawyer who would take you to the cleaners is being exploited by the right here, and pasted on Edwards, with no real evidence that he has done anything to anyone...except to win against some large corporations. And since when does the average person care about large corporations being made to pay royally for mistakes that take people's lives? Especially when awards are decided largely next to a picture of how much a large corporation makes.
You would think that Edwards was taking grandma's farm away because she bumped someone's car at a red light! Now, that's good use of propaganda...but it has nothing to do with reality.
I hope that Edwards addresses this head on....and keeps up the good work like the great HAIR video:

Dowd and Rich and Gore and Live Earth and Celebs and Music and Chickens!!

I just damned Maureen Dowd to Hell because anyone that obsessed with someone else's haircut at a time when there is so much juicy goodness going on should really get a life, or go directly to hell. Its really getting pathetic and boring already, and...who cares what kind of ice cream John Edwards eats or if he likes Andie McDowell or not? If she has access to Edwards, lets hear some of his plans...is this fuckin' Tiger Beat?
Once again the NY Times barely squeaks by with another excellent Frank Rich piece, but how long can he carry Dowd? It seemed to me like she had been moved to Sunday because she wanted a coveted top spot, but now Im thinking that it might have been more about her needing to be bolstered by Rich, Friedman, and all the other glossy offerings in there on Sundays because of a lack of readership or something....who knows?.
I feel sort of bad for her...words like grasping and pathetic come to mind.

To catch these wonderful columns online (because without having Times Select or a friend with it who is willing to email you the articles, you wont be able to read them unless you buy the paper,) check out Free Democracy, where they are not posted yet but they will likely be...not that its even worth it to look at Dowd...but the Frank Rich is an excellent read about the cowardice of the President, and Friedman has a semi-clever piece about applying the concept of carbon offsets to all sins....ha, ha...if he had known about the damned to hell site linked above, he might have had it, but as usual, poor old Tom is just sorta lacking; almost there, but not quite.

















So, I watched the Live Earth concerts yestersay... or I should say, what was shown of them on CNBC and MSN online, and various stations here and there. I kept turning it off because I was struck over and over at the vapid new music and the music of the 80's, in its repetitive lack of real message.
A few pieces of it got me, though, and maybe its all just subjective in that I still have a VHS tape of Live AID, which I watched nonstop on network TV over a weekend, as I recall.... and I was actually at many of the NYC No Nukes shows (including right up front with Springsteen kneeling at the edge of the stage.) I don't know how I feel about Al Gore quite yet because I think that while this is good work that he is doing (as in any work in this direction is good work,) but I still have welfare reform and NAFTA stuck in my craw...and I'm not exactly sure with how he really feels about the war. Anyone can say to pull out now, and anyone can criticize what has been done, but where was he all along? This has not been a popular subject from the get go, and I'm not recalling exactly what he said and how he said it....and I don't hear him saying now that he was wrong. Its a measured response when you are possibly in line to take over an ongoing war and occupation, I know, but I still am not so sure that he is really willing to pull us out and let the chips fall on his own legacy. Im interested in courage and candidates who break out and take chances. I dont see alot of that, and I dont consider it courageous to come out loudly when the coast is clear. I so much prefer a candidate like Edwards who was dead wrong but who comes out and admits it.
Anyone could do a better job than Bush, and with the right advisors, any democrat will probably do, as long as they understand that the immediate work is diplomacy, reversal, and clean-up.

Musings about Gore aside, I was pretty impressed at how well it went off. It was delayed all over the place, which I was just as happy for, because who wants to sit and watch set changes anymore?...Im just not that young and I've got work to do, so lets get to the meat of it.
I was very impressed with young cutie John Mayer, who I usually dismiss as pilates music, in that my instructor often plays him in class, and his records dont much show how talented he is in their slickness. I downloaded some live stuff of his and it never quite got into my ipod, but maybe I will bump it over there now. Why cant I get jessica Simpson out of my head? Too much time in line at the supermarket!

James Blunt is obviously heavily influenced by Elton John, and I cant listen to him without hearing Tiny Dancer in my head...which isnt my favorite song, so its sorta annoying.
I wish that someone had told Blunt that the real Cat Stevens was gonna appear because he tore Wild World apart (which I found to be a totally condescending thought at the time, and now when the real Cat sings it as a Muslim, I just find it to be ...oh, I don't know....the perfect end spot for the "little girl" culture...and it and it's brethren only made me want to be a "bad girl."
In a world where Cat might stand by his death condemnation of Salman Rushdie for his metaphorical book about the Koran, its nice to hear him doing peace train, but I think that opening a dialog about extremism in its many forms might be nicer.
















I feel for Madonna. I think she gets a bad rap in general, when she means well. I'm not at all into her music, except for a few really well written songs that are great as done by other artists and acoustically, but I do like to watch her dance and I like how she metamorphosizes and shows the world some interesting and edgy influences. She is also a good example of the proper use of plastic surgery and all that, I guess, but at some point, it seems like maybe she should let herself slide just a little into over 39-hood. That said, I was not impressed with what she did yesterday and I find the gypsy music thing a little squeaky and agonizing. Its like the Vivaldi of country music...almost bluegrass...and I just cant take much of it at all. The dancing was good though and she looks great.






















The Police....well, what can I say about Sting? I don't exactly hate him, but I really dont understand him and what he seems to like. He is a hack, and thats about the only thing I can say. I am in awe of how scary he looks in his perfectly sculpted and yoga-ed physique, and his tantric sex honed country gentleman persona, superimposed on his Celine Dion-boring music. So, it was with recognition of that repetitive boringness that I reconfirmed what I always thought: The things that were/are great about the Police are centered around the brilliant Copeland drumming, which is so impressive as to be breathtaking, (and he is still the cute one, as far as I'm concerned,) and Summer's fantastic guitar hooks that became some of the most recognizable anthems of their time.
As far as Sting's ability to write "well-crafted pop songs," or whatever, I don't buy it. he wheezes and whines and repeats the same phrase over and over until you're numb. I cant imagine wanting to see them in concert, but it was a nice blast to have a look there...
And of course Sing has been very involved with the rain forest movement, so I have to at least appreciate his social work.

Kids these days....My 13 year old drummer of a son who is starting to look like a tall rock god on is good days, was temporarily caught up in AFI and whoever else was spouting that noise with those funny haircuts and...god, I don't know...I don't know. They just SUCK!! ...and not in the Elvs wiggling his hips sort of way...they just really suck....But after arguing serious music theory and the importance of drummers like Pete Thomas and Ringo Star, and lyricists like Lennon and McManus, well, I can't go there anymore. The thing is that the drummers are not as FAST as Joey Jorgeson of Slipknot; the lyrics of days gone by do not speak to a disaffection that us old folks couldnt ever appreciate...please! Even I could see the pathos of the Cookie Monster and the OCD of the Count all these years...Why can he not at least defer on a certain snippet of what may be the entire popular music canon, fer Christ's sake...
So, when he gets up maybe I will scan through the clips on MSN entertainment and show him old Copeland saving his band and the world in his own little way.

Give me short, sweet and non-repetitive anytime...Elvis Costello in his prime, The Beatles...hell, even the Stones...and if its gonna be long, make it insightful, like a young Springsteen or Dylan doing Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, which took up a whole side of vinyl!

Sam Seder is on today at 4-ish, and I am so happy to not be in the city...and maybe have a chance to listen to him live and blog along or whatever...depending on how much I get done beforehand. This dearth of good liberal voices during the week is really dispiriting and wearing.
How did it come to this? Why is it that so few entities control the output of so much information?








Back to work for me...I am going to post the pictures from origami and gay pride very soon...It seems like its been a long time and sooner than I know it I'm gonna be at YearlyKos hanging around doing not much...wasting carbon apparently

















And yes, I finally ordered my specialty chicks!! I got around 9 of the most interesting types that will winter well, and that are especially friendly and cuddly. Im less interested in the laying, but I'm sure that we will get plenty of eggs. One chick will even lay light blue and light green eggs. Im just not sure how big they will be...but considering that I just made easy over Japanese quail eggs for the boys (an experiment from the Japanese grocery store,) I'm sure it wont matter....
I'm concerned with the security of these guys when they move outside, so when my friend brings the coop (that he built for someone else who has since sold the his house and moved,) I am goign to have it doubled up on the heavy wire and have a cement floor and sunken fence put in...Im hearing alot of horror stories abotu feet and beaks flung about and weasels who suck the blood and leave just the body...So I am getting a special security light and building a fucking wall if I have to! So much for the natural farm life of mini goats and chickens running round...I need a shotgun! (just kidding!)

Welcome Back Sam Seder!

Well, so far so bad for Air America Radio 2.1 or whatever they are calling it now....It absolutely breaks my heart for reasons that I suppose are boring anymore for anyone who read this blog even occasionally...and Im not writing about Maron anymore unless Im reviewing a particular show, because its just maudlin at this point to look back with anything but fondness at what that crew accomplished...and I'm the last person to want any artist to stay in a box...onward and upward is what I always say!...Yeah right!..pass the Prozac!
Other blogs have covered the horrible disspointment that is Lionel (or "God" as he likes to call himself..."Its just a Joke" says Mom. Oh yeah? Well I guess I forgot what funny was in the months, or has it been years, since we've lost the funny...oh well) and Im not going to bother anymore except to say that I'm only listening to a little Rachel Maddow and Ring of Fire on the weekends.
Well, today I got a cool little newsletter from Sammy Seder called The Seder Reader. His new show, Sam Seder 3.75's Seder on Sundays, will be starting this Sunday, May 20th, at 4PM EST. Its apparently a 3 hour show and will be pretty much along the lines of his weekday show, except that there will not be enough of it. The Sammy Cam WILL be in effect, making the commercial breaks as fun as the show itself, so do stream it live from your computer and AAR's page. Otherwise, you may be at the mercy of fickle terrestrial radio signals (1600 AM in the NYC area...and good luck with that!) or podcasting which may or may not be part of the premium service...ugh!
One nice thing is that Sam's web page seems to be coming together and it would be nice to have a working blog over there...I could hardly ever post on his official blog and I was always sure that it was just me (blocked, no doubt!) until I started to hear that from alot of people.
Anyway, I am tremendously happy that Sammy will be back on the air, and I know that the mooks at AAR will have to reinstate his show to a daily affair before long.
In the meantime, I have been pretty disappointed at the Imus slot situation on MSNBC , with Stephanie Miller never really doing it for me one way or another, (not to mention that she is not all that nice to Brian from Everett, and she STOLE the Liberal Confessional,) whoever that scary bald guy was and then David Gregory, who I like as a reporter but who is not great as a radio personality or goofy performer guy. But I have strangely been enjoying Joe Scarborough's Morning Joe. Call me crazy, but I can take Joe in the morning a little bit better than at night. And as Jill said a while back, you know that things are changing when you start to think that Scarborough is making some sense!
In reality, I can always watch the Daily Show and Colbert from the night before...and sometimes even Olbermann...in the time I actually have in the mornings...Its the driving around parts of the day that are rather dead now, though the weather has been totally wild so Ive been listening to alot of local news as things happen.
Welcome back Sam! You deserved a better shake than you go, but this is gonna have to be it for the time being...and we will hope for more in time....

Virginia Tech Shooting, The Deluge, Mark Green Responds to His Email, Gramercy Finale for Maron Rollins & Garafolo......

Bear with me here... I've got pumps running in the basement and the intrepid Panda Garden deliveryman boating up here through the floods with $50 worth of Chinese food, in the interest of growing boys who want MEAT!! (and my little broccoli rabe and tofu steam on the side...though roast pork calls with a pretty intense voice....)
School was canceled and half my town is shut down...and I cant even describe the mess.
This is what it is going to be like as coastal areas go under water due to global warming. Maybe we wont have an alarmed Jake Glyndenhall looking over his shoulder at the ice wall rolling through Wall St., but the consequences of rising water and the inability of the ground to hold it all, is very real here at sea level...and even my place which is 200 feet above the water and sits up from the road on an upward sloping mountain of sorts, is completely overcome by the new amount of water that is coming down all at once, and over a long period of time. The water is shooting up out of the boulder in the basement, and as ready as I can be is not enough in the face of this thing. I'm a little scared at how this is playing out so quickly...and just from a layman's point of view, in the number of years that I have lived in this area, its changed pretty rapidly weather-wise. I don't need to read a scientific report that warming is real or have Rush Limbaugh tell me that this is part of a natural cycle and that I shouldn't worry...This is really happening, and something has to be done about it right away.

Meantime, people are shooting each other here and blowing up and shooting each other in Iraq and the clear voices that I've been listening to lately, speaking truth to... whatever it is anymore out there powering this thing (fear?), are dwindling as I work my way through the last podcasts on my iPod that mean anything ...I am struck by what I'm reading and what is going on, and the little tiny moments of clarity that Ive been having.

First the unclear: This Virginia tech shooting is unfolding horribly today, and as much as this sorta thing tends to happen from time to time (though apparently not on this level) and will undoubtedly be dissected over and over in the next few days, I view this as a tragedy that is part of the natural progression of a sick society that solves things with violence, and doesn't provide health care for its citizens. If its a crazy guy who did this, who would ever have known unless circumstances were just right? We're so busy trying to get them over there before they get us here ....and we want to spread our own brand of democracy so badly that we are willing to give up the rights that come with that democracy...but meantime, all we've really been doing is making sure that back in the homeland the profits of the health insurance companies, drug companies, and oil companies are safe.
So, while our down-armoured surge troops may be bravely trying to hold Baghdad, we're really at the mercy of the underpaid campus police, and the constraints of whatever healthcare, educational, and social system this guy was raised in.
For Christ's fuckin' sake, how is it possible that such a huge portion of OUR money is being funneled into the pockets of unregulated corporations and we are not taking care of our own people?
I cant possibly say that any specific event could be prevented, but I know for sure that its getting harder and harder for everyone in this country to stay even partially sane and get anything at all done besides the grind of work, family, crap you need to do, and trying to navigate the fucked up system and the huge amount of information coming at us all, much of it nonsense and noise. There is nothing to shoot for, for most people, and the American dream seems to be more about that winning the Lotto fairytale than any realistic plan of community coming together to make a better world...So, there is naturally so much more obsessive compulsive feeling about every little thing and an increase in depression too. If every loss, slight, or just the pain of living, eats away at so many of us, who is gonna be next? Who cares and who is even paying attention in an increasingly alienated society? ...and what are we thinking when we spend our resources to fight an ideological lie that doesn't have an end, much less any hope for victory or defeat,rather than taking care of our citizen's own safety and health?
Whats missing besides community and oversight is what might be possible if family were supported in our society; Why aren't we teaching critical thinking and ethics in school? What happened to philosophy?...even in the lower grades of public school in my own very good district, I see am early push towards cutting corners, the easy way out, and what is the best way to pass the test that allows the school to get funds. Lost in there somewhere are the patient steps necessary to actually solve problems, do research, figure things out, and knowledge of how to accomplish a task while learning. There is a lack of empathy all around and little time to address the needs of overcrowded classrooms full of kids who often just don't care....and its not that the teachers and school administrators aren't trying or don't care....they are victims of the priorities of our government; a government that used to value education, stability, and community above all.
So, will it be a spurned boyfriend? A foreigner? ...A local?....Will the police have screwed up?... the university? What sort of real security is there anywhere for any of us? Who are the campus police in our own lives?
This is just a tragic microcosm of the way things are going.

I don't want to go on too much about the Air America Radio situation because I'm pretty much gone from there and have only to cancel my premium, but I was struck today, first of all by Bobby Kennedy Jr's comments on Sam Seder's last show, that he had spoken to Mark Green and that he just cant understand what Green is thinking. That a terrible mistake is being made.
I love Bobby Kennedy Jr.....but, he doesn't understand? What must it be like for Mark Green, who is basically politcally impotent to have to have Bobby Kennedy Jr come to give him advice? Who's in charge now, Bobby?...But, it doesnt work that way, really. Bobby actually knows a thing or two, and the idea that he would have that conversation with Green and get nowhere is just incredible to me.
I've had more than one person imply that I'm being too conspiratorial in my growing feeling about this situation, (and I am NOT a conspiracy theorist by and stretch,) in that the blogosphere is full of comments that Green is moving the network towards center and into a safe political zone. It is not an understatement to say that that Sam Seder has been the heart of the place since certain shows were canceled and other certain people left the network...but more than that, there is something about Sam that makes him a great broadcaster. He isn't as multi-talented as Maron or as famous as Franken or as ...whatever...but the whole package has developed in a way that has made him into such an excellent voice for the network and the liberal viewpoint, that it makes no sense to get rid of him...unless he is too left for the new owners of the network, and one in particular who is always positioning himself in the power elite of NYC politics. I think that this slimy move to Lionel and the less substance model of broadcasting is something that he thinks will bring him closer to his goal of....?
I'm sure this must be a joke, but I'm struck by it nonetheless.... Via Jill to the Seditionists blog....its a joke, right? Jill: Draft Mark Green For President in 08...


With a big hat tip to Move To Iceland here is what Green had to say on AAR's page about the outpouring of protest emails of support for Sam Seder:

Comment from Mark Green about Sam Seder
Statement:

I want to thank all of you who took the time to contact us at Air America about the Sam Seder Show. It shows you care and are part of our extended Air America family, even if we can't agree on every lineup judgment.
I, too, think Sam is terrific and was eager to keep him on air. After we discussed various possibilities, I'm very happy that we agreed on a new show that's really unlike anything else on radio (or television). The three hour program, as I wrote in my posted "Message" earlier week, will focus on "networks and netroots" -- that is, a review of the Sunday political talkfests with mostly bloggers as commentators.
Please know that, consistent with my 35 year history as a dedicated progressive advocate and author, I'm devoted to keeping Air America as the leader in progressive talk and to taking it from the red to the black. Both.
I believe when we're done with all our plans for the new Air America 2.0 -- in terms on overall lineup, new platforms, better marketing, important collaborations (like our partnership with MoveOn this week broadcasting the "Virtual Town Hall on Iraq") -- you'll be as optimistic as I am that Air America will both survive and thrive after a roller coaster past year.
Mark Green
President
Air America

Does Green think that we are idiots? They "agreed" that Sam should do this Sunday thing? He thinks that we all just don't agree on a simple lineup judgement, but are really part of an extended family? And he wants us to buy this shit about turning round the station that they got on the cheap into some fantasy-land of profitability? With Lionel at the morning helm?...Sam, Armstrong Williams, The Young Turks, Thommm Hartmannn?
No, this is so much more than that.

This was my answer to that in a comment on Move To Iceland:

... as a hard core AAR listener from the get go, I think that Mark Green is totally wrong in his shifting views of 2.0 and short sighted retooling.
We have to know that the old model of terrestrial radio as the only outlet for the programing that he thinks speaks to...um...the future(?) is living on borrowed time, as even old folks will eventually find themselves buying radios with the capacity to get internet content and wireless will reach 50 miles or more before we know it.....
To move ahead into a model that cuts out the strongest move towards the interactive, internet... movement is foolhardy.
regardless of Mark Green's political aspirations and what goes on in the power centers of NYC politics, where he has been scratching at the door for so many years, he is stone cold wrong to think that the only way that AAR will be a force will be through earnings.
He has thrown away more money on Starbucks for his campaign staff than it would cost to invest in the future of broadcasting....
But I don't see him doing that...I see him promoting his own vision of the good old boy's network...
Good luck Greens....
I think we used to call this penny dumber and pound dumber....
They've lost all of the best established talent who had already made the inroads and contacts that are paving the future....
Go on and serve the lowest denominator....
see ya at your future learning annex course on how to run for office...or how to run a radio network....

All I have left is a few observations from last night in New York City for the final night of the Garafolo/Rollins/Maron show.

First, the storm didn't keep anyone home...it was a pretty full house and a very good crowd. Also,Janeane is not as emaciated as Jill was thinking she is, nor does she really have the old lady upper arms that she seems to think she does. She was fantastic and brilliant. I was happy to see her again. She took off her coat!
I cant say much about Maron because you all know that I am too big of a fan of what he does to give you anything new....but he kicked ass...again!

Rollins does a great piece on what Wolfe Blitzer should have said to Cheney when Cheney shut him down about the gay daughter questioning. This is something that I hope he has written or put on a CD because it is so true in a universal sense about how the press should grow some balls. I really like it when Henry does these specific rants about current and real events in his life....I like it less when he goes off into his singing in the rain/isn't New York wonderful spiel....I like that he is positive but I don't get the feeling that he is revealing who he is...or maybe he is and its a little much for me....? I could watch him only 1.25 times over the course of 2 shows and hope to someday soon see him in a different venue to see if its any different. Following Maron isn't easy...that's something else I realized...their crowds are a little different and some people left. maybe it was the rain and that it was Sunday, but it was also a little too loud... unnecessarily so. That's just how he uses the mic. I like Henry but I would like to see him more focused.

Catch them in LA if you can, April 24th-29th...and also try to catch any of them separately wherever and whenever you can....its honestly a great time; you'll laugh, you'll cry...you'll wonder why these folks don't have more of a forum to talk to the world without all the corporate bullshit getting in the way.

I drove home through the Bronx listening to the Replacements, old Elvis Costello, and
Marvin Gaye...and managed to avoid all the cars that were hood deep in water, and the closed highways along the coast....
I love a good Nor'Easter....

Social Discourse: Imus Fired; So Long Sammy; Lionel Who? Marc Maron, Janeane Garafolo and Henry Rollins Appear at the Gramercy Theater.Email-gate!!

Now that the world is safe from Don Imus and we've at long last got a 99.99% certainty that Larry Birkhead is Danilynne Smith Stern Birkhead's real daddy, I suppose that we can move on to the last day of Sam Seder's fabulous show which is dying even as thousands scream for its reprieve.... and then what to do with the driving round time until he is back on Sundays to add another 2 hours (minus commercials, of course) to my podcast lineup that includes Ring of Fire and Diggnation, along with assorted NY Times audio op-eds....? What to do?

Imus:
I've long felt like Imus' voice was one of negativity in a sea of disgusting white guy sewage brought to us by the major networks...but I dont discount the good work that Imus has done and continues to do for kids, and that he did swing with the changing tide when it became popular to talk about what dangerous asses Bush and co. were/are. But, I never saw much depth there, and it infuriated me how he cozied up to Joe Lieberman with no real idea of what old Joe was doing to our system...same thing with Santorum and a host of others. The old boy network seems to need one or two talking points to keep them happy and endorsing eachother, leaving the rest of us sputtering, but, but, but....

Clearly, there are so many of us who never utter the kind of words that Imus said, but we all have them in the layers of brain formed as we grow ...its maybe just a matter of the tone and delivery...and I dont know if its fair to say, as Sam Seder did yesterday, that this is probably how all those old guys talk to eachother off the air....and at first I didn't really think that its fair to completely cut Imus down and take his career away for just saying more of the same...or to make him the fall guy for Rush, O'Reilly, Stern, and other shock jock liars out there who probably do less for children and the environment than Imus does. He is also a small "L" liberal who sometimes finds his center....and is probably less putrid than alot of other crap out there.
So, why is he the one taking the fall?

You could easily comb through the transcripts of even, say, the Lionel show on WOR, and find where he called Rachel Maddow a thick necked dyke, or...well, I don't think I have to get started on the Limbaugh/Fox/Coulter/Malkin statements that have gotten by with hardly a peep from anyone....even as protestors are carted off to jail for wearing the wrong T-shirt outside of the White House, or not walking fast enough past while protesting. But now that its done, maybe its worthwhile to say that language of that sort is not acceptable in any company. Its not acceptable from black person to black person, from Rapper to Ho, in any sort of a joke, or even in the living room while drunk with close friends....Ive thrown people out of my house for saying the N-word...in Montana where it was, at the time, a normal part of shooting the shit...
I see how hurt inner city kids are...how easily they can go either way...how hard they work to get anywhere (much less to Rutgers) and as much as I dont knwo the backgrounds of the women that he was talking about, I can see that this kind of statement by the man on the man's network, hurts these kids...the girls especially.

The use of the "Ho" image is not only racist but its sexist...coming from a bunch of pasty white guys it is just disgusting, considering that it might be the rappers who fancy themselves the pimps, but its the pasty white guys who really are secretly (or not so secretly) interested in how much of the "ho" folklore is true...And Imus' crew is pretty disgusting, taunting the fat guy for being fat, wearing the fedex envelope to be the pope and the old, old, old Brian Wilson/Bill Clinton "comedy"...going on into the endless commercial for the cleaning products which may be a service to children and the world, but just become tiring....
But what makes this THE worst thing ever...? What spin of the wheel of fortune chose Imus over Limbaugh? From now on, every time I hear any sort of trash talk I'm gonna call networks and sponsors. I guess that got Spocko in alot of trouble, but I think that if Imus is gonna be held accountable for this statement that Malkin etc... should also answer to the powers that be and the sponsors.

I just think that it would have been a better outcome if they let Imus come back and make his show different. Instead, its swept away after a day or two of NOT focusing on the bombing in the green zone of Baghdad and the emails and Gonzo....
And, lets not even hope that they will tap Sam Seder and/or Marc Maron as a fillin, which would be the smart thing to do...no, they will have alot of David Gregory and then some plastic talking head on MSNBC, and who knows who else on CBS....
I dont care...I usually dont look at MSNBC till after 9AM because Imus is there, so I wont miss much. I also think that Imus will be picked up pretty quickly by satellite or whatever, just like everyone else is. It just feels to me like a certain amount of discourse or maybe possible discourse has been shut down.
Speaking of which:


What I will really miss from my day to day life is Sam Seder, Joe Conazin, Christy Harvey, Marc Maron (even just on Fridays,) Atrios, Marcos, and whoever else I'm forgetting. I always miss Dan Pashman (the show-killer,) Brendan PW McDonald and am happy to see them pop up here and there, though I wish it was on shows that I can stand ...and I will now also miss Lauren and Joel....But what is wrong here is that the loss that we are seeing unfold on Air America is one of the loss of the hope and possibility, and that edgy, intelligent and thoughtful commentary that seemed too good to be true...and was....
Why was the urgent and necessary life of this network entrusted to these jokers? Who made the decision to sell this thing to them rather than the French's or the Drobnys? Who lives in who's pocket in the NYC court system?...and who does it serve that AAR be dumbed down?
Its not about profit or corporate feasibility...or even being able to answer to stockholders....no, its about direction and message. Who is served by this "new" (aka meet the new boss same as the old boss) direction?
Message to Danny Goldberg: So, how did that 'advice from Imus' thing work out for you?...happy now?...are we having fun yet?
Message to the Green twins: See above and learn from the past. Can't wait till Lionel lets loose with one of his zingers on your air...I hope your FCC fines are at least as much, of not more than the monies owed to all talent and crew that got screwed in your deal....oh well....

Tomorrow is visiting day at Will's school. I love Will and I love his school, but I did my time in school. The fact that Fridays are usually half days there, and each class is only 20 minutes long, doesn't make it any easier for me to get up, get out with him on time, and run from class to class while trying to read my Treo (as I spent my childhood reading the NY Post during class before it was a conservative rag,) and balance a coffee. Like Will, I was a smarter student than I was a good student....I did great and knew all the answers in a second, but resented the hell out of being there at all. I still hate school...grade, middle, high, and freshman year of college. But apparently, this is what we do at this particular school....and then we will come home and get ready and head down to NYC to see Marc Maron, Janeane Garafolo, and Henry Rollins at the Gramercy theater.

I'm so sad this week due to a myriad of things and I'm feeling overwhelmed with it all...capped off by a good flooding rain that has left the basement wet and the clocks all screwed up.
Im hustling to get my taxes done so my saint of a tax guy doesn't hate me too much...and I still cant get into the nest box to see if my hen has laid her eggs yet.
I'm happy to report though that I got a great but old book on conure breeding, and this hen, Rosie, is doing everything exactly by the book. I just need something to look forward to; something bright and new....11 days till my birthday and I want a little something....

My new focus is going to be on the Bush Administration's growing email-gate, which is shaping up to be quite fantastic with the Bushies having separate laptops for their separate emails that were run through the RNC server, so that they wouldn't be traceable.
So here is the fun part: first of all, the act of setting up separate laptops and using a different server ( a stupidly obvious server,) they were planning to do wrong...Is that malice aforethought??
Secondly, and here is where I do my happy dance, because they are not part of the presidential papers (which is against the law in itself if it is work product of this administration,) it is not going to fall under privilege!!!
Lets watch this, along with the Gonzo death watch which we will have to take over till Sammy resurfaces with his way-too-short Sunday show.

I will report on the Maron et al show...maybe even direct from the venue depending on how friendly it all is and how much fun I'm having....
I have a new sub-notebook which is just smokin' and I outfitted it with a Verizon wireless high speed card, so I can conceivably do anything online anywhere that I have a Verizon signal (which lets out my HOME, but oh well....)

See ya round Don...See ya soon Sammy...See ya tomorrow Marc....Jill and Mr Brill too!!
See ya sooner Accountant (who has not enough time to read blogs right now anyway!!!)

I don't believe that Don Skeletor Imus is a racist anymore than any of these guys are. Maybe thats not saying much...I do believe that he is a dinosaur, disgusting, and pretty anti-woman and sexist....but he is not a racist, as far as Ive ever heard. The problem with these neocons in disguise, like old Don, is that he is a little too in touch with the reptilian layers of his brain...and for old farts like him, that racial slur is in there just waiting to come out. You see it alot in old folks. Some of them are the most liberal and empathetic people, but somehow as they age, a little of what they heard growing up, before they decided how to live their lives, is in there just waiting to pop.
Here is the crazy part: Imus has been putting down just about everyone in a disgusting way for years and years....He hosts the supposed top journalists in the world and somehow they are cowed into his simplistic, blunted, format, as he and "Charles" chuckle and joke about one thing or another, and never really seem to say much of anything....And Imus chooses who he supports depending on who scratches HIS back: case in point is the horrible Rick Santorum who bought Imus' support by putting through a bill on autism. So Imus went on and on about what a great person Santorum is, with no reason except that he was supportive of this bill. It was the same thing with Joementum Lieberman. Imus liked him because he just "made some sense" and he showed up on the show. He had no idea what Lieberman was doing or the details of Bush's butt boy and his psychotic support of the Iraq war, except that he just "liked" him. He didnt know nothing about that stranger Lamonte, and he felt no need to find out.
So, I don't like Imus (even though I grew up in a house where he was on the radio all the time,) because I think that he supports the basest of the very human ability to turn a deaf ear to what is clear and right in front of you. Why does this guy have such a big platform to say...um... not so much? And, by the way, Mark Green and David Bernstein, in case you're reading this, Imus is NOT funny...this show is not comedy!!

Well, David Gregory, in for Chris Matthews on Hardball tonight, fielded a lineup with the likes of ...ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS (he of the local NYC Air America Mornings lineup, and the secret paid shill of Bush's No Child Left Behind program, acting as if he was "reporting" on it when he was a White House employee...uh-huh,) who was saying over and over that MSNBC is the white man's station with no Latino or black hosts...to which Gregory kept trying to drive home that Allison Stewart is on staff (and a woman to boot!)...but I think that he was more after an actual HOST job, and not a fluffy newscaster with a day slot and fill-in work. You tell 'em Army!

Breaking News!!! MSNBC suspends Imus' simulcast for 2 whole weeks!!!!! As if soldiers aren't dying in Iraq and Bush and Cheney aren't criminals, THIS is the big news of the day.
Well hell...tomorrow we will also find out who the real father Of Anna Nicole Smith's baby is....and THIS is what they are gonna spend an entire hardball on? This is what makes the media look at itself? What a joke!
Imus is a sexist, neocon, who has some sort of good streak that allows him to straddle the fence on enviornment and sick kids, but he has done the country and the children who will live till tomorrow no favors in his complicity in this administration's disinformation program...and his cowed "friends" in the media are "dismayed" as Gregory said, because it is so troublesome to think that they might be associated with that sort of language...huh? Lets discuss how to change Imus' show...lets discuss whats wrong with Imus....I'm bored....

Into the middle of this walks Lionel....well, nevermind...LTR again has the lingo down so well. "...slides into Sam's spot" eh?...pretty seamless, all this shuffling round, huh? Some people have an interest in this thing because what is LTR without LTR? Im afraid to even say it, but it may very well be over. Time to change that LTR to NPR-ish Nightmare.....maybe they can give Imus a slot when Sharpton marches on CBS radio and forces them to fire him. Oh the uppity disbelief that the radio station has not yet removed him... yet....just give the Rev a day or so to assemble the troops and you never know...maybe old Don will be available yet. And I know who can afford him too!
Oh, and to the person in the comments on LTR who compares this to "not quite as bad as Danny Gold-schmuck," I must say that I find it worse, because they have the hindsight of those mistakes and the damage that followed an egotistical pseudo-bottom-line choice that didn't listen to the fans, and now they are doing the same thing over again.

Its like the haunted look in John McCain's eyes...the empty stare of realization that maybe everything that your house of cards is built on is just so much shit, sliding away through the Gaza.... Trying to salvage his political career, McCain was heard to say that so much did he believe in his own belief that Baghdad is safe, that he would be willing to walk solo through the market anytime.
Maybe he could ask Mitt Romney to come along with his "varmint" rifle....
But really, I hear McCain also say that he can fly...somewhere around when he was last seen with the angel dust dealer round the side of the rug stand. Fly Johnny, fly.....I hear Sanjaya is gonna join the campaign as official singer just as soon as he wins American Idol....

If everything runs in some sort of cycle, I suppose it may be time to start the run of Air America Radio from its inception and hope for better days sometime in the next 2 years (and I have just the archive to do it)....or maybe the angel dust thing is something to consider. Maron and Garafolo are playing NYC for a week, beginning tomorrow night, and I feel like going every night...with the angel dust and maybe some drinking thrown in! Too bad I have no tolerance for chemicals or drink anymore...too bad....


Meantime, just watching the nestbox...my father is back in the hospital in Cape Cod, after one night at his hotel, and trying to get home to LA somehow...maybe figure out what the problem is...and the rest is just complicated....very complicated....

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.

Drowning in Shit, Literally and...Oh Never Mind....Sam Seder on the Ball or in Front of the 8-ball?...John McCain Has Really Lost It This Time!

Not to be indelicate here, but what sort of planetary alignment has provided us with such a literal illustration of the state of things in much of the world, than the sewage flood in Gaza yesterday. A sewer collapse caused foaming putrid waste to flood into towns full of tin shacks, many of which remain up to their roofs in the stuff?
Apparently the sewer (and many others) cannot be upgraded because of fighting. Indeed, when authorities rushed to the scene to check out the damage, they were fired upon by locals.
If it really was only 5 people that died, I'll be very surprised...and what a way to go!
I read about this in my local paper, where it was a back page international blurb story. As I sat in a waiting room making some interesting ewwwww/yuck faces, it occurred to me that this must be one of the most particularly bad ways to go...or survive and have to clean it up in the middle of a war zone. It adds insult to injury, the poo.... Yeah, you can have your Katrinas and Tsunamis and mudslides; I'm guessing that the earthen wall that is all thats standing between your tin shack and smelly oblivion...well, lets just say that it was probably pretty smelly to begin with and you run fast when you have to pass it on your way to market.
I don't want to step into the Israel/Palestinian poo at all, but it seems like somehow there has to be some humanity in this crisis that lets these people, on both sides, at least build a sewage treatment plant. What if disease there was gonna come here, for instance? If there is a total dearth of empathy on both sides that extends even to poo-poo, then maybe the self centered and selfish on both sides can try to focus on the down-side of this for themselves....?

I hadn't heard much of the sewage in the news, but was pretty enthralled with how spot on and fantastic Sam Seder was today. I podcast the show later on in the afternoon, so I missed the moment on the Sammy-cam where, I hear, Sam mentioned that he was about to get fired.
I just want to repeat to any Air America employee or suit who might happen by here via a Google search or whatever, that if you fire Sammy, I'm done with AAR and all the crap that you've put your loyal listeners through!

John McCain handed us the best story of the week with his crazy echo of the crazy president, and his butt-boy Joe Lieberman, (and their little dog too,) about how fucking great things are in Iraq.
Even Wolfie Blitzer had to go to, correspondent on the ground (and one of my personal heros,)Mick Ware, who put McCain's story where it belongs, in the poo heap of talking point nonsense.
This is a must see piece of film:



Its not just McCain, though I wonder about him as he seems to fade to white, more every day....he is merely talking the talking points, and this is, incredibly, what they expect us to believe! Someone has to tell these people that the American people are tired of the lies and that even the stupidest of us are startign to wise up. What part of neverland are they talking about?
Sam cuts to the 'World of Pure Imagination' song or his daughter's music, which is so funny (yes, I can say it now because my kid is 13, but its Sam's own fault if he doesnt get her something deeper like the Muppets or Dan Zanes...or even Paul Westerberg's Open Season...hell, the pathos of Cookie Monster alone is enough to bring back all that abnormal psych stuff from your old pot smoking days in college)....If you believe in a land of marshmallow skies and candy cane lamp posts, then clap your hands children....
Even though the wall of shit is rolling towards you...the earthen wall is breaking as we speak...believe hard enough and we will achieve VICTORY!
I really wonder how McCain sleeps at night, knowing what he knows.

I guess its a gift to Olbermann, Stewart, Colbert, Sammy, Maron (wherever he is performing tonight,) and even Wolf Blitzer, at this point, to have these wackos out there spouting nonsense every day, but its more than a little unsettling that Bush is so out of control and no one is able to do anything substantial about it.
I think we gotta start the impeachment thing right away....immediately...

I have to hand it to Mick Ware for his 4 long years in Iraq and his spot on, no holds barred, reporting of the truth that he sees with his eyes. He has been exasperated with the Liebermans and McCains of this thing all along, and hasn't been afraid to say it. Maybe its because he hasn't been tied up too tightly by any one network and is less American (I think he is Aussie, but I don't actually know what his citizenship is.)He is a real old fashioned reporter, and I imagine that like so many others, he has suffered for it. I cant imagine how anyone can work out of that area and in those circumstances without somehow getting wrecked...but then, the citizens of these places have no choice, not to mention the soldiers, and the brave reporters who act as our eyes and ears out there while carrying the burden of documenting history, which is no small job.

Every day has to be bringing us closer to some sort of resolution in this mess. I can't face it otherwise.