One of the ways I know I'm an old fart is that I still listen to terrestrial radio. I don't listen much, usually only when I'm driving to or from work. On the way TO work, I often find myself listening to Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton's morning sports talk on WFAN. I don't know why I do this. It isn't that I'm such a sports junkie, and after Carton's ignominious firing from his previous radio show following unconscionable remarks he made about former New Jersey Acting Governor Richard Codey's wife's postpartum depression, no self-respecting feminist should ever listen to this man again. And yet I do, and I'm not the only one (though I think this woman's Carton fetish is a little bit weird -- the man may be an entertaining asshole, but he's still an asshole).

It's probably because in the morning, what you need is a zoo. I'm really not up to learning the minutiae about what's going on in Turkey, and the NPR morning crew isn't exactly designed to get you going when you're on the road at 6:15 AM in the dark on the way to a 7:00 teleconference. It's like drinking chamomile tea when what you really need is dark roast with an extra shot of espresso. And Carton is that extra dose. Sometimes I listen to Mark Riley on WWRL, the last voice of progressive talk radio in New York, but frankly, I'm really not that interested in the New York City school bus drivers' strike, and Riley's show is more often than not about topics of interest primarily to New York city residents. So it's to WFAN I turn, for Carton shrieking about the Jets, or Al Dukes' off-key songs, or Boomer Esiason trying to inject some gravitas into a show that isn't about gravitas at all. And all of this is punctuated by commercials for ex-NFL-er Brad Benson's Hyundai dealership, which are so dumbassedly funny that they almost make me want to shlep down there to buy an Accent. It's sort of like listening to The Odd Couple with crazy sports callers. Clearly the formula works, because "Boomer and Carton" is the #1 show among men in the age group 25-54.

How the mighty (meaning me) have fallen.

The "Felix Unger and Oscar Madison" dynamic just plain works on morning talk radio. There was a time when I could turn on the radio at 6 AM and listen to three hours of smart comedy, incisive interviews, and just plain lunacy. That time lasted from April 1, 2004 until December 2005, when the then-current suits at Air America Radio pulled Morning Sedition off the air. I've spilled plenty of keystrokes here about Morning Sedition, and if you'd like to read them, just type "Morning Sedition" into the search box in the left-side menubar and you'll find plenty of it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go here and start listening. This brilliant radio show, misunderstood and mismanaged by the people who were supposed to bring progressive talk radio into the mainstream, has just an early canary in the coal mine for what has transpired since then.

Peter B. Collins, a long-standing prog-talk guy, laments the devolution of progressive talk radio at Truth-Out:

Despite the sharp decline in the progressive radio business, we all hoped that the end of the Bush presidency and the 2008 elections would produce new growth in lib talk. With the protracted primary battle between Obama and Clinton, and Obama's inspiring campaign against McCain, we expected to see a spike in ratings and affiliates and hoped the Obama campaign and other Democrats would spend money to reach our listeners, their voters. There was no measurable audience growth and only a precious few campaign dollars were spent on our programs and our affiliate stations.

In August of 2008, all of the progressive shows converged on the Obama coronation in Denver, but we were ignored by the Obama campaign. We were assigned a radio row in the basement of the convention hall, under an escalator. All the delegates and dignitaries whisked past us on the escalator, and when they reached the main floor, the first radio booth they saw was FOX News. Team Obama mostly declined our requests for interviews and we ended up mostly talking with Team Hillary. Schultz was so pissed that he pulled out after the second day and returned to his base in Fargo.

By March, 2009, I had to make the difficult choice to end my syndicated show. There was no path to profitability and the Bush recession didn't help. Indeed, it lowered the tide for all radio boats, and it also sharply cut the revenues to my personal business that had helped subsidize my radio show. After several years of financial losses, I signed off and launched my net-only podcast in June 2009 which now attracts more listeners than I was reaching with ten AM affiliates. The roster of surviving liberal and progressive talk radio shows is facing a similar set of dynamics, even more dire. With Monterey and Eureka as the only remaining full-time progressive outlets on the West Coast, progressive talk does not have national distribution and can't compete for most national ad buys. A year ago, Clear Channel renamed the San Francisco station KNEW and bumped Stephanie Miller in favor of Glenn Beck, Thom Hartmann in favor of money-talker Dave Ramsey. At about the same time, the company dropped Hartmann in Los Angeles for a local show that was intended to defuse community protests of racist comments by "John and Ken" on co-owned KFI.

Ratings range from flat to flat-lined: in 2012, Clear Channel-owned KPOJ in Portland and CBS-owned KPTK in Seattle showed audience numbers so low that they were not listed by Arbitron; Clear Channel's WDTW in Detroit barely showed a pulse at .1 percent, and the once-powerhouse, now-struggling media conglomerate recently agreed to donate WDTW to a local community group. In his second attempt at WVKO in Columbus, Ohio, Gary Richards was forced to sign off just before Christmas 2012. Progressive talker Jeff Santos waged a valiant four-year struggle in Boston, and I was a consultant in his effort last year to add eight new markets in battleground states; we had no choice but to lease air time, and once again the Democrats who had the most to gain failed to support the effort. The only exception I've found is Madison, Wisconsin, market #100, where Clear Channel's WXXM-FM, "The Mic" jumped a full share point to a respectable 3.3 this fall. Back in 2006, a local group led by activist Aldous Tyler rallied support, and a planned format change was halted. Similar efforts are underway in Seattle and in Portland, where longtime KPOJ morning host Carl Wolfson has just launched a live webstream show weekday mornings 7-9 AM Pacific. It's worth noting that Arbitron has switched to a "people meter" system that has produced lower numbers for talk programming in general and progressive talk in particular. Al Franken is in the Senate, Ed Schultz appears to be doing well on MSNBC, Thom Hartmann has a nightly TV show on the RT network, Bill Press and Stephanie Miller are simulcast on Current TV (which has just been sold to Al Jazeera). But their radio shows face tough sledding and possible elimination in 2013. Dial Global, the company that syndicates these programs (along with NFL football and a variety of music formats), is in deep financial trouble, and its stock was recently voluntarily delisted from the NASDAQ when the share price dropped below $1. Ironically, the company blames the progressive-driven advertiser boycott in 2012 aimed at Rush Limbaugh for his misogynist comments about attorney and birth-control advocate Sandra Fluke, which appears to have caused many national advertisers to stop advertising on all talk radio programs - both right and left - to avoid controversy.

Some observers see the long arm of Mitt Romney's Bain Capital (which took Clear Channel private in 2008) and other right-wing forces as the causes of lib talk's travails. While it's true that progressive programs were consigned to weaker stations in many markets - often programmed by conservatives who didn't believe in the product - and never got the kind of advertising support needed to develop the brand properly, it's clear that the progressive community and its political leaders have simply not supported the format in the same way that the right has. This includes listeners, (who seem to prefer the measured tone of NPR to the rough and tumble of AM talk, in markets where they are able to hear both) advertisers owned by progressives, and the leadership of the Democratic Party. Some labor unions have advertised on progressive shows, but their financial support is no match for the profits of conservative stations and programs. As someone who took substantial personal risk in syndication and station ownership, I can tell you that progressive talk has not panned out as a viable business. Clinton's 1996 deregulation of broadcasting and the end of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 didn't help. I do think the FCC should require some balance of viewpoints on the stations it regulates, through the license renewal process, but there is simply no interest on the part of Obama and his appointees in regulatory reform - even as the president is pilloried by right-wing radio on a daily basis. Air America's parade of management blunders produced the downward spiral that brought us to this tipping point for progressive talk radio, and most station owners, rightly or wrongly, see that failure as an indication that audiences won't support liberal talk radio.

In radio, we always like to end on an upbeat note. Here's the best I can muster: if you want to help keep the surviving progressive talk shows alive, subscribe to the podcasts of your favorite progressive hosts - it's a critical stream of revenue as these programs fight for survival.

So the question is: Is this a BAD thing? Or is it just a natural evolution of communications media? Right-wing talk radio and even sports talk radio thrive because its audience skews old -- the people for whom terrestrial radio is omnipresent. For younger generations, AM radio isn't even on their radar.

A few years ago, when Air America was still viable and still had a reasonably strong signal, I went to a meeting at the campaign headquarters of Dennis Shulman, a blind rabbi who had embarked on a quixotic quest to unseat our wingnut Congressman, E. Scott Garrett. Shulman had a compelling personal story, and I suggested to the campaign manager that they try to get him on some Air America shows. The campaign manager, a kid in his 20s, had no idea what I was talking about.

Thom Hartmann is still out there, Randi Rhodes is still fighting the good fight, albeit on ever-fewer stations, Stephanie Miller is getting harder to find (and will be even harder to find after Current TV leaves the airwaves) and Ed Schultz somehow manages to do three hours of radio every day and an hour of television. But when I think of the days when I could turn on WLIB and listen to Morning Sedition, followed by Unfiltered (which gave birth to the phenomenon that is Rachel Maddow), followed by The O'Franken Factor, then Randi Rhodes, then The Majority Report, and never once change the station, it reminds me just how much has disappeared.

In the short run, I suppose the wingnuts can crow about how they once again "own the airwaves." But the airwaves that don't have video attached to them have become increasingly less important. Yes, the call-in format is dying on the progressive side, but once you get past Morning Schmoe, MSNBC boasts a pretty impressive prog-news lineup. Taken in conjunction with the phenomenal success of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, it becomes clear that progressive media isn't dying, it's just changing form. Sam Seder is still out there with The Majority Report. Cenk Uygur has been from podcasting to terrestrial radio to podcasting to TV and back to podcasting. We Act Radio has a full lineup and is available on TuneIn Radio. And with Blog Talk Radio, anyone who has the time can create a podcast (even my cousin Dan).

Just as self-publishing is making the publication of reading materials no longer the province of rich publishing houses, so is podcasting making terrestrial radio obsolete. Until we have ubiquitous wifi, podcasting and internet radio doesn't have the "turn it on and it's there" immediacy of terrestrial radio. But in the not-too-distant future, it won't matter.

Labels: Air America, Cenk Uygur, Morning Sedition, podcasts, Randi Rhodes, Sam Seder, talk radio

If it seems like I haven't written much lately, it's not your imagination. Lately I just don't have it in me. There are a number of reasons for this. Part of it is the ridiculous hours I'm working, which has been seven days a week, 65-80 hours over those seven days. Some of it is outrage fatigue. After all, there's only so much internal resources that one has at the ripe old age of 55, and I have to keep my priorities straight in the age of American Diminishment. Since it looks like the guy we put into the White House is getting ready to fulfull the Republican dream of pulling the rug out from under the Social Security system into which I've been paying for thirty-eight years, if working seven days a week is what I have to do in order to have a roof over my head and some mac and cheese on the table in my old age, well, that's what I do. But some days I have to conserve my internal resources for work, and I don't have the luxury of expending it on the State of the World.

As Ian Holm says as Bilbo Baggins in the film version of The Fellowship of the Ring, "I feel thin, sort of stretched... like butter spread over too much bread." Well, I can't remember the last time I felt thin, but you get what I mean. The way it's manifested over the last couple of weeks is a kind of hair-trigger emotionality.

It really started with the Tucson shootings. For two weeks I simply could not look at a photograph of Christina Taylor-Green, or even THINK about her, without bursting into tears. Every step that Gabrielle Giffords, a Blue Dog Democrat who had I known more about her, might have been the focus of one of my anti-DINO rants, makes towards recovery, brings me a kind of joy that only comes from a small beacon of light shining on an otherwise dark, dark world.

Here in the New York area, it's Jets Fever, as the boisterous, goofy, brash, perhaps overachieving New York Jets prepare to take on Ben "Sexual Assault" Roethlisberger, Troy Polamalu, and the rest of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship game tomorrow. For those who hate the Jets, Rex Ryan is an ass, Mark Sanchez is a pretty boy hype machine who doesn't have the goods, and the assortment of scrap heap cast-offs who have found new life with this team are a bunch of scrubs. But for those of us who have been captivated by this team, this asshole of a coach, for whom everyone in the NFL seems to want to play because he seems to galvanize a team the way no "gentleman coach" can, there's something endearing about this bunch of cast-offs like Santonio Holmes and LaDainian Tomlinson and Jason Taylor, this Byronesque quarterback who befriends dying children and loves musical theatre. I won't cry into my beer if the Jets lose tomorrow (or maybe I will, who knows?) because it's been a good long run for them. But a win would again send me off into a transcendent joy that far outweighs any degree of football fandom I might have.

Yesterday I was reading Roger Ebert describing his new chin prosthesis, which he will wear in his segment on a new At the Movies (which premiered last night on PBS). Ebert is such an American institution, and his very public journey with a disfiguring salivary gland cancer has been such a moving one, that simply having him back in the balcony (if in a limited capacity) is a cause for celebration. Again -- something far more significant to Ebert than to those who don't know him, but a small beam of light just the same. (Note: You'll be able to stream the show soon here.)

And then last night we lost Countdown, and it's all part of the same thing. I didn't know Christina-Taylor Green. I don't know Gabrielle Giffords, or Roger Ebert, or Keith Olbermann. And unlike people like, say, Rich Lowry, I do know the difference between actual people and images on a TV screen. But whatever happened to push Keith Olbermann off the air (and despite some rumblings that he just quit, whenever I hear "mutual agreement", you know it always means "asked him to resign"); whether it was outrage fatigue, grief over losing his father last year, an inability to conceive of how to keep the show sharp while "dialing it back a notch", the fact is that many of us invited this man into our living rooms every night for eight years. If it's eight o'clock, it's Olbermann. And now it isn't.

It isn't that we LIKED him, not in the way we LIKE, say, Rachel Maddow. Keith Olbermann never came across as someone you'd actually want to know. Those of us who watched every night knew that he was a bombastic, egotistical ass. But he was OUR bombastic, egotistical ass, and we loved him warts and all. When he was suspended for making the same kind of political contributions that everyone at Fox does (and even Joe Scarborough at MSNBC does), over 250,000 viewers signed a petition for reinstatement. We recognized his faults, but he wasn't our friend. He was the guy we turned to for a voice of sanity in a world full of climate change deniers and Christofascist zombies and ignoramuses who regard facts as just other opinions. At first it was just Keith Olbermann, but he's also the guy who gave us Rachel Maddow in prime time -- a gift for which we can never hope to repay him. And if you saw Rachel refuse to capitulate to the inevitable and ubiquitous filibustering of Club for Growth shill Stephen Moore on Real Time last night you too will be grateful to Olbermann for giving her a well-deserved break:

Olbermann was important to us, but despite his good work in setting up free health care clinics and making it possible for Americans to donate to help provide transplants to Arizona residents doomed by Jan Brewer's REAL death panel, he kept us at a distance. Rachel is more like the big sister of the narrator in a Carson McCullers story -- the happy, athletic, popular big sister who is always there for you when your parents don't understand you because you're nerdy, bookish, and anxious. Her success has allowed her to be filmed doing segments and promos without full makeup, in the blue nerd glasses and the Converse All-Stars. And the fact that she exudes passion and unabashed liberalism, and then puts on Kent Jones in a funny costume, may help insulate her somewhat from the kind of controversy that has always shadowed Olbermann.

But as much as we adore Rachel, it's Keith Olbermann who has been the pioneer, the voice cursing the darkness when no one else could have. Without Keith Olbermann, there's no Rachel Maddow. There's no Ed Show. There's no Sam Seder in front of the cameras in prime time. There's no Cenk Uygur forcing Republican former Congressman Bob McEwen to admit that there's no money in the Social Security trust fund because they stole it and we have to just suck it up. Without Keith Olbermann, Lawrence O'Donnell (who is still too "centrist" for my taste) is still an occasional third banana on Morning Schmoe. Without Keith Olbermann, the only voices of opinion journalism on the medium in which most people still get their news are the reality-challenged hatemeisters on Fox News.

Who knows...perhaps with the "friendlier faces of liberalism" that now constitute the MSNBC lineup (because Cenk Uygur's seat-warming at 6 PM is still only filler), the "both sides do it" claim will be mitigated. But for those of us who invited Keith Olbermann into our homes at 8 PM every weeknight for eight years, there's a big empty chair today. And just another weepy-trigger for an exhausted blogger.

More on Olbermann:

Greg Sargent
Steve Benen
Nicole Belle, focusing on the crowing of the right.
Brad Friedman
John Aravosis
Justin Rosario
Steve Kornacki
Some speculation about what's next (I'm not buying it.)
Adrastos
Richard Bey (with some inside dirt)

Labels: America Gone Mad, Big Blue Smurf Blogging, Cenk Uygur, Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann, Lawrence O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow, Real Time with Bill Maher, Roger Ebert, Sam Seder

It's almost starting to feel like old times again. Not quite, but as close as we're ever going to get, given that here in the New York area, WWRL's signal is virtually nonexistent after 5 PM once the first frost comes. But when you drive a fair distance to and from work as I do, there's something comforting about having the voices of Mark Riley (6-9 AM), Thom Hartmann (3-6 PM) and Randi Rhodes (6-8 PM) on terrestrial radio. And of course the shining star from the old Air America firmament is Rachel Maddow, demonstrating night after night that opinion journalism doesn't mean pulling stuff out of your ass.

And thanks to the magic of podcasting, many of our other old Air America friends are back on the air. Marc Maron's WTF podcast, which is in the top 10 comedy podcasts at iTunes, has him doing what he does best (ranting and interviews) in the comfort of his own garage, as well as expanding the audience for his standup gigs. With former Morning Sedition co-producer Brendan McDonald providing the technical expertise and a welcome dose of leavening sanity, the man seems actually contented with his life. Dan Pashman, another Morning Sedition producer and NPR veteran, writes occasionally for Vanity Fair and has his own podcast with co-host Mark Garrison, The Sporkful, about "the most ridiculous food-related minutiae". And now, the one old Air America show to be actually revived in its original form as a podcast (since with no Air America even in existence anymore, there's no corporate entity that actually owns these things), is back with Sam Seder again hosting The Majority Report.

The advantage to terrestrial radio has always been that it's always there when you just turn it on. And perhaps for another decade or so, terrestrial radio will have an advantage with the Luddites and older listeners who tune into Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh every day. But over time, as WiFi becaomes more ubiquitous, and more people have smartphones, and internet-based broadcasting becomes just as easily accessed as terrestrial radio (and in the case of low-signal stations like WWRL, more so), podcasting is going to be better able to replace terrestrial radio in the lives of more people.

Since advertising sponsorship only offsets part of the costs of operating a podcast for those who are trying to make a living doing it, more podcasts are going to be operating on a subscription basis. WTF is on a voluntary subscription basis, and for now so is The Majority Report. Subscribers receive additional content and other goodies that act as incentives. In the music industry, there's an increasing sense that "content wants to be free." But in progressive talk radio, where we've "known" people like Marc Maron and Sam Seder through their struggles with the Air America debacle, there's a closeness to the performer that you don't have with, say U2 -- and so subscribing to their content feels more like helping out a buddy, or playing a nominal cover charge at your local dive bar so they can continue to do an open jam on Thursday nights.

So click the links above, give a listen, and if you like what you hear, consider subscribing via iTunes and toss some money in the hat. These guys are good at what they do, and they deserve our support.

Labels: Marc Maron, podcasts, Sam Seder, talk radio

It's not a twice-weekly half-hour podcast like WTF yet, but having Sam Seder back in any way is welcome:

Labels: Sam Seder

Remember how you felt that time you saw Miles Davis in the mid-1980's when the edgiest guy in jazz had been reduced to playing "Time after Time" in a yellow satin shirt, and then after he died, Mr. Brilliant turned to you and said "He's been dead for years already."

Oh, wait. That was me.

So it is with the company formerly known as Air America Radio and now known as "Those motherfuckers at AAR."

Last Wednesday the final nail was put into the coffin of what used to be something fresh and new and almost daring and exciting when Marc Maron and Sam Seder were kicked in the teeth once again, being told right before the Wednesday Break Room Live webcast that it would be their last one. The current batch of suits at Air America Media have once again fired the only remnants left of when progressive talk radio was something worth listening to. Every iteration of the various people who have gone through the revolving door of a level of mismanagement of that property even more than the Wilpons have managed the New York Mets has made matters worse. When you look at what constitutes the "talent" at AAR these days, it's sickening: Ron Reagan with his jihad against fat people. Montel Williams, moonlighting from his career as infomercial pitchman and shill for Astra-Zenica. Does anyone actually listen to these people? Even Ron Kuby, who is no great shakes as a host himself, has been screwed over by these people.

I wish I could say I was surprised. I wanted to write something coherent and passionate about what these people have done over and over and over again to these two guys who have sweated bullets and given their hearts and souls to try to make Air America work. But I couldn't. Part of it is the ridiculous hours I'm working, but part of it is that I'm just tired of it -- because it's what I expect now from Air America "Media." I EXPECT these people to try to sell me a shit sandwich and tell me it's roast beef with gravy and think I'm going to eat it. So when I found out on Wednesday, there wasn't the sense of OH MY GOD WHAT AM I GONNA DO NOW? that I had when Morning Sedition was cancelled. It was mostly just sadness -- sadness that these two talented and decent men who have so much to offer the sociopolitical discourse in this country and who have built a ferociously loyal community of smart, funny fans that sane management would treasure have been so shabbily treated by a company that seems bound and determined to do whatever it has to in order to fail spectacularly.

This morning I ground the last of a bag of "Angry Chef Happy Coffee" from Just Coffee, the show's only sponsor, and said "I really should keep this bag right next to the Morning Sedition coffee mug as a reminder of what's gone."

And so it is that I really have nothing to say, except thank you, Marc and Sam. Thank you for helping me feel not so lost during my first week in a country where I didn't know the language and didn't know a soul, but where I could turn on my netbook at 9:00 PM (Cologne time) and get a taste of teh funny and teh smart and teh clever. Thanks for your hard and tireless work over the last five years to try to make something work that can't be saved. And now, go forth and make thine own way. We will follow you. If you build it, they will come.

More from Rachel Sklar and the incomparable P.J. Sauter, who still keeps Teh Funny going via his 24-hour loop of Morning Sedition interviews and comedy bits that you can listen to in the right-hand sidebar right here at B@B.

UPDATE: Sederite "Alice" over at SamSederShow.com wrote to TMaAAR and got the following response:

I understand how you feel about the loss of Break Room Live. The only thing I can do at the moment is promise you that I will show your comment to upper management.

Also, here are two statements about the cancellation--one from CEO Bennett Zier and one from Program Director Bill Hess. They were released via Twitter this week:

Here’s tweet #1 from Bill Hess –

"For now, the daily live stream of Air America's @BreakRoomLive has been discontinued. Visit your favorite shows here: http://bit.ly/yEZ8Q "

Here’s tweet #2 from Bennett Zier –

"We love @MarcMaron @SamSeder. They are very talented. We hope to work with them in the future."

Thanks,

Bob Drummond
Air America Support

Bennett Zier loves Maron and Seder so much he fired them. That's some twisted-ass love.

Labels: Air America, despair, incompetence, Marc Maron, Sam Seder, Teh Funny

Even though it's Randi Rhodes who is going to be syndicated by those wonderful people who also bring you Sean Hannity, the Vulgar Piggy Possible Pedophile, and The Weeping Nutjob, it's Sam Seder who is officially important enough to have his vote challenged in the bizarro NY-20 race in which Republigoon Jim Tedisco had sued to be declared the winner even though he was behind in the vote count. Because Sammy is right up there with Sen. Kristen Gillebrand in the ranks of those Democrats whose votes were challenged:

We can now add another illustrious name to the list of absentee voters whose ballots in the NY-20 special election have been challenged by the campaign of GOP candidate Jim Tedisco: Sam Seder, the liberal talk-radio host with Air America!

Sam posted a message on Twitter yesterday: "NY20th race Tedisco challenged my absentee ballot. 4 days before the election I was jury foreman for a trial in NY20th. Challenge Fail."

The Tedisco camp had previously challenged U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's ballot -- the person that Tedisco is seeking to replace in Congress -- and now Sam is on the list, too.

The jury had served on March 26 and March 27, and Election Day was March 31. Since this past October, Sam has maintained a second place in New York City for his radio job, and voted absentee because he would be at work on Election Day. Other than the need to be in New York City for work, he has been living full-time in Columbia County.

In fact, I was able to confirm with Columbia County Democratic election commissioner Virginia Martin that Sam's ballot has indeed been challenged by the Tedisco campaign -- on the grounds that he does not legitimately live in the district. Martin overruled the challenge, while the Republican deputy commissioner sustained it, keeping the vote out of the count until further notice.

Sam told me that he found out through a friend of his who had contacted the county for the list of challenged ballots. "He was sending out e-mails to people saying, check on this list to see if your name was on it," Sam said. And he was quite surprised to find his name on the list: "I thought there was no way that my ballot was gonna be challenged."

Sam was none too impressed when I told him that the Tedisco campaign alleged that he wasn't a resident of the district. "Jerks," he said. "I mean, I could tell you I've attended far more Livingston town meetings than Jim Tedisco has."

He added: "I just think it's ironic that this guy doesn't live in the 20th, and he's challenging my residency."

And Sam's service on a jury should be proof enough that he's a resident. Columbia County commissioner of jurors Loretta Salvesvold could not confirm for me the circumstances of any individual juror, but she could explain to me the general law that eligibility for jury service is dependent on a person's primary residence being in that area -- that this is where the person spends most of their time.

An e-mail for comment to the Tedisco campaign has not been returned.

Hey, when you're in Sam's business any publicity is good publicity.

Labels: epic fail, Republican id-driven two-year-olds, Sam Seder, vote suppression

Sometimes a joke is so obvious you just have to make it:

President Barack Obama is putting the public focus back on domestic concerns.

He's hosting a round-table discussion of homeownership. Besides members of the president's economic team, the White House session will include people taking advantage of low-cost refinancing.

Before a late lunch with the vice president, Obama will be unveiling a plan to improve health care for America's veterans. He'll be joined by key Cabinet officers, along with military health care providers and patients.

Later, the president and his family host a private White House seder, a meal celebrating Passover, the Jewish exodus from Egypt after four centuries of slavery.

The White House says it's apparently the first time a U.S. president has hosted a seder.

And here I thought that's why the Break Room Live site is down.

But Obama is the first President ever to host a Passover seder? But I thought he was a secret Muslim. Now he's a secret Jew? I'm so confused....

To celebrate Passover here at B@B, let's allow Mr. Maron and his sunny disposition tell the story about the 10 Plagues of Egypt and how they are being manifested today:

Labels: humor, President Barack Obama, Sam Seder

Now that NovaM has crashed and burnt, and it's successor, On Second Thought Radio, was simply a blip on the media telescope and burnt out upon re-entry, the hapless Air America has decided, undeterred by the infamous Jerry Springer Experiment, that the answer to its noon-to-three slot vacancy is yet another trash TV host, Montel Williams.

Yesterday, Marc Maron and Sam Seder, whose combined history with Air America has inoculated them against any further disgust and who may yet have the last laugh on all this progressive media hubbub, see this as an opportunity:

Labels: Marc Maron, Sam Seder

For what they claim is only a limited time (perhaps because of Marc Maron and Sam Seder's history of being allowed to broadcast on Air America's dime), the Just Coffee co-op is offering special Break Room Live coffee blends! Choose from

Just Coffee is a 100% fair trade roaster that would deserve support even if they didn't sell coffee in special Break Room Life funny bags. But today we at B@B are doing the happy-happy dance because we asked them to do this. Choose from the delicious and informative Break Room Blend, Survival Sam's Survival Roast, to be used only in the event of Peak Coffee, Angry Chef Happy Coffee, and the Handshake Special blend, where cynicism and pessimism make peace.

El Exigente that, bitchez.

Labels: coffee, Marc Maron, Sam Seder

As the indispensable Liberal Talk Radio blog (which you should read instead of that wingnut Maloney if you are interested in such things; after all, how can you trust someone who defends a man who wants the economy to collapse because he thinks that will make people vote Republican?) is reporting, Sheldon and Anita Drobny's second experiment in progressive talk radio, NovaM, is no more. And if you go to the network's web site, you'll see that already there's a new banner for "On Second Thought: Talk Radio for Independent Minds" and a message from "Chief Technical Officer" Ben Burch, which makes him sound a bit like one of the guys in red shirts from Star Trek.

From what I can gather, after searching through various and sundry screeds (it seems there are a lot of people who don't like this guy), Ben Burch runs the White Rose Society, which archives progressive radio shows and he seems to have had some kind of volunteer connection to NovaM. What this means for subscribers, I have no idea, but I hope they aren't planning to automatically renew memberships until we know exactly what the product is going to be.

The full update and straight poop about the Randi Rhodes/NovaM situation is here.

UPDATE: Well, it looks like Mike Newcomb, who started out as CEO of NovaM and apparently left after a falling out with the Drobnys, has come back to take over the scraps. The entire lineup now consists of Newcomb, Nancy Skinner, who was subbing for Randi Rhodes, and Mike Malloy. So unless they were to do something like bring Maron and Seder into the fold, means I won't be renewing my subscription.

At one time I would have been begging for an upstart broadcasting outfit to hire these two guys, but they seem to be doing fine right where they are. Sam is in a fight-to-the-death battle with Cenk Uygur, now also "banished" to the Web, lobbying for the 10 PM MSNBC slot (and I can think of worse things than for the two of them to work together, with Maron as roving correspondent), but Break Room Live is starting to get its sea legs, and is even getting some press attention:

Fairly Aggressive Jews
Radio’s next great duo isn’t on the radio at all

[snip]

Along with Maron and Seder, the film’s cast reads like a who’s who of alternative comedy, including Sarah Silverman, Janeane Garofalo and Jon Benjamin. Like most of Seder’s forays into the entertainment industry, however, the movie’s destiny was ill-fated.The words, “This film was entirely written and shot by June of 2001” grace the back—a sad but necessary disclaimer. Three months later, few would be jumping at the chance to distribute a comedy that opened on its protagonist aiming a rocket launcher at a New York skyscraper.

Both men also did time in Air America’s radio studio during the station’s heyday. Maron co-hosted Morning Sedition with radio vet Mark Riley. Seder, meanwhile, did The Majority Report with Garofalo. After a fair deal of shifting, Seder and Maron ultimately left the station. And now, five years after first helping the station get off the ground, both men have returned to Air America—or Air America’s kitchen.

[snip]

After introductory statements, which find Maron declaring his hate—and then love—for Seder (“let’s not rebound too far to the other side,” retorts Seder), things take a turn for the serious.The interplay between the somber and the comedic is another balancing act in the hour-long show. For a new program, however, Break Room Live has done a good job maintaining stasis. “A lot of people are active and a lot of people are progressive, but a lot of people don’t know what the fuck is going on,” Maron explains to me after the show. “And I think our dynamic speaks to that.”

Here's Maron flying solo in yesterday's show. He's GOOD at this. It isn't every day you see cogent political commentary about Afghanistan coming from a guy who looks like the homeless man on the subway distributing 9/11 truth tracts.

Webcasting allows people like Maron (and I would guess someday, Randi Rhodes), who have this peculiar kind of genius, to have an outlet that doesn't involve trying to satisfy guys in suits who have to worry about whether the SelectQuote guys are going to continue feeding Dan Tullis and Joel Clark to us.

The problem with Web-based broadcasting, however, is that it isn't Right There yet. If I want to watch or listen to a radio broadcast or video, I have to turn on the PC, launch the browser, and navigate to the site. If I'm on our desktop PC, I'm confined to our home office. If I want satellite radio, I have to buy a receiver, pay a subscription fee, and if I want to listen in the house, it's highly likely that I'll need an antenna, which takes us back to the days of analog TV. Terrestrial radio, however, is Right There. And until Web radio is Right There, it's always going to be the Designated Family Shithead of radio, despite the ads for Select Quote, and listening to Thom Hartmann shill for some dentist, and Rachel Maddow selling face cream, and various penis enlargers and anti-anxiety tape courses, and the rest of the snake oil that does its marketing on AM radio.

However, Melina sent me this post by Darren Murph at Engadget, pointing out that $7.2 billion in the stimulus package is dedicated to expanding broadband internet access, with the FCC being instructed to create a national broadband plan to ensure that everyone in the U.S. has broadband access. The question about this, however, is how this access is going to be delivered. Of course what I would like to see is a the economies of scale that would come with ubiquitous, taxpayer-financed wireless access, but somehow I don't think the telecom and cable companies are going to allow Congress to go along with that idea, and as we know, money talks and we as citizens don't. But ubiquitous Wifi and internet radios on every kitchen countertop would certainly make AM radio, and the limited access that alternative voices have to it, the equivalent of a black-and-white set with rabbit ears after the whole thing goes digital.

Labels: Marc Maron, Mike Malloy, now with slightly less FUBAR, Randi Rhodes, Sam Seder, talk radio

There are few people who have been bigger supporters of progressive talk radio than I am, and few blogs that have been more supportive than this one. Here at Casa la Brilliant, we started listening to Air America Radio from the very first day. Mr. Brilliant tuned in at noon on March 31, 2004, and we both started in with Morning Sedition the very next day. The trials and tribulations of Air America are now legendary, from the petty and preposterous Danny Goldberg first cancelling Unfiltered, which featured the creator of The Daily Show and some lesbian who'd never amount to anything named, uh, RACHEL MADDOW; and then Morning Sedition. The latter show will someday be listened to by radio cultists the way Jean Shepherd and Bob & Ray are today. I don't think Air America ever got its bearings back after that, as it has spent the last three years futzing around, first losing Al Franken to the then-unknown purgatory of running for Senate in Minnesota, screwing over the talented and loyal Sam Seder seventeen ways to Sunday, barely noticing as Rachel Maddow began her tiptoe out the door towards the greener pastures of MSNBC, and finally letting the one person who started out with actual radio experience walk over a contract dispute, deciding that William Kunstler's old protégè was somehow an improvement over the maddening, moody, but passionate and always prepared Randi Rhodes.

I'm not sure what's been going on over at NovaM the last few weeks, but one day I was downloading Randi's podcast and the next day she was gone. There's been much speculation as to exactly what happened, but it is now clear that Sheldon & Anita Drobny, co-founders of AAR who were forced out early on, and Randi Rhodes, have parted ways. And still none of Randi's listeners knows what happened. And the Drobnys and Rhodes are locked in a battle of "we said...she said."

I'm not one of the Randi worshippers that hang out on her messageboard and call her show and call her goddess, though I found that in the months since returning to Florida and syndicating through NovaM, she had returned to the form I used to listen to back in the days when my old job hadn't blocked streaming audio and I would listen to Mike Malloy on the now-defunct ieAmerica and Neil Rogers and Randi Rhodes over internet streams. Randi was tough, funny, and while not necessarily the sharpest knife in the drawer, always ferociously prepared. And apparently even more self-destructive than Marc Maron, who has managed to get himself fired from Air America twice and is only back in the fold now due to the inescapable reality of his own fiercely loyal fan base -- a fan base for which he has nothing but contempt, as this is a man who does not want to be part of any club that would have him as a member. But at least for the time being, until the suits at Air America decide that some lightweight, droning sleep-inducer needs to be paid instead, they've decided to run with the experiment that is Break Room Live, or as I wish it were called, Two Live Jews.

But back on the radio tubes, all is still crappy in the land of progressive radio. I had taken a Founders Club membership with NovaM after Randi landed there for the sole purpose of downloading her podcasts, since Mike Malloy has become unlistenable now that his show consists entirely of ranting about Israel as if nothing else in the world was going on. NovaM has alienated the only property they had in wide release, while Air America is, I suspect, more reliant than ever on the eyeballs that Marc Maron and Sam Seder are bringing to the company's Web site.

So what is the problem with progressive talk radio?

Labels: Al Franken, Marc Maron, Rachel Maddow, Randi Rhodes, Sam Seder, talk radio

I'm not sure it's necessarily progress that men too now define their worth solely by what they eat:


Time to start reading Kate Harding, guys. Especially you, Maron.

Labels: Marc Maron, Sam Seder, weight

Rachel Maddow simply can't continue to burn the candle at both ends, and sll she can give you is an hour of material mostly recycled from her TV show, and frankly, I think it's only out of respect for the network that launched her career that she's even doing that.

You ran Randi Rhodes out of town on a rail over money.

Your predecessors fired Mike Malloy while he was driving to work.


Now Thom Hartmann has moved his program to Dial Global.

So what have you got left? Jon Elliot? Richard Greene? Ron Reagan? Ron Kuby? Just how big a following do any of these guys have?

Meanwhile, sitting in your break room, are your last two vestiges of the Air America that was. You weren't around then, but it was something new and fresh and experimental. Are there two people who have been kicked around by how many generations now? -- of Air America management more than Sam Seder and Marc Maron? And does anyone have a bigger following? How many people on radio, right OR left, have the kind of loyalty that these two guys have from their listeners? Your company has fired Marc Maron THREE TIMES already -- and he's still there....or there again. Now we could say that Maron is like a wife (an unfortunate analogy, given the one-man show he's working on) who keeps coming back to her estranged spouse because she hopes in her heart that this time, baby, it really WILL be different. Or we could give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you really ARE trying to atone for Danny Goldberg's sins.

But the bottom line, Charlie, is that you really don't have a whole lot of marketable talent in your stables right now, other than the two guys in the break room with the built-in and growing following that crashed the server the other day.

So....what's it to be then, eh? Are you going to utilize what little real talent you have left? Or are you going to continue Air America's grand tradition of blowing the best opportunities you have?

Labels: Air America, Marc Maron, Sam Seder

Here we go again, plugging the neurotic Jewish comedian and his ever-patient sidekick. But if you have never watched Break Room Live, you simply HAVE to go here and watch the show from January 23. Don't let Maron's whining in the opener drive you away, because this one's a goodie: fantastic packaging specifically for Break Room Live from the Just Coffee Co-op, a fun clip from the National Geographic channel show about Air Force One from Barack Obama's first ride on the Presidential jet, sounding just as gee-whiz and dorky as a seven-year-old, and Maron & Seder's own inimitable take on this Fox affiliate gaffe about the Obamas' affection for each other.

Because even if Barack Obama doesn't provide much comedy fodder over the next four years, it's reassuring to know that the Botoxed Chirping Idiots on local news channels will, as they bring on anthropologists to study the mating habits of the American Black President.

Labels: comedy, Marc Maron, Sam Seder

Maybe they can't have one in Israel, but our favorite Jews, after some certainly staged sniping at each other before the holidays, have returned to their groundbreaking webcast with a brandy new show name and a brandy new web site.

Usually Sam Seder and Marc Maron are Melina's beat, but since she is taking care of some family stuff this evening, I'll sit in and fill you in on at least the outside story, if not the inside story.

I knew that "Maron v. Seder" was going to have to be a working title. For one thing, Sam and Marc are practically doppelgangers of each other, with Sam the "good son" who got married, had a child, and despite his warped sense of humor and priceless righteous outrage, no doubt still gives his parents some naches. Marc is clearly the Designated Family Shithead, the repository of all the family neurosis and pain, who has somehow managed to turn what makes most of us just depressed and anxious on a regular basis into a career as one of the smartest, most incisive standup comics in the business.

It's no secret that we here at B@B were devotés of the late and still lamented Morning Sedition. But by some miracle, the current crop of suits at Air America seem to have realized that no matter how much advertising for John Cummuta's get rich quick schemes, or fake penis enlargement products, or annoying life insurance quote ads you sell, you simply cannot replace the kind of ferociously loyal (and patient) listener/fan base these two guys have.

In its first few months Maron v. Seder has been the kind of experimental endeavor we haven't seen since Marshal Efron nearly put Banquet out of the frozen cream pie business in 1971 on The Great American Dream Machine. But after some truly weird efforts in the Air America break room last month involving people like Mark Green, who still hangs around despite no longer being such a big macher in the company, some shadowy visionary at Air America Media, who may very well have been Sam himself, may have stumbled upon a formula that could catapult these Two Live Jews into the kind of cult following that has many of us still listening to old Morning Sedition podcasts from 2005.

The show is now called "Break Room Live with Maron and Seder", which is the next evolution towards an identity which if we are extraordinarily lucky, will recapture the kind of lunatic intelligence which brought us interviews with Mick Ware before he went nuts, Middle East expert Borzou Daragahi, who has managed to keep his sanity, and guest hosting by pro wrestler Mick Foley, who was smarter than anyone ever thought; not to mention Lawton Smalls, the Milfingtons, Sammy the Stem Cell, and the Presidential Palm Pilot -- all of which are immortalized for eternal listening here.

The show's web site describes this new identity as follows:

BREAK ROOM LIVE is the first of its kind; a daily, live online political talk and comedy show. At 3pm Eastern every weekday, Marc Maron and Sam Seder take a seat in the Air America break room to discuss the hot topics of the day, with live guests, comedy sketches, and recurring segments, all streaming live at BreakRoomLive.com. In addition to the daily live broadcast, visitors will be able to view the show on demand, subscribe to vodcasts and podcasts of the show, and chat live, 24/7, with fellow fans and the hosts.

BreakRoomLive.com will also be home to exclusive on-demand video content from Marc and Sam. Along with a fully interactive blog, Marc and Sam will provide BreakRoomLive.com with interviews, political discussions, and irreverent comedy that can’t be seen anywhere else.

“Based upon the fact that no one has developed a model for what we’re doing, we’re confident that people will consider this a success,” said Sam Seder. “I see our show as PornTube meets MSNBC meets Twitter meets PopFly meets Yodio meets SplashCast meets Zillow meets TradeSports meets Meets.com.”

Marc Maron added, “I’m excited that Sam and I will be able to take risks in a new format, and whether we succeed or fail, it will be available online forever.”

Marc and Sam have known each other for 20 years. They’re not quite friends but they’re able to work together. For the right price.

Of course when it comes to Air America, as well as these guys, you never know what the truth is. But the story we're told about how all this happened is basically this:


So, if you're home during the day, or if you work for a company that doesn't block streaming video, check it out, 3:000 PM Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, at Break Room Live.

And no, the fact that they put us on the blogroll, right at the top of the second column, with higher placement than even the Big Blue Smurf himself, has NOTHING whatsoever to do with this endorsement.

Labels: comedy, Marc Maron, Sam Seder, talk radio

Don't forget...online chats tonight at Morning Seditionists and Hoffmania.

And the hell with the TV. Be where the REAL action is tonight, at Maron v. Seder, where Two Live Jews will bring the unexpurgated truth to the intart00bz. They have chat too..

Labels: 2008 election, bloggers, Marc Maron, Sam Seder

A long time ago, Mr. Brilliant told me that Oscar Wilde once said, "Never meet the artist, for he is always less than his work." It seemed like something that Oscar Wilde would say, and as those who recognize that the title of this blog comes from a Wilde quote know, we here at B@B, like just about everyone from the Smart-Ass New York Jew School of Writing, have embraced Oscar as a kind of muse.

From Dorothy Parker, who alone among us had the decency to credit Mr. Wilde:

If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.

...to Fran Leibowitz and the many other snarky writers who emerged in the 1980's and beyond, Wilde's wry view of the universe has represented the kind of coping through humor that those of us who otherwise would tend towards despair have sought as a lifeline.

There's no denying that whether it's recognized or not, most of today's humorists hearken back to Dorothy Parker, who proved that if your head is going to be a mess, at least you can be witty and clever about it; and therefore indirectly back to Oscar Wilde, who navigated the hellish existence of being a gay man in Victorian England and still managed to leave us with not just a wealth of brilliant writing, but some of the most cogent aphorisms on the human condition.

Because if you can't laugh while the maelstrom of your mind plays its tricks on you, you'll end up in a fetal position in the corner.

Which of course brings us to the new daily online videocast, which just completed its second week, put together by Air America's Designated Family Shitheads, Marc Maron and Sam Seder. That these two most prominent casualties of Air America's horrifically interchangeable revolving door management over the past four years are back in the fold is enough of a miracle, but it seems they've been allowed to put together a show that showcases what each of them does best, without the limitations of radio -- the FCC-required language censorship, the breaks for commercials for John Cummuta's Get Rich Quick system and Hydroxytone wrinkle stopper, the need to build ratings quickly so that Al Franken and Randi Rhodes can get paid.

It's well-established by this point that the cancellation of Morning Sedition was the first in a series of bad decisions made by assorted management types hired by Air America investors in an attempt to quickly build something that took conservatives over a decade to do. Managing Air America has been seen by far too many of its executives as a vanity project, with Danny Goldberg using the network to promote his record label and Mark Green using it to give himself a show to which no one is interested in listening.

Perhaps it's because there are no doubt a fair number of premium subscribers like myself whose memberships are up in February and who were planning to cancel because once Ron Kuby was hired instead of Sam Seder to replace Randi Rhodes in afternoon drive time, there was no longer any reason to subscribe at all. But somebody in Charlie Kireker's new team realized that a) the future of Air America is not in AM radio (to which no one under the age of thirty listens anymore), but in streaming media; and b) very quietly and off-premises, Sam Seder and Marc Maron were putting together a weekly videocast that had generated a loyal and faithful audience of people who had been around since Air America's founding in 2004 and more importantly, had built a strong relationship with these on-air talent that had only grown the more they were screwed over by company management. So Air America Radio became Air America Media, and who better to kick off this trip into uncharted territory than the gonzo red-haired stepchildren who had been around, at least on the periphery, since the beginning.

Since I am once again gainfully employed, I'm no longer able to catch the broadcast live, but at least for now, previous shows are available free at the Maron v. Seder web site, and they are definitely worth your time.

In a just world, the Maron v. Seder videocast would prove to the world why intelligence is a GOOD thing, and just how boring a world full of Sarah Palins and that awful woman who finally tipped John McCain over the edge by claiming in her toothless voice that she can't trust Obama because he's an Arab would be. When you have a show in which Sam Seder is the straight man, you know you're in for an hour of some damn fine political snarkin'.

Sam has been doing yeoman work for over four years for people who have had no appreciation for what he does, taking whatever time slot they were willing to give him, and then staying on as Air America's blogger. But during that time, he also built his own show web site and learned enough about the technology to build the weekly VODcast and plant the seed that opened the door to what's being broadcast, on the web, OPPOSITE THEIR OWN RADIO GUY, at 3:00 PM Eastern time on weekdays.

But it's Marc Maron, who's been out in the wilderness of L.A. for the last few years, doing stand-up gigs, enduring another failed marriage, keeping his radio chops warm by filling in occasionally on Air America and NovaM, and wondering what he's going to do with his life, whose glee, and perhaps even relief, at once again having a daily outlet, whose creativity is exploding on this show. This show, from Thursday October 9, so far lacks old favorites like Rapture Watch and Lawton Smalls the Planet Bush correspondent (Kent Jones being too busy putting together his nightly sixty seconds on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show), but promises a number of new features, including "The Cat Psychic", an expansion of these videos done earlier from his house in L.A., and "The Angry Chef", which to my mind is a Comedy Central show screaming to get out.

"Ive accepted that my destiny is to to work with another angry Jew who's more successful at pretending he's not messed up than me, and we play off each other," Maron says, fully aware that he doesn't want to be part of any club that would have him as a member -- including those clearly sad, pathetic souls who were loyal Morning Sedition listeners, who organized countless letter-writing campaigns over the last few years in vain attempts to get him back into the Air America fold, and who were actually guilty of nothing more than recognizing the best damn radio comedy since the days of Jean Shepherd.

Which brings us back to the quote I cited. As it turns out, the quote is not from Oscar Wilde. I did some research a while ago and it seems to be from José Ferrer as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in the 1952 film Moulin Rouge, but whatever. It still applies. And so I'm going to ask you to watch Thursday's show right here. If you can't watch the whole thing, at least watch the opening rant about music and then tell me if that isn't an artist at work.



Maron always recounts in his publicity biography the story of a woman who said he's like Woody Allen, only he's Iggy Pop Woody Allen. I disagree. For sheer transportative storytelling, he's Iggy Pop Garrison Keillor. (I would have said Iggy Pop Spaulding Gray, but Maron is depressed enough as it is.)

It's genius, I tell ya. But don't tell Maron. He thinks people who recognize his work are stalkers.

Labels: comedy, Marc Maron, New Media, Sam Seder

Another preview of Maron v. Seder, premiering October 1 at 3:00 PM Eastern time here.



You just can't argue with this kind of cogent, straightforward analysis.

Labels: comedy, economic death watch, Sam Seder

October 1st, baby! 3:00 PM Eastern Time. Be there or be gainfully employed and catch it later.

Labels: Air America, comedy, Marc Maron, Sam Seder

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 its 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?


Go here for the rest!

c/p RIPCoco

Labels: Air America, Marc Maron, Sam Seder, Seder V Maron