QandO: That's IT! That's WHY!

April 01, 2004

That's IT! That's WHY!
Posted by McQ

Yesterday I was struggling with a way to describe why I found Air America boring for the most part.

Howard Kurtz of the WaPo said it for me:

A good radio show has strong pacing and a deft mixture of ideology, confrontation and humor. Franken's "Factor" was meandering and discursive, almost NPR-like, sounding more like someone shooting the breeze at a dinner party than trying to persuade listeners.

Now, maybe it will get better and maybe they'll find a way to tone down the anger a bit, but from a technical aspect, the components of a 'good radio show' as Kurtz outlines above, were missing. It was indeed like someone shooting the breeze. And it explains very well why I found myself zoning out (or involuntarily tuning out) during the shows. There was little in their presentation which held my attention.

Randi Rhodes was the exception to this. She held my attention, but what she said was a little too outrageous to take seriously. Which then found me not taking much of what she said seriously. But she was, at least, entertaining.

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All I can say is "wow".

I tuned in three different times. It was a Bush bashing fiesta. There was little humor to be found, and I am one who will laugh heartily poking fun at either side (Jon Stewart is extremely funny when lampooning Bush)

It was a deep seething undercurrent.

Here is the summary of what I heard (which keep in mind, is a small sample of 20 minute blocks when I randomly tuned in):
Randi Rhodes - Tying Prescott Bush to Adolph Hitler and extrapolating this to today saying we can't vote back into office a family that embraces fascism. (indeed!)

Jeaneane Garafolo -
She was convinced that the Janet Jackson incident was the typical right wing conspiracy to get anti-bush stories off the front page. (No, there was no humor or irony... I am a former standup... trust me, no punchline to be found. She believes it.)

She also interviewed Atrios, who was praised for raising over 100K for the Kerry campaign. That apparently makes him a "vice-chair" of the democratic committee. "If you were a Republican, you'd be part of the Reischstag... or the 43'rd Reich for raising that money for Bush"
(Again, not exactly a punch line... more like a punching line)

Marc Maron this morning went on a 5 minute, dopey (he's usually insightful with his comedy-- he's very talented) monologue about why we leave a guy in office when 9/11 happened on his watch. Ok. Fine. Whatever-- but it was boring and unfunny.
Later he opined that the war was just a holdover of a bunch of white guys trying to have a missle sale (Huh??? Didn't make much sense, nor was it meant to be funny)

Overall, I think the problem is one of stacking the deck with comics. As a former standup (metioned above) I can attest that a comic entertains with generalities brought down to specific observations-- this makes for a fun Friday night at the club if everyone checks their intellectual honesty at the door. When you start trying to pass this off as fact or newsworthy you get in to trouble.
Asians may make horrible drivers for a bit, but trying to connect that as a real world cause/effect is absurd.

It all comes off very wacky conspiracy.
White racist guys who love oil, hate kids, embrace corporations-- it's all great stereotypical fun.

I'll keep listening. The shock of how bad it is is entertaining for now.

Oh, and I loved the gem about the Jersey woman who is cancelling her vacation because gas prices are too high. Her pooooor kids.
Ummm. Yeah. She must be a SUV driving gas guzzler (wouldn't the left HATE that?). Let's say she gets 15mpg in her big rig with all the beach balls in the back. She drives 1000 miles for her trip across country.
Gas would be (in CA) $2.20 x 67 gallons=$147
If only Kerry were in and could lower the price by .25 by mau mauing Opec (hahahah).
Her net savings would be $16.75

Sheeeeeeeesh

Posted by: Ed at April 1, 2004 12:24 PM

FWIW, Randi Rhodes is also the only person with commercial talk radio experience.

Posted by: Cam at April 1, 2004 12:30 PM

Cam ... yeah, I mentioned that in my first post about this "Air America Debuts".

Ed ... excellent accounting. I'm listening to Franken right now. I missed him yesterday. We're 40 minutes into the program and its essentially been a bash Limbaugh day. They've yet to get their first caller.

Posted by: McQ at April 1, 2004 12:37 PM

Is there something wrong with my unquenchable thirst for Schadenfruede?

Go Franken, Go!

Posted by: Ed at April 1, 2004 12:47 PM

Heh ... nope, not at all. They just got their second caller of the hour. The caller challenged the "die-hards" about the Florida vote by citing the "consotium" of newspapers who did their own recount and found that Bush won.

Franken, of course, simply dismissed that as a 'Republican myth' and claimed there were counts which, if done (counting the "over" votes) would have seen Gore win.

News to me. But its apparent, speaking of mythology, that the Florida count is firmly in the Left's anti-Bush mythology.

Posted by: McQ at April 1, 2004 01:01 PM

Also, of course, Gore would have won had they only counted the Martian absentee ballots. But, nooooooo!

Posted by: JorgXMcKie at April 3, 2004 12:31 AM