« June 2004 |
Main
| August 2004 »
July 27, 2004
This is a second-hand report by a listener to South Florida's Steve Kane Show. I couldn't find anything at the second link about this, so apparently it's radio-only:
I just heard Brian Craig (and Steve Kane) discussing the incredible humiliation of Randi Rhodes at the Democrat Convention yesterday. What happened was that some political comedian on the air invited Randi to walk among the delegates on the floor. Randi replied that she wasn't allowed on the floor and had to stay in the upper reaches of the hall. Brian and Steve were speculating as to whether Randi's floor pass was lifted by either a VERY JEALOUS Al Franken or nervous Democrats.
BTW, it was also mentioned that Randi is NOT allowed in the studio anytime Al Franken is there. Plus she is NOT allowed to talk to any of Franken's guests even off the air. Apparently Al Franken has some major JEALOUSY problems concerning Randi Rhodes. I do remember when Air America first went on the air, the reviews for Franken were horrible but they also said that Randi was INTERESTING even though she is s WHACKO.
I don't know what they could be worried about... [Am I telegraphing this enough?] There are no Christmas trees at this year's convention.
Posted in RandiRhodes
at 08:38 AM
| Comments (0)
...given her penchant for spewing forth [phwoar --LW] -- on air and off -- it comes as no surprise she's not particularly beloved by some folks in the South Florida radio community.
"She is just low-class," says Linda Marx, widow of the late WJNO talk-show host Jack Cole.
Marx recalls an incident at a Christmas bash the couple threw in 1999, when an inebriated Rhodes squatted over the Christmas tree as a party antic. Rhodes admits she had a few martinis, but insists she didn't urinate.
"I pretended," she says.
Marx indicates otherwise. "I'm just happy the tree was on tile and not carpet," she says...
[...non-pee-related sections follow...]
"She's very self-destructive," says Bill Newgent, Rhodes' first producer at WJNO, who adds that, after a few months of working with her, "I went to management and said, 'She's nuts. I can't do this.' "
From the largely complimentary Palm Beach Post story
"Rhodes' rage retains fury on new national stage left". Randi apparently hates the PBP; apparently they're trying to woo her back.
Note also this bit:
"I said I would never come back to New York unless I could live in Manhattan. I wanted to come back like a real New Yorker. I didn't want to be from the provinces anymore," she says.
The point was driven home when Rhodes showed up for her first day of work and realized that the building is where she worked as an office temp, long before she began a career in radio that would take her to Texas, Alabama, Wisconsin and South Florida (she started at Miami's WIOD-AM 610, before moving to WJNO in 1994). "When I saw the view of the Chrysler building, I nearly burst into tears," she says...
Posted in RandiRhodes
at 08:30 AM
| Comments (2)
July 21, 2004
Believe it or not, Air America has a new affiliate. But, that's not the biggest surprise.
The affiliate is a new station in Miami, WINZ-940 AM.
The big surprise is... it's a ClearChannel station.
Posted in Meta
at 11:30 PM
| Comments (0)
July 13, 2004
The Al Franken Show has always been named 'The Al Franken Show,' the Porterville Recorder reports. The Pittsburgh Channel has background information on the fact that the name of the Al Franken Show has always been the Al Franken Show.
Posted in at 08:26 PM
| Comments (0)
July 12, 2004
Stuart attempts to downplay the So-Called Liberal Show Business in "Franken gives voice to liberals' dissatisfaction":
"You hear a lot about Hollywood liberals. The names are pretty high profile. But there is a lot less of that than you might think," Franken said. "And I don't think it's as though all of show business is liberal. I mean, look at country music. It's a huge business, and it is almost universally conservative."
While a surge in lefty partisanship may have sparked the desire to create show-biz personality-driven Air America, it says something about marketplace realities that the business end of the network continues to flounder...
But Franken puts a brave face on Air America's chances for survival. He calls it "the No. 1 provider of audio streaming on the Internet" and says "a large infusion of new cash" is imminent. The network's parent company is known to be scurrying to reorganize its business structure...
"Over the last couple weeks, I think the show has really come together," [co-host Katherine Lanpher] says. "It's gotten better."
...Franken likes his idea for what he calls "The Love Train."
The what?
"It'd be a train, literally. We'd put out a call to all these musicians. I think we'd get plenty if we'd just ask. Then, we'd ride across country, stopping in towns along the way and putting on shows. I think it'd be a great organizer and motivator."
I realize Stuart's comedy is, er, "subtle," but I think he's being serious, I really do.
Posted in StuartSmalley
at 10:12 PM
| Comments (0)
July 01, 2004
With "hard, up-to-the-second facts," that is! Or, so sayeth a Guardianista named Paul Carr:
Last month, the Boston affiliate of America's Fox TV network ran a news item about a new craze sweeping cyber space...
...as Fox's breathless reporter put it, "to catalogue the details of their lives on web pages created for them, by them ... just blah-blah-blogging".
Incredible. I wonder what burgeoning technological trend Rupert Murdoch's news machine will uncover next? Mobile tar-tar-telephony? The rah-rah-radio? Far-far-fire?
...Fortunately in most other sections of the media, attitudes towards blogging - and online journalism in general - couldn't be more different. Not only are news organisations rolling out blogs of their own, but in the past year the influence of bloggers over their print, television and radio counterparts has grown massively...
An even more impressive example of how web journalism has started to influence the mainstream media comes from the US's newest radio network, Air America Radio. The New York-based station was set up as a liberal challenge to the dominance of right-wing talk radio in the US.
Through affiliates in cities from New York to Honolulu [except for the #2 and #3 markets in the U.S., but your editor quibbles], angry liberal voices such as Al Franken, author of the anti-Bush bible Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, and Hollywood's Janeane Garofalo are taking on right-wing blowhards such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly.
But unlike Limbaugh and O'Reilly, who frequently replace research and reason with rage and rhetoric, Air America's hosts are armed to the teeth with hard, up-to-the second facts to support their relentless Bush bashing. Their sources? Blogs. And the blogging bloggers who blog them...
Yes, like Daily "mercs" Kos and Hatrios, both of whom are linked to from AA's blogs and referenced by AA's hosts.
[Cross-blogged to The Lonewacko Blog]
Posted in Meta
at 08:55 AM
| Comments (0)
