Laughter can be a relief. It can bring joy and solace to someone when they need it most. Leading up to and after the 2004 presidential election, the one thing I could compare to a comfortable bed after a long day of hard work was Air America Radio's Morning Sedition with Marc Maron and Mark Riley.
Click here and scroll down to the 14th for my expansive thoughts on the show.
Well, as of January 2nd, the show is no more. Yep, apparently AAR CEO Danny Goldberg doesn't want comedy in the mornings and was not impressed with the show's ratings. It's all in this press release:
Air America Mornings to Take Over Morning-Drive
Mark Riley and Rachel Maddow to Host Shows on “Air America Mornings”
NEW YORK-November 29, 2005- Air America Radio announced today a change in its morning line-up. Beginning Jan. 2, the new morning format, “Air America Mornings,” will broadcast weekdays from 5-9am EST. The announcement was made today by CEO Danny Goldberg.
Veteran radio talk show host and current co-host of “Morning Sedition,” Mark Riley, will lead off “Air America Mornings” from 5-7am EST. Riley will highlight the top news stories of the day and will also interview various guests every morning.
Rachel Maddow will take her highly-rated and acclaimed show, “The Rachel Maddow Show,” to the 7-9am EST slot. In addition to continuing to give listeners fast-paced news and witty soundbites, Maddow will also interview a variety of guests. Maddow has previously guest-hosted the highly successful “The Al Franken Show,” heard weekly 12-3pm EST and will do so again the week of December 12. Maddow continues her night job as contributor to MSNBC’s “The Situation with Tucker Carlson.”
Comedian and co-host of “Morning Sedition,” Marc Maron, is returning to Los Angeles and is currently in negotiations with Air America Radio to host his own syndicated show. He will be a regular contributor to “Air America Mornings”
Paul Marszaleck will serve as Executive Producer of “Air America Mornings.” Marszalek is a twenty five year veteran of radio and television, having served as Vice President of Music Programming at VH1/MTV Networks and having held senior management positions at KFOG/San Francisco and WXRT/Chicago. He has also consulted several NPR stations around the country and various stations and networks internationally.
"The upcoming year is going to be crucial year for Air America, for morning drive time radio in general, and for the United States. In the past several months, Rachel Maddow has experienced dramatic growth in visibility and audience and we are very excited about giving her a bigger stage. Mark Riley is a respected broadcaster and we are equally excited that he will shine in his new role,” said Goldberg. “At the same time, we are well aware of the intense and committed following that Marc Maron's brilliant work on Air America has created and would like him to be a major voice on Air America in the future. "
“We are very excited about the launch of ‘Air America Mornings,’ both in NY and across the Air America Network. Beginning in January, you will hear a tightly formatted, flawless presentation of the most important topics of the day by Mark and Rachel, as well most compelling guests from the world of politics and entertainment,” said President Gary Krantz. “We are also committed to generating at least one show in 2006 from Los Angeles to connect us more closely with the progressive creative community there, and thus to offer our affiliates a widening menu of politics, comedy, information, and entertainment."
“We are thrilled that we finally have found a way to display all three of these great talents on Air America Radio,” said President of Programming Jon Sinton.
With Mark and Rachel we have two of the most intelligent, engaging and committed broadcasters on the air today,” said COO Carl Ginsburg. “I would put them up against any talk radio hosts--- they are sharp, smart and ahead of the curve.”
Rachel Maddow has a Doctorate in Politics from Oxford University and a degree in Public Policy from Stanford. She was the first openly gay American to win a Rhodes Scholarship. Her background is in commercial radio (WRSI, WRNX) and political activism. Prior to launching "The Rachel Maddow Show," Rachel co-hosted Air America's "Unfiltered" with Chuck D and Lizz Winstead.
Mark Riley has been on the WLIB airwaves for more than 30 years, his seasoned experience produced such high-profile interviews with President Bill Clinton, President Nelson Mandela, Jean Bertrand Aristide, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Lena Horne, & Spike Lee to name a few. In addition to radio, Riley is a popular TV political analyst with bi-weekly appearances on the “Road to City Hall” on New York 1 News; commentary on BET, CNN, CBS Early Show, & MSNBC.
As I've previously stated, I've been an avid Marc Maron fan since the early '90s, when his stand-up would turn up on Comedy Central and then as host of that channel's Short Attention Span Theater. He is one of this generation's greatest comedy minds and if AAR doesn't find the right vehicle for his tremendous talent, then he needs to look elsewhere. I hope all works out...but it's still sad to see this brilliant, satirical liberal morning show get cancelled.
From Netflix I will (hopefully) be procuring the following two films tomorrow...
and
Word of mouth, along with Ebert and alot of other film critics, says that Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a fun, action-packed movie, with comedic bursts.
And then there's Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist. Much has been said of Paul Schrader's film, which was intended to be released as Exorcist: The Beginning. Schrader was hired by Morgan Creek Productions to replace an ailing John Frankenheimer. Schrader lensed his film and turned it in. Upon seeing it, Morgan Creek founder and CEO James G. Robinson was incredulous and threw Schrader's version on the shelf. The reason? It wasn't an Exorcist film in Robinson's eyes. He wanted extensive gore and cheap scares. So he hired Renny Harlin, director of Die Hard 2: Die Harder, Cliffhanger, Cutthroat Island, The Long Kiss Goodnight and the more recent Mindhunters, to name a few, gave him a 90% re-written script and had him shoot a brand new movie, complete with the scenes he felt Schrader's film were lacking! Yes, twice as much money was spent! So after the Harlin version barely broke even and after Schrader's version was screened to critical acclaim at a Brussels film festival, Warner Brothers gave the film a short theatrical release in May and finally released it on DVD October 25th.
We just got it at work this weekend and had I known that I would have rearranged my queue on Netflix; however I didn't find this out until Monday morning. Oh well. In any case, it'll be interesting to see this film. I've not seen Harlin's on purpose to go into Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist with a fresh point-of-view.
I have to work from 11PM-5AM tonight for store inventory. Hopefully we'll get some money soon. My father, whom I'm speaking to again, said he'd be sending a birthday check. I love my father and am reaching out to him. I was angry at him for many years for hurting my mother emotionally. I've come to terms with what happened (affair) and have realized that you only get one father. It's petty of me to let that stand in the way of quality time I could instead share with him.
I didn't mind to sound impetuous at the beginning of that last paragraph. We need some groceries ASAP and I'd like to be able to buy some breakfast on the way home after work early tomorrow morning. I'll keep you posted as always.
I'll probably be so sore after inventory but it's all in a day's work. Then I'm off Thursday and have to work on my fucking birthday, 6-close. It sucks beyond the telling of it but there's no one to cover it, as one of our assistant managers decided that, since he couldn't get anyone to cover his Wednesday and Thanksgiving shifts last week, he was going to be a no-call/no-show. Proper measures were taken to ensure the coverage was there, however, as his waffling on this issue was very anticipated. And then two other employees, who barely qualified as that, finally quit this week. They had another job (both are employed at said job) and were constantly giving their shifts away. So that's why I'm having to work on my birthday.
Festivities celebrating said birth will either be held on Thursday or early Friday or Sunday; I haven't decided yet. I had to quell my rage when I found that out but now I'm cool. I work 4-10 Saturday - ON THE FUCKING FLOOR! Grrrr....I hate that floor - especially on shop weekends, when a secret shopper comes in. It's fucking irritating!
TiVo is calling ever so much. I think I might buy a book with my birthday money. Maybe Al Franken's latest - The Truth (with jokes). I'm not certain yet. Well, that's all for now. Until next time here's a picture of the gorgeous Cobie Smulders from the very awesome CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother. *sigh* Le swoon...one day I'll marry a cool brunette who's wicked awesome. You'll see...you'll see...
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