I live in Chicago so I was able to listen on 950AM. I caught maybe the last 5 minutes of Franken on my way home from work, and then heard about 15 minutes of Randi Rhodes, who immediately follows him. What I heard of her was quite good, especially when she compared GWB to Fredo Corleone from the Godfather movies. (BTW, Jeb Bush is Michael.)
Yeah, there was even some controversy - like when Nader hung up on Rhodes. Although I don’t really know if you can consider that controversy…
Caught a bit of the hostess at 5:00pm, and thought it was mixed – she was screaming at a Nader supporter who had called in, which made me wince, but then she called up Pat Buchanan and had a cordial and intelligent chat about how Bush’s extreme policies were pushing the liberals and conservatives together.
Also, the show was definitely a bit rough around the edges, with some longish commercial breaks, minor technical glitches, and various bits of dead air where there was nothing but music. But hey, it’s their first day.
Today everyone sounds like Mr. Roboto (through the Real Player link, anyway).
Hey, is it me or did the chick playing Ann Coulter* yesterday sound remarkably like Bebe Neuwirth?!
*Agree it was pretty lame, btw- Al should stay away from the sketch-type stuff.
Yeah, it was definitely her.
I agree. They should stay away from the skit stuff, it doesn’t translate to radio very well.
Listening right now on the Internet (figure it’ll be a while before it gets to Lexington,) and I’ve been fairly impressed so far. Franken’s pretty funny, and he’s gotten some shots in on the esteemed Mr. O’Reilly.
Okay I’ve been able to listen to it for a solid hour now (gods of the workplace be praised), and I’m already hoping Al just shoves Katherine Lanpher out the window. She is borderline snotty not just with callers but with him, and seems to comprehend as much about team chemistry as a lamppost.
Example: Did anyone catch Franken’s rant on class warfare (bizzare as it was)? He alludes to a book by the great historian Barbara Tuchman and, while in the middle of making a point, this Lanpher ding-dong just totally cuts him off simply to say, “That’s Princeton scholar, Barbara Tuchman.” 
This totally distracts Al, who very dryly manages something like, “Oh. Really? Well how about that,” and you can just hear him holding back from smacking her.
THEN it turns out she wasn’t even RIGHT about Barbara Tuchman, who went to HARVARD!
(All right, summoning Nice Moody.
Ohhhmmm…must…stop…making… snap judgements on…humorless…radio…broadcasters…)
Caught a bit of “Morning Sedition” on the way in today, and I have to ask…
Out here in El Lay, the local station (1580AM) apparently has these commercial breaks that cut in to the regular programming. And when I say “cut in,” I mean cut in, as “smack dab in the middle of someone’s sentence.” What’s worse, these breaks tend to be about 4-5 minutes long, and when they’re done, you jump back into the middle of the show, missing the stuff that was interrupted.
Does this happen to anyone else, or is it just me? I know the network’s just getting started, and they’ve had problems getting stations and air time, but this just seems so embarassingly amateur hour.
And don’t get me started on the total lack of advertising for the network – if it wasn’t for the SDMB, I wouldn’t even knew it existed.
And if Stein became Franken’s sidekick, they could rename it the Franken-Stein Show. 
So it’s obvious. Sue me.
If they were gonna give a radio show to an SNL alum with a mind for political humor, I really wish it would have been James Downey. now that would have been good.
Is anyone else having trouble connecting to their web site? I tried an hour ago at home and now at work, and I can’t get to http://airamericaradio.com/ . I had no trouble last night.
Never mind, it seems to be back up. :o
:eek:
Obvious? It’s brilliant!
So frustrating to not be able to listen to this at work. For whatever reason, the proxy is not happy with me listening either via the Real Player (which I do have) or the media player links 
Listening. Enjoying. Will likely overdose on the partisanship quickly and revert back to NPR for majority of radio listening, but will definitely check in from time to time.
It does feel like they - and Franken in particular - are decoupling “liberal” and “wimp” for the first time in years…
That’s Rhandy Rhodes.
http://www.airamericaradio.com/www/pub/prg4about.htm
Just the way her head is cocked off to the side in her promo photo is enough for me. She is INCREDIBLY annoying.
After a few hours of Air America, CNN sounds very conservative. 
Now I understand why conservatives believe the mainstream media has a liberal bias. If you just listen to two sources which seem to have a different bias, you automatically think they are the two extremes.
I am a CNN regular and cannot for the life of me understand why it’s called “liberal”. It’s just mainstream reporting with all the hooplah of breaking news and mindless anchors
I couldn’t stand how she kept admonishing callers to “scoot along”…the exact same control-freak quality that drove me to tune out Minnesota Public Radio’s *Morning Edition * when she hosted it. Trouble is she’s used to running the show; I don’t think she’ll last long as a sidekick.
Yesterday, Something Awful did a mostly serious report on it. If it’s not on the main page, it would be the April 2nd entry.