the death of “Morning Sedition”
I originally thought that the final two segments of Thursday’s “Morning Sedition” (the now-canceled Air America morning show) program was a joke. A “corporate suit” walks in, and tensions grow between him and Marc Maron (the co-host who is being shoved away along with with the show) as the “Director of Talent Development” (or some such title) placates Marc Maron. Next segment, he stumbles through a routine (“Liberal Marching Orders” perhaps?), and can’t do it, rattled by being walked in like that. He returns, there’s fighting, and what made me think it was a gag: after Marc Maron yelps out something about “What are you going to do? Can me?”, the show goes to the wacky theme for the “Sammy the Stem-Cell” bit.
It seemed kind of similar to a repeated “Best of” moment they aired a few days prior, where the hosts “Called out” for any conservative New York resident who wants to come in and have a fight with one of the show-hosts. And, sure enough, someone does come in, and we have a war of chest-beating bluster. Then, after some things are settled “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome our guest co-host for the hour, from the WWE [name of pro-wrestler].”
Upon hearing those two segments again… and hearing it discussed on “Majority Report” as an actual incident… it suddenly looks as though “Marc Maron’s melt-down” and on-air fight with the “Director of Talent Development” was, indeed, real, and the playing of the wacky “Sammy the Stem Cell” music was an instant-reaction to fill up the tense fight.
Go figure.
This comment on the top of Marc Maron’s webpage looks like something Rick Emerson might’ve put on his website when his show was cancelled last May:
Popcorn is a good analogy for show business. Every time you make popcorn, there are always those fluffy, white, happy popped pieces that are fun to eat and look at and everybody likes them. But there are also always those burnt, hard kernels at the bottom that don’t pop. You know why they don’t pop? They don’t pop because they have integrity.
A quick note on “Morning Sedition”: the show was horrible when it first aired, so I initially paid no mind to it. In Portland, it was moved to 3:00 am to make way for Thom Hartmann — by which time, it had found itself, I guess partly by ridding itself of Sue Elicot and partly through the seasoning process of the radio nonprofessional Marc Maron.
But it looks like there’s two weeks of “Best Of” programs left for the show. I don’t know if I recommend staying up late or waking up early…
December 19th, 2005 at 1:33 pm
Either it was a gag, or else they decided to make lemonade out of the lemons — as I’m sure you know if you listened to Friday’s show.
No two weeks of “Best of…”, though — Mark Riley is flying solo for the full 3 hours for the next two weeks, after which the dull-as-dishwater new format starts up.
I’m just too sad for words…
December 20th, 2005 at 12:23 pm
As much as I can make out, the cancellation is as much to make room for their “rising star” in Rachel Maddow as anything else. She’s good, though I’m tempted to go with the suggestion that they oughta can Jerry Springer and stick her in that slot.
There’s a problem here, and it’s in a sort of uniformity of program. “Dull as Dishwasher”. People call in and congratulate themselves for agreeing with each other. It’s why I hate Randi Rhodes.