Got kinda tired of packing and unpacking
Town to town, up and down the dial…Mark Evanier has some thoughts about Air America Radio, which gives me a chance to piggyback and add my own.
I agree with a lot of what Mark has to say here. Judging the hosts that I have heard as broadcasters, apart from whether I agree with them, Al Franken clearly comes out on top. I suspect he’s helped by his co-host Katherine Lanpher, but he’s also got a voice that works for radio, one not a million miles from Stan Freberg…who he also physically resembles. And who he’s next to on my bookshelf. And who he admires, according to the NYT Magazine story a few weeks back.
But I digress.
And yes, Randi Rhodes is awful–like a horrible, strident parody of a feminist.
As for Janeane Garofalo, I’ve gone back and forth on her over the years. I used to really like her, especially around 96/97, when The Truth About Cats and Dogs and Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion came out. Funny, smart woman, hello! And I still quote one of her stand-up comedy lines–the imitation of every movie trailer ever made: “In a world…”
But there came a time when I began to get sick of the entire “Ben Stiller Mafia” as I like to call it.
More recently I’ve been known to accuse her of trying to rebuild a career as a liberal commentator because she has no new material as a comedian and no one is offering her movies any more.
All that said, the worst I can say about her Air America show is that she doesn’t have a voice that works for radio. I think a lot of her appeal as a performer comes from her gestures and facial expressions, stripped of these, she doesn’t connect as hard as she might.
