Happy Panic Productions

Well their webcast is on Eastern time, which is too bad, because the link to their webcast didn't appear on their website until after 11:45, from what I can tell. And when I clicked on the link and RealPlayer start ed streaming, I got over 2 minutes of silence before Al came on in the middle of a word. The historic first hour, and I missed it!

And I'm missing the historic second hour, too, as they went into a commercial break. After one commercial, I got more silence... 3 minutes and couting. I'm guessing it's local ad time, and they haven't figured out what to do during the webcast during those spells. (Maybe this is a common thing... I have to admit, I think it's been years since I listened to a streaming commercial radio broadcast live.)

From the few minutes I heard that weren't silence: they've already made fun of Ann Coulter!

Franken, my dear, I don't get AM

Today is the launch date for Air America, the new liberal radio network you've probably heard referred to as "Al Franken's network". Frankly, I find it more interesting that Janeane Garofalo and Chuck D are hosting shows. But I'll give Franken a listen when he debuts at noon today, since I usually like him about half the time and he only aggravates me about a quarter of the time.*

Hmmm, their website says Franken's show starts at noon, but they don't say what time zone they mean... maybe each station will play it at noon local time. But I can't receive AM signals in my office, so what time zone does the webcast adhere to? I guess I'll check in at 11 AM, just in case.

This morning I tuned in to the network's flagship, WNTD 950AM Chicago (which yesterday was a Spanish language station, and which doesn't have a website, and if you try to Google "WNTD" you get a whole lot of classified ads) and what's the first thing I hear on the future beacon of progressive ideas? "We Didn't Start the Fire." Is this network just going to list problems, or is it going to try to solve them?

I guess until Franken starts at noon, all they're doing is playing liberal-tinged music. Here's the playlist I heard while getting ready for, and on the way to, work:

"We Didn't Start the Fire" -- Billy Joel
"Get Up, Stand Up" -- Bob Marley
"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" -- Gil Scott-Heron (no comment on whether it will be radioed)
"Fresh Air" -- Quicksilver Messenger Service (which one of these doesn't quite belong?)
"Fight the Power" -- Public Enemy
"In A World Gone Mad" -- Beastie Boys
"Chimes of Freedom" -- The Byrds

I think the challenge of this network is to find and play political hip-hop that is radio friendly, both in the sense of having clean lyrics, and in the sense that it doesn't sound like shit on AM.

*The remaining quarter I spend on gumballs.

Trials and Jubilations

The untold story of the Super Millionaire qualification:

When I qualified by answering the five questions correctly on a Friday night, I had to chose the taping date on which I would appear if I were randomly selected. After I picked my tape date, I was given the day and time I would receive my phone call if I were selected to appear on the show. The time they gave me was Tuesday morning, 8AM - 11AM Central. The thing was, I had a jury summons for Monday! I had been hoping to be selected (I've always thought I would be a good juror), but suddenly my wish stream was forced to reverse course. If I were to get selected, I would never even know if I had received the call!

Just before lunch my panel number was called. We were filed into the courtroom for jury selection, and I had a great seat, being the first prospective juror through the door. As we sat quietly for about two minutes, I was trying to identify who the seven or so people sitting and milling about might be. What I took to be the prosecution had a bi-level wheeled cart that was completely laden with paperwork. Great, I thought, I bet that means it's gonna be a long one.

The back door opened and two women in gray suits were beckoning for the third guy who looked to be from the prosecution. They were trying to play it cool but clearly it was urgent. He feigned an easy pace towards them until they mouthed frantically, "Bring the file!" "Nope, no big hurry here" his body language strained to say as he did the most casual hustle I've ever seen.

Less then a minute later, the court officer straight-out hustles out of the back room and says, "Okay good people, I need you to go out into the hall." To hear all the jurors piss and moan, you would have thought we were being asked to do something much more difficult than sit down and stand back up. We filed back out, past a little couple of retirement age who were sitting in the back row next to the doorway.

As we lined up in the hallway, I said to the guy next to me, "11th hour confession." They had us stand there for about 15 minutes. After 5, the court officer conspiratorally took all of our jurors badges. That looked like a good sign. Someone finally asked what was up. "In a few minutes, the judge is gonna dismiss you, and then you're gonna make a break for it. You go straight outta this building, and don't let anybody tell you to go back to the jurors lounge or else they'll reassign you." Another court officer mockingly asked her what she was doing and she smakced him on the back of the head and told him to get out of her way, she knew what she was doing. As she huslted off, he said to us, laughing, "Damn, these women, damn!" When the court officer came back and handed out our checks, it was certain we were going home and not coming back tomorrow. I thought for sure it was a sign that I was meant to be on Millionaire. Alas.

We were led back into the courtroom and addressed by Judge Schreier. It was to have been a first-degree muder trial, gang retaliation, at 9AM in the parking lot outside a laundromat on N. Milwaukee. The trial had been pending for two years, but they removed us from the room because the defense had suddenly announced they wanted to enter a plea bargain. I whispered to the guy next to me, "Called it." All the details of the case, and a surmise of how the trial would have gone, were explained to us by the judge and the state's attorney. They were both pretty cool about it.

We were dismissed. Everyone was jubliant that they got to go home. Having to come here for jury duty had been such a severe pain in everyone's ass, and now they were free. Here's the thing that got me. The old couple who had been in the courtroom, we were told, were the parents of the 19-year-old kid who was now serving 28 years in prison. I wonder what they thought about having to hear all these people bitch and moan that they had to come for one day of jury duty?