Dialing it down

HBO's documentary "Left of the Dial" chronicles the blunders, bounced checks, insults and lies behind Air America Radio's troubled launch a year ago today.

By Heather Havrilesky

Mar 31, 2005 | "'Those who are half in love with death will only become more red-fanged and ravenous!'"

Al Franken is doing an interpretive reading of Peggy Noonan's latest column in the Wall Street Journal, this one on -- what else? -- Terri Schiavo. On this recent afternoon broadcast of "The Al Franken Show," Franken's gravelly voice, which slips into that almost lispy Stuart Smalley territory occasionally, sounds absolutely grave and turgid with rage.

"OK, so this means that anyone who believes in the right of a spouse to decide the fate of his wife, a wife who's in a persistent vegetative state ... anyone who believes that is now half in love with death, red-fanged and ravenous? Peggy, screw you."

Welcome to Air America Radio, the left's answer to the conservative talk radio programs that have dominated the dial since the Clinton years. In the early days, Rush Limbaugh brayed like a lone lunatic in the wilderness about the gays and the lefties, but now countless others have joined him in a high-strung chorus of reactionary outbursts and self-righteous indignation, decrying the godless, the abortionists and the terrorists in one fell swoop as millions tune in each day. Fed up with those caustic tirades, which have helped to galvanize the right, a scrappy band of devil-may-care liberals joined together last year to provide an equally ungracious mouthpiece for those angry over the war, disgusted with the president's arrogance and deceit, and apprehensive about the turning sociocultural tides. One year ago, on March 31, 2004, this ragtag group of rebels triumphantly took to the airwaves and finally gave voice to the discontents of the liberal populace. Cut to high fives, hip-hip hoorays, popping of champagne corks, etc.

At least, that's the way you'd imagine the story might go. But HBO's documentary "Left of the Dial" (Thursday, March 31, at 8 p.m. EST) paints a very different picture of the first few weeks of Air America Radio. Filmmakers Kate O'Callaghan and Patrick Farrelly not only got remarkable access to the Air America offices but also found themselves documenting what looked to be the premature death of the company within a few weeks of its birth.

At first, hopes were high -- maybe even a little too high, given the assembled personalities' lack of experience in radio. "It's about time that we did this," Franken tells someone over the phone, presumably a reporter. "As I was writing my book 'Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right,' I was getting angrier and angrier and at a certain point said, Well, what are you gonna do about it?"

Franken and the rest are certainly charged up and ready to take action, but early rehearsals appear awkward and strained, and technical difficulties abound. Comedian Marc Maron wonders out loud how good he'll be at hosting a radio show, "Morning Sedition." "I've always spoken my mind, I've always been somewhat of a reactionary person -- not always for the right reason," he tells the camera, explaining his issues. "Just ... authority problems. But if you focus those, it looks a lot like ideological revolution!" he adds with a laugh, summing up the tar pit of talk radio on both sides of the dial.

When Franken appears on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, everyone in the office gets excited and clamors to read the article. Still, the most prominent radio talent, Randi Rhodes, who was a popular South Florida radio personality for years before relocating to New York to join Air America, is never pictured and rarely mentioned, as reporters are more drawn to familiar names like Janeane Garofalo and Chuck D. After Michael Moore appears on the "Al Franken Show," Rhodes goes to meet him in the hallway and he not only doesn't appear to know who she is, but tries to avoid her before he spots the camera, at which point he walks back down the hallway to shake her hand.

Next Page: Moore: "Playing it safe is what got us into this mess"

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