Funny Lady Stephanie Miller Finally Releases Her Memoirs!

I know that sometimes the blog (when I'm actually posting) kind of resembles a Best of Stephanie Miller Show fan site. For the record, I was posting The Rude Pundit and several other areas of overlap before I heard them on Steph's show, but still. I'm a huge fan. So, I'm very happy that her long rumored memoirs are being released on Amazon! And she's got the first chapter available online for free, so, hop to it! Here you go!

[Excerpt]

Abandoned by Wolves, Raised by Republicans

In 1964, my father, Congressman William E. Miller of New York, was chosen as the Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States by Senator Barry Goldwater. Mostly, Dad's job was to start nearly every speech by saying, "What Barry meant to say was..." My dad and Barry were routed by President Lyndon B. Johnson and his running mate, Senator Hubert Humphrey, in a landslide of historic proportions. The Goldwater-Miller ticket carried just six states and lost by 16 million votes. I was three years old. . . .

Read more at: Huffington Post

Liberal Talk Radio Quake in San Francisco

Image from BradBlog

In 2008, my state of Nevada voted for Barack Obama. Were it up to the most populous county--Clark, home of Las Vegas--it would have been a landslide. But, Las Vegas has never had a liberal talk radio station. Conservative talk hosts and fans say that "the market has spoken," and that there is no market for liberal talk. But I don't believe that. In fact, it would be a difficult conclusion to draw, when a serious attempt at the format has rarely been tried on an equal playing field.

Air America Radio was an experimental liberal talk network, launched in 2004, ahead of George W. Bush's re-election. It was fronted by Al Franken (now a Senator), Rachel Maddow (now a successful MSNBC host), Janeane Garofalo (acclaimed actress), and Randi Rhodes (the queen of liberal talk). Unfortunately, the money guys and others behind the scenes weren't radio people. And most of the stations they secured were low-powered, with spotty reception. AAR hung on for several years, with much tribulation, and then went out of business. But by then, the stars were gone anyway.

Shows like The Stephanie Miller Show, The Ed Schultz Show, The Thom Hartmann Show and others survived (or were never a part of) AAR. They've managed to do well, but with a far smaller terrestrial radio reach. Most of the time, when the format has been tried, it has been on those low-wattage, smaller stations. When the format has succeeded in its market, often it is dumped anyway. In fact, a Madison, Wisconsin station dumped liberal talk, and ended up re-upping when the replacement format tanked. It then became one of the strongest liberal stations in the country. I have been listening to liberal radio since the birth of AAR on my computer. It's the only place you can get it here (well, and nowadays on your smart phones).

My image for my burned CD of the Sexy Liberal Tour.
Feel free to steal it, if you want it!

Right now, Stephanie Miller's Sexy Liberal Comedy Tour has been taking her show on the road, with John Fugelsang, Hal Sparks and local celebrity guests. The show is burning up the stages, outpacing many other established acts. Their online concert album is doing extremely well on iTunes and Amazon.com. They're selling out auditoriums in states that have no liberal media presence. But that didn't stop the owners of the only San Francisco liberal radio station from monkeying with the format. San Francisco. The most liberal city in America. See, there's no market for it. Bullcrap! "Liberal media," my gay, moonbat, lefty, liberal ass!

PS. Steph, bring Sexy Liberal to Las Vegas, please? And bring Chris LaVoie and Jim Ward with you!

[Excerpt]

Clear Channel Allows Progressives to Stay on Air in San Francisco, but Adds Glenn Beck to Line-Up 

You might call it splitting the baby. Sort of.
Progressive radio will be allowed to remain on our public AM airwaves in San Francisco, though with major schedule shake-ups, the removal of its popular progressive branding and several bizarre additions to the line-up, including far Rightwing extremists such as former Fox "News" phenom Glenn Beck in the place of what had been one of Green960's most popular morning shows. . .

Read more at: BradBlog

Stephanie Miller's Sexy Liberal Tour Rolls On

Funny people: Lily Tomlin, Edie McClurg, Stephanie Miller,
John Fugelsang and Hal Sparks. Image from LA Times

Years ago, my sister would tell me how much she loved The Stephanie Miller Show. When I'd visit her in Ohio, I'd catch the odd snippet, and it just seemed noisy. Here in Las Vegas, we don't have--and never have had--a liberally-oriented radio station. And TSMS airs at 6:00 here in Pacific Time, a bit earlier than I get up. But about four years ago or so, I started tuning in to the last 1 or 1-1/2 hours of the show. I was a nearly instant fan. The show is politically liberal, but it is also very funny, with improvisational humor by voice artist Jim Ward, Stephanie herself, and her producer Chris LaVoie.

The show features numerous guests, from Senators and Congresspersons, to comedians and actors. The comedy ranges from the high-brow to the basest humor allowed by the FCC. Regular guests like Edie McClurg, Aisha Tyler, Hal Sparks and John Fugelsang provide "must hear" appearances almost every day of the week. In the last year, TSMS has birthed a traveling stage show, called The Sexy Liberal Comedy Tour, featuring Sparks, Tyler (sometimes), Miller and Fugelsang. It's been selling out all over the country, and getting rave reviews. It's doing so well, Bill O'Reilly and Dennis Miller are attempting to rival them with their own tour. Except O'Reilly and Miller aren't funny.

This weekend, Sexy Liberal was in Los Angeles, which is the radio show's home base. And since they're in Hollywood, they got some liberal friends to join them: Lily Tomlin, McClurg and Rob Reiner. Even LaVoie and Ward got to get in on the act. I'm jealous. Hey, Steph! I live in Vegas, the entertainment capital of the world! Come entertain us! Please?


[Excerpt]

Can a comedy tour be 'sexy and liberal?'

At each stop on Stephanie Miller’s nationwide "Sexy Liberal Comedy Tour" -– launched at Madison, Wis.'  Barrymore Theatre in April -- a surprise comic guest shows up onstage. At the tour’s Southern California debut Friday night at the Wadsworth Theatre, the surprise guest was Lily Tomlin, who joined talk show host Miller and comedians John Fugelsang and Hal Sparks for a panel discussion at the end of the show. . .

Read more at: Los Angeles Times