Category: Northern Alliance

I’ve just returned home from the first Northern Alliance Radio show’s wrap party at the Rocket Man’s house, and I wanted to make sure I closed the loop on some of your comments and questions, as well as thank a few people.
First, thank you for your comments on the post. When we get a little better at this, we’ll take the e-mails on the air just like callers, like Hugh and Michael Medved do. Right now it’s all we can do to chew gum and walk at the same time. (Talk radio with Gerald Ford — now there’s a concept.) A couple of people asked about live internet streaming, and I can tell you that we all want that, including the station, but it will likely be an expensive proposition and they’ll want to sell some advertising first. I think we proved today that we have a product, and I think we’ll see some movement fairly soon to a streaming format. I showed them the amount of traffic that we got today on my live-blogging post, and I think that also made an impression.
A couple of local people noted that the signal was on the weak side and suggested “listening parties”. Hey, I can tell you that we are all in favor of parties, so if we can provide the excuse, we say go for it. You may be able to check around in Eagan to see if a local restaurant would allow people to play the radio. I’ll check with a couple around the area to see what I can find out. Mary at Fresh Bed Goodness talked about holing up at Culvers in Eagan; maybe that will work out.
For those who might be interested in the details on the photos, I shot them with my Canon A70 digital camera and downloaded them to my IBM laptop. They were originally shot in 3.2-megapixel format, and using Roxio Photosuite 5.0, I resized them to their current size and compression ratio. After you’ve done it a few times, it’s a snap.
Now for a few thanks. First, Hindrocket and his lovely wife were kind enough to host the party this evening for the Northern Alliance, and they made us a terrific dinner. We even got a chance to meet the Yale Diva, who assures us all that she will be blogrolling the Northern Alliance sometime soon. Also, a big thanks to Patrick Campion, our producer Joe, and the entire staff at The Patriot for giving us the air time. Also, once again thank you to Glenn at Instapundit, who linked us just before airtime and sent us tons of traffic for the live-blog, which may just convince everyone that there’s a market for our show on the Internet.
Next Saturday — same time, same place, and probably live-blogging again, too!

We’re a little over an hour from the start of the Northern Alliance Radio show here in the Twin Cities, and as I said earlier, I will be live-blogging during the second and third hours, complete with digital photographs of the gang. Keep checking back on this post!
12:01 – We’re all getting settled into the booth. First segment: Mitch, Hindrocket, Saint Paul, and myself …
12:07 – Our first topic was graffiti in public restrooms — yeah, we’re rolling, baby! …
12:16 – Out to our first break, after discussing John Kerry and the “inept” accusation. When we come out of our break, we’ll have our first caller on the line …
12:26 – James Lileks is our first caller, and talks about Kerry’s assertion of starving the troops of equipment — he reminds us of Black Hawk Down …
12:46 – We’ve taken three callers, and the last one was someone we didn’t know! He wanted to hit Kerry again for his negativity and said that the Democrats were poised to run an almost-completely negative campaign from now on …
1:05 – I’m now off the air, and for the second segment we have Big Trunk from Power Line and King from SCSU Scholars joining Hindrocket to discuss the “peace-in” at St. Olaf that Jimmy Carter led. Trunk’s discussing the “orgy of pacifism,” which gets us all pretty keyed up. After all, talking about orgies makes for great radio, right? …
1:13 – I should have a few photos on this post shortly, now that I’m out of the studio … The pictures will be in the Extended Entry below this post (click on the link) …
1:22 – Saint Paul takes my picture while I’m live-blogging …
1:28 – Trunk, King, Rocket, and Mitch are conducting a terrific interview with Britt, who is part of the students organization that brought the Trunk out to St. Olaf’s, billing him as “the man they don’t want you to hear” … Trunk posted about this last week, about how he discussed Winston Churchill. I’ll link back to the post in a moment …
1:33 – Actually he posted on this two weeks ago, and here’s the link …
1:37 – Katherine Kristen from the Center for the American Experiment is calling in to weigh in on the St. Olaf story. She agrees that this reflexive defeatism is something that the entire generation needs to address, not just St. Olaf …
1:48 – We have two people on the line at the same time — Britt and Katherine — and we’re not melting down, at least not yet … I’ve made the file size a bit smaller on some of the pictures, in case you’ve had some slowdowns on loading my post …
1:56 – Wrapping up hour two discussing the conservative counter-counterculture at universities these days with Katherine Kirsten and Britt Haugland. We’re out to break, and next hour we’ll move onto more cultural topics rather than pure politics …
2:10 – Now we have Trunk discussing Bob Dylan with JB Doubtless and Atomizer from Fraters Libertas. Trunk definitely has some great insights into Dylan’s catalogue …
2:19 – Coming back in, and the rest of the hour will be all Fraters Libertas, God help us all. We’re going to be talking about the Biased Liberal Hack Columnist of the Week, and Saint Paul will be opening with Brian Lambert …
2:26 – Saint Paul is savaging Brian Lambert’s column on Christopher Leyden’s arrival in the Twin Cities and MPR — and he’s having far too much fun. Let me back in the studio, dammit! …
2:35 – We have, perhaps, gone a tad bit overboard by describing the local homeless as “urine-caked drunks riding the buses”. Send your mail to JB Doubtless at Fraters Libertas …
2:42 – According to our caller, Frank, we found out that the buses here aren’t as bad as Paris. Frank tells us that they are frequently free from the aroma of urine …
2:52 – Going into the last segment, we’re still discussing the homeless. We’re just about at the end of the show, and I think we’re up to our last topic. We have one more caller on the line. Douglas congratulated us on our launch, and he’s another blogger, too. Great call! …
2:58 – Wrapped up. Now we wait for the analysis from station management to see whether they promote us or shoot us … Thanks to everyone who stuck with the live blog, and to all of you who got the chance to listen in! (If you want us to have a live Internet feed, make sure you let the station management know!)

Continue reading “Northern Alliance Radio: Live Blogging!”

We’re almost exactly 24 hours away from the debut of the Northern Alliance radio show on AM 1280 The Patriot here in the Twin Cities. Mitch Berg will play center and moderate the three-hour talkathon; I’ll be on in the first hour tomorrow, discussing events from the past week and interacting with callers. I’ll join Saint Paul of Fraters Libertas and Hindrocket from Power Line. Mitch has the rest of the schedule on this post, and I may duck back in for a segment during the last hour, depending on availability (and whether I have anything intelligent to say).
If you’re in the broadcast area, make sure you tune in to The Patriot for the launch, and call in. For those outside of the Twin Cities, we’re hoping to get a streaming service for the show very soon. Keep checking at the Northern Alliance site for more news and information.
I will be live-blogging when I’m off the air, so you can also check here on Saturday to see what’s happening!

We are seven days away from the launch of the Northern Alliance Radio “Network” show here in Minnesota, and we’re all gathering at the studio for a dry run today, as almost all of us have never worked in radio before. The folks at AM 1280 The Patriot have been very hospitable in allowing us to descend on them today and will be teaching us the equiment and the timing of hosting a talk show. Next Saturday, we will be going live on the air here in the Twin Cities (pray for their inhabitants, the poor souls) from noon to 3 PM.
The group of us, who can be found in my blogroll on the left — the only place you’ll find them on the left, by the way — are still ironing out format and scheduling. We hope to eventually have a live streaming Internet link through The Patriot’s website so that all of you can listen in on what happens when bloggers try radio. Mitch Berg of Shot In The Dark has been working on a central website for the group, too, so that you can check for updates there as well as on our individual blogs. You’ll hear more about this as we move forward with the program.
Stay tuned!

Hindrocket of Power Line appeared this morning on Face to Face, a local PBS show that owes its format to CNN’s Crossfire. Today’s topic: credibility issues with politicians, focusing on Bush and Kerry. Joining Hindrocket was Buck Humphrey, a Kerry campaign activist.
I may be biased — hell, I am biased — but Hindrocket came across extremely well, while Buck Humphrey couldn’t look anyone in the eye during most of his answers, looking askance or downward almost the entire time. Hindrocket had excellent answers at the ready — his answer to co-host David Lillehaug about the cyanide-salts find in Baghdad shut that thread down immediately. Hindrocket scored a direct hit on Kerry’s hypocrisy, using the Majumder corruption case as an example, and Humphrey stumbled trying to change the subject to an irrelevant assertion that Kerry never took PAC money. (I’d like to think that John used the entry from my blog for his source material, but I don’t think he needed my help.)
Overall, Hindrocket showed a remarkable ability to drive the debate despite facing two dynamic co-hosts (Rick Morgan on the right). I’m starting to get a little nervous about being in the same radio booth with him in less than two weeks. Maybe I’ll bring him a cafe latte in order to get on his good side …

Power Line’s Hindrocket lets us know that he will be appearing on the Twin Cities’ PBS program, “Face to Face”, which is a Minnesota Nice version of Crossfire. The program airs this Sunday at 10:30 am and the panel reviews the credibility of politicians. [You can get a half-hour discussion out of that? Well, he is a lawyer …] He’s already taped the segment and notes:

I think the show will be pretty good, although, in these half-hour formats, there’s a limit to how much you can do. I tried to work in two or three facts that many people don’t know–like the cyanide block found in the al Qaeda safe house in Baghdad, and President Bush’s 1972 Air National Guard evaluation.

I’ll post a review of the show later on Sunday. If you’re in the area, make sure you tune in.
UPDATE: Apparently, Power Line’s had a busy week — now Best of the Web has linked back to Big Trunk’s post on the Deaniac reaction to their candidate’s withdrawal. Make sure to read the entire hilarious (and oddly frightening) article.