Howard Shapes Our World

Sunday, Apr. 30, 2006
Howard Stern
New King of Satellite
By DAVID SPADE

Even though I didn't catch on to the Stern craze till the mid-'90s, I still consider myself a hard-core fan. I was wrapping up my run on Saturday Night Live and usually slept in every day, so I missed his show. But I knew he was a big deal. I had heard people repeating bits he did, and they always made me laugh. He came in one day to meet with Lorne Michaels, and everyone was freaking out. That was the first time I met him. Way taller than I thought (who isn't?) and quieter. And nice to everyone. Which still shocks me.

Stern, 52, was the first guy to make it seem cool to be a loser. To a lot of us who stay at home in a dark room eating Hot Pockets, he seemed like a buddy. He would make fun of good-looking famous people and make girls show their boobs. What's not to like about that? I was sold.

After 10 years, he can still make me laugh and get me jealous when he thinks of something so fast that I don't see it coming. He's at his best when he's complaining—the FCC, George W. Bush, whatever. Being a guest on his show, I get to hear the good and bad of my so-called life and career. Let me tell you, it's a lot easier having Katie Couric tell me I look cute (as she did one day) than volunteering to go in and have Howard dissect every loser aspect of me that I would rather keep hidden. If I didn't believe he thought I was funny, I'd never go on. He doesn't do a lot of "Your movie's great."

He does a lot of "You're not good-looking. Girls date you only because you're on TV. Most of your movies suck. You probably killed Chris Farley. You're jealous of Sandler. I have a caller who says he hates you and another who thinks you're gay." Not exactly James Lipton. But because he makes me laugh, it's a lot (a little) easier to take.

The other day, I was pulling into the parking garage at my gym, listening to Stern. I did what I usually do if Stern is on a roll: I parked right before going underground so it wouldn't cut out. I turned to my right, and some guy in a Subaru was parked next to me laughing. I rolled down the window and asked, "Stern?", and he nodded. Two more fans out of millions having another laugh with the King of All Media. Or at least the Subaru.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1187317,00.html

George Takei Explains 'Why'

Why Howard Stern?

by George Takei
January, 2006

The twists and turns of life can be so unpredictable. The day after New Year's, a phone call suddenly presented an utterly unexpected prospect for me. It was from Gary Dell'Abate, the producer of the Howard Stern Show on the satellite radio network, Sirius.

I had been on the Howard Stern Show many times before - a few times intentionally, but more often, not. The times I went on the Stern Show with purpose were to promote a play I was doing or the publication of my autobiography, "To the Stars." But more frequently, I've been on the show via bandit recordings of phrases I said while on the show - like, "Oh my!" - or a phone conversation with a celebrity imitator with whom I talked, thinking it was the real celebrity - most absurdly, a brief conversation with a rather poor imitator of Ricardo Montalban. Howard Stern has had his fun with me - and his listeners seemed to be having a hilarious good time listening to his mischiefs. The Stern Show technicians even took my voice from the audiocassette version of my autobiography and manipulated the words to make it seem as if I were actually making some outrageously vulgar statements. They say they're doing all this because they love me, but, I must say, I've never been loved in such a bizarre way.

Gary Dell'Abate was calling me, only two days into the new year, with a question. Like Pavlov's dog, my muscles immediately tightened. What new prank is this, I thought. This was the producer of the Howard Stern Show calling! Gary quickly assured me that our conversation was not being recorded. A little wary, but still a little curious, I continued the conversation. Gary asked, "Would you be interested in joining the Stern Show as the announcer?" I burst out laughing. I was not going to be taken in by that tired old joke. "No, I really mean it, George," he insisted. "I'm serious." He did sound sincere. Very guardedly, I played along. "Well, it does sound intriguing," I responded. "But why don't you talk to my agent and see what happens? You may not be able to afford me." That should put an end to this trick, I thought. "Of course I'll do that," he assured me, "but I wanted to know if you would really be interested." I sensed that he was trying to keep me on the line. So, I said to Gary that I would call my agent myself and tell him that I am intrigued by the invitation and gave him my agent's number. Then I hung up. From that conversation with Gary Dell'Abate, the year 2006 was off and running as I had never, in my wildest dreams, expected it to be.

Of all things, the invitation turned out to be true! It wasn't a prank. My agent had conversations with the Stern people, and, five days after that call from Gary, I was on a plane for New York to be the "announcer" on the Howard Stern Show.

Some people have questioned why I appear on a radio show so filled with disgusting talk and obscenity. I respond to them that, yes, the show has language and talk of body functions that really aren't my cup of tea. I try not to use those words myself, but don't we hear them around us daily? The body functions that Howard and gang talk about are what we all do daily as normal, healthy human beings. Howard simply talks about the realities of our life candidly. Some people seem to find life as it is - obscene. I don't.

However, Howard Stern is passionately against what is truly obscene in our society. He has railed at the obscenity of allocating billions of dollars of pork barrel money for a "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska, while our soldiers in Iraq are dying because of deficient and ineffective body armor. He has attacked the indecency of tax cuts for the wealthiest at a time of war. He has howled at the outrage of plunging our nation into war with bad intelligence, tough talk, and inadequate planning. He strongly believes that people who love each other, care for each other, and take responsibility for each other that happen to be of the same gender are entitled to equal rights. Howard Stern is a shock jock because truth naked can be shocking. Some of his humor can be adolescent. So what? We all could use a bit of adolescent giggle from time to time. It's good for us. And sometimes, for me it has been humbling, which is also good for all of us from time to time. Humility keeps us grounded. Laughter is the tonic of life.

Howard Stern challenges the status quo, politically, socially, and economically. He exercises our Constitutional freedom of speech vigorously. I admire his daring. I have high regard for his venturesome spirit in making the move from free terrestrial radio to the high-risk adventure of paid satellite radio. It was a singular distinction for me to be the first voice heard on the very first broadcast of his new show. And, Howard's brave move seems to be paying off. His loyal fans and others are switching in the millions as subscribers to Sirius. It is in the same bold spirit of "Star Trek" - to explore new frontiers, new technologies, and new ways of doing things - and laughing at the absurdities of life all the way.

Satellite of Love

Satellite of love

Inside the studio on Howard Stern's first Sirius morning

BY BILL JENSEN

About 100 reporters and photographers are milling around the plush Sirius Satellite Radio reception area in midtown Manhattan, waiting to be ushered into a press conference to document Howard Stern's first day on satellite. Omelets are being served. Cappuccino is being poured. And we're all listening to a woman describe the details of putting finger after finger up a man's ass.

The new Howard Stern Show — the one he has been dying to share with America since he first took to the air 25 years ago — is being piped into the room. The idle chatter of the media is muffled as the audio play builds to a climax. The Associated Press reporter sitting next to me noticeably winces as the Stern regular they call "Evil Dave Letterman" asks sex-talk queen Heidi Cortez for the whole fist.

The theater of the mind has returned with a vengeance.

Fed up with the FCC's murky guidelines as to what qualifies as indecent, Stern announced in the fall of 2004 that he was leaving "terrestrial" airwaves for a five-year, $500 million deal on Sirius satellite radio. He served out the rest of his contract with Infinity Broadcasting (which syndicated his show in 45 markets), but the last months of the show were strained. Old bits could no longer be played for fear of fines in the post-Janet's-breast-at-the-Super-Bowl world. Strippers and porn stars, staples of Stern's show, were noticeably absent. Eventually, the show devolved into one giant commercial for Sirius. Stern couldn't wait to bust out.

On Monday, Stern busted.

Inside the new studio, custom-built for the show, Stern sat behind a massive U-shaped desk. To his left, sidekick Artie Lange and sound-effects man Fred Norris flanked the show's writers and new addition, announcer George (Captain Sulu) Takei; newswoman Robin Quivers sat in a glass booth in front of Stern while a mass of robotic cameras for his on-demand cable-TV network swiveled overhead. All the goodies from the old studio, such as the Tickle Chair, Robospanker, and Wheel of Sex, stood guard to Stern's right, next to a mirrored bookcase filled with show relics like the Gary Puppet (modeled after producer Gary Dell' Abate), as well as bottles and bottles of vodka.

Stern's first order of business was to address a rumor that he and long-time girlfriend Beth Ostrosky had gotten married over the holidays. He told everyone they had, only to recant, admitting that he was playing a joke on the staff (sort of a strange way to kick things off for a man who prizes honesty on the air). He then listed the darkest secrets of 11 members of the staff (which included masturbating while watching family members urinate, and sex with meat and vegetables), which would be matched to the confessor on a later show, and discussed varieties of oral and anal sex with Takei. All uncensored. You could hear the glee in Stern's voice. The X-rated candy-store window he had pressed his nose up against for the last 25 years was smashed to bits, and all the sexed-up, grossed-out inventory was his for the taking.

In the past, the FCC and its unwitting agent, WXRK (Stern's old flagship station) general manager Tom Chiusano armed with his infamous dump censor button, might have busted in and busted heads with Stern the second he muttered a phrase like "mud on the turtle" during a conversation about anal sex. The fights with guys like Chiusano were often a large part of the old show's appeal — the entire plot of Howard Stern's Private Parts focused on Stern flipping the bird to authority figures (remember Pig Vomit?). But today, after 25 years of painting himself — and not without good reason — as a man crucified by the FCC, that part of Stern's cachet is gone. And he's fully aware of it. (Stern did address grumblings that the FCC would try to regulate satellite radio now that he's arrived: "This is a private affair," he said. "If they go after us, this mean's cable is going away, books are going away ... there is no legal justification.") But at 51, he's made the choice to trade in the rebel-yell headaches for the freedom to do whatever he wants. Now he just has to get people to pay for that freedom.

IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?

An hour into the Monday broadcast, Quivers asked Stern how he was feeling.

"How do I feel?" answered Stern. "There's four people listening."

"Yeah, it kind of feels like we're just talking to each other," replied Quivers.

When Stern signed on to Sirius, the then-two-year-old provider was limping along with 600,000 subscribers. Today, after strong holiday sales of Sirius players, 3.3 million people are paying $12.95 per month for the service. The surge in sign-ups earned Stern (and agent Don Buchwald) a $220 million bonus in the form of Sirius stock.

But even if every Sirius subscriber listens to him, 3.3 million is a lot less than the 18 million Stern has been accustomed to throughout his career. And for a man who sees a therapist four times a week and has spent his life working through an obsessive-compulsive disorder that has crept into his mania about ratings, the 15-million dip in listenership could start to eat away at him — no matter how many summer-camp-counselor-lesbian stories he can now share on the air. (Not to mention the fact that Sirius is not even the biggest satellite-radio provider — XM radio, which offers Major League Baseball, Opie and Anthony, and Snoop Dog, has six million subscribers.)

But Stern is confident that this is just the beginning — he repeatedly equates paying for radio with paying for cable television and bottled water. And his romper room is now a whole lot larger.

He's in charge of two 24-hour stations that will be chock-full of Stern-flavored news and shows (the $500 million price tag is reportedly earmarked for salaries and for marketing). The Stern favorite It's Just Wrong (a game show in which family members undress each other) is back. Lesbian Dating Game is back. And then there are the new ideas. The ideas he wouldn't have dared air on regular radio — like Tissue Time with Heidi, a phone-sex show to help men go to sleep, which he sampled during Monday's debut (and which stopped Ed Bradley in his tracks during last month's 60 Minutes interview with Stern). And though it hasn't been publicized, once he has enough material in the bank, Stern will give himself Fridays off, which will help with the burnout factor.

Fielding questions about Sirius, his non-marriage, and his daughter performing nude in an off-Broadway play, Stern seemed relaxed and genuinely happy before the press. He talked about why he wears a condom (germs, added girth, endurance). He boasted of his nine-person news team (featuring New York news veterans like former managing editor of WABC Eyewitness News Liz Aiello, George Flowers, and Ralph Howard), which is saddled with one mission: to cover all things Stern. Beside him was his entire cast and support system, which give the show its dysfunctional-family-sitcom vibe, the real reason most listeners tune in each day. And Stern's biggest advocate throughout his career, Mel Karmazin, came out of retirement to be Sirius's CEO and has his back.

At one point, Stern scoffed at people wishing him luck in his "new venture."

"I've been doing this for 25 fuckin' — friggin' — years," he replied, catching himself after dropping an f-bomb.

A NEW AUTHORITY

Wait, did Stern just censor himself?

Yes. Stern doesn't want any of his guys to curse unless it's absolutely necessary.

Last week, during a studio test that was aired on Sirius, Stern got to taste the freedom of his new address for the first time — and anyone who happened to be listening got a taste of where Stern draws the line. As the staff worked out the new studio's bugs, friends of the show called in, including Dan the Farter, a long-time guest with the Stern-coveted talent of being able to fart on command. On terrestrial radio, if his farts were "too wet," they were censored. That was the actual law laid down by the powers that were. Now they will be to Stern's juicy liking. Stern also played some old — and for once, uncensored — bits. In one, staffer Benjy Bronk engaged in role-play phone sex with a 66-year-old woman. He played the role of the horse: "Can you feel my hoofs on your back?"

The bit played out and the cast cackled at each mention of the term "horse cock." Stern was in his element.

But then writer Sal the Stockbroker delivered some new bits. Bits that seemed to fulfill the mainstream media's prophecy that the show will simply devolve into a carnival of "shits" and "fucks." So during the test Stern quickly implemented a kangaroo-court system — each time a cast member drops the f-bomb, they will get tea-bagged by show writer Richard Christy. Obviously a joke, but you could tell Stern was not going to let his staff run roughshod over the freedom he worked so hard to obtain. "When I curse, it's the right amount of cursing at the right time," he chastised members of his staff toward the end of the test run. Then he played bumpers for his show's new call-in number: 1-888-9-ASSHOLE.

Bill Jensen can be reached at bjensen@phx.com.

Link

Space Jock - Sirius Day One

Boldly going where no $%*!# has gone before

Stern proves he's worth every dime on first day on satellite radio

REVIEW
By Helen A.S. Popkin
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 10:01 a.m. ET Jan. 10, 2006

The eve of the first Howard Stern broadcast on Sirius Satellite Radio, three questions hung in the air. Without a common enemy to rage against, such as the FCC, will the show lose its spirit? Without the "decency" limits of terrestrial radio, will the show become overly gratuitous and unlistenable? And perhaps the most burning question: Did Howard and girlfriend Beth Ostrosky get married recently while on vacation in Mexico?

All three questions were answered before the 6 a.m. show hit its second hour. A fourth question, as to whether any of Stern's listeners would pay $12.95 a month to hear him, was answered by Christmas, when 180,000 new subscribers activated their accounts. It was confirmed on Sunday, January 8, the day before Stern's Sirius debut, when subscription telephone activation was delayed nine hours due to caller volume. New York City-area Best Buy and Circuit City stores sold out of Sirius receivers that same weekend.

The Stern-inspired spike boosted Sirius listeners to more than 3 million. Whether satellite radio can stay afloat remains to be seen. As to the quality of Stern's show, it remains as great (or as horrible — depending on individual tastes) as ever.

Yes, Stern is still irritable and potty-mouthed. The dynamic between his crew remains amicably contentious. Yes, there is cussing — enough to drown Stern in FCC fines had it been a terrestrial radio broadcast — though no more than an average conversation between teenagers on a city bus. No, Stern did not get married — though he pranked both his staff and audience by initially telling them he did. For the most part, it's business as usual. And yes, it's worth the money.

Stern's Sirius stations, Howard 100 and 101, have been on the air for months, featuring various shows of a "Howard sensibility." But the weekend before Stern's debut, the stations remained in relative radio silence – only a heart beat and occasional sound bites spanning Stern's career. "Join the Revolution! 1-9-06," scrolled across the Sirius receiver LED screen. By 6 a.m., "SHUT UP!" silenced the quickened heartbeat, and the 800 Stern phone number replaced the scroll, spelling an expletive with its corresponding letters.

The theme to "2001: A Space Odyssey" began, with flatulence as the lead instrument. Musical bodily functions are a staple of the Stern show, so it was business as usual. The familiar baritone of George Takei (Sulu on "Star Trek") announced the cast. After the introduction, Stern announced that Takei, the good-natured victim of many Stern-show pranks, is now the official show announcer.

Despite the much-ballyhooed high-tech studio, technical difficulties were somewhat a problem during the first few minutes of the show. Long-time Stern fans, however, are familiar with his constant kvetching over equipment. Stern's tinny earphones and comedian Artie Lange's microphone were quickly addressed while sound effects man Fred Norris played Tom Petty's "The Last D.J." Music provided the only breaks during the day, as the debut show was commercial free. (Following shows will feature six-minute commercial breaks per hour).

Stern addressed swearing right off, announcing that he would avoid expletives, as it gets old fast. "We are going to new places, and that does not mean the F-word," he said. "What it means is something really important. We can do anything we want." Within minutes of this announcement, Stern let a few expletives slip, and quipped that these particular words were no longer considered swearing.

The most blatant expletive abuse came from tapes the Stern show couldn't air while on terrestrial radio. Specifically, "Insider" host Pat O'Brien's notorious sexually explicit telephone message was played in its entirety.

Captain Janks, the most successful Stern crank caller, phoned in with recent recordings of expletive-laced calls to CNN. The tapes only emphasized Stern's contention that this stuff gets old. Frankly, Janks calls are much more creative when he operates within the constraints necessitated by terrestrial radio.

Stern, however, never approached the obscenity critics foresaw, and the show's energy never flagged. The most anticipated moment was possibly the best of the day. Stern casually announced to a caller that the rumors are true, he was recently married. His crew exploded (figuratively). Co-host Robin Quivers demanded the million dollars she wagered when Stern said many times before that he would never remarry. Lange wanted to know about a prenup, bemoaning that now he would have to get married too. Producer Gary "Baba Booey" Dell'Abate questioned why Stern would advise against marriage and then do it himself.

Finally, Stern ended the joke, announcing that he wasn't really married. But the topic didn't end there. At the 8:30 a.m. news conference, reporters (including members of the Howard 100 news team) repeatedly asked Stern whether he was married. For his part, Stern remained confident and articulate, and stuck to the talking points — that he does not feel 43 cents a day is too much to pay for satellite radio, given its many features, that Sirius subscriptions are soaring, and that satellite radio is the future. Of course, Stern also threw around the obligatory banter, making graphic sexual revelations and complementing female journalists on their cleavage.

Helen A.S. Popkin, a New York writer, hit every electronics store in the tri-state area this weekend looking for a Sirius receiver. Happily, some kindly dope-smoking young clerks in remote Brooklyn dug one out of their store basement.
© 2006 MSNBC Interactive

© 2006 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10776599/

'Together, we are STRONG'

by Sir Andrew MacCreary

For those who take the time to get to know a person, there is always something rewarding that is worth the wait. No matter your first impressions there is always more than meets the eye. Well I guess most of the time. It doesn't always happen, and sometimes you can be completely wrong, but first impressions can be deceiving. And if you take the time, most often, that patience is rewarded. When I first heard Howard on the radio it was just a bit under 7 years ago working at the Newbury Comics warehouse in Boston. A total shithole of a job standing in one place all day putting price stickers on CD's and the ONLY thing that got me through the morning, and got my day started off right, was listening to Howard and the rest of the gang on the show mercilessly make fun of Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky 'scandal'. I'd never laughed harder in my life, and as I was laughing I would notice a few things. One, every single radio in this massive warehouse tuned in and everyone was listening, and everyone had smiles on their faces and were laughing as hard as I was. Two, all the people I worked with there were probably some of the nicest, sweetest and most sincere people I had known up until then. I thought to myself - 'these arent the angry, sexist, racist, disgusting people I had expected to be fans of this show'. Ever since then all the people I knew or met who were fans of the show were probably the kindest people you could ever ask to meet. It was like a very large and strange family. I realized that what Howard was doing on his show was not making fun or degrading strippers, he wasn't insulting the mentally handicapped, he wasn't condoning racism, he wasnt belittling dwarfs (no pun intended). He relates to outcasts of society as he felt, and in many many ways still feels, to be one himself. Its ironic that to this day people who say hes a sexist, racist, hateful human being are the very ones who dont take the time themselves to get over their OWN prejudice, to see if their own hatred is justified. If they did, they'd see it isn't. His sense of humor isnt everyones cup of tea, but beneath that is a person who hasnt forgotten who and what got him where he is today. He is a loyal person to his friends, family and fans alike. How do I know? Listen to the honesty that comes out of his mouth everyday and you will see. The real anger, the real passion, the real humor, and the real love for people. He gives millions of outcasts (12 million listeners every day, 20 million a day at hs peak in the early to mid 90's) a place to vent every morning and to get through jobs they feel get them nowhere in life. He relates to his guests, he understands where they come, he comes from that same insecure place. He relates to his guests, his 'Whack Pack', his fans. Sure he busts their balls and teases them on their show, but friends do that to each other. I realized that Howard is very humane caring person, and listening to such things as when he talked a man down from killing himself on the GW Bridge in NYC years ago, or his 9/11 show breaking the news live in total disbelief just blocks away from the World Trade Center, or just his second to last show where he was choked up saying goodbye to members of the famous 'Whack Pack'. His show is a place for people who feel left out in some way, to come together, laugh, tease one another, and ultimately feel like they are part of something. I love and respect Howard Stern immensely not just for his humor, but for giving alot of people a strange sense of belonging to something, and something that brings joy to everyone who is in their own way, become a part of the show. He has said himself its like one big family of dysfunctional people, and 'together we are strong'.

Howard Stern - American Pioneer

Love him or hate him, Stern is a true pioneer
Radio star all but invented reality programming, freewheeling discourse
By James Sullivan
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 2:56 p.m. ET Dec. 14, 2005

Great American pioneers: Lewis and Clark, Charles Lindbergh, Rosa Parks … Howard Stern?

The talk-radio blowhard who deals in relentlessly off-color humor, celebrates bodily secretions with a four-year-old’s glee and surrounds himself with a misfit cast of self-professed drunks, stutterers, retards and angry dwarves?

This may horrify those already inclined to believe the country has fallen, culturally speaking, so far that it can’t get up, but: Yes. Howard Stern, a pioneer. Emphatically, yes.

Even long before he signed that colossal contract — reportedly in the neighborhood of $500 million for five years — to bring his outrageous shtick to the new medium of satellite radio, Stern was already a bona fide American pioneer. And not just as an entertainer, someone who brings laughs, however puerile the material, to an estimated 12 million people (20 million at his peak) each weekday morning. The original big-name shock jock is a tireless crusader for free speech, one of the basic tenets, of course, of Western democracy.

Sure, he’s going to Sirius (“Eh-eh-eh,” as they’ve been calling it on the old show, where he is forbidden to mention his new employer) for the money. More than that, however, he is defecting to make a very big point, after clashing one too many times with the titans of corporate radio and the Federal Communications Commission, which has made Stern the most heavily fined broadcaster in the agency’s history. Howard gets paid to say whatever’s on the tip of his tongue — every word of it — and he does not take kindly to anyone who would wash it out with soap.

Paying for his humor
He’s been fined for joking about masturbating to a picture of Aunt Jemima; for having a guest who played piano with his genitals; for a graphic conversation with the guy responsible for the Paris Hilton sex tape.

“I disapprove of what you say,” as the famous quote has it, “but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Often attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire, the line’s origins are uncertain. It may as well have been Howard, who can’t stand the French, anyway.

That tenacity has earned Stern a loyal, ardent following poised to follow him into a whole new format. He’s the Pied ****ing Piper of potty mouth, for **** sake.

“Love him or hate him, you can’t deny his success,” Ed Bradley declared in a surprisingly sympathetic profile on “60 Minutes” earlier this month. In the mid-‘90s, after building an empire for Infinity Broadcasting with blanket syndication, Stern declared himself the King of All Media. He launched a cable TV version of his radio program, published two runaway bestsellers and starred as himself in a feature film. He even ran for governor of New York, aptly enough, on the Libertarian Party ticket.

“Let someone see the full range of emotions,” Stern told Bradley, describing his basic broadcasting philosophy. At its core, that philosophy is an ongoing critique of the rigorous self-censorship that guides typical media presenters, be they talk show hosts, anchors, topical panelists — the full range of yakkers who address the American public over the airwaves and through the broadband connections.

For his absolute devotion to his own id, Stern is often compared with the late comedian Lenny Bruce. He’s also a kind of media-age, R-rated Holden Caulfield, still nurturing the unfettered impulses of adolescence while mocking the pervasive “phoniness” of American public life.

Stern’s move to satellite lends instant legitimacy to the developing medium. In that world, he’s already a D.W. Griffith, a Henry Ford. (Besides revolutionizing an industry, Stern shares with those predecessors an uncomfortable propensity for race-baiting.)

The inventor of reality programming
The list of cultural diversions that have arrived in the wake of Howard’s ascendance is long, and remarkably broad. Without Stern, we might have much less emphasis on fatuous celebrities. There would be no gross-out reality TV as we know it, much less suburban acceptance of strip-club culture, no Drudge Report or “Crank Yankers” or Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

A world without some of that dogged commitment to vulgarity might sound to some like an unattainable heaven. But a world without Howard would also, in all likelihood, be a world without our contemporary brand of freewheeling discourse, a world without both Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly and “The Daily Show”’s Jon Stewart. Outrage, from whichever side of the social or political spectrum, is Stern’s stock in trade — “there’s a general distrust, a lot of fear,” he told “60 Minutes” — and he has helped make it a national pastime.

There are times when Stern’s verbal fearlessness borders on surprising profundity. Often these are times of crisis, such as on September 11 or after the L.A. riots. Because he feels no compulsion to distance himself from his gut reaction, he can come across at moments like those, amazingly enough, as a lone voice of reason.

But the bottom line isn’t his occasional minuet with sincerity, or even that gargantuan salary. The bottom line is, Howard’s funny. Not funny all the time; sometimes not funny for hours on end. But he’s using a variation on the Black Power fist as the logo for his new venture. This from a man who readily admits that his trademark indignation comes from growing up one of the few remaining white kids in an increasingly black Long Island town.

In the words of one notorious segment from the Stern show archives, “It’s Just Wrong.”

And that’s what makes it funny.

James Sullivan lives in Massachusetts and is a regular contributor to MSNBC.com.
© 2005 MSNBC Interactive

© 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454035/from/RSS/

The Send-Off

A sallacious send-off for Stern

BY STEPHEN WILLIAMS AND ROBERT KAHN
STAFF WRITERS

It wasn't exactly "good night and good luck."

After 20 years as New York's premier radio personality, Howard Stern signed off WXRK-FM permanently yesterday morning, where the atmosphere inside the studio and on the sidewalk outside was more like a circus than a memorial.

Speechifying before a crowd of about 10,000 gathered under a steady drizzle, the King of All Media thanked his fan base of strippers, various garbage men, his loyal and long-serving K-rock crew, plus High Pitch Eric, Hook Nose Mike, and Jeff the Drunk. Then he shouted from the top of a double-decker bus, "Long live the Howard Stern Show!"

Posed like a conquering Roman tribune, Stern waved to the screaming throngs after the broadcast ended,andthe bus wound its way through midtown to an invites-only, post-show party at the Hard Rock Cafe, headlined by singer Sheryl Crow and hosted by Martha Stewart.

Stern will next be heard publicly Jan. 9 on Sirius satellite radio, beginning a five-year, $500 million gig. Stern, who essentially has been saying goodbye to terrestrial radio since he signed with Sirius 15 month ago, opened his show with a version of John Lennon's "Imagine." "Good morning, and welcome to the last show on terrestrial radio," he said.

The sound of "Taps" played in the background.

For the first couple of hours the show was Usual Howard -- at one point producer Gary Dell'Abate, who was chatting with fans on the street, told Howard that one woman in the crowd was wearing a trench coat and nothing else, and had been there since the previous night.

Various guests, including ex-stripper Amy Linn and the "King of All Blacks",showed up in the studio, as did Stern's family and his mother and father, Rae and Ben. The parents later appeared outside to huge cheers.

"We've had this glorious history together, all of us," Stern said on the air at one point, before leaving the small studio on the 14th floor for the last time. "I'm thinking all the way back, moving around the country, Detroit, Washington D.C... .we've influenced an entire generation of broadcasters."

Arriving after 9:30 a.m. on an elevated stage under a white tent set up on 56th Street, Stern spent about 20 minutes thanking the fans and others. He also targeted radio giant Clear Channel Communciations and the FCC, with whom he's battled over indecency violations through the years, and the "religious right."

Undeterred by the prospect of dismal weather and a possible transit strike, many well-wishers came from far away to mark the occasion.

"I had to be here for this," said Scott Land, who was the head puppeteer on last year's "Team America:World Police" movie. Land came from Los Angeles carrying a Howard marionette he had crafted for the event. "When this is over," he said, "it's over."

Some not-so-well wishers were there too, including a contigent of about 100 people from XM, Sirius' satellite rival.They chanted "Howard Stern's a bozo."

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

Last Days of Howard Stern

this is such a great editorial on Howard, nice to see someone can write something about him without having to throw some jab at him, and acknowledging what a ground breaking humane guy Howard really is. also describes how important his 9/11 broadcast was, so much so that Mayor Giuliani called his show to thank him for helping keeping his millions of listeners in NY alone calm and informed.

Last days of Howard Stern
Terrestrial radio's last star heads to satellite, leaving black hole in his place
By Helen A.S. Popkin
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 1:00 p.m. ET Dec. 14, 2005

The banner showed up last Saturday, spread across a brick building, shouting to every driver and passenger entering Manhattan via the Queensboro Bridge. The stark white background displayed a woodcut fist and black-stencil lettering — the official font of revolution. "Let freedom ring," the banner read.

"And let it be rung by a stripper."

The faux-guerilla marketing is just one of many billboards popping up across the United States, announcing radio superstar Howard Stern's move from the terrestrial airwaves to Sirius Satellite Radio.

Given his 12 million listeners and the media onslaught, Stern's departure is no secret. But the Queensboro banner is particularly bittersweet. Hanging less than two miles from both his soon-to-be vacated WXRK K-Rock booth and his new digs at Sirius, it drives home that Stern is leaving FM — and ringing its death knell as he goes.

Coverage of Stern's move has flooded both the newsstands and television. He was even the subject of a favorable Ed Bradley profile on "60 minutes." The FCC's tightening grip on the airwaves is well documented, including its liberal doling out of indecency fines which led to a serious crackdown on Stern show language and topics. And we know about his decision to choose Sirius over its competitor, XM, and the $500 million contract that helped get him there.

Media is always eager for a good Stern story, but this time the tone is different. Instead of the eye-rolling attention to the often purlieu bent of his show's humor, he's finally receiving widespread acknowledgement for his groundbreaking accomplishments and status as not only one of the best radio personalities ever, but the last of a dying breed.

Corporations such as Clear Channel have consolidated terrestrial radio into a single entity operating with an identical play list. An increasing number of stations don't even have DJs anymore. Stern's FM abandonment for the FCC-free satellite waves is more than a defining point in his career; it's a defining point in broadcast history.

Howard's humanity
With all the Stern coverage, past and present, about his fines and firings, how disgusting people find him, you don't hear a lot about why his show works.

I found out about 9/11 from Howard Stern. I was getting ready for work, listening to the Stern gang discuss Pamela Anderson's breasts, when the tone changed. From their Manhattan studio, they cold see that the World Trade Center was on fire. I thought it was a bit, some kind of joke. But the punch line never came. I turned on the TV and saw it too, the Twin Towers burning seven miles south of my apartment.

You hardly ever read this kind of stuff about Stern, but it's a big part of the reason Stern imitators fail when they ape the naughty talk and toilet humor. That morning, hearing news that makes you want to be with people, I felt that I was. I, along with millions of other listeners in New York City and the rest of the country, got our information via the humanity Stern projects that lesser DJs cannot.

Stern and crew stayed on the air, discussing the unfolding tragedy, relaying information as they got it. Unlike other broadcasters who fled the city, Stern and crew were on the air that day and the next, taking calls, talking to listeners, a consistent presence in an uncertain time.

Not that I listen to the show because Stern is sensitive. I listen because it makes me laugh so hard tears stream down my face and orange juice blows out my nose. That's his humanity too. One egghead theory posits that Stern's naughty talk, over-the-top misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc., provides a release for the politically-incorrect thoughts we all have. My theory: Second grade humor is still the funniest.

Admittedly, I don't care for some of the more overtly sexual portions of the show. When there's a bit involving women having their bodies appraised, I go brush my teeth. When I'm back, the group is on to something else, discussing the inequities of producer Gary "Baba Booey" Dell'Abate's marriage, comedian Artie Lange's drinking and eating habits, or whether receiving sexual favors from a man as opposed to one's mother in a life-or-death situation makes you gay.

I play it like the Al Anon slogan — take what I need and leave the rest. Still, it can feel isolating, being female, feminist and a Stern fan. An acquaintance told me in all sincerity that Hell had a place reserved for Howard Stern. This is the same woman who rode in a car with me guffawing to the verge of hyperventilation listening to Stern interview Snoop Dog.

What a godsend when Ira Glass, host of NPR's "This American Life," wrote a Howard Stern homage that appeared in the "New York Times" Sunday magazine. No liberal-minded naysayer could argue with the vaunted Glass. I wanted to run down the street, shoving the essay in the face of everyone who ever questioned my love for great radio.

On December 16, with much pomp and circumstance, Stern departs from FM radio, leaving behind any fan not willing or able to pony up for a satellite radio and the $12.95-pre-month subscription. His listeners will drop from 12 million to around 2.2 million, though it's expected that Sirius subscriptions will jump once Stern is in the house.

Though he won't appear on Sirius until January 9, Stern is already producing shows on his two Sirius stations, Howard 100 and Howard 101. As Stern told Bradley on "60 Minutes," these new shows will feature a Howard "sensibility," not to mention his regular cast of revolving misfits and miscreants. One such evening show, "Tissue Time," features a female phone sex professional, utilizing her skills to help male listeners "fall asleep." The other night featured a guest host, frequent Stern show guest, geriatric porn star Blue Iris.

The topic of a sweet old lady performing phone sex for listeners also brings a bandied question to the fore. Many speculate that without an entity such as the FCC to either reign him in or give him a foe to battle, Stern will lose his bite. Stern has pooh-poohed this theory, but there's also the question whether satellite radio will survive as a whole, seeing as regular radio is free. And his terrestrial days draw to an end, Stern is heard regularly complaining about his fans' failure to subscribe.

"Saturday Night Live" Weekend Update anchor Tina Fey was a bit more optimistic. Announcing Stern's move to Sirius in October, Fey read from the teleprompter, "Will listeners pay $13 a month to hear a stripper being hit on the butt with a fish?" Then, looking off camera towards an implied answer, "What's that? Oh, they will? Okay."

Helen A.S. Popkin lives in New York and is a regular Stern listener. However, she has never played "It's Just Wrong" or spun "The Wheel of Sex." She's a regular contributor to MSNBC.com.
© 2005 MSNBC Interactive

© 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10402977/page/2/

Howard and Me

another great editorial on Howard from Ira Glass

Howard and Me
Under new F.C.C. rulings, we are all shock jocks now.

By Ira Glass
First published in the New York Times, May 9, 2004.

Last night I dreamed about Howard Stern again. He was disappointed in me, and ordered me out of his car. In my dreams, I never live up to Howard's standards.

I host a show on public radio and when my listeners tell me they don't care for Stern, I always think it reveals a regrettable narrowness of vision. Mostly, they're put off by the naked girls. But Howard's invented a way of being on the air that uses the medium better than nearly anyone. He's more honest, more emotionally present, more interesting, more wide-ranging in his opinions than any host on public radio. Also, he's a fantastic interviewer. He's truly funny. And his on-air staff is cheerfully inclusive of every kind of person: black, white, dwarf, stutterer, drunk and semi-closeted gay. What public radio show has that kind of diversity?

Recently, in a show about testosterone, we stole the format Howard invented. On the air, our staff debated who among us probably has the most testosterone. Then we were tested. Then we opened the results on the air and tussled some more. That, in a nutshell, is the genius of Stern: you put all your regular characters into some situation; they argue; the situation takes a turn; they argue some more.

Sadly, lots of smart people shrug off the recent government crackdown on Howard Stern – and on other "indecency" – as if it were nastiness going on in some bad neighborhood of the broadcast dial, one that doesn't concern them, one that they'd never stoop to visit.

But the recent changes in F.C.C. rulings make me Stern's brother like I've never been before. Here are just a few of the things we've broadcast on our show that now could conceivably result in fines of up to a half million dollars for the 484 public stations who run the program: assorted curse words, people saying "damn" and "God damn" (a recent F.C.C. decision declared that "profane" and "blasphemous" speech would now come under scrutiny); various prison stories; and a very funny story by the writer David Sedaris that takes place in a bathroom and that violates all three FCC criteria for "indecency." It's explicitly graphic in talking about "excretory organs or activities"; Sedaris repeats and dwells on the descriptions at length, and he absolutely means to pander and shock. That's what makes it funny.

In the past, the F.C.C. would have considered context, the literary value or news value of apparently offensive material. And the agency still gives lip service to context in its current decisions. But when the commissioners declared in March that an expletive modifying the word "brilliant" (uttered by Bono at the Golden Globe Awards) was worthy of punishment, they made a more radical change in the rules than most people realize. Now context doesn't always matter. If a word on our show could increase a child's vocabulary, if some members of the public find something "grossly offensive," the F.C.C. can issue fines.

Because the whole process is driven by audience complaints, enforcement is arbitrary by design. Political expediency also seems to play a role. Stern has pointed out how, on a recent "Oprah" featured virtually the same words he uses but drew no fine. He urged his listeners to file complaints, to test whether the F.C.C. will only fine those it sees as vulnerable. Agency aides told The Hollywood Reporter that Oprah Winfrey was probably untouchable.

What's craziest about this new indecency witch hunt, is that it's based on the premise that just one exposure to filthy words will damage a child. (I've yet to hear of a scientific study proveing even that repeated exposure affects children.) Recently on my show, I asked one of the people who organizes write-in campaigns to the F.C.C., Brent Bozell, what harm it did anyone to see Janet Jackson's breast for a fleeting second, or to hear Howard use the phrase "anal sex," and he said it destroyed the "innocence of childhood." In our talk, Mr. Bozell used the phrase several times himself, presumably doing exactly as much harm to young people as Stern did on April 9, 2003.

That day, a brief conversation about the act on Stern's show drew $495,000 in fines. Mr. Bozell and I received no fines. No wonder Howard kicks me out of the car.