Howard Stern, Man’s Best Friend
A lifelong listener speaks of the joy Stern has brought to his life.
Howard Stern had been working at WNBC radio in New York for only a few days when I heard him for the first time in the kitchen of a childhood friend. I’d never heard anything like him. Most radio DJs had that phony announcer voice. He didn’t. But that was just the beginning. More than anyone else I’d ever heard on the radio, he was himself. He didn’t have a script or even a plan. Whatever was in his mind, he said it — unfiltered. He talked about his wife and parents and in-laws, ranted about politicians and celebrities who got on his nerves, and reacted to the news stories read by his newswoman, Robin Quivers. Sometimes his take on things was ludicrous (and he knew it), and sometimes it was deeply personal. And often — amazingly often, in fact — he put into words exactly what many of us listeners were thinking about the topic at hand but that none of us had ever heard anyone say publicly. And with remarkable frequency, what he said was absolutely hilarious.
Soon I was a regular listener, playing his afternoon drive-time show while I sat and wrote.
It was 1982. The years went by and brought many changes for me, but Howard — along with Quivers and his gifted sidekick Fred Norris — remained a constant. He saw me through several apartments and into and out of a long-term relationship. After he was fired by NBC in 1985 and became the morning man at WXRK, I got into the habit of setting my alarm for 6 a.m., when his program began. It helped me ease my way into the day.
Writing was, and is, my life — writing, mostly, about things I take very seriously. Listening to Howard every morning helped me keep a sense of humor about it all — a sense of the ridiculous, a sense of balance. From 1982 to 1998, when I moved to Europe, I had his show on, all four to five hours of it, almost every single weekday. In my entire life, I realized one day, there’s nobody whose voice I’ve listened to more. And nobody who’s given me more laughs.
I missed several years of Howard while making a new life for myself in Europe. But then fate came to my rescue. In December 2005, Howard — who by that point was syndicated across much of the United States — left what is now called terrestrial radio; the next month he, Quivers, Norris, and comedian Artie Lange (who joined the show in 2001) debuted on satellite radio; and a few months after that, it became possible for subscribers to listen to the show online outside North America. I subscribed pronto, and have been a faithful listener ever since.
What’s the appeal?
Well, look at it this way. Before Howard came along, your favorite comedian or comic actor might make you laugh a few times a year. The very best sitcom might give you a half-dozen real laughs during its weekly half-hour. A good Johnny Carson monologue might generate two or three chuckles a night. Not infrequently, Howard serves up several laughs a day. There have been occasions, too many of them to remember, when I’ve laughed almost constantly for ten or twenty or forty minutes at a stretch. Not infrequently I’ve laughed so hard that it hurt. That’s extraordinary. It’s an incredible addition to one’s quality of life to have been given that much laughter every weekday for so many years.
Even when Howard isn’t laugh-out-loud funny, he’s nearly always compelling. To be sure, there are whole areas of knowledge — art, literature, science, history — about which he knows virtually nothing. But that’s true, too, of a lot of people who focus on and excel in all kinds of specialized endeavors — from chess masters to world-class swimming champions. Part of Howard’s unique gift is that he can be positively brilliant about people. I almost want to say that he’s got a Shakespearean insight into them. Let’s just say he has uncanny interviewing instincts, perceiving things about the people he’s talking to that other interviewers wouldn’t pick up on and finding his way to places in seemingly unpromising interview subjects that are nothing less than revelatory. His nose for phoniness and posturing, his insistence on keeping it real, is always in evidence — along with his sense of the cosmic absurdity of life. There’s much more to him, in short, than the fart jokes and strippers for which he’s famous.
And the main person on whom he targets his scorn for phoniness is himself — for whether he’s interviewing someone, or interacting with his radio colleagues, or serving up one of his sublimely ridiculous rants, he’s always his own favorite subject. Who else in human history has placed his own self before us, naked, in all his human folly, for so many thousands of hours over so long a period? And at the heart of all his self-presentation — as all his fans fully understand — is an endless interplay between colossal egomania and a sense of the absurdity of all human pretensions. When Howard dubbed himself “King of All Media,” it was at once braggadocio and self-mockery.
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Bruce Bawer is the author of Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom. His website is at www.brucebawer.com.
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45 Comments
1. Leslie Davis:Yawn!
Jun 15, 2009 - 2:44 am 2. Leslie Davis:Double yawn!
Jun 15, 2009 - 2:46 am 3. Gay Specht:This is so sad to think that your conscious and subconscious mind is fill with words images and thoughts of a person who has no dignity for others or himself.
Jun 15, 2009 - 3:42 am 4. Blaine Forester:I am sorry but when I think how people are drawn to senseless banal which degrades others( in my personnel opinion) is wasted time and detrimental for living a life that is worthy of praise to Almighty God.
It doesn’t matter what someone thinks or says but it does matter what God thinks.
When we all stand before Him on Judgement day what reason would we have to enter into His home, Heaven?
Life is really about living a life that brings praise and worship to our Creator and honoring Him.
Not in filthy talk and bringing others down with degrading circumstances.
According to a knowledgeable show business acquaintance, all that nonsense about his parents, and his childhood, is also a comedic bit. He is the bastard love child of two rather famous show business personalities. His looks illustrate his real parentage. He is the bastard love child of Joey Ramone and Tiny Tim.
Jun 15, 2009 - 5:10 am 5. Hughes in Kentucky:Howard and his show is so great because he says what he really thinks. You might not always agree with him (I disagree vehemently with him on many issues), but the guy is the antithesis to much of the politically correct prattle that passes for conversation and entertainment in our society. Howard is not for everyone, but if you can deal with the subject matter (which is really no different from what people discuss in their personal lives daily), you will find an entertainer that is vibrantly refreshing and unlike anything on radio.
Jun 15, 2009 - 5:55 am 6. Christian Toto:It’s tough for a conservative to admit to loving Stern. I agree with most of your points, but sadly they describe the Stern of yore. Today’s model is nowhere near as enjoyable as he once was. His self deprecation is a pose – he spends vast amounts of time tearing through anyone who critiques him, all the while his backup crew shouts in unison to his defense. He takes every other week off – not to mention his Friday work schedule – or lack thereof. His politics are just short of imbecilic – reflexively liberal without the smarts to back it up, but occasionally so conservative it makes a GOPer blush with shame.
He now coddles the celebrities he used to mock.
And yet … there’s enough of the “Old Howard” left to make the show entertaining. There’s still no one else out there like him, and he’s always be shrewd in surrounding himself with bizarre and talented sidekicks – Artie Lange is the best thing to ever happen to the show.
Jun 15, 2009 - 7:15 am 7. Telly:Is this for real?
Jun 15, 2009 - 7:15 am 8. Harry Truman:and here I was hoping for another insightful article by Michael Ledeen, Kimball or Simon, Victor Davis Hanson on the critical issues of the day…
Jun 15, 2009 - 7:17 am 9. The Shadow:I sometimes think that the islamic world looks at the gutterspeak spewing out from some in the west as a justification for their insanity.
He is a jerk whose humors appeals to 13 year olds
Jun 15, 2009 - 7:28 am 10. Bart:Yep, great street level intellectual content for the common person tired of the politically correct sanitized renderings from the rest of America’s media. How can we ignore a grown man in a garish yellow costume, flying on a wire down to a stage, with his ass uncovered, emitting a series of “farts”, glorifying himself as “Fartman”? I surmise this is political theater at its finest and his satire was exposing the actual value of what we are exposed to each day. Great.
I guess his obsession with sex and porn in all of its glory is a representation of what he really thinks we think about constantly. While I remain a hetrosexual male with the normal urges associated with being one, I do spend most of my days preoccupied with other things like making a living, enjoying sports, reasonably intelligent conversations with others on political issues, religion, and other interesting topics. Maybe its my age but I do think I can get through an hour without devoting most of it to thoughts about sex.
Jun 15, 2009 - 7:37 am 11. Delia:Frat boy attitude from a wanker born in 1954?
Lame. No talent. Not funny.
I hope his kidneys fail along with his nutz.
Jun 15, 2009 - 7:58 am 12. karlstro1:yee gads!
Jun 15, 2009 - 8:44 am 13. Harry:I was one of Howard’s early fans back when I lived in NYC and listened to him afternoons on WNBC. I can still recall his opening theme song as performed by the “Double O Zeroes.”
I got my Sirius subscription just to hear Howard.
I dropped my Sirius subscription when I realized I no longer cared about Howard.
For Howard, it’s still 1985. But it’s 2009 for me, and Howard’s perpetual adolescence has worn thin for me. I’ve grown and changed, but he hasn’t. I’m more concerned now about the exploding federal deficit than I am about who wins “Lesbian Dial-A-Date.”
Thanks for the memories, Howard, and best of luck in the future.
Jun 15, 2009 - 8:50 am 14. Spider79:Bet you $20 Mr. Bawer still hides his Playboy’s under his matress too.
Howard Stern….. Really?
Jun 15, 2009 - 9:09 am 15. scott:Disgusting.
Jun 15, 2009 - 9:53 am 16. Osprey1:#13 Harry Nailed it…
I am a XM subscriber and recently due to the Sirus/XM merge they had a “free week” of Howard for one week I was able to once again flip the dial and hear Howard at his best. But a funny thing happened, I was bored, and while some of the things said were entertaining, my first comment to my wife was “he has been off public radio for 5 years and what I listened to was the EXACT same rap that I heard way back when, it could have been from ‘92″. It was a shame that he was lost cause he was funny for a short break from reality, but in listenting to him again after all this time I found that I was not missing much, cause while I had moved on, Howard hasn’t.
Jun 15, 2009 - 11:09 am 17. tim maguire:Did I read that right? Did you really compare Howard Stern to Jesus? Oprah, ok, she’s another big ground breaking talker, but Jesus?!?
I used to be a Howard fan and agree with much of what you say when you’re not way over the top (no, he doesn’t deserve credit for gay acceptance), but he largely stopped mattering when he went satellite. Nobody listens to or talks about him anymore and if Chevy Chase attended his wedding, well, that’s something I didn’t need to know.
Jun 15, 2009 - 12:14 pm 18. Deb:Stern is just another fouled mouthed, over-aged frat boy who makes a darn good living by degrading women to the degree that it’s become acceptable to do so. Polluting the airwaves w/ porn & sorry “humor”(saying the only time a woman should use her mouth is for a b.job or putting bags over women’s heads, ala Iraq’s Abu Garb, to rate her body despite her butter face is not funny & demeaning, to say the least.) Articles like this only makes degrading women more mainstream & acceptable…for shame.
Jun 15, 2009 - 1:07 pm 19. Phillips:I bookmarked Pajamas Media only last week. I’d been turned off by the name, figuring it was just another bunch of jokers playing journalist, but read a couple of good articles so changed my mind.
Clearly my original instincts were correct. Go back to bed with your Playboys and kleenex box, Mr. Baw, and try not to mess the sheets. Your mom’s got enough of your laundry to do.
Jun 15, 2009 - 1:25 pm 20. Teacher in Texas:I have always been pretty indifferent to Stern, although I did admire how he got away with saying things that a lot of us felt and were too cowed by the PC establishment to say. My favorite was Stern’s take on Rodney King; “The problem was they didn’t beat this guy hard enough!”
As for his tv show on E? Oh my God, talk about boring and totally idiotic. I can’t see any adult with the IQ over that of an eggplant finding this good televsion. Mostly it was an introduction before we had a slicone enhanced young, collagen injected, grossly overpainted “model” or “actress” step up to the mike. It was then about two minutes of small talk before Howard would begin, “Take your top off”….”now take your panties off”…now shake your a##”…”wow are your teats real?” While the girl went through all these gyrateions pixilated for regular cable. I guess horny twelve year old boys who had no internet access and whose parents didn’t have basic cable thought this arousing but, I can’t see it.
Jun 15, 2009 - 2:07 pm 21. Tim:From the comments I’ve read, this is why the GOP is losing younger voters. The vast majority of the young people I interact with would not call themselves liberal, but their view of the GOP is that it is a bunch of humor old people. As a result they vote democrat.
GOPer’s need to lighten up and not take Stern so seriously. His show is great entertainment and when I disagree with what he is saying, it is still great entertainment.
Also for the poster (tim mcguire) who said no one listens to stern anymore, he has more listeners each week than Leno, Conan, letterman, or any other tv talk show host. So I guess they are irrelevant too.
Jun 15, 2009 - 2:58 pm 22. Tri Geek:I had heard that Stern had a degree from Harvard, and my first reaction was, what a “waste” of a good education. Now that I see the bull that Obama is pulling, I am starting to wonder if being a Hardvard grad is all it is cut out to be. Maybe Stern is actually a “perfect example” of a Harvard education.
Jun 15, 2009 - 3:19 pm 23. SteveB/Colorado:#3 Gay Specht: “Life is really about living a life that brings praise and worship to our Creator and honoring Him.” Are you for real?
#11 Delia: “I hope his kidneys fail along with his nutz.” Somehow, that comment doesn’t align with your anti abortion rhetoric on other PJM threads. Or maybe it does.
#20 Teacher in Texas: “As for his tv show on E…..I can’t see any adult with the IQ over that of an eggplant finding this good television.” Like several other posters, I don’t agree with all that Howard spouts off, but I do enjoy the show when I catch it. Oh yes, my IQ is 131.
#21 Tim: “From the comments I’ve read, this is why the GOP is losing younger voters. I would agree with that. On the other hand, we can always entertain younger voters with the “verbal farts” often coming out of the mouths of Rush and Newt. If those two are the future of the GOP, we have bigger problems than we thought in our party.
Jun 15, 2009 - 4:32 pm 24. gordo:Stern’s appeal evades me. He is crass and sophomoric and delights in gross locker room jokes. The fact that he is popular worries me, but that’s just me.
Jun 15, 2009 - 5:00 pm 25. Tri Geek:Steve B: Clearly you have never listened to Rush. He present an entertaining show that is highly educational. Whenever I hear guys like you slam Rush, I automatically know you are just spouting the lib line. If you take the time to listen, even if you don’t agree, you have to admit he presents a well-thought out argument, and presents his views clearly and concisely. No hate, just reason. If you discount Rush’s views as “verbal farts” you are not as educated as you think.
Jun 15, 2009 - 6:17 pm 26. Immanuel Goldstein:I heard about Stern for years before I got to hear his show live. First night, Stern and his crew are laughing and laughing and laughing until tears were running down their faces. About What? About nothing I could figure out. Second night it was fart jokes. Third night it was lesbians. Fourth night it was him making fun of some retarded person they were goading into making an ass of himself. Fifth night he was talking about wanking off to online porn in the basement of his house. None of it was funny to me, and I’m not a prude. His whole show is aimed at adolescent boys with acne and scared of girls. But I guess some adults like it.
Jun 15, 2009 - 8:27 pm 27. thegreatbeast:I’ve never seen anything like this on PJM. It is very disappointing, utter trash. Stern did strike me as funny many years ago but then I started questioning just what I listening to.
Jun 15, 2009 - 10:00 pm 28. Oscar the Grump:Stern, in my book, also contributed to the death of some young junkie girl who was the first ‘Miss Howard Stern, the troubled Dana Plato and Hank the Angry Dwarf. Is Stern responsible for these deaths? Of course not, but he greased the rails for these people on their way to Hell.
I quit listening to Howard when I heard him belch on the air. I think that people who pay to listen to him are the biggest fools in the world.
Jun 15, 2009 - 10:42 pm 29. Richard Cook:Uhh Tim…we aren’t taking Stern too seriously. We are not even taking him at all. If taking Stern too seriously is why the GOP is losing voters, the opposition can have the country. ‘taint worth it.
Jun 16, 2009 - 12:36 am 30. Jake:SteveB: An IQ of 131 and YOU’RE PROUD OF THAT?! Now while that is an IQ far above the average, you’re not exactly mensa material with a number like that. And you close your post with that little nugget, as if it’s the rimshot that’s going to lend more credibility to your post. Are you for real?
Jun 16, 2009 - 9:27 am 31. Tina Trent:Wow. _Stealing Jesus_ seems like an entirely different book to me, knowing it was written while Howard Stern played in the background.
For a decade, the only common ground I shared with one brother was our appreciation, infantile as it may have been, of Howard Stern. I cannot defend it or explain it, but there it is.
Oprah might be less enthusiastic about the comparison here, though.
Jun 16, 2009 - 9:39 am 32. Delia:23. SteveB/Colorado:
“#11 Delia: “I hope his kidneys fail along with his nutz.” Somehow, that comment doesn’t align with your anti abortion rhetoric on other PJM threads. Or maybe it does.”
~
Hey, SteveB:
Are you saying only ‘liberals’ can make crass jokes about kidney failure? BTW–my I.Q. is 157–Big-EFFING-DEAL.
Jun 16, 2009 - 11:08 am 33. Roderick Reilly:Wow. The writer devoted TWO web pages worth of content to this?
Stern is a depraved idiot who deserves a punch in the mouth.
Jun 16, 2009 - 1:18 pm 34. Will:What an idiot,a true liberal with the IQ of maybe 60.
Jun 16, 2009 - 3:21 pm 35. anon:Once again right-leaning readers illustrate that they have no sense of humor, don’t know comedy when they hear it and are incapable of writing a clever comment. Congrats to Bawer for writing a thoughtful piece, the content of which he’s familiar with and has experience and insight into, which is not necessarily the case of most bloggers and commenters on this site.
Jun 16, 2009 - 6:59 pm 36. hangnail:He’s a degenerate cluck who needs to suck on an exhaust pipe!
Jun 16, 2009 - 9:13 pm 37. hangnail:#34: Will You’r way to high on the IQ. His shoe size is higher than his IQ.
Jun 16, 2009 - 9:19 pm 38. Mikind:Howard Stern…didn’t he steal his schtick from Alex Bennett/Ben Schwarzmann??? Alex was the best but Howard found paydirt in the gutter. Oh well.
Jun 16, 2009 - 9:40 pm 39. Tim:I’m pretty sure most the people talking about IQ’s don’t know much about IQ scores. Genius level is considered two standard deviations out side of the mean. The mean IQ is 100, so genius level is considered 132 and up. 157 would be near Einstein levels, so I have trouble believing that score. Taking an internet test is not a reliable source of an IQ score.
Regardless, Younger people have different mores than the GOP. If the GOP wants to attract young voters, it needs to pay a lot more attention to the libertarian wing of the party and not the evangelical wing of the party.
Jun 17, 2009 - 6:42 am 40. SteveB/Colorado:#25 Tri Geek: “Clearly you have never listened to Rush…..I automatically know you are spouting the lib line….” Actually, I have listened to Rush in the past and still occasionally catch his show to see if his level of professionalism has gone up. Sadly, I’m always disappointed. Another reason to listen to & watch Bill O’Reilly, a real conservative commentator.
#30 Jake: “….and you close your post with that little nugget…..are you for real?” And your concern is……? You’re unable to rationally deal with anyone who criticizes Rush & Newt?
Tim #39: “If the GOP wants to attract younger voters, it needs to pay a lot more attention to the libertarian wing of the part and not the evangelical wing of the party.” Well put. Always good to see someone actually gets it. I’ll offer further that guys like Governor Mitch Daniels, Reps. Mike Coffman or Mark Kirk; not Newt or Rush; are the future of the party.
Jun 17, 2009 - 11:58 am 41. Cybergeezer:Yea; You’re right; He does act like a spoiled pup that tears up the furniture and craps on the living room carpet when you leave him home alone.
Jun 17, 2009 - 2:31 pm 42. Cybergeezer:This useless, gutless, clueless, big mouth punk once had a terrorist on his show that kept pulling a rip cord on his vest to emit farts in the studio; Sweeet!
Jun 17, 2009 - 2:35 pm 43. Tim:Yes Cybergeezer, and Rock and roll is the music of the devil and The rap music is rotting kids brains and makeing them criminal.
Jun 17, 2009 - 4:33 pm 44. Cybergeezer:43. Tim:
Jun 18, 2009 - 6:39 am 45. Stephen:I’ll bet you never miss a satellite!
I clearly understand what Mr. Bawer means when he says that he missed Howard during his time in Europe. I have been in Afghanistan for almost a year now, and aside from friends and family, the one thing I miss the most, is the Opie and Anthony show. You might not know their whole story, but Howard(Mr. Libertarian ultra fee speech man) went to the heads of Viacom when he worked for them, and forced them to censor Opie and Anthony, and any other DJ who talked negatively about the Howard Stern show. He has always been deathly afraid of any competition even when it was from young DJ’s that looked up to him. He is a hypocrite in that sense, and thus can not call himself a true libertarian, nor can he ever claim to be some type of martyr for freedom of speech.
Over the past seven to eight years his show has become dull, and his level of energy has dropped beyond belief. Couple this with the fact that he doesn’t allow dissenting opinion from his staff, and you have yourself a little four hour a day totalitarian radio show.
If it is pure laughter, and a bashing of politcal correctness you seek, Opie and Anthony(along with comedian Jim Norton) offer so much more than Stern could ever dream of. I urge you Mr Bawer(by the way, “Surrender” is fascinating) to try out Sirius channel 197 or XM 202 for a month.
Jun 24, 2009 - 9:18 am