In answer to some points Woodstock brings up:(1) Woodstock says: "BTW, on All in the Family, Archie Bunker was a racist, but he had three family members who weren't, and who pointed out the error of his ways. Who is doing that on the Stern show? I don't see the parallel."
>> I say: The "straight man" on Howard is Robin. She is the Voice of Reason - as symbolized by the violins and French horns playing in the background during many of her lines.
Maybe I'm stupid, I don't know - but that joke where they've played the SAME violin and french horn track they've been playing for the past 10 years whenever Robin comes on - it STILL cracks me up every time.
I guess it's still fresh because Howard is about the ONLY commercial media person who does this game, exposing the powerful emotional effect of sound effects.
(I also love the game shows he occasionally has where he plays laugh tracks and applause tracks every time the contestant gets something right. It's so fascinating to me the way the EXACT same wave of emotion comes over me just like when I watch the same a sort of crap on TV. I feel like Pavlov's dog. Howard is the ONLY major media person who exposes these levers of broadcasting technology so openly - it's kinda scary.)
Some people might say the only reason he still gets a rise out of me is because I've never owned a TV, and I never listen to anything on radio since around the late 80s - EXCEPT Howard Stern, which I've taped a lot over the past few years.
It's always a shock when I pass within range of one of the emitters of non-Howard corporate mainstream media. Just today while I was standing in line in the Dollar Store I almost had a nervous breakdown because the line was taking forever and they were blaring the radio at those poor cashiers and me and there was some kind of COMMERCIAL on.
It was the most nerve-wracking thing that's happened to me in weeks. (Yes, I'm very sensitive.) I nearly threw my four boxes of Combat on the floor and ran out of there - but I persevered.
And it made me think of the way Howard does his commercials. Is anyone gonna mention that here? Does he get any points for those ad-lib-sounding, off-the-cuff, irreverent commercials he bullshits his way through, dutifully rattling off his cue cards while he's obviously bored out of his mind, farting, daydreaming, getting side-tracked, lying through his teeth - so that he can take home his millions?
(And does this remind you of anyone else in the media you know and hate?)
(2) Woodstock says: Howard does the same horrible stuff that Simon does on "American Idol".
>> I say: Actually Simon is just mean, whereas Howard's critique of his guests is much more nuanced, interlarded with his classic self-deprecation and Woody Allen-esque insecurity - which mean, one-dimensional Simon would never dare let us see.
Again, Howard's a real person, human and vulnerable and complex. He has LOTS of imitators who usually manage to hone in only on his meanness - but just because they miss all his other dimensions, doesn't mean that we should go back to Howard and pretend he's missing those dimensions too.
You know he's a lot more than mean.
Yeah - Howard's mean - but so is Jack Nicholson and John Malkovich and Christopher Walken - and when Brian DePalma or Quentin Tarantino or Mel Gibson do some movie with a really mean character doing really mean or even violent things to a minority we don't expect the CEO to all of his own accord show up in front of Congress the next day like a shivering poodle apologizing all over the place to some asshole politicians who don't really give a damn anyways about the other thousands of hours of obscenity and violence and humiliation on our airwaves.
But when the top shock jock turns his millions of moronic minions away from voting for the Chickenshit-Commander-in-Chief - then the Chief Executive Officer of the top media outlet has to fire him and run to Congress and get a star on this forehead. How nauseating is that??
What about that John Hogan guy, CEO of Clear ChannelWhat ABOUT that John Hogan guy, CEO of Clear Channel?
That chickenshit bootlicking buttfucked whoreboy.
How many millions of dollars has HE made off of Howard over the past few years till now he suddenly wakes up - now that Howard dished his precious AWOL cokehead cheerleader commander-in-chief just like those nasty Dixie Chicks did?
All of a sudden John Hogan decides to says he's sorry for potty-mouthed Howard and he'll NEVER let him on his big radio channel again until he promises to toe the line.
Who the hell does this John Hogan guy think he is - hassling the Dixie Chicks all over the country and now hassling Howard.
John Hogan, like George W. Bush, is just another spoiled-brat BULLY who doesn't know how to play well with others and throws a tantrum when he doesn't get his wayWhat's UP with that John Hogan guy anyways???? THAT'S the real story here - that's the "Man Bites Dog" aspect that makes this a news item.
Some caller calls Howard and makes a crass, offensive remark for the umpteenth time in a couple of decades - big fucking deal. But Howard for the FIRST TIME IN TWO AND A HALF YEARS happened to say DOWN WITH GEORGE BUSH (BEFORE that caller called in - AFTER Bush came out for the homophobia amendment) - and THAT'S when they decide to make Howard a "sacrificial lamb".
Remember the ONLY paper Bush gave an interview during that recent visit to London when NOBODY wanted him around was... the UK Sun, owned by his right-wing buddy Rupert Murdoch.
John Hogan is a big donator to Bush - and he's got a lot of rules he'd like to see Michael Powell ram through for him at the FCC.
Listen to his craven testimony today in front of Congress. If you ever wanted a definition of a toady, a sycophant, an ass-wipe, a brown-noser, it's John Hogan VOLUNTARILY testifying in front of Congress about Howard Stern this week, VOLUNTARILY apologizing for the things Stern said, "taking full responsibility" for everything Howard did.
In the venerable American tradition of treading the fine line between the euphemism and the toiletMore than any other media figure, Howard is actually more aware, observant and glibly euphemistic of American media's obscenity rules as codified over the years by the FCC (his standard instant substitutes for the FCC's "Seven Dirty Words" are a staple of his shtick), "community standards of decency", convention and other traditions which govern what can and cannot be said in corporate media.
That's one of the jokes on his show - it's kind of a slow, building one you only notice over time after taking in a lot of episodes - it's just one of the many rarefied connoisseur tastes of Howard that a casual listener probably wouldn't have time to notice as they skittered past on the dial.
Keep your eye on the ball, kiddiesIf you let the picture get complicated by Janet's boob and Bubba the Luv Sponge's firing and one day's caller to Howard INSTEAD OF KEEPING YOUR EYE ON THE BALL WHICH IS THE FIRST AMENDMENT, HELLO? the Ashcrofts and the Michael Powells and the Karl Roves and the Scott McClellans and the Andy Cards and the Charlotte Beers and the Karen Hughes and the Rupert Murdochs and the Peggy Noonans and the Judith Millers and the Thom Friedmans and the William Safires and the Bob Novaks and the Howie Kurtzes and let's not even mention the obvious propaganda mouthpieces like Drudge and Hannity and O'Reilly and Rush - and all the other bleating media whores are gonna be able to slip one past you.
Just. Say. No.
Every time you roll over and let these BULLIES kick you in the teeth - like the started doing most visibly in November 2000 - they get bolder.
Quack, quack.
We have a Constitition with a First Amendment FOR SITUATIONS JUST LIKE THIS. We have an FCC which is SUPPOSED to be limiting media consolidation PRECISELY IN ORDER TO PREVENT DISASTERS LIKE JOHN HOGAN from happening. The letter and spirit of American law says that what John Hogan is doing is wrong. The letter and spirit of American law says we are supposed to protect voices like Howard's - and case law and legal opinions by our finest judges (I'm too tired to google on up now) warn us that the most TEMPTING times to fail in our defense of the First Amendment will be for marginal, questionable voices like Howard's.
You have been prepared for this situation by the words of the Founding Fathers and our finest judges. How can anyone drop the ball when the de facto Minister of Propaganda shuts down a dissenting voice - how can you just roll over and take it and say "Good riddance, never really liked him anyways"?
People spoke up for William Burroughs and people spoke up for James Joyce and people spoke up for Vladimir Nabokov in situations like this and Howard Stern is no different.
I might not be the best art-critic in the world, but I know art when I see it, and Howard is art - and Rush and Michael Salvage AREN'T.
The Constitution - AND case-law precedent - says you can't censor a work that has redeeming artistic valueYou can't ban a work if it's not obscene and if it has some redeeming artistic value and it is not entirely prurient in nature. Yes Howard gets as close as he can to violating all of these criteria but the part of the truly breathtaking spectacle is to see how close he gets - how he skates along a thin line of the "permissible", the "sayable" in American media which so many other blithering media figures routinely stumble and scuffle all over and completely ignore (and often restrict).
Howard is not obscene. In charting the limits of the allowable in American mass media, he is creating a unique and enduring work - a kind of meta-work, the same way Versace or Armani (or their art directors) had special dispensation to make sure we remembered what a handsome young person could look like and Madonna (or her writers and producers) had to make sure we remembered what hot sex could look like or Andy Warhol (or his employees) had special dispensation to remind us of what could the subject of a work of art could look like. Artists working at this meta level invent genres and typically engender hordes of imitators - such as Ralph or Britney or that other factory-artist whose name escapes me now.
= = =
Mass media is SO boring, and you know itIf we fell into the rut of believing in rags like People with their "Sexiest Man of the Year" concept and winners - we'd probably fall into a deep depression. Looks like a lot of people have.
= = =
Every asshole has a right to be heard - or at least shut down by the listeners via the advertisers - not by some chickenshit asswipe back-scratching log-rolling CEO twitA bitter old uptight white lady Susan Sanford in an Alabama paper this week said that gays AND PEOPLE WHO FIND THEM AMUSING should be put to death and is her boss going, tail between his legs, in front of Congress to apologize and dock her pay? No. Michael Savage told a caller who was gay few months ago to "Go catch AIDS and die!" - and the CEO of Clear Channel was just fine with that, didn't feel the need to run to Congress and apologize for his employee's or supplier's outburst in that case.
Every asshole has a right to be heard in this corporatocracy unless enough listeners get together and boycott the advertisers. (If that bitter old uptight white lady Susan Sanford at the Alabama paper was saying Muslims or African-Americans should be killed, then maybe we'd see her boss apologizing to the authorities, but as it is, she took her cue from our commander-in-chief and picked on the fags, so there's no authority to apologize to.)
But let a bitter old uptight white man make fun of George Bush on the top-rated yahoo show in the country - now THAT we have to shut down."Our glorious simian heritage"As Burroughs said, "In order to appear stronger, a wannabe leader baboon will pick on another baboon, one perceived as weaker. Oh, well, it's all part of our glorious simian heritage."
Howard did two-way, networked, human conversation - like the Internet would become - before ANY one else in the one-way, hierarchical corporate mediaHoward Stern's show is a singularity in corporate media - there literally are ultra-snobs (such as myself) who cannot listen to ANYTHING else in the corporate media besides his show, if it's on (which they often tape) - there are literally people who think that ALL interviewers aside from Howard are boring and cardboard and full of it.
There are people who CANNOT listen to a radio - CANNOT join a gym if they play a radio - will break up with a potential mate if they use a clock-alarm - and yet these same people will set an alarm to get up early to tape Howard and delete the commercials - before the days of TiVo.
Such people are starting to get proven right now that the blogosphere is rising up and pointing out that most media mouthpieces are hustlers and whores. (Notice how deftly *I* can deflect charges of "misogyny" - of up the ante of philogyny. It's really quite a skill few share!)
Howard anticipated the Internet. Working within the broadcast world, he anticipated the shape the post-broadcast world would take: disintermediated, human, networked rather than mediated, corporate and hierarchical.
His premises are:
(1) All the intelligence is at the ends - there's no intelligence in the middle.
http://www.isen.com/stupid.htmlhttp://www.reed.com/Papers/EndtoEnd.html(2) Anybody can subscribe to OR publish content. (Like Andy's "15 minutes of fame.")
Anybody can become famous - Stuttering John, Wendy the Retard, Hank the Angry Dwarf, Baba Booie, Scott the Engineer, Tom Chiusano, Howard's wife, and mother and girlfriend. ("Misogynist.")
All they need is someone to put them on the air and keep them on the air no matter how badly they screw up. Look at people like Ben Stein, Dennis Miller, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham... (I'm not a TV watcher - honest, a little here and there at friends' - so I'm weak on celebrities.)
Robin Givens was an Army nurse with a pretty speaking voice and a quick wit and a consistent moral outlook - and now she's a radio star raking in millions a year.
Can you miss for one second the fact the message of the show is partly about the averageness and diversity of the stars on it?
Can you forget for one second how much of a relief it is to hear REAL normal people on the air being themselves and talking off the cuff after so many hours of Hannity in his $3,000 suit ranting about nothing and CLAIMING to be "just a regular guy" - and Connecticut patrician Bush with his Texas cowboy boots and phony southern drawl posing at Daytona or in a flight suit or throwing a baseball like a big sissy at a baseball game?
(3) Networked communication is more interesting than hierarchical.
http://www.worldofends.com/(4) The most effective messages and voices and conversations - be they editorial or commercial - are always two-way and human and messy and alive - never one-way and corporate and slick and soulless.
http://www.cluetrain.comThere is a VERY significant groundswell of reaction against centralized corporate media and in favor of networked "human" media. The internet is one example of this, but Howard in his way was an earlier example of this too. Howard is a VERY important voice in the American media, and when he turns against Bush (as he has) he's just the type of guy corporations are gonna censor.
As such, human Howard is the antithesis of corporate Clear Channel.
Have you ever seen the jokes about black people on BET or about Jewish people in Woody Allen movies?
Howard jokes about oversexed frustrated straight peopleIt's really sad that some DUers fall for the line that Howard's "misogynist" or "racist". Yes his humor is pretty nasty and raunchy and those areas, but you can feel the empathy with Howard - in a way you can't with a Michael Savage or a Rush Limbaugh, who are just plain mean.
In his own way, Howard has a certain minority status (his small dick, his big nose, his out-of-shape body, his Jewishness, his intellectualism, his awkwardness around pretty women) which makes his poking fun at minorities a very complex parody of other weaklings who try to build themselves up by doing the same. (Again - any names come to mind?)
The American Way:
Let the people who get it get it. Let the people who don't get it change the channelLike any jokes, Howard doesn't work if you have to explain him to people who don't "get it".
In fact, his brand of humor is diametrically opposed to intellectualism and explication - so not many university professors have taken up the subject of Howard in their post-modern humor studies departments.
Believe me, books could be written about Howard's humor - many people think he's one of the of the more steadily creative comedian workhorses out there, pumping out stuff day after day for so many hours for so many years, showing his virtuosity within the limitations of his format and style and the ever-present FCC guidelines.
But humor is best when it isn't explicated - and Howard's pretty much seen to that by making sure that his content is so coarse nobody would even think to analyze his form in a refined setting.
I wouldn't carry on like this for any one else on the air except Howard (well, maybe DAN Savage too - and he's pretty mean, but again, for a reason and with nuance). Simon is boring - he's just mean, and it's an act. Rush and the other Savage (Michael) are boring - they're mean, and they mean it.
Howard sounds mean, but if you listen to him for a while you see that he isn't. You feel the love and the pain and a whole lot of other human emotions you hardly ever feel with any other media personality. (Most of them, like Oprah, are so phony they make me want to barf.)
Changing one's mind about RosieToday I listened to Howard for the first time in a few months.
These days I'm up so late on the web these days enjoying asynchronous, two-way non-corporate (admittedly mostly textual) media now I have a hard time TiVo-ing in old-school synchronous two-way, oral media - even if it's un-corporate as Howard's. He does have a few commercials and I'm so used to Mozilla now where I don't even get pop-ups.
It was interesting hearing him talk about Rosie O'Donnell. He used to call her "Pumpkin Head" years ago, and never really liked her. I never really liked her either - she was just another phony talk show host.
Last couple days I've been feeling a little more mellow towards Rosie - after hearing her talk about how a right of "spousal confidentiality" would have helped her a lot in her recent lawsuit, where the prosecutor forced her girlfriend of many years to testify about lots of their intimate secrets. That was a really interesting point. It made me realize that straight people have this cool right under the law - they get to tell their innermost deepest darkest secrets to the one person they build their life around and probably sleep with, whereas when gay people do that (and we all KNOW now that they do that, right - remember the gay penguins and the rock they used to sit on like it was a egg!) - when gay people do that, a prosecutor in a trial can make one lover testify against the other in a court of law, there IS no spousal immunity without marriage.
It was cool to hear that Howard had come around to Rosie now - just like I had. We both saw her as more human these days - actually the only thing that ever matters in real-life, on the web, or on Howard's show. Real life. (Unlike ANY other corporate show - including the so-called "reality shows".)
That's a really good example of why I like Howard so much. He seems to be the only person in the media who thinks like me.
= = =
Howard said he had almost been moved to tears seeing Rosie on the steps of City Hall the other day announcing her marriage to her girlfriend of many years. Funny thing, I had almost been moved to tears too, seeing some of those pictures of the happy gay couples in the papers.
It felt good to have a fellow human being in the media again. I've met plenty on the web (but that's non-corporate media). Aside from a few movie directors who starred in their own films, and some other great, well-cast actors, to me Howard's always been the only person in the corporate media who seems like a human being.
In this age where everything living must be killed by pathological corporations, it of course makes total sense that Howard would be the first to be mowed down, while Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage get to keep right on spewing their hate.
Howard might be mean - but you can tell that he doesn't hate anybody - not even George Bush.
= = =
Someone said it doesn't really matter whether it was the Jews or the Romans who killed Jesus - either way, we know it definitely was the Politicians.= = =
Mussolini said that Fascism was the perfect merging of the State with the Corporation.
We saw that perfect merging this week in the unsolicited apology of CEO Chairman before Congress about his potty-mouthed moneymaker Howard Stern.
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