The Howard Stern Thread

Richard Christy is going to be a father. Howard's immediate response to the news was imploring Richard to quit drinking.

i wanted to say this. i have a lot of time to sit at my computer and listen to things. for a long time, i listened to howard stern.

like i said i spent the last month or so listening to opie and anthony clips and shows. it was interesting because: you can follow new paths, like, you hear a bit referenced and look it up, or you listen to all the appearances by ie mike birbiglia or patrice. they're from the same middle class long island suburban world and made their names with song parodies and real man radio but o&a is like, 1) it's tends to be a game of cruelty, like ballbreaking with a rulebook and sound effects to point out missed points. it's interesting, the strategy of being in that room, where people are being funny, i guess, but mostly just trying to put numbers on the board, and there's sudden unspoken alliances, you can feel the tide turning one way and then another.... 2) they never gave up on it. 3) i think howard for all his loves the gays and not saying retard stances is a bigger piece of shit in some ways-- like, his causes are just so lame and all his political or whatever takes are dumb as fuck. i trust anthony cumia hates black people.

i want to come back to cum town, i wanted to like it partly because: o&a and howard, ass't comedy podcasts, rogan, whatever--they're so so relentlessly dumb. even on topics they go back to again and again, which is mostly racist uncle fwd email-level shit. but on the other hand, like cumtown + similar, i feel at home because the hosts are usually younger and politically inoffensive ("progressive" but think political correctness has gone mad but make ironic political correctness gone mad jokes) + don't talk about springsteen BUT usually they're just not funny and often too smug too dumb too parochial too poorly produced and formatted. i'd rather listen to day 5 of lady di's internship (she was having GI issues from severe withdrawal and then america ferrera saw her changing her shit stained panties in the womens washroom) or old howard.

patrice o neal is the goat and his archived o+a appearances are a treasure

D have you ever listened to uhh yeah dude ?

Rogan's podcast is good. I dig that he has academics & reporters that know what they're talking about, in addition to his comedian friends. and whenever he has a conservative on, they reveal the limits of their intelligence thru an uninterrupted 3 hour conversation (Alex Jones, Milo, Gavin McInnes, Stephen Crowder). it was fucking awesome when Rogan got into a fight with Crowder about pot legalization and inadvertently made Crowder miss his flight lmao

and then there's people like Jordan Petersen - i find his whole gender obsession really tiresome, but about two hours into their conversation, they start talking about religion and music and the archetypal figures in popular art, it was really interesting. and fwiw i think the cum town guys are pretty insightful when it comes to pop culture.

Howard cancelled a planned show today. WUS was live, all Jan said was "Howard took a personal day today, he'll be back Monday." That's certainly never happened since I've been listening, and from what I can tell it's happened maybe half a dozen times in his entire career. He was in a really grouchy mood on Monday & Tuesday, fixated on Richard's healthy relationship with his father, wouldn't stop bringing it up with Chris Stapleton. Seems like his dad may be sick. Hope everything's alright.

sorta funny that Jimmy Fallon was booked for today - rescheduled from a couple weeks ago when he bailed at the last minute.

H on fire on 3/28, goes through 'who on the staff would you like to have dinner with' brackets and talks candidly about the guys

Love OReilly as his nemesis

Best JD bit in awhile on 4/5
H busting JD's balls on who is going to be invited to his douchey wedding
JD acting like this shit actually matters
and H's genius in that he knows that it really doesn't

amazing moment during Rachel Maddow interview on Wednesday:

Howard: So you're doing well!
Rachel: Yeah. How are you?
Howard. I'm good. You know, I'm fine..... I'm fucked up.

Nice to hear Jon Lieberman again

Great interview with Jimmy Iovine on Monday.

I'm almost two months behind
But I love when H talks honestly about his relationship with Beth, like how annoyed she was when H was singing "the name game"

And when he got her on the phone she seemed genuinely pissed and H kept pressing her, which was great, and a rare recent example of him putting the show before his relationship

And then he's kind of lit up so he gets all fired up about how dumb Ryan Seacrest is and then feels a fart coming on, so he asks if we want to hear it, and Fred says yes, and it's a squiggly little thing.

https://i.redd.it/kajqrvkwuz5z.jpg
"maybe I'm aging into something more palatable"

"my disguise"

Really enjoying the continual vitrol he spits regarding Ryan seacrest. H needs a foil.

"Baby aspirin makes me feel suicidal"

incredible Wendy Williams interview today. she called Howard a "starfucker," asked if he had gotten a facelift, accused him of having a wig, said "it's so empty in here... I remember the last time I was in here, it was like a family. the family is gone... oh! i ran into your old... your old buddy... the one with the heroin? he's gotten fat, my god." she had him on the ropes, it was great.

Looking forward for you to get to 7/18 & 7/19, calstars. Robin reads a news story about the voice actor for Kermit the Frog quitting after 27 years because he objected to something in a script where Kermit lied. "Kermit wouldn't lie." 20 minute rant ensues.

I'll keep an eye out for it
I usually skip the interviews and news these days

Up to 6/13

Howard: What prevented you from cleaning the headphones?
Medicated Pete: I don't know, I just got kind of lost

H: and how old were you when the trees were talking to you?
P: somewhere between 5 and 15

Wayne Siegel is the Maurie Krugman of the Show

Stark contrast in interviews last week: Billy Corgan was on last Monday, and it was great- flow was really good, & whenever it's him, Howard, and Robin, they get pretty deep into childhood trauma and abuse stuff and dealing with it as an adult. Fascinating even if you're not a fan of Billy or the Pumpkins. So many of his issues & hangups dovetail with Howard and Robin's. Billy's been on the show at least half a dozen times, so they're already comfortable with each other, & there's a mutual respect there.

Then Robert Plant came in on Tuesday. It was a disaster. Howard could not read the room and wouldn't shut the fuck up. RP was really fed up pretty early on, and actually walked out when Howard started asking something about money. Howard wasn't picking up on the hint that RP did not want to talk about Jimmy Page or Led Zeppelin even, yet he persisted with these inane, almost pre-interview level trivia questions. Even Robin was like "shut the fuck up Howard, let him talk." Painful to listen to.

Word
It became esp apparent at the end when Plant gave Stern some sage advice:
"If you want to make friends and influence people, SHUT THE FUCK UP"
I lolled so hard I had to replay that shit three times.

Rosie O interview today was fun

In general still think Howard Stern is a waste of time, not because of him, really, but because of all the other shit/skit/characters around him. Anyway, I heard the Jon Stewart interview today, and it was great. The secret, per the above, I think is just having Robin and Howard there. The rest is bullshit.

there's very little spontaneity left in the show, the prerecorded bits & forced segments where Richard/Sal/Ronnie/et al. are brought in are totally stale. interviews are still great but he's been fucking up lately (robert plant especially). then again idk if you'd like the more freewheeling years (basically anything pre-2015) when Wrap Up was still good & provided fodder for the show (Sal "two monkeys running" or the human resources apology). Artie's suicide attempt, the block parties, and Eric the Actor dying had a lot more to do with Howard phoning it in then Ms. Turk.

I miss KC

I'm old enough and east coast enough that I grew up with HS on the (terrestrial) radio, in the '80s early '90s, and I honestly never dug it then. Stuttering John, Bababooey, dumb stunts and women talking about their boobs, whatever. I agree with Jon Stewart that once he settled into his own skin he became a better personality, less shock jock and more wizened vet.

ah gotcha. yeah i grew up in NYC & have lived on the east coast my whole life so Howard has always just been 'in the air' but i didn't become a fan until 2011. there are still great moments of spontaneity on the show though that aren't sophomoric or forced- particularly when George Takei admitted to groping men on the first show after the Weinstein story broke. I remember listening to this last month and just thinking "wtf..." naturally then it comes out, and this clip is used as a source

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLtw9Tpg9Pg

"...Do we need to call the police?"

I'm just happy he's still making radio

same

Agree, very stale and uninspired atm
My favorite bits are when he discusses life at home, normal, unscripted moments
Also Sour is still the best but they give him less than a minute whenever they pick up

Also Ronnie - and Fred goofing on him - still good but very samey...

the new on air writers (lump guy, learn japanese guy) are soooooo fucking terrible

horrible. Lee King Snatch makes me want to jump off a fucking bridge

also Howard really driving the Millie Bobbie Brown's agent bit into the ground

I really like the bits they've done re: poor Scott and how horribly unlucky he is.

i dont mind the agent thing because howard is genuinely inspired when doing them. the scott's terrible days recorded bits ARE GREAT and full of a pathos that was rarely found in the show.

Yes
“There was only one bagel left,,,and it was pumpernickel”

the popcorn lung song

Also JD still gold, though he doesn’t seem to be on much anymore. I still think he should take the Jackie / Artie chair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWB5hLODnUk

so good

best show in awhile on 11/16. Like the old days when there were a whole bunch of guys in the studio, all egging on H

show's been p good the past few months. staff have been in studio regularly past few weeks. Kendrick Lamar interview on 12/12 was surprisingly great.

https://youtu.be/k38wf2VeU0A

aj benza vs trump.