From: ronaldd@cbnewse.cb.att.com (ronald.h.davis)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.howard-stern
Subject: Re: Hotline Number - WXRK
Summary: stern bites the dust, joe rules!  jonny b. blows on wlup.
Date: 19 Aug 92 23:08:47 GMT
Organization: AT&T

In article <l8of23INNnv1@pollux.usc.edu> alexc@pollux.usc.edu (Alex Campbell) writes:
>
>Now the dilemma that my friends and I have is what to say once we finally get 
>through to Howard. The best idea I have is to ask Howard what he thinks of
>Larry King and then hang up. But that is pretty lame and I'm sure that 
>someone else has done it before.
>
ask him what he thinks of:

		*** this week in joe's basement ***

it comes on every monday night on chicago public access tv.  hey, stern may
think it's stupid, but the whole stern shtick is stupid when you think of
it.  then again, at least joe still has a show.  when's howard doing one?
furthermore, joe just finished his 50th show [at an episode every couple of
weeks (not to mention hiatuses) this has taken about 2-3 years].  to mark
the occasion joe has announced that he is having a 50th episode anniversary
party later this month.  i'll keep you posted on the details if there is
interest.  of course you could write the show yourself at:

this week in joe's basement
1448 east 52nd street suite 230
chicago il 60615

hey, i may get flamed for mentioning "joe's basement" again here, but since
stern's show bit the dust you need *some* tv show to talk about...

someone once asked me to explain why the show so cool.  well, it's one of
those things where you have to see it yourself because he tends to take
ordinary themes (sometimes) and present them in an interesting way.  but
unlike stern's (former) show, "this week in joe's basement" is not a
"humor" show per se, but it's often times pretty funny.  joe himself
doesn't impress me as being that funny, but one of the other guys
who works on the show, mark audrain, impresses me as possessing a
rather twisted sense of humor such that it seems pretty obvious when
a sketch was his idea.  one thing that they often do on the show
is get people to talk on some topic based upon some
experience that they personally had [usually there's some interesting
camera angle/video effect which i can't describe here].  in one 2 episode
program he one week interviewed teachers at his old high school [interviews
are presented such that you generally only hear and see the speaker]
who gave their perceptions about speaking.  there was a range of responses
depending upon the teacher, some were interesting and funny.  the next
episode got the student perspective on the educational process.  here
again, he got a range of types that you might recall from highschool.  i
particularly liked this one guy who in my opinion was totally unstable;  one
of these real burn out types who don't care about anything (the kind of
guy i used to like to hang out with in high school)  one
comment he made was [on his approach to his classes]:
	
	at the beginning of the semester i take the attitude:  'its
	the beginning of the semester...i can cut!'  then later i say:
	'its the middle of the semester...i can cut!'  then at the
	end of the semester i say:  'its the end of the semester;
	i'm failing...i can cut!!!'

in the episode entitled "the moon blob" they spent some time talking
about the moon blob but also had people talking about stuff that had
nothing to do with "moon blob".  included was this rather disturbed
young man talking about (in rather explicit terms) a male prostitution
encounter he had with a 60 year old woman for $200.

one show of his that was featured in the pbs show "point of view" was
called "sledgehammer diplomacy" in which the crew went around different
parts of chicago asking white people what they thought of black people
and vice versa.  this was actually a good show (and did have some
humor content when you listened to some of the responses.  there was
this one old bum who started out saying that black people don't like
white people, then he goes into this deal about how he got shot through
the forearm by a black guy, after several rounds of 'i don't even like
to talk about it' he all of a sudden says: "i've got to get a gun and go
after these people!"

anyway, the show seems to have somewhat of an audience and last year moved
from it's original 11:30pm slot to 10:00pm so that more people could view
it.  some people may not have public access in their towns but here in
chicago the programming is pretty good; i'd take it over a lot of the drivel
that they're broadcasting on the networks.

of course, here in chicago, the radio programming is pretty decent which is
probably why there's not a lot of demand for stern here.  i *have* listened to
jonathan brandmeier's show on wlup and it really blows...it's not any better
than the tv show in my opinion, but then maybe the brief periods of time that
i have listened to the show (before changing the station) don't allow me to
gauge his program.  up on this clown.  but in all fairness to jonny b. i 
think stern's show sort
of sucks if you don't catch it in one of it's funny moments...the show is
*not* funny end-to-end for 4 hours a day.

-- 
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_/ (_(_) / (_(_/_/_(_/  .       ronald@iexist.att.com / att!iexist!ronald
"if you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes" -- edmund wilson