From: dcrosgr@uoft02.utoledo.edu
Newsgroups: alt.fan.howard-stern
Subject: Esquire commentary on HS
Date: 31 Jul 92 18:48:10 GMT
Organization: University of Toledo, Computer Services

Prick Up Your Ears
by Barbara Kruger
Esquire, May 1992.
 
At times it seem spossible to divide the
world into two types of people: creeps and
assholes. Creeps are wound neat and tight
and seldom say what they mean or mean
what they say. Always busy plotting, strate-
gizing, and working the angles, they know there's no
such thing as paranoia, because everything you suspect
might be happening actually is happening. And they
make it happen. There's no noise, no candor, just the
cool hum of retentive calculation. But from assholes
you always know what to expect. Because they thrive
on transgression, their brashness becomes both fun
and predictable. They'll never betray you because they
never say anything behind your back that they haven't
already said to your face. Every thought is deemed
right enough to be spoken, every opinion real enough
to be fact, every shit sweet enough to be bronzed.
   All this brings us, natu-
rally, to Howard Stern.
   Stern is vintage blurting
asshole (relax Howard, it's a
compliment): a state-of-the-
art, world-class rendition of
the genre, increasingly fa-
mous for his willingness to
say the wrong thing. And
since those of us who tune in
to his morning radio show
are treated to myriad de-
scriptions of his cellulite-rid-
den buttocks, I'd like to think of his assholism in both
the physical and intellectual sense. His sharp, extem-
poraneous brand of performance art, his unrelenting
penchant for "truth"-telling, serves as a kind of leveler:
a listening experience that cuts through the crap,
through the deluded pretensions of fame, through the
inflated rhetoric of prominence. Jabbing at the greasy
machinations of power and control, he succeeds as on-
ly a big-time control freak and power abuser can.
Zigzagging between self-degradation and megaloma-
nia, political clarity and dangerous stereotyping, tem-
per tantrums and ridiculously humble ingratiation, he
is both painfully unsettling and crazily funny.
   In fact, Stern's coupling of full-force rebuke with
relaxed, conversational loitering has captured the mar-
ket in New York morning radio, and it's only a matter
of time before Los Angeles follows suit. And why not?
He simply has no competition. For if radio in general
is mired in horrendously tedious playlists, dumbly
droning deejays, and tiresome oldies stations, then
morning talk radio is even less than zero. And that's
not for any lack of trying. There's plenty of yapping
going on in the hours before noon. But across the
country the genre is motored by a bunch of bland
chumps trying desperately to hook the listener with
the same dumb formula. Never have so many worked
so hard, so pathetically, to be "outrageous." Y'know,
just a bunch of really wild-and-crazy, far-out, wacky
kinds of guys who, for all their toil and trouble, for all
their strenuously choreographed "antics," wind up
sad, dull, and worst of all, unfunny.
   But Howard Stem makes it look easy. Truly enrap-
tured by the sound of his own voice, he seems intent
on bringing candor to new highs (or lows), on remind-
ing us of the troubling complexities, pleasures, and
horrors that only a major asshole like himself can de-
liver. From a generalized fascination with bodily func-
 
 
tions (his oft-stated belief in
the transgressive powers of
the word doody and his ad-
vice on bathroom etiquette,
"You should always flush
twice. I believe in a courtesy
flush") to explicit sexual de-
scriptions, from silly pon-
tifications on current events
("How can Jeffrey Dahmer
get a fair trial unless there
are more guys who want to
have sex with dead men on
the jury?") to incessantly jokey put-downs of both
friends and enemies, he takes us back to another place
and time . . . junior high school. His inability to be a
good boy, his blow-by-blow descriptions of his own
masturbation, his constant complaining about his pe-
nis size ("I'm hung like a pimple"), all work to encour-
age both intense embarrassment and rollicking self-
recognition in the heart, mind, and groin of his ideal
listener: the boy buried not too deeply in every
straight, white man; the boy who most keenly feels the
exhilarating yet excruciating goose of Stern's grabby,
empathetic devices, who most profoundly yields to the
Yo, dude-ness of it all.
   Given the velocity of this testosterone rush, you've
got to appreciate the presence of sidekick, resident
wise woman, and person of color Robin Quivers,
whose giggly commentary on Stern's every tic, whim,
and kvetch serves as an anchor of sorts, bringing the
real world into Howard's world by plying him with
juicy news items in the hope of detonating the virtu-
oso retort, of pushing the button that unleashes the
raging mother of all riffs that can motor the show
for as many minutes as possible. Stern and his
beloved posse of quasi masochists--Robin, Jackie
"The Jokeman" Martling, Gary "Baba Booey"
Dell'Abate, Fred Norris, and Stuttering John Melen-
dez--seem to make up a kind of geriatric homeroom
that nudges bleary-eyed listeners into the day and
eases the drive time.
   Spitting out whatever crawls to the tip of his
tongue, Stern drones on about his inability to
"bang" his wife, disses the tenth-rate show-biz
schticksters who are perpetually ripping him off (so
true), comes on weird to women ("My wife has
breast cancer. She told me to start dating"), and
plays tapes of the pivotal moments that fill his uni-
verse: outrageously dumb sound bites of politi-
cians, rock stars, and any other foolish hideosities
stupid enough to speak their "minds." One vintage
segment is an airing of an ancient tape of a Stern
family outing to Howard's recording engineer fa-
ther's studio, where Howard and his sister Ellen are
quizzed on current events. Little Howard proceeds
to drive his father crazy with his goofy, childish an-
tics. Frustrated, Daddy releases a
torrent of contempt, bellowing,
"Shut up, you moron!" In fact, it is
this inherited refrain, blurted in
the same tone of voice, that fuels
the entire Stemian enterprise: a perpetually accus-
ing bee in Howard's bonnet (and that hairdo is
definitely a bonnet). From his jerky adolescent fan-
tasies about women, to his constant goofing on gays
and lesbians, to his deeply disturbing Fear of a
Black Planet, Stern, at times, embodies the kind of
dangerously unexamined populism that is so preva-
lent in America today. Caught between patriotism
and disenchantment, he spouts the false humilities
of "common sense" and reaffirms the meanest of
stereotypes. He's like an antenna for bad ideas: re-
ceiving all the dumb assumptions he's fed (what
else could explain his gullible pro-Reagan/Bush vot-
ing record, which he now regrets) and rebroadcast-
ing them to an audience of avid dudes.
   But Stern is no Morton Downey Jr., Joe Pyne,
Rush Limbaugh, or Andrew Dice Clay. Stern is fun-
ny. Really funny. And that's where things get com-
plicated. Because funny can cut at least two ways.
What make us laugh are not just the ironic musings
of an examined life but also the fascinating arrogance
of stupidity. Stern's gift (or curse) is his ability to
deliver an abundance of both.
And it is this coupling of rea-
soned goofing with over-the-top fear and loathing
that makes some listeners squirm even while it ex-
pands his cult beyond dude-dom. For while. objecti-
fying woman as the seminal receptacle of his dreams,
his ideally mute jismbox, Stern remains vehemently
pro-choice and has been issuing the most powerful
indictments of the Reagan/Bush anti-abortion agen-
da ever heard in the media. Worked up to a fever
pitch, he screeches that any woman who votes for
Bush might as well put her vagina in an envelope
and mail it to the White House, since she is literally
giving the Bush administration control over her body.
(Right on, Howard.) And his run-ins with the FCC
have transformed him into a mouthpiece for First
Amendment rights, causing him to rage about the
stacking of the Supreme Court with pathetic right-
wing mediocrities.
   Stern's relationship to gays and lesbians is equal-
ly ambivalent, ranging from rote parody to genuine
curiosity. From "The Out of the Closet" Stern Show
(celebrity interviews) to "Lesbian Dial-a-Date" (a
proven ratings booster), Stern joins the conventions
of gay-bashing with a schmoozy familiarity and
affection. But it is in the area of race
where he loses it, abandoning am-
bivalence and crashing head-on in-
to the rocky shores of contempt.
Combining a pinch of Nineties-
style America First xenophobia with a dollop of old-
fashioned race-baiting, he brings out the worst in his
listeners as Robin painfully cringes through it all.
Stern chooses to remain resolutely ignorant of the
power of some of his stereotypical declarations, of
his "ironies" that are swallowed whole by the bulk
of his audience, which is even less into irony and
subtlety than he is.
   But, of course, Stern isn't about subtlety. He's
about a kind of narcissistic pathos, a spectacular self-
disgust that pulls him through the swamp of his own
yucky abjection. (Translation: Howard, you hate
yourself and we love you for it.) He's about being real-
ly funny, he's about telling it like it is when it really
isn't, about getting intensely worked up without
thinking too hard, about cutting through the grease,
about living by his wits, about being very smart but
not too intelligent, about being savvy around small,
telling moments but missing the big picture, or maybe
it's the other way around. He's both a third-rate sadist
and a fifth-rate masochist. He's the Anticool, the
walking wounded, laughing all the way to the bank.
He's the wake-up call that America deserves.
Newsgroups: alt.fan.howard-stern