welp, at the risk of a few negs (and hopefully the 1 or 2 reps that make it worthwhile) i finally snapped in a post over @ dawgshed.com (nee dawg's saloon, aka the #1 post-/howard-stern-fans board on the net after SFN died a horrible death in the wake of howard wielding his power and influence over mutt/SFN when the AGT announcement was made..... you know, the board was gonna upgrade software which meant a pretty sizeable bit of downtime as all of the old message databases were converted over to the new format.... so basically when howard made his AGT announcement "the #1 stern fans messageboard" was completely down for two weeks, which most notably meant that anyone who was searching on howard right around the time of the announcement couldn't read anything posted about him on SFN for a few weeks (barring internet/google cache, of course) --- which you know, ties in so perfectly with the whole "champion of free speech" thing, aka FUCK THE FCC!!!!! THEY'VE BEEN DESTROYING MY ABILITY TOO PUT ON A GOOD SHOW!!!! THE REVOLUTION IS NIGH!!!! NO MORE BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!)
AHEM. the slogan obviously forgot a comma, semicolon, or a few exclamation points (however you grammatically roll) cuz it should have been NO, MORE BULLSHIT!!! OR NO!!!!!!!!!! MORE BULLSHIT! =( etc etc etc
so yeah idk i was just in a random thread there and i've been caught up in thought cycles about how howard's wig is such a fucking apropos/magnanimous metaphor/symbol of everything about this 100.0% phony motherfucker that i just kind of went and snapped..... so in the spirit of wanting the CSFMB to have some good proper (TL;DR) writing from me, i'll grace this howard stern thread with my thoughts from dawg's saloon, which are the thoughts of a beyond-casual listener who got sucked into the hype and hoopla when he first moved to sirius (pops got me a sirius radio for christmas 2005 along with a 6month/1yr subscription so i was there for the revolution starting with day 1.... and by the time mid-late 2008 rolled around and it was time to renew again, i just kind of went all goffralopithicus on it and said "keep it" and would only miss backspin 43, which was killed off and "merged" into the inferior XM "oldschool rap" station after the horrible fucking "fuck-you-to-the-consumers" merger.
so without further adieu (cuz if you want some fucking adieu, i can give you some fucking adieu. are you busy for the next half-hour? =) here is my undoubtedly negrep-inducing rant from dawg's a few minutes ago:
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you know, the wig is such an awesome giant symbol/metaphor for all things howard..... it's the epitome of every ounce of bullshit that perpetually swirls around him, as in the case of howard it's not that the emperor has no clothes.... it's that the emperor isn't even the emperor, if he's even an actual human being in the first place.
it's amazing to me that basically everything howard talks about is some sort of lie or exaggeration..... you know for the longest time he and his cohorts were quick to pat themselves on the back as "the most honest show in radio" -- but then i'm reminded of something i once read about when i was reading up on the concept/theory/practice of advertising.... when you advertise for a product you often want to go out and make a claim against what would be perceived to be the biggest knocks about the product. i.e. produce at the store is FRESH, tylenol is LONG LASTING, and car dealerships talk about their LOW LOW PRICES.... indeed, if the usual #1 priority for someone advertising something is to go out and preemptively strike against the biggest knocks of said [thing-being-advertised], then take a gander back at this whole "most honest show in radio" thing and revel in the laughter (...for a change) as you realize that howard's so full of shit that literally everything about him and his show is a carefully scripted exercise in complete and utter bullshitting in the hopes of self-promoting itself/himself as this big important greatest radio show ever / very important and relevant celebrity.... and realize that nowadays howard is basically on the verge of constantly being caught up in any # of lies that have come to build up his empire of bullshit.... and we the "super fans" are hanging out here constantly taking him to task for all of the bullshit that he's basically spewed since day one.
howard was never any better than all of the rest of the "phony" celebrities that he made a career out of cutting on as he came up. in fact, howard was actually worse than just about all of 'em combined... but since he was such a smooth talker and able to turn any dialogue into rhetoric that worked towards his ends of duping you into believing that he was the light and the way, well hey as long as the show as "real" and funny we were along for the ride.
but now that the funny has gone and howard spirals deeper and deeper into the obscurity that once seemed unthinkable..... we've come to realize that it's all a bunch of bullshit. whether it's this or that... or in this case, whether it's howard carrying on about how internet-TV is for losers who can't get on real TV..... he's just patently wrong about everything. you know if there were marbles to be gained and/or audience #s to be racked up wholesale howard would be taking his show to the internet.... but since he's got a deal to be on a major network TV gong show knockoff and since he had HowardTV linked up with actual oldschool cable-TV providers, he had a vested interest (it's all about the marbles, robin) to trash anything that could compete with his fledgling little TV empire.... and now that these opportunities are going to pasture (howard TV thanked its' "thousands" of viewers, and man i wish we could catch wind of just how small the NBC/AGT contract is nowdays... he's prolly only doing it for a few million with the "real" payment being that he's still on national TV and he can get his name out there because the world needs more beth (she's an angel, you know).
and of course, when seinfeld comes a-callin' with his internet-TV show that just so happens to call howard "a comedian" (i'm sure jerry finds him funny at least) there's howard so quick to run over to jerry and get on board, cuz clearly he considers himself to be some sort of a comedian on the level with your chris rocks, louis CKs, and whoever else jerry gets on his show.
to end this rant (and my apologies.... these thoughts had been boiling up over the last few months and tonight i just snapped and let them rip) i just gotta say that HOLY SHIT it would be awesome to be a fly on the wall during howard's psychologist/headshrinker sessions. on some level howard's gotta be a pretty sharp/smart guy (cuz even if he ultimately did it dishonorably, he's still gotten far in life and shown that even if he plays dirty and all that he still does play to win the game) and thus he has to realize that he's perhaps the biggest "phony" of them all. he has to know that he made it big being a giant grade-AAA hypocrite to the Nth degree lambasting all of the celebrities for doing the kind of things he WISHED he could do (and now that he's got the chance to do, he's doing them and thensome) and the whole "the emperor has no clothes.... and isn't even an emperor!" metaphor.
i mean howard HAS to realize what he's become, and ultimately he's able to slag it all off as "worthwhile" cuz he's got a billion dollars or whatever and thus since he has so many more marbles than most he's therefore validated as being correct.... even tho anyone with a half of a brain and a soul (or at least the perspective to see howard for what/who he is) realizes that the guy must be truly miserable running around in the trendiest clothes that his fashion-expert-boyfriend is on the payroll to pick out for him constantly having to lug this "toni" around to keep his wig glued on while he trollops around with this stupid fucking whorse who makes the world a dumber place whenever she opens up her sizeable mouth.... and in the end the guy who used to warrant major manhattan streets getting closed down for a movie premiere or book signing now only has freaks like MFB and/or bobo following him around everywhere, as the closest he comes to any sort of hoopla is all of that staged AGT red carpet "entrance event" shit that they do outside of the early-round theatres like it's some big fucking deal.
nope.... howard truly failed. if he truly had a soul he could have found a way to truly "evolve" with the times and eased into his later years all kinds of super fuck-you-rich and retired with dignity as the undisputed king of 90s/"shock jock"-era radio with a rosy-glasses-viewed legacy that might not have stood up to the test of time, but still was remembered as one hell of a fun ride.... as opposed to now where seeing him carry on with this dog and pony show (if not 50 foster kittens and whorse show) only serves to remind us that we were all naive gullible idiots/fools/morons for ever believing that this guy was anything special, cool, or worthy of our adulation back in the day.
* pounds table *
SHOMER SHABBOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
so yeah sorry ladies and gentlemen, i just had all of ^^^that^^^ simmering to a boil for awhile and i had to let it loose..... so hey why not do it in a random daily "OMFG can you believe howard's a hypocrite because he once said [X]???" thread cuz lord knows there's enough of these on the board. i'll be sure to resume my usual ~90%-non-TL;DR-babblefest posting paradigm ASAP.... but yeah man, it's just fucking amazing how that goddamn wig of his truly sums up the whole howard stern persona/experience/aura/legacy in one tangibly sad pathetic fucking laugh-at-the-pathetic-old-rich-guy object.
can you imagine how much more we'd respect the guy if one day he just snapped and ripped off the wig and said "man look i gotta be real with you guys, i'm fucking rich and in a sense i have everything i want but holy shit i fucked up bad and i hate my life.... i'm a miserable homosexual man who spends all day pretending to be something he's not... i'm married to a vapid famewhore who makes me look worse everytime she shows up to get her picture taken, let alone when she opens her mouth, and now i'm watching the once-greatest-show-in-the-history-of-radio turn into something far beyond a sad caricature of itself.... it's just a vehicle of self-promotion where i carry on about how great i am to the rest of the true believer cult members whose lives are so sad and empty they have nothing more to hold on to than their status as a fan of this horrible radio show? i can't take it and i don't care what kind of fallout this causes.... i just have to be honest with you, my listeners.... the people i used to believe that i'd do anything for.... but now since i've only been desperate to get the acceptance and validation of the hollywood/celebrity elite i've screwed you guys over with all of this bullshit.... so much for the revolution. so yes everyone, my name is howard allan stern and i'm 57 years old [whatever] and i'm a bald gay man who seriously needs a cock in his ass after i'm done with today's show because holy shit i'm sick of living the lie that's ultimately going to destroy my legacy..."
indeed, if he snapped like that i think he'd win a lot of his old fans back..... but instead the psychologist (no doubt part of the money train, aka the "bubble" of asslicking yes-wo/men around him who will tell him whatever he wants to hear in order to keep the $$$ pumping to them) would think about all of that $$$ he gets for propping howard up and getting the sociopath in a mindset condusive to going out there and continuing with the show, so yeah, instead of going out with a legitimate bang he's gonna go out with the continued long slow wheeze aka the last breath of death..... and if we're lucky, maybe somehow someday someone will have the balls to say FUCK THE NDAS and introduce us to the man that we probably never really knew, the real howard allan stern.
aaaaand..... finis. again, sorry everyone but now that this is out of my system i won't go back to anything remotely resembling this moment of pure catharsis ever again. * pounds table * SHOMER SHABBOS!
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and yeah.....
Forrest Gump wrote:
...and that's all i've got to say about that/
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Curious Hair wrote:
Les Grobstein's huge hog is proof that God has a sense of humor, isn't it?