Private Parts (20 page)

Finally, I got a letter from Dom Fioravanti. He said they were excited about me coming to the station and that my show should blend "satirical, farcical, and absurd comment" to expose "the inconsistencies and hypocrisies inherent in certain public standards, mores and norms of conduct." Sounded good. Then he told me what I couldn't do.

NO

1. jokes or sketches relating to personal tragedies

2. slander, defamation, or personal attacks on private individuals or organizations unless they have consented or are a part of the act

3. jokes dealing with sickness or death

4. jokes dealing with sexual topics in a lascivious manner

5. scatological or other "barnyard" type material

6. ridiculing religion for the sake of ridicule or making fun of the religious faith people may have

7. use of the so-called seven dirty words

Great, I was the number one radio personality in Washington, D.C., and these guys had to remind me not to say "fuck" or "cock-sucker" on the air. What was I, a baby? I tell you, they really knew how to make a new employee feel good. And it only got worse.

NBC press photo. I was fat with a bad mustache.

They had no idea what to do with me, and that was evident from their first advertising campaign. "Howard Stern Returns," they were trumpeting all over. Well, it was true that it was a return because I grew up in New York, but I had never been on the radio there before. Imus was the one who had been in New York then got fired and then came back.

I was scheduled to go on the air right after Labor Day, 1982, but the station program director, Kevin Metheny, decided he wanted to "test" me out before that. He wanted me to do an overnight stint before my actual afternoon show. First of all, this was totally demeaning. They had hired me away with big bucks from a major market and now they were treating me as if I was a college kid doing an audition. But what was worse, Metheny and Fioravanti kept telling me that I should develop "characters" for my show, just the way "Mr. Imus" had. They sat me down every day and forced me to listen to tapes of Imus's show while they cooed how "brilliant" and "creative" Mr. Imus was.

It was amazing the way everyone at that station was kissing Imus's ass. And he was doing a lame, tame show with "characters" that were older than me! He had his Reverend Hargis bits, and this stupid Moby Worm routine, which was just his voice put through a synthesizer. The whole bit was that Moby Worm was coming to eat your high school. So he'd warn you a hundred times, "Coming up next hour, Moby Worm is gonna eat Rockville Centre High," and then they finally did the bit and they played a few sound effects and Moby Worm ate your school. No real conversation, nothing innovative, just the same stupid bits over and over. Lazy radio. If I had my preference, I would have come to New York, gone on in the morning, and just beaten the crap out of him.

I didn't get it. But "Mr. Imus," "the genius," did characters, so

they wanted me to create characters for my show. I told them a hundred times that I don't do characters. I'm me on my show. But they wouldn't relent. They got me so crazy with this characters stuff that I decided I'd give them a character for that first overnight. As a matter of fact, I did the entire show in character. I was Lance Eluction, a hairdresser who was getting his big break in radio, and Lance was joined on the show that night by his life mate, Bob, who was played by Fred. We were two over-the-top gay guys, thrilled to be on the air.

Now you have to remember NBC at that time had a Top Forty format. So while I was Lance, the prancing gay guy, I was also doing a parody of the typical Top Forty guys who would do these inane intros to a record right up until the lyrics kicked in. There I was in my falsetto voice, commenting on Andy Gibb's voice: "How does she get up so high, what does she do? Is it the tight leather pants or what? I just got a note from the program director, it says, 'Always say double-u-ennn-b-c' Double-u-ennn-b-c. Ohh."

That was another thing. The program director, Kevin, whom I started calling Pig Virus because he reminded me of a kid I knew in camp who looked like a stupid porker, would always make me practice saying the call letters. He would come into my office and lie on the floor and make me repeat again and again, "Double-u-ennnnn-b-c." This Pig Virus would just lie there and shake his head and say, "Nope, that's not it. Do it again. You're not doing it like Mr. Imus does it." I wanted to kill that creep, but I later realized that he was just a pawn in this whole game. The NBC brass were putting heavy pressure on him to get me in line and he was just doing his job. But I resented the way he did it with such viciousness. I could never forgive him. So that whole first night I kept moaning "Double-u-ennn-b-c" almost like I was coming.

Around one in the morning, Fred came up and I put him on the air:

"Lance Eluction here at double-u-ennn-b-c. I'm here with my friend Bob who just dropped in because when you work here at WNBC, excuse me, it's not WNBC, its double-u-ennn-b-c, when you work here late at night your friends can drop in and the program manager never knows the difference. I'm so glad it's getting late here at double-u-ennn-b-c because I just spoke to the program director of the station and he's going to bed now and we're really going to have some fun as soon as all the network brass and my program

director go to sleep. I'm going to gargle to all the songs here at double-u-ennn-b-c. THE FUN BEGINS WHEN THE BRASS GOES TO SLEEP. I LOVE IT, DOUBLE-U-ENNN-B-C."

"It's kinda dry in the studio, don't you think?" Bob said.

"It is dry, Bob. That's why I'm going to do the gargling thing now. At double-u-ennn-b-c they give you a pitcher of water for the djs."

"That's so nice."

"Let's play the next song, and I'm going to gargle over it."

Fred cued up "Don't You Want Me" by the Human League and I gargled through the song.

"I gargled the whole song. Pretty funny bit. My tonsils are killing me from this stupid station -- you have to keep talking the whole time. And it's so dry in here."

"Would you like a neck massage?" Bob asked.

"Give me a neck massage. Bob's going to give me a neck message. This is the first time I've ever been on the air anywhere. This is sort of an unbelievable story for me. From hairdressing school right to the studio. Double-u-ennn-b-c is the most liberal network in the whole world. Is it marvelous? Only in America. God bless America. God bless double-u-ennnnnn-b-c."

We went on like that all night. And the reaction was incredible. The switchboard operators at WNBC were so flooded with calls that at one point they actually called upstairs to find out if there was something wrong. They said they never got a response like that before. I was thrilled. We came in the next day and Pig Virus was beet red. He said, in that slimy Southern accent of his, "You ruined us. Do you know how many phone calls we got?"

"But you guys want characters," I protested. "I did it in character."

He brought me in front of five other empty suits sitting on a couch, the board of censors, and started telling me what I couldn't do. I was flipping out, because these guys didn't get it at all. They should have been thrilled with the reaction they got. All of a sudden, I was having a flashback to DC-101. I hadn't even started my show yet and these guys were trying to kill me.

That was the way it was for the next three years. Except for one guy, Randy Bongarten. He came in as general manager and understood what I was doing. These morons had no clue whatsoever and tried to kill my show from day one. Meanwhile, I was desperately trying to reunite my team. I kept nagging and nagging them to

bring Robin in from Baltimore. They wouldn't do it. Divide and conquer, right? So I started doing my show, in this incredibly restrictive format, and I was on the air a little more than a month and, bingo, I was suspended.

Again, it was God that got me in trouble. I was dying to do bits on my show but these guys thought the comedy was distracting from the real value of the show: the Trini Lopez and Neil Diamond records I was spinning. But I was able to squeeze in a bit or two an hour between all the music and the double-u-ennn-b-c bullshit. I figured if they wanted characters, I'd give them characters. So I put God back on the air:

"Okay, now it's time for me to unveil another God video game. You've heard of Donkey Kong, haven't you? Now, are you ready for this? Virgin Mary Kong."

"Oh, my God, are you crazy?" I said.

"The object of the game is Virgin Mary is being chased by all these guys in a Jerusalem singles bar. You have to keep her away from those guys or she won't be the Virgin Mary anymore, if you get my meaning."

At the end of the bit the Virgin Mother was impregnated by some dude who pushed her up against the wall of a singles bar. Anyway, I thought it was a great skit. I had no idea they'd suspend me for something like that. I was shocked by their reaction. Maybe that's why they call me a shock jock, I am always genuinely shocked by people's reactions to what I do.

But the suspension was a blessing in disguise. I went to Pig Virus and Fioravanti and told them that I did that bit because Robin wasn't there. She was the one who made sure I didn't do stuff like that. Of course, it was all bullshit. Robin didn't rein me in. Robin's whole thing was after I did something outrageous on the air, she'd go, "Oh, Howard, that's terrible." But they thought bringing Robin in would keep me in line. What was really happening was we were about to go to war and I wanted more troops.

I'll never forget Robin's introduction to Pig Virus. Her first day at the station, she was just sitting in the studio, getting familiarized. I went on the air, and I was rapping and we were about to go into

some music and then we heard this loud thud coming from the other engineer's booth. It was really dark in the engineer's booth, so we couldn't see what was happening, but Robin turned to me and said, "What's that?"

"Oh, I think Kevin just threw the phone at the wall," I said nonchalantly.

"What?" Robin was incredulous.

"Yeah, he does that. I must have broken format."

For the next three hours, she stayed in the studio, sitting there a little shell-shocked. She was afraid to even go to the bathroom because she might get hit by a flying object. Finally Robin turned to me and said, "What the hell have you gotten me into?"

"I told you it wouldn't be easy." I smiled and put my headphones on. Pig Virus made my life miserable every day for the next year. He sounded and acted like a real rube tourist with his Southern accent. "I pay twelve hundred dollars a month for rent for a studio apartment. Ain't that sumptin'? But I love it. I luuuve it. I ate at Mr. Chow's the other day with Mr. Imus. Whee doggie, Jethro." This guy was supervising my creative talent.

After Virgin Mary Kong, I had to get every bit approved by committee before it could go on the air. Pig Virus would yell at me because the scripts weren't typed. He'd yell if the bits went longer than two minutes. He'd say real encouraging things like "If the people don't like you, and if you only talk for two minutes before they can get so disgusted, you'll be back into music." Nice, huh?

But what was worse was that he would memo me all these idiotic rules and ideas he had. And it wasn't just to me; he would cc everybody at the whole damn station, including accountants and security guards! This man was trying to publicly humiliate me; to break me and make me quit. It took every ounce of strength I had to keep from doing that. I got so paranoid, I forgot I was funny. It was like water torture in Vietnam. You begin to think you're an animal and the VC are gods. I was walking around a station full of untalented people who thought they were more talented than I was. Robin and I decided that Imus must have made a pact with the Devil so that he didn't have to be funny but could still get ratings.

You have to read some of these memos Pig Virus sent. He came up with this complicated terminology to make it sound as if he knew something, but it was all mystification. Any idiot could go into radio. But he knew the vocabulary:

You did say "NBC" which is
not
the call sign, and it is
not
the primary identity of the radio station. As we have discussed before, "WNBC" is the primary ID, and that which should be stated first. In a "double sell" set, that is, a break (in a sweep, or on either side of a stop set) in which you have the opportunity to ID the station more than once, you may use "WNBC" twice or "WNBC" and "NBC" once each. But in a break where you only ID the station once use "WNBC."

I would look at Fred and say, "What the hell is he talking about?" This was just a lot of bullshit trying to make a simple job look complicated. There's more:

JINGLES: Please refrain from singing along with jingles, and play them per schedule. No more jingle-thons, no more playing of other jocks' jingles.

In other words, don't have fun. Don't let the listeners think you might be having fun. God forbid, they might think the show is funny. Clearly I had a different point of view. I was breaking all the rules and it was his job to control me. I was his nightmare.

BIT PLACEMENT: One bit per break is the maximum. Consider the Moreau Blanc live spots a "bit," which will preclude another bit in the same break.

Great, now he was telling me (and the janitor who got cc'd) that doing a fun commercial was the same as doing a comedy routine. According to his calculations, I could do three two-minute bits an hour, and that was my show.

THE STAFF: I'd appreciate it if you'd discontinue making deprecating remarks regarding the other Talents' capabilities, styles, and performances.

Again, no kidding around here. This was a serious comedy program.

MUSIC: Discontinue making derogatory remarks about the music you play.

God forbid I should make fun of Olivia Newton-John.

IN GENERAL: There's not a lot positive in this particular memo, because I feel it's time to start moving forward again with the project of making The Howard Stern Show sound like an organic part of WNBC Radio. So,
yes,
on balance I am pleased. Yes, WNBC
does
continue to have a strong commitment to personality radio, to Howard Stern. Yes, I acknowledge and appreciate your efforts to date. And
now
there's still a lot of ground to cover.