by Howard Stern
What great radio! Jessica started crying, then she hung up. The feud was on, big time.
A few days later Jessica called and was ready to spill her guts. She got on the air and told me the most embarrassing story I've ever heard in my life. Yes, it was true that Sam had fallen asleep inside of her. They'd checked into a hotel for a big romantic night. Sam had been doing lots of coke and beer, drinking tremendous amounts of alcohol that day. They made love and he fell asleep. An hour or two later, Sam got out of bed and was "making a big racket," Jessica said. The room was dark and Sam was banging into things. Sam was looking for the bathroom, but was so out of it, he just lost control. He began to shit all over the floor. As he was walking he was blasting away. It was a big pile, like the kind an elephant leaves behind. Sam unloaded and without flinching strolled back to the bed and went right back to sleep.
Now mind you, Jessica is telling us this romantic story, making herself out to be Florence Nightingale. In order to protect Sam from tabloid gossip, Jessica said she needed to clean up the room. If the maids saw a big pile on the floor of Sam Kinison's room, they'd phone the Enquirer. Jessica Nightingale told us she quickly wiped up the
shit with towels and wrapped up everything in big sheets. Then she took the brown-stained bedding down the hall and left it in front of someone else's room. Then she crept through the halls, grabbed Windex from the maid's cart, and cleaned the stains from the carpet. Sam woke up the next morning as if nothing had happened. In fact, he probably didn't even remember what he had done.
Well, the story was fantastic and made for an unforgettable morning of radio. The next logical step was to milk it for all it was worth.
A few weeks later, when Sam came on, I played him the tape of this conversation!
"OH, MAN!" Sam exploded. Not literally, thank God. "OH, MAN! DUDE, THIS IS WAR! WHAT'S AMNESTY SPELLED BACKWARDS?"
"How long will it take for Sam's face to turn purple?" I wondered aloud.
"Watch my face turn purple. Believe me, not only did she make this up, but you accept $260,000 of extorted money from misappropriated funds from a church and it's in your account, doesn't this make you an accessory to conspiracy to blackmail? She ought to be in the cell right next to Bakker. Oh, dude, I'm frothing, man!"
Now I knew Sam was pissed. He had used "dude" and "man" in the same sentence.
Sam was almost choking on his cough lozenges.
"Let me tell you something. She's a sick pig. I've had it with her jealousy. She couldn't get me. She offered herself to me and I fell asleep inside her. That's the worst insult you can pay a woman, right, Robin? That's when the war started. I thought we made up. IS THERE ANY MEAT LEFT ON THE CARCASS!? How did Jessica get off on charges of conspiracy to blackmail? Believe me, if we had knowledge of that, we would be busted. Plus she gave bad head!"
It was almost time to go off the air, so I plugged Sam's show that night.
"There may only be ten people there. They might be afraid I'm going to defecate on them from the stage," Sam said. "When I shit in the hotel room, maybe I was just trying to make her a little breakfast."
SAM AND I BOTH DUMP ON DICE
(FIGURATIVELY, THIS TIME)
Why was Sam always in the middle of these fights? Come to think of it, this one might never have started if it wasn't for that Satanic Sam goading me on. Sam was in the studio one day when Andrew "Dice" Clay called in. Robin and I had been pursuing Dice for an exclusive interview about the circumstances behind his getting banned for life from MTV. That morning, I had heard from one of my listeners in Philly that Dice had actually gone on the air there first with one of my radio competitors. Dice called in and tried to smooth things over, but I wasn't buying. I let him know I was disappointed and I cut the conversation short. This was Sam's chance to goad me into a war with Dice, his hated rival. At the time, Sam had about twelve naked tits circling his head (we had some strippers in the studio that morning). After a while, Sam's prodding got to me.
"That's it! Dice is banned from the show!" I pronounced.
"Then I respect you as a man and I'm there for you," Sam said.
"SAM KINISON IS THE NUMBER ONE COMIC IN THE WORLD," I proclaimed.
"You're cute," Sam cooed. "I'd be your woman."
Sam was pretty good at getting in the middle of a fight. His next time on the show, we called Kathy, Dice's ex-wife, in Los Angeles. Sam tried to squeeze dirt out of her and get her to confirm what he had heard, that Dice didn't want people to know she was married to him -- this while she was supporting the guy for three years! Kathy did say their divorce was ugly.
"It's a sad and sick story," I said indignantly. "I am so shocked by what I heard. For a man to deny his marriage ..."
This probably put Dice over the top. A month later he was playing a sold-out show at the Spectrum in Philly and the crowd was packed with Stern supporters. At the first sign of "HOWARD" chanting, the Diceman flipped out.
"What are you fucking yelling 'Howard Stern' for? He's just jealous 'cause I talked to another radio show and he's got nothing better to do than rip me apart, that insecure cocksucker. Nobody fucks with Dice, Dice does the fucking. Nobody."
All of a sudden, he saw a huge "STERN RULES" banner. I LOVE MY PANS!
"All right, sit down, jerkoff. What are you showing me, 'STERN
RULES'? But you're at my show, ha ha ha. C'mon, stop jerking yourselves off. He's using you fucking people for his ratings. Not Diceman. I come out, I deliver. How much did he pay you to sit in the front row and show me that sign? He's a deejay asshole. I'm the biggest comic to ever walk the earth! So he could wipe his ass with your sign, too. Hold it up. Yeah, beautiful. You did your job, collect your fifty bucks from Stern in the morning."
The man was obviously losing it. Dice stayed banned from my show for over a year. During that time, Sam took every opportunity to publicly flog him and challenge him to comedy showdowns. He claimed that Dice had stolen his whole act from him. But I missed Dice. Finally, we both agreed to bury the hatchet. Dice came in with his entourage -- Hot Tub Johnny, Dutch Edsel, and Downtown Ronnie -- and a photographer to record this historic reconciliation. We hugged emotionally.
"I don't care if you go on other shows," I said magnanimously. "This is a nice reunion. Hey, your ex-wife said she masterminded your career." Dice was in the middle of an ugly alimony suit with Kathy.
"I can't talk about her," Dice said.
"She won't get a dime," I said brightly. "Don't worry about it." God, am I a diplomat.
Before long, we got around to talking about Sam. Maybe they could make up, too.
"I wouldn't be friends with Sam. He's garbage. He started a fight with my bodyguard Hot Tub Johnny in the Comedy Store. Sam comes over to Johnny and he goes, 'I ain't afraid of Dice.' Sam wouldn't tell it to my face 'cause the guy's a pussy, that's the bottom line. I kept quiet for two years while this bloated animal destroyed his career by talking about me. So he starts calling Johnny names and makes like he's gonna hit him and he goes to Johnny, 'What are you gonna do about it?' Johnny goes, 'Lay a hand on me.'
"So Sam, with five guys around him, grabs Johnny by the throat. Johnny bangs him one in the face, Tubby goes down. He banged him right in his big, fat, bloated two-thousand-pound head. Now he jumps on that fat bastard's back, he just jumps on him like a waterbed, right, and he rips that dirty rag Sam wears on his head right off, and holds it up and sees Sam is bald from the ears up. Now Sam's guys are jumping on Johnny, but Johnny is dragging all of them and Sam through the Comedy Store to the bathroom. Johnny's
strong, you don't mess with Johnny. So now he sees Sam's a contestant for the new fat Mr. Clean.
"He drags Sam into the bathroom and all Sam's guys are jumping over Johnny but Johnny's pushing them off. He's got Sam in a head-lock and he's looking in the mirror and he's going, 'Sam, tell me what you see.' And Sam's going, 'I'm Bozo, I'm Bozo the Clown. I'm a big, fat, bastard Bozo.' Johnny let him go, but we kept the rag. Now it's a bit in the act."
HO
WARD VS. ALL OF L.A. AND THE SEX-CRAZED MAGIC
Hey, I don't only take on comedians who need to get back on my show to sell out their gigs. I take on whole cities at a time. One of those times was right after we got the news that Magic Johnson had tested positive for HIV. Of course I felt bad. But the media was honoring Magic as if he had just come back from World War II and had sacrificed his life for the honor of his country. The hero worship was sickening. And what I told my listeners was that Magic was pretty damn irresponsible to get it in the first place. It wasn't as if he got infected through a bad blood transfusion or from his dentist. No, this guy came down with it because he had incredible amounts of unprotected sex. Everyone was afraid to talk about Magic in an honest way. The press blasted me. Hate mail poured in. Ironically, after the story was out for a few weeks many newspaper columnists and editorial writers ended up saying the same thing -- that Magic was a womanizer who, in this day and age, should have worn rubbers.
Some role model! He was out banging every night, the guy wouldn't stop. Unless we stop that kind of behavior, we're doomed as a human race. Look, we all want to see a cure for AIDS. But the cure exists. Instead of taking a magic pill or a shot, take your penis and put it back in your pants. And if you want to get some male ass, what you do is you go to a doctor and you both get checked and you stay with each other till death do you part. No more glory-holing.
That was basically my Magic rap, but the listeners were calling the station in droves complaining. Hell, even my program director in L.A., Andy Bloom, a guy who was with me years ago in Philly, called me up and asked me to tone down my remarks about Magic. Fuck him! He called me at home and left a message saying that he had never seen a reaction to anything like the reaction of the L.A.
audience to the Magic raps and the reaction was overwhelmingly negative. I thought that was great. But he was worried about these callers. When I asked him why they were complaining, he couldn't answer. They didn't know why they were mad, they couldn't specifically cite examples of things I had said that pissed them off, they were just angry I was "attacking" Magic.
Well, I'd give them something to be angry about. The next day I went on the air and imagined one of the many phone calls Magic would be making to the women he banged:
MAGIC: Hello, baby, this is Magic
. . . Johnson . . . Yeah . . . now
speaking about my Johnson, we got a little problem here.
WOMAN: What is it, Magic? I never
thought I'd hear from you
again.
MAGIC: Well, you sitting
down?
WOMAN: I just want to say that
that night we spent together so beautiful.
MAGIC: I say, are you sitting down, woman?
WOMAN: Magic, I got to be honest with you. I thought you were like every other basketball player, you wouldn't call me back. And I know
you could have any woman you want. I've dated a lot of basketball
players. I make a habit of dating sports figures and people in the entertainment industry, but they never call back. This is so beautiful that you
called back.
MAGIC: Oh, baby, you're making it harder and harder. Baby, I was shooting arsenic.
WOMAN: What?
MAGIC: Well, there's good news and bad news.
WOMAN: Well, what's the good news?
MAGIC: The good news is you'll be losing a lot of weight soon. You can
go bang away, you got nothing to lose.
WOMAN: What's the bad news?
MAGIC: Well, I got something.
WOMAN: A gift? An engagement ring? Not one of you guys has
ever even called me back, now I'm engaged.
MAGIC: No, no, no, no. I got something ... it rhymes with maids.
WOMAN: Now what rhymes with maids? Blades? Rollerblades?
MAGIC: No, I don't got no Rollerblades.
WOMAN: Oh, my God, wait a second, I think I know what you're trying to tell me.
MAGIC: You know what, baby, it would be a whole lot easier if you tuned in the national TV. Just tune in to my press conference.
WOMAN: Okay, but that doesn't sound like good news.
MAGIC: Look at it this way. You can smoke all the cigarettes you want, do lots of drugs, jump out of an airplane, and race cars.
Now the phones and hate mail really went crazy. A few days later I picked out the best seething hate letter from a woman in L.A. named Laura and I called her up on the air.
"Honey, you're a big phony," I said. "You can't face facts that Magic Johnson, your supposed hero, was banging everything on two legs."
"Howard, you would have sex with lots of girls, but women don't want you."
"LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, HONEY!" I shouted. "I COULD BE OUT BANGING A DIFFERENT WOMAN EVERY NIGHT."
"In your dreams."
That was it. I couldn't bear to talk with this moron. So I did all the talking. I had more to say than she did. "There's no way you can stop my juggernaut of coming and barreling through L.A. The ratings continue to grow. You're right, there's a lot of people like you who don't have any comprehension level. You read a book and you don't even know what you read. You speak and you don't know what you just said. You're a stupid woman who will never understand my show. You should not be listening. I don't sit and idolize Magic Johnson. I tell you the way it is. I tell you that he slept with thousands of women and that's why he got the AIDS virus. He used no contraception whatsoever and you can't deal with that because it's an adult opinion. I don't go around gaga about Magic. He's not my God and hero."
"You're your only God and hero," she said.
Maybe she was more perceptive than I was giving her credit for.
"You should quit the Catholic church and pray to Magic Johnson.
Build a giant sneaker in your bedroom and pray to that instead of the Virgin Mother," I said.
"I have a basketball..."
"Take the basketball and pray to it."
"Howard, you have this godlike attitude that ain't gonna work for long."
"If you don't like the show, listen to Rick Dees, Mark and Brian, Jay Thomas, I'll name them all. IN FACT, I FORBID YOU FROM LISTENING TO MY SHOW AND YOU ARE ONLY ALLOWED TO LISTEN TO MARK AND BRIAN AND RICK DEES AND JAY THOMAS. Now I'll hang up on you. Thank you for calling and thank you for your hate letter. You are no longer allowed to listen."
"Thank you, Howard," she said and hung up.
"I don't want anybody like her listening," I continued. "I want to hand-select the people who listen. Their hero. They got a real hero. Meanwhile a real hero like Jonas Salk can't afford cable TV."
MUGGED AT THE GRAMMYS
It's funny, after all these years doing my show, I never really got into a physical fight. Plenty of screaming matches, verbal threats, and posturing, but no fisticuffs. But it wasn't until we went to L.A. to do a live remote from the Grammys that I ever got into a real fight.
This wasn't a real fight either. It was more like a New York mugging. We were set up in a hall at the Roosevelt Hotel, along with a lot of other radio stations from around the country. The problem was my show was so controversial that the idiots escorting the celebrities from station to station were shying away from bringing me guests.
I wasn't going to take this lying down. I called over the jerk who was running the show and berated him on the air. He told me that I had a history of "hogging" guests. I told him to screw off, I'd get my own guests. It just so happens that for these purposes, I carry a megaphone. The previous year at the Grammys, I used this megaphone on Lou Reed in an attempt to shame him into coming and sitting for an interview with me, even though I knew he hated my guts.
"LOU REED? LOU REED? WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ME?" I boomed. "I'M A BIG FAN OF YOURS. I KNOW ALL YOUR HIT SONGS. 'WALK ON THE WILD SIDE,' 'SWEET
JANE.' WHY DO YOU IGNORE ME?"
I picked up my megaphone and turned it on. Scanning the room, I spotted Elaine Boosler at the next booth. Great. Another jerk who didn't li
ke me and wouldn't be a guest. I really wasn't interested in her being on my show until I heard she requested not to be on. The guy who ran the show told me that Elaine had been hearing me talk shit about her all week, too. This was going to be fun.
"HEY, ELAINE. WHAT'S THE MATTER? YOU DON'T WANT TO COME ON MY SHOW?" Everyone in the room could hear me. The whole room turned as one toward me. The other stations were pissed because my loud megaphone voice was interrupting their broadcasts.
"ELAINE, YOU DON'T WANT TO BE ON THE 'HOWARD STERN SHOW? WHAT'S THE MATTER? IT'S SUCH A HORRIBLE SHOW? YEAH, YOU'RE SO FUNNY."
"So's your face," a strange-looking guy suddenly said.
"Who are you? Take a seat," I motioned toward my empty guest chair.
All of a sudden, all hell broke loose. This jerk attacked me, slamming my megaphone into my nose. He was about to do more damage, but my faithful producer, Boy Gary, grabbed him from behind. He poked Gary in the mouth and threw a full cup of soda at me before one of my brave listeners from New York, who had won a radio contest, managed to wrestle him to the ground and bloody his face with his studded wristband. During this fracas, Elaine Boosler came over screaming, "He's with me and he has taste." It turns out that this guy was Boosler's boyfriend. The entire room started buzzing with excitement. The best thing about the fight was we never went off the air. THIS WAS GREAT RADIO!
"Elaine Boosler's people just beat up Gary," I immediately announced. "Are my earrings in?" Gary asked. "I think he pulled one of my earrings out."
"You get punched in the eye?" I asked him.
"No, I'm okay," Baba Booey said. "But I don't want you to ever say I don't do anything for you. I took a shot for you, man."
He was absolutely right. I made a mental note not to berate him -- at least not until we got back to New York.
"Howard Stern? I can't stand him." -- Lou Reed