Private Parts

by Howard Stern

  But the FCC bureaucrats got on me anyway. They soon realized that they were getting a lot of attention from the press, something they loved. They started paying attention to this irritating man, a minister from Tupelo, Mississippi, named Donald E. Wildmon, who claimed I was singlehandedly leading America straight to hell because I was doing satire of a sexual nature for four hours a morning on a radio program that this celebrity-seeking nothing couldn't even hear down in Mississippi. What was going through his mind? Was he hearing the cash registers ringing because of all those rubes who empty their savings accounts to support his ridiculous morality-in-America campaign?

  This Wildmon character is the same guy who led a protest against Mighty Mouse cartoons because he claimed they promoted cocaine use when Mighty Mouse would sniff some flowers to rejuvenate his superhero powers. This is the same Wildmon who picketed the TV show "Taxi" because he claimed it was "overtly sexual." And it probably was ... to his puny little mind. This is the same mindset that led Jimmy Swaggart to campaign against Penthouse being carried by 7-Eleven stores because he personally knew that when you see pictures of nekkid wimmen you just want to go out and pick up a ugly hooker widda hairy butt and take her to a hotel room and jerk off while she fingers herself. Just because Jimmy Swaggart and other idiots like him can't control their carnal impulses, they want to regulate what the rest of us can do.

  So this bald minister from Mississippi decided to orchestrate a national letter-writing campaign to the FCC to report me. He sent out a flyer to his faithful flock urging them to report my every romantic move to the FCC.

  Meanwhile, after his whole heavily promoted campaign, the FCC got just three tapes complaining about me -- one from a woman in Philadelphia and the other two from Wildmon himself! Some campaign.

  Because of these three complaints, in April of 1987 the FCC took a closer look at me and decided that I was about the worst thing they'd ever heard on radio, that I, Howard Stern, had singlehandedly ruined the planet and everything on it. Where there were feces, I wallowed in them. Where there were breasts, I dared to play with them. If there was a problem with lesbians, I dared to lick it. You get the idea. They said I was offensive. They gave me a warning.

  This warning encouraged every kook in the universe to come out of the woodwork and report me. Reporting Howard Stern to the FCC became the second most popular sport in America, next to reporting me to my sponsors.

  If you wanted fame and power, if you wanted your name in the paper, if you wanted to appear on "Nightline," you could report me to the FCC.

  ENTER MISS ANNE M. STOMMEL, SPINSTER.

  It was Wednesday, December 14,1988. We were planning our guest list for our gala Christmas party, which included the usual cast of characters: lesbians, strippers, mental patients, low-lifes, a guy who was going to play the piano with his penis, everyone Jesus loves. After I left work that day, Anne Stommel called the radio station to complain.

  I think she felt we were anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-God, and pro-Communist because she didn't like my Christmas party guest list. I couldn't wait to call her when I came in the next morning.

  "Anne, you're on the air. Welcome to our radio show. Please don't say anything obscene or dirty," I cautioned.

  "Who are you going to invite to the Christmas party? I wonder if you invite these kind of people to a Hanukkah party ... it must be rollicking," she said.

  I believe that in her mind we were blaspheming her high holy day. If I had invited strippers up for Hanukkah, I had the feeling she wouldn't have minded.

  "What is it, honey?" I asked. "You're a Christian and you think we're being blasphemous to Christmas? What's all this Christmas nonsense with you?" I said. "Wake up and smell the roses, honey! What are you hung up on? What are you afraid of? Who's it gonna hurt? Why don't you go out and help the homeless if you're so Christian?"

  "Now, wait a minute." She got feisty. "165 b.c.e. parenthesis,

  before the common era, and I used to know that that was before the Christian era..." I was having a difficult time understanding her.

  "You're so silly, you're so hung up," I laughed.

  "You may be the silly guy. Our society has B.C. and a.d. Even Adam Clayton Powell -- now, you like Negroes -- Adam Clayton Powell said..."

  "NEGROES?" I screamed.

  "Adam Clayton Powell said the birth of Christ was like a miracle ..."

  "Don't you know it's blacks, not Negroes?" I said. It sounded to me as if this woman was a little out of touch. She told me she was sixty-five, she'd never been married, she'd lived her whole life in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and she'd gone to Vassar.

  "Oh, now," she continued, "one of your guys said all you have to do if you don't like Howard Stern is to use two fingers. Turn it off. I don't want to turn you off. I want to know what you're doing," she said.

  "Oh, so you're going to monitor me," I said.

  "I want to know what you're up to," she said. "Talk about freedom of speech, my idea presently is just to copy down the people you're inviting to the Christmas party and I'm going to listen this morning to find out who else you're going to invite and I'm going to write it up because I'm a professional technical writer in communications and electronics."

  "You're dangerous is what you are," I said. "I think you've been suppressed your whole life and you love this kind of radio and that's why you can't stop listening. You love it, you love the freedom you're hearing. You wish you were at the Christmas party. You wish you were naked serving those drinks ..."

  "Oh, go on," she snorted.

  "Yes, you do." I was beside myself. "You only wish you were a young voluptuous woman and I was spanking you. That's what you secretly wish for."

  Anne M. Stommel, spinster, and I were not getting along. I tried to seduce her with my wit and charm but all she wanted to do was ruin me.

  The truth is, I love characters like Anne M. Stommel and I never would have believed that anyone would take her seriously until the five stooges at the FCC started listening to her. She was their kind of gal.

  "Well, I may write to someone that you like so much, Senator Bill Bradley, who happens to represent me," she said.

  "No! You're not going to write to SENATOR BILL BRADLEY because I'm shaking in my pants," I said in mock fright. "Look, Bradley's a senator of the United States because he was a basketball player. People are enamored with basketball players. He's got as much brains as you do."

  "Oh, fine, that's lovely and that's another thing I'll include to Senator Bradley in my letter to him ..." Anne said.

  "Ask him about his hook shot," I suggested.

  Anne and I went on like this all morning. This mental masturbation went on for hours. After she hung up, I couldn't get her out of my mind. Anne had drawn me in like a black widow spider. I had to have more of her. I'm a married man, but I needed Anne. She was the great-great-grandmother I never had. Most radio hosts would never have called her back. But I called her again later that morning and the conversation was still the same. All she was interested in was recording my every word and listening over and over and over again. My whole adolescent life I hoped and prayed that women would worship my every word. Now I had what I'd always wished for. And it was pissing me off.

  "I want to have tapes, to have it recorded and documented," she said.

  "Are you fixing up a time capsule?" Robin asked.

  "You can bury it in your backyard, when they bury you," I said.

  Our Christmas party passed and we fell back into our usual routine. Little did I know that behind the scenes, people were actively plotting against me. Anne's letter to Senator Bradley got routed to the FCC, which requested tapes of any shows that offended Miss Stommel. Of course, Anne was more than happy to send them a tape of our Christmas show in its entirety.

  The FCC chairman, Alfred Sikes, a Republican do-gooder, suddenly decided that the FCC should go after disc jockeys. Sikes took it upon himself to clean up the "indecency" from the radio airwaves. They attempted to do that by staging
a vendetta against one man -- me.

  Later that year, the FCC announced their decision. I was guilty of "indecent" broadcasts and they were going to fine my bosses $6,000, $2,000 for each city we transmitted that Christmas show to.

  FCC fines mount for Stern

  Howard Stern Employer Faces $600,000 Fine

  Don't Muzzle Howard Stern The F.C.C. Is Fining Howard Stern's Employer $600,000 FCC: Stern show indecent

  FCC'S STERN WARNING

  Stern: Equal opportunity offender

  Howard Stern Rapped As Indecent by FCC

  Nothing like opening the morning paper and reading what a scumbag I am.

  I made one decision immediately. I would never mention this incident on my resume. For the rest of my life I was going to have to lie on my resume. This is not the kind of thing an employer likes to read. I wondered if my guidance counselor was right. Maybe I should have been a speech therapist. Less pressure. It's not easy being me. The government was getting very aggressive. And I knew that inside I didn't have the constitution to stand up to these idiots. I'm very delicate. I work out in a gym for three days and I'm ready for the hospital.

  It was with a heavy heart that I started my show on Election Day 1990.

  "Where do I begin? Yesterday I learned I'm being targeted by the federal government again. I'm about to be fined by the FCC. But I'm not gonna lie down like the rest of these sheep in the broadcast industry. The FCC -- I don't know who these guys are, I don't know who elected them, I don't know what their particular political affiliations are, I don't know what their morality is, I don't know if they're having sex in the back of a bus with a young boy, I don't know anything about these people. I just wanna preface all of my remarks by saying that. But I will be going to the Supreme Court to fight this."

  "You're gonna start at the Supreme Court?" Robin asked.

 

  My Freedom Rally at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza at the United Nations. Thousands unite for free speech.

  "Yes, I want to go right to the Supreme Court. There's not a person in America who would find me guilty of obscenity based on what they're about to charge me with. You ready for the horrible things that I said? 'Here's a guy who plays the piano with his penis.' Have we finally arrived at the day in this country that you cannot use the word penis'! I was just watching a tape produced by Henry Winkler for kids and it says we shouldn't call our private parts anything other than what their name is. Why do we have such hang-ups about sex?

  "I swear to God, I was talking to my seven-year-old about sex the other night, and she was asking about babies. My wife has basically told her that married people have a special way of hugging each other -- you do a broadstroke deal. And she asked about the penis and the vagina. She's seven years old! She does more penis jokes in a day than anybody I know! These uptight, jackass FCC commissioners, who sit there every day, evidently have a hang-up about their penises and vaginas.

  "And where's the ACLU during all this crap? They're defending the KKK. They're right on top of things. You think another deejay would come to my defense. Forget about it. I'm being set up because I'm number one, I'm in New York, I'm high profile, I go on the Letterman show, I have a TV show. It's perfect to get me. Move over, Lenny Bruce; I'll crawl into that box with you. It's unbelievable. Listen to what I'm being fined for: 'There's a big black lesbian out of her mind with lust' I don't know where I said that, but I'm sure I must have. And I'll tell you something: I'LL SAY IT NINE HUNDRED TIMES, UNTIL I'M BLUE IN THE FACE!! BIG BLACK LESBIAN WITH LUST!!

  "I guess all five commissioners listened to that tape and went out and started raping people when they heard it. They're fining me for that. But I'm sure Neil Bush is enjoying no fines from the government. I'll tell you what, I'll pay the two grand when Neil Bush is in jail. That's when I know they'll be some justice. But President Bush sits idly by -- him and Bubblehead, his wife -- they're lying back enjoying Air Force One. GET HIM OUTTA OFFICE! YA CREEP! He should walk in tomorrow to the FCC and say, 'Excuse me, what are you guys doing? We have tremendous problems in this country. C'mere, I got to smack you in the head.' Why doesn't he ask his son what happened? And Jeb. What kinda name is that? What does he live in, a log cabin? Jeb Bush. But Neil Bush will never have a problem.

  " 'He will play the piano with his penis' is indecent. Can you imagine this? And 'a big black lesbian filled with lust.' Excuse me, do I hear the word lust.' What are they objecting to: the word lust? Or is it the idea of a big black lesbian? If I said 'a man filled with lust,' would that be obscene? They better think this through, because I will not pay this fine. You're telling me that the word lust is no longer acceptable on radio? If I talk about sexuality comically that's no good, but if Donahue puts a doctor on the stage and talks about sexuality in a clinical way -- even though we're both after the same thing, ratings -- Donahue's okay, but I'm indecent. You're going to have a hard time arguing that in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Even Justice Souter, that guy who's been locking himself up in a log cabin, could figure that out. Should I wear a white coat and a stethoscope to work every day, then I could say 'big black lesbian filled with lust"! Who are they kidding here?

  "I recall tuning in 'Saturday Night Live' a couple of months ago and seeing a bit where every other word was penis. I don't see them getting fined. No, they're going to pick on me because they're going to use this lame-ass excuse that I'm on from six to ten in the morning, where children can hear me. Excuse me, it's in the morning that parents are around their children, and actually have control over what they're listening to. This is the only time in the day when parents are around their kids and know what they're doing!

  "If I was the president's son, this wouldn't happen. If I was Howard Bush, no government would be coming after me."

  I put on my best George Bush voice.

  " 'Hello? Alfred Sikes? That's my boy on the air in New York. There's nothing wrong with him, he's a good boy. Good, I'm glad we see things eye to eye on this ...' These stupid rich dicks don't have any clue as to what real life is about. Get fired up today. VOTE OUT ALL THE INCUMBENTS! VOTE 'EM OUT! HAUL 'EM OUT! WAY OUT! OUT!

  "I hope Al Sikes has some money. I'm taking him to court personally. For damages. I'm working my ass off and these bureaucrats sit around, having long lunches. I WANT TO KNOW HIS SCHEDULE ! I wanna know the hours he puts in. Skunk. Why can't he realize this is just bogus. I gotta take this guy to court and clean him out. He can support me financially for the rest of my life."

  Now, this tirade would have made most people back down. But

  not the FCC. What did they care? They had nothing else to do. This was only the beginning.

  Of course, we appealed the FCC's initial citation for that Christmas show. And on October 16, 1992, the FCC upheld the $6,000 in indecency fines. It was interesting that on the same day, former FCC commissioner Steven A. Sharp was sentenced to ten years in prison for sexually assaulting three boys, one of whom had become his legal ward a few years earlier. This guy was sodomizing three boys, ages twelve, thirteen, and fourteen. I was amazed that he didn't blame it on me. Maybe he was just trying to play the piano with their penises and got carried away. Meanwhile, as part of his sentence, the judge forbade him from seeing his own eight-year-old son until the kid reaches eighteen. These are the guys who sit in judgment over me.

  After Anne Stommel there was a whole group of listeners, excuse me, audio stalkers, who became obsessed with me and my show and made careers out of reporting me.

  "I've listened to Howard Stern for years and I will continue to listen to Howard Stern for years."

  -- Roger Clinton

  Three citations later, my radio stations have been collectively fined over $900,000. And my guess is that not a penny will ever be paid after this goes before the U.S. Supreme Court. And me? I'll just wait it out the way I waited out Pig Virus, NBC, my Washington, D.C., general manager, the Israeli back at my first radio station, and every other disbeliever on this planet.

  I knew that all I
had to do was to keep my big fat mouth shut, but of course, that's impossible. So they decided to make an example out of me. I got slipped some information that FCC chairman Al Sikes

  had said off the record, "Look, we have to stop the spread of Stern."

  Why was I being singled out by this guy Sikes? Everyone in the media from Donahue to Dr. Ruth to two-bit Stern imitators was doing stuff just as, if not more, risqué than what I was doing. But they were only going after me. Then, a few days later, we heard that Al Sikes was in the hospital being operated on for prostate cancer. I felt that, in His own mysterious way, God was taking care of my enemies.

  On the air that morning, a caller started asking me about my travails with the FCC and inspired one of my more celebrated lunatic moments:

  "Maybe the doctor will find more cancer in Sikes. That's the only thing I can pray for. Cancer's a good thing when it hits the people you hate. This guy's targeting me with a vengeance and a vendetta. What did I do to him and his family? What did I do to him? I'm trying to make a living.

  "The only way I have a chance of ridding this guy out of my life is if people elect Bill Clinton, and we get rid of the religious yahoos. Do you understand the hypocrisy of this situation?

  I only pray for cancer for all of the FCC."

  I lowered my voice to a whisper. "I pray to you now, Jesus Christ. Oh, Jesus, I pray to you that the FCC gets cancer. I pray that Al Sike's prostate cancer spreads into his lungs and his kidneys. I pray to you, Jesus, answer my prayers. Make their medical problems so bad that they cannot pay attention to me."

  "Well, I just pray that Bush gets out of office," my caller said.