[lbo-talk] Stern

[bitch at pulpculture.org]

At 05:58 PM 4/13/2007, you wrote:
>Over the years, I've routinely gotten into trouble
>with my liberal friends for declaring my love for
>Howard.
>
>
>How could I, a Black guy, a leftist, a person with
>feminist sympathies, a man who's sweet to women,
>listen to Stern who, in his terrestrial radio heyday
>many described as Satan's right-hand man if not Old
>Scratch himself.
>
>
>Simple: he's a talented, if flawed, comedian and
>stories of his evil are wildly exaggerated.  As
>Seinfeld once said to him, during an interview he gave
>to Howard long ago - back when his radio show was only
>syndicated to two cities: Philly and LA - 'you're
>talented but sometimes you allow your worse impulses
>to win and you go astray.'
>
>
>The Imus drama has special significance for long-time
>Stern fans: for years and years Howard told anyone who
>would listen that Don Imus (with whom Howard used to
>work when during his career's formative years) was
>deeply racist, sexist and a scam artist to boot (Imus'
>financially questionable "ranch" for sick children
>received merciless scrutiny from Stern).
>
>
>I remember - because Howard told the story many times
>- a vignette about Imus ruthlessly insulting a Black
>female employee of CBS years ago using language pretty
>similar to what he tossed at the Rutgers team.
>
>
>Howard described Imus as his enemy...many times.  I
>imagine he's enjoying a cup of sake at Nobu in
>celebration of his adversary's well deserved descent.

oh yeah. i can't recall where I read this, but the feud between the two is 
legendary. as for his sexist humor, the thing that softened much of it was 
the way he also mocked himself, describing himself as needing tweezers to 
take a leak, as ugly, and how he'd last five seconds with X stripper on the 
show. I never listened to him enough to know, but the movie of his career 
made him out to be so crazy for his wife that he came off as an awkward, 
inept, unattractive man who'd somehow managed to have a great looking, 
wonderful wife with whom he really was in love. Thus, if he flirted with a 
stripper, in the film, it came off as a guy who couldn't get a date in high 
school, eating up the fact that he had an audience but that's about all he 
could handle -- that and he wasn't interested in anyone but his wife. Like 
I said, that's how he came off in the film which, no doubt, was pretty 
contrived.

i didn't know that bit about the 'ranch' b/c, when i've listened to imus on 
the television, he yaks it up about what great work they do there, yadda. 
what was the outcome of the scam investigations, even if informal?

Bitch | Lab
http://blog.pulpculture.org (NSFW)