Indeed, Stern sounds like a guy who should have retired years ago, one begging to be fired, an attempt to end his own misery.
Howard: Your listeners are right there with you. Put us all out of your misery.
Consider a typical show, consisting — on a daily, “Groundhog Day”-like basis — of such content as imitations of his nonagenarian parents and their hearing loss (“What?! What did you say?!”) — as enjoyable as talking to one’s own hard-of-hearing relatives — while revisiting slights and traumas from his childhood yet insisting that decades of three-to-four-day-a-week therapy have made him less angry and more evolved.
We usually segue into graphic, sex-obsessed talks with Ronnie the Limo Driver, a 71-year-old Stern show mainstay who has now become its lead character, eating up airtime and surpassing Stern himself. (Hope Ronnie got a raise for all this heavy lifting, unlistenable though he may be.)
Ronnie the Limo Driver may get more on-air time than Stern these days. Ronnie the Limo Driver may get more on-air time than Stern these days.
If it’s Monday, we may get a recap of Howard’s weekend, which typically involves how many Peloton classes he took, updates on his lifelong disordered eating, current blood levels, and rants on why the one-percenters who live near him in the Hamptons, post-vaccine, won’t wear masks all the time.
If his much younger model wife, Beth, comes up, it’s to discuss how efficiently she cleans (now that the maids are gone), her eating habits and blood levels, and the hundreds of rescue cats that cycle in and out of their house.
If “The Bachelor” or “The Bachelorette” happens to be airing, we can count on a mind-numbing, 45-minute soliloquy.
Howard and Beth Stern at the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2018. Howard and Beth Stern at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2018.
Next, we’ll probably take some calls from the mentally impaired characters known as “The Wack Pack,” or be subjected to prank phone calls that Stern insists are real but are clearly fake and scripted.
In lieu of picking on society’s weakest, Stern will turn his rage on most any staffer in his sights. It says something that even the most picked-upon loyalist — say, his producer of 37 years — doesn’t even bother to really fight back anymore.]
Ex-Howard Stern staffers say multimillionaire DJ is a Scrooge Why? My guess is that Stern’s rants are so expected and so often hit the same notes — personal hygiene, looks, financial status, marital troubles, professional incompetence — that even attacked staffers feel the same boredom that long ago came over the listener.
And how could they not? Stern long ago abandoned his best attribute, going after famous hypocrites. Hilaria Baldwin, for example, pretending for years to be from Spain — when really she’s from Boston — and bagging a movie star would once have been Stern show fodder for days.
But Hilaria barely rates a mention. Why? Can’t piss off Howard’s good pal Alec in the Hamptons. Howard’s in with the cool kids — all he ever really wanted, despite claims to the contrary.
Who’s the hypocrite now?
