According to the movie “Private Parts,” Howard Stern once worked in Detroit. I was alive at the time, though very young, therefore I have no memory of him. Growing up in Detroit, we were not a city that had his nationally syndicated morning show, so I’d never heard of him until he started doing TV – first David Letterman, then his own local show on WOR on New York and, through the miracle of cable, everywhere else. I liked it. Not because it was great, it was just fair most of the time, but because it seemed to be pushing the standards allowed on television, it took risks. They didn’t always pay off, but he took them. Howard Stern takes no risks anymore.
When someone says, “This isn’t your mother’s” something or other, it is usually appropriate. Things change and time marches on. But if you were to say “Howard Stern isn’t your mother’s radio,” it would only be true depending upon when you said it. In the 1980s and 1990s, no doubt your mom would’ve been very upset you were listening to, and likely laughing hysterically at, “that filth on the radio.” Now, thanks to age or cowardice, Stern mostly says things that your mother would likely approve of…if your mother is paranoid when it comes to COVID 19.
I have SiriusXM in my car because it was incredibly cheap, $5 per month, and I enjoy The Beatles Channel and some of the news. I’ve had it for a few years now, always holding off on re-upping my subscription until they drop the rate to the bottom of the barrel.
I also enjoyed Stern in those years, as more of an add-on than an attraction, but still enjoyed it. Since COVID, his show is unbearable.
I get anyone being cautious, especially at the beginning of the pandemic – no one knew anything and the paranoia stoked by the media and Democrats was not seriously challenged by anyone. We simply didn’t know enough about the bug to know what to think.
But it didn’t take too long for us to figure some things out, and the more we figured out the less afraid we became. Well, most of us became, not all of us.
There are people who still boil every piece of mail or get into scuba gear to go grocery shopping. You see these people looking like a dime-store welder with their face shields, unaware of how air works. You almost feel sad for them.
Howard Stern is one of them, or at least he plays one on the radio.
The thing about Stern is you never know when it’s a joke. You used to be able to, mostly by whether it was funny or not, but now you can’t. He made his name playing a character on the radio he swore was not the real him – a pervert making uptight squares uncomfortable with strippers, hookers, and whatever else his team could find. Then he divorced the wife he’d sworn he was loyal to and in love with…
The fact that he’s played a character his whole life does make you wonder if you’re getting the real him now, or if you ever have. But whatever he is, how he is on the radio now is a nerdy shut-in absolutely convinced COVID 19 is hunting him. This could be done in a funny way, but it’s not.
When he talks to staff who’ve attended events, like the Super Bowl, he always asks about people wearing masks. He openly whines about people who oppose vaccine mandates, while he advocates forced shots or exclusion from health care. The “rebel” is now an appendage of the state. I’ll leave it up to you to choose which appendage.
If he’s not playing a character, it’s sad what age can do to a once clever guy. If he is playing one, it’s a sad commentary on what time has convinced him is an interesting one.
Whatever the case, Stern has lost a few steps. With every guest he gets around to whining about vaccines; he assumes everyone he has on agrees with him, which makes for boring chunks of interviews.
I never really got to listen to the mythical Howard Stern on terrestrial radio, but I’m told he was brilliant. I only caught glimpses on TV, which were different at the time, but feel tame now. Whatever he was, he’s not anymore. COVID broke a lot of people – think about any “Karen” you’ve seen video of screaming at people for not wearing a mask outside. That’s now Howard Stern. COVID broke him. If he can’t be put back together again, if he doesn’t have the content in the front of his underwear to move on from his paranoia, he should at least spend less time talking about the content in the back of his underwear that paranoia scared out of him.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!), host of a daily radio show on WCBM in Maryland, and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.