Mutt

*warning - i wrote a book chapter*

As hardcore a Stern fan as I was I was never the kind of fan who blindly worshiped him, his enemies didn't automatically become my enemies. I am not a New York City guy, the lengths I've gone to to listen to Howard as he went in and out of markets were ridiculous, both pre and post Internet. He was on in Buffalo for a couple of years then without warning, gone. Then Toronto, another market conquered in another country, but it didn't last long, chased off the air and silenced by the powers that be. Radio has always been my favorite medium, so even though I'd never listened to these legendary American disc jockeys I knew their names. I knew the name Don Imus long before Howard's, his reputation as the top rock and roll disc jockey in NYC, but had never heard or seen him. When I began listening to Howard I was enthralled by the stories of the WNBC era, his vivid descriptions and impersonation of Imus as this pompous cokehead redneck racist drunken sleazy bully were amazing - nobody hates like Howard Stern. I was intrigued, you don't get to be the top rated dj in NYC without talent. Imus became a compelling figure to me, a man who achieved greatness brought down by a younger hungrier more talented man and his own personal demons, classic stuff. By the early 90's Howard was the king of morning radio, not just in NYC, across the country, achieving successes and fame that no radio disc jockey had dreamed of. And there was the once mighty superstar Imus, now doing a morning show on an all sports AM radio station, WFAN - a station who's morning drive ratings barely registered. And still it wasn't enough for Howard that Imus had been laid so low, he continued to humiliate Imus regularly on the air. Demonizing and ridiculing rival dj's was part of Howard's radio shtick, culminating in over the top public funerals when he slayed them. John Debella in Philadephia, the Greaseman in Washington, Mark and Brian in LA, Mancow in Chicago, Brother Weeze in upstate NY - they were all theater, part of the script. Imus was different, Howard truly seemed to hate the man to a pathological degree, he represented something much more to Howard. When Imus suffered a serious health setback, a lung collapse, Howard took to the air and mocked the frail sick old man, the sound of a ventilator machine playing behind his voice, wishing him dead. And I think he meant it, only Howard knows.

I finally got to listen to Imus with my own ears somewhere around that time. I have a SONY AM/FM clock radio that I received as a gift when I was 12, it's my most personal possession, it's older than probably half of the people who post here, 36 years old, works perfectly, it's a beautiful piece of design. It's right here beside me. To anybody under 40, AM radio doesn't even exist. The magical thing about AM radio is that at night radio waves bounce off the ionosphere and can carry a local radio signal very far from its original source. I'd listen to baseball and hockey games and top 40 radio from stations all across the American Midwest and Northeast. If you're under 40 this sounds stupid but for people over 40 we grew up in a world without cable TV, the world beyond your hometown was 3 network affiliate TV channels, 5 if you were Canadian, and a few local independent stations. So one early morning in the early 90's I decided to see if I could pick up WFAN while Imus was on the air. Moving the clock radio in different directions I finally found him, sounding exactly as Howard's impersonation of him, the garbling of a deep voice with a strange southern accent, mumbling and stumbling, frequent moments of awkward silence, you could easily imagine he was a drunk. And as I listened longer I confirmed what I always suspected, Imus was not without talent. You don't become the top morning show personality in New York City without it. I had no idea what the Imus show was about, it was on an all sports station so I assumed sports was a big part of it. It wasn't - I quickly realized that Imus had apparently reinvented himself as something of a political commentator, borrowing much from the Stern show, Imus in the Morning was a combination of a Sunday morning political pundit show and the Howard Stern show. He had his own ensemble similar to Howard's, Charles McCord was Robin, a sycophantic respectable news reader, Bernard McGurk was Jackie/Artie, a weasel who provided a lot of the bigoted and sexist humor, and Al Rosenberg a comedy writer who had worked on Howard's show. The call in guests were an impressive roster of big name political and news media personalities. When Imus would talk or interview a guest you could almost hear the voice in his head ask 'What would Howard do here, what would Howard say?'. I found the show entertaining and Imus to be exactly what Howard said he was.

So now I'd have Howard's show on my stereo system and for an hour until the sun rose I could check in on what Imus was talking about, at the same time. I don't know if the format of the Sirius show is any different but in the WXRK days the first hour was very mellow usually, probably my favorite hour of the show, that bluesy instrumental Tilt-a-Whirl theme song would come out of my speakers followed by 'Good morning everybody' and all was right with the world to me. I think the Imus show might have started at 5:30AM while Howard started at 6:00AM. I'm finally about to get to the part of the story where I instigated Howard's longest angriest rant ever.

When I first started listening to the Imus show, any time Howard's name came up in conversation and it did occassionally, Imus was fairly respectful, it was almost sad, he was Howard's bitch and he knew it. He didn't want to say anything that would incite Howard's wrath but he didn't want to look like Howard had totally emasculated him - he'd mumble things like 'yeah Howard's got some talent, never said he didn't, don't know what I ever did to him, he's a potty mouthed little boy' 'Howard's an obnoxious little jerk'. Gradually Imus became something of a big deal again, he had redeemed himself, he was now a sought after guest on political TV shows, politicians and news media personalities wanted to be on his show, inside the Beltway the I-Man was hip and cool.

I'm not sure what year this happened in, my guess is somewhere in 1995-1997, definitely before I was in this industry and before the Internet was widely used. I had a dial-up account with a small ISP that had started out as a BBS, 15 hours of Internet access a month. All I used the Internet for was reading and posting to newsgroups, the WWW was a barren landscape. One morning I was listening to the Imus show, and I am pretty sure it was in the 5:30-6:00AM time period when Imus had already begun and Howard hadn't yet started. Imus and his crew were discussing something, can't remember what exactly, perhaps a charity event in the city or a story in one of the newspapers but Alison Stern's name came up, Howard's wife. Imus' henchman Bernard jumped on it and made some insulting remark about Alison's looks. Imus now had a trophy wife, Diedre, a hot blonde who was at least 30 years younger than him. Alison Stern looked like your average 40 year old Jewish housewife on Long Island. Imus then joined in with McGurk and made a joke about Alison's looks. Laughter ensued among the Imus crew, more jokes or comments. My jaw dropped, Imus had dared 'to go there'. I had never heard anybody, including Howard's worst enemies, go there.

I can't remember if I used email or sent a fax but I had to tell Howard, I wrote out exactly what I had just heard on the Imus show and sent it off. Maybe 15 minutes later Howard came back from commercials and it began ...... 'So Robin I hear Imus is on the radio discussing my wife ...................' and didn't stop for at least an hour. It wasn't shtick, it was as real and personal as it comes, at times he was screaming, several times I thought the rant was over, he had said his piece, silence - and then he'd start up again. The most dramatic parts were these threats and references to dirt on Imus that Howard said he had never revealed before and he alluded to it having something to do with Imus' daughter from his first marriage. I remember thinking to myself that if Howard wasn't bluffing that Howard possibly had heard rumors or been told by a good source that Imus had molested his daughter.

Who knows, maybe other listeners also heard Imus and called or wrote in as well. I prefer to think I was the lone snitch that set off the fireworks.

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