Artie Lange stabbed himself nine times

"Sad" is a word we've used often about Artie Lange, the boisterous, schlubadub comic who's made his drug addiction and obesity his shtick and who for years has provided cruel laughter from his boss, former radio star Howard Stern. This morning, with the report that his recent unexplained hospital stay was not for the expected overdose or deterioration, but a suicide attempt in which he stabbed himself nine times, "sad" no longer seems to do it.

We don't hear much about Howard Stern, the radio king of the 1980s and '90s who left the pop culture stage for paid satellite radio in a forgivable greedy leap hundreds of millions of dollars. Since he went undercover, his show has gone on unnoticed, floating a press release to the surface every now and then (like this morning's Huffington Post item, highlighting a 1989 interview with pre-fame Jennifer Aniston), or more recently, relying on an out-of-control chat show appearance by the lugubrious Lange.


A few years ago, Stern's defection and his coldhearted use of Artie Lange as a death-headed stooge was a major topic of debate on this site. Sadly, as the show faded farther into irrelevancy, Lange slid off the radar screen.

Until today, when the reason for his secret hospitalization is revealed to have been a suicide attempt in which Lange reportedly stabbed himself nine times (three "hesitation wounds" and three deep plunges through the rolls of fat and layers of swollen tissue in attempt to die). His boss Stern, surely aware of the facts before the rest of the world, coolly told his band of listeners this week:

"Artie has given this show tremendous moments of great comedy. He's a tremendous contributor. He is a good man. Don't forget how great he is."

Without a hint of culpability.


Artie Lange is alive, for now, and though he's avoided the Death of The Day tribute, we look into our archive, to remind readers that the shocking news that Stern's fat flailing 42-year-old fool had stabbed himself nine times is not so shocking at all-- at least not on May 27th, 2007, when we posted A rotten weekend for Howard Stern:

"In his years on the Stern show, Artie has battled heroin addiction, ballooned to more than three hundred pounds and kept up a grueling stand-up comedy schedule-- all to the amusement and encouragement of his boss, who's used Artie's troubles as comic and soap opera fodder. Artie says a doctor recently told him that if he doesn't change his lifestyle, Tabloid Baby's prediction of his Farley-Belushi-Anna Nicole-style death is imminent.

"'I just feel burned out,' Artie said. 'Nothing is set in stone, but it's something I'm seriously thinking about. The schedule is destroying me. I love the show, and I love the people. I'm just really concerned about my health.

"'I have to find a happy balance... none of this is going to be worth it if I drop dead at a Best Western in Milwaukee.'"


Or July 16, 2006, Isn't Artie Lange dead already?:

"'I am a guy who has struggled with every kind of addiction. I love gambling, and it has gotten me into trouble before. I love drugs and booze. The drugs finally had to go, but the booze is still very much in play. And you know I love broads.

"'I am definitely not someone who is embarrassed to get a hooker or two.'

"That quote is from Artie Lange in a sad story in today’s LA Times Calendar section; sad because it basically takes for granted that the schlubadub comic will eventually go the Chris Farley route, sad because it picks up with his once-public struggles where he left us hanging six months ago, and sad because the 12-step blasting, politically-incorrect and embarrassing honesty was a part of our weekday mornings before he and the rest of the Howard Stern radio team were swept into the Sirius Satellite Protection Program to play out radio’s most straight-talking radio show to a miniscule paying audience.

"...There’s Stern’s radio sidekick Artie, pressing the flesh in Vegas, picking up more standup gigs, TV appearances and lowbrow movie roles, living it up, blowing tens of thousands of dollars in casinos, hiring call girls, boozing away memories of his dad the paralyzed roofer, and blathering about hookers while counting down the hours until he winds up on the floor of a high roller’s suite with his pants around his ankles and swollen tongue jutting from his vomit-flecked lips...

“'I love gambling! I love drugs and booze! The drugs finally had to go, but the booze is still very much in play! I love broads! I am definitely not someone who is embarrassed to get a hooker or two!'

"...Sad. When we left off, Artie was holding it together with the first real girlfriend he’s ever had. The article lets us know it didn’t work out:

"'You know, I have never been that much in love with a woman before in my life. It is the most adult like I have ever felt in a relationship. We dated for 4 1/2 years. But it has been dying a slow, painful death. I think it might be officially over. It is very hard.'

"Sad."

Won't a talk show deal finally kill Artie Lange?

There's been talk this past week that Howard Stern's (remember him?) slovenly satellite radio sidekick Artie Lange has signed "a major deal with Fox Television" to star in his own late-night talk show (possibly to replace TalkShow with Spike Feresten. The latest conjecture is whether Lange will leave his spot on the Sirius pay-show or be held to the final four years of his contract.

But the more obvious question is why anyone would sign the self-destructive Artie-- the comedian voted most likely to wind up as the next Chris Farley-- for such a strenuous task in his condition. Don't they read the Artie Lange Death Watch web sites?

If the Fox execs don't watch the web (or CSI: Miami, they could ask for a tape of Artie's recent appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman (or Late Night with Conan O'Brien). Promoting his sorry Beer League DVD, the comic appeared disheveled and morbidly obese, about twice the size as when he appeared last summer to promote the theatrical release. Artie has said he gained the weight after quitting heroin (he's shown in his heroin days at right).

And just this past summer, as we chronicled his slide to demise, he told the LA Times: "I am a guy who has struggled with every kind of addiction. I love gambling, and it has gotten me into trouble before. I love drugs and booze. The drugs finally had to go, but the booze is still very much in play. And you know I love broads. I am definitely not someone who is embarrassed to get a hooker or two."

Poor Artie. Despite the acclaim for his comedy, the sad comic is best known for his excess, his inconsistency and absences on the Stern show from the time it was a free, influential radio program, and his often-inebriated concert performances. His last contract with Fox Television, as an original cast member on MADtv, ended when drug and alcohol abuse led to his firing.

An Artie Lange talk show promises to be Fox's biggest late night train wreck since Chevy Chase--though definitely more entertaining. Maybe they should consider a reality show.

Exploiting Artie Lange's suicide attempt

Aside from Howard Stern's word that his radio sidekick is still in "bad shape," there's been no word on the condition of comedian Artie Lange since his release from the hospital after he plunged a 13-inch Wolfgang Puck kitchen knife nine times into his corpulent abdomen in a suicide attempt on January 2nd, but the exploitation of the bloated, drug-addicted slovenly clown has moved from the insular world of satellite radio to the national stage.

The Comedy Central network will run Lange's Jack & Coke (as in "cocaine") standup special Saturday night at 10 pm, as it had already been schedule in November, but with the disingenuous statement from a Comedy Central spokesman: "The news about Artie is tragic, but we spoke to his camp and are excited to share with his fans the genius of his stand-up act and this never-seen-before special."

Lange's "camp," of course, are the ones who allowed the sad, disheveled comic to descend to such depths of degradation and self-hatred that he attempted to take his own life. The special, however, shows Lange in May 2009, when he was fresh out of rehab and momentarily sober.

Someone in that "camp" is also keeping Lange's name in the news for reasons other than his own shame with the posting of a clip of Lange's appearance on The Late Show with Conan O'Brien in 2008, in which he predicted O'Brien's demise as host of The Tonight Show.

Meanwhile Stern, who has exploited Lange's condition for years and pushed him in the name of comedy toward the brink of hopelessness and death, told his small band of Sirius radio listeners on Tuesday that he'd spoken with Lange, and revealed how much he cares about the tortured performer when he said:

"Artie and I ran out of shit to talk about in three seconds."

Stern rejected an offer to appear as a guest on Conan O'Brien's final week on The Tonight Show, claiming it would interfere with his private Sirius satellite radio schedule, but which was obvious attempt to avoid questions about his culpability in Lange's suicide attempt as well as his effort to keep the incident covered up.

UPDATE: In a development that took more than 24 hours to get past the satellite radio wall to the general public, it's being reported that Stern told a fellow Sirius deejay that he's been approached for, and considering, a return to mainstream, free, "terrestrial" radio. The move would only confirm what this site has been predicting for some time, as Stern has vanished from public consciousness and lost hundreds of thousands of fans, as evidenced by the lack of response from Stern fans to TabloidBaby's Stern postings compared to the past and despite our boom in site traffic.

Insider blasts Howard Stern's hypocrisy in Artie Lange suicide try

"Stern's nauseating rants over his love and support for Lange have become the only entertaining part of the once-popular radio show."

-- Chaunce Hayden

We've gotten the expected backlash from the last remaining servile fans of Howard Stern who've taken umbrage and offense-- and even called us "disrespectful"-- for suggesting that the former radio star's exploitation and humiliation of the heroin- and cocaine-addicted alcoholic, obese, slovenly pathetic comedian Artie Lange-- on air, in the privacy of satellite radio and in life-- may have contributed to the the self-hatred that led the 42-year-old self-described "baby gorilla" to stab himself nine times with a 13-inch Wolfgang Puck kitchen knife in an attempt to end his sad life.

It took a few days for the morons to find our posts and blast back their indignation from their mothers' basements, but they did respond, as we knew they would, because our statements that Howard Stern is no longer an important figure in popular culture since his sellout to a miniscule paid satellite radio audience is equivalent to leaving an open trash can in raccoon country. They pick up the scent and hop in with reasoned arguments like:

"You sir are a FuckNut!"

"your a fucking moron. Stern "invisible....ok, who else could have caused the merger of two satilite companys....and, pretty sure no one would pay to read your lame ass blog. Fuck u"

"You are a Fuck Nut as Robert said.. You have no clue of what the show is about and how Howard truly feels about Artie. Do you really listen to the show? I would say not, due to your lack of knowledge. Save the few brain cells you have remaining instead of burning them up on writing this shit blog!"

"Your completely uneducated rant about both Artie and Howard makes me sick. What is your problem? Howard has been nothing but caring and generous with Artie throughout his 9+ years on the show.... His problems are his own and have nothing to do with Howard. You are an idiot and shouldn't speak about things you don't know about. You obviously have no soul or compassion. Dick."

Etc.

So it's worth noting we're not alone in suggesting that the multimillionaire Stern take some responsibility for the deterioration of his fool that took place before his very eyes. In the new issue of his New Jersey nightlife magazine Steppin' Out, Tabloid Baby pal, gossip veteran and former Stern regular (until he misspoke, offended the former king and was banished) Chaunce Hayden lays it out in an editorial titled "Stern's No Bro":

"...Lange's 350th cry for help at the unmerciful expense of his mother really isn't surprising. What is surprising is the crap his boss, Howard Stern, has been spewing since TMZ first broke the news of Artie's latest performance. Stern's nauseating rants over his love and support for Lange have become the only entertaining part of the once-popular radio show. Even though Lange has showed up for work high, fell asleep on the air, attacked co-workers and lied about his absence, Stern has vowed to stand by his bro. So, it only makes sense that the caring 56-year-old radio personality would reach out to his troubled "bro" during Lange's personal turmoil but such off-air love is far removed from any Stern reality.


"Since Lange's failed suicide attempt, Howard has neither called nor visited his faux friend. I once reported that Stern was an asshole for blowing off producer’s Gary Dell'Abate's dad’s funeral. Stern angrily fired back, blaming his absence on his fiancé, Beth Ostrosky, claiming she sprained her ankle. Just curious who Stern will blame this time…"

Listen to weaselly Howard Stern attack media, duck responsibility for Artie Lange's suicide attempt

Listen to former radio star Howard Stern tap dance in a very choreographed manner around the attempted suicide of his drug-addicted, besotted, obese loosely-comic "sidekick," Artie Lange. After years of facilitating, exploiting and egging on Lange's demons for entertainment and outrageousness for close to a decade, Stern begins by turning his anger on the news media for reporting a story he and those around him had covered up successfully for days, before insisting that the self-stabbing incident of an out-of-control comedian who has made a living by upping the ante on his dangerous and unhealthy drug use -- and with his July 2009 DUI arrest, shown to be endangering a public that would probably know him only as the unshaven, slovenly and inebriated buffoon who disrupts television talk shows-- is a "family matter" that Stern can sidestep comment about because he's part of the family.

Problem is, Stern's not part of "the family." He's a cynical show biz ringleading enabler who gets laughs out of the disabled and made his fat drunken drug addict "sidekick" the equivalent of a bear dancing on a hot plate. Only instead of striking back like circus elephants or Las Vegas tigers sometimes do, Artie Lange turned the violence on himself.


The Artie Lange suicide attempt is very sad, but not surprising considering the sad career we've chronicled. To hear Howard Stern say he didn't realize the extent of Lange's "demons," and is too "sick" to talk about it, and to hear his partner Robin Quivers tell him that commenting on the "It would be like the Johnsons coming on to talk about their daughter (recently-deceased lesbian socialite Casey Johnson), is to be astounded at the hypocrisy of the man once regarded to be a successor to Lenny Bruce and shows that Stern and crew have been trapped in their private bubble too long to come out.


Did Stern really think he could keep the story covered up? Does he think he has the power he once wielded as the "king" of media. Does he think he's dealing with the Las Vegas news media?

Artie Lange used a 13-inch Wolfgang Puck kitchen knife to stab himself nine times

Artie Lange stabbed himself nine times with a 13-inch Wolfgang Puck kitchen knife.

That word is from Hoboken, N.J. police detective Mark Competello, confirming the report from Page Six that Howard Stern's obese, drug-addicted, slovenly satellite radio "sidekick" and slurring comedian Artie Lange did indeed attempt suicide-- despite the enabling Stern's efforts that kept the incident under wraps for five days.


The detective says Lange's mother found him on the floor of his home on the waterfront on Saturday-- unconscious but breathing. The 42-year-old was taken to Jersey City Medical Center, where doctors cleaned nine abdominal knife wounds and operated.

He also says Artie Lange has been released from the hospital.

Who really "hurt" Artie Lange?

There's been no word on the condition or whereabouts of obese, slovenly, alcoholic, heroin- and cocaine-addict comic Artie Lange since he was released from the hospital last week after attempting suicide with nine stabs of a 13-inch Wolfgang Puck kitchen knife. There have been many words of denial of responsibility by his (apparently former) boss Howard Stern, who hired Lange as a stooge on his private satellite radio show and used his sad antics and drunken, drugged antics as comic fodder (Stern's most hilarious comment after the suicide try was revealed was his claim that his two choices to replace jokewriter Jackie Martling were Lange and Jimmy Kimmel, as if Lange was chosen for his comedy chops and not ridicule ripeness). Saddest of all is a YouTube clip (above) Stern has been hyping and what's left of his fans have been crowing about: a bathetic series of Lange lowpoints set to Johnny Cash's painful version of Hurt (a song Stern pushed back when he was a radio star). The 50,000 viewings attest to Stern's invisibility (ten years ago, it would have generated five million), and despite the editor's (and the Stern crew's) attempt to tie Lange's nearly-fatal self-hatred and low self-esteem to a former girlfriend, the images attest to Stern's humiliation of the fat fool as being a major factor in his decision to try and gut himself dead.

A rotten weekend for Howard Stern

Despite his model girlfriend, bags of money and Hamptons estate, it's got to be a depressing Memorial Day Weekend for Howard Stern. Forgotten and indeed hiding out amid the First Amendment battles fought over Imus, Opie & Anthony and other radio jocks whose slide into offensiveness he'd greased in his glory days, he loses his schlubadub radio sidekick, and like Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, it takes days, and possibly weeks, for word to spread across the country.

And the very fact that the obese heroin-addicted and out-of-control Artie Lange would leave his six-year steady gig as comic foil because of guest role on a little-watched (though tres cool) Fx series, reveals how irrelevant the once-powerful Stern has become since moving his morning show to the subscribers-only Sirius satellite system-- while betraying Stern's sadistic complicity in Lange's decline and certain demise.

You probably didn't hear about it, but Artie Lange announced on Thursday that he's quitting the Stern show because he has a recurring role on Denis Leary's Rescue Me and a potential maybe possibly talk show on Fox.

In his years on the Stern show, Artie has battled heroin addiction, ballooned to more than three hundred pounds and kept up a grueling stand-up comedy schedule-- all to the amusement and encouragement of his boss, who's used Artie's troubles as comic and soap opera fodder. Artie says a doctor recently told him that if he doesn't change his lifestyle, Tabloid Baby's prediction of his Farley-Belushi-Anna Nicole-style death is imminent.

"I just feel burned out," Artie said. "Nothing is set in stone, but it's something I'm seriously thinking about. The schedule is destroying me. I love the show, and I love the people. I'm just really concerned about my health.

"I have to find a happy balance . . . none of this is going to be worth it if I drop dead at a Best Western in Milwaukee."

Even so, this incredible diss by a drunken comedian whose career, if not his life, was saved by Stern, is the latest step on the inevitable return of Stern's show --in some form--to free radio (not even Stern's "confession" this week that he'd considered suicide and had put one of his much-publicized guns in his mouth got him into the headlines).

Meanwhile, Howard has even more to worry about... as an amazing phenomenon is occurring on several West Coast stations on which monotonal lunkhead Adam Carolla has inherited-- and maintained (thanks to his business partner Jimmy Kimmel's consulting role with the station group)-- Stern's former morning slot. Forced to take on the volatile Seventies leftover and reality TV star Danny Bonaduce as a third wheel, Carolla has seen Bonaduce take over the show in the past month, as Bonaduce's revelations and confessions regarding his failed marriage have pushed the show to Sternian levels of honesty and compelling listenability. Bonaduce has interrupted Carolla's rants, injects his personal stories into every discussion and celebrity interview, and even angrily challenged token female Theresa Strasser to reveal more of her feelings about her own love life. Carolla reacted last week by stacking the show with comedian guests like the surprisingly obnoxious David Alan Grier to sideline Bonaduce as often as possible.

But with Strasser playing up the good-girl-bad-boy attraction to Bonaduce and Carolla finding his fratjerk humour increasingly beside the point alongside Bonaduce's in-your-face realness, the "Ace" is getting aced out of his own show.

Strange but true and you read it here first: Danny Bonaduce is on the verge of becoming the new Howard Stern.

Artie Lange's pig story isn't so funny now

The sad obese drug addict comedian Artie Lange played his addictions and his mother's concern for laughs on the Howard Stern satellite radio show a few years ago, while recalling the extent of his shame when a passing motorist observed him behind the wheel of a car, snorting cocaine through a prosthetic pig snout (at 5:40 in):

"I just wanted to kill myself! (I pictured) my mother holding me in her arms in the hospital. 'This is my son, This is my son!'"

The Stern crew isn't laughing so hard this week. It was Artie Lange's mother Judy who discovered her son unconscious and bleeding from nine stab wounds from a 13-inch Wolfgang Puck kitchen knife over the weekend, a discovery that gave her "baby gorilla" a new "stab" at life.

Artie Lange's attempt at suicide by stabbing places him in select company

Comedian Artie Lange's attempt to kill himself by stabbing with a knife, and not by drug overdose, roof jump or gunshot (he is, sadly but admittedly, too fat to hang from a shower curtain rod), places him in a sad yet select group.

Thanks to Wikipedia's list of notable suicides, our staff was able to research centuries notable deaths by one's own hand, and amid the hundreds of incidents, and dozens of hangings, shootings, drownings and other creative clog poppings, could not come up with more than eight suicides by stabbing in the past 99 years.

Now, because the act of stabbing oneself takes violent force, real determination and more than a quick slash of a razor, we discounted wrist-slashings

Marty Bergen (1900)
Mark Rothko (1970)
Diane Arbus (1971)

throat slittings

Robert Clive (1774)
Jacques Roux (1794)
Wolfe Tone (1798)
Jakub Jan Ryba (1815)
Samuel Whitbread (1815)
Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (1822)
Adalbert Stifter (1868)
Frances Ford Seymour (1950)
Kokichi Tsuburaya (1968)
Irv Rubin (2002)
Charles Rocket (2005)

or a combination of the two

Jack Thayer (1945)
Per Yngve Ohlin (a.k.a. Dead), (1991)

and have separated deaths by the Japanese samurai ritual seppuku ("stomach-cutting," performed by plunging a sword into the abdomen and moving the sword left to right in a slicing motion)

Minamoto no Yorimasa (1180)
Shibata Katsuie (1583)
Maresuke Nogi (1912)
Mitsuru Ushijima (1945)
Isamu Chō (1945)
Korechika Anami (1945)
Hatazo Adachi (1947)
Yukio Mishima (1970)

as well as the similar, ancient act of "falling on one's sword"

Dido (7th century B.C.)
Cato the Younger (46 BC)
Mark Antony (30 BC)
Otho (69)
Magnentius (353)

in order to narrow the celebrity suicide by stabbing list to

Italian writer Emilio Salgari (1911),
French violinist and composer Louis-Gabriel Guillemain (1770),
Dutch-born American film actor Lou Tellegen (1934) (scissors),
Swedish author Harry Martinson (1978), (by scissors),
Leader and singer of Québec band Les Colocs Dédé Fortin (2000),
Singer songwriter Elliott Smith (2003),
British actress Fritha Goodey (2004), British actress
and British author, illustrator and cartoonist Harry Horse (2007).


Most well-known in tabloid pop culture is Elliott Smith, who died on October 21, 2003, at age 34 from two stab wounds to the chest. His live-in girlfriend says the two were arguing when he she locked herself in the bathroom to take a shower, heard him scream, and upon opening the door, saw Smith standing with a knife in his chest. She pulled the knife out, after which he collapsed, she called 911, and he died. The official autopsy report released in December 2003 left open the question of possible homicide.


Fritha Goodey was a British actress best known in the States for her role as one of Hugh Grant's girlfriends in the film, About A Boy. She had struggled for years with anorexia before stabbing herself in the chest on September 7, 2004.


Harry Horse, it seems, went a bit bonkers in the end. His wife Mandy had been terminally ill with multiple sclerosis when he stabbed her 30 times before killing their pets and stabbing himself until he bled to death. Their bodies were discovered on January 10, 2007.

We're glad Artie Lange survived to take another stab... at life.

Isn't Artie Lange dead already?

"I am a guy who has struggled with every kind of addiction. I love gambling, and it has gotten me into trouble before. I love drugs and booze. The drugs finally had to go, but the booze is still very much in play. And you know I love broads.

"I am definitely not someone who is embarrassed to get a hooker or two.”

That quote is from Artie Lange in a sad story in today’s LA Times Calendar section; sad because it basically takes for granted that the schlubadub comic will eventually go the Chris Farley route, sad because it picks up with his once-public struggles where he left us hanging six months ago, and sad because the 12-step blasting, politically-incorrect and embarrassing honesty was a part of our weekday mornings before he and the rest of the Howard Stern radio team were swept into the Sirius Satellite Protection Program to play out radio’s most straight-talking radio show to a miniscule paying audience.

While chubby Katie Couric jets around the country on a phony baloney meet-and-greet, selected audience tour, blowing out chunks about using the CBS Evening News to help solve world problems (the aged audience would prefer a focus on incontinence problems), there’s Stern’s radio sidekick Artie, pressing the flesh in Vegas, picking up more standup gigs, TV appearances and lowbrow movie roles, living it up, blowing tens of thousands of dollars in casinos, hiring call girls, boozing away memories of his dad the paralyzed roofer, and blathering about hookers while counting down the hours until he winds up on the floor of a high roller’s suite with his pants around his ankles and swollen tongue jutting from his vomit-flecked lips.

And most of his audience is missing Artie’s wild ride to Hell because we don’t pay for radio.

“I love gambling! I love drugs and booze! The drugs finally had to go, but the booze is still very much in play! I love broads! I am definitely not someone who is embarrassed to get a hooker or two!"

Jeez! Knucklehead honesty like that is a jolt off the newspaper page today. Think about it. Only six months ago, it was an everyday morning occurrence.

Sad. When we left off, Artie was holding it together with the first real girlfriend he’s ever had. The article lets us know it didn’t work out:

"You know, I have never been that much in love with a woman before in my life. It is the most adult like I have ever felt in a relationship. We dated for 4 1/2 years. But it has been dying a slow, painful death. I think it might be officially over. It is very hard."

Sad.

Beer League: A sad indicator of Stern's demise

"I don't know how accurate this is but Box Office Mojo is reporting Beer League's weekend at $320,000. As you probably know, Artie needs to make a million to bring the movie to a national release in October. If you were planning on seeing it and haven't gone out yet, do it today. We've heard reports of Artie fans from across the country simply buying a ticket through Fandango even though they can't see it. If you are one of them, let us know about it..."

The above email from "Mutt" that arrived in the Tabloid Baby offices this afternoon is the latest reason why Howard Stern will begin syndicating parts of his show on “free” radio sometime soon. Because there was a time when a Howard Stern Radio Show connection could add a little push to the box office-- at least get it to more than 164 theatres and rake in a measly million dollars.

But that was a time when Howard Stern mattered, when his new radio sidekick Artie Lange and his sad march to a blubbery booze and drug-soaked Farleyesque death was, if not a national obsession, at least common knowledge, heard on the radio in various cities around the country-- and generating enough publicity to sell out the stand-up gigs he wobbled to in joints around the country.

But now of course, Howard Stern is playing to a paid crowd, and has no cultural influence or juice at all because the millions who used to listen to him forgot about him soon after he took his ball and went home last December. We realized it the other morning, when we were stuck in rush hour traffic on the freeway, punching the radio buttons between Stephanie Miller and Mark & Brian and Kevin & Bean (pausing to smack it because Stern's nimrod successor Adam Carolla was wasting airtime with his deadly unfunny “Deaf Frat Guy” character) and we realized, amid all these cars, stopped for miles on the freeway— probably no one is listening to Howard Stern.

Because we’re not going to pay for car radio. Sorry.

Beer League seals Stern's Rupert Pupkin basement door.

Artie Lange got star billing and his name in the movie's title because of his Stern connection. We’re surprised Howard didn’t ante up a quarter million bucks to boost the box office and save face. But he’s probably in the Hamptons, enjoying his hundreds of millions of dollars and his new anonymity.

In any case, this is why Howard will soon syndicate his show on what’s become known as free, “terrestrial” radio.

Because when the New York Times takes the time to label a gross-out sports comedy as “close to being that rare film that is perfectly bad-- i.e., that has not a shred of social, entertainment or even curiosity value,” a Howard Stern push should be able to avoid embarrassment.

Stern to Return: You read it here first...

Howard Stern will return to free radio.

They all laughed when we predicted it back in April. They got mad when we said it again this weekend.

But now the New York Post has followed our lead, Drudge is headlining the story two days late-- and Tabloid Baby’s story will finally be a national topic.

Stern fans began to bombard us yeserday after we reported that Stern sidekick Artie Lange’s people emailed us, urging that we supopiort his film Beer League, which tanked over the weekend despite a heavy promotion on the Stern show.

We repeated the bottom line: Howard Stern is dead. Since he left the confines of FM radio to utter curse words for a small, paid audience on the Sirius satellite system, last December, he immediately vanished from the radar screen, lost his power to shape public opinion, and may as well be the King of Comedy’s Rupert Pupkin, doing a make-believe talk show in his basement.

This morning, The New York Post copies our story— and the Drudge Report trumpets it:

Howard Stern may be coming back to earth-- on WPLJ or WABC. Radio insiders are reporting rampant rumors that the shock jock will "do an Opie & Anthony" and return to old-fashioned radio from the obscurity of satellite radio.

Persistent industry chatter says "some sort of mega-deal's brewing among Sirius chief Mel Karmazin, Stern and Mel's longtime associate Farid Suleman” (who) runs Citadel Broadcasting, which is buying Disney/ABC's radio division…

This much is certain: Stern has complained loudly of late about published reports that he's lost his influence and is no longer a "watercooler topic" since he bolted from CBS for Sirius in a $500 million deal last January.

His celebrity-guest bookings have all but dried up and sidekick Artie Lange's new movie "Beer League" bombed over the weekend in spite of heavy hype on Stern's show. The Post's Page Six reported last week that since his move to pay radio, traffic to Stern's Web site was down a whopping 71 percent and his search-engine action plunged a staggering 90 percent…

Stern denies the move is in place. But longtime Stern listeners will admit: Stern lies to his audience when it comes to personal and business matters. He lied about his marriage, his social life and his plans to head to satellite until it suited him to tell the truth. He'll lie about this deal until it's time to announce it officially.

Stay tuned here.

Howard Stern regular dies and nobody hears

If a
Howard Stern
sidekick
drops dead
and nobody
hears about it,
is he really dead?

Well, it's happened, but who would know? Or care? Gosh, has it really been that long since Howard was relevant-- or even real? For you younger readers growing up in an aural wasteland dominated by the likes of the surprisingly pliable and recently feminized monotonal bore Adam Carolla (he now plays the “modern woman” to his pre-liberation sidekick Teresa Strasser and Eighties pop culture gal “Bald Brian”) there was a time when the radio personality was a vital force in pop culture, with his radio show debated on television and in print and the comings and goings of his subsidiary characters like Jackie The Jokeman and Stuttering John treated like characters on a radio reality show.

But since Howard sold out his fans and moved to private pay radio, he works in a vacuum. Forgotten by the mainstream and occasionally popping up in the media few days after the fact, thanks to a vigorous PR efforts and public displays of inebriation by his pathetic sidekick Artie Lange (whose phony on-air explosion and possible "firing" was an obvious publicity stunt before a vacation a couple of weeks back), whose sad claim to fame is being at the top of most Celebrity Death Pools.

But another Stern player has beaten Artie to the punch. Kenneth Keith Kallenbach, the hippie burnout who parlayed his Stern exposure into other appearances, died in jail last week (he'd been arrested for pulling an underage girl into his car-- looks like Howard didn't bail him out). The death was announced Thursday on Howard’s private show, but news from Stern's hideout travels as quickly as it did in the days of Pony Express.

Who would know if we didn’t mention it here?

Save Village Books

We've told you about the hard times for Village Books in Pacific Palisades, California, a perfect local bookshop that was a memorable stop on the Tabloid Baby national book tour nine years ago. Big box stores in the area, empty storefronts on the street and other economic woes-- not to mention the quixotic plight of the indie bookstore-- may soon put it out of business. So tomorrow night, Tom Hanks is stopping by to autograph books.

No, he didn't write a book, but he's showing up at 7 p.m. Wednesday night (tomorrow, or today if you read this on Wednesday) to autograph "Tom Hanks-related" books and DVDs (the ads make it seem like he'll even autograph your Artie Lange book, which was strange but nice as well). He'll attract cameras and press and it will be a rally to save Village Books. Maybe he feels bad for forcing that lady to close her bookstore ten years ago in You've Got Mail-- look what happened to her with all the plastic surgery and permanent trout pout-- or maybe someone showed him what we wrote a year ago, when we wondered why a town in which cultural big shots like him reside can't support a bookstore, but more likely he's just trying to help out in town. Hanks is a local and he goes out of his way to be normal. We see him around all the time. at CVS, last week at Panda Express. The only difference between him and a real normal person is that he pays in cash from a big fat wad in a money clip. One of the kids noticed that.

Save Village Books. They're not some big indie like Powell's. They're a little shop on the corner. And they take online orders.

And by the way, Larry David should stop by next week. Then Spielberg, then Steve Guttenberg, then Kate Hudson...

In memory of Howard Stern (He's dead, right?)

We were listening to the radio this morning and it got us thinking what a wasteland morning radio has become (it's even hard to find any good music) now that Howard Stern and company have been gone from the scene for close to two years now. The only comfort is knowing that every week that Howard remains off the radar and becomes more of a memory leads us closer to the day that he'll return in some form to free radio. With Don Imus' return to free radio imminent, expect some PR-flackery to put Howard's name in the gossip columns in the days ahead.

In the meantime, a look back at our former morning friends:

HOWARD & ROBIN OPHELIA QUIVERS

ARTIE LANGE & FRED NORRIS

GARY DELLABATE & JACKIE "THE JOKEMAN" MARTLING

Stern tries to take credit for Sanjaya's success

Ever since Howard Stern dropped off the pop culture radar screen when he took a huge lump of money and ran off to satellite radio, he's relied on a powerful PR company to keep his name in the news. Whether it's an engagement to his girlfriend (just in time, as her popularity is surpassing his), or cruelly sending out his besotted sidekick Artie Lange on a public Belushi-Farley death tour, Howard has become a silent gossip item who can't overcome the impression that he'll need to return to free radio in one form or another.

So now he's claiming to be influencing American Idol by promoting a website that urges people to vote for Sanjaya Malakar. And, with his powerful PR company, the claim that no one got to hear on the radio gets front page placement today in the New York Times!

"We're corrupting the entire thing," Mr. Stern said on his pay show Thursday, the day after Sanjaya secured a place in the top nine. "All of us are routing American Idol. It's so great. The No. 1 show in television and it's getting ruined."

Bullshit! Continue reading the article and you'll see that Howard's claims are refuted... while the stately New York Times supports Tabloid Baby's exclusive report that India is keeping Sanjaya in the contest!

Howard's claims that he influenced the voting are based on the fact that Sanjaya bounced out of the bottom three on March 19--but that was the day after his extraordinary, mind-blowing, crying girl performance of The Kinks' "You Really Got Me" (which has already made it onto Tabloid Baby's list of the Top 50 TV Moments of All Time).

And although it used Howard as the hook for its article, The Times gives a different analysis of the appeal of "Mr. Malakar, who at 17 looks like a 1970s pop star of the David Cassidy/Bobby Sherman/Andy Gibb variety... (and) is perhaps the most talked-about Idol contestant ever:

"A number of those voting for Mr. Malakar may be genuine fans, many of them in the pre- and early-teenage brackets, to judge from posts on a number of Internet bulletin boards dedicated to the show.

"But the fans also include older women and Indian-Americans, and Mr. Malakar's progress is being tracked voraciously by Indian newspapers in both the United States and India..."

A Fox spokeswoman dismissed Howard's claims, just as executive producer Nigel Lythgoe shrugged off the website last week. So why did The New York Times write an article that featured Howard Stern? Well, the LA Times was scandalized recently over an editor's romance with a woman who does PR for Brian Grazer. What's the Sirius-Times connection?