Farewell to radio's Jesus of Cool

Howard Stern’s radio show died for our sins. Hey, we vote in the conservative reactionary demagogues who staff the FCC with crypto-fascist schoolmarm ayatollahs.

So really, we can only blame ourselves for the fact that our best radio personality and show was literally chased off the airwaves.

Howard’s era was a good run.

He talked straight. He broke the rules for radio jocks. And he helped open social discourse under the cloak of smut and toilet jokes.

Not unlike the Tabloid TV era. The rise and fall of both coincided. And Howard appears often throughout Tabloid Baby, the comprehensive and hilarious history of the genre and its movers.

Buy the book for Christmas and read about Stern’s early triumphs and outrages.

And in tribute, a sample from page 196:

“…Our 1991-92 season began with a new presence that would make our transition to a life in the sun a bit more bearable. Howard Stern’s syndicated radio show had come to Los Angeles in July. By that time more people in the country had heard of Stern than actually heard him on the radio; because the FCC was targeting him, the syndication of his show was being slowed. Every time we ran a Howard Stern story, we had to explain who he was, and explain it from a tabloid point of view: as a six-foot-five, hook-nosed toilet mouth cutting a swath of aural mayhem toward your town. We couldn’t say Stern was a great new Lenny Bruce or the Jesus of cool, liberating us all with his honesty, plain talk, and common sense...”

So what will happens now? As Stern entertains his limited audience on satellite, will he still have an impact?

We'll find out in 2006.

Keep in touch via his website .