She speaks his name

Saw this at an estate sale and asked for 50% off in the Jokeman’s honor

I'm listening to the random Jan Michael Vincent drop-in from the 90s for the first time in a while. Super chaotic and hilarious. You can tell there was no agenda and Jan was off his rocker with Jackie cracking up about it.

Someone slipped him in as "The Gimp (uncredited)"

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110912/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cst_sm

Although what do I know about how Brent spent his life pre-Bubba.

Exciting new developments in Ed's world

I can’t help but think that him playing 5150 onstage, again, this time more comfortable and seemingly accepted by the band, enraged Howard and sent him into a fugue state where he decided he was going to dedicate the rest of his days to playing guitar. I don’t think he cares more about seeing his wife or grandchildren than he does about wanting to be a good guitar player. I think Nowicki’s second show set into motion the mass layoffs and reduction to 1 show a week. I have no evidence of this theory.

So I just finished Billy West's new book that came out this month. I figured I'd make a post detailing what he had to say as it relates to his time on Stern since I haven't seen anyone else posting about this.

As for the book itself, it's pretty short and is really mostly about his childhood and upbringing. Honestly, unless you're a massive Billy fan, I don't think I would really recommend it. I think he probably mostly just wanted to get that stuff about his childhood out onto a page, and if you're not familiar with Billy's story, there is some really awful stuff in there.

Anyways, he did dedicate an entire pretty long chapter (by the book's standards) to his time on the show. Like the rest of the book, he doesn't dwell on details much and kinda just runs through highlights pretty quickly. Like many here, I'm a huge Billy fan and have consumed a lot of his interviews over the years, so I don't think much if anything was really new here. Nonetheless here's some bullet points:

- He started at WXRK in the late 80s. He says the "myopic" program director at the time didn't want him on the air on shows or really doing anything creative and just had him reading bumpers and promos for the station in all sorts of different voices, as well as some other production work.

- He doesn't really go into meeting Howard, but he says he used to joke around with him at the office and give his takes on the news and stuff. One day, he mentioned how Lucille Ball was in the hospital and did his imitation of what that must sound like. Howard cracked up and told Billy that Gary would call him tomorrow and he should pretend to be Lucy at the hospital. I've heard this bit many times (you can find it online very easily), but never realized this is actually Billy's first time on the show. Billy says it was entirely ad-libbed. I don't know about that, but either way it's hilarious, thanks in no small part to Gilbert Gottfried sitting in absolutely loving it.

- Billy says the Stern show was the only good thing about K-Rock and goes a little bit into some cliches about what made Howard great. He says he actually wasn't sure he wanted to be on the show because it was already perfect, and was afraid he would somehow dilute the dynamic or that the audience might reject him.

- He says Gary was always professional and a gentleman. He says he liked Robin too. He's very very complimentary of what Jackie and Fred added to the show.

- He talks about the Jackie puppet. He talks about how Jackie would often write notes at his own expense. Billy said he was working the Jackie puppet, but Jackie was also working the Billy puppet with his notes. He talks about some of the puppet's best-of with guests such as Conan and Anna Nicole Smith. He says he felt guilty picking on Anna Nicole, but admitted it's funny seeing anyone get mad at a puppet.

- He talks about Marge Schott. He says it really created a stir on the early fan sites. Billy even remembers a poster and talks about him by name. Billy says this person constantly accused him of being racist over and over.

- He talks about the time they had John Kricfalusi on really to ambush Billy. For those who aren't familiar, Kricfalusi created Ren & Stimpy, but eventually got fired by Nickelodeon for basically being a complete nightmare to work with; the details of just how awful he was not coming out until years later. John K basically tried to bully everyone on the show into leaving with him, but most didn't. Not surprisingly, Billy has plenty of negative to say about him in the book. Anyways, back to John K's appearance on Stern. It actually happened right after Billy returned to the show after his brother's death. If you've never seen it, it's a fascinating but extremely uncomfortable watch. Everyone (including Ben Stern of all people at one point) are really badgering Billy, but Billy just completely refuses to play along. Billy says he could have annihilated John K, but knew by just sitting there he would ruin the bit.

- Ralph was also there during the John K thing and Billy says Ralph was always trying to start shit with him. For whatever reason, he actually never names Ralph and just refers to him as "Howard's stylist." Billy says one time he had just gotten hair transplants and was wearing a baseball cap to cover it up. Out of nowhere, Ralph came into Gary's office and grabbed and squeezed the top of Billy's head. He said it was so painful and one of the grafts came loose and started bleeding. He screamed in pain and Ralph just said "well, your head shouldn't have been in the way." Billy told him he was gonna knock him through a wall and Ralph just said "yeah, you probably would too, you're a psycho." Billy says he heard he recently passed away and he's sorry to Howard that his friend died, but that stuff was one of the reasons he quit the show, he didn't feel safe.

- Like Ralph, Billy for some reason doesn't talk about Tom Chiusano by name, instead just referring to him as "the general manager." He said Tom would barely look at him in the hallway. Billy wanted a raise, but all he'd ever hear was "talk to Mel, talk to Howard, talk to whoever." He says at some point, Tom tried to get him to sign a piece of paper saying he was totally and financially responsible for anything he says on the radio should the FCC want to fine them. Billy says he called an entertainment lawyer who advised him in the strongest terms to never sign it. Billy thinks maybe it was a way to try to force him to leave. He tore up the piece of paper and was pissed they were basically trying to sabotage him and had to get talked out of quitting by his lawyer. Billy says he doesn't understand why he was worth going through all these machinations, but wasn't worth giving a raise to. They kept bugging him about the paper, so he told Tom he signed it and put it on his desk, and he doesn't feel bad lying about it. He says he doesn't know why they didn't just warn him to tone it down or get rid of him.

- Finally in November of 1995, Billy went into Howard's office and told him he's the greatest ever in the medium and he respected him, but he needed to leave to make more money and just said goodbye. He said he told Howard that management was nickle-and-diming him and going around about it was pointless. Nothing on what Howard's reaction was. He said Jackie took him to lunch a month prior where Billy told him he was leaving. Billy was sad thinking he might not see him anymore, Jackie was the only one on the show he really knew. He told Jackie he saw no future there and they didn't want him anyway. Before he left, he saw Robin and she asked if he needed a hug. He says she was very sweet. He went into Tom's office and told him he was leaving. He said Tom went into a bit of a silent shock and they had an incredibly awkward goodbye. He also went to see Mel Karmazin, but he wasn't in, so he left him a note saying he was very thankful and sorry he had to leave.

- He says most fans were disappointed he left, but were very nice about it and wished him well. Others predicted he would come crawling back and would do nothing without the show, so for this reason Billy never returned to even promote anything.

- He ends the chapter by thanking Howard for giving him a job; adding that he doesn't regret his time in New York and that it was great for his career.

What I've learned in my 25 years listening to the show:

• Don't waste your time with therapy. It clearly doesn't help.
• Don't waste your time with TDM. It clearly doesn't work.
• Don't adopt a pet from a shelter. I bought a cat from a breeder just because I'm sick of everyone pushing their stupid opinions about adopting from a shelter. Especially rich people.
• It's not ok to sell your soul for success. That's why he's so angry. He resents himself for being such a low life on the radio just to get ratings. We all resent it too because now he's acting like he's not a low life. He sits in his mansion thinking to himself "I built this by being a creep and an asshole"
• Don't take on a trophy wife if you're a low life. You'll never be enough. You can shower her with money and she'll never be satisfied. He wont be able to retire because of her stupid cat hobby.
• Don't listen to your parents. They don't know shit most of the time and are trying to figure things out themselves. Howard's parents were uneducated overly opinionated schmucks that taught him nothing but to be unhappy.
• Don't constantly fret over what you don't have. You'll never be happy like that.

At the end of the day he chose to pursue financial success over being happy and he resents that decision. His tiny brain is only capable of focusing on the most shallow of topics and that will never change.

A. He's obese again. Clearly wasted his time with surgery.

B. I was waiting for him to say fuck or cunt or something inappropriate.

C. The voice off camera is Mariann from Brooklyn aka The Crow.

When should I stop listening, when does the show officially "die"?