Man, I wasn't really feelin that, dog.

I’m in my car like some sort of new age hobo, typing a blog from outside a place where middle eastern guys make breakfast sandwiches. I’m waiting for my wife. We just had a parent teacher conference and now we’re going to an ultrasound. I’m like a real big time family man. How wonderful. Last night we had a blizzard. I’ve been excavating my cars from gigantic piles all morning like Indiana Jones does with ancient skulls. For some reason, I now have a chest pain. Maybe it has to do with the most exciting news I’ve recently heard, namely that Howard Stern is being bandied about to be the host of American Idol. Here’s why that would be great:
(Actually, guess what? Now I’m on a train, headed home. There are those who would argue that writing on your laptop on the train is a stupid idea, but frankly, I think that my phone is worth more than this computer at this juncture. Anyway, where was I, back before the ultrasound and all that coffee? Ah yes!)
It would be great because howard is fascinating. That’s the obvious answer. He’s a master of making people listen to him, and his show is the definition of compelling broadcasting. But that’s not the real reason that it would be so amazing. The REAL reason is because everyone is SO infuriated and almost no one that sees this potential move as a bad idea really has any idea who Howard Stern is. I liken it to modern politics.
Right now, as we’ve discussed, the vast majority of Americans are not getting their news from primary sources (like actually WATCHING cspan [cuz, well, that sucks] or the State of the Union address, because it’s too long and it’s not convenient. People wait for their pop culture avatars (in the Hindu sense, not the James Cameron or Second Life sense [ew!]) to distill the information into soundbytes that resonate with their prepackaged world view, and they’re done with it. No messy decision making or uncomfortable slopping onto the left or right for issues that may not seem like bad ideas but are espoused by your theoretical enemies.
Similarly, people don’t take the time to listen to Howard Stern. They overhear someone call him crass or a pig and they ascribe their own ideas about what constitutes a crass pig to the Stern show without ever having heard it.
This mental rewriting and subsequent outrage is not limited to priggish moms and people who were around when Howard was getting a ton of media attention for battling the FCC either. My friend, Buttcheeks (not his real name) is an otherwise erudite and cultured young man. He plays in a good band and he’s been all around the world, and when I mention Stern, he calls him an idiot and asks how I could possibly listen to that ‘crap.’
Now, I know butcheeks pretty well (I’m referring to the guy, though I’m also pretty familiar with the body parts) and I know that if he’d EVER listened, he’d be shocked and disappointed at how quickly he wrote off something that’s really quite refreshing and intelligent in its irreverence, but he never will. He’s already done without ever really beginning, the way lots of people write off great bands and vow never to listen to them, even though they’ve never heard them, despite the fact that their buddies have recommended the bands based on their similar musical tastes.
This shit has happened to me a lot. I found out about a lot of great bands that I missed out on while they were around, simply because I sort of arbitrarily decided that I thought I didn’t like them before I’d ever heard a song.
Likewise with Stern. People that call him “deplorable” and “stupid” and “immoral” or otherwise don’t appreciate at least a FACET of his show simply haven’t listened enough (or they’re dimwits that reduce everything to the bible [not to be confused with regular religious folks, so relax out there {though, let’s be honest…you’re not a fundamentalist, but you think this guy in the sky is guiding you and there’s some sort of place you go, and your dog and your grandma will be there, and you can all sit around and spy on your offspring while eating cookies and never gaining a pound ? And you base this on three books written over two thousand years ago, which have since edited by pretty much anyone that wanted to? Hmmmm. You could probably stand to wake up a little bit, yourself}]). Howard’s not in any way immoral, nor is he stupid. But lots of people throw those two words at him. Why? Because he’s challenging and compelling and creates an emotional response. And THAT would make for great television, just as it makes for great radio.
AND, there’s nothing that a (legitimately) stupid, crappy plastic show like American Idol could use like a dose of actual human opinion. I mean, Simon Cowell doesn’t seem all that human, or even lifelike to me. Even off the show, in the tabloids and stuff, he’s all black shirts and huge tits and odd hair, smirks and scowls and a little praise parsed out with the “truth” He’s never seemed as human as, let’s say, Britney Spears or Nick Lachey, and that’s really saying something.
I mean, that show’s just completely staffed with plastic humanoid smile-bot 3000’s as is (and now they’re bringing in middle-aged-teenaged-boy-dance-machine-peter-pan-impersonator Ellen to add some humanity? Fuck me. That’s like cutting down trees to help close the hole in the ozone layer. That’s like fucking someone in the ass to keep them a virgin. That’s like…oh, right. That’s like lots of misguided policies that people have actually already thought up and applied to things.) I mean, look at these people. Paula? Randy? SEACREST? That one irritating bitch that’s about to go back to her job at Blimpies? They’re a line of products from Tokyo’s Robo-con in the year 2151, not a group of living people that take dumps and cry (though Paula does cry and randy definitely has taken a dump or two).
Look, I’m stoked on the IDEA of howard on that show. I don’t know if it’s gonna happen, but if it did, I’d be running back to American Idol faster than Nikki McKibben at a plate of Oxycontin topped donuts.
And that’s the truth.