I gave into my long time habit today of locking my jaws like a pit-bull and for reasons right or wrong, practical or superfluous, prudent or impulsive put my money where my political mouth is and paid the extortive premium for the RIGHT to enjoy free speech. Sirius radio is now at my disposal and the FCC's unrepentant pariah Howard Stern will continue to make me blow my morning coffee out my nose in uncontrolled laughter.
I hated making this investment. The Stern I listened to on terrestrial FM two years ago was all I needed. I could have cared less about 150 stations of 24 hour commercial free music and talk shows. FM was fine by me; commercials and all. Then Janet Jackson had a "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super bowl and somehow the religious right, their slow witted poster boy GW and his bureaucratic sycophants at the FCC decided it was because Howard Stern regularly interviewed Porn Stars, drunken dwarfs and KKK supporters on his morning radio show.
I’ve only this day begun to peruse the offerings this new media has to offer me. I could have done without paying $250+ for a boom box with a removable tuner/transmitter that also fits in a funky cradle in my car so that I may also listen to it there. A bit more effort has to be made into it being more user friendly by doing away with all the extemporaneous wires, aerials adaptors etc. However; the music selection IS extraordinary and I needn’t start surfing every eight minutes to save myself from yet another advertisement. There is talk radio dedicated to liberals AND conservatives and several real-time info stations for traffic and weather.
I truly hope for the sake of free speech this burgeoning media delivers a One-Two punch to terrestrial FM and the FCC they’ll not soon forget. It would vindicate that locked-jawed iconoclastic pit-bull in me.
FR.
As a long-term (~15 year) Stern listener, I was very surprised to see how derivative the rest of drive-time radio was in his absence.
Here, in San Diego we have a lame clone of Stern's Show (aka Dave, Shelly and Chainsaw on KGB) that I'm afraid they'd have to pay me to listen. Most of these shows have all of the raunch of Stern's, just none of the humor, intellect and style. And this is something of a admission from me, as I'd thought that the Stern show has significantly deteriorated from the days with Billy West and Jackie Martling.
As I see it, the new FCC chair Martin has only one of two choices. Anoint new decency 'targets' on terrestrial radio and charge after them, or alternatively convince Congress that the the FCC has the right to go after pay services, such as HBO, Showtime, Sirius, XM etc. My guess is, good luck on the latter. Too much of revenue is dependent on porn/soft-porn for the GOP's corporate masters (i.e., telecom, cable) to allow censorship on the pay services.
Howard Stern rocks.
Always has. Always will.
Pushes the envelope, and you can bet, he will continue to push the envelope. More than ever before.
I look forward to reading about not Howards first show, but the reactions from the right wing dipshits who will moralize and preach from their Christian Castles all the while getting blowjobs from little boys.
Nah, can't agee with you on this one. This is all about Stern's self-agrandizement and $$$ lust.[Need I remind you that when Stern signed his previous contract in 2000 he Swore that this was ABSOLUTELY THE LAST ONE and he would devote the rest of his energies to his producing career, such as it was. Forgotten that, have you?]. Sad to see you bought into this act. If the radio airwaves are a government-regulated entity then SOME regulation of what is said follows, if not logically, at least commonsensically. How Stern can portray himself as a martyr to free speech principles, and get people to believe that's the case, never ceases to amaze me. Somehow, when I think of John Milton's "Aeropagetica" [spelling?] or John Peter Zenger I don't also think of Stern in that same company.
Stern has convenient targets, he's not taking on anyone too tough to handle. The Christian Right? C'mom, the easiestand fattest target in the USA. Bush? Next case please. The list could go on and on and on.
And don't forget how the miserble little hook-nosed egotist initially pounded the drums IN FAVOR OF the war against Iraq and IN FAVOR of POTUS Bush. At one point I remember him saying [not an exact quote] "I thank God that George Bush is the President at this moment." Has this hump ever changed his tune!
Buy into his act at your own risk, and remember the next target he skewers might be one dear to your own heart and sense of self.
-- Modified on 1/15/2006 8:10:57 AM
When cable TV first started out, you could see titties and hear "fuck" on all the channels. Now they censor it just like broadcast. You have to pay extra for the "premiums" to get decent indecency. Take "6 feet under" for example - if you want to see brother and sister kiss over a dead corpse, you gotta pay Comcast the extra bucks. And even then the scene is so short, you can't possible pound one out in that short amount of time.
and Milton and Zenger were regarded as the filthy outcasts of their day. They became heroes because their side won.
And of course it's about money - same as with everybody. Nothing happens or should happen if it can't be financed, ie, people are willing to put their money where their mouth is, by donating, buying, forcing their neighbors to be taxed, etc.
So the question is, who would you rather see win, Stern or Robertson? I personally think Stern allows us more options, and is less likely to reduce us to the economic level of al Q'aeda. With Robertson, the same old joke gets boring after a half hour, and that alone is good cause to tomato-pelt him off the stage.
Howard Stern aside; I would have to say that after having this new fangled “subscription radio” for two days I would liken it to cable or satellite TV in its entertainment and information options. Being that my car is my office this vast increase in options is most welcomed and as liberating as cable has been in freeing me from the 13 channels of shit standard VHF TV once confined me to. Of course as the old adage states “Freedom has it’s price”
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