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March 29, 2025 - Lionel Nation
20:38
King of Cringe: Howard Stern Begs for Relevance While Celebs Ghost Him in the Hamptons
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I'm going to start off by saying I have absolute respect for the legacy in the oeuvre of Howard Stern in terms of what he's done.
Absolutely, positively, 100%.
He will be in the radio broadcasting pantheon.
He and Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh probably more so.
But in terms of cultural, they are 100% absolutely right up there.
So I don't want anybody to suggest that I'm bad-mouthing what he's done.
Absolutely not.
Okay?
Now that we got that...
And by the way, people, historically, from my years of being in New York radio, people have always said, you know, he's a nice guy.
I don't know about now, but he's a nice guy.
The guy who was a real prick was Don Imus.
This guy was...
And they called him a shock jock, though his music was superb.
Superb!
But that was a man who had lost it for me when he bowed before and kissed the feet of Al Sharpton.
But I digress.
Let's talk about what's going through right now with Howard Stern.
He called himself the king of all media, whatever it is.
Actually, he's the king of caca de toro.
The king of cringe.
The king of...
Come on, please.
Howard Stern now is begging for relevance while his celeb friends are ghosting him in the Hamptons.
You know, this guy years ago, first, understand, and I've seen this so many times, what is the thing, what is your shtick?
What is your thing?
His idea was that, hey, look, I'm one of you.
I've got this wife that doesn't like me.
My kids don't like me.
I'm a miserable guy.
I've failed with women.
I go home and I watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I'm in the basement.
And people kind of related to him.
That was his thing.
I'm like a snot-nosed kid.
I'm kind of the freak.
His movie, whatever his part.
What is it called?
Elephant Part?
Elephant Part.
Isn't that what it's called?
What is his movie called?
This is terrible.
I never watched it.
Yeah.
Hang on a minute.
Don't bother me.
I'm asking my wife.
And I'm sure you know this.
Howard Stern movie.
I'm always looking everything up.
I never saw it.
Private parts.
Elephant parts.
Why did I get elephant parts?
I'm going to call mine elephant parts.
You know why?
Because I don't care.
I don't care.
I'm an adult.
I don't have little crushes on people.
But, I'll give him his due when it comes to what he did in terms of the business.
But now, Howard has gone from shock jock.
By the way, let me just stop.
There is no shock jock.
You know what the shock is?
The truth.
Conspiracies.
Let me tell you who did more for shock jock.
Alex Jones.
Alex Jones.
You will have to put what he did into museums.
Okay?
What he did, his relevance is off the charts.
And one day he will get his due.
Okay?
One day he will be...
What he did?
This was a movement.
But I digress.
Okay?
But...
The guy.
What happened to him?
What happened?
It's like when people don't age well.
You know, Springsteen was okay until he did that stupid diner bit for Joe Biden.
Something Unsettling 00:14:53
I don't know if they owe him, if he had USAID money, but that was a different story.
That was almost like you could see almost a gun to his head.
There's no way Springsteen thought for sure that he...
Anyway.
Sometimes when people get older, there's two places where it works.
Country music and blues.
Oh, Willie Nelson can play to the 150.
The Grand Ole Opry.
Furlan Husky.
You can play as long as you want.
And Bluegrass?
Forget it.
Blues?
John Lee Hooker was, what, 150 when he died?
So old he farts dust.
You can go on forever.
But when you're in something and you got the long hair...
There gets to this point, it's kind of like the Uncanny Valley, or Rudy Valley, where you kind of, Mrs. Eldon and I know, there's these folks, sometimes we see, these are these old rockers, and they're really sad.
They've got jet black hair, and ponytails, and balls.
I mean, it's like, get over it!
Look, I don't think you should walk around in a walker, but there's a certain parameter.
I mean, you can enjoy a certain degree of coolness at your age, but when you get to the point when you're, You know, you're trying to defy reality.
And Howard kept, you know, the hair and the whole bit.
I don't know if that's a rug or what.
I have no idea.
But anyway, he went from this kind of, I'm one of you, and then he hit it big, and then he married, well, I know nothing about his wife.
I'm not going to say anything about it.
I have no idea.
I think she's a cat, a dog person, one of those types.
Anybody who looks at animal rights over children's rights, human rights, That's a sore spot with me.
But I've got no beef.
Beth Ostrovsky or whatever.
I don't want to think about her.
But all I know is when she came along, he became, oh, I'm now the Hamptons and I'm a billionaire.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
So that's when we saw it.
And that's when it was over.
Then XM came and it was weird.
You know, there was a time.
Let me just do one more thing.
The shock jocks today are the truth.
That will get you.
Shock Jack used to say, what will get you thrown off the air?
Today, the truth will get you thrown off the air.
And Howard has nothing to do with the truth.
There was a time when Stern stood at the center of the cultural hurricane, the epicenter.
He was fearless and raw and unapologetically rebellious.
But that time is long over.
Long over.
Today, Howard isn't the king of all media.
He's the fossilized echo of a revolution he abandoned.
He's a museum piece trapped in his multi-million dollar bubble, still pretending he's the outsider, still pretending that that shtick still applies, while rubbing elbows with the exact elitist schmucks.
He used to mock.
And his recent whining?
Oh my God.
His whining about celebrity guests in the Hamptons?
What?
First of all, when you say, when I hear the word Hamptons, you don't know what happens to me.
I kind of...
Because you have to say, as a dentiloquist, Hamptons.
Kind of a thirst and howl thing.
They think they are so...
Are you going to the Hamptons?
A house in the Hamptons?
The hell with the Hamptons!
Anyway.
Anyway.
He's now feeling that he's...
He's...
Well, he's not...
He's not as...
What do I say?
As welcome, you know.
And a lot of folks are detailing this.
And the fact is, it's not that he's tone deaf.
He's pathetically out of touch.
And a lot of various tabloids and the like have talked about him.
Stern used to challenge power.
And now he's crying because the Hollywood types don't line up for selfies with him.
And Beth.
They don't kiss his arse.
What decade does he think he's in?
Seriously.
This is pathetic.
This desperate clinging to...
To social relevance, it's become, I keep using the word cringe, but it's like cringe.
It's more cringe than compelling.
Get over it.
Be cool.
You've already earned it.
Dazzle them with your ordinariness.
So let's be honest.
I think I'm pretty honest.
The man who once made corporate radio tremble, he really did, now hides behind this This sanitized, ultra-controlled kind of studio.
He's terrified of germs and confrontation.
What's that, mysophobia?
And he just can't take this.
And he hates the kind of truth that actually shocks people today.
This is what I'm telling you.
The stuff that he...
He is so bought and sold.
The real shock jocks are out there now on podcasts, on YouTube, or X, or Bumble, or Rumble, or...
Bit shoot and poop shoot.
That's where they are.
Sirius XM?
It's okay.
But it's not.
Have you heard his interviews?
Oh, and he...
Robin?
That laughing.
Has she...
Has somebody said to her ever, stop it.
Stop laughing.
It's not funny.
Do you know how many, if they strung together just all the laughing, what a gig that is!
It's like she's the studio audience.
Oh, look, it was, do you know how sometimes, have you ever had a cologne?
You think, this is great!
Then one day you wake up and you go, ugh!
Ugh!
This is horrible!
Or you can't eat something.
I remember years ago, in law school, we were into this martini thing, and one day the smell of gin made me sick!
I'm thinking, what happened?
I don't know.
That's like Stern.
One day you say, alright, that's enough of that.
That's enough of that.
Nostalgia is one thing.
You ever seen these poor people like the Beach Boys or Pantera or Anthrax or something?
They're like 80 years old, these people.
There's something unsettling about it.
But it's weird.
But the stuff, the shock, Basically, it's occurring where Howard Stern would die today.
He wouldn't last.
But Bongo, bringing on the mentally retarded?
Now look, let me tell you something.
I am demented.
I will argue for things being funny that is just terrible.
But this isn't funny.
It was like, okay.
And the TV thing is okay.
Remember his black face with, who was it?
Not Herschel Bernard.
That's Charlie Latuna.
Arnie Neuville.
Sherman Helmsley, whatever.
George Jefferson.
Remember they were black face?
Oh, I do believe that.
Okay.
All right.
Okay, Mr. What was it called?
Mr. A cakewalk.
Remember that one?
I'm rambling.
What's worse is he's not a nice guy.
I think we made this clear.
Behind these glamorized past stories lies this record of bitterness and betrayal and ego.
Oh, ask people who've worked with him.
Stern doesn't challenge the system.
He became the system.
He is the system.
And the audience knows it.
They've left in droves.
Plus, people today are funny about paywalls, and they just, it better be, I mean, it better be, you know, snuff films or something.
I'm just kidding.
But I'm saying, this, what is he going to do?
Hey, he's going to interview Billy Joel.
If you run out of Ambien, check that out, or whoever he's interviewing.
In this gushing, kind of a hyper-pretend interest.
He left behind a legacy and leaves behind that it feels less...
I don't know, less revolutionary, more like a long, boring victory lap, you know, that just never ends.
Okay.
You gotta know when it's over.
And it's time that Stern accepts the truth.
It's over!
He's not controversial.
He's not relevant.
He's a broadcaster.
Find something else.
And he's not the voice of the people anymore.
He's not the voice of anything anymore.
He's a relic.
And the world has simply moved on.
So, I'm saying for him, Good for you for what you've done.
Good!
But find...
Would it kill you not to be a dick?
Would it kill you just to be a regular person?
Find something unique.
You know who's really...
Say what you want.
Jerry Seinfeld, who just does it.
The whole thing with the cars, that's pretty good.
Jerry Seinfeld is a billionaire.
And he still does his gigs and still...
Jay Leno with his car thing.
Find something you kind of sorted too.
Be different.
Be...
I don't know what he can actually be.
But you should read the stories.
Oh my God, the behind the scenes.
And it's kind of sad.
The people today, if he wanted to, he could jump in.
But let me tell you something that's interesting.
And this is the most important.
There's always a kind of a...
There was always a...
The line from...
Did you hear what Stern almost said today?
Did you hear how...
Did you hear how...
What he almost said today?
He almost said the F word.
Did you hear?
Well, today people do that all the time.
But there's no line for him.
So, you can't shock people today with...
Mere cursing, gratuitous cursing, there's got to be something shocking.
If you want to talk about shock, like I said, let's do some 9-11 stories.
Talk about COVID or vaccines.
Oh my, are you kidding?
They would have you arrested.
Let me tell you who does this the right way.
My friend Anthony Cumia.
For years he was with whatever his partner was.
And I'm doing that on purpose.
My wife is correcting me.
I know, it's Obie.
They had, apparently, they had a falling off.
See, that was, bless her heart.
See, I was going to do the old, what was his name?
It was a routine.
It's okay, it's okay.
No, no, no, he, you know, but what Anthony's doing is he's moved on.
And he's very smart.
And he's older, and he's, I think, just as raucous and rambunctious and scabrous.
And dare I say at times, coprolalic?
But it comports with his age.
He's in his mid-70s.
I'm kidding.
I think he's three years younger than me.
But the point is, that's all you've got to do.
Look, you know this thing about keeping it real?
You ever hear this saying, keeping it real?
Al Sharpton had a radio show called Keeping It Real.
It was the worst thing you've ever heard in your life.
I swear to God, I'd rather suck a hospital mop than listen to it.
This is where Imus went and kissed the arse of that con man.
But you've got to be legitimate.
And there are people right now who are just doing regular shows, people sitting in a car and talking into a...
Phone, they're more legitimate and more real and more interesting than Stern is, with all the fluff and...
I don't know about you, and I'm sorry, maybe I...
Look, I'm a freak.
Do you really find Paul McCartney interesting?
Do you want to hear another Beatles story?
Do you?
Do you want to hear how he got yesterday and the dream?
Do you want to hear this again?
How many times do you want to hear this?
I'd rather talk about this stuff on just the...
There is a group of folks who do Steven Seagal reviews.
It is the funniest stuff I have heard because of its sheer and absolute brilliance.
The amount of time, in fact, I'm going to give a shout out to them.
They're very, very, very funny.
And then there's Howard Stern doing blackface?
No, seriously, blackface?
I do believe that the man...
Blackface?
He's doing minstrel show stuff?
Maybe he's going to be Mr. Interlocutor.
He'd be great for the...
I can't find the name of this...
I want to give him a heads up while we're at it because it's the best stuff I've...
Oh!
It's called Space Ice.
Space Ice.
Steven Segar movie.
Brilliant.
Brilliant.
Who would have thought that?
So in any event, Howard Stern, thank you for what you've done.
Thank you for what you made radio, really seriously, you made it cool and everything, but I've got to tell you something.
You're not done with this.
Do something different.
Because there's been nothing there.
Does Howard Stern want to be a star, or does he want to be legitimate?
People today, remember, there's so many choices.
You've got five seconds to get somebody's attention, and they're gone.
There's a 15-year-old in the Philippines unboxing curling irons and getting $3 million a hit.
What are you going to do?
Have Robin laugh again?
Bless her heart, Robin.
Uh-uh.
So, dear friends, thank you.
What do you think?
Were you a Stern fan?
Were you a part of this?
Have you noticed a complete and total decline of this man's catastrophic collapse?
What do you think?
And so, like this video, subscribe to the channel, hit that little bell so you're notified of live streams and new videos.
Please subscribe.
Did you know that 80-something percent of the people who watch me do not subscribe?
I don't know what the hell that's about.
So, end that.
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