August 9, 2025 • 29 mins
Ben Maller (produced by Danny G.) has a fun Saturday podcast for you! He talks: Book Day, the King is Dead, the New Meathead & more!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Cutbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to clearinghouse of
hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Mahller starts right now.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
In the air eywhere the Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
Mahler and Danny g Radio A Happy Saturday to you.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
The night day of August. It is National Book Lover's
Day today. Yeah, there you go. Think of this like
an audio book. So in many ways you're honoring National
Book Lover's Day because today is the day to celebrate
the book. Oh that's right, and we can thank Joannis Guttenberg.
(01:04):
I believe that's how you say the name. I know
the last name Guttenberg, but the inventor of the printing
press that goes all the way back to fourteen forty.
An ex Goldsmith invented the printing press in fourteen forty
and watch out. So there you go National Book Lovers
Day today. And of course the most famous book club,
(01:27):
Oprah Oprah's book Club, which started what thirty years ago,
almost in the nineteen nineties. Oh my god, it's almost
been thirty years since that started. Is also today the
day to celebrate the garage sale. It's garage sale Day today,
and the original garage sale goes back to the sixteenth century.
(01:48):
Here's a fun fact for alf the Alien, Opiner and
Ferg Dog and anyone else who might be interested, including you.
The original garage sale a rummage shale, rummage sales of
unclaimed and you know, basically garbage cargo ships, stuff from
cargo ships, defective cargo ships. They started having rummage sales.
(02:14):
That was in the sixteenth century, back in the day.
So it is National garage Sale Day, and I guess
it actually goes back to the nineteen seventies. Before that,
they didn't really do that in modern society. Western society,
residential sales known as rummage sales started taking place in
the nineteen seventies. And of course today watch Out Watch
(02:38):
Out on this podcast though, as we are just getting
warmed up on a Saturday, we have the we'll get
to the new Meatthead. We'll get to that, and the
King is dead. The King is dead? Or is the
king dead? We'll start with that. That's a good jumping
off point on this Saturday. And so this is how
(03:00):
it ends, not with a bang, but a headline in
a tabloid or is it true? Tales of the Naked
Audio City. The rumors flying earlier this week while I
was away, while I was away from my post the
Watchtower in the overnight, that Howard Stern, the legend, Howard
(03:28):
Stern reportedly dne done, done, Don Dunski at Sirius XM
satellite radio canceled, retired, faded out into the Hampton's mist
like a barefoot Gatsby. Who knows The details will still murky.
It is just a tabloid report, and as someone that
(03:51):
had followed many tabloid reports, oftentimes they're very entertaining to
read the tabloids, and many times they are complete non So,
who knows, But the feeling is that Howard Stern is done,
although it's not official official. He is a semi retired
He's been semi retired for years. He takes a lot
(04:12):
of time off from his radio post. He's got a
good archive of content and he chooses not to work
that hard at his age. I don't blame him. He's
old and he's made a lot of money and he
can get away with it, so why not. But let
me say this straight straight away, all right, as we
(04:32):
look at this tabloid report, now I will assume the
position that the tabloid got it right, knowing that Stern
will be heard somewhere, but just for this particular moment,
on this particular podcast, I do have some mixed emotions,
all deeply mixed, like a cocktail of audio nostalgia and
(04:57):
disillusionment served over a bit cold rock of reality. Now,
if you grew up on radio, and even if you
just lived in a world where radio mattered, where radio
met something, and I'm assuming the position that by listening
to this podcast and listening to the overnight show that
we do, that you have a place in your heart
(05:19):
for audio content. You are someone that appreciates the theater
of the mind, and as someone that dabbles in that industry,
I am grateful to you. I also obviously love audio content.
So if you're someone in that domain, which I'm gonna
assume you are, then you know that Howard Stern was
not just a broadcast. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
(05:44):
He was in a category unto himself, the gold standard,
the gold standard, the shock jocks, shock jock, the guy
who built the house and then tore the house down,
rebuilt it out of flaming garbage, and then sold tickets
(06:04):
to the wreckage and sold out the joint. And yet,
and yet, somewhere along the way, Howard lost me. He did,
And now it's possible I lost him. I grew up
listening to Howard Stern's syndicated morning show. It's possible he
(06:26):
lost each other. It happens in every long term relationship.
Of course, Howard doesn't really know who I am. But
one day I was sneaking a radio under the covers
so my parents would not hear me listen to Howard
Stern ranting about lesbians and making jokes about Richard Simmons.
(06:49):
Next thing, you know, Howard Stern. You wake up. You're
an adult. Howard Stern's sipping Chardonnay in the Hampton's and
grilling Jennifer Aniston about her skincare routine. And you're thinking, well,
wait a minute, that's not the Howard Stern I grew
up with. And so I stopped listening about twelve years ago,
(07:10):
give or take. I'm going to say twelve years. Maybe
it's been ten, maybe it's been fifteen. And I'm not
sitting here flexing by any means. I generally, as a rule,
if you've heard me over the years, you know I
try not to listen to too much talk radio. I
don't want to be stealing other people's stuff through osmosis
by listening to it and you're like, hey, I'm gonna
(07:32):
do the same thing, even though you don't realize you're
doing the same thing. So I try not to be
that guy. I want to do my own original content.
I don't want to take from other people. Now. Obviously,
what I am today is a product of who I
listened to when I got into the business, and they
rubbed off on me. However, at this point I just
tried to avoid that as much as I can. So again,
(07:54):
the fact that I stopped listening to him, whether it's ten, twelve,
fifteen years ago, Howard Stern, it's not ag I'm not
being braggadocious. That is merely a time stamp. As we
are having a conversation. The moment the Howard Stern Show
stopped feeling dangerous and started feeling like it was processed
(08:15):
by Access Hollywood with better drops. Is the moment I
checked out, But that doesn't erase what came before it.
And clearly Stern still has a much bigger audience than
I could ever imagine that I would ever get. But
for me, I was the guy that listened to Stern
(08:35):
because he was the shock jock and he he would
go places no one else would go. And there was
a time, maybe it was the late eighties, the nineties,
the early two thousands, when Howard Stern was thrown one
hundred miles an hour and he had all those pitches.
It was gas. It was he had a killer curveball,
(08:57):
he had a breaking ball, he had a just everything
right everything. It was must listen appointment radio in an
era when people still made appointments to listen. Right now,
the audio world that we have so much of it,
so much of it, is as well listen when I want.
It's on demand, like this podcast. You can listen to
(09:18):
this podcast we recorded early in the day. You can
listen early in the day, you can listen later in
the day, you can listen the next day or two
days later. It's just like it's at your convenience, but radio.
One of the great things about radio is you generally
have to listen to it live to get the full
essence of it's a live broad because one of the
cool things about doing the overnight show is it's live
(09:38):
while you're working, while you're trying to sleep, while you're
having insomnia, all of that. So Howard Stern built this
amazing whack pack and it was just so entertaining, like
all these rejects and goofballs. And you had somebody on
his staff, Stuttering John, who would go out and do
(10:01):
these terrible interviews with celebrities and ask him the most
vile questions. And it was the funniest thing in the
world because there's nothing celebrities would hate more on the
red carpet than Stuttering John asking some weird questions. And
Howard Stern battled the FCC. I don't want to say
he beat the FCC because he did run to satellite radio,
but he was in the crosshairs with the Federal Communications
(10:23):
Commission in America and he was going mono a motto.
He destroyed multiple Morning Zoo guys and lapped the drive
time DJs one by one by one. It was like
whack the mole, they'll pop up. Stern'll knock him down.
(10:44):
And it was the thing we talked about off and
you could love him or you hated him, but you
had to deal with him. He wasn't just in the
conversation Howard Stern back in those days, he was He
was the conversation. And there's a term that we still use.
(11:05):
Minus originated with Howard Stern back in the nineteen eighties
and before I got in you know, I was a
kid in those days. But there's a term that Howard
Stern had program directors had used about Howard Stern and
his ranting and all that. They call it the Stern effect,
(11:26):
and it's still to this day something that is in
all media. It's a little different now because of podcasting,
but in live audio or video, there's a thing called
the Stern effect. You probably have heard of it if
you've listened to the show. I brought it up multiple
times in monologues, and if you're a fan of Stern,
(11:47):
you know what I'm talking about. But people who really
really hate Howard Stern would listen longer, would listen longer
than those who loved Howard Stern. The reason people would
listen for as long as because they wanted to make
sure they didn't miss an opportunity to be outraged. And
that seam mindset today to this very day, is why
(12:14):
a lot of people will watch on the Republican side,
not to get political, but we're about to get political.
But Republican voters will watch CNN to get pissed off,
and Democratic voters will watch Fox News and get pissed off,
and they actually watch longer because they get so offended
(12:37):
by all this stuff. And much of social media. One
of the great hacks of social media is to send
out things that are on the spectrum that upset people,
like the culture wars of society. Right, People get offended
by certain things, and you send those things out and
you get caught up in what we call the matrix.
(12:58):
And so Howard Stern back in those days again he
was the conversation. Now in twenty twenty five, in the
summer of twenty twenty five, well, now the whispers say
it's over serious. One hundred million dollars a year marriage
that they had with Howard Stern. May finally and I
(13:20):
say may, that's a weasel word, may finally be heading
to divorce. Court, and yeah, I get it. One hundred
million dollars a year buys you a lot of goodbyes.
That is more money than Patrick Mahomes will make to
play quarterback for Cansas City or show Hey Otani to
(13:41):
hit home runs and pitch once a week for the Dodgers.
So that's more money than anyone, to my knowledge, has
ever made to talk into a microphone outside maybe Rush
Limbaugh or God. And some would say that those are
one and the same in terms of audio content, but
it still, it still stinks. It does this tabloid report
(14:04):
because Howard meant something. I'm gonna tell you a little
story story time on the Fifth Hour podcast. Read for
a story you ready, So way back in January of nine.
January of nine, they were swearing in a president named
Barack Obama. And while that was going on, I was
(14:27):
given a piece of paper that was pink, a pink slip.
I got whacked or excommunicated from Fox Sports Radar. I
was gone, replaced by a can of soup. I vanished
from the airwaves of Fox Sports Radar. I was off
the air for six months and twenty six days. I
was unemployed. I didn't have a gig it was also
(14:49):
the most money I'd ever made in radio, because they
had to pay me a lot of money to have
me go away. So these weird emotions where I was
very upset, I didn't have a microphone, I didn't have
a gig, and then at the same time I made
more money than I had ever made and still to
this day, I have made more money in twenty oh
nine than I have ever made in radio while being
(15:11):
in Radio purgatory, because I had been with the company
at that point for a long time and they had
this sweetheart buyout package where they just threw tons of
money at me, but yet I didn't have a gig anyway.
Story continues, So one day around January twenty a few
(15:32):
days after that, a gentleman by the name of Pete
in Pittsburgh a legend dairy Looney tune and a crossover,
a crossover from the caller Underworld who happened to be
part of Howard Stern's whack pack and a member of
the mal Or Militia simultaneously simultaneously. So one day Pete
(15:54):
and Pittsburgh calls in to Howard Stern's show and they
talked on the air for a few minutes about all
these people in radio who lost their job. But Pete
and Pittsburgh, being a fan of the Overnight show, mentioned
me by name, some overnight sports radio slub floating out
(16:17):
in the ether. And now Howard Stern, Howard effing Stern
is saying my name on his show and talking about
me on his show. Now I didn't hear it. I
wasn't listening to Howard during that day. I was not
tuned in the reason I knew that happened. Immediately, my
(16:40):
phone blew up people I had not heard from in months,
years old friends from high school, people i'd lost contact
with family, Folks who couldn't care less about sports and
(17:00):
knew that I kind of worked in radio, and they thought, well,
I think you mentioned a radio guy that had your name.
Could that have been you? They were calling me, like,
I just want to Grammy. It's like, Wow, I must
have done something really special that shows you the reach.
And that was what are we looking at sixteen years ago,
twenty oh nine. Wow, I can't believe it's been sixteen years.
(17:23):
But that's the reach, that's the power, that's the hammer
that Howard Stern was wielding, and that's what made him, Howard,
that's the magic. And yeah, somewhere along the way, he
traded his trench coat for a tuxedo. The rebel Howard
(17:45):
Sern joined the gala, the met Gala rage against the machine,
became ordures with the machine. The very people that he
loved to goof on and make fun of. Now he
was hanging out with the Hamptons. But you know what,
that's life. Maybe the real shock, Jock, is that it
(18:07):
took this long. That's the real shock that the jock
took that long to become that guy. Give me that guy.
Everything he used to goof on, he became. And so
now we say bye bye. Maybe, but I don't even know.
He might end up working for the company I work for.
Ihearten his rumors. He's gonna take his show somewhere else.
(18:29):
I have no idea. I know I'm not involved in
those conversations. That's above my pay grade. Right, He'll be
somewhere only he's completely done. It just seems like Satellite
Radio is not gonna pay him one hundred million, and
I doubt Howard's gonna take a penny less. So the
other thing about this, he hit ninety five people. I
read in one of the stories, ninety five people work
(18:51):
on that show. I can barely get one person to
work on my show. I get people showing up the
last minute or after the show starts, completely high, not
paying any attention. I mean, I can't imagine I mak
ninety five people working for you to try to make
you sound good. That's amazing that. Oh my god, I
would die for that. I mean, I wouldn't know how
(19:12):
to handle having people trying to support you and make
you sound good. Holy crap, that would be amazing. But
any of listen, it's not about that. So Howard Stern
maybe not officially yet gone, but in spirit even if
he still goes somewhere, this is not the version of
Howard Stern. I want to remember the Fastball's been gone
(19:34):
for a while, the memory of the heater still lingers.
You remember the smoke, right, You remember the buzz, the
You remember being a teenager and hearing something you weren't
probably supposed to hear, and knowing, just knowing that this
was radio that mattered. That's one of the reasons I
wanted to get into radio. I was like, that mattered.
(19:55):
That got a reaction out of people. So Howard Stern.
He would there's never everyone's cup of teas. Certainly now
he is in everyone's cup of tea's. It's odd, though
the base he's attacked the very core of his fandom,
which seems counterproductive. It seems counterproductive, but hey, that's his choice.
(20:18):
And if this is it, if the curtain really is
coming down on the King of all Media, then we'll
give the man his due. There was a time when
Howard Stern ruled the audio world, absolutely ruled the audio world,
and for a long stretch, nobody did it better. The
(20:42):
man made multiple books, movie big movie, private parts. And
we have a feeling that Howard will still be around
the radio dials Somewhere's old shows will live on. They
have a long shelf life, some of those class bits
back when Stern did radio as a loud mouth and
(21:04):
would all the historyonics and all the dramatics and all
the overstatement and all that stuff that made him great.
Not the hanging out at cocktail parties with people who
are Hollywood elites. Not that Howard Stern, the Stern from
back in the day. That's the one that people want
to hear. That's the one that's got legs, all right,
now meanwhile, it's being a broadcasting we'll have a theme
(21:24):
on this Saturday podcast. So some other news which is
now official. The news came out yesterday on Friday that
Rob Gronkowski, Yes, that Rob Gronkowski, he of the frat
boy charm and protein shake for brain's charisma, has gotten
(21:45):
one of the biggest jobs in sports television. He is
replacing Jimmy Johnson on the NFL on Fox Sunday pregame set.
He's got the chair. Just when you thought sports television
couldn't dig deeper for quote personality, close quote, they strike
(22:08):
oil in a field of synthetic testosterone and bro jokes.
So Jimmy Johnson, the man that had that job forever
and ever and ever, the Super Bowl winning coach, a
great college football coach, a master motivator, one of the
last credible football minds on television, quietly fading into retirement.
(22:34):
And in his place you got the Gronk, the guy
whose main qualifications are that he played for the New
England Patriots with Tom Brady. He knows Tom Brady, and
he's got the Hall of Fame resume. He's got a
lot of followers on Instagram, and he has this uncannyability
to turn every piece of analysis into some kind of
(23:00):
punchline about partying or his body or now. The one
advantage he has is he's much younger than everyone else, right, Gronkowski,
Gronk on a set with Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw,
who have been doing that forever and ever as well,
so you can flash a smile of flex a bicep toll, chuckle.
(23:22):
He's a walking meme. He's perfect for the social media era,
where the depth is a liability. The depth is a liability.
Everything's got to be quick, it's got to be TikTok ready,
no no long form, no long form. So let's also
(23:45):
not pretend that the decision to have Gronkowski on television
every week is about football. It is not. In my opinion,
It is about optics. This is about the network executives
who can to be obsessed with the jockocracy and they
want that. They want the engagement, not the enlightenment. And
(24:08):
in many ways I understand the NFL pregame show is
a dinosaur. It is as relevant today as a payphone
or a typewriter. Now, there are people that use typewriters,
and there are people that are in areas where cell
reception goes out and they end up they end up
(24:30):
using a payphone. The NFL pregame show is no longer
a place where you go to learn something about a game.
It is a variety hour. It's chuckles, chuckles, chuckles, and
then you throw some shoulder pads on some ex jock
and you're on your way. You're more likely to get
(24:50):
a viral dance routine on social media than some kind
of breakdown on the Tampa two. Now Fox is not
alone across the board. NFL pregame shows have become relics
from a different ear of hollow monuments to a time
when that mattered, a time before the interweb, back when
(25:11):
Sunday mornings meant you turned on to hear actual football
minds from the old country break it down. You had
the iconic IRV Cross back in the day, Jimmy the Greek,
the handicapper, depending how old you are, Tom Brookshire. Now
it's about the vibe, not the value. It's all about
(25:34):
the Shticklach over substance, laughter overlearning. It's been that way
for many, many years. So they're like the hardcore fan.
They don't tune into these shows, and I understand the
networks are like, there's not that many hardcore fans. There's
not Most people that watch sports are casual fans. They're
just casually invested. You're not into the all twenty two
(25:57):
film breakdown. If you want that, there are on the
dark web. You can get it, and you can have
it all consumed by Thursday. The algorithms have replaced the analysis,
the social media threads, breaking down, blitz packages and all
that stuff. That is what the social media world is for,
(26:18):
or parts of that world. And so if you get
on television, you gotta be loud, and you gotta laugh
a lot and have some catchphrases and do all the
shikola and Gronk will fit perfectly in that mold. He chuckles,
the clown in cleets. He'll dance, he'll grunt a little bit,
(26:41):
He'll say yo a lot, and the producers will beam,
thinking they have nailed the coveted eighteen to thirty four
male demographic and that that'll play well in Peoria on
social media. Here's the truth. Though again this is not
about Gronk being bad at the job. I'm not saying
(27:01):
that by any means he will do what's asked of him.
The real issue is what the job has become and
what it no longer even pretends to be. Jimmy Johnson.
Whether you like him or not, he's out right, he's gone.
He retired. He's going to live the rest of his
life out there in Key West and enjoy the hell
out of it. Rob Gronkowski is in, and the football.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Analysis the john concres, at least on TV, continues its evolution,
evolving from what used to be some kind of insight
to inside joke, from a strategy years ago to slapstick.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
But hey, the ratings, you know, they get ratings. People
still watch Foxes dominate the ratings for some time, and
I would imagine that's not going to change any time soon.
So that will be the way it is. All right,
it is the fifth hour, and I think we'll put
(28:02):
the baby to bed. I did not do a MAVL
monologue about Shadur Sanders lighting up the Carolina Panthers in
an exhibition game. The reason I did not is because
it was an exhibition game. It was now if he
had played terribly, would I have done a monologue? Maybe
I would have, probably not. He made his NFL preseason
(28:24):
debut against the Carolina Panthers on Friday night, and by
all accounts he looked pretty good. I didn't see the game.
And Tom Brady got a statue yesterday that looked like
it was from North Korea, like the Overside or Russia,
a twelve foot bronze statue of Tom Brady outside Jillette Stadium.
So that's good news for the Pigeons. Outstanding news there.
(28:47):
They can knock themselves out. And I also saw some
of the Raiders there, Gino Smith and Max Crosby given
a little rasthma task to the Seahawks fans there. The
twelfth Man with the bird and all that, So that
would been good for a male of Milogue and all that.
But listen, we've done what we've done here and we
will move on. We'll have the mail bag on Sunday.
(29:10):
Have a wonderful Saturday here, enjoy the heck out of
your day today, and we'll catch you on the Sunday
mail Bag. By Folation
Cutbooms.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
of the old Republic, a soul fashion of fairness. He
treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow to clearinghouse of
hot takes, break free for something special. The Fifth Hour
(00:23):
with Ben Mahller starts right now.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
In the air eywhere the Fifth Hour with Me, Ben
Mahler and Danny g Radio A Happy Saturday to you.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
The night day of August. It is National Book Lover's
Day today. Yeah, there you go. Think of this like
an audio book. So in many ways you're honoring National
Book Lover's Day because today is the day to celebrate
the book. Oh that's right, and we can thank Joannis Guttenberg.
(01:04):
I believe that's how you say the name. I know
the last name Guttenberg, but the inventor of the printing
press that goes all the way back to fourteen forty.
An ex Goldsmith invented the printing press in fourteen forty
and watch out. So there you go National Book Lovers
Day today. And of course the most famous book club,
(01:27):
Oprah Oprah's book Club, which started what thirty years ago,
almost in the nineteen nineties. Oh my god, it's almost
been thirty years since that started. Is also today the
day to celebrate the garage sale. It's garage sale Day today,
and the original garage sale goes back to the sixteenth century.
(01:48):
Here's a fun fact for alf the Alien, Opiner and
Ferg Dog and anyone else who might be interested, including you.
The original garage sale a rummage shale, rummage sales of
unclaimed and you know, basically garbage cargo ships, stuff from
cargo ships, defective cargo ships. They started having rummage sales.
(02:14):
That was in the sixteenth century, back in the day.
So it is National garage Sale Day, and I guess
it actually goes back to the nineteen seventies. Before that,
they didn't really do that in modern society. Western society,
residential sales known as rummage sales started taking place in
the nineteen seventies. And of course today watch Out Watch
(02:38):
Out on this podcast though, as we are just getting
warmed up on a Saturday, we have the we'll get
to the new Meatthead. We'll get to that, and the
King is dead. The King is dead? Or is the
king dead? We'll start with that. That's a good jumping
off point on this Saturday. And so this is how
(03:00):
it ends, not with a bang, but a headline in
a tabloid or is it true? Tales of the Naked
Audio City. The rumors flying earlier this week while I
was away, while I was away from my post the
Watchtower in the overnight, that Howard Stern, the legend, Howard
(03:28):
Stern reportedly dne done, done, Don Dunski at Sirius XM
satellite radio canceled, retired, faded out into the Hampton's mist
like a barefoot Gatsby. Who knows The details will still murky.
It is just a tabloid report, and as someone that
(03:51):
had followed many tabloid reports, oftentimes they're very entertaining to
read the tabloids, and many times they are complete non So,
who knows, But the feeling is that Howard Stern is done,
although it's not official official. He is a semi retired
He's been semi retired for years. He takes a lot
(04:12):
of time off from his radio post. He's got a
good archive of content and he chooses not to work
that hard at his age. I don't blame him. He's
old and he's made a lot of money and he
can get away with it, so why not. But let
me say this straight straight away, all right, as we
(04:32):
look at this tabloid report, now I will assume the
position that the tabloid got it right, knowing that Stern
will be heard somewhere, but just for this particular moment,
on this particular podcast, I do have some mixed emotions,
all deeply mixed, like a cocktail of audio nostalgia and
(04:57):
disillusionment served over a bit cold rock of reality. Now,
if you grew up on radio, and even if you
just lived in a world where radio mattered, where radio
met something, and I'm assuming the position that by listening
to this podcast and listening to the overnight show that
we do, that you have a place in your heart
(05:19):
for audio content. You are someone that appreciates the theater
of the mind, and as someone that dabbles in that industry,
I am grateful to you. I also obviously love audio content.
So if you're someone in that domain, which I'm gonna
assume you are, then you know that Howard Stern was
not just a broadcast. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
(05:44):
He was in a category unto himself, the gold standard,
the gold standard, the shock jocks, shock jock, the guy
who built the house and then tore the house down,
rebuilt it out of flaming garbage, and then sold tickets
(06:04):
to the wreckage and sold out the joint. And yet,
and yet, somewhere along the way, Howard lost me. He did,
And now it's possible I lost him. I grew up
listening to Howard Stern's syndicated morning show. It's possible he
(06:26):
lost each other. It happens in every long term relationship.
Of course, Howard doesn't really know who I am. But
one day I was sneaking a radio under the covers
so my parents would not hear me listen to Howard
Stern ranting about lesbians and making jokes about Richard Simmons.
(06:49):
Next thing, you know, Howard Stern. You wake up. You're
an adult. Howard Stern's sipping Chardonnay in the Hampton's and
grilling Jennifer Aniston about her skincare routine. And you're thinking, well,
wait a minute, that's not the Howard Stern I grew
up with. And so I stopped listening about twelve years ago,
(07:10):
give or take. I'm going to say twelve years. Maybe
it's been ten, maybe it's been fifteen. And I'm not
sitting here flexing by any means. I generally, as a rule,
if you've heard me over the years, you know I
try not to listen to too much talk radio. I
don't want to be stealing other people's stuff through osmosis
by listening to it and you're like, hey, I'm gonna
(07:32):
do the same thing, even though you don't realize you're
doing the same thing. So I try not to be
that guy. I want to do my own original content.
I don't want to take from other people. Now. Obviously,
what I am today is a product of who I
listened to when I got into the business, and they
rubbed off on me. However, at this point I just
tried to avoid that as much as I can. So again,
(07:54):
the fact that I stopped listening to him, whether it's ten, twelve,
fifteen years ago, Howard Stern, it's not ag I'm not
being braggadocious. That is merely a time stamp. As we
are having a conversation. The moment the Howard Stern Show
stopped feeling dangerous and started feeling like it was processed
(08:15):
by Access Hollywood with better drops. Is the moment I
checked out, But that doesn't erase what came before it.
And clearly Stern still has a much bigger audience than
I could ever imagine that I would ever get. But
for me, I was the guy that listened to Stern
(08:35):
because he was the shock jock and he he would
go places no one else would go. And there was
a time, maybe it was the late eighties, the nineties,
the early two thousands, when Howard Stern was thrown one
hundred miles an hour and he had all those pitches.
It was gas. It was he had a killer curveball,
(08:57):
he had a breaking ball, he had a just everything
right everything. It was must listen appointment radio in an
era when people still made appointments to listen. Right now,
the audio world that we have so much of it,
so much of it, is as well listen when I want.
It's on demand, like this podcast. You can listen to
(09:18):
this podcast we recorded early in the day. You can
listen early in the day, you can listen later in
the day, you can listen the next day or two
days later. It's just like it's at your convenience, but radio.
One of the great things about radio is you generally
have to listen to it live to get the full
essence of it's a live broad because one of the
cool things about doing the overnight show is it's live
(09:38):
while you're working, while you're trying to sleep, while you're
having insomnia, all of that. So Howard Stern built this
amazing whack pack and it was just so entertaining, like
all these rejects and goofballs. And you had somebody on
his staff, Stuttering John, who would go out and do
(10:01):
these terrible interviews with celebrities and ask him the most
vile questions. And it was the funniest thing in the
world because there's nothing celebrities would hate more on the
red carpet than Stuttering John asking some weird questions. And
Howard Stern battled the FCC. I don't want to say
he beat the FCC because he did run to satellite radio,
but he was in the crosshairs with the Federal Communications
(10:23):
Commission in America and he was going mono a motto.
He destroyed multiple Morning Zoo guys and lapped the drive
time DJs one by one by one. It was like
whack the mole, they'll pop up. Stern'll knock him down.
(10:44):
And it was the thing we talked about off and
you could love him or you hated him, but you
had to deal with him. He wasn't just in the
conversation Howard Stern back in those days, he was He
was the conversation. And there's a term that we still use.
(11:05):
Minus originated with Howard Stern back in the nineteen eighties
and before I got in you know, I was a
kid in those days. But there's a term that Howard
Stern had program directors had used about Howard Stern and
his ranting and all that. They call it the Stern effect,
(11:26):
and it's still to this day something that is in
all media. It's a little different now because of podcasting,
but in live audio or video, there's a thing called
the Stern effect. You probably have heard of it if
you've listened to the show. I brought it up multiple
times in monologues, and if you're a fan of Stern,
(11:47):
you know what I'm talking about. But people who really
really hate Howard Stern would listen longer, would listen longer
than those who loved Howard Stern. The reason people would
listen for as long as because they wanted to make
sure they didn't miss an opportunity to be outraged. And
that seam mindset today to this very day, is why
(12:14):
a lot of people will watch on the Republican side,
not to get political, but we're about to get political.
But Republican voters will watch CNN to get pissed off,
and Democratic voters will watch Fox News and get pissed off,
and they actually watch longer because they get so offended
(12:37):
by all this stuff. And much of social media. One
of the great hacks of social media is to send
out things that are on the spectrum that upset people,
like the culture wars of society. Right, People get offended
by certain things, and you send those things out and
you get caught up in what we call the matrix.
(12:58):
And so Howard Stern back in those days again he
was the conversation. Now in twenty twenty five, in the
summer of twenty twenty five, well, now the whispers say
it's over serious. One hundred million dollars a year marriage
that they had with Howard Stern. May finally and I
(13:20):
say may, that's a weasel word, may finally be heading
to divorce. Court, and yeah, I get it. One hundred
million dollars a year buys you a lot of goodbyes.
That is more money than Patrick Mahomes will make to
play quarterback for Cansas City or show Hey Otani to
(13:41):
hit home runs and pitch once a week for the Dodgers.
So that's more money than anyone, to my knowledge, has
ever made to talk into a microphone outside maybe Rush
Limbaugh or God. And some would say that those are
one and the same in terms of audio content, but
it still, it still stinks. It does this tabloid report
(14:04):
because Howard meant something. I'm gonna tell you a little
story story time on the Fifth Hour podcast. Read for
a story you ready, So way back in January of nine.
January of nine, they were swearing in a president named
Barack Obama. And while that was going on, I was
(14:27):
given a piece of paper that was pink, a pink slip.
I got whacked or excommunicated from Fox Sports Radar. I
was gone, replaced by a can of soup. I vanished
from the airwaves of Fox Sports Radar. I was off
the air for six months and twenty six days. I
was unemployed. I didn't have a gig it was also
(14:49):
the most money I'd ever made in radio, because they
had to pay me a lot of money to have
me go away. So these weird emotions where I was
very upset, I didn't have a microphone, I didn't have
a gig, and then at the same time I made
more money than I had ever made and still to
this day, I have made more money in twenty oh
nine than I have ever made in radio while being
(15:11):
in Radio purgatory, because I had been with the company
at that point for a long time and they had
this sweetheart buyout package where they just threw tons of
money at me, but yet I didn't have a gig anyway.
Story continues, So one day around January twenty a few
(15:32):
days after that, a gentleman by the name of Pete
in Pittsburgh a legend dairy Looney tune and a crossover,
a crossover from the caller Underworld who happened to be
part of Howard Stern's whack pack and a member of
the mal Or Militia simultaneously simultaneously. So one day Pete
(15:54):
and Pittsburgh calls in to Howard Stern's show and they
talked on the air for a few minutes about all
these people in radio who lost their job. But Pete
and Pittsburgh, being a fan of the Overnight show, mentioned
me by name, some overnight sports radio slub floating out
(16:17):
in the ether. And now Howard Stern, Howard effing Stern
is saying my name on his show and talking about
me on his show. Now I didn't hear it. I
wasn't listening to Howard during that day. I was not
tuned in the reason I knew that happened. Immediately, my
(16:40):
phone blew up people I had not heard from in months,
years old friends from high school, people i'd lost contact
with family, Folks who couldn't care less about sports and
(17:00):
knew that I kind of worked in radio, and they thought, well,
I think you mentioned a radio guy that had your name.
Could that have been you? They were calling me, like,
I just want to Grammy. It's like, Wow, I must
have done something really special that shows you the reach.
And that was what are we looking at sixteen years ago,
twenty oh nine. Wow, I can't believe it's been sixteen years.
(17:23):
But that's the reach, that's the power, that's the hammer
that Howard Stern was wielding, and that's what made him, Howard,
that's the magic. And yeah, somewhere along the way, he
traded his trench coat for a tuxedo. The rebel Howard
(17:45):
Sern joined the gala, the met Gala rage against the machine,
became ordures with the machine. The very people that he
loved to goof on and make fun of. Now he
was hanging out with the Hamptons. But you know what,
that's life. Maybe the real shock, Jock, is that it
(18:07):
took this long. That's the real shock that the jock
took that long to become that guy. Give me that guy.
Everything he used to goof on, he became. And so
now we say bye bye. Maybe, but I don't even know.
He might end up working for the company I work for.
Ihearten his rumors. He's gonna take his show somewhere else.
(18:29):
I have no idea. I know I'm not involved in
those conversations. That's above my pay grade. Right, He'll be
somewhere only he's completely done. It just seems like Satellite
Radio is not gonna pay him one hundred million, and
I doubt Howard's gonna take a penny less. So the
other thing about this, he hit ninety five people. I
read in one of the stories, ninety five people work
(18:51):
on that show. I can barely get one person to
work on my show. I get people showing up the
last minute or after the show starts, completely high, not
paying any attention. I mean, I can't imagine I mak
ninety five people working for you to try to make
you sound good. That's amazing that. Oh my god, I
would die for that. I mean, I wouldn't know how
(19:12):
to handle having people trying to support you and make
you sound good. Holy crap, that would be amazing. But
any of listen, it's not about that. So Howard Stern
maybe not officially yet gone, but in spirit even if
he still goes somewhere, this is not the version of
Howard Stern. I want to remember the Fastball's been gone
(19:34):
for a while, the memory of the heater still lingers.
You remember the smoke, right, You remember the buzz, the
You remember being a teenager and hearing something you weren't
probably supposed to hear, and knowing, just knowing that this
was radio that mattered. That's one of the reasons I
wanted to get into radio. I was like, that mattered.
(19:55):
That got a reaction out of people. So Howard Stern.
He would there's never everyone's cup of teas. Certainly now
he is in everyone's cup of tea's. It's odd, though
the base he's attacked the very core of his fandom,
which seems counterproductive. It seems counterproductive, but hey, that's his choice.
(20:18):
And if this is it, if the curtain really is
coming down on the King of all Media, then we'll
give the man his due. There was a time when
Howard Stern ruled the audio world, absolutely ruled the audio world,
and for a long stretch, nobody did it better. The
(20:42):
man made multiple books, movie big movie, private parts. And
we have a feeling that Howard will still be around
the radio dials Somewhere's old shows will live on. They
have a long shelf life, some of those class bits
back when Stern did radio as a loud mouth and
(21:04):
would all the historyonics and all the dramatics and all
the overstatement and all that stuff that made him great.
Not the hanging out at cocktail parties with people who
are Hollywood elites. Not that Howard Stern, the Stern from
back in the day. That's the one that people want
to hear. That's the one that's got legs, all right,
now meanwhile, it's being a broadcasting we'll have a theme
(21:24):
on this Saturday podcast. So some other news which is
now official. The news came out yesterday on Friday that
Rob Gronkowski, Yes, that Rob Gronkowski, he of the frat
boy charm and protein shake for brain's charisma, has gotten
(21:45):
one of the biggest jobs in sports television. He is
replacing Jimmy Johnson on the NFL on Fox Sunday pregame set.
He's got the chair. Just when you thought sports television
couldn't dig deeper for quote personality, close quote, they strike
(22:08):
oil in a field of synthetic testosterone and bro jokes.
So Jimmy Johnson, the man that had that job forever
and ever and ever, the Super Bowl winning coach, a
great college football coach, a master motivator, one of the
last credible football minds on television, quietly fading into retirement.
(22:34):
And in his place you got the Gronk, the guy
whose main qualifications are that he played for the New
England Patriots with Tom Brady. He knows Tom Brady, and
he's got the Hall of Fame resume. He's got a
lot of followers on Instagram, and he has this uncannyability
to turn every piece of analysis into some kind of
(23:00):
punchline about partying or his body or now. The one
advantage he has is he's much younger than everyone else, right, Gronkowski,
Gronk on a set with Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw,
who have been doing that forever and ever as well,
so you can flash a smile of flex a bicep toll, chuckle.
(23:22):
He's a walking meme. He's perfect for the social media era,
where the depth is a liability. The depth is a liability.
Everything's got to be quick, it's got to be TikTok ready,
no no long form, no long form. So let's also
(23:45):
not pretend that the decision to have Gronkowski on television
every week is about football. It is not. In my opinion,
It is about optics. This is about the network executives
who can to be obsessed with the jockocracy and they
want that. They want the engagement, not the enlightenment. And
(24:08):
in many ways I understand the NFL pregame show is
a dinosaur. It is as relevant today as a payphone
or a typewriter. Now, there are people that use typewriters,
and there are people that are in areas where cell
reception goes out and they end up they end up
(24:30):
using a payphone. The NFL pregame show is no longer
a place where you go to learn something about a game.
It is a variety hour. It's chuckles, chuckles, chuckles, and
then you throw some shoulder pads on some ex jock
and you're on your way. You're more likely to get
(24:50):
a viral dance routine on social media than some kind
of breakdown on the Tampa two. Now Fox is not
alone across the board. NFL pregame shows have become relics
from a different ear of hollow monuments to a time
when that mattered, a time before the interweb, back when
(25:11):
Sunday mornings meant you turned on to hear actual football
minds from the old country break it down. You had
the iconic IRV Cross back in the day, Jimmy the Greek,
the handicapper, depending how old you are, Tom Brookshire. Now
it's about the vibe, not the value. It's all about
(25:34):
the Shticklach over substance, laughter overlearning. It's been that way
for many, many years. So they're like the hardcore fan.
They don't tune into these shows, and I understand the
networks are like, there's not that many hardcore fans. There's
not Most people that watch sports are casual fans. They're
just casually invested. You're not into the all twenty two
(25:57):
film breakdown. If you want that, there are on the
dark web. You can get it, and you can have
it all consumed by Thursday. The algorithms have replaced the analysis,
the social media threads, breaking down, blitz packages and all
that stuff. That is what the social media world is for,
(26:18):
or parts of that world. And so if you get
on television, you gotta be loud, and you gotta laugh
a lot and have some catchphrases and do all the
shikola and Gronk will fit perfectly in that mold. He chuckles,
the clown in cleets. He'll dance, he'll grunt a little bit,
(26:41):
He'll say yo a lot, and the producers will beam,
thinking they have nailed the coveted eighteen to thirty four
male demographic and that that'll play well in Peoria on
social media. Here's the truth. Though again this is not
about Gronk being bad at the job. I'm not saying
(27:01):
that by any means he will do what's asked of him.
The real issue is what the job has become and
what it no longer even pretends to be. Jimmy Johnson.
Whether you like him or not, he's out right, he's gone.
He retired. He's going to live the rest of his
life out there in Key West and enjoy the hell
out of it. Rob Gronkowski is in, and the football.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Analysis the john concres, at least on TV, continues its evolution,
evolving from what used to be some kind of insight
to inside joke, from a strategy years ago to slapstick.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
But hey, the ratings, you know, they get ratings. People
still watch Foxes dominate the ratings for some time, and
I would imagine that's not going to change any time soon.
So that will be the way it is. All right,
it is the fifth hour, and I think we'll put
(28:02):
the baby to bed. I did not do a MAVL
monologue about Shadur Sanders lighting up the Carolina Panthers in
an exhibition game. The reason I did not is because
it was an exhibition game. It was now if he
had played terribly, would I have done a monologue? Maybe
I would have, probably not. He made his NFL preseason
(28:24):
debut against the Carolina Panthers on Friday night, and by
all accounts he looked pretty good. I didn't see the game.
And Tom Brady got a statue yesterday that looked like
it was from North Korea, like the Overside or Russia,
a twelve foot bronze statue of Tom Brady outside Jillette Stadium.
So that's good news for the Pigeons. Outstanding news there.
(28:47):
They can knock themselves out. And I also saw some
of the Raiders there, Gino Smith and Max Crosby given
a little rasthma task to the Seahawks fans there. The
twelfth Man with the bird and all that, So that
would been good for a male of Milogue and all that.
But listen, we've done what we've done here and we
will move on. We'll have the mail bag on Sunday.
(29:10):
Have a wonderful Saturday here, enjoy the heck out of
your day today, and we'll catch you on the Sunday
mail Bag. By Folation
Host
Ben Maller
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