I stopped listening to Howard Stern in 1997.
I was in college on Long Island. I was driving in a friends car to go do research for a class. I had, as I always did, the station turned to Stern. He was the perfect antidote to a long morning drive.
On this day Stern took a call from a man who proclaimed to have terminal cancer. This man, who was about 55 or 56 years old, was emotional as he told Stern about the radio in general, and Stern’s show specifically, being the only joy he had during a day filled with pain and loneliness. The man seemed sincere. There wasn’t a hint of play acting in his voice. You could literally hear the bottom lip quiver at times as the man described his death sentence.
Throughout this exchange Stern treated the man as one of his many cooing fan boys, there simply to ridicule and then throw away. He asked blunt, mean spirited questions, put the man on mute as he answered to laugh with his lap dog crew of sycophants, and was so disdainfully mean to another human being dying of cancer I actually had a phsycal reaction. I have never and will never listen to him again.
For years afterwards I listened to Don Imus. While still a typical shock jock he seemed to have more of a heart, more of a soul than Stern. He talked politics, had big name guests coming in and out, and didn’t mind taking pot shots at himself every once in a while.
With Imus, my disgust built over time. More and more his show seemed to gesticulate between downright boring to vulgar bully humor. There was no style or symmetry to his comedy. It was simply playground antics. Throw enough stones at the smaller kid until he cries and a few sadistic onlookers will laugh. That was basically the idea.
So after enough fat people jokes, stupid people jokes, Christian jokes, conservative jokes, I had enough of Imus.
The fact that Imus doesn’t have a job tonight will probably not keep me tossing and turning. He has been, for a long time, an ageing imbecile consumed with his self importance (even as his ratings fell from years past) whose ego was fluffed routinely by elitist members of the media and the world of politics who viewed his show as a right of passage into the exclusive club of leftist thinkers. He routinely threatened people’s careers at his radio station, crowed that he could influence an electorate far more than he ever could, and convinced a large segment of his audience of his vast clout within society. The fact that Don Imus was taught a little something about humility seems nothing short of perfect right about now.
His supporters, the ones loyal enough to stand with him through this tempest of a storm or delusional enough to believe that he was actually as powerful as he claimed, have seemed desperate, fighting against a stiff ocean wind with an umbrella. "That’s his show, he pushes the envelope" is perhaps the most used, and most absurd excuse many have trotted out for the radio personality. Suggesting that Imus was charged with always pushing his show "to the edge", an edge he consistently crossed, grants far more credibility to what the man did for 30 years than is warranted. Many times we think of artists as pushing things to the edge for some sort of reaction. Those decisions, to take people out of their comfort zones and force them to notice artistic expression that holds no prisoners, can be very rewarding and positive for a society as a whole.
For Imus, bringing his show to the edge simply meant demeaning and degrading people on a level that was passable or escapable for him. Again, it is nothing more than bully tactics. We don’t applaud the bully for ONLY making the smaller child cry when he could have conceivably beat him up. Yet we seem to have applauded Imus these many years for continually knowing who, or what, he could denigrate in our society without incurring serious wrath. He was and is a meanspirited old man, and even at the end, as he made his PR apology campaign tour around the networks (all the while trying desperately to cling to some outdated notion of an edgy rebel persona) he just didn’t get it.
Imus vilified people for their comments and their beliefs, he did it with little to no substantive analysis, simply a dismissal of the person’s views and a vulgar comment on their appearance, intelligence, race, religion, or any other "weakness" he could see. Now, as he is crucified from every angle, Imus has been insisting he "isn’t a bad guy", asking all to look at his deeds rather than his words. But while he does that, Imus continues to deny people the same benefit of the doubt he demands be afforded him. He has continually stated, throughout this process, that he isn’t a Michael Richards or a Mel Gibson or some "right winger" conservative, at once branding men guilty of similar slips of the tongue as he "bad" people and running predictably to the tired stereotype that conservatives are racist bigots. Imus can be a nice person who made a terrible mistake, but the people he himself raked over the coals must be as evil as he proclaimed them to be, right?
That leads directly into the second most absurd defense of Imus; he’s a really nice guy. Imus has been a tremendous help to numerous charitable organizations around the country and has been as good as his word to the families of soldiers. He has given of his own time and money and has even made a little sanctuary for kids with illnesses down on his Texas Ranch. No one can accuse him of being an overly cheap individual. However, Imus is no Mother Teresa. He has not forsaken all his worldly possessions. He should be applauded for doing something with his money besides line his own pockets, especially when so many millionaires do exactly that. But how do we simply ignore his daily vitriol against whatever and whoever happened to cross his line of sight? How do we even out his charitable work with the racist, sexist, anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, anti-Jew remarks he has made over the years, some directed at individuals, some directed at entire groups of people?
Many millionaires do charitable work all the time. They give of their time, their money, and their knowledge. We applaud Imus for being one of them. But unlike many of his fellow generous upper crust brethren, Imus went from charity to malice in the time it takes a corvette to outrun a wounded turtle. He also made it a point to promote his own charity work on a continuous basis. If you don’t believe what a good guy Imus is, just go back and listen to any one of his broadcasts over the last 10 years. He was sure to let anyone know how highly he thought of himself. The fact that Imus isn’t all bad, that he was comprised of something more than simple bile and hate, should never have been a shield for him, no matter how much his friends would have liked it to have been.
So how about we all stop crying for Don Imus? How about we all stop talking about a man no one was talking about to begin with? Imus’ case is no different than a thousand others like it. Whether it be a star of the moment television actor, the lead singer of a popular band, or an influential politician, we have seen, time and again, people fall in love with their own distorted view of how important they are. One only had to listen to Imus for a morning to get a clear sense of how influential he believed himself to be. It is why he said what he wanted, did what he wanted, treated people how he wanted; because the network, in his mind, could NEVER axe the great Don Imus. He was too important. He was too powerful. He had too many friends in the entertainment, political and journalistic worlds. He was untouchable. But that was only true in his mind. When it came time to prove that hypothesis, Imus saw his supposed friends run for the hills, determining that standing with Imus was far more destructive to them than standing against him. He saw his employer add up the benefits of keeping him against the ramifications of ditching him, and the math came out easily against the ageing shock jock. And he was confronted with the truth that, while everyone circling him at MSNBC or WFAN treated him as a God, he was far from it.
On the Tuesday after the blow up, Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo, a popular sports talk show host on WFAN, and a long time friend of Imus, derided a caller who suggested that Imus would be fired. "Don Imus is not gonna be fired people, I hate to tell yah," Russo cackled, letting the indignation in his voice express his annoyance with the callers obvious ignorance of such matters. "You don’t treat Michael Jordan the same way you treat the last guy off the bench, that’s all there is to it."
That was the mindset. Imus was Jordan, an invincible and irreplaceable commodity. Instead, what Russo, his partner Mike Francesa (who hosts the show "Mike and the Mad Dog" with him), and Imus all found out was that Don the Great was Don the very expendable. It must have been a tremendous blow to all of their egos.
I was in college on Long Island. I was driving in a friends car to go do research for a class. I had, as I always did, the station turned to Stern. He was the perfect antidote to a long morning drive.
On this day Stern took a call from a man who proclaimed to have terminal cancer. This man, who was about 55 or 56 years old, was emotional as he told Stern about the radio in general, and Stern’s show specifically, being the only joy he had during a day filled with pain and loneliness. The man seemed sincere. There wasn’t a hint of play acting in his voice. You could literally hear the bottom lip quiver at times as the man described his death sentence.
Throughout this exchange Stern treated the man as one of his many cooing fan boys, there simply to ridicule and then throw away. He asked blunt, mean spirited questions, put the man on mute as he answered to laugh with his lap dog crew of sycophants, and was so disdainfully mean to another human being dying of cancer I actually had a phsycal reaction. I have never and will never listen to him again.
For years afterwards I listened to Don Imus. While still a typical shock jock he seemed to have more of a heart, more of a soul than Stern. He talked politics, had big name guests coming in and out, and didn’t mind taking pot shots at himself every once in a while.
With Imus, my disgust built over time. More and more his show seemed to gesticulate between downright boring to vulgar bully humor. There was no style or symmetry to his comedy. It was simply playground antics. Throw enough stones at the smaller kid until he cries and a few sadistic onlookers will laugh. That was basically the idea.
So after enough fat people jokes, stupid people jokes, Christian jokes, conservative jokes, I had enough of Imus.
The fact that Imus doesn’t have a job tonight will probably not keep me tossing and turning. He has been, for a long time, an ageing imbecile consumed with his self importance (even as his ratings fell from years past) whose ego was fluffed routinely by elitist members of the media and the world of politics who viewed his show as a right of passage into the exclusive club of leftist thinkers. He routinely threatened people’s careers at his radio station, crowed that he could influence an electorate far more than he ever could, and convinced a large segment of his audience of his vast clout within society. The fact that Don Imus was taught a little something about humility seems nothing short of perfect right about now.
His supporters, the ones loyal enough to stand with him through this tempest of a storm or delusional enough to believe that he was actually as powerful as he claimed, have seemed desperate, fighting against a stiff ocean wind with an umbrella. "That’s his show, he pushes the envelope" is perhaps the most used, and most absurd excuse many have trotted out for the radio personality. Suggesting that Imus was charged with always pushing his show "to the edge", an edge he consistently crossed, grants far more credibility to what the man did for 30 years than is warranted. Many times we think of artists as pushing things to the edge for some sort of reaction. Those decisions, to take people out of their comfort zones and force them to notice artistic expression that holds no prisoners, can be very rewarding and positive for a society as a whole.
For Imus, bringing his show to the edge simply meant demeaning and degrading people on a level that was passable or escapable for him. Again, it is nothing more than bully tactics. We don’t applaud the bully for ONLY making the smaller child cry when he could have conceivably beat him up. Yet we seem to have applauded Imus these many years for continually knowing who, or what, he could denigrate in our society without incurring serious wrath. He was and is a meanspirited old man, and even at the end, as he made his PR apology campaign tour around the networks (all the while trying desperately to cling to some outdated notion of an edgy rebel persona) he just didn’t get it.
Imus vilified people for their comments and their beliefs, he did it with little to no substantive analysis, simply a dismissal of the person’s views and a vulgar comment on their appearance, intelligence, race, religion, or any other "weakness" he could see. Now, as he is crucified from every angle, Imus has been insisting he "isn’t a bad guy", asking all to look at his deeds rather than his words. But while he does that, Imus continues to deny people the same benefit of the doubt he demands be afforded him. He has continually stated, throughout this process, that he isn’t a Michael Richards or a Mel Gibson or some "right winger" conservative, at once branding men guilty of similar slips of the tongue as he "bad" people and running predictably to the tired stereotype that conservatives are racist bigots. Imus can be a nice person who made a terrible mistake, but the people he himself raked over the coals must be as evil as he proclaimed them to be, right?
That leads directly into the second most absurd defense of Imus; he’s a really nice guy. Imus has been a tremendous help to numerous charitable organizations around the country and has been as good as his word to the families of soldiers. He has given of his own time and money and has even made a little sanctuary for kids with illnesses down on his Texas Ranch. No one can accuse him of being an overly cheap individual. However, Imus is no Mother Teresa. He has not forsaken all his worldly possessions. He should be applauded for doing something with his money besides line his own pockets, especially when so many millionaires do exactly that. But how do we simply ignore his daily vitriol against whatever and whoever happened to cross his line of sight? How do we even out his charitable work with the racist, sexist, anti-Catholic, anti-Christian, anti-Jew remarks he has made over the years, some directed at individuals, some directed at entire groups of people?
Many millionaires do charitable work all the time. They give of their time, their money, and their knowledge. We applaud Imus for being one of them. But unlike many of his fellow generous upper crust brethren, Imus went from charity to malice in the time it takes a corvette to outrun a wounded turtle. He also made it a point to promote his own charity work on a continuous basis. If you don’t believe what a good guy Imus is, just go back and listen to any one of his broadcasts over the last 10 years. He was sure to let anyone know how highly he thought of himself. The fact that Imus isn’t all bad, that he was comprised of something more than simple bile and hate, should never have been a shield for him, no matter how much his friends would have liked it to have been.
So how about we all stop crying for Don Imus? How about we all stop talking about a man no one was talking about to begin with? Imus’ case is no different than a thousand others like it. Whether it be a star of the moment television actor, the lead singer of a popular band, or an influential politician, we have seen, time and again, people fall in love with their own distorted view of how important they are. One only had to listen to Imus for a morning to get a clear sense of how influential he believed himself to be. It is why he said what he wanted, did what he wanted, treated people how he wanted; because the network, in his mind, could NEVER axe the great Don Imus. He was too important. He was too powerful. He had too many friends in the entertainment, political and journalistic worlds. He was untouchable. But that was only true in his mind. When it came time to prove that hypothesis, Imus saw his supposed friends run for the hills, determining that standing with Imus was far more destructive to them than standing against him. He saw his employer add up the benefits of keeping him against the ramifications of ditching him, and the math came out easily against the ageing shock jock. And he was confronted with the truth that, while everyone circling him at MSNBC or WFAN treated him as a God, he was far from it.
On the Tuesday after the blow up, Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo, a popular sports talk show host on WFAN, and a long time friend of Imus, derided a caller who suggested that Imus would be fired. "Don Imus is not gonna be fired people, I hate to tell yah," Russo cackled, letting the indignation in his voice express his annoyance with the callers obvious ignorance of such matters. "You don’t treat Michael Jordan the same way you treat the last guy off the bench, that’s all there is to it."
That was the mindset. Imus was Jordan, an invincible and irreplaceable commodity. Instead, what Russo, his partner Mike Francesa (who hosts the show "Mike and the Mad Dog" with him), and Imus all found out was that Don the Great was Don the very expendable. It must have been a tremendous blow to all of their egos.
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