February 27, 2003
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:W.M.D-Cups
Here's an interesting thesis:
AM talk—Rush, Dr. Laura, Hannity—targets middle-aged white guys. Surprise: They tend to be conservative. But FM talk—Stern, Joyner, Mancow, Don and Mike in Washington, Tom Leykis in Los Angeles—scores with young men, guys who like their radio on the risqué side, with a bulging menu of sex jokes and a powerful message that this is America and you can do whatever you want. Hint to Democrats: You may not like to admit this, but these are your votersYes, they like it raunchy. Most people listen to radio alone in their cars, where no one needs to be PC, where it's still OK to insult women and minorities and foreigners, and no one has to fear being slapped with a harassment charge. And it's OK to chuckle at that coarse humor and still vote Democratic. The PC brigades may find this hard to believe, but shock jocks do quite well with black listeners and with traditional Democratic demographics, such as college graduates and city dwellers. No, Stern and Don Geronimo and Tom Leykis have no interest whatsoever in having Dick Gephardt on the show, at least not unless he's going to remove his pants. And no, they would say, there's no politics on their shows. (Sabo tells DJs who want to be talk-show hosts: "If the topic is national politics, abortion, gun control, death penalty, religion, race, we have no interest. If the topics are movies, TV, personal relationships, your strong personal feelings, stuff about the workplace—things people under 90 talk about, we'd love to hear your tape.") But even if Stern wannabes don't address abortion directly, their daily diet of searingly intimate conversation with callers hits many of those hot-button issues, and they do it almost unfailingly from a left-libertarian perspective—they are classic social liberals.
I'm quite familiar with Howard Stern, as I pop back and forth between his program and NPR as I drive in in the mornings. I also have a passing familiarity with Leykis and Geronimo as they both took a turn as evening drive before WNEW changed format. These days for me it's Fresh Air (AM only now - yuck) or a book on tape in the evening*
I saw the above article first over at the prolific and straightforward Brothers Judd. I want to join Judd in asking:
Is the author of this piece stark staring bonkers?
While I don't object much to the puerile sex talk, and only occasionally jog the dial when the abuse goes over the top, I can't imagine any serious political ideology wishing to claim these guys for their own. It's sort of like saying professional wrestling is the future of the party.
Stern, for instance, often advocates nuking the entire Middle East. While he is never truly serious, this is as close as he gets. He has been consistently critical of Bush for moving too slow. If those demonizing the "warbloggers" are interested in finding a libertarian warmonger, Stern well and truly fits the bill. He has supported Christie Whitman (who named a rest stop on the Turnpike after him) and Governor Pataki. He would shill shamelessly for any official that gets the FCC of his back and, as ever, he admits he would. His sidekick, Robin, votes Republican.
Tom Leykis, as far as I can tell, has one clear theme, paraphrased thus: Women are gold-diggers looking to coerce you into marriage with sex, so they can live a life of ease on your efforts. They care about money and power only. If you understand this, you can use it to your advantage and bang as many as you want without obligation.
I don't know about you, but I see progressive political gold out there on the shock jock streets just waiting to be taken.
Don Geronimo described himself as a Democrat and his sidekick Mike a Republican (interesting compared to the Stern-Quivers axis of neutral). "Mike" is actually incredibly funny, without being nasty. I guess that's why Don is the famous one.
Have at it, I say. I mean it's obvious that making political common cause with any of these shows would be....suicidal.
There is one common theme of these three shows that certainly has universal appeal: Boobs. These shows all capture the power of the unveiled mammory gland, dedicating at least one quarter of the hour to feeding at the nipple. If Music has charms to soothe the savage breast, shock jocks reveal soothing breasts to charm savages. On radio, which makes a lot of sense...
Now if either party can harnass these Weapons of Mass Attraction for their benefit, they could rule the political roost for a lifetime. Or should it be "Massive Weapons of Disruption"?
*By the way, Alterman is on Fresh Air tonight, and I'm going to close this [small] tag this time.
I usually switch back and forth on my drive to work between the Curtis and Kuby show on AM and Stern on FM.
I always found Stern to lean towards the right. Just because he is into bathroom humor and boobs does not make him a liberal. It makes him a man who knows where his ratings lie. In those few moments he spends talking about anything political or world affairs, it is obvious he does not speak for the left.
By the way, I've been searching all week for a way to capitalize on combining boobs and war talk.
Leykis is a chameleon who will do any schtick that keeps him on the air. He has often said he fell in love with radio at 14 and made it the center of his life ever since.
Back in the late 80s & early 90s Leykis had the 3-7 PM slot on KFI in Los Angeles. It was really his career peak. He was very much a political and current events guy then, with the later Leykis 101 horndog schtick nowhere in sight. He was actually enjoyable, even when I was in direct opposition to his stance. That's a pretty important quality in a radio personality.
No more. Now he's the afternoon guy on the major LA talk FM station and his entire show can be summed up in the phrase, "Show me your tits." Now, I'm a young (hopelessly) single heterosexual man with as much interest in well configured mammary glands as anyone but this gets old incredibly fast as radio content.
Back then his show was followed by Stephanie Miller. She is the perfect example of a left-wing comic who can't muster a laugh when she actually tries to talk politics. She was somewhat enjoyable back then but I was a lot younger and have grown up a fair bit.
She hasn't.
She recently turned up on a late night 'who?' slot show plugging her attempted return to the airwaves. Her entire schtick consisted of little more than, "Bush is a moron." No facts, no real arguments, just 'they're bad and I'm agin 'em.'
Her father was Barry Goldwater's running mate and apparently this woman in her forties is still rebeling against her father's politics. This is why she lost her slots in the LA market. Her audience grew up, she didn't.
I have it on good information that wrestling fans are Republicans.
Caleb
Maybe so, but my sources tell me you can always spot the Democrats in a wrestling crowd. They're the ones holding the misspelled signs.
Caleb.
My sources tell me you can always spot the Democrats in a wrestling crowd. They're the ones holding the misspelled signs. And they always root for the bad guy!
RE: A Democrat capturing the brainless horn-dog vote.
Heck, that's already been done. How else do you explain two Clinton victories.
I didn't listen to Leykis back in what Eric considers the good old days, but I will agree wholeheartedly that he's at his best when he stays away from the whole Leykis 101 bit. But, like he said to the caller that accused him of being a sellout, pandering to the masses; "Of course I'm a sellout lady. I'm in the advertising business."
Certainly not Democrat material, with his derision of women, and his exhortations to greed. On the other hand, he digs the gays.
For a while, years ago, I actually used to enjoy listening to Gloria Allred. I think a lot of what she does is reprehensible, but she ran a good show.
Anyone ever listen to Roy Masters? Think Dr. Laura meets Jim Jones.
Have Y'all been over to
Michele's, A small Victory
BooBs 4 War
Boobs over Baghdad
"I can't imagine any serious political ideology wishing to claim these guys for their own. It's sort of like saying professional wrestling is the future of the party."
Remind me again: Which of the two major parties asked a pro wrestler, The Rock, to speak at its 2000 convention? (Hint: "Democrats" is the wrong answer.)
But, of course, Jesse Ventura was the guy trying to work the T&A-humor angle as well as, obviously, the wrestling angle. Ted Nugent likes to talk about poontang, too, and he probably won't stop if he runs for governor of Michigan, as he's threatened to do.
I agree with Jane, that assessment is ridiculous. The problem with explicitly liberal perspectives, for me, is that they can't help but being sanctimonious whenever they talk about politics. There is no entertainment value at all there.
People like Howard Stern have more, politically, in common with the "South Park" Republican crowd than Democrats. That's not to say that large portions of their demographic base aren't, in theory, Democrats. I'm not really qualified to say whether that's so, but I can certainly hope that the core of Democratic voters is actually human and not the self-righteous voices-of-all-that-is-good-and-just that make up its elite.
Roy Mastaers?
AAAAAAHHHH!!!
He isn't a radio personality, he's a cult leader. Unless this is a different Roy Masters. The one I've encountered was the sort of motivational speaker who sells a $10 pile of cassettes for $150. I once tried to listen to this stuff when on one of my elder sister's numerous exes was into him. Ten minutes of non-stop talking without saying anything. He supposedly had a wackily offensive belief that AIDS was a psychosomatic condition or some such but I could never stand to listen long enough to get an impression of what he believed about anything. This is a man who would fail the Turing Test.
On a bizarre note, www.roymasters.com resolves to the The Advocate magazine's site. The search engine there doesn't have anything under his name, though. There is some info here: http://www.watchman.org/cults/roymstrs.htm
Wasn't political correctness invented by liberals?
Of course, Stern has a long history of publically voicing his political support (not including his own failed NY Gubenatorial race). He was a vocal Petaki and Gulianni supporter, in particular ... indeed, if I remember, both joined the program from time-to-time.
But you have to believe that in the end it was Clinton's idiom that he respected most ...
AM talk—Rush, Dr. Laura, Hannity—targets middle-aged white guys.
Dr. Laura targets middle-aged white guys? This writer has a major reality perception problem even by the standards of Slate. Laura Schlessinger's audience is overwhelmingly female. When I supervised an all-woman group of data entry clerks several years ago, Dr. Laura was the afternoon radio people's choice.
I myself am part of what Ann Coulter calls the built-in audience for conservative talk radio -- that is, I am one of those who drives a car to some sort of job. Flipping around the dial, I have heard at one time or another most of those mentioned in the article. With the notable exception of Tom Leykis, an avid liberal who relishes railing against what he regards as Bible-thumping puritans, most morning zoo/shock jocks could probably be classed as a combination of libertarian and right-wing. They steadily bring out a parade of lesbian strippers and then call for nuking Iraq till it glows. The only left-wing radio I am aware of is NPR.
Actually if you look at arbitron ratings both Stern and Limbaugh share a huge demographic with Limbuagh skewing a little older on the breakdowns. But they both cume big in males 25-45.
Eric,
That's the same Roy Masters. His website is something like fhu.org (Foundation for Human Understanding). He's a nut, no doubt about it, and possibly dangerous if you take him too seriously, but something about him amuses me.
Well, everything in the post and thread so far convinces me that the car CD player was a wise investment...
I've listened to Roy Masters for a long time off
and on, and he's interesting, but his music isn't
as good as it used to be.
I used to listen to WGST and WSB in Atlanta - Kim Peterson in the afternoon was right-wing and funny at first, but he started getting raunchier and raunchier - till I started turning him off when I had by little boy in the car. Now I listen to satellite radio, (www.sirius.com) and can get Sirius Right and Left, Fox, ABC, CNN, BBC, and NPR streams. (And my boy can enjoy Sirius Kids.) No static, no fading with distance - it's great! And there's 60 music channels with NO commercials.
I haven't listened to AM or FM since August. Haven't missed it, either.
J.
I've always been mystified about the appeal of strippers and boobs on the radio. Now, unless everyone has has fancy ones in their car and I'm left out, on the radio you can't see anything.
Yet the morning dial is littered with all this pointless trash, with people having sexy girls in the studio. What is the draw here? Can anyone explain why I should be titilated by the fact that someone else is looking at a girl's boobs and telling me about it?
I've listened to Mancow off and on for a long time and he definitely leans right. Sometimes too far.
Doug, the only thing I can think of is that imagination is so capable of exceeding reality. If you've ever seen clips of the TV show he runs at night, you'd see some evidence of that.
Or perhaps it's the control the jocks exert over these women rather than the nudity.
I guess the psychotherapists can keep their day jobs 'cause I sure don't know.
Democrats are indeed the party of love -- or at least, promiscuous sex. That was the conclusion at every election since '92: if you asked "have you viewed porno in the last six months?" and "are you married with children?" and got positive answers, you had a Democratic voter. Still true, according to Atlantic Magazine...
Doug: Loosely agree with Dreck, often a teased imagination is a far more attention-grabbing device than seeing the real thing in person...
Mindles, Doug:
If nudity were far better than clothing, Victoria's Secret would not be in just about every decent shopping mall.
Doug's got it right: some things are better when the imagination is sufficiently exercised. Or should I say, aroused?
BTW Howard Stern is far better-mannered than Steve Dahl was. I think Howard has made himself a lot of money by hooking (no pun intended) a sex angle into his show.
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