"Howard Stern LIVE"

24:24And I made a conscious decision to shift the show and change it around. And to me, it was way more exciting because the common thought was, well, Howard will go to satellite. And now the show is going to be so fucking filthy and everyone's going to be out of their mind. and the strippers are going to be able to fuck on the air. Did you miss those constraints? No, no. The constraints, by having the constraints off, I said, well, then it's no longer funny. Exactly. Regular radio was funny. The government was trying to shut me down. That was drama. That's fun. That's tension, right? But then I got to satellite.

24:56The tension wasn't there. So what do you do now that you have the ultimate freedom? Right. And I decided to shift the show, and I ultimately am more interested in the show now than I've ever been. I would say that it would, in a compliment to you, that it was less deliberate or contrived or strategic for you to, oh, let's switch it up now and give the audience something they're not going to expect. I think it's, and I haven't known you for, you know, a thousand years, but it does seem pretty obvious that you have naturally just evolved into a more curious, serious, not as a pejorative, person who's interested in different kinds of questions and with different kinds of people.

25:36Let's make it simpler. It would be really creepy to be my age and still doing a show the way I did it when I was 30. When I was 30, I was a hard job. But you weren't doing it as a ratings ploy. You were being sincere and genuine. I thought I was funny. Yeah. And I always had this idea that we could be really funny on the radio, that radio didn't have to be a bastardized medium. No, but I mean now. Now. It was not a ratings ploy. And now it could still be funny. And you are, hands down, the best interviewer in all of media. All right. Thank you. It's true. Without a doubt. Take the compliment, Howard.

26:09Jesus. I'm taking the compliment. No matter what. My psychiatrist said you should be able to take a compliment. Yeah, yeah. This is what I'm doing. Yeah, like not, it doesn't matter whether it's comics or athletes or musicians or actors or whatever it is. You question them for us. I love that aspect of it. And it's a layman's point of view. And it's very curious. And you're listening. You don't have a bunch of fucking cards with questions on it. You're engaged in a conversation. and it was a true inspiration for us. It really was. Sean is holding up all his cards. By the way, let's let Sean get a question.

26:43He wrote a thousand. Come on, Sean. I literally, I have pages of them because I don't know. Sean and I don't really know each other. That's why I wrote all this stuff down and my research of you because I am a big fan, I found all these things that we actually do have in common growing up. Issues with our dad. You don't like Italy, which you just went with Jimmy Kimmel. I didn't want to go either. Right. We're going to get, I want to go to Italy with you. Wait, wait, wait. Wait, bullying, like as a kid, I was bullied to not for being Jewish but for being gay. He's going to get to the question.

27:11Oddly, I was bullied for being gay and I wasn't. Crazy. I got bullied for everything. Well, I'm not gay. We're sorry to see you leave. Leave that side. You seem very gay. But the thing that I thought was fascinating, my mom had a glass eye, your dad had a glass eye and neither one of us was allowed to talk about it. Can I ask you a question? Can you wait one second? Is your mom still alive? Is your mom still alive? No, she's dead. Okay. My father died two years ago. I know. I'm sorry about that. I want to ask you a question. Yes, he has it. This is a what would you do. Yes, he has it. Forget these other two guys.

27:46I'm asking you because you had a mother with a glass eye. Yeah. So my father had this glass eye. I could go into that for three hours. Same. Right. Same. There's so many things. It's so fucking heavy. It's so great. But it's also funny. But when he died, I was given a box of his stuff. Yes. What do you mean? Oh. I told you you shouldn't have an audience. By the way, the same... I open up the box. Yeah. Of course. It's my father's glass eye. Wait a minute. It's gotta be. The same thing. When my mom died, my sister passed it around and repackaged it to each one of us. We opened it. Oh, we got something from my sister.

28:21It's my mom's fucking eye. Here comes the question. Here comes the question. Yeah. So I go to my wife. I say, I got this eye. The great Beth. Beth. My beautiful Beth. Beth Stern. Where is she, honey? Where is Beth? Oh, there she is. Oh, there she is. Oh, I love you so much. Nice to meet you. I've heard such great things. So anyway, here's the thing. So I turn to my wife, and I say to my wife, you know, I don't know. I go and I open it up, and my father's eye was such a taboo subject. My father never talked to me about anything. That's right. And one time I asked my mother, does dad have a glass?

28:56And she said, listen to me. You, that's your father's story. Don't ask me. And I'm like What the fuck I was a kid How old? Okay, here's the deal How old were you And you still didn't know Whether your dad's eye was glass No, they wouldn't talk And did it blink shut? Did it blink shut Or did it stay open? Did it blink shut or stay open? It stayed mostly open And also things would You needed to confirm? My mom Were it kind of shades Like a tinted glasses? It wasn't the confirmation Of the glass I wanted to know What happened with my father That's right, yes But I wasn't allowed to ask My father would blow up Everyone was afraid he'd get really angry.

29:36He could throw that eye at you. He could. Yeah. But here's my question. So now I have the eye, and I said to my wife, I need to find that. I can't just take my father's eye and throw it in the garbage. There might be laws against that. I don't know. Are there? I don't know. Wouldn't you want to save it as a keepsake? No. No, no, no. Beth, where is it? It's a cat toy now. She's got it in a locket around her neck. She brought it here for you guys. No, so she says to me, throw it in the ocean I go, I'm not going to throw my I said, imagine my father's eye washing Your dad's never seen the ocean He loved the ocean So what did you do with the eyes, my question What did you do?

30:18Well, I got it sitting in a box Yeah, of course you do You got to hold it, you're not tossing in the fucking ocean No, you're not You brought yours on stage My mom, so same, we weren't allowed to ask about it Irish Catholic, same as Jewish You just don't talk. You stuff it all down. So there's our headline. Irish Catholic, same as Jewish. Absolutely. That's the title of this episode. And so my mom. There are a few difference between Irish Catholic. Just a couple. But not gays and shoes. Right. But so my mom, we weren't allowed to. So my whole life I was like, I'd be at the store. And this checkout girl at the counter would be like staring at my mom's eye.

30:54I'm like, mom, they're staring at your eye. Shh, just shut up. Right? Right? So then 10 years old, 20 years old, 30 years old, 35 years old, finally I'm like, mom, what happened to your eye? And she still didn't want to talk about it. I found out after she died she had cancer in the eye. They took it out, two years old. And then as she grew older, this gets really gross and funny. As she gets older, she gets, my sister and I read the medical reports. They took skin from her vagina to reshape her eye as she grew older. and then my oldest brother goes, I knew when I got upset with her I wanted to fuck her in the eye.

31:31God. Wow. It's true. We make... It's dark. That's it. This show has to be canceled. They're ridiculous. That is very offensive. We made a terrible joke about that once a long time ago, but I'm not going to repeat it here. By the way, we're all talking about being honest. That's an honest story. That's a true story. And that's us making jokes about painful things. Yes. Her complaint after that, she thought that everybody looked like a cunt, right? Isn't that what she said? Didn't she famously say that? When I was a little kid, I was five years old. Sorry, yeah, go ahead. There was a guy on my block, a kid on my block, five-year-old kid, said to me, came up to me, he said, my parents told me your father has a glass eye.

32:09I was so freaked out. We got into a fist fight. It's probably the only fight I ever won. I beat him up. It was crazy. But I could never ask. My father wasn't approachable like that. That's why it was so much mystery. Did you ever get the story? Yes, I did. It was a crazy story. What happened was I was so curious about the eye and everything about my father because I didn't know him. I would sneak into his room and they would leave the house, which was infrequent. Nobody ever left my house. And you would, you know, so. No one could figure out the lock. My father kept his eye with his porno. So the eye is.

32:46My father had porno, you know, like he had some erotic books and things, you know. If you met my mother, she's not exactly putting up My mother once said to me You know, I prefer to be celibate But your father has needs I go, really? That's gross Fucking somebody in the eye It was books, no movies, no tapes It was books back then And the books were wacky But the eye was staring at me I wanted to read the erotic books So I was all freaked out about it She pops it out to go to sleep I don't know what went on, but in all seriousness, I finally talked to my mother about it. She wouldn't tell me, but I broke her down.

33:29And it was a terrible accident when my father was young. He put some film in a bottle, and the bottle exploded. He lit it, and it exploded in his eye when he was a little kid. Oh, wow. Yeah, so my father had a fabulous attitude about his eye in the sense that I didn't see any evidence that he saw himself as handicapped. You know, he did his thing. Was he just proud? Or was that the thing? He just didn't want to I think it was a big pain You know For him in his life Seriously A seriously big pain You know Wow And yeah It was a big issue My mom would sleep You know Her eye was constantly open So when she slept She'd be like You know Like this And I approached the bed And I did I'd be like Mom Oh she's sleeping Oh no she's not sleeping Oh she's awake Like I didn't know whether I'm like Can I get a glass of water?

34:15Oh I don't know Oh you're sleeping Like it was It was crazy And then we would Where is the eye now? My sister has it In a box Is it like a timeshare? You get it If you want it for the holidays Sure I could do it She could pass it around One really quick question I've said this on the show before My mom used to go bowling on Thursday nights And we used to invite friends over And we'd have Shane on the door and we'd go upstairs and get her extra eye shit too in the box and we'd get her and they'd knock on the door, knock, knock, knock and we'd open it just as much as the chain would go and we'd stick the eye out and go, who's there?

34:56With the eye? Anyway. I wouldn't have risked that in my house. That's fun. Yeah, it is fun. It's fun but dangerous if you knew my dad. Tell me about Italy and Jimmy Kimmel. Did you like Italy? I know you didn't want to go. I'll give you an exclusive. And this is the most boring answer ever It was actually a bad question Because I loved it I don't have anything to bitch about You didn't think you were going to love it I don't like to travel I'm perfectly happy sitting at home And if I want to see Italy, I'll go on the internet Or CNN I went to Paris once And I was like, the Eiffel Tower And I saw it, I'm like, got it, ready to go home It looks like the movies and the postcards got it It looks the same We had a great time I somehow convinced you and Beth that this is going to be great.

35:43No, I had said, you know, my wife wanted to travel, and I wanted to be a human being. I mean, I can't be in a marriage, and if my wife wants to travel, I can't say, well, go ahead. Once a year, she gets out. So you go, and we ended up having a very romantic time, honey, right? Romantic. Romance was in the air. Romance happened. Barely confirming that, let's say. Yeah. Poor woman. Imagine, you know, think about it. That was a nod. Imagine me crawling on top of you in Florence. I mean... Okay. It's like a praying mantis attacking you. So I felt for the woman. I did. But she's a good sportsman. Took her like a champ.

36:25Jesus Christ. I felt horrible. I felt horrible. But honey, it wasn't so bad, right? It was over so quick. You're the king of the insects. You're like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, oh. Like the brindle fly, you know. Howard, is there any one interview you have that you regret? Is there any one that you're like, oh, many, many. What's the one you regret the most? Well, because I was an asshole many times. But, you know, when I was on regular radio, terrestrial radio, whatever you want to call it, I didn't have the faith that if I did an interview that my audience would hold. We had something like a 10 share, a number one in New York.

37:03And I thought, well, if someone comes on the air and they're talking, I could hear the radios clicking off. that the only thing that might be compelling is if, you know, I was doing my thing. Right. Which means I was not trusting of other people that other people might have talent. So there were people, and I've written about this, the fabulous, most wonderful Robin Williams, for example, came on my show. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I just was ridiculously insulting. And why? Because I was trying to be funny. Robin Williams is way funnier than I am. Let him be funny. But being the insecure child that I was and somehow having some connection with an audience where I was intuitive and thinking I could hear when they're turning off the radios.

37:50If somebody gave a long answer or wasn't moving fast enough, if the rhythm wasn't right, I could hear the radios clicking off. And so I really had no business having guests on. It's funny. You're really honest about that in your self-assessment of that time in your life. now that you're older. And is that just a result of getting older or is this a result of doing a lot of work? It's a result of leaving terrestrial radio and going to satellite. It suddenly dawned on me. I work for a company now that has a hundred something channels. As long as the person who's paying for a subscription is happy with the product and if they're listening to me and I'm doing a long form interview and if it's not their cup of tea, they can go to a different channel on our service.

38:35And that freed me. That liberated me. Because it wasn't about me necessarily holding the audience. If you enjoy listening to Robin Williams, great. Then we have you as a listener. But if you don't, there's a million other choices on satellite. But don't you also find that you're no longer, your agenda is no longer to provide a show for your listener, but instead perhaps you hope that the people remaining listening to you on that particular day happen to be as interested in the person you're talking to as you are. In other words, you're not... That's right. Yeah, and it's a more honest sort of...

39:13You're not pushing. You're not pressing. You're just sincere. Yes, but you couldn't have done that. If you guys started your radio... Let's say you started a career in radio back in the day. This format would not have lasted. It would not be on the radio. It doesn't hold an audience en masse. Right. Jimmy Fallon's sitting in our audience, right? when he does an interview he can't do an hour interview right he's got to sit there because he's dealing with televisions coming on and off and on and off we're in a unique position the the period of time we're in right now has allowed us to sit here and have a real conversation and we can play to a niche audience and so you know not to get too academic about it radio the old format of radio is gone and i recognized that when i came to satellite and i felt that was the innovation.

40:01I could sit and have a real conversation with someone like Robin Williams. And I have regrets. The format helped me to evolve. I have an actual question for Jimmy. You know, seriously. Seriously, no, to that point. No offense, but I think I'm the interviewer. You'd be great. I guess I just haven't delivered the goods. Jimmy, why don't you take over? This always happens. Always happens. Why don't you get up and do a few Gilbert Gottfried impressions? Go ahead, pal. It has everything to do with what you just said, which is Johnny Carson used to have long, long, long interviews, 20 minutes, half hour.

40:42And so, Jimmy, I was thinking about you because you're one of the best at what you do. Thank you for standing. Have you ever had discussions about what Howard is saying about instead of the six, seven minutes you do, oh, right, you don't have a microphone. Uh-oh, he's coming up to the station. Here we go. He's never going to leave. You know that. Once Jimmy comes on. They got a mic for him now. Look at the Fallon mic. I love this. Jimmy Fallon. I love it. Yeah. Come on, Jimmy. God bless you. Come on, Jimmy. Can I leave now? No. Did you ever have the discussion about changing your format to do kind of where this feels like it's going, which is long form interviews as opposed to six, seven minutes?

41:19No. You can't do it. I wish that I could do a longer interview with certain guests. But yeah, I do wish that I can get into it And talk for an hour I'm jealous when I can listen to you When you hear a real conversation Yeah, I love it Because when it gets going, it's great And even with an audience Like you said, we're loving this But here's the good news When I'm in the mood for what you provide And what Kimmel provides, what Colbert provides You guys do it better than anyone You don't even forget about the other guys Let's focus on what I do But when I'm in the mood for a long-form thing It's like there's no one better Thank you How much do you choose Thank you Jimmy Fallon One Gilbert Gottfried impression For Christ's sake My wife, my beautiful wife Paula is in the audience She dated you when you were 14 You haven't talked to her in a couple of years Give her a call I love Jimmy very much by the way I want to tell you Who doesn't love Jimmy Fallon I'll let you in on a secret And Nancy Javonen Oh Nancy's the best Jimmy and I are going to go camping together on a beach, and it's just going to be the two of us alone.

42:30Jimmy, right? We're going to be in a, what is that called? An RV? An Airstream. Yeah. Howard, how much of your... He thinks I'm going to go. How many of your guests, because one of the other things that we get to do is we get to choose, we reach out to people that we're interested in talking to. Right. How much of that do you do, and how much of that comes in through... We reach out to some people, but mostly, and this is probably to our detriment but I don't want to have a lot of guests we just we keep a limited amount I think some of our strongest shows are when we're just sitting and doing our own thing we'll be right back

43:11and now back to the show I have to say I tried to be a guest on your show for so many years I kept asking my publicist every year just hoping like, are things good enough in my career where maybe I could be, would Howard, and I remember, It wasn't that. No, no, no, but I once got, my public said, listen, Jason, we got news back. It's good news, bad news. Good news is, he says he's a fan. Bad news is, he says he just genuinely really has nothing he would like to know about, no, no, no, but I'm paraphrasing, but it was absolutely true. You know what I was like? I said, honestly, and I've said this to Jason, I said, look, I could Google you and find out enough.

43:50I don't really need to sit and talk to you. There's nothing like... What have you done? I'd rather talk to a... Stop it. No, no, but seriously, it's much more interesting talking to somebody who's got like a weird, fucked up... Here's the thing. If I did a show every day where I just interviewed one guest, that would be fascinating to me. But there's also an audience in my group that likes to hear us doing, you know, bits and shtick and like sitting and talking, Robin and I just talking. And I recognize that. So I don't overload the show with a lot of guests. But sometimes we do reach out. Like, you know, I wanted Joe Biden on, so we had him on.

44:29And I wanted Bruce Springsteen. I begged him to come on. I just wanted him to come on. Yeah. That's the white whale. It was unbelievable to be sitting in a room with Bruce, and he's doing a concert, basically, and talking about how he creates songs. So, you know, we do reach out. And there are people I just love talking to. Do you miss playing music at all? Like being a disc jockey? No, it never was about music. You know, it's weird. I play music and I talk over it. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's like I can't... Playing... When I got into radio, I was a disc jockey. You know, straight disc jockey.

45:02My father would say, first you must learn to be a straight disc jockey. Not all that nonsense you do. So I went on the radio and be like, hi, this is Howard Stern, WR &W, progressive music from the woods. and this is Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. And so, you know, we would do that. And I hated it. I hated it. Even you had to play a record and make sure there was no dead air. You had no autonomy. You couldn't launch bands. You had to play. Oh, no, no, I played whatever I wanted. But it was horrible. I mean, it was a lot of pressure. You know, you had to get the commercials lined up. It was just you in a little room in a house somewhere up in the woods.

45:42It was, you know, these were these shitty radio stations, $96 a week. And you played records and you announced them. And this is what I did. And I was the worst at it. I was the worst. There were no performers in my family. I didn't understand performance. I was not in show business. My father even said, you cannot be on the radio. You have no elocution. You do not enunciate. You read nothing. You did have some sense that you... I had no sense. You had a sense that your personality might be halfway entertaining. I didn't know. Between that and the music, someone would listen. When I'd walk around college, nobody seemed to pay attention to me.

46:24I think I had the worst personality. You had no confidence that you were going to be somewhat compelling at all. I would write letters to my girlfriend saying, I will be the world's greatest radio performer. Why did you think that? I have no idea. I don't know. I just knew that there was something there. Well, you weren't always... Sorry. No, please keep going. So you weren't always this charismatic? You weren't always this comfortable in talking. No, it took me years. That's why I resent this podcast. You guys are just on here talking. I had to spend years. I had to spend years. We had four years.

46:57It took me 10 years just to get conversational. It was very slow. You guys are too talented. No, no, no. No, but in all seriousness, playing records was horrible. Were you a fan of music, though? Oh, huge fan of music. Music meant more to me than religion. I never got a thing out of religion But man, when I'd hear the Beatles or the Stones Or George Harrison You know, My Sweet Lord That stuff, that spoke to me That moved me And I was happy to launch a lot of bands I was a program director for a while And I didn't even understand I didn't know anything A guy from a record company would call me up And he'd go, would you play our record?

47:39I'd go, sure He goes, no, no, no, I'll play it for you You don't have to play it for me I'll report it to Billboard I didn't care I was happy Do you get starstruck Around musicians? I admire musicians And I know how hard They work at it But is that the group That would If anyone was going to Get you starstruck That or athletes Or musicians Yeah Who would be Who's the one That you haven't met You'd be like Uh oh I can't talk Oh jeez Is it a Beatle? Well I've met Paul Yeah And Ringo And they were great On the show Do you want to take A temperature over the room About the name The Beatles? Oh yeah Do you guys know about this?

48:12Old captain brain What happened? Let's take an honest thing of the audience I didn't know my whole life I thought it was the insect, the Beatles I didn't know it was people who make beats The Beatles He was like Thank you Meanwhile Did not know that until right now I didn't know I want to thank the guys for that story Have you seen Have you noticed the arrow in the FedEx logo? Yeah. I don't know what that means. All right, here's one you didn't know, Sean. Sean, here's one I guarantee you you didn't know. Yeah. You know the place you go for roast beef, right? Arby's, right? Yeah. Why is it called Arby's?

48:56They got the meat or whatever they say. No. No. Think about it. Why is it Arby's? Roast beef. R-B. Roast beef. I didn't know that, but I put it together. Oh, Arby's. Arby's. Oh, I see. Did not know that. Look at Will. We could do this all day long. This is going great. Speaking of... Now, wait. So, speaking of... What is happening? Really glad I came on. By the way, these guys treat it like it's a TV show. I'm in a trailer. I'm waiting to come on. There's a warm-up back for the audience. I don't know from this. You just go on the radio. First of all, I don't think we've said it yet. I can't thank you enough for doing this.

49:31You don't do this. I've seen you do it for Letterman. I've seen you do it for Kimmel. You don't do this, and I can't thank you enough. This is a really, really... Thank you. Happy to be here. We really do. And just so you're not just hearing it from Jason, that you are the gold standard for us and you're the guy that we always wanted to get. We talk about you all the time. And honestly, this is a big deal for us. Well, I'm really honored. And Will, much to your point, for many years I couldn't take a compliment, but I do appreciate you guys. I got a new one for you. Okay. Everybody knows you're recently 70.

50:01It's unbelievable. It's so fucked up. No, no, no. You have not changed. Oh, God. Beth, back me up here. What are you guys doing? I know you're not out there running 10 miles on the beach every day. Is it just jeans? I mean, you look exactly the same. I look terrible. The only thing I will say... I can't even see a picture, but I will tell you one thing. I do not color my hair. No, I know. I can tell you. You don't? I don't. This is it. And I have a gray beard. He doesn't either. You don't color your hair, right? I don't do anything. No. But you don't have You're supposed to have Like a belly I do have a belly I have a belly and tits You're supposed to Everything's got a I got a belly and tits Right honey?

50:44You've seen me With my shirt off She's busy talking By the way Sam You want to go terps off? You want to go terps off? You want to go terps off? No But you don't look like You ache or you're sore I can't fucking I'm a mess No no You seem like you're in great shape Are you doing anything That we need to know about? Well first of all Tar painting Let's get into that I do Well yeah I do I paint I like to paint it's incredible the painting I don't know if you guys people know and the photography and the tiny sketching with the magnifying glass I like it I don't use the magnifying glass no more? no I never did I never used the magnifying glass I saw your drafting thing there was something yeah I have a big magnifier but I don't use it for that you use it to read I'm just telling you but it was there I'm not fucking crazy no it was there it was there but yeah I enjoy those things it's really cool when did you start playing guitar?

51:34Okay. Short version. I'll tell you why I play guitar. I'm going to blame Jimmy Fallon. You're going to jam with Jelly Roll tonight? No, no, no. Is Jimmy here tonight? Jimmy, stand up. There we go. Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy Fallon says to me. You've got to be kidding me. Here's what happened. Ten years ago, I turned 60, and I said I either want to play the guitar or I want to learn to paint. I never drew. I never, you know, did anything. For some reason, I wanted to paint in the worst way. So that's all in 10 years. And I began to study watercolor, and I really focused on it. I mean, and you know as a pianist that you just have to focus on it.

52:17It's not that people have some sort of natural ability. It's the work. You have to work at it. People go, oh, I don't have that. So I've been focused on the pianist his whole life. Yeah. And I'm an expert. Just two laughs for that. I thought that was pretty good. It's a tough, freaking crowd. We'll sweeten that in the edit. It's okay to laugh. But, you know, anyway, I enjoy those things. But I applaud you wanting to research and find other things. Not that you are older. Like, 70 is not old. No, this is what it is. But that you pursue things that still challenge you. Somebody your age is willing to do new things, is what you're saying.

52:51Well, it's true. And by the way, that fucks my head up. Because what I said to my wife, I want to learn guitar. But I feel foolish. because of my age, like, what am I trying to do here? I don't want to be a rock star. I just want to understand music. Challenge yourself to a new hobby. Because I love musicians, and I love what they do, and I want to understand that language. Let's do a duet sometime, piano and guitar. Do you play minuet in G? I do. All right, then we can do it. Are you playing classical guitar? No, but I don't play classical guitar. Yeah, it's a 12-string guitar, man. No, no, no.

53:28It hurts the fingers, though, doesn't it? Well, look at the tips of my fingers. Look at those calluses. Oh, my God. Yeah. How much are you playing today? Well, I'm on vacation now, so I can play. From guitar? No, from work. I'm on vacation from work. Okay. So I can play some days, five, six hours. Really? Yeah. Wow. So you must be good now. I'm not good. Who's your favorite guitarist? Oh, Jesus. Why don't you just name one of them? A few of them. Well, I mean, you got to say Hendrix. You got to say Jimmy Page. I mean, Jimmy Page, now I have even more appreciation for Jimmy Page. I was playing one of the most beautiful love songs, Thank You, by Zeppelin, and the intro to that.

54:09And you sit and you realize this guy wrote this. Yes. Excellent. Excellent. Thanks, guys. Was that you singing or playing the guitar? Keep that applause there. But you realize how brilliant it is. And in order to get to that level, you've got to play every day for hours. and hours. And I'm mad at myself because when I was younger, I didn't allow myself to practice music, which Sean did when he was smart about it. When I was younger, I had so many I don't know why I reacted this way, but so many adults, when they found out when I was like 5, 6, 7, 8 years old playing piano, practicing, they'd go, oh, you know what?

54:47I wish I would have stuck with it. Over and over and over, all these adults telling me that. So I was like, there must be something to that. So that's what made me stick to it. Was there something, was there a fork in the road where had you stuck with that instead of radio you know you radio it had to be radio for me so it was never like it was five years old i announced no i announced my family i will be on the radio which was ridiculous it doesn't make any sense i don't understand it and uh but your dad was a sound engineer yeah well he was a radio engineer radio yeah so i mean so that part of it made sense yeah but listen my father didn't spend a lot of time paying attention to me or interacting with me and i used to sit mine did well i would watch him yeah he was focused on you no but i but he would he would um when i would see him commuting to work and he put the radio on and bob grant was on who was this broadcast conservative broadcaster but the guy was mesmerizing on the radio and i saw the way my father listened and shushed me told me to shut the fuck up so he could hear bob grant shut up i said so that's how you get that's how you get someone's attention.

55:51You get on the radio. You did it to get your dad's attention. I think so, yeah. Sorry, just to follow up on that, if you don't mind, Jesus Christ. Do you think, what was the moment where your dad, I mean, obviously, you had incredible success in radio. Was there a moment where he like, was there an actual moment where he went, holy shit, Howard? Yeah, I think my mother put him up. You know, he just said, oh, I love you. You know, he was not, my father, grew up in the depression. He had nothing. When I say nothing, it was literally no shoes. His father worked in a sweatshop as a pants presser. My father was a very deprived guy.

56:32And he didn't have a lot of room for emotion. I think he probably had a lot of bottled up emotion. But he couldn't express it. And he didn't know how. He didn't have the facility. But I would have loved to have known my father. I would have loved to. Why do you think you're so well adjusted? I'm not. I'm a mess. I'm still with a psychiatrist Beth wouldn't be with an idiot I didn't say I was an idiot I said I'm fucked up Honey come up here and tell people I'm fucked up She says I'm a lot Honey please You don't want to come up I don't think that people Know If there was one misconception of you Do you have any idea what that might be I don't know but I will say That for me personally given your edge of humor it was really exciting to get to know you a little bit and see how incredibly soft and chewy you are on the inside how incredibly sincere and genuine and attentive you are but what I said was it was unfair you used to go around saying oh well that's an act on the radio it was who I was I had a lot of anger but there's a choice to not be fucked up and just know how to manage that my attitude about radio and I say this over and over again was I just want to make people laugh.

57:47I want people to have a great time in their car. If it's a compelling interview, great. But if I'm sitting there and I'm being really funny and I'm doing something good, well, you know, that's what I'm trying to do. So I never did anything out of malice. I did it because I thought I was genuinely funny. Was I genuinely funny? Sometimes, sometimes not. You were speaking the truth. You know, your observations were spot on. I was speaking my truth. But it was sometimes painful for folks, and that was the funny part. Part of being honest, though, I remember when you spoke about your health scare, about having a little spot on your kidney.

58:21Thank God it was nothing. And that was you revealed like that was one of the first one of the few things that you did not share with your audience because you've always been so open and honest with your audience about everything. So what is where is that line? And is there anything? I'll tell you why. And you guys probably know this from from doing this now and having a popular show. You know, if you go on a radio and you say, listen, I could potentially, I have this thing, and they're telling me it could be cancer, a 95 % chance. You start to get letters from every know-it-all in the audience.

58:51Listen, my mother died. You're fucked. You're this, you're that. And I'm neurotic. I am neurotic about my health. I don't want to know. Where's Bradley Cooper? I just want to look at him. Come on. You know what I mean? Come on, Bradley. Sit up. There he is. There's Bradley. He's gorgeous. Look at that. You guys, son of a bitch. So good looking. He's gorgeous. I love Bradley Cooper. I don't mind saying it. We all do. No, no. There are people. Sean doesn't love him. He told me about the movie. Bradley, I love you. Another one of the most Can I tell you a Bradley Cooper story? We'd love to hear a Bradley story.

59:20Can I tell you a Bradley Cooper story? If it's positive. One of the greatest moments for me on the show, but personally, because you asked about people I interviewed. I was interviewing Bradley and at the time, Bradley had just finished a run on Broadway. The Elephant Man. The Elephant Man. Brilliant. Brilliant job. Absolutely brilliant. And I am a fan of The Elephant Man and I sit, you know, And Bradley's so serious about the Elephant Man. He has a serious Elephant Man hang-up. He goes, you know, I just want you to know I don't joke about the Elephant Man. I said, I'm not going to joke, but I would like to do the Elephant Man for you.

59:48Oh, no. And I would love if you would come back as your Elephant Man. Yeah. And so I said, oh, you're so kind. You're so beautiful. God of kindness. So beautiful. And Bradley looked at me, and I said, he's either going to walk out, and he goes, oh fuck you and we had a moment where we were both the elephant immersed in our character and it was one of the single biggest highlights radio magic that is radio magic you acted you got to act with Bradley I got to act with Bradley Cooper very few people you know this guy's one of our best actors he is rarefied and without a doubt one of the greatest filmmakers we've got maestro was incredible that's right and when he saw He was so inspired.

1:00:38Tell him, Bradley, how good I was. He loved it. Never saw such acting. I've had no training, by the way, as an actor. What? That's right. That's right. How many times did you audition for Private Parts? Yeah, because I was going to say, you want to know something about Private Parts? Here's the funny thing. So in developing... What a movie, by the way. Thank you. Thank you. Howard, it's a great movie. Thank you. It is. It's so good. But I got to tell you a funny story about it, because this leads into it. It's insane. so you know closer to the mic so I wrote the book I wrote the book and I had no clue when they said they want to make a movie out of it how am I going to make a movie out of this thing Betty Thomas before Betty I was involved in writing some of the scripts we had other writers and this and that there were 25 full drafts of this thing and each one was worse than the next and my agent at the time who just passed away Don Bucklewell Yeah, he's great.

1:01:33But he said to me, these scripts are so bad, you'll be laughed at. So the movie studio said, listen. Paramount? Reischer Entertainment put up the money, and Paramount was the distributor. And so they said, listen, this is crazy. The money that we're spending on these writers, and you're not accepting any of these scripts, we're going to hire Jeff Goldblum to play you since you won't do that. No way. Is that true? Is that great Jeff Goldblum? No way. I looked him in the eye and I said, you know what? I would pay to see that. I would love to see Jeff Goldblum as Howard Stern. I think it would be terrific.

1:02:10But anyway. At this time, was there a plan for you to play the part? And they wanted to actually go another direction? No, but they were so frustrated with me because I had written into the contract. And again, this was my agent's brilliance. They couldn't make the movie unless I had full script approval. And I wrote half the scripts and they sucked. That'd be so great to just shoot some scenes today with Jeff Goldblum. Absolutely. Right? and just put it on the internet. That'd be a lot of fun. You want to know one of the most thrilling things in my career? Speaking of that. And then we got to go.

1:02:39Oh, you got to go? No, after that. No, you got to go. You have a hard out. You have a hard out. Your people are really tough about that. I have a hard out. Yeah. No, I do? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm very busy. I have to go home and paint and play the guitar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm busy. No, I sit at home and stare at the wall and Beth looks at me. She's not allowed to leave the house. Didn't you know that? will you go home tonight and just turn on the TV oh yeah I've got the advanced copy of next week's Bachelorette no way do you watch Traitors I'm Bachelor Nation all the way anybody else with me look Jimmy Fallon's with me Bradley well these people have a life Bradley you do not watch it Bradley watches Bachelorette that's the secret he doesn't want anyone to know All right.

1:03:29Yeah, he loves it. What time is it? It's time for you to go. 6.30. Yeah, we're done. We're done. We're out. We've taken up way too much of your time. Way too much of your time. You're very kind of driver. By the way, on a skip. Do you feel we were a success? Yes. This is a great rehearsal. Oh, my God. We're going to record. Honestly. Everybody take a nice break. We'll record in about 20 minutes. What do you mean? Great rehearsal. What are you recording? Tell me. This is a rehearsal. Is the show actually over? Do I leave and then you keep talking? We're going to do a little wrap-up. We're going to do a little wrap-up.

1:04:01We're going to talk about you a little bit. A wrap-up? Yeah. We're going to talk about how great you are once you leave. Maybe I should listen in. I'll sit here. I won't say a word. Go ahead. Let me hear what you guys do. And I'll tell you what I'll do. But here's the thing. Every once in a while, every once in a while, I'll interrupt, and I'll just go, that's not good radio, or that's really good radio. Do you mind if we cut your mic? Not at all. I was a judge on America's Got Talent. I know. Fantastic. It's the only reason I watched it. By the way, the guy who did the warm-up today, they had a warm-up.

1:04:30O's. Yeah, O's. I wanted him to win the entire season. He did not win that season. He should have. He's fabulous. He's amazing. He's phenomenal. O's Perlman. O's Perlman. A name built for show business. Here's what you can do. Let's get better than that. While you're being quiet and pretending that you're not here when we're doing that. No, I'm not going to do it. If I have to be completely quiet, I'm not doing it. All right, you can talk a little bit, but I want you to think about... I will do that at the protest. You might be... We might embarrass you if you stayed and heard how much we were going to praise you.

1:04:56Can I say something about you guys? Yeah. Okay. This is going to hurt. It's got to be kind. Thank you for having me. Thank you. I'm very excited that you're part of the SiriusXM fans. We are, too. I wish you a lot of success. Thank you. Not too much success, but a lot of success. Sure. And, no, seriously, it's great to have you guys in the family. Thank you for blessing us into it and by doing this. I understand the Sirius stock is going to go over$2.90 now that you guys are here. God bless. I can't wait. Oh, that stock. I'm going to be so wealthy. You guys, please help us thank Howard Stern. Great Howard Stern.

1:05:29Thank you, everybody. I can't get out of my chair.

1:05:40Howard Stern, keep it going. Keep it going. The one and the only. The king of all media. Radio, podcast, television, film. He is the king of all media They had to raise the ceilings of the talk house Just for him That was surreal for me I've never met him Was he what you thought he was going to be? Yeah I was really really nervous Was he what you thought he was going to be? Yes I thought that How was he different than you thought he was going to be? I didn't know he was going to be so relaxed And easy to talk to I thought he was going to be like So what do you guys got? Let's see what you guys got and he wasn't like that at all.

1:06:23Because he's the king of all of it. But he was also incredibly generous and empathetic and probably knows that we're nervous and we're dumb and we have a new show and he's the king. That's why I have 75 cars. We had a tremendous amount of candor. Immediately, he took the reins and helped us and he started talking. And you wrote so many questions because you were so nervous. Sean was upstairs and we were like, what the fuck? It's an hour. Any questions you didn't get to That we should listen to Anything you're really pissed you didn't get to Let's see I want to talk about Italy a little bit more And what was his ideal vacation We'll bring Jimmy on and talk about that Anyway I love him though I've been a huge fan And by the way I didn't share with you guys What are you looking at?

1:07:14I feel like you're working Can you feel it coming? He starts to work on a buy So you can see his brain. You can see it in real time. And he tees himself up for it. Right. So the first time. But it's too early to do it now. We're still doing wrap-up. No, we're wrapped up. Okay, we're wrapped up. We're ready to go. And we got Jelly Roll coming up, which is so exciting. Oh, yeah. Oh, so here's the bug. So the first time I was ever here in the Hamptons was only like two, three years ago. And that was the first time ever. And I stayed with Will at his house, which is not very far from here. Okay. And this is going to be terrible.

1:07:47This is going to be horrible. Dude. And Will lived so close So I was just going to ask Will Today did you drive yourself over here Or did you ride your Bicycle Bicycle Jesus Christ For the live show Sorry about that guys But the interview was fun Was it not It was really fun Thank you guys for coming Thank you so much We're going to stick around So much Bye Stick around for Jelly Roll Thank you guys And let's go enjoy some Jelly Roll Yeah Jelly Roll Please stick around for Jelly Roll Jelly Roll is performing out there. We're so excited. Thank you, guys.

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