Howard Stern's First Day on 92.3 K-Rock (November 18, 1985)

Gay Marriage Begins in NYC

NYC Makes History Today

Today is the day when the rubber hits the road. 

Today is the day when dreams become reality.

Today is the day when our city becomes a little freer and a little more fair.

Today is the wedding day for a lot of New Yorkers.

For today in New York, marriage equality becomes legal.

It's hard to believe that only twenty some-odd years ago, it was virtually impossible to pass any kind of anti-discrimination or partner-benefits bill through any kind of legislative body. If you ever saw Tony Kushner's Angels in America (set in NYC in 1985), the closeted Roy Cohn makes this, now happily outdated rant about what it means to be labeled a homosexual in America: 

"Like all labels they tell you one thing, and one thing only: Where does an individual so identified fit into the food chain, the pecking order? Not ideology or sexual taste, but something much simpler: clout. Not who I fuck or who fucks me, but who will come to the phone when I call, who owes me favors. This is what a label refers to. Now to someone who does not understand this, a homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men, but really this is wrong. A homosexual is somebody who, in 15 years of trying cannot get a pissant anti-discrimination bill through the city council. A homosexual is somebody who knows nobody and who nobody knows. Who has zero clout."

And that's what marriage equality was and is really all about. Who has the power? For years, decades, centuries, the power lay in the hands of those who wanted to deny larges swaths of people their full civil rights and their full human dignity. And as the vicious battle and close vote to legalize marriage equality shows, there are still lots and lots of people who want to deny people their full civil rights and human dignity. So while, like many New Yorkers, I celebrate this historic day where gay New Yorkers can now love and marry like the rest of us, let's not forget: there are still lots of people out there who want to strip them of their rights and dignity, who want to go back to the bad old days. 

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance so let's never stop the fight. But for today, NYC, let's celebrate!

A Wartime Consigliere

Some of you might have heard the name Joel Klein. For nine years, he was the NYC Schools Chancellor and one of Mayor Bloomberg's most stalwart defenders.

Then, last year, he resigned and took a position with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

As you probably know, News Corp. is in a bit of a sticky situation, what with its newspaper reporters hacking the phones of celebrities, soldiers, and dead girls. So who's now responsible for saving News Corp. and old Rupert's hiny from this mess? 

Our city's former Schools Chancellor himself, Joel Klein!

Call him a wartime Consigliere, just like out of the Godfather movies. His job to "contain" the damage and strategize how News Corp. can survive. If someone the company does survive, then Joel Klein may very well become Rupe's successor. If not ...

Well, I can only think of that great line from The Godfather: "Goddammit, if I had a wartime consigliere, a Sicilian, I wouldn't be in this mess!" We shall see if that is true.   

Scandal City!

This seems to be the summer of scandal: Anthony Weiner! DSK! Rupert Murdoch!

And they all seem to be happening here in NYC -- well, the Murdoch thing may be coming to NYC and he does live here (even if the crimes were committed in England).

You must read this great James Wolcott piece from Vanity Fair about the DSK situation. We writes about how this scandal is a made for the media, made for NYC spectacle. He also illustrates how this scandal says a lot about the culture of modern day, Bloomberg NYC. Rather succintly, Wolcott brilliantly explains how totally bizarre and outlandish our city's media/economic/social environment has gotten:

"... So much of the populist outrage in the press reeked of bad faith ... The same press that indulges in a storm-the-palace fit over D.S.K.’s V.I.P. treatment lavishes worshipful attention on ultra-wealth, revels in extravagance, fawns over preening moguls (complicit for decades with the dirigible inflation of Donald Trump’s ego and acumen), paints Paris Hilton’s toenails a lovely coral, and fetishizes the sky-high price of square-footage in Manhattan, elevating real-estate porn into Byzantine splendor. Manhattan under Mayor Bloomberg has become a billionaire’s playpen, the middle class has become pressed duck, and class warfare is conducted in fits of pique and facile comparisons, like a retired boxer throwing left jabs in his sleep."

NYC in the 21st century is a schizophrenic place: we love/hate money, power and celebrity, we love pointing out how awful and out of touch thse people are while, at the same time, wishing we all could be like them.

There really is no class or cultural warfare anymore. Instead, in NYC today, there is a class and cultural identity crises. As people's economic status becomes more and more insecure, as the cost of living escalates, middle class New Yorkers both despise the rich while desperately wanting (and still holding out hope) that, somewhere down the line, they may join their ranks. After all, in this age, anyone can be famous and, if they find the right hustle, get a big pay day. And then they'll go from peons to penthouses. 

We have met the real scandal and he is us.  

Memo from NYC

Dear Rupert Murdoch,

Watching your pathetic testimony to the British Parliament yesterday, I could only smile and think "the bastard's finally getting what he deserves." To paraphrase Christopher Walken from that classic scene in True Romance: smarts, don't it? Getting humiliated. Screws you all up. You get that pain shootin' through your brain, your eyes fill up with water. That ain't any kind of fun. But what the world has to offer you, Rupert, that's as good as it's gonna get. And it won't ever get that good again.

Your criminal reporters in England hacked the phone of a murdered girl. Think about that. Your company basically re-victimized someone who was already dead as well as her whole family. How can you live with yourself?

Your company hacked the phones of soldiers, 9/11 victims, thousands of people both famous and not, rich and not, powerful and not. Shameful -- and illegal.

And finally the chickens are coming home to roost. Your misdeeds and those of your company are finally, truly, being repudiated by the world you've tried to control. Call yourself Rupert the Repudiated you scumbag. 

For the last thirty-plus years, Rupert, you and your sleazy "news" outlets have been dedicated to pandering to the lowest common denominator, whipping up fear and hatred and phony outrage, promoting the careers of horrible politicians while trying to destroy good ones, using the guise of "investigative journalism" and "the pursuit of truth" as an excuse to smear people you don't like, misusing the great freedom of the press this and other countries provide, and helping to make the world a meaner, more cynical place.

In this country your loathsome Fox News spews lies and reactionary propaganda that's both disgusting and, with regards to President Obama, outright racist.

Here in this town, you took The New York Post -- founded 200 years ago by Alexander Hamilton of all people! -- and turned it into a vile tabloid that nobody but morons read.

You're really nothing better than a pornographer, Rupert. Actually, you're worse -- because you're just an out and out criminal.

I can't explain the joy I'm feeling at watching you squirm and watching your company circle the drain. Hopefully you'll be forced out of News Corp, your company destroyed, you and your  henchmen (and women) will go to jail -- and Fox News will go off the air and you'll lose ownership of the Post.  

Obviously, it probably won't work out quite like that because you'll probably buy your way out of this. But Rupert, you'll never have the same power in NYC or anywhere else that you did -- and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Murdoch Testimony: Pleads Ignorance of His Own Empire's Blackmail, Bribe...

Mr NYC in Lake Tahoe

Yours truly just returned from a lovely weekend in a lovely place where I've never been before -- Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

It's probably best known as the place where the Corleones lived in Godfather II. But anyway ... 

Located in the beautiful snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains, Lake Tahoe is a huge, 22-mile fresh water lake that falls between the Nevada and California border, and it is one of the single most beautiful spots I've ever seen in the United States. The lake is the second deepest in the country and, when you dip your toe in, it is COLD. However, there are lots of beaches on which to relax on and, at this time of the year, the air is refreshingly cool. 

We were there for a wedding so it wasn't a long trip.  A great deal of the lake is inaccessible unless you're staying at a resort, are a member of one of the beach clubs, or are staying at a private estate. But there are some state parks where you can go and get close to the water. If you go, you must get to Sand Harbor State Park. This has some of the best, most jaw-dropping views of the lake and mountains you can possibly find. Also, there is a Hidden Beach where families like to go to frolic and it is very nice.

A few notes: to get to Lake Tahoe, you must fly to Reno. It's kind of a pain to get there since there are no direct flights from NYC. Also, to get to the lake, you must drive up a 17-mile, twisting road up the mountains and, for the inexperienced driver, it can be a bit scary (think when Jack Nicholson and family are driving up to the hotel in The Shining and you get the idea). But once you're there, you're in a little bit of heaven.

So thumbs up to Lake Tahoe. This New Yorker was impressed.      

Review: "Jerusalem"

"I will not cease from Mental Flight

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land."  

The great poet William Blake wrote those words more than 200 years ago. For the British, it has become a rallying song, a sort of "America, the Beautiful", a call to make the sceptered isle the sort of city upon a hill that Ronald Reagan liked to talked about here. It is sung at political rallies and "football" games in the UK, the Brits calling their fellow countrymen to make their country great.

Needless to say, for the amazing new play "Jerusalem" on Broadway, it is a deeply ironic title.

Set in a grungy trailer park in contemporary England -- ravaged by three decades of Thatcherism and New Labour policies -- the play centers on an aging rebel named Johnny "Rooster" Byron. Rooster is a man who time and life has passed by, and he has repeatedly refused to vacate and move his trailer from the park that is to be demolished -- in order for some developers to build more of the luxury housing that has been encroaching upon the area. 

When the play starts, the morning after a wild party thrown outside Rooster's trailer, two cops come by and inform Rooster that he has 24 hours to leave. As the day wears on, Rooster continues to go about his life as though nothing is going to happen to him -- he drinks, smokes weed, and makes lots and lots of noise to bother his new, unwanted neighbors. At various times, he tells wild and unbelievable stories about himself and his daredevil days. Meanwhile, the young and desolate teenagers who live nearby come by and hang out with Rooster -- to buy weed and figure our their sad lives. Also, Rooster has to confront his ex-wife and the son he is alienated from, as well as some old friends who are trying to bring Rooster to his senses and get him to leave.

While Rooster's ordeal is the overarching story, "Jerusalem" is really a play of many subplots: there is the young man who is also leaving soon -- for Australia; there is the young girl who lusts after him; there is Ginger, one of Roosters "mates", who wants nothing more than to be like Rooster; and there is a missing girl named Phaedra, who Rooster is protecting from a violent and sexually aggressive stepfather. All of these interesting, dimensional characters add up to make "Jerusalem" a very funny and emotionally violent play. 

Written by a British playwright named Jez Butterworth (who recently wrote the movie Fair Game), "Jerusalem" is about the kind of people you rarely see on stage. You almost never see three-hour plays about angry middle aged men but this one does it with style. Mark Rylance plays Rooster and his performance has been rightly hailed as one of the most amazing Broadway has seen in years. It's up there with Brando in "Streetcar", it's that good (Rylance recently won a Tony for the role). The supporting cast is of young, mostly unknown British actors whose performances show a joy and exuberance that is enthralling. Best of all, while this play is an angry blast of social criticism -- against a Britain that is letting the young fall behind, that (like NYC) is being sold to the highest bidder and crushing everyone else, that is failing in every way of being Blake's Jerusalem -- it is never preachy, never didactic. It does what all great drama does: it shows, never tells.  

"Jerusalem" is the kind of play that makes theater great, that makes the kind of statement about the human condition and packs the kind of emotional wallop that only great theater can make. This is not a play for tourists or the casual theatergoer -- "Jerusalem" is a play for all those that love great drama about people and the crazy, conflicted world we all live in.  

Judy Garland - I Happen To Like New York (Judy Garland, Robert Goulet & ...