Luke Ford

Here are some highlights from this 2007 book by David Nylund:

* I view masculinity as a social construction that assumes different forms in different historical moments and contexts.

* Men can pay a cost—in the form of poor health, shallow/narrow relationships, for instance—for conformity with the narrow definitions of masculinity that promise to bring them status and privilege.

* “A Martian arriving on Planet Earth and not knowing what masculinity was would quickly form the opinion that it is a highly damaged and damaging condition with very few, if any, redeeming features.”

* The late nineteenth-century American male image was that of a rugged individualist who, to escape civilizing constraints, went to work in exclusive male preserves, went to war with other men, and went West to find fortune, pitting his will against the perils of nature(Kimmel, 1996). However, as the United States became increasingly urban and mobile in the early twentieth century, these “masculine” options were no longer available, and men were forced to look else-where to reclaim their lost identities. To many middle-class white men, this retrieval of identity was vital due to the changing nature of work, the visibility of first-wave feminism, the closing of the frontier, and changes in family relations (e.g., modern urban boys being separated from their fathers and placed in the care of mothers or women schoolteachers). The resultant changes in work and family life brought on by urbanization led to fears of boys and men being feminized. Many men, in response to these changes, searched for places “where they could be real men with other men” (Kimmel, 1996,p.309) and where they could actively exclude women, nonnative-born whites, men of color, and homosexuals. Men created homosocial organizations (male-only spaces) such as fraternal lodges, rodeos, college fraternities, and the Boy Scouts to initiate the next generation of traditional manhood.

* Mediated sports texts function largely to reproduce the idea that traditional masculinity and heterosexuality are natural and universal rather than socially constructed.

* Sports talk, which today usually means talk about mediated sports, is one of the only remaining discursive spaces where men of all social classes and ethnic groups directly discuss such values as discipline, skill, courage, competition, loyalty, fairness, teamwork, hierarchy, and achievement. Sports and sports fandom are also sites of male bonding.

* promotes civic discourse and teaches us how to create community “for a lot of people who lead isolated, often lonely lives in America”…

* Self-confessed addict of sports talk Alan Eisenstock (2001) wrote abook titled Sports Talk, a masculinist celebration of the significance of sports radio and the sports talk radio junkie. He refers to sports talk shows as a “non-stop fraternity party, a sport bar on the radio”(p.3), in which men, through the medium of a call-in program, can interact with other men free from the censure of feminism and political correctness. Sports talk radio, from this perspective, is amass-mediated attempt at preserving male-only spaces reminiscent of the rise of fraternities and the Boy Scouts around the turn of the twentieth century.

* Talk radio’s appeal appeared to tap into the sense of public life, the isolation and exhaustion that come from overworking, and the increasing gap people felt between themselves and politicians. The genre represented a novel and often brash and aggressive way of creating a group identity within the homogenizing blitz of conventional mediafare.

* In Talk Radio and the American Dream, Murray Levin taped seven hundred hours of talk radio and found among callers a discourse worried about emasculation. The natural order of things now seemed reversed, so that crime, blacks, rich corporations, and women all had the upper hand. Talk radio became the discursive battleground on which to reclaim hegemonic masculinity and rid the United States of soft-spoken, New Age guys. Even though the callers lacked the power to ward off the verbal put-downs of the host, they kept coming back for more.

* sports talk radio, even more than political talk radio, is the only arena left for white men who have been “wounded by the indignities of feminism, affirmative action, and other groups’ quest for social equality”…

* Sports talk show is a venue for the embattled White male seeking recreational repose; that it caters to this audience as surely as Rush Limbaugh articulates its discontents. Some sports talk stations define their listening audience explicitly as the Atlanta sports station [The FAN] manager states, “we make no pretensions about what we’re doing here. The FAN is a guy’s radio station. We’re aiming at the men’s bracket which is the hardest to reach.

* It has been my experience that people in the media industry are wary of academics; they often believe that scholars read too much into the messages in the media. People in the media industries think their production practices are normal and ordinary—they take for granted what they do and say at work. I did not expect anyone to necessarily “spill the beans,” since most industry staff will not likely critique the negative sides of the sports business to an outsider, particularly an assistant professor.

* While driving on the freeway recently, I noticed a billboard that said, “Armstrong and Getty—Listen to them before we fire them.” Armstrong and Getty are local Sacramento talk show hosts who have quite a popular following. However, on their show they frequently mention the fear of being fired for saying something offensive or defying their station manager. The billboard is reflective of the volatility of the radio industry. There is a long history of hosts, disc jockeys, and pro-gram directors getting fired, moving around to different cities and different stations.

According to Wikipedia July 28, 2023: “Armstrong & Getty are the hosts of The Armstrong & Getty Show, a nationally syndicated morning drive radio show hosted by Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. The talk show format is a mixture of libertarian political commentary, observations on local, national, and international news as well as reflections on social issues presented with humor.”

* My analysis of the production staff interviews reflects this high level of job turnover and career insecurity. Both hosts and producers talked about sports radio industry reality: never knowing where you might end up and never knowing when your contract might not be renewed be-cause of poor ratings. The station manager said, “We are all just renting time in radio; our jobs are never safe.” In fact, while I was interviewing some local hosts and producers at one particular station, one of their colleagues (the host of a morning show) was fired by the station and the corporation (Infinity) due to insufficient sports knowledge and lack-luster ratings. One host said that ratings are a “constant source of tension—you never stop thinking about it. And it’s so fleeting; one month you’re up and the next you’re down.” Several said they take the ratings personally.

* Many spoke of the multiple balancing acts that sports radio work involves, including the pressure to attract advertising revenue while staying loyal to callers. All my interviewees referred to advertising as “a necessary evil.” Attracting advertising revenue is a constant source of tension for many, particularly for the station manager I interviewed. After making sure that I was going to honor his anonymity, he was openly critical of the advertising industry: “I do recognize their power … They [the advertisers] are our number one priority… let’s face it … without them we can’t give our listeners the sports stuff they want. But it is hard to always push new products like the latest gad-get or male enhancement pills! I got into this business because I love sports and call-in programming, not to push products.”

* KHTK, the sports talk radio station in Sacramento, California, has a contract with the NBA Sacramento Kings to air their games. KHTK’s sport stalk hosts are also employed by the Kings (the Kings are owned by Maloof Sports & Entertainment) to do play-by-play and pre-game and post-game commentary. Jeff Kearns (2003), in his article “Embedded with the Kings,” suggests that the KHTK’s hosts are “cogs in an expansive promotional and media machine that seemingly mixes Kings announcers, players, media outlets, and advertisers—all of whom capitalize on and profit from the success of the only big-name sports team in town”.

* You just know that you aren’t supposed to badmouth the people (the sports franchise owners, advertisers) who pay you … We do have to kiss ass to the advertisers, the Kings, and the corporate sponsors all the time … politics. It’s bullshit. If we are supposed to have journalistic freedom, we should be able to rip a coach/player/organization without them or their sponsors being upset about what you said.

* The tension between journalistic independence and the necessity to maximize advertising revenues may be a sign of the paradoxes and ambivalences of current masculinities as well as a reflection of the dynamics of commercial culture. Many of the products advertised on sports radio—automobiles, beer, gadgets, and male enhancement pills—are reflective of the laddish masculinity mentioned earlier (Ben-yon, 2002). Similarly, station ads (such as “sports talk radio—it’s just beer, babes, and brats!”) give the impression that the staff are not really working at all; it’s just one big fraternity party. Yet, all the hosts and staff I interviewed talk about long hours, fatigue, and work stress. How might we understand the discourses of hedonism in face of in-creased corporate pressures and work strain? One argument might be that the emphasis on pleasure-seeking is assembled to mask the increasingly bureaucratic and rational features of the modern work-place. Stories of sports radio as one big laddish celebration obscure the fact that sports radio staff are all involved in rational bureaucratic work organizations—a feature of many men’s work experience in today’s hypercapitalist culture (Faludi, 1999).

* Talk radio gave listeners a way to tap into the nation, into public opinion, into a community that they did not have before, where they could hear viewpoints that had not been filtered and homogenized by the TV networks and their news anchors … Listeners find themselves politically isolated at work or at home, deprived of any forum for discussion or debate. Co-workers and family members were either politically apathetic and ignorant or of a different political persuasion, which meant that going back and forth with them about cur-rent affairs would be frustrating, even infuriating. But tuning into talk radio, people could hear other points of view, even outrageous points of view, and they could take them in quietly, or scream back at the radio without fear of an altercation.

* Kevin Wheeler: Sports radio is popular for the same reason regular talk radio is popular—people feel like that they have a voice. Even if an individual doesn’t get to call, they know that there are others out there like them who will… Sports radio is about interaction, in my opinion. Callers take the time to call (and hold for thirty–sixty minutes sometimes) because they want to be heard, even if the expression of their opinions doesn’t effect a change.

Local host: Why is it popular? Because guys like to talk sports … it’s in our genes! We like to mix it up with other men; feel heard and express our opinions. We used to do that at bars, in our neighborhoods … But now, we are working all the time, so we do it in the car … It’s how we connect.

* Both Wheeler and the local host’s comments resonate with the idea that in late capitalist and privatizing culture, sports radio attempts to satisfy a need for humans (in this case, men) to participate in the public realm. Susan Herbst (1995) refers to this civic engagement as an “imagined community” created in electronic public space. Since many men in a neoliberal economy are working and living increasingly isolated lives, sports talk radio gives the listeners and callers a discursive space to create community and enjoy social interaction. Likewise, Pamela Haag (1996) believes that sports radio fulfills people’s desires to be “thrown together in unexpected, impassioned, even random social relations and communities”.

* The ethic of fandom is one, according to Haag, in which people can speak both fervently and politely. To her own bewilderment, she admits to being hooked on sports radio while writing her dissertation, finding the shows comforting and stress reducing. Equally, at times I find sports radio helpful as an antidote to a stressful and busy career. I have developed imaginary relationships with hosts and callers that have provided a sense of belonging.

* Female producer: Guys think they know everything about sports and everything else … they love to debate … they don’t listen to each other … just talking over each other … and everyone is a better coach than the coach that is currently doing the job … although many [hosts and callers] are out of shape and not athletic, they can live through their favorite players and prove their male superiority.

* “Men’s investment in spectator sports accordingly becomes an investment in their own projected superiority through the superiority of the best athletes.”

* “Sports is our common denominator. You can be a blue-collar worker and you can talk sports on equal level with the chairman of a Fortune 500 company. You can’t talk business that way, or world politics that way.”

* sports talk can momentarily break down barriers of race, ethnicity, age, and class. In his article analyzing sports talk discourse, Farred argues that “sport facilitates the transient construction of alliances across racial, class, and even ethnic lines: White suburbanites, inner-city Latino and African American men can all support the New York Knicks or the Los Angeles Dodgers.”

* sports talk can temporarily displace one’s primary racial, cultural, or ethnic identity.

* the romantic outlook on sports suggests that sports exists outside power, ignoring the reality that sports talk “is freighted with political import”…

* Constructed certitude provides a sense of stability amid men’s current insecurities and anxieties. The construction of certitude offers a magical resolution to questions of identity, eradicating doubt and uncertainty in a society that is perceived as increasingly fragile and ambiguous.

* sports radio is not sexist but merely echoing and honoring their listeners’ natural masculinity and desire for “guy stuff.” This outlook implies that masculinity (and male consumer desire) is fixed and ahistorical. Yet, the process of naturalizing heterosexual masculinity hides the reality that sports talk radio is not merely reflecting a “natural” manhood but helping to construct it.

* “it would be impossible to overstate the degree to which sports talk radio is shadowed by a homosexual panic implicit in the fact that it consists entirely of out-of-shape white men sitting around talking about black men’s buff bodies”…

* sports have become one of the last bastions of traditional male ideas of success, of male power and superiority over—and separation from—the feminization of society…

* The rule-bound, competitive, hierarchical world of sport offers boys an attractive means of establishing an emotionally distant (and thus “safe”) relationship with others…

* So, while the manifest function of The Jim Rome Show “is to talk about sports, its latent content function works to construct traditional masculinity as the show and its host collectively provide a clear and consistent image of the masculine role; a guide for becoming a man, a rule book for appropriate male behavior, in short, a manual on masculinity”…

* “for males, conversation is the way you negotiate your status in the group and keep people from pushing you around; you use talk to preserve your independence”(p.3). Men often use communication techniques and speech patterns to prove themselves and demonstrate their knowledge and expertise. Nelson (1994) suggests that sports talk is one way that men prove their masculinity: “When they talk sports, they usually report-talk: they offer information, competing to establish who is most informed. It’s a verbal one-upmanship, an oral contest. This competitive conversation simultaneously establishes both hierarchy and unity: we are men talking about men’s interests”

* in-group humor is a primary feature of men’s relationships; “that the male bond is built upon a joking relationship that negotiates the tension men feel about their relationships with each other, and with women”…

* in-group humor gives regular listeners a sense of community based on mutually shared background and common knowledge. The incessant focus on pathologizing Michael Jackson appears to function in maintaining group solidarity among Rome and his clones. As Meyer (1997) writes, “Humor’s power in communication lies in sociability, as people share in communicating similar perceptions of the normal and abnormal”(p.191). Ridiculing Jackson, in this sense, helps to construct the clones as “normal.”

* the show produces a sense of community among its listeners: mainly young educated middle-class men who have access to radio, email, and faxes during the working day. In this mediated space, a shared sense of community and a set of speech rules are created that provide a third place (not home or work) for men to connect and express their masculinity. Tremblay and Tremblay (2001) argue that “The Jim Rome Show produces a speech community that appears to have morphed the traditional identity of masculinity from that of a Muscular Christian of the Industrial Age to a glib narcissist of the Information Age. This “new man” seeks to be capable and competent in Rome’s radio Jungle to cope with the anxiety-producing challenges of the emerging millennium. In this constructed “place,” men bond by sharing a playful speech community that has become a substitution for the real physical experience formerly acquired in the tangible arenas—the wilderness, the playing, and battlefields—for testing manhood and achieving masculinity.”

* The show’s popularity reveals men’s anxiety about finding their place in the modern world, and then seeking a “third place” to connect and even earn the respect of other men. Furthermore, the irony and masculinist humor of Rome’s show may not necessarily hide a macho agenda; rather, they conceal the nervousness of men who might prefer a simpler gender and economic order, but are attempting to face up to modern realities anyway. Respect is earned not only through sexism or irony but by presenting oneself as open-minded and tolerant regarding issues of racism and homophobia, for example. Therefore, the Jungle community is many things, both enabling and constraining, including a mediated accountability community where men police each other in a postfeminist, post-civil rights America.

* the extraordinary media attention these behaviors (trash talking, taunting, dancing, and/or celebrating) receive seems out of proportion to their importance, since they provide little if any competitive advantage and seem to be only peripherally related to the actual competition. Simons argues that the extraordinary attention these sport behaviors receive is racially motivated in that black athletes are said to be largely responsible for such acts. These behaviors are seen to be a reflection of urban African American cultural norms, which conflict with white mainstream norms. In summary, Simons posits that the restrictions placed on such behaviors represent white male society’s response to the threat to white masculinity represented by black athletic superiority and by African American athletes’ assertion of the right to define the meaning of their behavior.

* sports media complex obsesses about African American athletes, allowing white sports fans to fulfill voyeuristic desires to look at black athletes. The homoerotic desire fetishizes black athletes, reducing their bodies to commodities…

* Rome’s nationalistic rhetoric has significantly increased since 9/11.

* American sports culture developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, nativism and nationalism were shaping a distinctly American self-image that clashed with the non-American sport of soccer; baseball and football crowded out the game and reinforced the notion of American supremacy.

Here are some highlights from this 2016 book by talk radio producer Bernadette Duncan, the wife of Talkers magazine Michael Harrison:

* What makes some on-air talents big-time celebrities and household names while others – though competent, even award-winning – remain just voices and names on the radio?
Do you have to be dirty? Controversial? Scandal-ridden? Perhaps. But not always and not entirely. Sally Jessy Raphael wasn’t any of these things. Yet she was, indeed, a star.
Do you have to be singularly responsible for the ratings and the revenue generated by your show or time slot and recognized by your employers as such? In other words, must you be worthy of the most magic adjective with which a talent can be dubbed – indispensable? Now, we are in the ballpark. But exactly what makes a host or radio performer indispensable? It is the loyal legion of fans that make an appointment to listen to that particular host every day and tell their friends about what they heard the day before. It is also the large pool of advertisers that believe their businesses are significantly enhanced by being associated with that particular host and are willing to pay large sums for a personal product endorsement.
But what exactly are the qualities that make one talent a Howard or a Sally and another a “Gil who?” when they are all damn good at practicing the art of radio? How do you recognize and measure the intangibles that constitute likability, charisma and magnetism? How do you teach the “X Factor?”

* Producer Gary Dell’Abate – one of Howard’s closed circle of high-echelon sidekicks – then said something listeners would never hear on news stations anywhere else on radio, “It’s a terrorist attack, isn’t it?”
By the time the second tower was hit 18 minutes later, the Stern crew connected dots and moved the story forward – nearly 100 percent correctly. News reporters up and down the dial were straight-jacketed, mostly repeating and repeating only that which they knew could be verified. In the case of Stern, it was a rare example of unrestrained speculation during a breaking story actually being ahead of the pack AND correct.
When one of Howard’s cohorts asked, “Why doesn’t the news just call it like it is?” Gary the producer piped up again, “They’re a legit news organization – they’re not allowed to say what we’re thinking.”
And in that simple truth, he honed in on talk radio’s purpose: a place where people can discuss the messy, prejudiced, and sometimes ugly parts of life, speaking from a less-tailored part of the brain. Radio people are notorious for poor spelling and unkempt hair and wardrobe. Even callers know they can anonymously say the sorts of stuff normally shared with a friend over the bathroom stall.

* When Dobbs insisted on hiring a scriptwriter, I was struck silent. He actually wanted someone who would literally write out his monologues, transitions, and even interview segments with suggested questions and factoids.
A scriptwriter – for a talk show?
Spontaneity is the very essence of talk radio. It is the very heart of its beauty. If you script a talk show, you lose the genre. It becomes something… else. Since when is a talk show scripted? Radio, the naked human voice, is the great exposer. You can’t act your way into these thrills and revelry. It builds from within, goes deeper than words. It brings out the things that make us human. You can’t read your way through the thrill of a winning home run, you must feel your way. Or there’s a disconnect. The same principle applies in talk radio for the natural flow of conversation.

01:00 Permanently Suspended: The Rise and Fall… and Rise Again of Radio’s Most Notorious Shock Jock, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=149373
04:00 Should Good Samaritans Just Give Up? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ2TH84Svac
07:00 Jason Aldean is sharing the views of millions of Americans
09:40 How To Resist Hotties After Getting Famous || Gavin McInnes And Anthony Cumia React, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBIv-pZV1ZI
23:00 Bill Burr’s infamous Philadelphia rant
26:30 There’s No Affirmative Action In The Air Force One Cockpit || Gavin McInnes And Anthony Cumia
38:00 Radio Vox Populi: Talk Radio from the Romantic to the Anglo-Saxon, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=149349
40:00 Decoding the Gurus, https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/
53:00 What Leftists Really Mean When They Say “Diversity” || Gavin McInnes And Anthony Cumia React
56:40 Anthony Cumia’s HILARIOUS Rehab Stories, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAx45DCXsWE
57:45 The business model for rehab is to keep you coming back
1:10:00 Gad Saad: Oh my Gad, it’s the Saadfather!, https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/18-gad-saad-oh-my-gad-its-the-saadfather
1:15:00 Who is catturd2? https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/catturd2-maga-twitter-shitposting-king-1234674671/

Here are some highlights from this 2018 book:

* Patrice O’Neal once said that Anthony could “access funny” faster than anyone he’d ever met.

* Jennifer could be considered sexually adventurous. The first time we had intercourse, I had to come home to Carrie and I had the smells of passion all over me: sweat, cum, vaginal juices, and spit along with a spritz of disloyalty. I knew that if Carrie saw me, she would smell that I’d just had sex. I was driving a Baja Bug at the
time, which was having engine problems. I decided to pour gasoline on myself and reach underneath the car to get oil and grit all over me to mask my infidelity. I got home and said, “Son of a bitch! This car broke down again! I finally got it started. Don’t even get near me; I’m a mess.” I was just going to jump in the shower and wash off the gas, oil, and vagina.

* Girls would call up, and we’d tell them to come down to the studio. We did something called the “Blue Tarp Cabaret”—we’d put out a blue tarp, and the girls would get completely naked and we’d throw maple syrup on them. These disgustingly sticky girls, who were hot as shit, would just be smashing each other with cakes and assorted pastries. We’d get the food products from local bakeries and advertise these bakeries like a real plug: “These cakes were supplied by Mom and Pop’s Pastries.” It was great.

* We never said we were married or had girlfriends, which pissed my wife off terribly. I didn’t want to be a married guy on a young rock station. So, whenever we went out to do these station appearances, there were constantly girls around us.

* This [program director] Dave Douglas guy was always just a bug up our asses. He once said, “You know what you should do? Take a picture of who you envision as an audience member. Who do you picture? Find a magazine with a picture of someone who resembles this person you have in mind and put that picture in front of you on your mixing board. So when you’re talking into the mic, you get an image of who you’re talking to.”

We went on the air, and we just started talking about the meeting and how what he’d said was so ludicrous and idiotic. It was. Then we found a Swank magazine and cut out pictures of a woman squatting and posted the pictures. “Here’s how we picture our audience: a bunch of filthy cunts.”

* We knew how to stretch shit out where we could and just barely squeak past FCC rules. We would use the first letter of curse words. I’d “F” her in the “A” and wipe my “D” on her curtains.

* We then said someone else had been killed with the mayor in his car. “Just getting this news: the passenger in the mayor’s car, who was also killed, was a young Haitian boy.” We wanted to lead up to the fact that he had been having sex in the car with this young Haitian boy while driving and the car had spun out of control.

* I didn’t want to go home to my wife. We would drink and get hammered. They were the ones who could bring the girls up to the studio. Once again, no supervision. This workplace was like a frat house with constant drinking, smoking, drugs, and sex. I used to get laid on my desk in my office.

* Penthouse did a big article and photo shoot with us, which was literally a dream come true. I’d been jerking off to that magazine my whole life!

* Our marriage lasted nine years. The only thing that kept me in it that long was that I found out early in the first year of marriage that my wife was part lesbo and wanted to do threesomes with hot chicks.

* [Howard Stern] had a particular family situation of a very private nature. We alluded to it on the air in a very ambiguous way, and it got back to him. He was quite upset.

* We had a point system with certain bonuses. If the guy stuck his dick up her ass, the team was awarded a two-point conversion. The harder the location, the higher the point value. Central Park had a lower point value because it was easier to find a place to bang in than a church, which had the highest point value.

We took calls during the contest, and we got one from chaperone Paul Mecurio. Within a second he was telling us, “We’re here at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and he’s doing a two-point conversion.”

We knew that for listeners to hear he was fucking her in the ass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral was great.

“Really? Paul, what’s going on?” “Well, we’re here by the front door, and he’s pumping her really hard. Oh wait, there’s someone coming over to us.”

Now again, we could have said, “Run!” but we chose to get the play-by-play, asking, “Who’s coming over?” We wanted that dialogue between whoever was coming over and Paul, who was going to attempt to justify this couple’s having anal sex by the front door of the most highly regarded religious landmark in the United States.

“It was one of the security guards from St. Pat’s.” We were now listening to the back-and-forth between Paul and this security guard. The security guy was like, “What is going on here? Why are you two pulling up your pants?” “Oh no. Don’t worry, it’s just a radio contest.”

he kept it going with the security guard in St. Patrick’s up until the police came. Once the cops came, all bets were off; there was no leaving. We were riding this whole thing out with him. We heard everything up until Paul was handcuffed. They arrested Paul and the couple—who, by the way, did get the highest points for one place but sadly didn’t win the contest with their overall score.

NEWS:

NEW YORK – A Virginia couple was arraigned today after they were arrested for allegedly having sex in a vestibule of St. Patrick’s Cathedral while parishioners worshiped nearby.

Loretta Lynn Harper, 35, of Alexandria, and her boyfriend, Brian Florence, 37, of Quantico, were charged with obscenity in the third degree and public lewdness.

Another man, Paul Mercurio, 42, of New York, who allegedly engaged in a live radio commentary on the sex act, also was arraigned on a charge of acting in concert with the couple.

The three were arrested Thursday.

The couple had entered a radio contest of the WNEW afternoon talk program, “Opie and Anthony,” a police spokesman said. As part of the live show, six couples were given a list of 54 different high-risk locations at which to have sex in the city, including St. Patrick’s on Fifth Avenue, and nearby Rockefeller Center.

* Looking back, if there was ever an addiction Opie and I shared, it was that need to constantly top ourselves and make our show the most talked about. We wanted our ratings to always go up and our listeners to be rewarded daily with our insanity. It was inevitable that we were going to get fired from WNEW. The thread finally broke, and the piano crushed us.

* David Lee Roth might be one of the worst people ever on radio. Nonstop rambling about eighteen different topics at a time and then throwing in a “bozzie bozzie bop!”

* Opie is still in trouble with people to this day because of what he did to one homeless guy, Andrew, who offered us a piece of his cake. Opie just stomped on it with his foot. The poor guy was just sitting there saying, “I paid for that cake. I earned that cake.” Opie didn’t give a shit as long as it was good radio.

* One of our funniest bits was with the comedian Patrice O’Neal. We called it “Nigger vs. Nazi.” During this time period, the actor Danny Glover had made his plight known publicly that he couldn’t get a cab in NYC because he was African American. Patrice was on the show and we were talking about it, and he said, “Yeah, nobody wants to pick up a nigger.” I was like, “Hey, I have a Nazi helmet. I’ll put it on and you stand upstream from me. We’ll both try to hail a cab to see if the cab driver picks up a nigger or a Nazi.” The first cab blatantly passed by Patrice and stopped for me. Patrice screamed, “Nazi! Nazi! You pick up a Nazi over a nigger? You motherfucker! You didn’t stop for a nigger! You picked up a goddamn Nazi over a nigger! You chose a Nazi brother!” The second cab stopped for Patrice. The third cab hedged its bets and went between us. The next one went for the Nazi. Patrice said, “I’m gonna pull this out for niggers!” Then Patrice tied it up and it was going to game seven. The deciding cab passed right by Patrice and stopped in front of me. I thanked him for picking a Nazi over an African American. The Nazis won.

* We had passionate fans who were really into it, and they knew how we treated each other on the show—comics constantly busting each other’s balls. We brought the audience into what we were doing; they genuinely felt like they were part of it. The only negative to this was that they felt they were also part of the stand-up show. They felt entitled to heckle the comics unmercifully, which sometimes made the shows a fucking nightmare. We’d take the bad with the good and the good with the bad. It happened, and we understood it. They were enjoying
themselves, so be it.

Philly’s own Dom Irrera was booed off the stage. It was brutal. Dom just disappeared. He was shell-shocked. Next up was Bill Burr. There was a digital clock facing the comic that would count down their time onstage. I
think the sets were fifteen minutes long. Bill got huge applause when he walked onto the stage, and the clock started ticking down. Almost immediately after the applause, they started booing and yelling shit at him. Bill wasn’t going to take it. “Really? Really?” Bill just started lambasting the crowd with a history lesson of
Philadelphia and the inadequacies of Philadelphians. This guy knew everything there was to know about Philly. I defy a historian to know as much as Bill Burr knew that night about the City of Brotherly Love. He destroyed them. He referenced pop culture, sports, personalities, and the fucking Revolutionary War! Everything
he brought up was a twist of the knife screwing Philadelphia, and the audience loved it.

* Race and being politically correct were always issues, even on satellite radio. Even though we were on a censor-free network that wanted to be cutting edge, we still almost got fired right away. I’m talking right the fuck out of the starting gate. Leave it to Opie and Anthony to push the parameters on a censor-free network their first couple of months working.
There was this funny homeless guy down the street from our studio who would talk all this outrageous shit. We decided to give this impoverished man a voice and let this batshit crazy guy get in front of our microphone. We brought him up to our studio and let him talk. He was actually pretty sharp and had some ideas—one of which was that he wanted to rape first lady Laura Bush. He also wanted to rape the queen of England and Condoleezza Rice. We were just laughing our asses off at the whole thing and how crazy he was.
We got done with the show feeling good about it. Then we started getting phone calls: “People are getting concerned. We’re getting complaints, and the bosses here are a little upset about it.” “What? This is satellite radio. This is absolutely what should be going out over their digital airwaves.” The bosses said, “Something
about raping Condoleezza Rice and you’re all laughing.”

* XM began heating up with some personal conflicts. I think Opie had a lot of resentment for the business at that time. We were relegated to a medium that didn’t have a lot of listeners. I don’t know if he felt guilty about our getting fired, but we started understanding what satellite was about and what we could do to start getting back into being the Opie and Anthony show.
We wanted to get back to doing things like the Wiffle Ball Bat Challenge. We’d take a Wiffle ball bat, and if a girl wanted to try to win, we would put it up her vagina. Then we’d mark it with a Sharpie and measure it.
At the end of the year, the girl who got closest to the middle of the bat would win. Wholesome family fun, right?
The coveted bat would be displayed in a glass case in our studio. We would always play holy music when taking it out when a girl came to compete. This was okay to do on satellite radio at the time. It was race that was the sticky wicket and frowned upon. Sex was completely fine.
We’d have girls get completely naked in the studio and perform sexual acts. We had a porn star come in and blow one of our producers in front of everybody. Hey, say what you want, but chicks getting naked and doing crazy shit is always fun.

* Once XM merged with Sirius, they were all about corporate, which translated to being censored for sexual content stringently. On April 14, 2009, we did our first show at the new Sirius building. There were no more girls doing the Wiffle ball bat contests or getting naked. In the bosses’ eyes, these acts could make Sirius liable for litigation. This meant no more girls on our show unless it was a real interview. Sirius corporate was the ultimate cock blocker.

* O n March 12, 2009, Opie and I had an on-air fight known as “the Grape Argument.” I was eating grapes on the air. I remarked on something, and Opie said, “Are you gonna wait till you finish those?” This argument had nothing to do with the fucking grapes. It was like any argument: you start out with the issue and then it just splinters into a thousand things that pissed you off ten years prior. He was obviously mad at something. So, I said, “Oh really? You’re gonna give me shit about the grapes? I could read you twenty texts about you scraping your yogurt container!” How petty was this?

He gave me this face that I knew all too well. This pissed-off face. Opie kept saying, “Leave it alone,” but I didn’t want to leave it alone. Then he quipped, “Just because you’re really into doing the show again, leave it alone!” to which I replied, “As opposed to when I really wasn’t into doing the show?” That was it! I saw fucking red. He had passive-aggressively suggested I wasn’t into the show for a certain period of time. Opie then said, “Don’t worry, dude. This will be over soon. You go your way and I’ll go mine.”
How prophetic he was. For months he had been alluding to this inevitable breakup on air. “It’s just time for us to break up. We’ve done everything there is to do together, and it’s time for us to move on to some new challenges.” I told him, “I actually enjoy coming in here to do this show and don’t bitch about every little
thing going on. I try and keep it light.”

* For radio personalities, publicity is the number-one goal. Getting more people to hear your name, regardless of what it’s attached to, is your goal on a daily basis. Getting them to talk about you. Even with the worst firing catastrophes Opie and I had, our first thought was, “Cool, we got some press.”