Sorry I am just catching up with your blog. I have been reading Weeks of your writing each day and now im all caught up. Praise Be to the Archives. 🙂

I will read books by anybody. I like to go to Border’s (do they have those in Los Angeles?) and just curl up with my decaf cap and read Jackie Collins or Tom Robbins or whatever strikes my fancey. And I must tell you Tony Pierce I do not know how you are not a published writer! Sometimes I think that you are really tuned in and sometimes I think you are so insightful and how is it that you don’t have any books out? Why do you just give it away? And please, why do you like Howard Stern? Someone as cultured and educated as you come across being surely can’t admire someone as crass and blatantly offensive as him? ugh.

But I forgive you because you make me laugh. And even though I am not 20 years old (sorry about Ashley, she is a cutiepie) I think you would find me attractive (most men do) but so few can make me laugh. You could teach my male friends a lot. You make me laugh out loud all the time. Keep up the great work. I tell anyone I can about you. I am so new to this whole “Blog” world, so forgive me if it’s “uncool” to ask these types of questions, but please explain your appreciation to HS.

Thank you for all your hard work, I hope you get discovered soon.

– Alabama (My favorite character from the movies “True Romance”.)

****

dear alabama,

i liked that movie too. and probably not for the same reasons as you, i liked whoever that chick was who played her, i liked her sorta messed up teeth.

as for howard. first off, you don’t need to apologize for asking any questions. and lots of people email me and ask me about these things so its cool.

other than his adoration of lesbians, which most men share, and his completely refreshing honesty, i like howard because i relate to him. i have never felt all that good-looking, and i love that howard can have girls like him because he’s funny. ive never understood why women like that, but it’s great to see it in action.

i also like him because he has the job that i would love to have. he gets to get on the radio and tv every day and just talk to people in his little dark cave clubhouse. and when i mean talk, he gets to dig down very very deep into their very personal lives and go for it. he never seems nervous about asking those questions. im sure he is sometimes, but he never shows it.

there used to be a time when he would just go off and yell at people who deserved it. i loved that because i could never do that. i especially like it when he yells at his boss. not even at my old job where i hired my boss could i yell at her. i love that he’s self-effacing, that he was a very loyal husband of 20(!) years, and now he’s been a loyal boyfriend for 2.5 years.

i love that he gets bands to play in his studio, that he likes trashy tv like American Idol, and that he’s a recluse in real life and just likes to hole up in his apartment after work. i can totally relate.

i love how loyal he is to his co-workers. he’s been with that core group for nearly his whole career. Jackie the Jokeman left this year over a money dispute and everyone says that Jackie was asking for way way way too much. i think he was offered a million and he wanted a million and a half. some say howard gets $15 million so maybe jackie was right to be pissed, but he sure aint making a million now.

but i think the most underrated thing about howard is that he has a strange knack for making the most unlikely people into big stars, starting with Stuttering John, to Beetlejuice, to Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, to a list of other semi-retarded people who he laughs at And with, who are now far more successful thanks to howard seeing something interesting in them. anyone can take celebrities and make them interesting, but how he does that with guys with cancer and stutters is fascinating.

i like how he has guys “evaluate” girls who say they want to be in Playboy – it’s American Idol but with bodies instead of voices. he has this guy who is much harder on the girls than Simon is on the singers. it’s funny, and its more telling, actually about what some guys think about women as opposed to showing the flaws of the aspiring models. when Ralph takes a laser pointer to a totally smoking hot girl and says, “see that right above your hip bone, that teeny little buldge, do some squats and get rid of that.” what it means to me is that ralph is insane and it also means that some guys are really that insane too. but what’s sadder is that ralph still gets lots of girls which means that lots of girls love that sort of scrutiny! psycho.

the best parts of howards interviews on celebrities is not the questions that he asks, but how the celebs answer them. some get pissed off. rarely does this happen, but its fun to watch them squirm. some just play along. like dustin hoffman just totally plays along and it was fun. some spill their guts like kelsey grammer, who i never liked until he got on howard and was totally totally honest. howard had Rosanne on and he called up Tom Arnold and they started fighting. that was classic.

he had on one of Hef’s girlfriends and was asking her about having sex with Hef and she didnt know how to lie about it which showed us all that she really wasn’t having sex with hef. do you know how great that was for me? it made me think, fucking a, if hugh hefner, who is putting this chick up in the playboy mansion, giving her all the money she wants, buying her all the clothes, taking her everywhere, cant get this girl to have sex with him, then its not so bad when i cant score a babe. infact i really like hef more that he lets her stay his girlfriend cuz it means that he really just likes watching movies with her and hanging out with her.

i also like that howard is open with his feelings. he used to get sad a lot. i never really believed that if you had a bunch of money and a good job that you liked and you were good at that you would be sad. and i think his marriage made him sad, and somehow that made me feel better about my life.

hope that answers some of the questions for you.

photo by kitty b., an outtake from her trip to Trashy Lingerie’s movie casting call.