Lileks, one of my favorite bloggers, sometimes leaves me completely baffled. There are moments when I am trying to guess if he is willfully naive or simply blogs as if he is. Today's bleat is a case in point.
He is decrying the downward spiral of public discourse, which is something I certainly will not deny, but his choice of a segment from a Howard Stern show makes me wonder, James where have you been all these years?
I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I remember sitting in a hired car in New York, waiting to enter the tunnel. The driver had Stern on. He was talking to a caller who was born and raised in Nigeria – she spoke impeccable English with that lovely African flavor. She wasn’t pleased about something he said; he let her go on for a while, then cut in and asked her if she’d ever ate a monkey. She was stunned – how do you reply to something like that? He went on to note that a lot of people in Africa ate monkeys, and perhaps that’s where AIDS came from. And so on.
This is completely typical Howard Stern behavior. My surprise is that, after all the years that Stern has been on the radio and even on television, that James is taken aback by this conversation.
I am not a fan of Howard Stern. His brand of humor doesn't interest me at all. But over the years I've caught bits of his shows - it does not take long to figure out exactly the direction each conversation will take. The biggest mystery might be, how long Howard lets things run on before branching off into the downward spiral. Since I am not a fan, I simply don't listen to him - end of problem. But there always seem to be people out there who either think they can change him, or simply like to say they argued with him on the radio. I think most people just like to say they've been on the radio and Howard Stern's show means that people across the country have heard them.
As far as I'm concerned, if you are going to call in to a radio show because you disagree with the host, it's a very good idea to know how the host treats callers. In the case of Howard Stern, the Nigerian woman should certainly have been prepared for something offensive. It would've been even better if she had a comeback for it. Something along the lines of "yes, monkey is very tasty, can we get back to the comment I'm making now?" OR "no I haven't, but I understand you love it".