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Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Mark Zito, and on behalf of SiriusXM, I want to thank you so much for coming out to Stephen Talk House

for a very special, very intimate episode of Smartless.

Here we go. Here we go.
Here we go. That's up.
Smartless. Smartless.
Smartless. You guys.
Hi, everybody. Welcome.
Thank you for being here. You guys aren't really fans.
You're friends of ours. Yeah.
So that's very nice of you to show up. Thank you, everybody.
Drive all the way out here to Long Island. Pay nothing.
Really nice. Pay nothing.
Right? Sit here and be like, alright, yeah, entertain us. We're very excited to be doing like, so, we're gonna do four live shows every year.
You know, we're gonna do the... We're open to less, Scott, but that's fine.
We do the regular sort of podcast on the computer thing, right? What do you watch it or You're listening to it on, whatever it is. And then we're going to do four lives.
This is our first one. Very excited.
On top of that, we've got our white whale. This is the...
People would ask me, like, who have you not interviewed that you wanted? Howard Stern. Because he doesn't do this, and he's the man.
He is the man. No, we feel very, very blessed that he,

and we'll get into that in a second.

Is that your intro?

No.

I don't have an intro.

Sean's got an intro.

Look at the cards.

I wrote a bunch of cards.

Hang on.

I do want to say something.

I'm like Fanning.

Who's the little Dakota Fanning when she was a little girl?

She was really overprepared in the best way.

I did Cat in the Hat with her.

Go on.

Well, you got something to trim already. The audience is riveted by that story.
Fucking what? Dakota Fanning? Well, she's really smart and prepared. I love that about her.
But everybody here knows who our guest is going to be, so there are not a lot of surprises. So there is one surprise that we do have today, just to kind of get everybody warmed up, to get us warmed up a little bit.
Somebody, Sean, you don't know about. Uh-oh.
Yeah. Don't worry, it's not your dad.
We still can't find him. It's so fun because he left.
Top speed. You know, he came to the...
The tears are still wet. But I would tell you, he came to the last show of Good Night Oscar in Chicago.
Yeah. Did I ever tell you that? Do you want to walk us through that? This is kind of a sad story.
I don't know if this we want to... Yeah.
All right. But anyway, we can get back to that again.
Keep going. That's a true story.
He did, right? He came to the last show. I didn't even know he was there.
Did he go backstage? No. No.
It was wild. Go ahead.
Did he have notes? Yes. Yes, he emailed them to me.
That is pretty weird. Wait, did you see him? I didn't.
My sister, he... Tracy? Yes.
That's correct. He emailed my...
Sorry, he posted on Facebook that he went to the last show and that's all he wrote. And my sister, to bait to bait him, like, don't you want to say something about your son that you haven't seen in 75 years? He said...
You look great. And he just wrote back, Oscar Levant, just like I remembered him, that was it.
Isn't that wild? Anyway. How long have you not seen him? 40 years? And he's in the theater with you.
You just starred in something. He didn't stick around and say, what a treat.
And then, wait. And then, and then, check this out.
Two gay guys came up to Scotty in the audience, because Scotty was there. And they go, are you Scotty? That's not the whole story? No.
Okay. They came up to Scotty and they said, they said, oh, I just want to let you know, we live next door to Sean's dad and I understand they don't see eye to eye.
Was that a shot at your mom? For those of you who don't know, Sean's mom famously has one fake eye. Yes.
Hat, hat, hat, hat, hat. Because hilariously she died.
So Sean should be an axe murderer, right? I mean, let's see how this goes. He's the nicest guy.
He's the kindest. We love him.
We all have skeletons. Go ahead.
We all have one-eyed parrots. One-eyed parrots.
So we do have one surprise tonight just so, you know, to try to spring us out of the hole Of Sean's upbringing So I've asked the guy to come here tonight Just to do a little something before we get going Are you serious? I swear to God, yeah He's an Emmy winner He's a finalist on America's Got Talent He's been on The Jimmy Fallon program Amongst others Is that what it's called? The program? It's called the Jimmy Fallon program. That's what the producers tell me.
I don't know. There he is, Jimmy.
Thank you, Jimmy. Please don't stand up.
No, please don't stand. Please sit down.
Mr. Fallon.
I beg you to sit down. Thank you to sit down.
Fucking. Love it.
God, we saw the Olympics. It wasn't an intro, Jimmy.
We get it. You're on NBC.
Yeah. And you own Wayfarers.
Yeah. By the way, Jimmy, on all seriousness, you were great in Jurassic World.
I thought that was great. Down again.
Again, down. But he's done so many things.
No, she's not here, man.

She didn't make it.

She's working on her stuff.

He's one of the world's most sought-after mentalists.

He's worked with clients ranging from A-list

celebrities, heads of state, Fortune

500 companies. Guys,

please welcome the amazing

Oz Perlman.

Just to pick us up.

You're going to do a little something special for us. What? I didn't know.
Not Dakota Fanning, unfortunately. I know.
This is a surprise to Sean. Sean knows nothing about it.
He was waiting for it to be his dad. I'm sorry, Sean.
Wait, can I tell you something? Tell me. He sends me clips of you all the time.
That's what Will told me. I'm obsessed.
I think this is amazing. Let's see what I've got.
Sean legit doesn't know anything about this. Sean has no idea.
This is wild. Wait, Will, you have my phone number, right?

Yeah.

And my email address?

Yeah, I got it all.

I don't like clips of things.

Do you know who this is?

Do you know who this is?

You're too grouchy.

He sort of clued me into it.

It's our smart list on Moose Boosh today, right?

Yes, yes.

Wait, this is so cool.

This is so cool.

Here's what I do, Jason.

Supposedly, I read minds, but if I'm going to know how people think, right?

And you know what they're thinking at the same time. Here's Will's skill.
Everybody, where are my SmartList fans in the room? Come on. Will notoriously knows dates, years, behind everything.
You can tell him June 2006, he knows what he's wearing. Jason can't remember what he had for breakfast today.
Am I right? Sean Webby Award winner, best host. I thought you were going to say, Sean ate Jason's breakfast.
That might have been. Here's what I want you to do.
I'm putting tasks. Putting tasks out there.
You're going back in time thinking of somebody that these guys would not know. Somebody from your past that they would not.
You know what? Jason, go back in time. Think of the first girl you ever had a big crush on.
Think to how old you were at the time. I got it.
And tell them, because if I'm listening to this on my podcast right now, I'm saying this is set up, this is fake. Before today and me asking you to think of her, has it been days, months, or years since this person popped in your mind? Years.
Years. Yeah.
They didn't even know it was going to be on the show. Count the number of letters in her first name just to yourself.
No, don't use your fingers. Jason, I can see your fingers.
Okay, you're yelling at me. I'm fucking nervous that you're going to guess it and I'm going to be all freaked out.
This is coming out at your time, Howard. Five letters.
Was it five letters? Yes. I watched your eyes.
Okay. He has not thought of this person in years.
This is not set up because if it was, it'd be going better. Tell us all, for everybody listening, I have written down, everybody in the room, don't say the name, but if you can see what I wrote down clear as day, everybody in the room, say yeah.
Yeah! Close your eyes for me, Jason, close your eyes. But if you get this, like, you're going to be in my life the rest of my life.
That is what I do. Because I'm never going to let you go.
Like a splinter that doesn't leave. Wow you let her go but go ahead you haven't thought of her in years i wrote it down everybody in the room has seen it how old were you at the time jason 14 14 and tell us what was this young lady's name uh paula i wrote down paula 14 for those who can't see jason's face he is in shock.
Yeah, like, why aren't you a trillionaire on Wall Street? It's my former job. Will, Will, you thought of something.
You're wasting this at Stephen Talkhouse. I'm monetizing.
We're in the Hamptons, Jason. Trust me.
I'm monetizing. Will, Will, you're back in time.
You're thinking of somebody. Jason's shook up, by the way.
I wish they could see his face and not just hear the text of his voice. That's the most surprising his face gets, by the way.
You know, what do you think your face is doing right now? Smiling? No. It's very good that you smile.
Sean, how about this? All right. You read his mind.
You were so confident with Jason, and then you had no idea. He just sees cookies.
Is there any way in the world, Will, that Sean knows who popped in your head when I asked you to think of somebody from your past? No. Okay.
Take a pad of paper. Yep.
Sean, here's the game plan. Okay, I'm so scared.
I need you to act. Good luck.
Sean, look at my hands. Yeah.
And can you tell everybody listening in, I'm going to pretend in a moment I have a crystal ball in my hand. Do I actually have anything in my hands? Zero, nothing.
Everyone in the audience, is there anything in my hands? No. Sean will swear up and down that he saw a crystal ball appear in my hands and in it the name of your friend as a kid or whoever this person is.
Have you written down a name? I have. Can anybody see it right now other than you?

I don't think so. Sean,

look into Will's

soul.

And tell him, what name

did you see in that crystal ball?

Tell him, before I walked in here,

we've spoken a word in our life, Sean. Never.

Tell him, who's he thinking of? Say it.

Scott. You fucking, what?

Turn around, show the audience. Fucking what? I can't hear you in this room Are we seeing the same show? How is that possible? How is that possible? Holy shit That is unbelievable Thank you very much for having me guys Huge fan Huge fan Incredible So guys How do you introduce a man who needs no introduction because he's one of the most famous people on the planet, plus he's on the poster outside? He's the king of all media, the interviewer of all interviewers, the winner of Best Hair in America, four years in a row.
He's a great artist, a great painter.

More sincere.

Yeah, no, I lost my thing.

And he is incredible.

He's the most amazing person.

And now his home for 20 years has been SiriusXM,

which is now ours, which makes us roomies.

It's the most incredible icon of all time, Howard Stern.

Ever.

Yes. Howard Stern.
Ever! Yes! Oh, man. You know, all my years in radio, nothing works better on radio than magic.
Yeah, sure. You guys are on to something.
It's a great note. I told you, Arnett.
I don't want to come off like an expert. I've only been doing this for like 50 years.
You've also made Howard the second guest. I remember.
When's the last time you weren't the lead guest? I know, and I remember having Amazing Kreskin on, and the audience was amazed as I described everything that was going on in the room.

The play-by-play was unbelievable.

Yeah.

He made a table lift, and I go,

if you were here now, you'd see a table lifting off the ground.

And people are like, no wonder this is such a great radio show.

First of all, welcome to SiriusXM, the glorious world of SiriusXM. I'm a huge fan of the company, so welcome.
You know, I don't even know how long I've been with SiriusXM. Since it started.
You started it. When I started, we had 200,000 subscribers.
And I remember walking around in, I don't even know where I was, somewhere in Manhattan, handing out radios for free, hoping that someone would take one. And it was a harrowing experience leaving terrestrial radio and coming to Sirius, but it was the best decision I ever made.
And you weren't allowed to talk about it too, right? When you were at the very end there, when you were on terrestrialville Radio, I remember that. Yeah, it was a very strange time in my career.
I was on regular radio and I somehow convinced them that it would be okay if I talked about the fact that I was leaving regular radio and going to satellite radio. And then they told me, okay.
They said, don't mention Sirius Radio, just call it something else. So we called it, eh, eh, eh for it, though, because we had all sort of heard that satellite radio was coming and I was a little circumspect.
Which one are you? You're Jason. I'm Jason.
I was like, well, I don't know if I want... Satellite, I've got to get a different radio for that.
When you went to satellite, it was like, oh, it's okay now.

I'm going to go to, it was like when Fincher went to Netflix,

it was like, oh.

You do forget because things move rather rapidly,

but it was a very strange time because there was an effort

by regular radio to say what a failure I would be.

Right.

And they were putting out that anyone who went to satellite radio,

your career would be over, you would disappear forever.

And, you know, so there was this big campaign to discredit satellite radio. But I knew deep in my heart that satellite radio would be successful.
And now I look around, everybody's got a fucking microphone in their house. Everybody's on the radio.
You ridiculous. You want to hear the most aggravating things.

I do love you guys, but a couple things.

Jason and I,

the only person I didn't know was Sean.

It's nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, and

I do want to ask you about your

classical piano.

And I want to ask you about your guitar playing.

I'm most impressed with your

classical piano. Well, you guys will get some time after

the interview.

But here's the thing, I want to tell you that

and your guitar playing. Yes, I'm most impressed with your classical piano.
Well, you guys will get some time after the interview. No, but here's the thing I want to tell you that annoying me.
Can I tell you this? Yeah, yeah. So Jason was over at my house and I have mad respect for Jason.
I think he's a fabulous actor. Incredible, one of the best.
Wonderful guy. He's overcome a million and a great time for you to call me Justin.
You hear the problems. Oh, he's had a lot of problems.
A lot of fucking problems. A lot.
And he still has a bunch. Yeah, he's got a lot of problems.
Look at him. We could go on all day.
But, you know, I'm talking to Jason, and I'm feeling very good about my own career and everything, and Jason goes, you know, man, it's crazy. We, like, started this thing out of our basement, like a radio show.
And I'm like, oh, here we go. Yeah.
Cool. And he goes, yeah, we started a thing, and, and like it was just the three of us sitting around and we talk and we just crack each other up and everything I don't know what's going to happen with it man but it's they're telling me it's like the biggest thing ever oh shit I didn't say that oh yeah no way oh yeah you did yeah so so I go oh this is great again I spent my I spent my life begging people to put me on the radio.

It was rarefied air if you even were allowed on the air.

You had to work on your voice, this and that.

You had to work on the content.

You had to make sure you get people.

He's clowning around.

So listen, it's over.

What can I say? I know, but you talk about perfecting your craft.

You hide your bitterness really well.

Oh, I'm so bitter.

So bitter.

You talk about perfecting your craft.

So how did you first meet the WACPAC? Oh, that's an excellent question. It is.
I want to know because you did. You found like the craziest group of people available and put them together.
How did that come together? The WACPAC? Listen, when I was on the radio and it was brutal. In order to get an audience and to maintain an audience every 15 minutes they take the ratings in radio uh it isn't like this like where you go you know we have a lot of people listening you know it could be three people listening to this nobody knows nobody cares right but you're on the radio and every 15 minutes they take ratings right and what are you are you going to do to hold people's attention? But you found all these people like this, like kind of...
But look, I found people that I was interested in. Right.
I'll never forget the day. I was on the radio, and I took a little bathroom break, and I walked by my green room.
The lights went up. I'm looking at the room, and there he is.
Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice.
Yeah. You know my show? Jason, you ever hear my show? It was...
In high school, I listened to it a lot. There was a guy named Beetlejuice who's very popular, even to this day on the internet.
It's insanely popular. Right, right.
So, you know, I said, this guy's a star. He's going to be fantastic.
Yeah, be quiet so they don't hear him. Shh, this guy's going to be a star.
This guy's going to be a star. And sure enough, he was.
No, I mean, I was always looking for interesting people. I have a question about that.
Early on, where did you get the balls to not give a shit about the consequences of what you were saying and what you were doing on air? Where do you get that from? Because do you think you would have that now if you started your career now with the same personality? Since we live in cancel culture, go ahead. I believe I was technically insane.
I mean, I don't, I can't even. Like self-sabotage? Like you had like this level of indifference? No, not self-sabotage Well, here's the truth In my family, words meant nothing My mother would say, actions only mean anything And I guess I took her literally Howard, what would you consider would be the sort of the turning point in your career? Where you kind of broke through Because, again, you started, you had all these, you sort of, you keyed into this kind of thing,

you know, with odd characters on your show.

But what was the turning point where you felt like

you broke through to a bigger audience?

I had a miserable failure in Detroit.

I got hired to be the morning man at WWWW in Detroit,

which are the worst call letters for a radio station.

I get on there and go, WWW

Detroit W4.

I don't know what I'm doing.

So I

was hired to be the morning man.

I had had some success in Hartford. Not a huge

success, but success.

And I got hired in Detroit.

And there was a radio consultant who said to me,

do not go to Detroit.

There are four rock stations.

And out of the four, the one that you want

I'm going to go and people would say, what do you do for a living? I'd say, oh, I'm the morning guy in W4. They go, oh, is that station still on the air? Nobody listened to this thing.
W4 was a short version of WWW. W4, Detroit's W4, the worst.
So, yeah, I went on the radio in Detroit. It was a tremendous failure, and I said, what am I doing wrong? And I sat with it, and I thought, I've got to really just, I guess, lose all inhibition and admit to everything and just see where that goes.
And when I went to Washington, D.C. You kind of hit bucket.
It was like it was not going great, and you and he was like might as well throw it all against the wall but i have to give the credit to also robin quivers i met her in washington and she was phenomenal the chemistry was great and a program director put us together and i went on the air with her and i started to become very confessional and people respond we shot up to number one in a record of time. Because it was real and honest.
And so that was the moment when you started getting really real about your own life, that started to change it. Yes.
And did you notice being real about your life? Because so much, you know, anybody who's listening to the show knows that you talk about what's going on in your life, what you did on the weekend, new haircut, new clothes, whatever. That a second.
I was masturbating at least three times a day and talking about it. I was trying to like – my kids are here.
Oh, sorry. And I'm not sure there's been a new haircut.
How many do you have exactly? I mean, we're looking into it. But the point is – We've got to find out.
The point is – Where's Jimmy found? You talked about so much about your personal life. Was there a point where talking about your personal life hurt your relationship? I don't mean necessarily even romantic.
I mean, hurt relationships because people were nervous about talking to you at a party? Well, it hurt everything. But I didn't care.
All I cared about was my job, keeping that job, and getting audience and ratings. And that is a disaster for your personal life.
But do you wave at somebody on the street and go like, hey, and they're like, fuck, man, I don't want to say hi to them because I'm going to end up on the show tomorrow. Yes, I mean, people thought...
Not only that, I went through a very strange period of time. I don't want to get all heavy about this because everyone knows this show is not heavy.
No, no. I don't want to get heavy.
We're going to make you cry before you're out of here. Okay, well, I'll do that.
What it was is that I was very insecure about my career. I wanted this thing to take off in the worst way.
And so I even had a policy about I stayed in my home after I did my show. I never went out.
I was insane. I didn't want to meet anyone in show business because I was talking on the air about a lot of people.
And I didn't want. So I just stayed in my house.
I planned the radio show, did it, and went home. And the stuff I was doing was so outrageous and so entertaining to the audience that it blew up.

I mean, in New York, we had 25 million listeners and one out of every four cars on the Long Island Expressway

was listening to me.

Wow.

And it was pretty phenomenal.

But you have no...

But I had no life.

Don't applaud.

I had no life.

But Howard...

Where's Bradley Cooper?

He's so good looking.

But Howard, that shifted. If I looked like that, I wouldn't have to go on the radio and say shit.
And we will be right back. Listen to The Unusual Suspects with Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell, a new podcast on Audible.
Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell joined forces to interview luminaries of entertainment, sports, business, politics, and more to learn about their paths to success. These deep yet casual conversations reveal unexpected stories that may just change the way you think.
Featured guests include our friend Jimmy Kimmel, the longest running late night TV host. Isn't that interesting? David Chang, who is on our show, who's fantastic.
He's the renowned chef and founder of the Momofuku Restaurant Group. Listen to The Unusual Suspects with Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell on Audible now.
Go to audible.com slash unusual suspects. Hey, guys, you want to know an easy genius hack to improve your life? Eat more Reese's peanut butter cups.
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Found wherever candy is sold. This episode is supported by FX's Dying for Sex, starring Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate.
Inspired by a true story, this series follows Molly who after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis decides to leave her husband and explore the full breadth of her sexual desires. She gets the courage and support to go on this sex quest from her best friend Nikki who stays by her side through it all.
FX is dying for sex. All episodes streaming April 4th on Hulu.
And now back to the show. Howard, that shifted though, because, and it was about, I'm going to say almost 10 years ago, maybe a little bit more, where you started hanging out with a lot of people and your life changed.
And you became kind of one of the people that used to talk in a certain way, right? Not one of the people, but you became friends with a lot of people. I did.
And you allowed celebrities into your life. You became friends with people like Jason Bateman from TV and film, who we all love.
Well, my dream was to be friends with Jason Bateman. Sure.
There's only one way I'm going to get this by. It's our dream too.
But it shifted. Like I remember back in the, I mean, years ago, you remember you used to call Chevy Chase's house all the time.
You used to drive him crazy. I told you I was insane.
I know. But then it changes it because you have to meet those people out in the world.
Well, Chevy ended up coming to my wedding, which is even more important. And got up to make a beautiful speech to myself and my bride, and then stated to the audience that I had given him herpes, which was really weird.
But I loved it. But your audience is bigger today than it's ever been, and you're not doing all of those sort of shocking things.
You're doing measured, deep conversations,

long-form interviews with very sophisticated people.

Well, because I think any good performer,

and you guys are great performers, and you know this,

you must evolve.

The show, you know, I used to say this.

Now, Rush Limbaugh, forget the politics.

You know, he had a very big following, but it was the the same thing every day you could predict what he was going to say some people like that because it's like comfort and whatever comfort to them but for me as a performer i felt i want the show to be funny i also want to be able to interview people i want it to be broader and i made a conscious decision to shift the show and change it around and to me it was way more exciting because the the the common thought was well howard will go to satellite and now the show's gonna be so fucking filthy and everyone's gonna be out of their mind and it's gonna and the strippers are gonna be able to fuck on the air and did you miss those constraints no no the 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.
And that's fun. That's tension, right? But then I got to satellite.
The 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 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 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 let's make it simpler let's make it simple you know it wasn't it would be really creepy to be my age and still doing a show the way i did it when i was 30 when.
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. Now, now, it was not a ratings ploy.
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.
Jesus. 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 us. 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. He wrote 1,000.
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 I started, in 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 too. Not for being Jewish, but for being gay.
He's going to get to the question. Oddly, I was bullied for being gay, and I wasn't.
Crazy. I got bullied for everything.
I said, 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? 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. I'm'm asking you because you had a mother with a glass eye.
Yeah. So my father had this glass eye.
And 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.
And it... What do you mean? Oh.
I told you you shouldn't have an audience with this guy. By the way, the same.
I open up the box. Yeah.
Of course. It's my father's glass eye.
Wait a minute. 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. It'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.
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. Hi, Beth.
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? And 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 when 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 form.

You needed to confirm?

My mom wear kind of shades,

like a tinted glasses.

It wasn't the confirmation of the glasses.

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.

He 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 out how to... 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.

What?

I go, I'm not going to throw my... I said, imagine my father's eye wash.

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?

Well, I got it sitting in a box.

Yeah, of course you do.

You got to hold on.

You don't tossing in the fucking ocean.

No, you're not.

No, my mom...

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. We got our quote.
That's the title of this episode. And so my mom.
There are a few differences between Irish Catholic. Just a couple.
But not gays and Jews. Right.
But so my mom weren't allowed to do it. 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.
I'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.
God. Wow.
It's true. We may...
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 one 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.

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.

There was a guy

on my block, a kid on my block, five-year-old kid

said to me, he came up to me, he said, my parents told me your father has a glass eye. I was so freaked out.
Yeah. We got into a fist fight.
It's probably the only fight I ever won. Yeah.
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's 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 uh you would you know so no one could figure out the lock my father kept his eye with his porno so the eye My father had porno, you know, like he had some erotic books and things.
If you met my mother, she's not exactly putting out. My mother once said to me, you know, I prefer to be celibate, but your father has knees.
I go, really? That's gross. But fucking somebody in the eye is in.
Go ahead. 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, the eye.
But then finally... 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 tell me uh but i broke her down and it was a terrible accident when my father was young he was he put some film in a in a bottle and the bottle exploded he lit it and it exploded in his eye when he was a little kid yeah so and my father had a fabulous attitude about his eye in the sense that he i didn't see any evidence that he 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? Oh, I don't know. Oh, you're sleeping.
Like, it was, just like that. 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? No, but do you get it? If you want it for the holidays, you...
Yeah, sure, I could do it. She could pass it around.
We did... One really quick question.
I've said this on the show before, but we used to take... My mom used to go bowling on Thursday nights, and we used to go upstairs.
We used to invite friends over, and we'd had Shane on the door. And we'd go upstairs and get her extra eye.
She had two. And she was 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? With 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 and look at pictures.

Yeah.

I mean, I did.

But, you know.

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.

Yeah.

It looks like the movies and the postcards got it.

It looks the same.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We had a great time.

Did Jimmy Amali somehow convince you and Beth that this is going to be great?

No.

I had said, you know, my wife wanted to travel and I wanted, you know, human being for my wife. 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, and She's barely confirming that, listen.
I know. Poor woman.
Imagine, you know, think Think about it That was a nod Imagine you know 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 Jesus Christ And I felt horrible I felt horrible But she's a good sportsman. Took her like a champ.
Jesus 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,

woo.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like,

oh.

Like the brindle fly,

you know.

Howard,

do you have any,

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.
And I thought, well, if someone comes on the air and they're talking, I could 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 um insulting uh and why because i was trying to be funny robin williams is way funnier than i am let him be funny right but being the insecure child that i was and and somehow having some connection with an audience where i was intuitive and thinking i could hear when they're turning off the radios i i if somebody gave a long answer or it wasn't moving fast enough if the rhythm wasn't right yeah i could hear the radios clicking off and so i really had no business having guests on it's funny you're really you're really honest about that in your self-assessment of of that time in your 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 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. And 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...

You'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't hold an audience on a mass right you know jimmy fallon sitting on 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.
I 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 seriously to that point no offense but I think I'm the interview I guess I guess I just haven't delivered the goods Jimmy why don't you take over this always? 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.
And 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 his face. Here we go.
He's never going to leave. You know that.
Once Jimmy comes on. They got a mic for him now.
Get the Fallon mic. I love this.
Jimmy Fallon. I love it.
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? No. 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. 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.
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. Jimmy, one Gilbert Gottfried impression, for Christ's sake.
Thank you. I just want to say, my wife, my beautiful wife, Paula, is in the audience.

She dated you when you were 14.

Anyway, you haven't talked to her in a couple of years.

Give her a call.

Paula Javonen.

I love Jimmy very much, by the way.

I want to tell you.

We love Jimmy.

Who doesn't love Jimmy?

Fallon.

I'll let you in on his 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. Jimmy, right? We're going to be in a, what is that called? An RV? An Airstream.
Wow. 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 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. Yeah.
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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? It wasn't that.
No, no, no. But I once got, my publicist 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. No, no, no.
Get out of here. I'm paraphrasing.
But it was absolutely true. You know what I was like? Honestly, and I've said this to Jason.
I said, look, I could Google you and find out enough stuff. I don't really need to sit and talk to you.
There's nothing like that about anybody. What have you done? I'd rather talk to a...
Stop it. No, 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. And I wanted Bruce Springsteen.
I begged him to come on. I just wanted to come on.
Yeah. That's a white whale.

It was unbelievable.

He's sitting in a room with Bruce, and he's doing a concert, basically,

and talking about how he creates songs.

Yeah.

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. My 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.

WRNW.

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 segue, 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 had to get the commercials lined up.
It was just you in a little room in a house somewhere up in the woods. It 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 unradial.

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. No, but when I'd walk around college, nobody seemed to pay attention to me.
I 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.
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. It 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, 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? I 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 to help somebody.
Do you get starstruck around musicians? I admire musicians and I know how hard they work at it. But is that the group that if anyone was going to get you starstruck, that or athletes or musicians? Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Who? 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 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? Old 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.
B-E-A-T. He was like, Clap if you were with me.
Thank you. Meanwhile, that's why.
Did not know that until right now. I didn't know.
It just sucked the air out of the room. 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? They 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.

Hey.

Speaking of...

No, 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. You 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...
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. Honestly, this is a big deal for us.
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.
It's unbelievable. It's so fucked up.
No, no, no. You have not changed.
Oh, God. Beth, back me up here.
Like, what are you guys doing? I know you're not out there, like, running 10 miles on the beach every day. Is it just jeans?

I mean, you look exactly the same.

I look terrible.

No, no, Howard.

The only thing I will say.

You don't look exactly the same for the last 30 years?

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?

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? You've seen me with my shirt off.
She's busy talking. By the way, Sam.
Want to go Terps off? You want to go Terps off? We go Terps off? No, no, no. But you don't look like you ache or you're sore.
I can't fucking... I'm a mess.
No, no. No, you're not.
You seem like you're in great shape. Are you doing anything that we need to know about? Well, first of all, guitar, painting, let's get into that.
I do. Well, yeah, I do.
I paint. I like to paint.
It's incredible, the painting here. I don't know if you guys, people know? Okay.
And the photography. Thank you.
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 magnifying glass, but I don't use it for that.
Okay. Really.
You used it to read. I'm just telling you.
But it was there. I mean, I'm not fucking crazy.
No, it was there. It was there.
It was there. But, yeah, I enjoy those things.
I mean, it's really cool. When did you start playing guitar? Okay.
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.
For some reason, I wanted to paint in the worst way. So that's all in 10 years.
Yeah, I began to study watercolor, and I really focused on it. And you know as a pianist that you just have to focus on it.
It'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.
I'm an expert. Just two laughs for that.
I thought that was pretty good. It's a tough, pretty good.
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, but that you pursue things that still challenge you. Somebody your age is willing to do new things, is what you're saying.
Well, 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, no.
It 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. From guitar? No, from work.
I'm on vacation from work, so I can play some days, five, six hours. Really? So you must be good now.
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.
And 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 down.

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.

He was smart about it. Well, 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? I 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 would have been that? No, radio, it had to be radio for me. So it was never like architecture.
I was five years old. No, I announced to my family, I will be on the radio, which was ridiculous.
You were all in. It doesn't make any sense.
I don't understand it. But your dad was a sound engineer.
Yeah, well, he was a radio engineer. A 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 on Who was this 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 You get on the radio You did it to get your dad's attention I think so yeah Sorry yeah.
Sorry, just to follow up on that, if you don't mind, Jesus Christ.

Sorry.

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, God, I love you. 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, and 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.

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.

No.

I didn't say I was an idiot.

I said I'm fucked up.

Honey, come up here and tell people I fucked up.

Please come up.

She says I'm a lot. Honey, please.
You don't want to come up. Do you think...
Well, but, like, I don't think that people know... Like, if there was one misconception of you, do you have any idea what that might be? I mean, 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, you know, it was unfair.
You just go around saying, oh, well, that's an act on the radio. It was.
It was who I was. I had a lot of anger.
No, but it was a part of you, obviously.

But there's a choice to not be fucked up and just know how to manage that.

Yeah, but my attitude about radio, and I say this over and over again, was I just want to make people laugh.

I 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. It was sometimes painful for folks, and that was the funny part.
Part of that being honest, though, I remember when you spoke about your health scare, about having a little spot on your kidney. Thank God it was nothing.
And you revealed that was 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 where is that line, and is there anything? I'll tell you why, and you probably know this from from doing this now and 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 yeah a 95 chance you start to get letters from every know-it-all in the audience listen my mother died you you're fucked you're this you're that and i and i'm neurotic i am neurotic about health.
I don't want to know. Where's Bradley Cooper? I just want to look at him.
Come on. Come on, Bradley.
Sit up. There he is.
There's Bradley. Look at that.
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. of the most genuinely kind.
Can I tell you a Bradley Cooper story? We'd love to hear a Bradley story. Can 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 said, 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.
Oh, no. And I would love if you would come back as your Elephant Man.
Yeah. And so I said, oh, 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, thank you.
And we had a moment where we were both the elephant man immersed in our character. And it was one of the single biggest highlights.
Radio magic. That is.
Radio magic. Look it up.
You got to act with Bradley. I got to act with Bradley Cooper.
Very few people, you know. Very few.
This guy's one of our best actors. He is.
Rarefied air. Without a doubt.
And one of the greatest filmmakers we've got. Maestro was incredible.
That's right. And when he saw, he was so inspired.
Tell 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. I by the way thank you it's a thank you

howard it's a great movie thank you it is so good but i gotta tell you a funny story about because because this this leads into it it's insane uh so you know closer to the mic yeah so i wrote the book i wrote the book and uh 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 had just passed away, and Don Bucklewell, he's great.
But 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.

But 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? Uh-huh. 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.
Oh, you got to go? No, after that. No, you got to go.
After this. You have a hard out.
You have a hard out. Your people are really tough about it.
Yeah. 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.
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. I cannot.
Do you watch Traitors? Do you watch Traitors? No. I'm Bachelor Nation all the way.
Anybody else with me? Look, Jimmy Fallon's with me. Bradley? Sure.
Well, these people have a life. I love it.
Bradley, you do not watch it. Amanda loves it.
He does not watch that. Bradley watches Bachelorette.
That's the secret. He doesn't want anyone to know.
All right. Yeah, he loves it.
What time is it? It's time for you to go. 6.30.
Yeah, 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, 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. We'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, 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.

The only reason I watched it.

By the way,

the guy who did the warm-up today,

they had a warm-up.

O'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. Ose 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 on the protest.
We might embarrass you if you stayed and heard how much we were going to praise you.

Can I say something about you, Guy?

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 to have you guys in the family. Thank you for blessing us into it and by doing this.

I understand the serious 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. Thank you, everybody.
I can't get out of my chair. Howard 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. Because 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, right? Seriously. Sean was upstairs and we're like, what the fuck? It's an hour.
Just like writing. Any questions you didn't get to that we should listen to? Tons, tons.
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, so I love him, though.
I've been a huge fan. And by the way, I didn't share with you guys the first time...
What are you looking at? Nothing. I feel like you're working right now.
I am. I am.
Can you feel it coming? Yeah, 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 buy.
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.
This is going to be terrible. This 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? Jesus Christ.
For the live show? Sorry about that, guys. Sorry about that.
But the interview was fun, was it not? It was really fun. Thank you guys for coming.
Thank you so much for coming, you guys. Thank you 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.

Smartless. Hey friends, Jason here.
We're so excited to speak. Smart Less.
and a whole week early, subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com slash podcasts plus to start your free trial today. Let's listen in on a live, unscripted second grade Challenger School class.
They're studying Charlotte's Web. What words did this author use to describe this barn?

Descriptive words.

Wonderful.

Can you find some adjectives in there?

New is an adjective describing rope.

Webber is an adjective, and it modifies boots.

Those students are seven.

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