A radio blog that's made of Sterner stuff, 5/15/2006, by Greg Connors
Morning radio personality Howard Stern last week told an Associated Press reporter that he has no interest in returning to "terrestrial radio," after moving his show to subscription-based satellite radio this past January. Stern said he has grown accustomed to the lack of censorship on Sirius, though there are industry rumors that Stern is being wooed to return to the FM dials due to his smaller daily audience of 1 million to 2 million on Sirius.
Stern fans who aren't willing to pony up $12 a month for a Sirius subscription have an alternative that is free, though certainly not a perfect substitute. For the past 10 years, a blogger named Mark Mercer has been writing complete daily recaps of Stern's show at his Web site, "Mark's Friggin Howard Stern Stuff" www.marksfriggin.com.
Mercer, 37, admits he is not a very skilled writer, but his talents lie in the sheer exhaustiveness with which he live-blogs every minute of the show, including Stern's frequently off-color language and subject matter. Like Stern's show itself, there are entertaining bits in Mercer's chronicles that make the other stuff worth wading through. Some highlights from the recaps of several shows last week:
7 a.m.: Mary Jo Buttafuocco, the ex-wife of Joey Buttafuocco, calls in. "She said that she used to get more angry about how people would always talk about Joey and Amy [Fisher's] relationship instead of what Amy did to her by shooting her in the face," Mercer wrote.
8:55 a.m.: Dennis Rodman visits the show, and discusses his former relationships with Madonna and Carmen Electra. Stern sidekick Artie Lange tells Rodman that he "may be their best satellite guest."
10:35 a.m.: "Howard took a call from a guy who asked when Howard's show is going to be streaming on the Web. He said that they will be starting that in June and the reason it took so long is because they had to build up the network to handle the traffic."
10:20 a.m.: "Howard asked that the people from AARP please stop sending him stuff. He's a young man and doesn't need to be reminded of his age every 5 minutes. He said that his girlfriend is pretty young and getting stuff from AARP doesn't exactly turn her on."
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