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| Author | Post |
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| Mike Quasar Zero Tolerance Reluctant pornographer 1765 Posts 7/01 |  Posted - Aug 3 2009 : 12:45PM[Link] |
| SabrinaDeep Member 28 Posts 1/09 | Posted - Aug 3 2009 : 1:23PM Said this, Howard and his crew are fantastic, respectful, professional and who thinks that they mistreat the girls, they don't know what they are talking about. [Link] |
| RandomPrecision Senior Member Enjoy! 8175 Posts 3/06 | Posted - Aug 3 2009 : 1:34PM [Link] |
| monkey power Member Tim? 868 Posts 1/03 | Posted - Aug 3 2009 : 8:48PM For Shyla and Gianna, I'm awarding soul points to both of them. [Link] |
| Harri Patel Senior Member #SDNY he's all yours. -- Michael Steele 5110 Posts 3/03 | Posted - Aug 3 2009 : 11:06PM [Link] |
| monkey power Member Tim? 868 Posts 1/03 | Posted - Aug 4 2009 : 2:36PM I liked the Private Parts movie. And the show was good to listen to for like a year, but after that it was time to move on. I thought the thing that mainstreamed porn was how every male of the last 2 generations watched porn. [Link] |
BlackSix  All-Star Member pornography wasn't sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world 12377 Posts 9/07 | Posted - Aug 4 2009 : 7:15PM [Link] |
| BlackSix All-Star Member pornography wasn't sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world 12377 Posts 9/07 | Posted - Aug 4 2009 : 7:27PM Sirius and XM HAD to merge because they are both bleeding cash like a stuck pig, if they didn't merge they would've both folded. At the time of the merger XM had more subscribers than Sirius (see here) even though they didn't have the 'big names' of Stern and Martha Stewart. [Link] |
| Mike Quasar Zero Tolerance Reluctant pornographer 1765 Posts 7/01 | Posted - Aug 4 2009 : 9:53PM [Link] |
| BlackSix All-Star Member pornography wasn't sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world 12377 Posts 9/07 | Posted - Aug 4 2009 : 10:20PM [Link] |
| ameelynn1980 Member 629 Posts 9/07 | Posted - Aug 5 2009 : 12:32AM I did finally get to see the segment on Howard Stern On Demand yesterday (I no longer subscribe to Sirius, but I do subscribe to the On Demand service for a month at a time, a couple of times a year). Had hoped to watch it sooner, but my local cable company is extremely slow when it comes to updating the OnDemand feeds. Anyway, here are some general thoughts, in no particular order... THE GAME: I've seen some debate (can't remember if it was here or elsewhere) as to whether the Wheel of Sex is rigged. It is, without question, rigged to produce the most "hardcore" results. The show staffers have talked about it openly in the past and, in this particular instance, you even heard Artie allude to the fact that the wheel came to a rather hard stop when Shyla took her spin, saying "Boy, that slowed down, man." Also, if you look at the wheel (not only in this segment but in past segments), you'll note that of the eight options, four are red and four are yellow. If you take a closer look at the wheel, you'll see that all of the more "hardcore" options are the same color with the other color containing the more "softcore" options (e.g. JD plays with your breasts). Lastly, when the wheel is spun, there is always a stern staffer standing to the side (in this case, it was Will) holding on to the side of the game, under the pretense of stabilizing it while the wheel is spinning it. But if you watch where he places his hand, he's clearly got some kind a "stopper" rigged to the back of the wheel. His job is to get the wheel to stop on one of the red slices, which is pretty easy to do once the spin loses velocity and begins to slow down. But again, all of this detail is really kind of moot, as Howard and the staffers have acknowledged numerous times that the game is rigged. MY ONLY BEEF WITH THE WHEEL OF SEX: If they're going to call it the Wheel of Sex, it really ought to be all sex stuff. I fail to see how singing while a guy is farting near your mouth could be considered "sexual," save for the most hardcore scat freaks. The testicles dipped in pudding and then placed on the eyes is probably borderline, as well. At least there is some contact with sex organs, I suppose. GIANNA AND SHYLA: Gianna was awesome. She had a smile on her face the entire time, and she completely lit up the room. She was straightforward with regard to her answers to the questions that were asked of her, as well as her refusal to do the pudding on the eyes game (which, I agree with the other poster, she probably would have gone through with had Shyla not already backed out). She was cute and funny when she snuk the plugs in at the end (all the guys were shouting "NO! NO!" but they were also laughing at the same time). She even had a smile in the post-studio interview and said she had a blast. Quite honestly, I'm ten times the fan of hers that I was before this segment aired. Will continue to check out her movies and might try to attend a signing at some point down the road just to tell her in person what a cool chick I think she is. Shyla, on the other hand, was a complete bitch who looked and acted like she was stoned out of her mind. She couldn't even answer a simple question from Howard. She had to reply to everything he asked by saying "Maybe." What the fuck is that? And, as others have mentioned, what was up with the "another notch on my belt" nonsense? She just struck me as low class on every level, and not terribly bright, either. Maybe she thinks she deserves to behave the way she did... maybe she hasn't gotten the message that vapid, bitchy blondes with big tits are a dime a dozen in the porn world. It also seemed apparent that the girls were not told what would be on the wheel of sex (which I believe is always the case) and that, either their manager didn't do a very good job of explaining how it was expected to go down, or they were simply deluded into hoping for the best results (while not really giving much consideration to what could be the worst results). Even before the wheel was ever spun, Shyla made some kind of off-the-cuff remark about how if it landed on something she didn't want to do, she simply wouldn't do it. We see this a lot with the various Stern show games... people know how it works but they want to believe that they'll be the exception. The same look that Shyla and Gianna had on their faces was the same look that has been on the face of every contestant in the history of "Win Fred's Money." HOWARD'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS PORN STARS: I do think that Howard has, in the past, had a tendency to degrade porn stars when they were in the studio. That said, I think he's always been a sort of equal opportunity offender. Its not as if the man on the street, the wack packers or even his own staff get treated with much more respect... just about anyone who shows up in that studio who isn't an A-list guest (which themselves are becoming fewer and farther between) gets treated like a 2nd class citizen. I should also mention that I have never gotten the sense that Stern "hates" women in the way that some of these shock jocks do. Bubba the Love Sponge is one guy who, I'm absolutely convinced, must have an absolutely sociopathic attitude towards women (probably the result of being a huge fat-ass for so many years and couldn't get laid before he accumulated enough money to get himself his own trophy wife). Likewise, Sal Governale (who works for Howard) just comes across as creepy and vile when it comes to women. Unfortunately, when you delivery a broad range of comedy (as Howard does... more on that in a second), you're going to wind up attracting guys like this. I also believe that, now that he is getting older, has been remarried, is in what is probably the twilight of his career (e.g. he no longer really cares all that much about the show) and has daughters who are growing/grown, he has mellowed somewhat. I think that he is still very much titillated by what porn stars might bring to the table, but when now when he involves them in games, it seems like its a little more about them being a part of the joke, and less the butt of the joke. Had this game of Wheel of Sex gone down like it did ten years ago, Howard would have thrown Shyla and Gianna out of the studio with no questions asked, and then he would have railed on them for the next hour of the show. But in this case, we saw lots of laughter, no harsh words (from Howard, at least) and he even tried offering some alternatives, before he was shot down by his own staff members (many of whom do still give a shit... especially Gary who goes into the obnoxious pit bull role anytime a guest isn't performing up to what he feels was "agreed to" back in the Green Room). HOWARD AND SIRIUS... THE FUTURE To be fair, Sirius is no in the kind of trouble that it was as little as 6-8 months ago. Shares are now approaching 55 cents per share (up from 10 cents a share at one point). But they have a long way to go. While I don't buy Howard's claims of 60% of Sirius listeners at any given time are listening to his show, I do think that if he opts to leave at the end of the current contract, the company will probably take a very big hit in terms of canceled subscriptions. One of the goals of this five year plan was to position someone (it was initially considered to be Bubba) to be able to take over Stern's mantle when he left. But 3+ years in, they have yet to find anyone anywhere near as popular as Howard is (and Bubba blew his chances for taking over the Stern crown sometime around his third or fourth on air hissy fit about how little Sirius was paying him, accompanied by threats to quit the show, etc...) Marketing-wise, Sirius/XM has been a day late and a dollar short in almost every respect. The pricing structure of the new plan (if you want XM plus Howard or Sirius plus MLB) is still insulting to subscribers who—in advance of the merger—were told for months how we'd be getting all the content from both stations at the same low price. Attempts to leverage social media and technology have been a massive FAIL so far. Evidently, they are only just now starting to explore the idea of putting sample feeds up on YouTube. Wow... you're only about five years behind everyone else, Sirius. Maybe in another ten years, somebody there will get the idea to start streaming free samples (10-15 minutes) of your shows as podcasts. God forbid you give out a tiny fraction of your high-and-mighty product for free in hopes that it might just engage new listeners. It remains to be seen as to how the new iPhone app will pan out... Doesn't seem poised as a tool to help bring in new customers... just as a value-added tool for existing, paying customers. HOWARD'S HUMOR: CRASS OR HIGHBROW? There's no question that most of the humor on the Stern show is pretty lowbrow stuff. Ninety percent of the jokes involve shitting, fucking, farting, urinating, gay stunts, etc... I have two advanced degrees, and I'm not the least bit ashamed to say that I love it all. That said, Howard DOES work on another level with his comedy. Its not quite like an episode of "The Simpsons" where you'll see a clever visual gag that it funny in its own rite, but which also references some aspect of literature, art or culture. Rather, its more about how Stern very cleverly reveals our own hypocrisy when it comes to various issues, sheds light on the insecurities that we all have, makes us realize just how primal we can be at times, and how sophisticated we can be at others. So I very much see his show as one which offers a multi-layered brand of comedy. Unfortunately, the crass part of the humor has a tendency to attract the lowest common denominator of listener, some of whom——unfortunately——miss the big picture and wind up thinking, "Hey, I can treat women this way because Howard treats them this way. I can refer to a black person as a ni**er because Howard has used the word in the past." The overall message doesn't process with them. Anyway, that's my two cents. Sorry my thoughts weren't very well organized. [Link] |
| EthanConner Member 319 Posts 11/07 | Posted - Aug 5 2009 : 3:46AM [Link] |
| ma meeshka Iconoclastic Member 3939 Posts 4/06 | Posted - Aug 5 2009 : 4:18AM I think the whole issue is a nonissue. Nothing to see here. [Link] |
| Rosco Fuji Deactivated User On the licking stick, Mr. Magic Dick! 3309 Posts 2/09 | Posted - Aug 5 2009 : 3:13PM He's been doing it for years, so no real suprises going on. [Link] |
| wraithlead Member 264 Posts 12/08 | Posted - Aug 5 2009 : 4:47PM Edited by - wraithlead on 8/5/2009 4:48:39 PM [Link] |
| Mike Quasar Zero Tolerance Reluctant pornographer 1765 Posts 7/01 | Posted - Aug 5 2009 : 6:17PM About as much as professional sports or Motley Crue or Entourage on HBO; he's entertained me and continues to do so therefore he is relevant. [Link] |
| wraithlead Member 264 Posts 12/08 | Posted - Aug 5 2009 : 11:31PM [Link] |
| Mike Quasar Zero Tolerance Reluctant pornographer 1765 Posts 7/01 | Posted - Aug 6 2009 : 1:04AM I get it; you don't like Howard Stern, hip-hop, Entourage or anything else that doesn't in some way elevate humanity and you're expressing these lofty ideals on a board dedicated to jerking off. Nothing wrong with this picture. [Link] |
| BlackSix All-Star Member pornography wasn't sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world 12377 Posts 9/07 | Posted - Aug 6 2009 : 4:12AM [Link] |
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