SmartLess - "Howard Stern LIVE"

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Our white whale Mr. Howard Stern joins us LIVE in The Hamptons. An amuse-bouche, a sit-down-Jimmy, two glass eyes, and the loss of all inhibition. Howard you doing? It’s an all-new SmartLess. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of SmartLess ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Mark Zito, and on behalf of Sirius XM, I want to thank you so much for coming out to Stephen Talkhouse for a very special, very intimate episode of Smartless. We go. We go. We go. That's up. Welcome. Thank you for being here.

You guys aren't really fans. You're friends of ours. 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, all right. Entertain us. We're very excited to be doing like, so we're going to do four live shows. Every year. Every year. You know, we're going to 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 here, listen to it on, whatever it is. And then we're going to do four live shows. This is our first one. Very excited about it. On top of that, we've got our white whale. People would ask me, like, who have you not interviewed that you want to? 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 give him that in a second. Is that your intro? I don't have an intro. Sean's got an intro. Look at the cards. I wrote a bunch of stuff for a week.

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 over-prepared and the best way I did cat in the hat with her. Go on. We got something to trim already. The audience is riveted by that story.

Fucking what? Dakota Fanning? Well, she's really smart and like prepared. I love that. But everybody here knows who our guest's 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 the

everybody warmed up to get us warmed up a little bit something Sean you don't know about uh oh yeah don't wait it's not your dad we still can't find him it's so fun because he left top speed you know he came

tears are still wet but I would tell you he came to the last show of Goodnight Oscar in Chicago yeah what you want us through that this is kind of a sad story I don't know if this we want to Yeah. But anyway, we can get back to that again. Keep going. That's a true story. He did. 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. My... That's correct. He emailed my... I'm sorry, he posted on Facebook that he went to the last show, and that's all he wrote. and my sister, 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. You look great. Yeah. And he just wrote back, Oscar Levant, just like I remembered him, that was it.

Isn't that, wow? Anyway. How long have you not seen him? 40 years. And he's in the theater with you. You just started in something. He didn't stick around to say, no.

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? 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.

Because hilariously she died. So Sean should be an axe murderer, right? I mean, but he's... Let's see how this goes. He's the nicest guy. He's the kindest, and we love him. Oh, we all have, we all have skeletons. Go ahead.

We love one-eyed parents. So we do have one surprise tonight, just so, you know, just trying to bring us out of the whole 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'm serious. I'm sorry.

Yeah, he's an Emmy winner. He's a finalist on a... 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 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 one. Wayfarers.

By the way, Jimmy, on all serious, is you were great in Jurassic World. I thought that was great. Down again. Again, down. But he is, he's done so many things. No, he's a big...

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 originally clients raging from A-less celebrities, heads estate, Fortune 500 companies, Guys, please welcome the amazing O's Perlman.

Just to pick us off. Guys, do a little something special for us. What? I didn't know. Not the coat of fanning, unfortunately. I know. Wait, as a surprise to Sean. He was waiting for me 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. Sean legit doesn't know anything about this.

Sean has no idea. This is wild. 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 Bush today, right? Yeah, yeah. Wait, this is so cool. This is so cool. Supposedly I read minds, but if I'm going to know how people think.

Yeah. Right? And you know what they're thinking at the same time. This is... Here's Will's skill. Everybody, where are my smartless fans in the room? Come on. Will notoriously knows dates, years behind.

Everything. You can tell them June 2006. He knows what he's wearing. Jason can't remember what he had for breakfast today. Am I right? That's right. Sean Webby Award winner, best host. I thought you're 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. 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's 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. 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.

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. I'm never going to let you go. Like a splinter that doesn't leave. Well, clearly you let her go, but go ahead. You haven't thought of in years. I wrote it down.

Everybody in the room has seen it. How old were you at the time, Jason? 14. Ooh, 14. And tell us, what was this young lady's name? Paula. Paula, 14. For those who can't see Jason's face, he is in shock.

Yeah, like, but why aren't you a trillionaire on Wall Street? It's my former job. Will, you thought of something. You're wasting this at Stephen Talk House. 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 surprised his face gets, by the way. You know, what do you think your face is doing right now? Smiling? It's very good. Sean, how about this? All right.

You read his mind. You were so confident with Jason, and then you had no idea. Is there any way in the world, Will, that Sean knows who popped to you? 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. 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 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... Good luck. What name did you see in that crystal ball?

Tell him what... Before I walked in here, we spoke in 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 you 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 in 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 painting. 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 serious X-M, which is now ours, which makes us roomies. It's the most incredible icon of all time, Howard Stern. Ever. Yes. All my years in radio. Yes. 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. 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. First of all, welcome to Sirius XM, the glorious world of Sirius XM. I'm a huge fan of the company, so welcome.

You know, I don't even know how long I've been with Sirius XM. 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. Yeah. And it was a harrowing experience leaving Terrestrial Radio and coming to series,

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're on Terrestrial 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 serious radio.

Just call it something else. So we called it, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, and, and, and, and, uh. And, uh, what you did for it, though, because we had all sort of heard that satellite radio was coming, and I was a little circumspect. And I was, which one are you? You're Jason. I'm Jason. That's Jason. And I was like, well, I don't know if I want, like, satellite, I got to get a different radio for that.

When you went to satellite, I was like, oh, it's okay now. I'm going to go to it. 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, you know, discredit satellite radio. Yeah. 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 three. You want to hear the most aggravating things.

But Howard, I do love you guys. But. Yeah. A couple things. Jason and I, the only person I didn't know was Sean. Right. It's nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

And I do want to ask you about your classical piano. All right. And I want to ask you about 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. Can I tell you this? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So Jason was over my house, and I have mad respect for Jason. I think you're a fabulous actor. Incredible, one of the best. Wonderful guy. He's overcome a million people. You know the problems? You know the problems? You know the problems.

A lot of fucking problems. A lot of. 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 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 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. So I go, oh, this is great. Again, I spent my life. Yes.

Like begging people to put me on the radio. It was rarefied air if you even were allowed on the air. 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... You hide your... You hide your bitterness really well. Oh, I'm so better. So better. You talk about perfecting your craft. So how did you first meet the whack pack? 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 whack... 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. 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. But you're on the radio,

and every 15 minutes, they take ratings. And what do you? going to do to hold people's attention? But you found all these people like this kind of... But look, I found people that I was interested in. 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. Beetle juice. Beetle juice. You know my... Jason, you ever hear my show?

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, right? 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 start 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, you had like this level of a difference?

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 told you. or 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 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 WWW

WW in Detroit. Which are the First call letters for a radio station. I get on there and go, WWW, Detroit, W, W, W, W, W, 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 they want to hire you at, dead last. Nobody even, I would go to parties,

and people would say, 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. W. Detroit's W4, the worst station. 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. bucket. It was like it was not going

great 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 amount 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 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. Wait a second. I was masturbating at least three times a day and talking about it. I was trying to, like, my kids are here, so. I'm not 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, is... You talked about... You talked about...

You talked about so much about your personal life. Was there a point we're 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. It hurt my, 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.

But 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 him because it's going to I'm going to end up on the show tomorrow. I mean, people thought, not only that, I went through a very strange period in time. I don't want to get all heavy about this because everyone knows the show is not heavy. No, no. I don't want to get happy.

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 so I didn't want to meet anyone in show business because I didn't 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 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 Expresso he was listening to me. Wow. And it was pretty phenomenal. But I had no life.

Don't applaud. I had no life. 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. 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 start. and you started hanging out with a lot of people, and your life changed, you heard. 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 Baton. Sure. There's only one way I'm going to get this. It's our dream, too.

But it shifted. Like, I remember back in the, I mean, years ago, you remember you used to call it Chevy Chase's household. the time. She 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 right? Out of

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 in a moment. Wow. 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 you're doing measured deep conversations long form interviews with very sophisticated people and

like so. 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 same thing

every day. You could predict what he was going to say. Some people like that because it's like comfort and whatever. They're 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 common thought was, well, Howard will go to satellite, and now the show's going to be so fucking filthy, and everyone's going to be out of their mind, and it's going to, and the strippers are going to be able to fuck on the air.

Did you miss those constraints? No, no, the constraints, by having 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, oh, 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, you know, 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 with different kinds of people. Let's make it simpler. Let's make it simpler. 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 I was 30, I was a hard. You were 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. No, but I mean now. Now it was not a ratings point now. And you are hands down the best interviewer in all of media.

Thank you. It's true. Without a doubt. Take the compliment, Howard. I'm taking the compliment. No matter what. My psychiatrist said you should be able to take a compliment. Yeah, yeah.

And this is what I'm doing. Yeah, like, not, not, not, not, doesn't matter whether it's comics or athletes or musicians or, or, or actors or whatever it is, you, you, you, you question them for us as us. I love that aspect of. And it's a layman's point of view. And it's, it's very curious. And you're listening.

You don't have a, you know, a bunch of fucking cards with questions on it. You're engaged in a conversation. and it was a true inspiration for us. Sean is holding up all his cards. By the way, let's let Sean get a question. He wrote a thousand. 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 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. We're going to get, I want to go. Wait, boy, wait.

Wait, bullying. Like, as a kid, I don't want to go. I was bullied to, 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. Well, 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. 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?

Is your mom still alive? No, she's dead. Okay. My father died two years ago. I know. I'm sorry to that about that. But I want to ask you a question. Yes, he has it.

Forget these other two guys. I'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. Same. There's so many things.

It's so fucking heavy. It's so great. But it's also, it's also funny. But when he died, I was given a box of his stuff. Yes. And it, what do you mean? Oh. Yeah.

I told you, you shouldn't have an audience of this guy. By the way, the same. I open up the box. Yeah. Of course. It's my father's glass eyes. Wait a minute. The same thing.

When my mom died, my sister passed it around and repackaged it. Each one of us, we open, 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. Beth. My beautiful Beth. Beth Stern. Where is she, honey? Where is Beth? Oh, there she is. Oh, there she is.

Oh, I love. I love you so much. 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, yeah. 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 like a kid. How old? Okay, here's the deal. How old were you and 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 are kind of shades like a sort of like a tinted glasses or something? It wasn't the confirmation of the glass. 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 if everyone was afraid. get really angry. You could throw that eye at you. You could. Yeah. But here's my question. So what? So now I have the eye and I said to my wife, I need to find that.

I can't just take my father's eye and throw it in the garbage. Like 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 night. She brought it here for you guys. No, it's a, so she says to me, throw it in the ocean. I go, I'm not going to throw my... I'm not...

Imagine my father's eye washing. 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. Yes, of course you do.

You got a whole... You don't tossing in the fucking ocean? No, you're at... No, my mom... You brought yours on stage. My mom... Same. We weren't allowed to ask about it.

Irish Catholic, same as Jewish. You just don't talk. You stuff it all down. Yeah. And you laugh at all. 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 difference between Irish Catholic. Just a couple. But not gays and shoes. Right. But so my mom, we weren't allowed to... So my whole life was like, I'd be at the store.

And the 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? would have, 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, it's true. It's true. It's That's it. This show has to be canceled. They're ridiculous.

That is very offensive. I made a terrible joke about that once 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 true story. And that's us making jokes about painful things. Yes. So her complaint after that, she thought that everybody looked like a cunt, right?

Isn't that what she said? Did she famously say that? When I was a little kid, I was five years old. There was a guy on my blog. kid on my block five-year-old kid said to me he came up to me said my parents told me your father has a glass eye i was so freaked out yeah we got into a fist fight i did it's probably the only fight i ever won i i i beat him up uh it was crazy and and uh and 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 um 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 when they would leave the house, which was infrequent. Nobody ever left my house. And you would, you know, so. No one could figure out the lock. My father kept his eye with his porno. So the eyes, my father had porno, you know,

like he had some erotic books and things. You know, if you met my mother, she's not exactly putting out. My mother, one said to me, you know, I prefer to be celibate, but your father has needs. I go, really? That's gross. Oh, but fucking somebody in the eye over then. Go ahead. Those 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 me, 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 saw himself as handicapped you know he did his thing so was he just proud is that the thing he just didn't want to I think he

I think it was a big pain you know it for him in his life seriously a seriously big pain you know wow and yeah it was a big issue my mom would sleep her eye was constantly open so when she slept she'd be like you know like this and I approached the bed and I'd like mom oh she's sleeping oh no she's not sleeping oh she's away 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 time share you get it

Like, if you wanted 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 a chain on the door,

and we'd go upstairs and get her extra eye. She had two in the box, and we'd get her, and they 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 risk 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.

Yeah. It was, 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. No way. 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, that looks like the movies and the postcards got it. It looks the same.

Yeah, we, we had a great time. Did Jimmy and Molly somehow convince you and Beth that this is going to be great? No, I had said, you know, my wife wanted to, you know, I wanted to be a 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 very.

Very romantic time, honey, right? Romantic. Romance was in the air. Romance happened. Barely confirming that, listen. I know. Poor woman. Imagine, you know, 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 sport. She took her like a champ. Jesus, right. I felt horrible. I felt horrible. But honey, it wasn't so bad, right? It was over quick. You're the king of the insects.

You're like, woo. Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, like the fly, brindle fly, you know. Howard, do you have any, is there any one interview you have that you regret? Is there anyone that you're like, oh, many, many, yeah. 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 number one in New York, and I thought, well, if someone comes on the air and they're talking, I could hear the radio's 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. Oh, yeah. And I just was ridiculously insulting.

And why? Because I was trying to be funny. Robin Williams is way funnier than I am. Let him be funny. But being the insecure child that I was. And somehow having some connection with an audience where I was intuitive and thinking I could hear when they're turning off the radios,

if somebody gave a long answer or wasn't moving fast enough, If the rhythm wasn't right, I could hear the radio's clicking off. And so I really had no business having guests on. It's funny, you're really honest about that in your self-assessment of that time in your life, now that you're older. And is that just a result of getting older? Or is this a result of doing a lot of working? 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 100-something channels. as long as the person who's paying for a subscription is happy with the product 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, 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... 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 doesn't hold an audience en masse.

Jimmy Fallon's sitting in our audience, right? When he does an interview, he can't do an hour interview. 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 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 that, yeah, the format helped me to evolve. Right. I have an actual question for Jimmy, you know, seriously. Seriously, no, to that point.

No offense, but I think I'm the interview. You'd be great. I guess I just haven't delivered the goods. Jimmy, why don't you take over? This always happens. Always happens. Why don't you get up and do a few Gilbert God freedom pressures? Go ahead, pal.

It has everything to do with what you just said, which is Johnny Carson. You 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. Oh, he's coming up to his station. Listen, he's never going to leave. You know that. Once Jimmy comes on. They got a bike for him now. Look at the Fallon mic.

I love this. Jimmy. I love it. Yeah. Come on, Jimmy. God bless you. Come on, Jimmy. Can I leave now?

No. No. Do 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, but I do wish that I can get into it and talk for an hour. I'm jealous when I, you know, can listen to you.

When you hear a real conversation. Yeah, I love it. Because when it gets going, it's great. And even with an audience, like you said, like, 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 provide, you guys do it better than anyone. You don't even forget about the other guys.

I don't know. But when I'm in the mood for a long-form thing, it's like there's no one better, you know? Thank you. Thank you. How much do you choose? Thank you, Jimmy. Jimmy, one Gilbert Godfried impression.

For Christ's sake. Thank you. I 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 years. Give her a call. Paula Chablin. I love Jimmy very much, by the way.

I want to tell you. Jimmy. Who doesn't love Jimmy? Fallon. I'll let you in on his secret. And Nancy Giovonan. 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 air stream. Wow. Yeah. 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. How much of that 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 when we're just sitting and doing our own thing. We'll be right back. And now, back to the show. 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... I remember... It wasn't bad. No, no, no. But I once got... My public 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.

But, you know, I'm paraphrasing. But it was absolutely true. You know what I was like, I said, 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. You're not about anybody. Really. 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 me. But there's also an audience in my group that likes to hear us doing, you know, bits and schick and, like, sitting and talking, Robin and I'm 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 yeah that's the white whale it was unbelievable he was 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 we do reach out and there are people I just love to talk to do you miss playing music at all

like being a disjockey no it never was about You know, it's weird. I play music and I talk over it. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's like I can't play. 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, WR&W, progressive music from the woods. And this is Crosby Still's Nash and 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. It was 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 are 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 unladial. You have no elucution. 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, When I'd walk around college, nobody seemed to pay attention to me. I think I had the worst person out.

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. Well, you weren't always, sorry.

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. Four years.

It took me 10 years just to get conversational. It was very slow. You guys are too talented. No, no, no, but in all seriousness. Playing records was horrible. Were you a fan of music, though? Oh, huge fan of music. You know, 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, you know, 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 me. Do you guys starstruck around musicians? I admire musicians, and I know how hard they work at it. But is that the group that would, if anyone was going to get you star, that or athletes or musicians? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who?

Who would be, who's the one that you haven't met? You'd be like, uh-oh, I can't talk. Oh, geez. Is it a beetle? Well, I've met Paul. Yeah. I'm Ringo, and they were great on the show. You want to take a temperature over the room about the name of the Beatles?

Oh, yeah. Do you guys know about this? Oh, old, old captain, brain, brain. What happened, well? Let's take an honest, honest thing of the audience. I didn't know my whole life. I thought it was the insect of the Beatles. I didn't know it was people who make beats.

The B-A-T. He was like... Clap if you were with me. Thank you. Did not know that till right now. I didn't know what? It just sucked the air out of the room. I want to thank the guys for that story.

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? for roast beef, right? Arby's, right?

Yeah? Why is it called Arbyes? 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. Arbiz. Oh, I see. Did not know that. Look at Will. We could do this all day long. This is going great.

Now wait, so speaking, speaking of really, 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 act 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. I'm happy to be here. Thank you. 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. And honestly, this is a big deal first. Well, 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. 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. 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 it. I got a belly and tits, right, honey? You've seen me with my shirt off. She's busy, talking. By the way, same. You want to go turps off?

You want to go turps off? Should we go Terps off? No, no, no. But you don't look like you ache or you're sore, I can't fucking... No, no, you seem like you're in great... Are you doing anything that... Well, first of all. I'm 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... Does it people know? Okay. And the photography, it's like... And the tiny sketching with the magnifying glass.

I like it. I don't use a magnifying glass. No more? No, I never did. I never used a magnifying glass. I saw your drafting thing. there was something. Yeah, I have a big magnify, but I don't use it for that.

Okay. I'm just telling you. But it was there. I mean, I'm not fucking crazy. No, you know, 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. And I'm going to blame Jimmy Fallon. You're going to jam with jelly roll tonight? No, no, no, no. Jimmy stand up.

There we go. Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy Fallon says to me. You're 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.

Oh, and you did that. I never drew, I never, you know, there ain't. For some reason, I had, I wanted to paint in the worst way. So that's all in 10 years. And I began to, yeah, I began to study watercolor, and I really focused on it. I mean, and you know as a pianist that you have to, you have to, 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 out. People go, oh, I don't have that. I'm a good focus on the penis 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 miniat?

wet and G. I do. All right. Then we can do it. Are you playing classical? Are you playing classical guitar? No, but I don't play classical guitar. Yeah, I'm starting 12-string guitar, man. No, no, no, no.

It hurts the fingers, though, doesn't it? Well, look at my, look at the tips of my fingers. Look at those calluses. Oh, my God. Yeah. So, how much do you play a day? Well, I'm on vacation now, so I can play. From guitar? No, from work.

I'm on vacation from work. Okay. So I can play, some days, five, six hours. Really? What? So you must be good now. Who's your favorite? Who's your favorite guitarist? Oh, Jesus.

Just name one of them, a few of them. Well, I mean, you got to say Hendricks. 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. 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, where Sean did, when 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 five, six, seven, eight 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? It had to be radio for me. So it was never like architecture. No, I announced my family. I will be on the radio. Which was ridiculous.

It doesn't make any sense. I don't understand it. But your dad was a sound engineer. Yeah. Well, he was a radio. radio engineer. 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. He was focused on you.

No, but I, but he would, he would, when I would see him commuting to work, and he put the radio on him, Bob Grant 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. Get on the radio.

You did it to get your dad's attention. I think so, 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 an incredible success in radio? Was there a moment where he, like, was there an actual moment where he went, holy shit, Howard? I think my mother put him out. You know, he just said, oh, oh, oh, yeah.

I love you. You know, he was not, my father, my father grew up in the depression. Yeah. He had nothing. When I say nothing, it was like literally no, like no shoes. You know, his father worked in a sweatshop as a pants pressure.

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 bottle up emotion, but he couldn't, he couldn't express it. And he didn't know how. He didn't have the facility. Which, but I would have loved to have known my father. I would have loved to.

Why do you think you're so well-adjustment, I'm not. I'm a mess. I'm still with a psychiatrist. Beth wouldn't be with an idiot. Wouldn't be with an asshole. I didn't say I was an idiot. I said I'm fucked up. You're not. Honey, come up here and tell people how fucked up.

Please come up. Well, what do you? She says I'm a lot. Honey, please. You don't want to come up. Do you think, do you, 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 to the... 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. Obviously, but there's a choice to, like, 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. Whether it's, 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. Right. Was I genuinely funny?

Sometimes, sometimes not. You were speaking the truth. You know, your observations were spot on. It was sometimes painful for folks, and that was a funny 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 that was you revealed like that was one of the first 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 what is where is that line and is there anything

i'll tell you why and you guys probably know this from from doing this now 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, a 95% chance. You start to get letters from every know-it-all in the audience. Listen, my mother died. You're fucked, do you, this, you're that. And I'm neurotic. I am neurotic about my health.

I don't want to know. Where's Bradley Cooper? I just want to look at him. Come on. Come on, Bradley. Shut 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. Bradley, I love you. Can I tell you, Bradley Cooper story? We'd love to hear a Bradley story. Can I tell you Bradley Cooper story? If it's positive. One of the greatest moments for me on the show,

but personal, 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. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Absolutely, brilliant. And I am a fan of the Elephant Man.

And Bradley's so serious about the Elephant Man, 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, so kind to show me. And sort 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. You acted up. You got to act with Bradley. I got to act with Bradley Cooper. Very few people. You know, this guy's one of our best actors.

Rarified air. Without a doubt. And he's one of the greatest filmmakers we've got. Myestro is 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. 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. It's a great movie. It's a great movie. It is so good. But I got to tell you a funny story about it because this leads into it. It's insane.

So, you know... Closer to the mic, please. So I wrote the book. I wrote the book and 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? 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, we just passed away, Don Buck will love. But he said to me, these scripts are so bad,

you'll be laughed out of it. So the movie studio said, Listen. Paramount? We're at the time. Reisher 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, by the way.

I said, I looked at me eye, and I said, you know what, I would pay to see that. I would love to see Jeff Goldblum as Howard Sturred. I think you'd be terrific. But anyway. This time, was there a plan for you to play the part? they wanted to actually go in the direction? 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? 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. You have a hard out. You have a hard out. People are really tough about that. 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, 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.

Oh, no way. I cannot. Do you watch traitors? Do you watch traitors? I know. Bachelor. 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. Amanda loves it.

He does not watch it. Bradley watches Bachelorette. That's the secret. He doesn't want anyone to not. All right. Yeah, he loves it. Um, what time is he? It's time for you to go. 6.30. You were, yeah, we're going to be over. We've taken it way too much. Way too much of your time. You're very kind of drive. By the way, and I feel we were 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. Is the show actually over? Do I leave and then you keep talking? We're going to leave and we're going to keep to, we're going to talk about you a little wrap up. Yeah. 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 at work. Go ahead. Let me hear what you guys do. And I'll tell you what I'll do. But here's, that's, but Here's the thing, but you got to be... 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. So, 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. Ose Perlman. You know what you can... A name built for show business. Here's what you can do 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 You might be, we might embarrass you if you stayed and heard How much we were going to praise you You can I say something about you guys

Yeah, okay This is going to hurt It's got to be good Thank you for having me Thank you Thank you. I'm very excited that you're part of the serious XM fans So are we are here

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 serious stock is going to go over $2.90. Now that you guys are here.

God bless, I can't wait. All 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. All right. That was surreal for me. I've never met him.

I know, you know, I didn't ever get to talk to. Was he what you thought he was going to be? Yeah, I was really, really nervous. I was 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, yeah.

Right? 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. No. Because he's the king of all of it. But he was also, he's 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. I was very, right? Immediately he took the reins and helped us and he started talking. And you wrote so many questions because you were so nervous. Seriously.

Sean was upstairs and we're like, what the fuck? It's an hour. Yeah. Just like writing. Any questions you didn't get to that we should listen to? Tons.

No, anything you're really pissed you didn't get to. Let's see. I mean, we talked about a lot of, I want to talk about Italy a little bit more and like his vacation. Like what's his ideal vacation?

We'll bring Jimmy on and talk about that. Okay. 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'm just trying to think. I'm just trying to think. I am. I am. So the first time... 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 teased himself up for it. Right. So the first time... But it's too early to do it now. We're still doing wrap up. We're wrapped up. 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 a bud. 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. And 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, did you, today, did you drive yourself over here? Did you ride your...

Bye! Bye, bicycle! Bye. Jesus Christ for the live show. Sorry about that, guys. But the interview was fun. Was it not? It was really fun.

Hey! Thank you guys for coming. Thank you so much for coming, you guys. We're going to stick around for jelly roll. Bye. Stick around for jelly roll. Thank you guys. And let's go on for jelly roll.

Enjoy some jelly roll. Yeah, jelly roll. Please stick around for jelly roll. Yeah, jelly roll is performing out there. We're so excited. Thank you, guys. Smartless is 100% organic and artisanly handcrafted by

Rob Armjarf, Bennett Barbicob, and Michael Grant Terry. Smartless.