Friday, December 16, 2005
Stern's Farewell
There was a lot of praise for “we” in Howard Stern's farewell speech, when he really meant “I”. It's surprising that performers who talk for a living can't be more effective, more articulate. Public speaking is a special skill. Stern focused on the audience in what he did say to the crowd outside his studio on his last day on terrestial radio; he spoke about the way the impassioned loyal audience had empowered him to trump the commercial forces that run radio stations and would censor him — the large vocal audience at least provided a holding action. Stern picked up a commentator's term as a refrain: “last of a dying breed”, to acclaim what “we” had done.
With all the emptiness of such a spectacle — a sometime entertaining radio show is forced to another venue — there is the telling truth Stern mentioned at the end with justifiable anger: he is being driven off the public airwaves by the thought control police who have been enabled by the current administration; a government agency acting in this instance as an arrogant enemy of free speech. It really didn't matter that Stern wasn't articulate — Stern's anger about that sad truth has a communal ring.