Anyway, on “Meet the Shrink” Howard has a life-coach named Dr. Judith McGrath do a therapy session with a whack packer. Tonight was the first episode and Dr. McGrath had “Jeff the Drunk” on the couch. Jeff’s appearances on the Stern show are legendary. He’s an angry, sloppy, drunken cowboy who makes obnoxious comments to anyone who gets in his way. The guy is a total mess.
Tonigtht Jeff’s clown makeup came off. As the therapy session starts we learn that Jeff was in a car accident that paralyzed his arm from the shoulder down. He said he was a really athletic, but that after the accident he gain weight, and gained weight. He got older, started losing his hair, and started drinking more and more.
He wasn’t laugh or being obnoxious, he was talking a really low, sad voice–it was gut wrenching. The guy was almost in tears a couple of times. He said being sober was pointless because women didn’t consider getting to know him anyway.
It was brilliant radio, perhaps the most compelling thing I’ve heard Stern do–except Stern wasn’t even on the radio at the time!
That’s when I realized Howard having two, 24-hour channel has given him the bandwidth to go deep–really deep.
He’s really going to change radio.
John Tokash 