Another Year Older and Deeper In...

Looking back on 2012, it’s nice to realize that it was a year of learning new things, exploring new frontiers (Mount Kilimanjaro!), and making discoveries in everyday areas of life here in the Hamptons.

Most recently, I have discovered the wonderful pleasure of sitting in my car and listening to Howard Stern. I recently got a new car that comes with a subscription to Sirius satellite radio, which is something I’d once thought was reserved for crazy people. Pay money to listen to the radio? That is the stupidest thing I ever heard!

I’ve been wrong. Oh God, I been wrong all along. Howard Stern has shown me the error of my ways.

The other day, I did not want to get out of my car while I was listening to an interview he was conducting. I sat in my driveway, the car parked and running, laughing like a maniac. My neighbors must have thought I was crazy.

Howard Stern has a house in the Hamptons, but I have not listened to him in the last 10 years because I never had satellite radio. But hearing him in my car, it felt as if he was sitting right next to me, having a conversation. And as funny as he is, it’s not always about being the outrageous “shock jock” he’s thought to be by many people.

The most recent show I listened to was an interview he did with a famous rapper named The Game, who grew up in a gang neighborhood and has been shot and been in jail, and grew up in a world where it was normal to hate people not wearing the correct gang color. I was amazed at how openly the rapper was willing to speak with Stern, and how Stern was able to really capture what his entire life is like. Incredible.

That being said, I see no other benefit to having satellite radio. Yet Howard Stern just may be enough of a reason to keep this in my car. I have a feeling that everyone in the satellite radio business sort of knows this, and I think Stern knows this, too. That’s why he’s been able to get paid so much money for sitting down in a chair and having people listen to things that he has to say.

This kind of talent fascinates me. For one guy to be able to go on the air at a radio station and have millions of people completely captivated by the things coming out of his mouth is hard to process. I mean, if you think about it, all he is really doing is having a simple conversation with people—some famous, some not. But he draws you in. It’s completely natural. It feels like he’s talking to somebody at his house and having breakfast with them, and you’re invited. And he’s making millions doing this. Millions. I’m jealous. But maybe not as jealous as the millions of people who don’t have satellite radio and wish they could go sit in their car and listen to one of the funniest men in the world.

Read David Lion Rattiner’s blog every day at Danshamptons.com. No satellite
radio required.