They Call Me Baba Booey

by Gary Dell'Abate

  “I’m so sorry, I can’t believe it,” she answered. “It’s my husband’s car. I had no idea he even had a bumper sticker on there.”

  “Well, that’s too bad. You had a chance to win sixty-six hundred dollars if you had just waved to me once.” He was lying. “Why would you do this? You should feel terrible.”

  Then he hung up. The woman was practically in tears. So was I. I had never laughed so hard at anything on the radio.

  GARY’S REVERSE BUCKET LIST

  The Most Amazing Things I’ve Done That I Never Thought I’d Do

  Shooting a machine gun out of a Black Hawk helicopter, 150 miles north of Kandahar, Afghanistan

  Being in the No. 1 movie in the country

  Seeing the Red Hot Chili Peppers play on the North Pole

  Meeting President Bill Clinton

  Defeating Weird Al Yankovic on Rock & Roll Jeopardy

  Winning two hundred thousand dollars for LIFEbeat on Don’t Forget the Lyrics.

  AFTER THE N CAR EXPERIENCE, I listened to Howard as often as I could. But what truly converted me from afternoon music snob into a full-fledged fan was the Friday Dial-a-Date segment. One Friday they had on a millionaire, who fielded calls from three women who wanted to go out with him. Each one sounded hotter than the next and was willing to prove it. One girl called herself the snow bunny and she talked about how she didn’t want to work. She just wanted to ski and have fun and marry a rich guy.

  During the bit, Howard pretended to put each girl in the shower and made her convince the guy how hot she was while the water was running. Fred would play sound effects of a shower stream the entire time, and this ski bunny woman didn’t let up. She gave everything she had to this call. I was listening to the radio, and I was getting worked up.

  But it wasn’t just the soft-core porn aspect to that particular show that made me a believer. It was also funny and witty and full of satire. The comments Howard made to the girls and what he said about the millionaire all spoke to larger issues than just some broads looking to score a date with a rich guy. I felt the way I did when I listened to Bob Grant with my dad while I was growing up. Howard attacked callers. And he didn’t just passively let something develop; he aggressively led the segment into something that would be interesting and provocative. He exposed people’s prejudices. The more I listened the more I realized what he was doing. Good or bad didn’t matter as much as being interesting. If something stunk it was lost from the show; if something was good it stayed. But anything that was interesting, that made people think or say, “I can’t believe he did that,” at the very least got a chance. Dial-a-Date was provocative in a fascinating way.

  This was August 1984. And my life was about to get a whole lot more interesting, too.

  I had been working as Roz’s traffic whipping boy for five months, enduring her rants nearly every morning. But I was doing enough each week—between N car promotions and just hanging around the station—to know there was more out there for me. Every day I walked by that job posting board and prayed I would find something that spoke to me.

  One afternoon I saw an opening for a producer’s job. Soupy Sales had been hired to do a midday show. I went to Lyndon, Imus’s old producer, who was now running programming for the station. He was the guy who told me never to look at Imus. He was kind of aloof, but I realized he was a good guy. I told him I wanted to apply for the job. But I was already too late. He had given it to another young producer, named Lee Davis.

  I really liked Lee. He went on to become the general manager of WFAN. But at the time he was a roving producer, filling in for people wherever they needed him. His most recent job had been as a really low-paying, low-level assistant for Howard. Almost immediately, when Lyndon told me Lee had gotten the Soupy Sales job, I blurted out, “Then I want Lee’s job.” I still don’t know what made me think to say that.

  “Really?” Lyndon asked. “You want that job?” He seemed surprised because it was barely a step above what I was doing.

  “Yes,” I said. “I do.”

  “Okay, let me talk to some people and see what I can do.”

  I don’t even think you could call what Lee had been doing a producer’s job. It was more like a paid internship, because the salary—$150 a week; $114 after taxes—was barely the living wage. To call it a salary was almost illegal. It was closer to allowance. But that didn’t matter; every person my age working at WNBC Radio wanted that job.

  But I needed this job. And decided it was mine to lose. The months I had spent in the office, hunched over in my cubicle listening to traffic scanners, had been building to this moment.

  I knew that Fred and Robin and Howard took a car service in to work together every day and usually arrived at around 12:30. I put on some nice clothes and went to stalk them. I waited, and waited, and waited.

  And that was the one day Howard was out sick.

  Instead, Fred and Al Rosenberg, an old Imus sidekick who did voices for Howard, took pity on me. Actually, they were just bored. Since Howard was out that day, they didn’t have much to do and there I was, with my poufy hair and John Oates mustache, looking as eager as ever. I was fresh meat.

  Back then, everything Howard did that made him so popular with listeners—yelling at callers, faux porn from Dial-a-Date—made him an enemy of WNBC management. Fred would tell you that there was outright contempt for everyone who worked on the Stern show, from the receptionist on up. Their offices proved how little they were liked. My interview took place in what Fred liked to call “the converted supply closet.” And it lasted more than an hour. The two of them asked me about every single thing I wrote on my résumé. When they saw the line for the Adelphi movie I worked on called Intimate Companions, Fred wondered if it was about bestiality. Both of them were just fucking with me. Fred especially. No one likes to break people’s balls more than he does. And when he’s bored, forget it.

  I know that part of it was just Fred being a wise-ass but the other part of it was like a hazing. They wanted to see where I was coming from and what my response would be to outrageous behavior. They weren’t the McLaughlin Group—they didn’t want someone who would cast judgment over everything they did on the show. They needed an ally in their battle with WNBC.

  After I interviewed I heard they had narrowed it down to me and one other candidate, a kid who worked the day shift on the news desk at NBC. A couple of days after my interview I was listening to Howard and, suddenly, this other guy was on the air. Howard was interviewing him, asking him why he wanted the job. I thought to myself, Fuck, he works during the day and he’s got the inside track! I was totally bummed because he got this face-to-face with Howard and I didn’t.

  Then Fred asked me to come back. He’s always had a thing against kids who are spoiled. That kid was making less than two hundred dollars a week as an assistant but he wore a Rolex. Big strike against him. But there was more to it. Fred felt that anyone who seemed nice and down-to-earth and came from within the building deserved a second look.

  Now I had to figure out what to wear. Because this time I was meeting with Howard. I had listened to the show; they didn’t seem like suit people. So I went with my standard Record World outfit. Nice pants, nice shirt, Capezio shoes, and a skinny tie.

  When the day came, I realized this could be a life-changing moment. I was going to have a sit-down with Howard to discuss how I felt about the show and what I could do to make it better. Instead he just looked at me and asked if I wanted the job. I said, “Absolutely.” Then he told me it wouldn’t be glamorous or glorified. It would be about me doing the grunt stuff that needed to get done.

  I understood and I didn’t care. I didn’t leave with an offer, but I felt better about my chances.

  Word got around that I was interviewing with Howard. And I was pretty shocked by how people reacted. I was a lowly traffic assistant who had become a loyal Stern listener. He was doing cool stuff and I wanted to be a part of it. I had no idea how much people within WNBC hated him.
r />   When I took the job with Roz I had to join a union, NABET, the National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians. In broadcasting, unions have a lot of power and everyone’s role is clearly defined. If you handled any kind of equipment—like the traffic scanner—you had to be a member. It was insane how detailed the restrictions were. If I was in the field reporting a story I had to get permission to hold my own mic. But if I didn’t have written permission to turn the volume up on the headphones myself, I’d have to ask a sound engineer on site to do it for me.

  One afternoon, shortly after I spoke with Howard, the shop steward of the local chapter of NABET came by my cubicle and said, “Hey, Gary, can I speak with you for a minute?” I had never spoken to the guy, but said sure. Then he led me to an old NBC greenroom that hadn’t been used in years. We sat on the couch and he said to me, “Word is going around you are up for a job with Howard.”

  “I am,” I said. I knew the union hated Howard because he turned everything on its head. He didn’t care about who was allowed to hold what microphone. He just wanted to make great radio, and worried about consequences later.

  “Well, I just want you to know that the union does not look kindly on him. And if you work for him it will seriously damage your future in the NABET.”

  Really? NABET? I was trying to get out of NABET.

  The next day Judy DeAngelis, a high-profile reporter for WNBC, came by my desk. “Do you have a second?” she asked, and led me to the same greenroom I had gone to with the guy from NABET. “I heard you might go work for Howard Stern.”

  “It’s possible,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t think they are nice people,” she said. “You seem like a nice kid and you’re just getting started and you should give it a second thought. Because they are really not very good people.”

  What the fuck? Two people in senior positions at WNBC who had barely spoken to me were now telling me not to work for Howard. More than anything, it made the Stern show even more enticing. I thought, This must be some fucking show if they are telling me I don’t want any part of it. It’s like when your parents tell you not to look at porn online. It becomes all you want to do.

  A couple of days later I got a call from Fred. He wanted me to come back and see Howard again. This time he told me to try to dress a little bit nicer. “This is a professional organization.”

  I didn’t think twice about it and just did as Fred told me: I put on the gray, pin-striped suit. It was August 31, 1984, and it was brutally hot. I had pit stains when I walked into Howard’s office, and Fred, who was there, too, just started laughing hysterically. I think he was a little shocked that I took him seriously. But it made him think, This sincere little fucker wants the job.

  Howard said to me, “You’re hired—temporarily. Let’s see how it goes for a month.” The whole thing lasted thirty seconds.

  I didn’t care how long it lasted. And I didn’t have any expectations. All I thought was, I have my NBC ID and a full-time job at the station. The next time I looked for a job and someone asked me if I had experience, I could say yes.

  Little did I know that, twenty-six years later, I’d still be waiting for that opportunity.

  BEFORE I GOT THE JOB, whenever I hung around the station in the afternoons looking for stuff to do, I’d see Lee prepping the studio for Howard. Every day he walked by with a drum, a cymbal, a sound machine, a megaphone, and some papers piled on top of it all, which were notes Howard wanted in front of him during the show. It was a long walk for Howard from his office to the studio. He had to trek down a narrow hallway, then through the main hallway on the second floor, past reception, and finally through to the studio, accessible only with a key card. It was a haul if he had to carry all that stuff, too.

  On my first day, I became the carrier of the drum, the cymbal, the sound machine, and the megaphone. I felt so happy and proud. I felt like I was carrying the Olympic torch in the opening ceremonies. I was the new producer. During his reign, Lee had come to be known as Boy Lee on the show. And, as I carried the props into the studio, Lyndon saw me, stared for a second, and said out loud, “Boy Gary? Naaah, it will never stick.”

  The show started at 3 P.M. The intro was Ronald Reagan introducing the Boston Celtics during a visit to the White House after they had won the NBA title, and butchering every single player’s name.

  After the intro, Howard came on the air at 3:04. I really wanted to be there when Howard flipped the microphone on my first day. I thought maybe he’d mention me or have me on to talk for a minute. But at 2:45 he handed me an envelope and asked me to run it up to his agent’s office at Forty-fifth and Madison. That was a fifteen-minute walk. There was no subway that went directly there. And if I took a cab I’d get stuck in traffic. I decided the only way to get it done and be in the studio when we hit the air in nineteen minutes was to sprint. So I did. I ran faster than I ever had in my life, a blur of black hair.

  My hustle paid off.

  I was panting and sweating, but I was there. And instead of getting made fun of for looking like I was about to die, Howard praised me on the air. “I am impressed with this new boy,” he said. “I gave him an errand to run and he ran it twice as fast as Lee ever did. This Boy Gary, he may turn out to be pretty good.”

  Then he asked me about being Italian and if I was circumcised. And finally Robin pointed out that I looked like John Oates down to the last hair follicle.

  I had arrived.

  I was on the air almost daily from the start. The only person who enjoyed that more than me was my mom.

  Her son was on the radio and people were recognizing his name. She felt she was, by proxy, worthy of attention, too. I was still humping it back to Uniondale at the end of every shift—the job didn’t pay enough for me to get my own place in the city—and one afternoon my mom made me go to the beauty parlor during one of her Saturday appointments to “say hello.” In twenty-three years she had never asked me to say hello to anyone, but she’d been telling all the ladies about her son who was on the radio and now she wanted me to meet everyone. What was I supposed to do, tell her all I did was carry the cymbals? I walked in, waved to the ladies under the dryers, and walked out. I’m not sure how it went over, but at least my mom felt like a celebrity. My father loved to bust her when she’d mention five or six times in one conversation that I worked for Howard Stern. She’d act surprised at any hint of recognition from strangers and then my father would say, “Ellen, you haven’t stopped telling them where Gary works! Of course they’re going to ask you about it.” The fact that I was sharing some of the most embarrassing moments of my life for the entertainment and mockery of millions of listeners never seemed to bother her much.

  My father barely listened to the show at first. But I knew how happy he was that I had waited and worked to land my dream job. He always told me, no matter what I did, I was selling a product. And if you didn’t believe in what you did, people would see right through you. He saw how much I liked my job and was happy and proud, which made me feel the same way. Even if I still couldn’t afford to move out of his house.

  That was a bummer. I was working on the coolest, hippest show in radio, the right-hand man to a guy on the verge of becoming a superstar. And yet I went to bed every night in Uniondale. My new hours meant I couldn’t keep my job at the kennel supply store—my perennial backup plan—but I made some cash moonlighting as an assistant to a DJ at a Long Island club on Friday and Saturday nights. I didn’t care. I was finally in. I’d have done anything for an opportunity like this.

  Booking guests was the hardest part of the job, mainly because of Howard’s rep. It was unfair. Howard is rarely ungracious with guests. He just asks them every question he can think of. But, in his first couple of years with WNBC, he publicly clashed with management and had some pretty outrageous bits, so celebrities were wary.

  The first call I ever made was to Steve Martin’s publicist. He had a big movie coming out that fall, All of Me, in which he played a lawyer wh
ose soul is taken over by a very old rich woman who wants to live on. Hilarity ensues. Martin had been a famous comic for almost twenty years at that point, and he’d been one of the biggest movie stars of the early ’80s because of The Jerk. When I asked his publicist if we could get him on the show I could practically feel her hatred through the phone. “You will never get a guest the caliber of Steve Martin on the show.”

  That was brutal. From then on, I usually started a call by saying, “Hi, I’m Gary Dell’Abate with WNBC,” because those letters carried some weight. And no one hung up on me, at least not right away.

  Dial-a-Dates were a lot easier to set up.

  We did the segment every Friday. After four or five of them I set up the dates for everyone at the same time and place. If no one got along, at least there were ten Stern fans hanging at a bar or a restaurant who could have a good time. It was my job to pick the location, set the time, and then meet everyone on their big group date. I was the chaperone. And by the time I started working on the show there was a pretty big backlog of contestants waiting to go on their dates. At the top of the list: the ski bunny and the millionaire.

  The restaurant the station had a deal with was a French place on the Upper East Side. But it wasn’t your typical escargot, white-tablecloth joint. It was a French revue, like a burlesque show, where women walked around topless. Basically it was a classy strip club, but instead of giving lap dances and wearing pasties, the girls wore tassels.

  I was looking forward to meeting the ski bunny; she was the reason I fell in love with the show and, for that matter, probably had my job. And she didn’t disappoint. Everything she did was intended to leave an impression, including showing up half an hour late so she could make an entrance. She wore a Jackie Kennedy pillbox hat with a veil and white gloves that were pulled up to her elbows. She was small and thin and blond. A perfect-looking WASP, really cute and well put together.