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The Best DJ You've Never Heard in Your Life

Howard Stern
  • Posted at 12:13pm
  • 07 December 2007
  • by SarahDempster-RT

All bare bums and bloody-minded brouhaha, The Best DJ You've Never Heard in Your Life (Saturday 1 December, BBC Radio 4 FM) concerned original "shock jock" Howard Stern.

Ostensibly a profile of the most successful, divisive and - having accrued fines in excess of $10million – publicly-knuckle-rapped broadcaster in the history of American radio, it was also about someone else. Someone who, in one mind at least, was at least as important as his subject. For here, fidgeting on the peripheries of Stern's ungovernable radio zoo, nose squashed against the steamed-up glass, eyes darting excitedly from the semi-naked studio guests to the tall, strange DJ at the mic, was Martin Bashir.

Ah, Martin Bashir. The Princess Di Guy. The guy who infamously interviewed the Prince of Pop. In TBDJYNHIYL, Bashir hopped around, affecting a tone of self-important outrage while pumping his bellows at Stern's calves, desperate to fan the embers of controversy and seemingly oblivious to the following facts:

1) Stern's brand of viciously blunt, bum-stuffed, politically informed and frequently hilarious frat-boy goofery is truly offensive only if you're the sort of person who, when asked by a lady with a clipboard what your favourite thing in life is, answers "the prospect of death"

2) Even at his most arrogant, Stern is at least 398 times more likeable than Bashir - a fact that lent an air of desperation to Bashir's every pause…laden...and…needlessly…italicised…syll…ab…le

Indeed, the documentary exposed Stern as a thoroughly decent cove, an articulate and fiercely intelligent individual who answered his critics with directness and honesty. "I love to view outrageous behaviour. But outrageous behaviour doesn't become me. I'm more comfortable being the voyeur. I'm like an anthropologist," he told us, before explaining that he doesn't "necessarily like crudeness. I like funny".

Not that his innate reasonableness deterred Bashir from shoving his oar in. At one point, he asked Stern, apropos the charges of obscenity that are continuously levelled at the DJ, whether or not he would consider having a segment on his show "called Chat…to Your Rapist". (To which Stern replied, with subtly withering restraint: "I wanna know if you'll write for my show. I've never heard such a brilliant idea.")

Perhaps Bashir thought he was entering into the spirit of things by being controversial. Or maybe he thought we'd be shocked by his edgy mind. But we weren't. We, like Stern, just thought he was being a twassock.

The most telling moment, however, came in the form of a snippet from one of the many spin-off programmes that revolve around Stern's extraordinarily successful daily satellite show. Interviewed by a news reporter for a behind-the-scenes-of-the-main-show show, Stern was asked about the British journalist who'd been tailing him for a BBC radio documentary. "I liked the guy," he said. "I actually liked Martin Bashir."

Astonishingly (even more astonishing than airing the comment in the first place), Bashir followed this announcement not with a self-deprecating retort, or a chuckle of embarrassment, but with…nothing. The comment was just left where it landed, throbbing with profundity. Bashir's silence spoke volumes. "See!" it screamed at us. "Somebody…likes me! A famous person, too! Which makes the rest of you wrong! Wrong…I tell you! Hahah…ahah!"

To which the most sensible response was to lean forward and, after a brief rumination on the nature of censorship, switch one's radio off.

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