The eternal Howard Stern caravan of self-glorification rolled on this week, first returning to David Letterman's show on CBS and then making a Tuesday night stop at the Cushion You Sit On.
"Tonight, the one and only, yes, Howard Stern is here!" announced the Cushion, otherwise known as Larry King.
The big question was whether Stern, in his present panoramic starring role as human trailer for "The Best Reviewed Movie This Year" (his hyperbole), would sit on and flatten the Cushion, as other guests have done so effortlessly on CNN's "Larry King Live." Or would he go even further and verbally urinate on him as he often does from afar, berating and utterly savaging King with relish on television and radio and in the 1993 autobiography on which his movie, "Private Parts," is based.
For example, Stern wrote about King: "How this guy has a television show and a radio show and a newspaper column is beyond me." Actually, King no longer has the radio show. One down, two to go.
About King's main livelihood, hosting an hour of global chat and call-ins in front of the camera, Stern wrote: "His television show on CNN is actually a game show. Everyone watches to see how long it'll take one of my fans to penetrate Larry's idiot screeners and mention my name in the context of a question."
About King's column in USA Today, Stern wrote: "I have never seen a greater collection of non sequiturs and idiot savant pearls of wisdom week in and week out. I always had a great time on my television show whenever I'd slick back my hair, put on my suspenders, don my bigger, craggier nose and be Larry King for a night."
That was Stern in print. Here he was on his famous radio show Tuesday morning anticipating his coming appearance with King later that day, one he said King had initiated: "This should be a disaster. . . . There is something disturbing about him. . . . I hope it's only a half an hour. That's all I can take."
Actually, it turned out to be an hour. Time flies when old chums are having fun.
How had this freak-show rapprochement between bully and bullied come about? Stern you could understand. He is who he is: a bright, gifted, outrageous farceur and hypocrite who, by hitting nearly every major venue on the media moonscape in his quest to publicize "Private Parts," has been imitating the very talk-show-visiting celebrity suck-ups he has blasted for years. He tries futilely to separate himself from them by saying that at least he's being honest in publicly confessing to being a phony, as he did with Letterman Monday night.
