Quote Of The Day
"Sometimes you want more for somebody than they want for themselves."Herschel Walker’s mom
Which way does Howard Stern want it? Does he want the money or the reach?
Yesterday, he was busy citing the Arbitron report that claimed over 35 million people listened to satellite radio.
Today, he told Herschel Walker that he understood why he went to play in the USFL, that his parents met picking cotton, he wanted the money. Just like him, terrestrial radio didn’t pay anywhere near as well as satellite.
The career of an athlete, especially a football player, is very brief. Needing to earn enough dough for the rest of your life, you make decisions an attorney or a broadcaster might not.
But when Herschel Walker’s playing days were through, he plowed three of the fifty million he’d been paid into a poultry business. Which he now claims is worth two hundred mil.
Pretty good. An atypical story.
But Herschel Walker was the valedictorian of his class.
But what riveted me in the car was Herschel talking about hiring his entire family to work in his chicken business, then firing each and every one of them.
Weren’t they pissed, Howard asked?
Actually, no.
And that’s when Herschel uttered his mother’s quote above.
Boy, that explains it.
Moms rarely make millions, but that doesn’t mean they’re not extremely wise.
To this day, I’ve been unable to understand it. How friends and family with incredible insight and talent have stalled out, how they’d rather watch TV or read books or talk about what coulda/woulda/shoulda happened if the breaks had just gone their way.
The breaks rarely go your way. You’ve got to make your own luck.
You can be the most talented musician in your neighborhood, but unless you’re willing to go to New York or L.A. and starve, trying to stay afloat in the big pool, or doing the same online, you’re just never going to make it.
What holds people back?
Sure, you’ve got to want it. I always believed everybody wanted it, that they just got in the way of themselves. But maybe, like Herschel’s mom says, they don’t. They’re content where they are.
Sad, but true.
You offer them opportunities, but they decline. You try to help them out, but they make excuses. Life is such a struggle. If you’re not willing to fight, you’re not gonna get much. Even if you’ve got a head start. For all the children of famous people making a buck, oftentimes playing themselves, there are tons who have blown their inheritances on drugs, who are barely more than nonentities.
Howard certainly is not a nonentity. But I don’t understand his game.
We tend not to revere those solely in it for the money, especially if they are artists. It seems that they too want less for themselves. Because money is just a statistic, it can’t buy you love, it can’t buy you happiness. Sure, the opposite is worse, being broke. But at some point, how much cash do you need?
Howard is triumphing on satellite radio, to the degree one can win in this limited pool, programming two of over a hundred channels, by selling the truth, the real story behind news and entertainment. In a land of duplicitous "stars" and a fawning media, people are ravenous for the truth. If Howard just wants to take his cash and stay where he’s at, he’s entitled. Or else he and Sirius/XM should try to grow his audience. Or Howard should jump to a medium where his brilliance can be reflected amongst the many.
Howard’s the expert on late night TV, yet he’s not really playing in the arena himself. They’re broadcasters. He’s a niche player.
Then again, if you check the ratings, there’s a chance Howard’s reaching nearly as many people as the late night jokesters. The media is always at least a step behind. Howard has always forced writers to pay attention to him, to catch up to him.
But maybe I want more for Howard than he wants for himself.
