RIP Ben Stern

He was an audio engineer and worked with celebrities back in the day, He outed Raymond Burr to Howard a loooong time ago.

I’m an old fart 60, and I remember Howard’s show in the early days. Back then he said he was a half breed, claimed his dad was Jewish and his mother was Italian Catholic. I wonder why?

What happened?

R3

He died fighting a forest fire! He was 99 years old Rose!

“Which wall are you going to stare at today, Dad?”

Wow, this was entirely under the radar. No mention of it anywhere and all the online searches show click bait sites. I wonder when it happened? On another note, Howard’s paintings are pretty incredible.

If this is true, very sad.

I agree R6. His paintings are really incredible.

And I heard he had just bought a farm...

Here R6.

His paintings are by far the best thing he has ever done

I misread this as Ben Stein lol

Even with the headline, his father’s death gets buried in the story.

Love his paintings and his animal advocacy.

"I told ya not to be stupid ya moron..."

They are on summer hiatus - been off the air for about 3 weeks and no idea when they're coming back, so Howard will have time to get his emotions under wraps by the time the show returns. I don't listen anymore, but I can just picture the calls from suck-up freaks like Marian from Brooklyn, Jeff the Drunk, Bobo, etc. all calling in condolences but really looking for airtime and brownie points.

I infrequently scan the Marksfriggin site just to see if anything interesting has happened and since about March Howard has been talking about how his mother keeps saying "I'm ready to go". His mom suffered from depression when Howard was in his teens and talked about suicide a lot then. With that being said, I think this will be a case where a spouse dies and the remaining spouse goes quickly after.

I never thought howard had parents , he seems like a person who as a baby jyst showed up at the orphange bitching , complaining and cussing but his art is indeed the best thing he has ever done.

Loved him in Farris Bueler's Day Off.

I had no idea Howard painted.

Someone reported that with Ben out the way, Ray will shave her hairs and begin dating rappers.

Howard was back today (9/06/22) after taking the summer off, so this is the first day back since his father died. I saw on Marksfriggin that they discussed it, and am curious if he was serous or turned it into jokes. I used to be able to download the daily Stern show from a secret source to listen, but the uploader started using the site MEGA for the audio files, and my laptop freezes and crashes when I tried to download from it. I had to give up on that, so, I'm coming here to see if anyone can give me a rundown on how old Ben was eulogized.

I've noticed that Howard can hardly ever keep a serious topic going, that he always cuts it short or someone says something "humorous" to lighten the mood. He did that a lot during the Artie heroin years - even when Artie was trying to get real about his problems, including his suicide attempts, Howard would get uncomfortable and say something to change the tone of the conversation. I remember Howard making jokes and Robin cackling like a fool when Artie was describing the time he ended up in a psych ward. From those situations, I wonder if Howard he did it today too, when listeners had years of hearing Ben Stern stories and wanted to hear a son honor his father, I imagine Howard doing the opposite and using the situation for "good radio". Also curious what he said about his mother, who has been talking about "being ready to go" for months previous.

Also, it was revealed that Beth turned 50 during the hiatus. This made me laugh because back in the day when Howard was a real misogynistic creep, he would say that he would never be with a woman over 40. Now that he's ancient, he changed his tune

R21- Try the Stern show thread on reddit.

Thanks R22 - I don't go to Reddit too often and didn't know they had a Stern forum. It was very informative and gave a great breakdown of Howard's return and his talk about Ben.

I’m disappointed that Howard stopped short calling Trump a moron. He was about to, then stopped. It’s so sad that he just won’t go there. He called George W Bush a POS.

Howard’s mom is still alive??!

I loved him in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

r26 meet r18

^Like Patti LuPone who only reads her part of the script, I don't read anyone else's posts.

[quote]I’m disappointed that Howard stopped short calling Trump a moron. He was about to, then stopped.

This was last week, by the way. It’s so disappointing to me.

R25 He constantly trashes Trump and his followers. Why would referring to him as a "moron" make you shoot across the room?

Let's be honest, as repugnant as Trump is...you can't be a moron and literally have half of the country (including Congress) at your beck and call.

He’s never attacked Trump personally, never once. It’s sad.