Trust Your Child

I hope to write about this more in depth down the road, but today I was interviewed by Howard Stern on his radio show, and I can only explain the whole thing as a life-long dream come true. As you’ve seen on my blog, I’ve only recently started to embrace my past as one of the music industry’s weirdest stories ever, and white rapper folklore.

Howard has become mildly obsessed with a 90’s-00’s regional urban radio contest called the “Roll Call” where call-in amateur rappers trade insults back and forth, all done in a call-and-response format with the shows’ hosts. About 5 rappers compete daily, with audience voting for who wins and comes back the next day to battle all over again, live on the radio. It’s a lot of pressure, but I was strangely very good at it.

And lucky for me and Howard’s obsession, I am widely considered the “King” of this contest, as I competed, and won for over 40 days (a new record) in my early 20’s while attending USC. I was actually crowned the all-time champion, which lead me to a million dollar record deal at Interscope Records and another hefty deal for my publishing at EMI. 

Howard has recently been wanting to jokingly put together his own Roll Call, to learn more about this awkward radio beast, and when I was contacted to perform, I jumped at the chance, never really believing this was going to happen. But it did at 7 AM ET on December 1st. I stayed on the line for 15 minutes with Howard, Robin & Fred, as Howard asked me about this strange time of my life, and genuinely seemed interested. Along with a member of his news team, Lisa G (who was one of the NY hosts who ran the contest), we took two shots at the Roll Call, and for being someone who hasn’t done it in a decade, I think I killed it.

My father and I didn’t find much to relate about late in his life. He had his own struggles, and I was on Acutane (which should explain a ton). Howard was everything to our relationship. My father was a proud New Yorker, who was able to explain the post-modernism and importance of an East Coast pioneer like Howard to his son, who’s never left LA and was happy at the time with just his West Coast sense of humor (UGH, Rick Dees). I became a super fan immediately, as we laughed together, listening to the show. We even went and saw Private Parts at the first Midnight showing in our neighborhood during my Junior year in High School. My upbringing is filled with Channel 9, E! Channel and Howard’s books, and constant smiles supplied by personalities I knew so much about, but didn’t actually know at all.

Howard played EVERY TIME I drove my father to Chemotherapy. I even vividly remember listening to Howard the day my father passed away. 

You might have pre-judgements about Howard Stern and even laugh at how much I cherish my time with him today. Well, you’re stupid and wrong. He’s been a constant voice, a source of humor for decades, by just being himself. When stress engulfs our everyday lives, it’s so amazing to have a whole-hearted laugh orchestrated by a person who through his own humble honesty and genuine self, can steal your attention and humorously explain, “Yes, shit is FUCKED UP, but we’re all here together, so let’s relax and make this fun.” The man, and his crew, is an institution, and truthfully if you keep those pre-judgements, we don’t want you around anyway.

The 15 minutes that Howard Stern interviewed me, and we all rapped together, was one of the best moments of my life. I wish my father could’ve heard (and although I’m not religious, I’m just going to say he did, cause it feels good). I take Howard’s tradition, and what it has meant to people like myself who’ve went through hard times, VERY SERIOUS. 

I’ve carried around my time as Hot Karl, and what I saw as a “failure,” for a LONG TIME. I was thrust into rapping as a job, and it never really felt comfortable. And to have it not really work out the way it was promised to you, especially when you didn’t want to do it in the first place, sucked. I barely could talk about it until recently. I feel really good about everything today, a decade later. I would do it all over again, even the shitty parts, just to experience what happened today. Hot Karl ended up a “success” in the end. I was part of the show and I didn’t let Howard down. It was for my Dad.

A Baba Booey to you.