Schmitt
12-19-2005, 08:33 PM
Having two jobs, still being in college, and living in Florida, my only option was to get to NY and comeback the same day. This was the plan: Get to 56th and 5th by 10:30 to see Howard's speech.
But to my dismay, when I got into the cab at JFK, and tuned into 92.3 K-Rock, his speech was already underway. I can't describe how deflating that was. Oh well though, at least I took a shot...
I got there about 15 minutes after Howard was finished. The scene was basically just people disbursing. Damn, that was depressing. What now?
About 10 minutes later after wandering around midtown, I noticed some people from the show walking on the street; Jason, Will, and John Hein from jumptheshark.com. I went up to Jason, and he told me they were going to the Hard Rock, where there would be a concert with Sheryl Crow, but you needed a pass to get in. And also there would be a 'Super Fan Roundtable' Sirius broadcast at the ESPN Zone. In regard to the Hard Rock event, I thought I had a shot to piggy-back with Jason and them into there. But I didn't feel like being too pushy/creepy. I kinda regreted that I didn't though.
By about 11:00 after making it to the Hard Rock, I just kinda stagnated for about an hour with hundreds of fans outside. We saw Martha Stewart getting out of a green Suburban and going in. Those of you who were there know there were rival Opie and Anthony fans / XM Supporters. We had some fun chanting back and forth.
When 12 rolled around I figured I'd shoot over to the ESPN Zone (broadcast beginning at 2:00) to see if anything was going on yet. Some people from Sirius and Howard 100 news were there, but just setting up and doing some pre-interviews. Their intention was to get some fans on the air.
Having some time before that and not wanting to blow 25 bucks on lunch there, I headed for the Evergreen Diner on 47th, between 7th and 6th. $6.50 got me a grilled cheese and bacon, pickle, cole slaw and coke. Not bad for midtown.
Then I went back to the ESPN Zone around 1:00 and saw some more preparations underway. I started talking to a couple other fans that were waiting around. Also, I saw Jason starting to set up, and he remembered me from earlier in the day. Then people from the show started showing up. John Hein, comedian Craig Gass, Hook-Nose Mike, and Ralph were among the first few be there. The scene was routy! There were probably 200 fans there in a limited space. It is basically an air studio directly next to the bar. They had to bring in security and set up some minimal barriers by the studio door. Fortunatley enough, I got to see everybody coming in and out of the studio.
Some more regulars that showed up during the first hour were: High Pitch, Double A, Dan the Song Parody Man, Joey Boots and Yucko.During one commercial break, Jason was passing me and I said to him, "Hey Jason when are you gonna get some fans in there." He said, "...Ok, what's your name again?... c'mon..." NICE!
Into the studio I went, with basically no preparation, no time to think about what I would say, and a throat that was very dry. Fortunatley they had a water for me. I was on the air for about 10 minutes, and I think they asked me 3 seperate questions. "What was your favorite part of the day, how did the speeches sound, and what do you think about Elegant Elliot Offen..." And I also talked about my having traveled all the way from Orlando that morning. I probably came across pretty lame, and I knew that, but just being involved in that was awesome and probably one of the best moments in my life.
What was even better was, when my segment was over, Jason didn't make me leave the studio, he said I could stay in and take all the pictures I wanted to. Then the beautiful porn star Tabitha Stevens came in. She sat on Ralph's lap for her segment. I got a picture with her. The one picture I missed though was this girl Richard Christy was with that was flashing her boobs in the engineering booth opposite us, but my slow/old digital camera couldn't load fast enough. Damn.
At one point, I saw Ralph reach into his pocket and pull out a cashier's check, and he was basically right next to me. After putting it back into his pocket, he said on the air that he just looked at a check Howard gave him and it was some incredible amount of money. My memory seems to recall the word "two" as the first word in the number... Two thousand seems low for that kind of reaction. Two hundred thousand possibly???
Some more noteable arrivals for the second half of the show were Bong Hit, Irish John, and Angry Black (who, while signing my shirt said, "you're not gonna get all homo-erotic on me are you?")
Anyways, when the show was over I thanked Jason again, and told him how much this all meant to me.
"Anything for the fans, man, anything for the fans," he said.
Pics (http://usera.imagecave.com/kenny_schmitt/howardsfinalshownyc)
But to my dismay, when I got into the cab at JFK, and tuned into 92.3 K-Rock, his speech was already underway. I can't describe how deflating that was. Oh well though, at least I took a shot...
I got there about 15 minutes after Howard was finished. The scene was basically just people disbursing. Damn, that was depressing. What now?
About 10 minutes later after wandering around midtown, I noticed some people from the show walking on the street; Jason, Will, and John Hein from jumptheshark.com. I went up to Jason, and he told me they were going to the Hard Rock, where there would be a concert with Sheryl Crow, but you needed a pass to get in. And also there would be a 'Super Fan Roundtable' Sirius broadcast at the ESPN Zone. In regard to the Hard Rock event, I thought I had a shot to piggy-back with Jason and them into there. But I didn't feel like being too pushy/creepy. I kinda regreted that I didn't though.
By about 11:00 after making it to the Hard Rock, I just kinda stagnated for about an hour with hundreds of fans outside. We saw Martha Stewart getting out of a green Suburban and going in. Those of you who were there know there were rival Opie and Anthony fans / XM Supporters. We had some fun chanting back and forth.
When 12 rolled around I figured I'd shoot over to the ESPN Zone (broadcast beginning at 2:00) to see if anything was going on yet. Some people from Sirius and Howard 100 news were there, but just setting up and doing some pre-interviews. Their intention was to get some fans on the air.
Having some time before that and not wanting to blow 25 bucks on lunch there, I headed for the Evergreen Diner on 47th, between 7th and 6th. $6.50 got me a grilled cheese and bacon, pickle, cole slaw and coke. Not bad for midtown.
Then I went back to the ESPN Zone around 1:00 and saw some more preparations underway. I started talking to a couple other fans that were waiting around. Also, I saw Jason starting to set up, and he remembered me from earlier in the day. Then people from the show started showing up. John Hein, comedian Craig Gass, Hook-Nose Mike, and Ralph were among the first few be there. The scene was routy! There were probably 200 fans there in a limited space. It is basically an air studio directly next to the bar. They had to bring in security and set up some minimal barriers by the studio door. Fortunatley enough, I got to see everybody coming in and out of the studio.
Some more regulars that showed up during the first hour were: High Pitch, Double A, Dan the Song Parody Man, Joey Boots and Yucko.During one commercial break, Jason was passing me and I said to him, "Hey Jason when are you gonna get some fans in there." He said, "...Ok, what's your name again?... c'mon..." NICE!
Into the studio I went, with basically no preparation, no time to think about what I would say, and a throat that was very dry. Fortunatley they had a water for me. I was on the air for about 10 minutes, and I think they asked me 3 seperate questions. "What was your favorite part of the day, how did the speeches sound, and what do you think about Elegant Elliot Offen..." And I also talked about my having traveled all the way from Orlando that morning. I probably came across pretty lame, and I knew that, but just being involved in that was awesome and probably one of the best moments in my life.
What was even better was, when my segment was over, Jason didn't make me leave the studio, he said I could stay in and take all the pictures I wanted to. Then the beautiful porn star Tabitha Stevens came in. She sat on Ralph's lap for her segment. I got a picture with her. The one picture I missed though was this girl Richard Christy was with that was flashing her boobs in the engineering booth opposite us, but my slow/old digital camera couldn't load fast enough. Damn.
At one point, I saw Ralph reach into his pocket and pull out a cashier's check, and he was basically right next to me. After putting it back into his pocket, he said on the air that he just looked at a check Howard gave him and it was some incredible amount of money. My memory seems to recall the word "two" as the first word in the number... Two thousand seems low for that kind of reaction. Two hundred thousand possibly???
Some more noteable arrivals for the second half of the show were Bong Hit, Irish John, and Angry Black (who, while signing my shirt said, "you're not gonna get all homo-erotic on me are you?")
Anyways, when the show was over I thanked Jason again, and told him how much this all meant to me.
"Anything for the fans, man, anything for the fans," he said.
Pics (http://usera.imagecave.com/kenny_schmitt/howardsfinalshownyc)