A Female Howard Stern Imitator?

Long read, but entertaining as hell. In an annoying way.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/lifestyle/022203F22DC.html


February 22, 2003

She said what?
By ELAINE ROSE Staff Writer, (609) 272-7215, E-Mail

Two strippers. Two biker dudes with long hair and scraggly beards. One white guy pretending to be a black pimp.

Cram them into the studio at WJSE-FM 102.7, and you have a recipe for trouble. Add night host DC at the microphone, and no one knows what will go out over the airwaves.

Tonight's game is "Stump the Stripper," and each time a woman doesn't get the right answer, she has to remove a piece of clothing as "Lucius Jackson" describes her newly exposed attributes. Most of the questions are about intimate subjects. Let's just leave it at that.

"My goal is to have you girls completely and utterly naked," DC says as the men hoot their approval. It doesn't take long to reach that goal.

Most of the on-air conversation pushes right up to the line of what the Federal Communications Commission would deem to be indecent. Comments made while music plays on the air definitely cross that line.

"The DC Radio Show" is heard from 7 to 10 weeknights from the small studio in Somers Point. The independent station sends out one of the raunchiest - and most controversial - programs on southern New Jersey radio.

Think of shock-jock Howard Stern in the 1980s, when he was young and fresh. Add a gallon or two of estrogen and some pounding modern-rock music, and you get the idea. Except for the so-called "seven dirty words," almost anything goes.

As the station says at the start of each show, "Listener discretion is strongly advised."

"I love pushing the envelope, but I know where to draw the line. But I love pushing it to the line. It gets people to think and there's shock value," said DC, 28, who won't give her real name. "I say things on the radio that other people want to say, but never do."

Station owner Al Parinello gives DC his complete support, though sometimes he has to yank on her leash. The idea is to make listeners stop and think, "Did I really hear that?"

"It's always on the edge, it's always different and it's always about to explode," Parinello said.

On-air antics

Parinello said he's received complaints. Several people have asked if what DC does is legal. So far, no one has complained to the FCC, he said.

It's DC's spontaneity and never knowing what they'll hear next, especially coming from a woman, that keeps people tuning in, Parinello said. But just to be on the safe side, he or another manager listens every night and calls DC on a hotline if she's heading into dangerous territory.

The ratings are in her favor. Her first season on the air full-time drew 17 percent of listeners in the station's target audience of 18- to 34-year-olds, she said. She went up to an 18.1 share in the second season, but dropped a bit last fall.

There is a different topic of discussion every night, anything from sexual fetishes to rants about the influx of immigrants into southern New Jersey. Sometimes, unsuspecting third parties are brought into the act.

Like the time DC had a pair of concert tickets to give away. Instead of just being the ninth caller, contestants had to do something embarrassing to win the passes.

One young man had to get his mother on the air and ask if a certain part of his father's anatomy was generously proportioned. After the question was asked and answered, DC chimed in and asked Mom whether specific acts had taken place in the marital bed.

"My sex life on the radio for concert tickets!!??" the exasperated 53-year-old mother exclaimed.

Two nights later, DC had another brainstorm. A young man called to report that Tommy T-Bone on rock station WZXL-FM 100.7 had called her a "skank." DC came up with an instant plan for revenge. After prepping the caller, she dialed the WZXL studio.

As instructed, the listener made a few seconds of polite chitchat and then cut to the chase and suggested that Tommy T-Bone planned to spend Valentine's Day molesting his dog.

"She can rag on me all she wants. I'll take any promotion I can get," Tommy T-Bone said. "As long as 'T-Bone' keeps coming out of her mouth, it's fine with me."

But not everyone agrees DC's show is a good thing.

"She gets your attention - like a traffic accident," said Steve Raymond, program director of WZXL. "She's absolutely off-the-wall crazy, and I'm so thankful that whatever she's doing right stopped working, if you check the latest ratings."

Riding a crazy train

"I've always been whacked out," DC admitted. "I've always had an extreme personality."

She earned the nickname "Motor Mouth" at Rider College, where she majored in radio and minored in journalism. She dominated every conversation, even outtalking the professors in her classes.

After graduating in 1996, her next stop was an internship at MTV in New York, DC said. From there she went on to part-time gigs at stations in Delaware, New York and Philadelphia. One of her jobs was at WNEW-FM 102.7, where she had occasion to work with syndicated hosts Greg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia - the same guys who got fired last summer after airing a play-by-play broadcast of a couple allegedly having sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral.

But it wasn't enough. DC said she never wanted to be a "liner jock," one who just chats up the music and doesn't express personality. Whenever she showed too much of herself, her managers told her to stifle it.

So two years ago, she contacted Parinello, and he agreed to launch the program. She started doing weekends, and landed the full-time night show in September 2001.

Until recently, she commuted to work from her home in Princeton, and the drivers she encountered on the way became fodder for her show. But she now has an apartment in the area to cut down the travel time, she said.

And then there are her studies at New York University, where she is pursuing a master's degree in human sexuality. That way, she can be "Love Line's" Adam Corolla and Dr. Drew Pinsky all rolled into one, she said.

There's a lot more work to being DC than talking trash on the airwaves.

She's usually alone in the studio, working the console, the phone lines and watching two computer screens. She takes phone calls while the music plays. Boring calls get deleted immediately. Then it's to the editing machine, where she trims the content and bleeps out the curse words. No phone calls are broadcast live, though you can't tell that from listening to the show.

Watch DC behind the microphone, and it is clear that she loves her job. It's not just an act as she flirts with callers, urges women to get naked and rants about whatever happened to bug her that day.

"This is the ultimate drug for me," she said. "I've never done drugs in my life, but I'm high for three hours every day."

And no, she's not the floozy she pretends to be on the air, freely offering her favors to both men and women. But she does have an active personal life, thank you.

She considers it a compliment when people call her "Howard Stern with ovaries," DC said. She admires Stern and her erstwhile mentors, Opie and Anthony, but wants to become known for her own unique style.

And that style may soon spread beyond southern New Jersey.

Parinello said he is working to hone the program so other stations will air it and advertisers will pay for it. The eventual goal is to have her syndicated.

Meanwhile, DC said she plans to invite more celebrity guests into the studio and get out into the community where listeners can take part in her crazy stunts. And if she offends some folks along the way, so be it.

"I think the show has the potential to be really, really huge. There aren't any females doing what I do," DC said. "Al (Parinello) really believes in molding me into a real phenomenon. I will stop at nothing to make sure that happens."

Women aren't funny in general, and this is just ridiculous.

"Women aren't funny in general, and this is just ridiculous."

I could not agree more.
this should open up a nice can of worms

Wow another show doing a poor imitation of Howard's Show. :hw:

Pathetic, this whole thing was tried by the "Radio Chick" and others and it has failed, this is just so un-original, and by-the-numbers, I hope she falls on her face, there's no station for her in New York, so she's stuck.

I like her quote:

"I say things on the radio that other people want to say, but never do."

Gee. Where have I heard that one before? :scratch:

Also, she uses initials, DC? , which means she's hiding something, age, ethnic background, or something else.

It stands for Dumb Cunt.

Ok So what exactly is a Howard Stern imitator? I hear him talk of these imitators latley( ok realyy over the years he's talked about them), but I have never heard one. Is an imitator someone or anyone who has a talk based radio show? Or is there really shows out there where they have some one who is just like Howard, and a chic like robin doing the news, and a sidekick like Artie.

I have heard Howard call Opi and Anthony Stern imitators but I have never listened to their show. Would listening to their show be the best way for me to find out what a Stern imitator sounds like?

I am curious about this subject mainly because I am considering a career in radio, and being that I have grown up on Howard obviously he would have an inflence on my style of broadcasting. Just as a someone who grew up listening to a rock band and was inspired and went on to make music for a living.

This thread is 3 years old.

Great first post. Just delete your account and start over. :shake: