It’s a telling scene: watching Howard Stern become HOWARD STERN! Are they the same guy? The standard Stern "story" goes something like this: Foulmouthed, pervert shock jock revealed to be smart, mild-mannered family man who meditates in spare time. But it’s not quite that simple. He turns down the volume in person, but it’s still Howard: a strangely charismatic mixture of arrogance and self-deprecation. He’s also very funny. Spend enough time with him, and the line between man and myth becomes a blur of public performance, private neuroses and jokes about his reputedly undersized weenie.
The facts of his life are easier to grasp. Stern was raised on Long Island, N.Y., in a town called Roosevelt, a Jewish kid in a black neighborhood. His father, Ben, a radio engineer, called him a moron. His mother, Ray, was, he claims, so overprotective that she once told him to wear a pair of her panties when he had no undies of his own. Young Howard amused himself by putting on dirty puppet shows. At Boston University, he got into college radio – around the same time he started doing transcendental meditation – and met his wife, Alison, whom he thanks warmly in the book for letting him "finger" her on their first date.