Mark's Friggin'...Visit To The K-Rock Studio - April 6, 2005

Holy crap! As I'm writing this I'm sitting in the green room up at the Howard Stern show, listening to Rev. Bob Levy sitting in during Robin's news segment. A couple of weeks back Bob asked me if I wanted to go with him when he went on the show. There was no way I could turn down that offer. I met Bob early this morning so we could drive into the city together. The trip in wasn't too bad except for the traffic going into the Lincoln tunnel. Once we got into the city Bob ended up making an apparent illegal left turn and got pulled over by the cops (New York City's Finest) who gave him a ticket for the illegal left turn. Ninety bucks!!!

Once we got to the building we headed up to the WXRK studios. Bob told me that he and Ronnie the Limo Driver would be busting each other's chops the whole time we were there. He wasn't kidding. Ronnie was giving Bob a hard time as soon as we arrived. He gave him a hard time about even being there but you could tell it was all in good fun. Ronnie had a smile on his face the whole time he was busting his chops. He even gave me a little bit of a hard time asking ''Who the hell is this fuck with you?'' It sounds harsh but I could tell he was joking around.

Ronnie ushered us into the halls of K-Rock and told us we could wait in one of the green rooms or hang out with Dan the Song Parody Man who works in a small office in the back. Bob and I ended up hanging with Dan for a while since Fabio's people were in the main green room closest to the studio. Fabio's interview was wrapping up about 10 minutes after we got there so Bob and I went down to the green room and hung out. Tons of people you see on the E! show every day were wandering around and coming in to say hello to Bob. I've met quite a few of the guys already so they knew me as well. I did get to meet a few people I hadn't met before. Brian and Richie from E! were just a couple who I hadn't met before. Tom Chiusano, Fred, Robin, Artie and a bunch of others were wandering the halls during the breaks as well. Fred spoke to Bob for about 30 seconds and I was hoping to interrupt but he looked like he was on his way to the bathroom. I never did see Fred again after that.

Bob has become pretty close to talk show host Kidd Chris who is friendly with Howard as well. Chris somehow managed to get a hold of the phone number for the phone in the green room. He called Bob while we were in there and said that he's thinking about calling the guests while they're in there and doing interviews with them before they go on Howard's show. Bob said Chris was just kidding about that but he does have the number so who knows what he'll do with it.

It's really weird to look down the halls I've seen on Howard's E! show for the past 10 years and actually be there hanging out. Seeing people you've only seen on TV is also pretty weird. Fred is much taller than I thought he'd be and Ronnie the Limo Driver is a bit shorter than I thought. I'm not quite as nervous as I thought I would be though. I hadn't had the chance to see Howard yet so I was kind of looking forward to that. I'm sitting here wondering if that's even going to happen for some reason. I didn't bother to ask if I could meet him. I didn't want to be a dick and bug the guys to let me into the studio. I later discovered that maybe I should have asked...

Howard may not have even known I was there because he was whisked past the green room once the show was over. I made the mistake of not just standing in the green room door when he walked past. I was standing over by the friggin window. At one point I heard a commotion out in the hall. I looked up and saw Howard walking past the door with Jason. It looked like Howard just wanted to get the hell out of there and nothing was going to stop him. Of course that kind of bummed me out but I really didn't know if I was going to have the chance to meet the guy or not. This time it didn't happen.

After Howard had left it was time for Bob and I to go out to lunch with Artie. That lunch more than made up for not getting the chance to meet Howard. Artie had to meet comedian Joe Matarese over in Hoboken, New Jersey, near Artie's apartment. Bob drove us over there where we met Joe. We walked a couple of blocks back to Artie's apartment so Artie could give Joe whatever it was he needed to give him. That's right, I got to see Artie's apartment. How friggin cool is that? He lives right on the Hudson overlooking New York City. You can just about see the whole city from one end to the other from his place. The view is unbelievable! While we were up in his apartment, Artie played a voice mail message that his mother had left for him after hearing him talking about the whores he'd slept with years ago on the Stern show. Her message was pretty funny so Artie said he was going to bring it in for Howard to play on the air the next day.

After visiting Artie's apartment for a few minutes, we all headed back down to City Bistro which is right next to Uptown Pizza which is one of Artie's favorite pizza places. Joe had to run off somewhere so he didn't hang around for lunch. Bob, Artie and I all sat at the bar in City Bistro and had a great friggin lunch. Then I got to go back up to Artie's apartment for a second time so he could give me a couple copies of his great DVD It's the Whiskey Talkin' which is available on his web site Artie-Lange.com. Bob and I headed home after that.

The fact that I was able to go up to the station at all was a great honor as far as I'm concerned. So I didn't get to meet Howard even though he was only about 15 feet from me. I guess it just wasn't meant to happen this time. I did get to see and talk to Dan the Song Parody Man, Sal the Stockbroker, Richard Christy, Jason Kaplan, Will Murray, Richie Wilson, Brian Phelan, Gary, Benjy and others. It was great and I'm very happy that I was offered the chance to go up there with Bob Levy. Levy has to be the coolest guy I've ever met because without him, I never would have gotten up there. Thanks again Bob!