What was sooo bad about Howard's childhood that fucked him up?

[smichal]

* lived in a neighborhood where black people started moving in
* allegedly was beaten up by other students in highschool
* moved away to attend university
* attended summer camp
* had 2 working parents
* boo hoo, his father was strict

this makes him require 40 years of psychiatric visits? How many people grew up poor, or had only 1 parent, or were molested by relatives, or had parents who were alcoholics or God knows what, and they turned out normal?

[Tom Doyers]

[Bye You!]

Not getting braces.

It could have drastically changed his face, thus freeing him from the torturous iron mask that is his face. His whole life would have been different.

[Bye You!]

His mother worked? As what?

[Night Ape]

This. A thousand times this.

[skylarbrie]

no dinky

[tHISisKiSSeL]

mother took his temperature anally well into his teens.

[jaw_belize]

he got diddled

[idiotbox]

his mother is what fucked him up. his father was just a father and his mother was a fucking crazy person.

[sloth22]

Nothing. He became a fucked up, self obsessed, crybaby as an adult.

He just reinvented his past to justify being a mess.

[Ruffypup]

He had to drive a 2 year old car to go to college that his father paid for.

[PumpkinBeer700]

his face?

[Time Bandit]

hes a money grubbing jew bastard..end of story..

[Herc]

I don't buy Howard's my dad was a poor motherfucker story. His dad he says now "Revisionist History" was one of the only Independent Recording Studio Owners. His dad not wanting to leave is because he was a cheap ass Heeb. Nothing more, nothing less . . .

[skytzoboy]

his mother is what fucked him up. his father was just a father and his mother was a fucking crazy person.

This. Major league mommy issues.

[whatsit]

Not getting braces.

It could have drastically changed his face, thus freeing him from the torturous iron mask that is his face. His whole life would have been different.

[whatsit]

I think the underwear/ass temp thing was it?

[itpdude]

I don't buy Howard's my dad was a poor motherfucker story. His dad he says now "Revisionist History" was one of the only Independent Recording Studio Owners. His dad not wanting to leave is because he was a cheap ass Heeb. Nothing more, nothing less . . .

Black guests such as Flava Flav and Chris Rock have also alluded to the fact that Roosevelt had not turned black as much as Howard portrays when he was in HS. Flava said something like, "it hadn't gone that black when you were there" or something to that effect.

And Howard's family did eventually move out before it went full-on deep molasses to an area where Howard was further butt-hurt by only white students.

[itpdude]

It's funny how economic status is determined in the US. Bradley Cooper, with his private school education, thought he was poor growing up. I know people who grew up in shitty apartments and trailers in Tampa and Atlanta, qualified for free-lunch at school, etc, who thought of themselves as middle class.

Perception is often determined by what you see around you. If you live in a trailer park and your folks manage to keep the power and water on, you're doing well compared to the family that has the power and water turned off every month or so. If you live in a nice home that is 2,000 square feet and get a 10 year old Volvo to drive while your friends live in mansions and drive new BMW's, you're poor.

Howard's perception is skewed much like that beat-up Chelsea Handler's perception.

[hollywoodrose]

* lived in a neighborhood where black people started moving in
* allegedly was beaten up by other students in highschool
* moved away to attend university
* attended summer camp
* had 2 working parents
* boo hoo, his father was strict

this makes him require 40 years of psychiatric visits? How many people grew up poor, or had only 1 parent, or were molested by relatives, or had parents who were alcoholics or God knows what, and they turned out normal?

I was listening to part of an old show a few weeks ago - this was in the late 80's, when Howard was still putting his "my parents abused me" bullshit together and he was on the phone with his mother. He started to toss out certain ideas, almost as if he was trying to come up a story. He mentioned a few things while his mother was on the phone and she said "Howard, that never happened and you know it!" and Howard responded like a high schooler busted by his mom in front of his friends. He said "Mom, I am gonna kill you", but in a very knowing, bashful tone of someone being busted by a friend who he hoped would go along with a lie. Like, "don't you see I'm trying to work here?".


Most of these thing are gross exaggerations or outright lies - Howard will say or do anything if he thinks it'll get him one more marble. Wiggy's real talent is in making his lies sound believable, and if you think about it, it took him a good 15 years before he sounded consistently even good at this. Howard talks about the NBC years as if at that point he was some sort of master showman that the establishment just couldn't handle, but the truth is that Howard sounded horrible. He was nervous, "yucky", schticky and lame - he just happened to latch onto a new style of broadcasting (that he did not invent) that was emerging in the industry at the time and managed to stick in there long enough to become the first one to get noticed on a large scale.


Howard was so bad and uncomfortable on the air that his real voice didn't start to show itself consistently until the mid 90's. He basically was able to use nearly 2 decades to practice on the air while being fortunate enough to not get fired for it. That's how bad radio was at the time - you could be completely awful on the air and still get work in major markets. Once he got better and he got his act down he was able to do it convincingly - but for half his career he was trying out this shit to see if it would work and you can see right through it. If he didn't get lucky in the radio business, Howard would be working at a carnival.