The Jay Mohr Hater
Michael Frissore

     

Dick sat Indian-style on the floor of his bedroom in his parents' Brooklyn home. He stared up at his Sirius Satellite Radio unit, as if it were a television, listening to Howard Stern. He loved listening to Howard on his radio that his parents' bought him for his forty-sixth birthday. Dick lived a happy life: listening to Howard, petting his dog Sniffles, browsing MySpace and working three or four nights a week at Burger King.

As he sat with a big smile, Dick wore an XXL Slayer T-shirt, which still acted as a belly shirt on him, denim shorts and a Pete Rose haircut. There was a knock at the door. Dick, upset at being interrupted, shouted, "Who is it?"

The door opened and Dick's mother stuck her head in. She was holding a plate of Bagel Bites. "Sweetie," she said. "Would you like a snack?"

"AHHHHHHUUYYYYYYYYY! Mom!" Dick yelled. "I'm listening to Howard. Don't bother me."

"Do you want me to bring these back when your little show is over?"

"No, Mom," Dick said. "Leave 'em on my bed."

Dick's mother placed the dish on the bed and exited quietly, while Dick continued his listening. He soon stood up, unable to resist the little pizza bagels. He carried the plate to his computer and logged onto his MySpace account. He loved MySpace. He had so many friends, more than he ever imagined he could have. Most of his friends were from the various Howard Stern groups he was in, and he loved discussing that day's show with his favorite group, "King Howard."

Once Dick logged on he posted on two threads in the group: one about how funny the three stripper segments of the show were that morning, the other about George Takei, Sulu on Star Trek, one of Dick's favorite shows, and a frequent guest on Howard Stern's program. The consensus was that the guests were great. Dick then started his own thread about his favorite comedian and favorite guest on the show, Andrew "Dice" Clay. Then he went to the bathroom, as Bagel Bites after listening to Howard often excited him and upset his stomach.

Thirty minutes later Dick returned to his computer, refreshed the Howard Stern group page and realized he wasn't finished going to the bathroom after he made a considerable mess in his pants. So he took his shorts and underwear off and hid them under his bed, cleaned himself a bit, and put on some sweatpants. Now he was ready to discuss Howard with the four thousand members of the King Howard group.

Dick immediately saw a name he hadn't seen before. It was someone named "Good Luck, Bro," and he had posted three times. Dick became especially excited at a new member and clicked on one of his posts. What he read made him angry and sad.

They were all very mean posts, he thought, about Howard being old and "a hack," and about how Dice hasn't been funny since 1990, and even then he stole from other comics. Dick didn't even read the last post. He fell onto his bed and started crying. How could anyone say this? Especially in a Stern group!

When Dick composed himself he went into "Good Luck, Bro's" profile and found out that this person didn't like Howard at all. In fact, this guy was an Opie and Anthony fan. Dick knew Opie and Anthony mostly from Howard mentioning them and saying they were imitators of his style of radio. He knew they were on XM, the other satellite radio company.

Dick was angry, really angry. So angry that he spoke out loud, "These guys are just wannabees." Then he replied to the post by typing, "What r u doin in a Stern group, porky? Why don't you put down the Hoho's and listen to those 2 Howard clones? ps your fat"

While the person who Dick was responding to wasn't fat according to his photo, Dick enjoyed this method of attack. Dick didn't have a photo of himself in his profile for fear of people making fun of him. Calling people "porky" was payback for years of torment.

In the coming days, Dick dealt with "Good Luck, Bro" and one or two other intruders to his group. They wouldn't go away; they just kept bashing Howard and calling Dick a loser while correcting his spelling and punctuation errors. Dick, feeling fat and stupid, just typed more "porky" comments.

Perhaps less than coincidentally, Opie and Anthony, in addition to already being on XM, soon started broadcasting on FM radio in numerous markets, including New York. So, during commercial breaks on Howard's show, Dick listened to "the two clones" in order to prepare for his next attack. He gathered plenty of information, he thought. They had Bill Donahue of the Catholic League and longtime Stern rival Don Imus on their show. Then they had a comedian on who Dick remembered hearing Howard trash once, Jay Mohr. Dick wrote that these three jerks compared to George Takei and a midget in a wheelchair was no comparison.

Dick logged onto MySpace and posted his findings, but he found the Opie and Anthony fans, "Pests," he found out they were called, were relentless. No matter what he typed about Opie, Anthony, Imus or Mohr, they kept attacking. And they attacked the characters he loved on Howard's show. They called him stupid for questioning why Donahue was on the show, told him Imus was doing the shock jock thing long before Stern, and said Jay Mohr was funnier than anyone Stern has on his show.

While the Pests tactics angered Dick, he also thought it was kind of cool. It was like pro wrestling, an invasion of a group of a rival show. So Dick decided he needed to step it up a notch. He created a brand new profile, called himself "Jay Mohr Sucks," and searched MySpace for Opie and Anthony groups to join. He made a theatrical entrance, typing, "Hickory Dickory Dock…" in the subject line and calling everyone "pork chop" and "sausage tits." Dick had quite a thing for pork products.

Throughout the days following, Dick tried to make his case for Howard being "The King," and that Opie and Anthony wanted to be famous like him and that's why they "sold out" to FM. Funny thing was, whenever a Pest would respond in defense, Dick's reply was always something like "you has sausage tits," and that Jay Mohr looked like Eric Stoltz in the movie Mask.

As more time passed, Dick was listening to Opie and Anthony more and more, and, to his shock, he started to enjoy them. He waited for the replay of Howard on Sirius in favor of hearing O&A in the morning. He went weeks without going on any MySpace O&A groups, not wanting to admit to them that he was now an Opie and Anthony fan.

We he finally entered the group it was in complete denial, still bashing Opie and Anthony and still calling everyone "porky." But what he noticed was that there was another Howard Stern fan in the group, a nineteen-year-old woman named "Weary Rapscallion." She lived in Pennsylvania and Dick thought she was quite pretty. For a girl. He requested her friendship and she accepted.

Soon they were IM'ing each other about how great Howard was and how every other deejay was ripping him off. It was when they admitted to each other that they both also listened to Opie and Anthony that they decided they had to meet. Miss Weary didn't know what Dick looked like or if he was really a hundred years old, as his profile said, but she invited him down to her apartment one summer weekend.

Dick took a bus to Philadelphia, excited that he may finally get to kiss a girl. When he arrived, Miss Weary opened the front door, saw Dick, and literally vomited all over him. Dick began crying, as he does, and ran down the street until he found a bus home.

Dick moped around his parents' house for two months, unable to even listen to O&A or Stern. He was so depressed that his parents made a doctor's appointment for him, and he was prescribed Prozac and was told to get a physical. A week after Dick's physical, his doctor called him and told him he had AIDS.

"Have you had any unprotected sex recently, Dick?" the doctor asked.

"No," Dick said.

"Any sort of bodily fluids enter into your system? Blood maybe?"

"A girl puked on me."

"Well, that would do it."

"You can get AIDS from puke?"

"Yes, Dick. Yes, you can."

Then Dick found his father's gun and shot himself to death.

//   Advance   //