I just got off the phone with Teddy. He was very candid about his current situation with Artie and allowed me to ask anything I wanted to know. I didn’t have a tape recorder handy but I tried taking some notes.

Stay Tuned for the write-up!!

Happy Birthday to Me today!

I am just letting you know in case I die tonight from the amount of Jack Daniels I will be putting in my body - Artie Lange style.

If that happens, I leave the site to Artie’s Heart and Allison. ROFL.

Total: $550.00 — What a year!

I was very surprised this year when I started seeing the dollar amounts of the donations coming in. As with last year, my expectations were set pretty low. I don’t expect, nor do I ask anyone to send in more than just a couple dollars. I always thought if a lot of people sent in just a few bucks – that would yield a huge amount. Thankfully the opposite happens. We had just 17 people donate but the amount each person sent in was very generous.

$550.00 (Paypal fees / deduction - $21.14) = $528.86 to be given to the DFGI.

The Big Donor

A gorilla-size thanks must go to Samuel Windham this year. His record setting donation of a $150.00 blew my mind and was more than SBG raised last year. Not only is he extremely generous with his wallet but he has also agreed to share the “memento” that I was only going to give to the biggest donor.

Due to the size of our collection, I decided to change the breakdown of the donation to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and in turn give a few more top donors a memento.

The top 5 donors along with our big donor will receive a DFGI adoption certificate with Artie’s name on it. There should be a couple little extras along with that. The same thing Artie was presented to last year by Steve Langford. Note: I think they have changed the certificate design from last year. Click here to see it.

Samuel Windham (mother and infant certificate)

Thomas Nealon (baby gorilla certificate)
Mark Harrison (baby gorilla certificate)
Linda Leiva (baby gorilla certificate)
Allison (baby gorilla certificate)
Scott Gotshall (baby gorilla certificate)

* Steve Langford will also be receiving one as well for the great job mentioning this on the show. A very special thanks goes to him.

As with last year, a small part of the money will be to register Save Baby Gorilla as a member of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

Thank you all for your donations. No donation was too small. You all have made this a successful year and I look forward to next year – if Artie is still on the show. LOL

I will email each of the people above and verify your address to send you the package. Please wait a few weeks for everything to go through.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to the people that have donated so far to the Save-a-Baby Gorilla Collection. We have almost reached our goal but I don’t want to settle at just a “goal”, I want to set a big record amount!

PLEASE KEEP THE DONATIONS COMING!
We have already collected about 2.5 times the amount we received last year!! Much of that was due to some real heavy donors.

Who are you Samuel?
Our biggest donation came from a generous soul named Samuel. I tried emailing him but the email address keeps bouncing back. If you are Samuel. Please contact me at savebabygorilla@gmail.com ! I have additional information about Sam so I will no if you try to fake it.

Thanks to Mutt and Jason Kaplan for inviting me on the Special Super Fan, err, Artie Roundtable show last night. For those of you who missed it, you can to my segment here: [mp3 - Right click and Save as]

Also on Friday 4.11.08 I was on Zolarvision (Syndicate Radio) and you can now listen to that appearance as well: [Part 1 - mp3] and [Part 2 - mp3]

Both appearances were pretty fun. The Zolarvision was twice as long but its whole different format which allowed for that. Oddly enough both times I have had the pleasure of sharing the frequency with Pedro, looking forward to the next time.

Jason Kaplan just booked me to be on a special Super Fan Round Table show on tonight at 7pm.

The show will be an opportunity for fans to speak up specifically about Artie returning to the show after his meltdown on 4.10.08.

So Listen In Tonight @ 7pm on Howard101!

I will do simulcast on Stickam tonight as well, so maybe we can get the chat up for that. So please pop in and maybe we can get some Artie fans in there.

PS- Who ever gave SBG a shout on the wrap-up show. Thanks!! You Rock! Update *** Thanks Darek in Orlangedo!

UPDATE - Stickam is finally up, click on link above then click on video to enter chat.

Here are a couple videos that some fans sent in –

Artie at Eight
If you ever wondered what Artie Lange was like at 8 years old, this might help the visualization.

Teresa Strasser v Artie Lange
A week after Artie’s appearance on the Adam Corolla show, Teresa rips into Artie calling him a racist, etc… Read the Video description for more..

This morning I got an email from a truly happy Artie Lange fan:

why do you and everybody else suck howards dick just because he makes the most money. howard was wrong for butting into arties life, period. it’s highly disrespectful to question an adult on his or her personal business with others. who is howard to get into arties business and then question artie about what he says and feels and then who the fuck is everybody else listening to pass judgement on artie as well, like you mother fucker, everyone taking howards side over arties business? i think the stern fan network is made up of a huge bunch of loser faggots who are all in love with a gay jew nerd named howard stern and somehow a real man, artie, got mixed in with these piece of shit jews and fucking herd of nerds.

artie is fucked up yes.. and it’s because he’s around shit everyday. artie needs to leave because artie is better than the fags at sirius not because hes sick or drug addicted or depressed.. artie functions at his job perfectly! artie doesn’t handle people getting into his business as no real man will tolerate that. i can’t believe that all the talk about pussy and babes and girls and then howard acts like a little jew lady from scarsdale as if a fight is such an unheard of thing? what the fuck is that? one fag after another should be the new name for the howard stern show…

THE HOWARD STERN SHOW
ONE FAG AFTER ANOTHER

FUCK YOU TOO FAGGOT
PIECES OF SHIT WOULDN’T LAST A FUCKING MINUTE OUTSIDE OF THE FAG SOCIETY OF COPS AND ATTORNEYS.
I SPIT ON YOU, RIGHT IN YOUR FACES.

ARTIE IS #1 AND HOWARD IS A QUEER JEW NERD.
THE END.

I will be on with Zolar tonight at 10pmEST over at http://www.syndicateradio.tv/

Check it out! I should be nice and drunk, doing it Artie Lange style!!

FIYAH!

Considering this may be the end of my website, I thought I should write a little something to get my thoughts down on “paper”. I don’t think I wrote anything enlightened here but I figured that this is what the site is here for - a place where i can write stuff and hopefully others would too.

April 10th 2008 has already gone down as a red-letter day in Howard Stern Show history and it was very sad to listen to. We were all shocked as Artie Lange flew off the handle towards his assistant Teddy. Some of us saw this day coming and some of us hoped this day would never come. Artie has erupted on people before, so that part was no surprise but you just don’t expect it to happen when it does. Teddy unfortunately just happened to make the mistake at the wrong time. No doubt Artie has valid reasons to be upset with Teddy but the way he treated him was just wrong.

SBG

Save Baby Gorilla was created in January of last year because I, as the rest of you, had listen to Artie go through a downward spiral of sorts. His weight gain and on/off drug use worried me, a devoted fan of the Stern show for years. When Artie joined the show back in 2001, the show became so much better. Ironically, Jackie Martling was the source of a lot of issues on the show and no one would guess that Artie would fill Jackie’s seat in more ways than one. Whether or not you agree that Artie was better than Jackie - that is solely up to you. In some ways I look back at the Jackie years as the golden years, but that was another time.

In creating this website, I had hoped in some crazy way that chronicling his behavior and bringing more attention to it would some how get back to him and give him a push. In May of last year I started the Save A Baby Gorilla drive in order to raise money so I can donate it to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund and by doing that would raise some embarrassment to him via getting the show to announce. It did but was laughed off.

All in all my efforts were for not. Even though my website was mentioned many times on the show (big thanks to Steve Langford), Artie does not use the Internet. Big shocker. Not only that but the amount of crap that each cast member gives to each other is nothing to what I could come up with.

Artie Lange – the man, the myth, the gorilla

Although I have met the man briefly, it was about as much time as any other fan has probably gotten to spend with him. Most of what we know about Artie is from what he tells us on the show and from what we have heard over the past 7 years is that Artie has only given us just pieces of him. He is a man who has and always had many problems and demons.

Artie drugs and gambling issues are nothing new. The use of these vices is an obvious cover up to more serious problems in ones life. From what little I know of the man, he has had issues ranging to problems with his father’s death, guilt, overly weight conscious, general insecurity, depression, addictive personality and the list goes on and on.

Society to Blame?

Recently, Artie has been criticized for his language and beliefs. His use of offensive language towards gay people has been magnified so much these days. This partly has to do with the addition of fellow cast member George Takei and also in part to the overall political correctness climate in this country to be at an all-time high. Artie grew up not too dissimilar from me and I understand that mentality. My friends still use the word “fag” or “gay” to describe a guy that is not living up to the stereotypical man. This same stereotype that has been rooted in Artie all his life. These days he has been forced to compromise his identity to appease others. Compromise is something that a comedian isn’t so keen on. A comic is naturally cynical and rebellious which in many ways is just what this society needs. Artie represents the collateral damage of our society. What you can and cannot say seems to be more important that the actual context of what you were trying to get across. For all the need for acceptance of all types of people in our society, we for some reason don’t allow for some to be themselves.

Rock Bottom

Whatever his issues may be, only years of counseling will help get those to the forefront. But counseling is something that works only when you want it to. Artie has been told by Howard for a long time that he should get some help but it seems Artie’s stereotype of what a real man is counters Howard’s suggestion. Real men don’t go to doctors. That would be gay.

I don’t know whether it is necessary for Artie to stay on the show in order for him to get help. I am sure Howard would want him to stay if that meant Artie got healthy. If Artie leaves, I am sure his life will get much worse before it gets better. He would have to completely hit rock bottom. Fortunately Artie seems like he has a good family behind him and that is important.

Will Artie Return?

In recent polls on HowardStern.com, Artie has led as the most popular Stern show member. Howard knows this and wouldn’t blink for the opportunity to keep Artie on the show. Howard also cares very deeply for guy and has never fired anyone… why would he start now?

Short of it being an HR issue (which I doubt), Artie may be back. Artie and Teddy both went to Amsterdam this week- on the same plane no less. That in and of itself is a good sign. My bet is that they will make up while they are there but I imagine Teddy will no longer serve as his assistant – maybe only temporary until a replacement is found.

The way I see it – Artie will return to the show either to say goodbye properly or full-time. Artie holds too much guilt and responsibility to Howard inside to want to let down the show. The words he spoke on yesterday’s show were out of pure anger and he does not know how to express himself. Whether his rage was chemically induced or not is another story. The bottom line is that if Artie wants to come back he can. I am not making excuses for him. His actions were unacceptable.

Rumor has it that Teddy left the show as well and I imagine he will stay on too. What we saw on Thursday was so shocking that I think we all blew this up to be more than it is. Certainly in any other job, Artie would be fired. But this is show business. This is the Howard Stern Show.

- matt