Skip to main content

They Call Me Baba Booey-A Book Review

This past Wednesday, Kathy and I were in the local Goodwill store looking for books for Kathy to read. She found about 3 books. Me I just was looking more or less out of curiosity when I come across a book called They Call Me Baba Booey, by Gary Dell'Abate. The inner radio geek in me then kicked in. Mind you, I have plenty of books to read that I haven't even touched, and I'm also waiting on another book to arrive at my house that I've promised to review for this blog. But my love of radio is a reason I bought the book. And I read it in less than 24 hours.

Gary Dell'Abate is probably the best known radio show producer in the world, as he is the producer for the Howard Stern Show. Now I'm not a big fan of Howard Stern, but I did read his book, Private Parts. And if Howard was in town and offered to autograph my copy of the book, I would let him. As I have said, I'm not a fan, but I am a radio geek.

I picked up They Call Me Baba Booey and could not put it back down. It is very rare for me nowadays to be able to finish a book in a reasonable amount of time, but this one kept my attention. Gary tells quite a bit of his home life, especially dealing with his mother. The way he describes his mother's behavior, I would say she was suffering from bipolar disorder. Having a difficult home life, Gary turns to music and his beloved New York Mets to help him cope. His interests lead him into a career in radio and eventually producing one of the most popular radio shows in the history of the medium, The Howard Stern Show.

Unlike Private Parts, where Stern goes into minute detail about all his guests, Gary gives us an insight about his adventures in life and shares many embarrassing moments with the reader. Lets everybody know that getting into radio wasn't a cakewalk back in the 1980's. Gary also accepted the fact that sometimes his life would be center stage on the Howard Stern Show because there was comedic value in doing that.

We also learn how a brain cramp became a nickname and rallying cry everywhere when a Howard Stern fan would pull a fast one on a radio television host. Read the book and see how Gary Dell'Abate became part of one of the biggest news stories of the 1990's.

As I have stated earlier, even if you are not a Howard Stern fan, but you are a radio fan, give They Call Me Baba Booey a read.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Post 800: Time to chat

Hi Guys, It's hard to believe that this is post number 800 for this blog. I started this blog out of my desire to communicate. Since radio and television is becoming more and more automated and less and less personal, I'm glad I made the decision to go in this direction as it has given me many blessings. When I first decided to write my musings, a friend from the radio and television boards who goes by the name of newsnomore, told me not to be discouraged if I didn't get any readers. The fact that I did in the early going made me surprised and grateful that anyone was enjoying what I wrote. I've had people tell me that maybe it wasn't meant for me to ever be in radio, that maybe my calling was blogging. Nowadays I think blogging makes for better two way conversation than terrestrial radio, especially the way I do it, non confrontational. The closest I come from any confrontation is the innocent digs that Pat and I shoot at each other. On an average day I get betwee...
12 comments
Read more

From a "Battleground State"

I am going to make this one short and sweet. I live in Ohio, in this election season, one of the so called "Battleground states," a state crucial for any candidate presidential hopes. Of course we have had many visits from presidential and vice presidential candidates. Other blogs have dissected both campaigns so I will not. The only questions I have is will the promises made by either of these candidates exclusive to these states be fulfilled, or will they prove only to be hot air?
19 comments
Read more

My job

I have worked at my company for, unofficially, 17 years. When I first started working there in June, 1992, the average work week was 55-57 hours. Sometimes you worked more than that. I was 36 years old at the time and I could handle the long hours and short nights of sleep. 17 years and three knee surgeries later, I need less hours work and more hours sleep. Even moving into a quasi desk job, I still find it difficult to crawl out of bed at 3am. I could get up later if I wanted to put up with both rush hours. But this morning, things will change slightly. I received a call from my department manager yesterday. I was notified that I had to cut my time down to 40 hours. This would be down from 44-45 that I normally work. No surprise there as all the other departments got notified before I was. And I had to split my time between plants, doing calibrations at the other shop 1-1/2 days a week. I'm actually looking forward to the change. I also like the prospect of getting an hour extra...
11 comments
Read more