"Here, listen to this." says Al Westcott, reaching into the
pocket of his faded denim jacket. He produces a tiny tape recorder that
holds a microcasette of a recent (Howard) Stern program. Westcott can't
believe what he's got on the tape. He pops a button. Stern's voice comes
through loud and almost clear in the middle of a commercial: "Use your
[expletive] head!" he tells a subordinate.
Westcott shakes his head.
It's a dreary January morning in Las Vegas, but even in the crowded casino
of the Sands Hotel, where Westcott has agreed to meet, he stands out. He's
wearing purple psychedelic warm-up pants, a black T-shirt and the mane of
a Hell's Angel. He first heard Stern's show back in 1991 in Los Angeles,
before he moved to Vegas, and he was shocked-shocked!-by what he heard.
Westcott makes his living as a newsletter writer, but his hobby is complaining
to the FCC about Howard Stern. Through experience he has learned that you
can't just pick up a pen and fire off a Dear Bob (Ratcliffe, FCC investigator)
letter addressed to Washington, D.C.; if you really want action, you have
to complain the right way. Westcott knows the FCC won't lift a finger unless
it receives some documentation, such as a tape or an accurate transcript
of whatever it is that riled you up.
So a few years ago, he started taping Stern's program and mailed the juiciest
bits to the FCC-again and again. By now, he estimates that he's taped about
2,500 hours of Stern.
One official at Infinity Broadcasting, who wishes not to be identified,
refers to Westcott as a "stalker".
Over the years, people have filed about 90,000 indecency complaints with
the FCC, but nobody has a track record quite like Westcott's;
Of the seven formal actions the FCC has taken against Stern, six began with
complaints from the man in Las Vegas.
Westcott first struck in 1992: His tapes of the gerbil and other bits led
to a fine of $105,000 against KLSX-FM in Los Angeles, and then ricocheted
into that record $600,000 fine against three Infinity-owned stations-WJFK-FM
in Manassas, WYSP-FM in Philadelphia and WXRK-FM in New York-that aired
the same material.
In August 1993, Westcott scored again: $73,750 against KFBI-FM in Pahrump,
[Las Vegas] Nevada for Stern lectures on Kathie Lee Gifford, toilet habits,
Barbara Bush, Jessica Hahn and others. This one also ricocheted into a $500,000
hit against the same three Infinity stations.
In February 1994, $400,000-again against the Infinity trio-for a discussion
of lubricants, buttocks, sexual aids, Stern's wife's panties and his prepubescent
daughter's sexual attractiveness.
In May 1994, $200,000 against-yes, the Infinity Three-for . . . well, for
discussing a variety of bodily functions.
"I'm a conservative product of the liberal '60's," says Westcott,
who is 48 and divorced and has an adult son. "I believe what people
do behind closed doors is fine as long as they're not hurting each other
or being harmful. By the same token, it's a necessity to protect children
from the avalanche of obscenity and indecency in this society." In
this he includes his 4-year-old granddaughter, who lives in Baltimore.
Though Westcott has no formal legal training, his FCC petitions, produced
on a home computer, look like those churned out by the toniest K Street
law firm, complete with inscrutable footnotes. Sooner or later, these entreaties
wind up on Bob Ratcliffe's cluttered desk.
Westcott's relentlessness has led some people in the industry to speculate
on his motives-they say he's either in the tank for religious conservatives
or on the payroll of Stern's competitors. Though he did work briefly for
a Las Vegas radio station that doesn't carry Stern's show, Westcott swears
he operates alone. As evidence of his independence and selflessness, he
points out that he just scraped up enough money to replace his aging motorcycle
with a used car. The most he's gotten out of this, he says, is some media
attention and the odd death threat.
"If I've accomplished anything at all," he says, working on his
fifth cigarette of the morning, "I hope it's to give the broadcast
industry the idea that not everything is fair game. Look, the message is"
Before you put things out there, take a look at what you're putting on."
. . . Just last month, Ratcliffe got around to clearing out his "in"
basket. One of the files in it was a complaint from Al Westcott, along with
his tape of Stern directing a subordinate to use his [expletive] head. Once
again, Infinity was trying to but a radio station, and once again, a complaint
[from Westcott] about Howard Stern was holding the deal up. Once again,
Bob Ratcliffe had to make a decision.
Al Westcott lost that fight. He vows it won't be his last.