April 3, 1995
Howard Stern: Anyway Robin, what else is in the news?
Robin Quivers: Well, thousands of mourners have been remembering the woman known as the Queen of Tejano music, Howard. The singer Selena was shot and killed in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Friday
Male Voice: (Laughing)
Howard Stern: Guilty.
Robin Quivers: The founder of her fan club was charged with murder.
Howard Stern: You're kidding me.
Robin Quivers: No.
Howard Stern: Oh. The President of the fan club?
Robin Quivers: Yes.
Howard Stern: No. Is that who killed her?
Robin Quivers: Yes.
Howard Stern: I saw her on TV. She looked kind of hot.
Robin Quivers: Who was arrested, yes.
Howard Stern: Selena. The Madonna of the Tex Mex music.
Robin Quivers: Yes.
Howard Stern: (Burp.)
Robin Quivers: Tejano music. I don't know exactly what that is. I had never heard of Selena. But she just won a Grammy.
Howard Stern: There's about ninety Madonnas running around. All, like there's a Madonna of Sweden.
Robin Quivers: And the Madonna of France.
Howard Stern: I saw the Madonna of Germany on Entertainment Tonight.
Robin Quivers: Oh really?
Howard Stern: Yeah. Big Schweinhundt.
Robin Quivers: (Laughing.)
Howard Stern: Big blond schweinhundt.
Robin Quivers: I know there have been a couple of Latin Madonnas, too.
Howard Stern: Yeah. They got the Spanish Madonnas.
Robin Quivers: And this Selena was one of them, they say.
Howard Stern: Yeah. But there's no shortage of Madonnas.
Robin Quivers: She was supposedly an idol to young Hispanic women. A Mexican-American version of Madonna.
Howard Stern: Do you know who's the Madonna of Westchester?
Robin Quivers: Who.
Howard Stern: Billy's wife, Bea. (Laughter.) So they call it.
Robin Quivers: Selena is said to have broken new ground in Tejano music which mixes Mexican Ranchero,
Howard Stern: Yeah.
Robin Quivers: German Polka,
Male Voice: Si.
Robin Quivers: And Pop with Country and Carribean influences. (Music plays.)
Howard Stern: Wow. What?
Male Voice: No wonder he shot her.
Howard Stern: Yeah. Too many influences.
Robin Quivers: It was a she who shot her.
Howard Stern: Oh really.
Robin Quivers: Yeah.
Howard Stern: She was jealous, probably, over her.
Robin Quivers: I don't know. They were saying there was all kinds of weird stuff like she was going to, like, get rid of the fan club President or something, I don't know.
Howard Stern: Oh, Selena wanted to change fan club Presidents. You know if I was lucky enough to be Selena, I wouldn't be worried about who my fan club President was. She a little - that's like Jimmy Carter worried about the tennis courts at the White House and scheduling them. She's involved in too much minutia. She should be out there just performing.
Robin Quivers: Well. Here's a little bit of Selena's music.
Howard Stern: Oh. This has got to be an exclusive.
Robin Quivers: So we get an idea of what we lost here.
Howard Stern: You went out and tracked down Selena's music?
Robin Quivers: That's my job.
Howard Stern: You are good. You are the best. You are the best. That's why I like working with you. When ever you got something going on in the news.
Robin Quivers: (Applause.) Right on it. So there.
Howard Stern: You're right on it. That's what's good about it. Let's listen to Selena.
(Music plays)
Robin Quivers: Hear all the influences? Is that Selena?
Howard Stern: Yeah.
(Music plays. Sound effects of guns being fired.)
Howard Stern: Oh that's Eddie Murphy.
Robin Quivers: A deep voice.
Howard Stern: No, that's Eddie Murphy. I must have hit the wrong button.
Robin Quivers: Come on. Give me the Selena -
Howard Stern: Eddie Murphy. All serious. All right, hold on. This is Eddie's "yeah" song, where it's just "yeah."
Robin Quivers: Yeah.
Howard Stern: Yeah. Hey there's Grandpa Al Lewis.
Male Voice: Yeah. Yeah.
Howard Stern: Yeah. Yeah.
Male Voice: Yeah.
Robin Quivers: Doing a duet with Eddie?
Howard Stern: Let's go to Selena, now.
Robin Quivers: Please.
Howard Stern: This is the Latin Madonna, the Tex Mex Madonna.
(Selena Music Plays - with sounds of gunshots over it)
Howard Stern: El pellagria. You know what that means?
Robin Quivers: What?
Howard Stern: Slowly.
Robin Quivers: Really?
Howard Stern: I don't know. El la grilla. Mis abios de pesca en la cocina. You know what that means? My fishing gear is in the kitchen. This music does absolutely nothing to me. I have no feel. It's almost like you could not have it on, or have it on, and my mood wouldn't change. Alvin and the Chipmunks had more soul. I'll never get this. I see this on Spanish TV all the time. I have no idea why she would even be popular over somebody else. This doesn't move you in any way, does it?
Robin Quivers: It's got a nice beat, I suppose.
Howard Stern: Spanish people -
Robin Quivers: I wouldn't listen to it if I had a choice.
Howard Stern: I mean Spanish people.
Robin Quivers: If it was playing I'd say oh there was a beat anyway.
Howard Stern: Spanish people have the worst taste in music. They really
do.
Male Voice: They don't like depth.
Howard Stern: No they don't like any depth. It's all like det-det-det-det-det-det-det-deh. All happy. That's because they're all so sad. We have nothing. Our government is corrupt.
Male Voice: Si.
Howard Stern: Si.
Male Voice: Let's dance.
Howard Stern: Let's dance to happy music.
Male Voice: Si.
Howard Stern: Big chubby girls in thongs. You know.
Male Voice: The water is dirty.
Howard Stern: The water is dirty. Our money means nothing on the open markets in Europe.
Male Voice: The government is corrupt. Let's dance.
Robin Quivers: (Laughing.)
Howard Stern: Let's dance to happy Madonna-like music. Let's dance and forget the people starving to death.
Male Voice: And eat spicy food.
Howard Stern: Let's eat spicy food.
Robin Quivers: Lets burn our brains out with the peppers.
Howard Stern: Yeah. Absolutely no feeling whatsoever.
Male Voice: Let's swim to Texas.
Robin Quivers: (Laughing.)
Sound Effect: (Fart.)
Howard Stern: If we wait till night time the dogs won't bite us when we sneak in to Texas and California.
Male Voice: Let's limbo under the border.
Howard Stern: Our country is so bad we have to sneak out in the middle of the night.
Male Voice: Si.
Howard Stern: Let's listen to vapid music. Anything that keeps our minds off of our terrible plight.
Male Voice: Si.
(Music plays)
Howard Stern: Solo en vito. Let's dance and pretend that every human being in our country isn't corrupt. (Laughing.) Let's dance. Si.
Male Voice: (Laughing)
Howard Stern: Si means "Yes"
Male Voice: Yes.
Howard Stern: Does this move you in any way?
Robin Quivers: I don't know, it all sounds like kid music to me.
Howard Stern: Yeah. It's like when you -
Robin Quivers: Like if you had a children's show
Howard Stern: Like Nicolodeon.
Robin Quivers: Susha
Howard Stern: Susha. What is that Susha?
Robin Quivers: Susha or whatever it is.
Male Voice: The blond Mexican.
Howard Stern: Yeah.
Male Voice: Si.
Howard Stern: This is good music to dance around the flies and maggots that infest our country and our food system.
Male Voice: Pellagria.
Male Voice: All hill sides made of garbage.
Howard Stern: Let's see if we can work a song out that has the word "pellagria" in it.
Male Voice: Si.
Howard Stern: Pellagria. We don't want music that make you sad when you are dancing around in your cardboard house.
Robin Quivers: And your multi-colored clothes.
Howard Stern: Yes. We like to wear multi-colored clothes and dance around cardboard box houses, out of refrigerator boxes from America. Land of opportunity. Our government is so corrupt only three guys have money in the whole country. The Presidente and his two assistants.
Male Voice: Si.
Howard Stern: So we like music that don't get you totally depressed. Se qui queremos. You know what that means?
Robin Quivers: What?
Howard Stern: I don't know. I could give a rat's ass what that means. Male Voice: The Peso is worthless.
Howard Stern: Yeah.
Male Voice: My sister is fifty cents.
Howard Stern: Yes. It means I like to dance with a velvet Jesus and eat a dinner of two bees. Because I am on food rations.
Male Voice: And then make love to a goat.
Howard Stern: Si.
Male Voice: Si.
Howard Stern: Si. We got to take a break.
Robin Quivers: Well let me tell you, you're
Howard Stern: That sounded pretty good. Si.
Robin Quivers: At least twenty thousand mourners yesterday passed by her coffin.
Male Voice: (Crying.)
Robin Quivers: In the city convention center.
Howard Stern: Is that right?
Robin Quivers: Yeah. They are having her funeral today.
Howard Stern: Ah, she's so beautiful.
Male Voice: Si.
Robin Quivers: They have a Mass.
Male Voice: We'll never hear this kind of music again.
Howard Stern: Three of us ate her fingers we were so hungry from the bad country we live in.
Male Voice: With hot sauce.
Robin Quivers: Today in Corpus Christi. A funeral Mass.
Male Voice: Si. (Crying, howling, blowing nose.) Adios muchacha. (Crying, fart noise.)
Robin Quivers: Oh.
Howard Stern: Oh Si. Get your sheep out of here. Selena would be insulted. (Sound effect: Baaaa.) Hey. Her fingers taste good with Durkee sauce.
Male Voice: Not bad. 'F' the tele post.
Robin Quivers: Now it's time to take a break.
Howard Stern: Yeah. I think so. We'll be back right after this.
Male Voice: We'll be back with The Howard Stern Show. Don't go away.
Second Thoughts on the Selena-Stern Controversy
By: Raul Yzaguirre
1995 Hispanic Link News ServiceI've been thinking a lot about the controversy over Howard Stern's insulting remarks regarding the death of Tejano music superstar Selena.
After his comments about Selena, her music and her heritage, shock jock Stern actually responded -- with a weak defense and a half-hearted apology -- to the outrage they ignited in the Latino community.
But it's been a difficult task, based on news accounts, to glean what Stern said from what people thought he said, to discern what happened and what didn't, and to figure out what it all means. For that reason, the National Council of La Raza reviewed tapes of all five of Stern's
shows from the week in question.
Stern may be right when he says most of those criticizing his show are either unfamiliar with it and his style of broadcasting, that they hadn't actually heard what he said.
There is no question that Stern is an equal opportunity offender; he assails almost every vulnerable group in today's society -- blacks, women, Asians, gays and lesbians, immigrants, etc. -- and that he provides a daily challenge to those who firmly and truly believe in the sanctity of the First Amendment.
Stern also may be technically correct in stating he never attacked Selena as a person or mocked her murder. What he did say and do, however, is perhaps even more disturbing. His attack (or riff, depending on who you talk to) on Selena's fans was vintage Stern -- crass, crude, insensitive, insulting and filled with the base and vile stereotypes. Among the lowlights: using an exaggerated Mexican accent, he "quoted" Selena's mourners as saying:"We have nothing. Our government is corrupt. The water is dirty.... Let's dance and forget the people starving to death.... If we wait 'til night time, the dogs won't bite us when we sneak into Texas and California. Our country is so bad have to sneak out in the middle of the night....Three of us ate her (Selena's) fingers, we were so hungry...." and so on.
What I find most disturbing is his inability to distinguish between Mexicans and Mexican Americans. His total cluelessness about Tejano music and other aspects of Hispanic culture made that inability abundantly clear. It may surprise him to know that Selena was born and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas; that her legions of fans are predominantly people who are citizens of the United States, not Mexico; and that Tejano music is as home grown and uniquely "American" as bluegrass, jazz and rap.
Stern's comments about Selena and all Latinos are disturbing, not because an otherwise irrelevant "shock jock'' said them, but precisely because they so clearly mirror the attitudes of so many in this country. Somehow, to many people, all Hispanics are immigrants -- and probably illegal at that; and we all have accents -- that is, if we speak English at all.
We have seen similar comments and actions at the highest circles in the U.S. Congress and in the street. In the aftermath of last year's earthquake in Los Angeles, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) amazingly was able to determine that Hispanic recipients of earthquake aid were here illegally "because they were speaking Spanish.''
Now, native-born Hispanics in California are being denied carry-out pizzas, groceries and restaurant service, as well as being told by waiters, school guards, check-out clerks and other self-appointed enforcers of the anti-immigrant initiative Proposition 187 to stop speaking Spanish.
Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.) used World War II-era pidgin English to bash native-born and accent-free Judge Lance Ito, a third-generation Asian American.
And nearly every newspaper in the country has dutifully reported that a motel worker who spotted one of the suspects in the Oklahoma City bombing described the man as having a "foreign name.''
In response to D'Amato's remarks, Rep. Norman Mineta (D- Calif.), who like Judge Ito is Japanese American, eloquently captured the feelings of Hispanics in Texas, California and all over the country: "I don't know what we have to do to prove we are Americans.''Raul Yzaguirre is president of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic constituency-based organization.
