In 2004, I appeared as a guest on Howard Stern's
radio and television show and to this day
people are asking all sorts of questions about it. How did you get there?
What were you doing there? What did you
use a different name on the show? Well, now I have the
opportunity to tell you about it, and so I'm going to.
So I'm a huge Howard Stern fan. A giant
one. And I used to listen to it every morning. I loved it.
Howard used to play all sorts of different sounds and things
and they used to play a sound of a woman called Taylor
Rain from an old adult film that she did called "Weapons
of Ass Destruction". And she just made this "oh yeah"
sound and I always thought it was very funny and so I kept searching the internet
Googling and stuff to see if I could find it and I never could.
But I found another woman by the name of Aurora Snow.
And she had a film called Gag Factor 5.
So I checked that out and
sure enough it was just this woman making these
funny, just strange noises. And I had a friend of mine come over
and watch this and I said, "Is this what I think it is?" And he said,
"It absolutely is." I said, "Holy mackerel."
And then I started to show it to all my friends. I showed it to Ben, everybody.
I was like, "You've got to hear this funny sound." And so Ben and I were
hanging out one day and I said, "You know what?
I think I need to get this to Howard Stern. He's got to hear this noise.
It's so flipping funny." And then it came to me. There was
this party in Greenwich that happened every summer. It was in my sister's neighborhood
and Gary, from the Stern show, lived in that neighborhood
so I said, "Wow, I'm going to go to this party
and I'll just a bring a copy of it with me and just see what happens." If I can meet
Gary, I'll give it to him. So sure enough, I go to the party
and there's Gary and said, "Listen, I don't want to bug you about work
but I have a disc for you and want you to take
it home and watch it and if you think it's the funniest thing you've ever heard,
please show it to your boss and if you don't then it's 12 minutes our of your life
you'll never get back and I'm sorry for that." And he said, "Cool."
So now it's the following Monday morning. That party was a Saturday night.
It's Monday morning. I had the morning off. And I'm lying
in bed listening to Howard and Howard Stern goes,
"We have a friend who watches television a little but different than us because he's blind.
Now this guy says this is the funniest noise he's ever heard
and he's absolutely right. This is great."
So Howard started to play this sound that this woman was making from this video.
And I said, "Oh my god. This is cool." My sound is on the show.
This is all I ever wanted. This is great. So I'm doing
my thing and just going through life and back to work
and whatever and about a week and a half goes by and I get a call
from my brother in law after work one morning and he says, "Gary
wants to talk to you immediately." I said, "Okay, well I'm on my way home. I'll
call him when I get there." So I call Gary and I said, "What's up, man?"
He goes, "Well, listen, we love that noise you gave us. It's great.
How would you like to meet the woman that made that noise and
come on the show?" And I said, "Of course, I would love to."
He said, "Okay, cool. We'll set it up." And a week or two later I was
down in New York City on The Howard Stern Show with this woman, Aurora Snow.
I couldn't believe it. I took the train
at 4:30 in the morning. Got to the city around 6
and got my way over to Madison Avenue where the studios were.
And sat in the green room and just waited. I was so
nervous. I had never been on real television before or even
on a big radio show. Howard Stern is like an idol to me.
And I was very nervous and scared. They brought her in first.
And then they brought me in afterwards.
This is one of your biggest fans. This guy is tremendous. He loves
you so much. And I have to be honest with you. That part's not entirely
true. I think they just told her that because
could you imagine --- "Well, there's this blind guy who thinks this is the funniest
noise he's ever heard and he'd love to meet you."
Nobody wants to do that. So they told her I was a big fan.
Honestly just made me laugh. But there I was on the show and I'm
talking to her and they're doing all kinds of things with her and stuff.
And it was a lot of fun. Now, a lot of people are curious
about why I used a different name. Right, I said I was Pete
from New Jersey. Because I was working on what they call and Adult
Contemporary radio station. So it's sort of square.
In those days, it was kind of square. And I was afraid that
me being on this show with this adult entertainer
was going to blow me up and they'd just fire me.
So referred to me as Blind Pete. Right, that's what they had written
on the screen and that was what they were calling me too
throughout the appearance. So once I'm in the studio, I am nervous.
I'm so --- oh my god. I'm freaking out.
Because I'm here next to, you know, with my idol. Right, a radio
legend, but it's the radio so when somebody asks you
a question you just have to go and so I did and they
started asking me questions about how I found Aurora Snow.
And what I thought about this and did it excite me.
Was it titillating and all that kind of thing.
I never really said yes or no to that stuff because
I just wanted to keep it good for her too. You don't want to bring somebody in
and just --- we're all laughing at you. Right? That's not very nice.
And it was so funny too because as it went on ---
I think if you watch the clip, you can see that I'm really nervous and scared
up front but as it goes on I feel like I get more comfortable.
And actually, you know what, one of the questions I've been asked
a lot on YouTube was asked for the very time on that show.
And that was Artie Lange wanted to know, "How do I know when to stop wiping
in the bathroom?" First time in my life I ever heard that question.
Couldn't believe it. And when he asked me the question, I'll be honest I was not prepared.
I really didn't have an answer for it. You know, so that's the part
of that appearance that really makes me cringe.
Because I wasn't ready. I wasn't prepared. I had nothing.
I didn't even have a funny line or anything. But it was towards the end
and it was short and nice and fast.
The funniest part was, after it was all over
I got to sort of shake Howard's hand for a second and talk to him.
And Gary said, "Do you know what this guy does really?
He's a traffic reporter up in the Connecticut." And Howard went, "Really?"
And everybody sort of got a big laugh about it as people do.
And honestly it was over as quickly as it started.
As soon as I finished the show, they took me outside, I got into a cab,
went back to Grand Central Station, and off to Connecticut.
There's a lot of funny things that happened this day.
I mean, I lied at work of course and told them I was sick that day and couldn't come in.
And then they hear Blind Pete
on The Howard Stern Show and they know it's me. The guy I worked with at the time
said he had gotten a couple calls that said, "Hey, I think Tommy's on The Howard
Stern Show right now." And he went, "What?"
"What's he talking about? I thought he was home sick.
And after the appearance, at work people were saying to me, "Why didn't you use your real
name?
name?" I said, "Please, I'm going on The Howard Stern Show with
an adult film star, you know. This could be the thing you might
need to just get rid of me. So I figured I'd use a differerent name."
"Oh, you should have just used your name. It would have been great."
That's easy to say afterwards, right.
But upfront, I was not going to take that chance. I had too much
to lose. I had a good job. I don't want mess it up.
My experience off the air with Howard wasn't much. I'll be honest
with you. I just talked to him for a few seconds but he was really nice to me.
He wasn't going to let me touch his face or anything like that to see
if his nose was really as big as he says. Artie was
very nice to me. Artie laughed at a lot of my stuff
which was great. Robin was alright with me too but she's in another
room so I never even met her. I think the thing that surprised me most
about the experience was how short it really was.
It just flew by so fast.
And how comfortable I got so quickly.
Ben Churchill actually told me the night before this appearance,
he said, "You're on the radio every day. Don't worry about it.
Just make like you're on your own radio station
and just do what you do and just relax and have fun."
That advice was spectacular. It was wonderful advice.
It helped me a ton. I was nervous, nervous,
nervous, and then I sat down, put the headphones on,
and now I'm just on the radio just like any other time.
It happens to be with Howard and Robin and Gary and Artie and everybody.
But it was wonderful advice and it helped me out
a ton. Aurora Snow was almost timid off camera.
She was very quiet and shy and didn't quite
know what to say to me or how to be with me. I remember we did
a thing after the appearance, you know, that they did on the Howard Stern
show, they talked to the guests afterwards, right, and get their reaction and stuff.
She seemed completely different.
Just as shy as could be... like anybody.
Just quiet and, "Hi, how are you?" It is funny though
that they told her that I was a giant fan of hers and that's just not true.
That noise was not exciting, nor was it
titillating. It just made me laugh.
One of the funny things that happens when you do television, is that people
see you. Which is weird
but that's what happens.
So that show aired on a Thursday night. On Friday afternoon,
I went in our friend Franco's for a slice of pizza for lunch before
my second shift of the day and Franco says to me,
"Hey, saw you on The Howard Stern Show last night." I said,
"What? You saw that?" He goes, "Yeah, it was pretty funny.
You were good." People flip around when they watch television of course,
and when they see someone they know they stop.
And so I'm sure that's how he found me and how others found me
as well. Now, since I've been on YouTube people have found
this clip and went, "Wait a minute. Blind Pete?That's Tommy Edison.
Oh my god. I know him."
It's very strange. And I get a lot of questions about
my appearance on that show and I hope this answers them
all for you. I guess a lot of people in the comments are upset because
they think Howard and the whole crew were rude to me. I don't know.
I didn't see it as being rude to me. I mean, that's the show.
You know what I mean? You go into that show knowing what you're going to get.
And I knew what it was going to be like. I mean, I'm a blind person. There's not many
of us, you know. So they're going to ask all sorts of questions. They're going to
be curious about things. They don't think a blind person
could find somebody attractive or have somebody
find them attractive. I mean, I get that in the comments now.
People are like, "Are you a virgin?"
I find that kind of outrageous but no I didn't think they
were rude to me at all. I thought they were very nice. And I'm not a virgin.
[laughs]
So there it is. That's my story about my time on The Howard Stern Show.
Tell you what, if you've never seen this before and you'd like to, we'll leave the link for it
right there in the description and I'd love to know what you think about it.
And if you have any other questions, please hit me up in the comments.
Thank you. Thanks so much for subscribing to The Blind Pete Experience.
[music plays]
Hey, how about this new background, huh? You like this? Well, don't get
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Don't be alarmed or paniced or anything. Things will
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