The man behind the `Savage Nation'

Mercury News ^ | July 20, 2003 | Mark de la Viña

[Sunnyvale CA Eng.]

In the pantheon of popular, bombastic radio and cable talk-show hosts, Michael Savage occupies a special place.

In contrast to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Schlesinger, Bay Area-based Savage mixes conservative diatribe and blunt observations with acerbic humor and a gift of gab. It has propelled him to the top of radio talk-show ratings as well as bestseller book lists.

Savage crossed a line recently, however. MSNBC fired him from his 5-month-old television cable show ``The Savage Nation'' on July 7 after he responded to a prank caller by calling him a ``sodomite'' and saying, ``you should only get AIDS and die.'' As a result, Savage's radio show, also called ``The Savage Nation,'' was suspended from stations in Boston and Los Angeles.

Savage, 61, apologized for the outburst in interviews and on his Web site. But whether the fiasco will affect his multimedia success remains to be seen.

There's no denying his popularity. His nationally syndicated radio show reaches about 6 million listeners on 310 stations (just behind Limbaugh, Hannity, Howard Stern and Schlesinger). In the liberal Bay Area it's the No. 1 program in the 4-7 p.m. Monday-Friday time slot, attracting 226,000 listeners each week. His book, ``The Savage Nation: Saving America From the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture,'' was on the New York Times bestseller list for five months this year.

KNEW-AM (910), Savage's radio home in San Francisco, decided not to suspend him because he apologized, said Ed Krampf, regional vice president in Northern California for Clear Channel, the owner of the station.

``His comments on MSNBC were wrong,'' Krampf said. ``He's admitted that and apologized to his listening audience. He assured us that this is not who he is, that it was an unfortunate mistake, and that I'd never have to worry about it again.''

Savage strikes a chord in fans -- and alienates opponents -- with his assertion that immigrants from ``turd world'' nations, ``seditious'' anti-war protesters and a cabal of ``feminist zealots'' that has ``feminized and homosexualized'' America are dragging us down.

On his MSNBC premiere in March, he explained his appeal: ``I have touched on a raw nerve that has been buried and suppressed in this country.''

Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, who wrote about the talk-radio phenomenon in ``Hot Air: All Talk, All the Time,'' says, ``Savage pushes the envelope of acceptable discourse and taps into the grievances of folks who are angry at society. But he also has a cutting sense of humor that saves him from sounding like just another ranter.''

``He's a showman,'' says Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers Magazine, a talk-radio trade publication. ``He's a smart, mature, seasoned guy who knows instinctively how to make the radio pop. He knows how to . . . get people listening.''

``You say all I do is insults?'' he said in a Mercury News phone interview in February that turned contentious. ``I guess an awful lot of people like my insults.'' Savage refused several additional requests for an interview.

Those who knew Savage years ago are shocked by his metamorphosis, from 1960s author and proponent of herbal medicine, to 1970s hanger-on in the North Beach Beat poets crowd, to the right-wing talk-show host they hear today.

When asked about the apparent shift in his views, Savage said, ``I was once a child; I am now a man.''

Savage, whose legal name is Michael Weiner, was born in New York City in 1942 into a Russian immigrant family ``raised on neglect, anger and hate,'' he writes in his book, an autobiographical rehashing of his radio broadcasts.

In 1964, Savage met his first wife, Carol Ely (who is not mentioned in the book). Ely, an advertising copy writer who lives in Florida, says she underwent two abortions during their marriage. Savage now strongly opposes abortion.

By 1967, after Ely and Savage had separated, Savage met his second wife, Janet. She followed him to Hawaii, where he earned master's degrees in anthropology and botany at the University of Hawaii. He and Janet have two children.

Savage built a career as a nutritionist and herbalist. In his 1980 book ``Weiner's Herbal: The Guide to Herb Medicine,'' he praised the ``remarkable'' medicinal benefits of marijuana. He now attacks advocates of medicinal marijuana and rails against drug use.

While in Hawaii, he offered to produce readings by poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, leaders of the Beat Generation. In a letter in the Ginsberg papers at Stanford University, Savage explained that he would like others ``to hear and see and know why I adore your public image.'' He signed one letter ``Love (archaic), Michael Weiner.'' Both writers took him up on his offer, participating in a reading there in 1972.

Click link for the rest of the article.

[Texas_Dawg]

Savage, whose legal name is Michael Weiner, was born in New York City in 1942 into a Russian immigrant family ``raised on neglect, anger and hate,'' he writes in his book, an autobiographical rehashing of his radio broadcasts.

Well it's a good thing he's clearly outgrown that.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

(Why the excerpt only?) The man behind the `Savage Nation'
NEO-CONSERVATIVE HOST ONCE EMBRACED THE COUNTERCULTURE
By Mark de la Viña
Mercury News

Nancy Peters

Savage, center, in 1975 with poet Neeli Cherkovski, left, and Nancy Peters, co-owner of San Francisco's City Lights bookstore.

In the pantheon of popular, bombastic radio and cable talk-show hosts, Michael Savage occupies a special place.

In contrast to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Schlesinger, Bay Area-based Savage mixes conservative diatribe and blunt observations with acerbic humor and a gift of gab. It has propelled him to the top of radio talk-show ratings as well as bestseller book lists.

Savage crossed a line recently, however. MSNBC fired him from his 5-month-old television cable show ``The Savage Nation'' on July 7 after he responded to a prank caller by calling him a ``sodomite'' and saying, ``you should only get AIDS and die.'' As a result, Savage's radio show, also called ``The Savage Nation,'' was suspended from stations in Boston and Los Angeles.

Savage, 61, apologized for the outburst in interviews and on his Web site. But whether the fiasco will affect his multimedia success remains to be seen.

There's no denying his popularity. His nationally syndicated radio show reaches about 6 million listeners on 310 stations (just behind Limbaugh, Hannity, Howard Stern and Schlesinger). In the liberal Bay Area it's the No. 1 program in the 4-7 p.m. Monday-Friday time slot, attracting 226,000 listeners each week. His book, ``The Savage Nation: Saving America From the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture,'' was on the New York Times bestseller list for five months this year.

KNEW-AM (910), Savage's radio home in San Francisco, decided not to suspend him because he apologized, said Ed Krampf, regional vice president in Northern California for Clear Channel, the owner of the station.

``His comments on MSNBC were wrong,'' Krampf said. ``He's admitted that and apologized to his listening audience. He assured us that this is not who he is, that it was an unfortunate mistake, and that I'd never have to worry about it again.''

Savage strikes a chord in fans -- and alienates opponents -- with his assertion that immigrants from ``turd world'' nations, ``seditious'' anti-war protesters and a cabal of ``feminist zealots'' that has ``feminized and homosexualized'' America are dragging us down.

On his MSNBC premiere in March, he explained his appeal: ``I have touched on a raw nerve that has been buried and suppressed in this country.''

Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, who wrote about the talk-radio phenomenon in ``Hot Air: All Talk, All the Time,'' says, ``Savage pushes the envelope of acceptable discourse and taps into the grievances of folks who are angry at society. But he also has a cutting sense of humor that saves him from sounding like just another ranter.''

``He's a showman,'' says Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers Magazine, a talk-radio trade publication. ``He's a smart, mature, seasoned guy who knows instinctively how to make the radio pop. He knows how to . . . get people listening.''

``You say all I do is insults?'' he said in a Mercury News phone interview in February that turned contentious. ``I guess an awful lot of people like my insults.'' Savage refused several additional requests for an interview.

Those who knew Savage years ago are shocked by his metamorphosis, from 1960s author and proponent of herbal medicine, to 1970s hanger-on in the North Beach Beat poets crowd, to the right-wing talk-show host they hear today.

When asked about the apparent shift in his views, Savage said, ``I was once a child; I am now a man.''

Savage, whose legal name is Michael Weiner, was born in New York City in 1942 into a Russian immigrant family ``raised on neglect, anger and hate,'' he writes in his book, an autobiographical rehashing of his radio broadcasts.

In 1964, Savage met his first wife, Carol Ely (who is not mentioned in the book). Ely, an advertising copy writer who lives in Florida, says she underwent two abortions during their marriage. Savage now strongly opposes abortion.

By 1967, after Ely and Savage had separated, Savage met his second wife, Janet. She followed him to Hawaii, where he earned master's degrees in anthropology and botany at the University of Hawaii. He and Janet have two children.

Savage built a career as a nutritionist and herbalist. In his 1980 book ``Weiner's Herbal: The Guide to Herb Medicine,'' he praised the ``remarkable'' medicinal benefits of marijuana. He now attacks advocates of medicinal marijuana and rails against drug use.

While in Hawaii, he offered to produce readings by poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, leaders of the Beat Generation. In a letter in the Ginsberg papers at Stanford University, Savage explained that he would like others ``to hear and see and know why I adore your public image.'' He signed one letter ``Love (archaic), Michael Weiner.'' Both writers took him up on his offer, participating in a reading there in 1972.

Savage moved to the Bay Area in 1974. He enrolled at the University of California-Berkeley, earning a doctorate in nutritional ethnomedicine in 1978.

Through Ferlinghetti, he met many poets and artists in North Beach, the birthplace of the Beats. Savage, now blasted by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation for his hateful rhetoric, did not shy from highlighting his association with Ginsburg, the openly gay poet.

Stephen Schwartz, a senior policy analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C., and North Beach regular in the '70s, recalls that Savage ``seemed like a BS artist, a person who wanted attention and wanted to be taken very seriously.'' Others remember him then as opinionated, funny and devoted to his children, a man who was accepted by the same counterculture crowd he now disparages.

``I really don't understand the transformation of Michael Weiner into a Jew hater and a poet hater and a leftist hater,'' says Ferlinghetti, co-founder of City Lights bookstore of San Francisco. ``I don't know what happened in his life that caused that.''

In other media interviews and in his book, Savage has said that his experience with higher education altered his outlook. Despite his doctorate, Savage was rejected for various academic positions. He writes in ``The Savage Nation'' that affirmative action ``almost destroyed my family and me,'' and in 1996 he sued UC-Berkeley when he was denied an interview for the job as dean of its graduate school of journalism. The reverse-discrimination case was eventually dropped.

Whether Savage's current right-wing positions are the product of some epiphany at midlife or just opportunistic showmanship is unclear.

Longtime friend and physicist Jack Sarfatti likens him to Lenny Bruce, saying that much of what Savage says is misunderstood satire. ``Michael's just a smart Jewish kid from New York,'' Sarfatti says. ``He's extremely funny much of the time. But he's angry. A lot of Jewish intellectuals are angry, so Michael has kind of channeled his anger into a high form of art.''

But New York marketing consultant Alan Zaitz, a former friend who has known Savage for more than 50 years, is unsure how seriously the radio host takes his own message.

``Does he really believe what he speaks?'' Zaitz says. ``I don't know. Years ago he was anti-war, but now all of a sudden he's George Bush's best fan. It's hypocrisy, but it makes damn good radio.''

MICHAEL SAVAGE

Legal name: Michael Alan Weiner

Age: 61

Background: Host of the ``The Savage Nation,'' locally on KNEW-AM (910). Author of ``The Savage Nation: Saving America From the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture'' and 17 other books.

Personal: Lives in Larkspur in Marin County with wife Janet. Children Russell, 33, and Rebecca Lin Yops, 26, live in Southern California.

[Sunnyvale CA Eng.]

(Why the excerpt only?)

No reason - I figured the link will take you there.

[Houmatt]

So what exactly was the point of putting that rather personal information in that article, I wonder? Perhaps it was done in some fervent hope harm will come to Mike?

If so, and something indeed happens, I'd expect Mike to sue the hell out of Mark de la Viña and the Mercury News.

[Denver Ditdat]

No reason - I figured the link will take you there.

Formatting an entire article for posting here is more work, but it has the advantage of being permanent. On many or most news servers, links change and expire, files are shuffled around and deleted. Someone tracking down info via this post in a few months of years may well find that it is a dead end.

This is especially important for stories that cause their parent media organization to blush after release. Stories modified or pulled to squelch damning information are not unknown. If it has been archived on the FR server a story can't just disappear into the bit bucket.

Most news organizations don't require that we excerpt, the Washington Times and LA Times being two notable exceptions. Take the extra time and effort to post full articles - it's very much appreciated.

[Texas_Dawg]

I think Savage's schtick is an act.

Maybe so, but I can only take someone at the words of theirs which they give me to by. And his are pretty sorry.

[A CA Guy]

Well he is free to land huge contracts now for his major talent.

He will either soar or more than likely end up on local city cable.

[A CA Guy]

I saw that the seconds I watched him.

I could never keep him on in the car and would have to switch to someone else who didn't sound like they were a crybaby all the time.

I guess he will enjoy his retirement and must have billions to fall back on from his stunning career.

[Sunnyvale CA Eng.]

Most news organizations don't require that we excerpt, the Washington Times and LA Times being two notable exceptions. Take the extra time and effort to post full articles - it's very much appreciated.

Point taken - I'll include the whole article on future posts.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

Washington POST I think you mean! Wash. Times is on our side ;)

[jetson]

Alot of us were taken in by the brain washing of the sixties. How could you get away from it in the populated areas.. Those who always doubted the hippie wierdo life style were the ones who grew up to be the most open minded conservative thinkers today.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

You didn't have Free Republic then to counter the LIES put out by the newsmedia.

It's a changed world, and they can't brainwash like they used to. We're not going to take, and they aren't going to push us their way. Period.

[jetson]

Right on mama.

[Mr Rogers]

I heard him on the radio once. A caller asked a reasonable question. Instead of using it as a chance to further explain his views, he spewed venom at the caller and boasted about how incredibly intelligent he (Savage) is. He sounded like a stupid jerk to me, so I turned the radio off. Haven't wasted time on him since.

[Denver Ditdat]

Washington POST I think you mean! Wash. Times is on our side ;)

Whoops! You're absolutely right. I meant the PostHole, not the Times. Thanks for the correction!

[squarebarb]

The leftist propaganda was overwhelming in '60's and up to early '90s. Just overwhelming. All that was bright and smart and sophisticated and classy was leftist. The good life was leftist. Smart, engaged caring people were leftist. It just seemed to come from every direction.

[bethelgrad]

me too. the way he contradicts himself so often on various issues indicates to me that he lacks real core values, other than the borders, language, culture rants.

[harpo11]

What the heck is a neo-conservative?

He's not whatever that is. He's independent. He's fiery. He's passionate. He's mostly brilliantly thought provoking and teasing. He's political and cultural nudity. He's not for the weak.

[jetson]

I have found that the goo goo liberal hippies were like the child molesting priests'. They put on a good act where in reality they were rotten apples. A theif sneaks up and steals things behind your back. A robber walks up and looks you in the eye as they rob you. I will trust a person who says what they mean. I will never trust a person with a goo goo smile wearing the costumes of phony-ness.

[CounterCounterCulture]

NEO-CONSERVATIVE HOST ONCE EMBRACED THE COUNTERCULTURE

Ah, the "counterculture", my arch-nemesis ;-)

Interesting pic of Savage/Wiener. Would have never guessed that to be him in a million years. Ah, 70s-style clothing, may it rest in peace.

[Elliott Jackalope]

Bingo! Exactly. Nothing more, and nothing less. A big act that is designed to produce maximum ratings, and hence maximum dollars in his bank account. If Michael Savage is really a conservative, then I'm Donald Duck.

Anybody out there remember a guy named Wally George? Had a TV show in Southern Cal? Supposedly a big "conservative" who just happened to have a lot of strippers on his show. Hoo boy. What an act. Michael Savage is Wally George on steroids.

[eniapmot]

There is nothing in this article to suggest that Savage is not a real conservative. The narrative leaves him in 1978 (25 years ago) just as he receives his PhD and finds out that affirmative action is against him. Sounds like a typical conversion.

[Elliott Jackalope]

Fair enough. However, I am basing my opinion of the man upon the time I spent listening to his show while living in California. He was on KSFO, and his show used to be on just after Jim Eason's show. Let me assure you they did NOT like each other.

After a while I got tired of Savage's routine. He's a showman, about as convincing as "The Undertaker" or some other character from pro wrestling. He is certainly no Ric Flair or Roddy Piper, I can assure you.

[Conservative til I die]

Gee, Savage apologized? Wonder if all the Savage cultists that were going crazy on anyone who thought Savage's choice of insults was in poor taste will reconsider, since their idol seemed to agree.

**Waits for the "Savage didn't apologize, it was a pod person planted by the liberals who apologized. The real Savage is being held hostage by the sodomites with AIDS."

[Conservative til I die]

Agreed. He's basically a political shock jock. While one might get a chuckle or two out of his outbursts, thinking to themselves "Gee I only wish I could have said that," it grows old fast and when the shock value is stripped away, you realize that all he did was make a crude insult that proves nothing and is actually counterproductive to conservatives.

[Conservative til I die]

He comes off as a bully when he berates people that even agree with him 80%. Look at Limbaugh. I'm not the biggest fan or listener of his anymore, but he does let liberals call in, and while he makes no bones about it that he's right and the liberal is dead wrong, he does it in a reasonable way. Why? Because Rush knows it's his show, he gets to screen the callers, and he can pull the plug at anytime on the caller. He's in control of the situation. Savage can do the same thing, but for whatever reason he feels the need to crap on every caller to somehow prove he's "da man."

[Conservative til I die]

I love these gushing reviews. Reminds me of the movie commercials that use the "so and so of the so and so Times says, "It's a roller coaster ride for the whole family!!!!"