Howard Stern (Left) and Joey Boots at the Howard Stern Show

Joey Boots, a contributor to the Howard Stern show, died in his apartment this week at 49 years old. Many news sites have covered his death but as a fan of Howard Stern and the ecosystem of freaks and frequent callers and hangers-on surrounding the long-running morning radio show, I would like to try and eulogize Joey as the layered and interesting human being that he was. Joey Boots was many things besides being a small part of the Howard Stern Show. Those of us who are fans of Howard’s got an opportunity to know Joey through the lens of the show as a man who overcame great adversity in his life to become an entertaining regular on the show. Boots was perhaps best known for yelling “Baba Booey! Howard Stern’s Penis!” in the background, gonzo-style, of live news segments that were taking place in New York City. I have always found these small rebellions to be a delightfully subversive puncturing of the unreality of the contrived fakery of TV news.

Many of the news articles about Joey’s death may even mention that Joey was something of a free speech hero. Joey got a case thrown out of court where he was charged for Disorderly Conduct for yelling his catchphrases during a live news read and thus created good precedent for future rabble-rousers who like to rattle the cages of the TV news industry by savaging the stuffy reporters who otherwise would so confidently tell us what the important events of the day were on the evening telecasts. Yet other details may have also floated in the last few ‘graphs of some of these mainstream media accounts of the death of Joey Boots like some version of a story about how Boots had recently received a large settlement in a class action lawsuit where he was the lead plaintiff against Whole Foods. The suit alleged that Whole Foods was stiffing its customers by consistently putting less than the advertised weight of products in their food items.

What I would like to add to the ephemera of recollections online is something about his humanity. Joey was a closeted gay man for most of his life and he was also a decorated military veteran. In one of my favorite appearances of Joey’s on the Stern show his military history was highlighted as we got a peek into Joey’s world. Joey and High Pitch Erik competed in an event called the Craptacular which could only have existed in the demented world of Howard Stern. Before I explain what the Craptacular was all about, I must take a moment here to briefly describe the physiques of Boots and High Pitch Erik. The two were a matched set of couch-dwelling, all-you-can-eat buffet veterans who each had the distended gut and warped proportions that are becoming a commonplace in the fast food culture of early 21st century America. Howard was curious what Joey and Erik’s bowel movements must weigh because of their terrible diets and so a contest was arranged and producers from the show were sent to Joey’s apartment in Long Island to officially weigh the dumps Erik and Joey took in one 24 hour period. The night before Joey and Erik went to a Chinese restaurant buffet to load up on greasy morsels which took the bit to another level of grossness.

In his brilliant interviewing style, Howard teased out details of Joey and Erik’s eating experience which serendipitously led to an exchange when Howard spotted a small display case of military medals in the background of Joey Boot’s cluttered mess of an apartment. In a touching yet still deeply funny moment, Howard had Joey describe his military service and Joey reeled off the medals he had been awarded: military expedition medal, army good service, good conduct, army achievement medal, Naval deployment medal, armed forces service medal, expeditionary medal.

Joey’s leg also noticeably shook as he discussed his service with Howard’s co-host Robin Quivers, who was an Air Force Captain herself. Joey and Robin discussed why Joey left the service which lead to Joey revealing that he had PTSD and had to get out of the military after being deployed for 18 months during a two year period with training before his deployment. Howard instinctively moved the conversation back to the Craptacular:

“You ready? You feeling like you have to take a dump?”

“No. Not yet. Within the hour, though, it’s definitely… I’ve got a round in the chamber. It’s going to get ready to get loose. Uh… I’m gonna… I’m gonna…” Joey stammered in response.

“You going to win this thing?” Asked Howard.

“Howard, I’m going to win it for you. You’ve got 200 dollars on me. That means you have faith in me. Robin has 200 dollars on me. She has faith in me. I’m doing it for the both of you guys. I appreciate your support.” Joey earnestly replied, adding a leavening pinch of emotion to the otherwise ridiculous Craptacular.

There was also a photo of Joey in his military days inside of the medal display. The photo was from ten years earlier and Joey looked like an entirely different person with the military fatigues and a jaunty beret on his head. Joey’s face was much leaner and was missing the double chins and puffiness that had been added in the intervening years. Joey mentioned he was one of the first 500 U.S. troops into Bosnia which was a reference to the Bosnian War that took place between 1992 and 1995 after the break-up of the Soviet Union. The War was part of the disintegration of Yugoslavia when Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence. This was the conflict that brought Slobodan Milosevic to prominence when he and the Yugoslav People’s Army began an ethnic cleansing of local Bosniak Muslims and Catholic Croats. It is estimated that 100,000 people died during the war and an additional 2.2 million were displaced and the conflict was only finally squelched by NATO intervening in 1995. So Joey Boots was part of one of the few worthwhile conflicts that American forces were involved in during the 20th century.

Joseph Bassolino, Joey’s given name, reached the rank of corporal in the Army serving in the 2nd Battalion, 67th Armored Division. Boots served from 1992 to 1998 in the military ironically during the exact time that the “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy became official. I say ironically because Joey Boots was a gay man and he of course had to suppress this part of himself while in the military. He didn’t come out until revealing that he was gay on the June 28th, 2007 edition of the Howard Stern Show when he was around 40 years old.

Joey was part of a generation of veterans that were especially hard hit by suicide and depression which probably had a lot to do with modern medicine and reporting statistics as well as the callous disregard of the U.S. military brass that was especially notable during the era that Joey served in. In the military’s own documents, the statistics regarding veteran suicides are staggering for this most recent generation of soldiers. In their 2012 report on suicide, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs found that at least 22% of all suicides reported in the U.S. were by veterans while veterans only make up a little less than 10% of the population. The report estimated that 22 veterans died from suicide every day in 2010. In a 2016 VA suicide prevention fact sheet, the rate of suicide for veterans in 2014 is listed as 35.3 per 100,000. The rate for U.S. civilian adults is 15.2 per 100,000 so the rate is more than twice as high for vets.

The Era that Joey Boots served in, the 90's, was an era where the iron hand came out of the velvet glove in some respects in terms of military tactics for U.S. armed forces. In the gulf war the U.S. began using depleted uranium munitions and the Pentagon estimates that at least 860,000 depleted uranium rounds were fired during the gulf war which left behind an ongoing legacy of radioactive filth that will still be contaminating whatever it comes in contact with long after our species has winked out of existence. These rounds are so toxic and lethal that studies have indicated they are a teratogen or an agent that causes birth defects. The gulf war-era is also notable for the eponymous syndrome that affected over a third, again by the government’s own numbers, of the 700,000 that served in that era. Gulf War Syndrome includes a range of chronic symptoms that include fatigue, joint pain, insomnia, respiratory disorders, memory problems and migraines. In addition to the depleted uranium rounds, soldiers of Joey’s generation were also exposed to many other harmful chemicals like anti-nerve agents and pesticides that the army used as well as the belching oil fires that often engulfed the conflict zones.

Joey Boots was a funny person and like many funny people he used humor to find something redeeming in the dark aspects of his life. He was thoroughly human with parts of him that were noble and parts of him that were broken. He served his country and he served the listening audience with his gruff Long Island accent that belied a layered and complex person who had been battered by the gauntlet of mechanized warfare. In the end the irony that he may have finally come to some peace of mind in the form of financial stability and the acceptance of his true nature by society just in the last few passing moments is pretty much how his entire life seemed to play out. Here’s to you, Joey Boots. You will be missed.