As an entertainer operating on the browner side of good taste, I've been half aware of this whole Howard Stern thingy for the last few weeks. In case you don't know, the FCC has fined Clear Channel $495,000 for talking about ass, and CC has responded by knocking Howard off the air in a few markets or something. But I just got an email from Bruce from Sphincterine who told me what I would have learned had I bothered to click the link instead of just getting my news from Fark headlines: the big row is all about a discussion of ass habits!

Bruce (whom I've met, if I must name drop) was on the show to promote Sphincterine, the breath mint for the ass that PoopReport loves ever so much. The conversation turned to anal sex, apparently, and was punctuated by wicked funny farting sounds. Here's a transcript, and here's a summary from Mark's Friggin Howard Stern page:

Sphincterine Creator Bruce Comes In With His Dog. 4/9/03. 7:35am
"Howard said they had this guy Bruce come in because he claims that his dog can eat a piece of pizza faster than a human. While he was giving the guy an introduction he took a call from a guy who said they were censored during the Stuttering John anal sex discussion. Howard went on to bitch about how the company had just gotten in trouble with some other DJs they had on their stations. He said they're dumping out of everything these days. Gary came in a short time later and showed Howard what it was they dumped out of. The line was ''The sphincter can only take so much abuse.'' Howard was really pissed about that and said he's going to ask to be released from his contract when he has a meeting with Mel Karmazin this week. Howard said that Tom Chiusano is in Golf School while his show is being ruined.

"Howard got back to this guy Bruce and his product Sphincterine. Howard asked Bruce what kind of dog he had. It was a Welsh Corgi. He was putting up $500 against Artie. He says his dog can eat faster than Artie can. Buster the dog eats fast according to Bruce. Bruce said he didn't feed the dog last night so the dog is very hungry. Howard quickly got to the contest and let Bruce have the pizza folded. Artie was slamming the pizza into his face too. Howard said the dog was having trouble getting the food in but was eating very fast. He was using his paw to hold it down. Artie's mouth was full while the dog was inhaling the slice of pizza. The dog was ahead of Artie and ended up winning. Howard asked Artie what happened. His mouth was still full when he was answering Howard. Artie ended up giving the dog his pizza crust and didn't finish the whole thing.

"Howard said he'd led Bruce plug his product Sphincterine. He even played his jingle which was pretty wacky. Bruce said he's invested about $20,000 in the product and has probably tripled that in 9 months. He said he was inspired to create the product after his girlfriend was inspired to go down there to give him oral and found he had ''swamp ass.'' Howard had the girlfriend come in to talk about it. He said she was pretty hot. She said she just got close to giving him oral before smelling the swamp ass. Bruce said he now uses Sphincterine before he has sex with her. He said you can use this stuff as a liquid you can apply to toilet paper to wipe yourself or use their wipes. Bruce said he'd let his girlfriend Cat talk about it a bit. Howard spoke to her for a short time and let him plug the stuff. He said his web site is at MintyAss.com. Howard also heard that he had photoshopped a picture of Mariah Carey holding the bottle of the stuff and ended up getting a call from her manager and from someone claiming to be Mariah. He said she was really upset that her fans might think she has a stinky ass according to Bruce. Howard wrapped up the interview a short time after that."

Knowing now that this story is so much more relevant to PoopReporters than I had thought (I mean, aside from the whole restrictions-on-free-speech and the-spectre-of-federal-thought-police angle), we'll be following this much more closely.