C’mon, Dave, gimme a break

Twenty minutes. That’s roughly how long I was able to listen to David Lee Roth’s first broadcast as the East Coast replacement for Howard Stern before I had to bail.

I wanted to like it. Really, I did. There was a time, mind you, when I thought David Lee Roth was officially The Coolest Motherfucker Who Ever Walked the Earth. Unfortunately, that time was about 20 years ago.

Prior to Dave’s radio debut, I predicted his show would last six months. After hearing him today, I’m halving that.

I once called in to Howard’s show during a segment when Dave was the in-studio guest, and Sammy Hagar was a phone-in guest. The two former Van Halen frontmen were hyping their 2002 co-headlining tour—the Sans Halen tour, if you will.

“Howard, I love both eras of Van Halen,” I told the King of All Media. “I love the Dave stuff and I love the Sammy stuff. I’ve spent a little time with everyone in the band except for Dave, but I’ve heard Dave talk on plenty of occasions, and all I can say is: Sammy, I don’t know how you’re gonna put up with this guy on the road for three months.”

“Hey, how do you know Dave’s the difficult one?” Howard asked me as Sam chuckled.

I didn’t have succinct answer at the ready, but I do now: Who would you rather be trapped in an elevator with for, say, 12 hours: Dave or Sam? If you heard Dave’s impossible-to-follow, stream-of-consciousness, one-man gabfest this morning—complete with plenty of the same worn-out lines he’s been using for years—you know that my money’s on Sam.

Remember that commercial where the guy holds up the egg and says, “This is your brain,” then cracks the eggshell, dumps the contents into a hot frying pan and says, “This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?”

Yeah, I have one: If you opened up David Lee Roth’s skull, would you actually find fried eggs in there?