Updated June 15, 6pmPT.
Joe Buck and HBO are apologizing today for Artie Lange’s appearance on Buck’s debut show. Lange had a barrage for Buck that the host had absolutely no idea what to do with. It was great. At one point Lange asked Buck if “suckingcock.com” was his second favorite Web site. He dove into Michael Irvin, who was also a guest on the show. And at one point he talked about being a homophobe:
I’m also a well-known homophobic. It’s like a white trash gift from god that the f***in’ Cowboys have a quarterback whose last name rhymes with ‘homo.’ … And he’s dating a fat chick.
Video and more after the jump.
On the Howard Stern show Tuesday, Lange said that HBO sports president Ross Greenburg told Lange to “go wild” if the other guests, actors Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis, sucked. They did and Lange went wild.
Greenburg said that he did not book Lange “to be crude,” but if that’s the case that’s simply naive and Greenburg and Buck should be ashamed for not doing their homework. Lange was on the Jimmy Kimmel show last week and was plenty crude — and that was network TV! They had to have known something like that was coming: That’s WHY you book Artie! I’ll tell you this: Buck’s jokes did, in fact, suck; And Artie agreed.
Buck and HBO are lucky that Lange did what he did. Today, everyone is talking about a first episode that was pretty boring, other than Lange. Buck just isn’t a good interviewer. He had on two “bad boys” of the NFL — Michael Irvin and Chad Ochocinco — and didn’t ask any probing questions of them. Irvin freely offered some insight into his sex- and coke-chasing days and Buck still didn’t bite. If I were HBO, I’d can Buck and hire Lange as the new host: Then you’d get some entertainment and probing questions!
“This isn’t indicative of the kind of product the [HBO] sports department sends out over the airwaves,” Greenburg said today.
Who are they kidding? Have they seen the porn that HBO puts on at times? “Oh no, we’re the sports department, we’re above that.” Give me a break.
Though, I do wish Lange would ease up on the homophobic stuff. It’s getting constant with him: Everything is gay this and fag that. A straight friend of mine thinks Lange is actually gay and deeply closeted. With all his gay-baiting, I’m becoming convinced that something is amiss with him.
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 2:55 AM
I heard Artie Lange on the Howard Stern show about two months ago saying positive things about gay people (or at least attempting to) during one of Stern’s talks on the topic. I don’t think he’s secretly in the closet and if he is I think it’s such a deep secret that he doesn’t even know it.
Even his wiki page calls him “a supporter of gay rights (despite his notorious penchant for gay jokes)”.
Oh yeah and I think he’s hilarious and Joe Buck is about as entertaining as watching paint dry.
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 5:05 AM
“I’m also a well-known homophobic.” Who knew a person could be an adjective?
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 7:58 AM
Artie wasn’t nearly as funny as he thought he was and I’m a big fan of him on the Stern show. But the Joe Buck show was a snoozefest so at least he livened it up and got people talking about it.
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 9:12 AM
Who is Artie Lange? Should I have heard of this guy?
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 10:17 AM
He’s a stanup comicwho was on MadTV during it’s first season or two. He is currently the comic sidekick on the Howard Stern radio show.
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 11:40 AM
Praising a guy who makes “fag jokes”? Nice.
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 2:45 PM
Given the (in)famous rumor about Buck, Lange’s comments were especially funny. (Whether funny/hilarious or just funny/strange is up to you.)
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 4:57 PM
Truly, though, Joe Buck stinks.
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 5:39 PM
Joe Buck was a good, solid play-by-play announcer for both football and baseball.
Somewhere along the way someone told him he is funny, clever and has an enchanting personality. Boy, were they ever WRONG!!
You know who I would love to see interviewed? The TV executives who give shows like this to Joe Buck and segments on the ESPN NFL pre-game show to Kenny Mayne (don’t get me started on him. Still waiting to see his first funny or clever idea.)
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 6:40 PM
Joe Buck is straight. Divorced three kids. Get over it.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 6:22 AM
My former brother in law is divorced and has two kids and he’s gay. I’m not saying Buck is gay but his being divorced and having kids is hardly concrete eveidence that he isn’t gay.
And Mike you are 100% right…
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 10:56 AM
Actually his being divorced and having kids is concrete evidence that he isn’t gay, unless he and his ex-wife used some type of fertilization method other than the old fashion way. He could be bisexual (apparently like your former brother in law George) but being divorced and having three kids should at least prove that he likes women on some level.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 12:15 PM
So you’ve never heard of gay guys who had sex with women? I know I did but in no way am I bisexual. I mean with a gun to my head or to repopulate the planet I could do it again.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 1:47 PM
“Actually his being divorced and having kids is concrete evidence that he isn’t gay.”
Hah! I know a guy: married, divorced, 5 kids — now living with his male partner of 10 years; gay, gay, gay. Knew he was gay the entire marriage.
I know nothing about Buck but claiming that someone being divorced with kids is proof they are not gay is ludicrous.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 2:08 PM
No, no, no.
I’ll give you a perfect example and a sports related one.
There’s a woman by the name of Jenna Jameson, I’m going to assume everyone knows who she is. Jenna currently claims she is straight because she’s with Tito Ortiz a well known mixed martial artist and just had twin babies with him I believe.
So by your definition Jenna is straight right? Even though you can google her name and undoubtedly find hours and hours of video of her being something other than straight. She’s still 100% straight? Right?
Call me ludicrous if you like but I think someone making 3 or 5 babies with a woman is proof that they are intimately attracted to women (and thus are either bisexual or straight). A man who had enough heterosexual sex to make 5 babies is 100% gay? And a woman who ate more p&*&y than Cujo is 100% straight?
Ludicrous you say Jim?
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 2:39 PM
Oh come on Black…first of all Jenna Jameson is a fucking porn star. Second, are there some examples of men or women being divorced and being bisexual? Yes. But you surely can’t be claiming that everyone who has ever been married, gotten divorced and then moved on to homosexual relationships are all bisexual? Merely because they procreated? You can’t really be that naive.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 3:18 PM
And you surely can’t be claiming that a man who is with a woman and has 5 children or 3 children with her, is gay. Does that not prove that he has some sort of physical/emotional attraction and connection to her? That’s what you’re saying if you believe that such a person can be gay.
What kind of sense does that make? How can you have that type of a connection with the opposite sex and still be gay?
So if ‘Bob’ is in a long term relationship with another man and then leaves that man for a woman, there’s a possibility that Bob can be COMPLETELY straight.
Right?
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 4:06 PM
He can have 125 children with 125 different women and still be gay. And a female porn star can have sex with a billion other women and not be a lesbian. Either rent a brain or go troll somewhere else.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 4:24 PM
….Says the tough guy who’s probably been drinking entirely too early in the day.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 4:28 PM
“And you surely can’t be claiming that a man who is with a woman and has 5 children or 3 children with her, is gay.”
Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. It’s called living in the closet. I know gays who who fantasized about guys while having sex with their wife; that’s how the kids were cranked out.
Are you gay, since your comments seem ill-informed?
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 5:02 PM
I don’t believe human sexuality is just so black and white as to say everyone falls into just gay and straight. To me, if you have emotional, initimate and physical connections with members of both sexes, then you’re bisexual. And if that’s not the case then please do tell me what bisexual is? And I’m not trying to troll or anything, I genuinely don’t understand how you can just chuck it up to being ‘in the closet’ as if what you did while in the closet doesn’t matter. There’s some guy right now in prison calling himself straight and ‘fantasizing’ about his cellmate being a woman when they have sex so he can get through it. Is he straight? Of course not. Is he in the closet? Nope. He’s bisexual too.
And no, to answer your question Jim, I’m not gay.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 5:44 PM
Black, I think you should explore some communities where there are men who are gay and divorced from their wives, and they have kids. Your comments just don’t make sense.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 6:27 PM
Black, some guys are bi, but most of ex-married guys I know say they were gay the whole time, basically fantasized during sex and stayed in the marriage because of societal or family pressure or fear or the kids or whatever. But they self identify as gay, not as bi. And a lot never leave their wives and live life on the downlow.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 8:07 PM
He should contact Jim1454 on EmptyClosets.
He’s divorced, has two great kids, and he’s gay! Well whaddya know! 
Oh and he has a male partner now.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 9:10 PM
Jim. You said ‘self identify as gay’. At one point all of the guys you know who are divorced and have kids and now ‘self identify as gay’, probably self identified as straight. Did that make them straight? Absolutely not. You can call yourself whatever you like, its not always the case. If it were, everyone in the NFL would probably be straight and you and I both know that’s not the truth.
You spend such a long time in a relationship with someone and say you were fantasizing the entire time. It didn’t mean anything because it only matters what you do from now on. I don’t think it works like that. I don’t think you ‘fantasize’ the entire time. I think you genuinely liked it. Especially 5 times Jim that’s A LOT of fantasizing! That guy likes women and it doesn’t make him straight, it makes him either bi or straight. Just as a guy liking other men doesn’t make him gay. It makes him either bi or gay.
Even Joe half agrees with me and when he sobers up I’m sure he’ll realize that.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 9:14 PM
A point of clarification:
I don’t know if Buck has ever been married or has kids. I made up a rumor just like RGMike did to prove a point about rumors. We don’t know and never will unless we are in bed with the guy. I’m just tired of internet gossip running or ruining people’s lives, particularly hear at Outsports. We’re so busy worried about some Ghost Athlete coming out of the closet that we forget about coming out ourselves and being our own freaking role models.
I don’t believe in labels because they are for clothes, but I will say that I think that “queer liberation” is about being able to define yourself how you choose. One person’s gay is another person’s bisexual. I liked cooter when I was inside of it. I called myself bisexual. I still do, I just prefer men. But I am still attracted to women. The bi-phobia in these posts is extremely disheartening.
on Jun 19th, 2009 at 8:43 AM
To me sexuality is what goes on between your ears, not the actions you take.
For example, during college I used to occasionally hook-up with girls. In every instance, the girl was the aggressor at a party with my friends around. It would’ve created a lot of suspicion and gossip if I would’ve turned any of these girls down. So I hooked-up with them and somehow did get aroused.
Looking back on it, I think I would’ve gotten aroused from kissing just about anyone. At the same time, during my entire college years I was jerking off daily thinking exclusively about my roommate and other random guys on campus (i.e., never thinking about a girl).
Since college I’ve never been with a girl or fantasized sexually about one. It’s been exclusively men. So what does that make me in terms of sexuality? Very clearly gay, I’d say.
I’m sure there really are people who are truly bisexual. But given the past and current societal forces regarding sexuality, I’d think most of those people would choose a straight life. That’s probably why so many guys here on outsports.com and gay guys in general doubt the sexuality of guys in the gay community claiming bisexuality.
on Jun 19th, 2009 at 3:14 PM
“Even Joe half agrees with me and when he sobers up I’m sure he’ll realize that.”
I’d need about a billion beers before I’d agree with anything other than the fact that you’re an idiot and a troll.