Hard Knocks
Howie Carr grew up reading mysteries and detective novels, and not just George V. Higgins either. He’s read hundreds from the Thirties on — Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, Mike Hammer, Michael Shayne, Nero Wolfe, etc. He’d always wanted to write one of his own, and has — several times. “Hard Knocks” is the culmination of those efforts, the first Howie Carr novel to be published. This is a fast-moving, old-style mystery, not to be confused with the sensitive musings of a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where the hero is a grad student in English literature musing on man’s fate as the snow falls gently on the frozen lake….
Howie wanted to write the kind of mystery he enjoys — with lots of snappy dialogue and plot twists, the kind of book you’d take with you to the beach or on a plane ride. If you like Howie’s non-fiction books and columns, you’re going to love “Hard Knocks.”
Nice job Howie! I’ll see you on the Cape!
Not only can you get Howie’s book in print or on kindle, it’s in audiobook form, too…check out audible dot com and other sources
Howie,
Bain Capital advised Barack Obama on the auto bailout.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45979278
Great read Howie, I am 1/2 way through and can’t put it down.
Thanks
Only a few pages into Hard Knocks and I’m crackin’ up!!!…Jack is sooo Howie and that’s a good thing…
Who the hell is going to play me when they make the film version of “Hard Knocks?” With the exception of Chris Cooper, I dont think there is a finocchio in Hollywood up to the task of playing me in a movie.
Makes ya sick!
WICKED!
Read Hard Knox and loved it. I liked how the ficticous characters were really some of of own politicians and how I actually new who they were in real life. Hope your working on another book.
Read all your books, awesome . What’s next Sal’s confession ???
Hey Howie……………..Is Katy Bemis really Maria Stephanos…..
You ain’t gotta chance Jack !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don’t know if Entercom is thinking about gnttieg rid of Howie. However, I have caught his program recently and nothing I heard him say seemed any different than the past. So, why is it a big deal now? I don’t know. Maybe they just were gnttieg sick of it and decided to hit him where it hurts or where it matters to him, in his wallet. For those of you who don’t know how radio works, here’s a quick, admittedly simplistic view. Most stations run about 12 to 14 minutes worth of ads an hour. They set the price based on what they can get and what they have to make for the quarter. They take the amount they need to make for the quarter and divide it by the number of spots in that same quarter, which gives them a rough idea of the rate they need to get. It gets a bit stickier when you have big “talent” like Howie because it throws the math off. But, the formula is still the same. In order to understand just how much money Howie makes – or how much money they lose on Howie – follow this math. Let’s say WRKO has 12 spots an hour, just to make the math easy. That’s about 12,500 ad minutes. per year for Howie’s four hours. To break even on Howie, WRKO needs to sell every single ad during his program for at least $96 ($80 to pay for Howie, with 20 percent, a guesstimate, going to the sales people). That’s breaking even on just Howie, not counting any other expenses to run the station. But for the example to understand the money, let’s just use this formula. There are other billable things, like live reads (“The Chump Line is sponsored by Lumber Liquidators ”), promotions, sponsorships, non-traditional revenue like the Web site, and other things, that bring in money to a radio station. But like ads in the print edition of the newspaper are the bulk of their money, so are spots for radio.Anyone listening to Howie’s show knows that it’s not sold out. There are PSAs running throughout the hour. Endlessly. So, the spot price is much more than $96 I would bet. In addition, Howie has a network deal, since the show is syndicated on a bunch of New England stations. So, the spots that air on multiple stations make a lot more money. At the same time, I have heard rumors over the years that the network spots have been difficult to sell. If you’re in Boston, you don’t care about some tiny audience in Maine or Keene. Back in the heyday, Howie was billing a pretty chunk of change. When I called to get an estimate for a potential freelance client back in 2004, it was $300. I seriously doubt that it is $300 now. But, it might be. I don’t know and I don’t know anyone who is buying spots on WRKO now so I couldn’t even guess. But, in many of these cases, it is about the money … $1 million is a ton of cash. It might be money for Entercom. In fact, as they have seen with their horrifically amateur, unlistenable paid programming, quality doesn’t really matter. Whoever pays plays. As advertising has dried up for everyone, they could be looking at other options.Here’s some other math to wonder about, especially when considering this situation. WRKO could easily get quality talk show programming that could potentially be more profitable for a lot less money. There are a lot of talk show hosts out there who can do it for them that won’t get $1 million. Here’s how that math would work.Say, for example, that Entercom is selling all of Howie’s spots for $100 each. They figure, well, we’re selling all the spots, paying Howie, and making $50K a year in profit (again, ignoring the other costs at the station, just to make the math easy). However, they could get another talk show host, say, Tony Schinella, who will do compelling air, build an audience beyond just those people who are knuckle-draggers, and he’ll do it for say $100K. Well, sure, Tony won’t be able to bill $100 a spot. But, could Tony bill $20 a spot? Probably, in the Boston market on a station like WRKO. And Tony would kill himself to make it work, let me tell you that right now So, WRKO hires Tony for $100K, sells out all his spots at $20 a piece, and makes more money with Tony – $150K in profit instead of $50K with Howie – returning more revenue to the station’s bottom line and to shareholders. Now, I admit, this is a stretch of an example. I’m not going to replace Howie on WRKO and very few other people are either. But this is how they could be looking at it. Better to get a cheaper person and sell the rate for less money but make more money than to have an expensive person and play PSAs. In many cases, WRKO isn’t going to lose a ton of listeners for most of their shows. Sure, they will lose Howie’s rabid following. But studies done by Scarborough Research show that talk radio listeners rarely switch the station unlike music listeners who hear an ad and then flip the station. They have talk on all day long, even liberals, in the background, in the car, and are not often swayed to switch by the actual hosts. Sure, they can go to WTKK. But some won’t switch. There will always be listeners on WRKO no matter who is on. Will they be the same as Howie’s numbers? No. But there will be numbers there. On Howie calling Obama out for being an affirmative action success story, personally, I don’t have a problem with that. From all that I have seen, including an amazing Frontline documentary on Obama, this rings true. Throughout his career, Obama has used his race and oratory skills to dazzle guilty, white progressives into thinking he is one thing when, in fact, he is quite another, as shown by the way he governs. That is where the “messiah” stuff comes from. The list of his “accomplishments” before becoming a senator were weak and limited when compared to many other statesmen and women of our time. The fact that he was able to win the primary against Hillary still shocks me to this day. However, it does show that, yes, anyone can grow up and become the president, especially when given many helping hands along the way Of course, the fact that anyone can grow up to be president is a good thing.
Jeez Howie, I can’t make any associations to real people in Boston! Slip…Slip, hmmm…now who could that possibly be/been? Hey, it was Billy V. who shot the perp who tried to rob “Slip” and Billy when they were leaving Ahmreins. Perp tried to show he meant business when he slashed the front of Billy’s overcoat. Billy carried a .38 S&W, with a shrouded hammer. After Billy shot the guy “Slip” chased the perp down, and held him down by pulling his piece saying, “You tried to stab my pal, you f…in’ rat”. When the rat tried to sue them, Billy hired his own court stenographer who made an official record of every word spoken in the lawsuit. Perp failed.
“Slip” and Billy were great pals, two of the last old-school types. Billy was an Assistant Chief Probation Officer in Dorchester District Court – he was honest, a straight shooter, and really tried to change some of the dregs he worked with. Physically he was straight out of central casting, even the voice. Great guys they both were.
Oh, the book was fun reading too!
Howie-
Excellent work. Read it in one sitting. I was once a Depositors Trust customer and knew several employees/officers. In the book, you imply that the gang might have gotten a list of box holders from someone inside. I often wondered about that. Literary device or something more?
A Three Time Reader
Howie my Luv…when do you find TIME to write these books ??
I have two, and looking forward to reading your latest!
Ms Blaze
March 8, 2012
Howie,
I just finish your newest book HARD KNOCKS WOW I loved it. I have read both of your other books and I liked this one the best. When is your next one coming out? It reminds me of Robert Parker’s style of writing which I have read almost all of his books and truely enjoy. Again great job!
I listen to you on the radio when I can, I hope Romney can get it together and win .
Thanks again for a GREAT READ !
Jay Record