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Howard Stern sidekick Artie Lange attempted suicide-report

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His on-air blowups on the “Howard Stern Show” and confessions to drug abuse have given listeners plenty of insight into comedian Artie Lange.Artie_Lange But the latest news about Stern’s sidekick is even more grim than what has been revealed about his life in previous reports.

The New York Post said on Thursday that Lange stabbed himself  nine times over the weekend in a suicide attempt, and that was the reason why he was hospitalized, as had been previously reported. On his show on Thursday, Stern reacted angrily to the revelations in the Post article, and said “this is a family matter” and that Lange is “wrestling with some serious stuff.” A spokeswoman for Lange could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

Last year, a Rolling Stone profile on Lange put on full display his addiction to heroin. At the time, the Rolling Stone writer Vanessa Grigoriadis said that Lange was using drugs on the road, alone in his hotel room, which she called “very scary” and “a stage of drug use that’s linked to depression.”

(Photo from HowardStern.com)

Taiwan’s Howard Stern comes out of hiding

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Working-class folk who grew up with ad hoc, grab-a-mike-and-sing entertainment at theliang temple entrances and sultry night markets of industrial southern Taiwan found a hero in a local guy with an odd-shaped haircut and a gift for comedy skits about sex. Chu Ge Liang went on to become a home video sensation before cable TV, cheering up the haggard south by speaking the region’s animated  dialect and taking swipes at more mainstream Taiwan performers who would talk the official, but less intimate, Mandarin Chinese and weren’t very funny.

Like American radio “shock jock” Howard Stern, he would invite women to his shows – at their own risk. A run of films followed. The 62-year-old star’s real name is Hsieh Hsin-ta, but he is best known as “Chu Ge Liang,” which roughly  translates to he’s horny.

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