'Stuttering John': Embarrassing questions are his business

It's John Melendez's turn in the hot seat.

Better known as Stuttering John, he is the speech-impaired, no-holds-barred celebrity interviewer on radio's "The Howard Stern Show," the E! cable network's "Howard Stern" and CBS' "The Howard Stern Radio Show."

Melendez is famous on the shows for making jaws drop and pushy publicists squirm with his questionable queries, which have included asking President Bill Clinton's former mistress, Gennifer Flowers, if she planned to bed any other presidential candidates, and boxer Mike Tyson what ear tastes like following his cannibalistic display in the ring last year with Evander Holyfield.

But lately, the 32-year-old is the one being lobbed the probing questions. He recently released his second rock album, titled "Everybody's Normal But Me," and is playing hooky from his day job to promote the disc. He performs Sunday at Rockabilly's.

"Howard's letting me take off a few days, which is good. I've got to get out to the West Coast and play and let people know we're around," Melendez, who lives near his on-air cohorts in Long Island, N.Y., says.

Getting audiences to take his music seriously, however, is taking some doing.

"It's tough because I'm sure people know Stuttering John; they know me for 'The Howard Stern Show' and what I do there," he says. "They don't know that I'm in a band, that I'm a musician." He studied trumpet, choir and sang in the high school choir.

What he does for Stern is render celebrities speechless with a firing line of off-color, extremely personal and/or potentially humiliating questions. As the nickname suggests, he stutters and stammers through as many questions as he can before (more often than not) security escorts him out.

"I've been thrown out of so many press conferences," Melendez says. One year, he was tossed from backstage at the Grammy Awards after asking teen songstress Debbie Gibson whether or not she thought portly Wilson Phillips singer Carnie Wilson would eat her music award.

Though a Grammy Awards official later apologized for Melendez's expulsion -- something about free speech rights -- he says: "Let me tell you, they haven't let me back since."

But with all of the media exposure he's received since he began working for Stern in the late '80s, Hollywood types are on to Melendez's modus operandi. He often wears disguises to sneak his way into press events.

"It's always nerve-wracking," he says, "because as you get close to the celebrity, you realize the netting in your (fake) moustache will become visible at like two feet away."

But where does he get the guts -- or the nerve -- to do his job?

"I'm a very curious person," Melendez explains. "When I was in fifth grade, I used to ask so many questions that my teacher wrote on my report card, 'John tends to ask outrageous and penetrating questions in class, and stutters when excited.' It's always been a part of me, so (the job has) never been something hard for me to do."

He reports back to the New York radio station to Stern and company, including joke writer Jackie Martling and co-host Robin Quivers. Stern, he says, has also been supportive of his music career, having played tunes from "Everybody's Normal But Me" on the show.

"We did real well with the last album (the self-titled "Stuttering John") considering we didn't get much radio" play outside of stations that carry Stern's show, he says.

The title track from "Everybody's Normal" is a rockin' ode to Melendez's battle with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The brain disorder, which he's had since age 7, is characterized by behavior rituals such as touching and counting items and excessive hand-washing, which he addresses in the song:

"It's like a security blanket, except it's laced with thorns. The more I think about it, the harder it is to write this song."

The disorder is "so much to deal with already, nothing could really embarrass me," Melendez explains about his decision to make the song the disc's the lead track. "People who are suffering from it, who haven't told anybody, at least now maybe would feel a little better saying, 'Hey, somebody else we know has it,' so it might help some people."

Count Stern among the sufferers. But not even Melendez knew his boss had OCD until 1994, when the self-proclaimed "king of all media" dedicated his autobiography "Private Parts" to the doctor who cured him of OCD.

"We would have OCD people on the show and Howard would goof on them and I felt so bad," Melendez recalls. "I guess he didn't want to tell anybody" about his own condition.

Stern also likes to mock Melendez's stuttering problem. Luckily, he doesn't mind.

"When I was in high school, they called me 'Stutter Face' or 'Skip,' and it was with friends and it never really bothered me because I think it's funny," he says.

Don't get Melendez wrong: He knows the pain and stereotyping stutterers endure. "I don't think it's funny in that respect. ... (but) if I stutter and people laugh at it, it doesn't hurt me."

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