And that's why so many DJs all across the country are upping not only their provocative talk but also their Fear Factor-type stunts: You can't get a guy shooting a bottle rocket out of his rear end on your iPod, but the Big Dogz can give you one! Elsewhere on America's dial there are guys chowing Ex-Lax, eating pea soup and going on a Tilt-A-Whirl, and having their sisters kick them in the groin with steel-toed boots, as well as lesbians inserting cacti in very non-arid places. It's cheap entertainment for DJs: All you need to entice someone to hurt or humiliate themselves is a pair of concert tickets you were going to give away anyway.
Back in January, Storm and Birdsey were staging an elaborate biathlon at Boston's WFNX where -- to make a long rule book short -- listeners guessed dirty words and the winner got to shoot suction-cupped Nerf darts into sprawled, naked strippers' crotches. S&B were actually less concerned with the X-rated target than with picking the R-rated clues (e.g., ''turd'' and ''douche bag''). When asked what they can't say on the air, the Boston duo gave a complicated and nuanced explanation of how to finesse dirty words (e.g., ''I took a piss'' is okay; ''I took a piss on somebody'' isn't). The synonyms and syntax necessary to talk about oral sex alone would exhaust William Safire.
Such parsing seems absurd, until you realize how wary these DJs are of triggering complaints to the FCC. Jocks got nervous last August, before the Deminski & Doyle violation: The wildy and raunchily successful Opie and Anthony were kicked off all their 17 stations by Infinity in August 2002 for broadcasting a couple allegedly having sex in Manhattan's St. Patrick's Cathedral, and within a few weeks there was a flurry of other high-profile reprimands: Phoenix jock Beau Duran was sacked for calling the widow of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile to ask her for a date, four months after her husband had died, and Mikey Esparza was suspended from three stations for joking about his technique for abducting children. But seeing Opie and Anthony go from being an industry success to being utterly silenced was a shuddering blow.
''It certainly was a warning shot to everybody,'' says Indianapolis morning guy ''Gonzo'' Greg Spillane. ''The way the FCC works in terms of indecency is really vague, and you oftentimes don't know you've crossed the line until you have; then they tell you you have and you're screwed.'' Pat Mars got a company-wide memo after the St. Patrick's incident, warning that O&A's behavior would be unacceptable at Clear Channel, which owns KJ 108. ''I wouldn't say that we felt it was necessary to rein in our talent,'' says Tom Owens, senior vice president of programming for the company. ''But we did feel it was our responsibility to make certain they were aware of what had transpired, so they could make more-informed content decisions.''
Infinity's president of programming, Andy Schuon, says that Infinity hasn't pulled back its DJs since the O&A troubles, because it was considered an isolated incident that didn't reflect an ''overall tone'' of their other radio programming. However, Howard Stern reportedly railed on air that after the D&D violation, he had been warned by his station manager about watching his words. ''Foul language is all around us,'' he ranted. ''Porno is rampant, and you know what? The country's running fine.... Let's take me off the air for three years and see if America...gets cleaner.''
