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WBLI host's joke fails to score in Mastic

Ellis Henican

March 2, 2008

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It wasn't quite an Imus-level eruption.

Opie and Anthony didn't send another randy couple inside a Catholic church.

But when the co-host of "BLI in the Morning" decided to ridicule the entire hamlet of Mastic - well, it might have been nice if he'd actually had something vaguely funny to say.

This was just a low-rent dissing, and not a very clever one at that!

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"Did your pipes freeze under the trailer?" co-host Randy asked a woman from Mastic who'd called in to the WBLI/106.1 contest line. "Or do you have that stuff down there to keep them warm?" When she made plain she wasn't amused, he pressed on: "Just think, if you win this game, the whole trailer park will be excited."

Broad-brushing a whole community as trailer trash? Where's the humor in that?

Can't wait 'til this dawn-patrol blockhead gets around to the foster-care jokes.

Forget for a moment that this Randy character - real name Randy Spears - doesn't have the self-confidence to work under his full name. Forget that the woman he insulted on the radio, like most Mastic residents, lives in a regular single-family home.

This bully-boy stab at radio humor - and Randy's reluctance to apologize - landed with a thud for the very same reason as Imus' stupid comment did. Randy forgot - or never cared to learn - the most important rule of iconoclastic humor: Always ridicule up!

Poke fun at politicians, executives, powerful people, movie stars - anyone your own size or bigger. But choose your targets thoughtlessly, you'll end up looking mean.

Don Imus knew he'd stumbled when he used a vulgar name for a hard-working team of female college athletes. He apologized - and now look at him.

Even with his promised Monday-morning apology, this Randy doesn't seem to have a clue what he's stepped in and why. Until he does, it's hard to imagine the people of Mastic in a very forgiving mood.

SAFETY FIRST: An "important alert" has been added to an unofficial Navy SEAL Web site: "Please do not practice breath holding without professional supervision." That's accompanied by a fresh link to the story of 17-year-old Marc Dawson, the aspiring SEAL from Greenlawn who drowned in the Huntington Township YMCA pool. No more Marc Dawsons, OK?

SUIT HAPPY: Have you ever heard of a secret, sealed defamation lawsuit? Neither had veteran Mob chronicler Jerry Capeci - until school-bus magnate Domenic Gatto tried to slap him with one. Seems Gatto didn't like some of the stuff Jerry's been writing at ganglandnews.com. "I'm not worried," Capeci said from his lair in Long Beach. "All the things I wrote about his and his father's mob connections are true, and I can prove it."

ASKED AND UNANSWERED: Would billionaire (and former Stony Brook math chair) Jim Simons be giving as generously to his alma mater if he hadn't also met his wife, Marilyn, there? The new Simons Center for Geometry and Physics is being funded with the couple's record-breaking $60-million thank-you note ... The armed Elmont resident who says he chased off two home-invasion robbers, then shot at the intruders as they scurried down Post Avenue - could there possibly be more to the story than we've heard? ... Paging Mr. Paley: Did you know that CBS will air Saturday night "cage fighting" this Spring? Shouldn't at least one match feature a female contestant named Tiffany? ... It's only 143 million pounds of beef! What's the chance some of the spoiled stuff ends up in the suddenly beef-less cafeterias of Huntington schools? ... Will $5 suddenly feel cheap at the Midtown Tunnel, now that Jersey commuters are paying $8 tolls at the GWB? ... Did you put your Leap Day to good use? Neither did I ... They suspend truants at Mattituck Junior-Senior High? Isn't that kinda playing into the truants' hands? It was a suspended truant, officials say, who made the violent threats that led to Friday's backpack searches and lunchtime lockdown ... Do you have a clever name for Farmingdale State's new Ram mascot? And not "Ram-the-Other-Team," OK? Assistant athletic director Deana Ward is pretty sure you can do better than that ... Did the up-all-night Mark La Monica rely on personal experience - or more traditional reporting techniques - for his "The Guy's Guide to Las Vegas Bachelor Parties," now on newsday.com and in the Travel section of today's paper?

AT LEAST HE DIDN'T

1 Swear he’d never used steroids.

2 Have five full-time school-board jobs.

3 Call Jimmy Dolan a bumbling owner.

4 Encourage Tom Suozzi to run again.

5 Lose 11 primaries in a row.