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So the body count from this year's Mardi Gras in New Orleans is two. One bystander died when teen gangstas decided to shoot at each other in a crowd, the other was watching a celebration at the Superdome when she fell off a viewing platform. Laissez le bon temps rouler!

I don't much like large celebrations. I was there on campus when Villanova won the '85 NCAA basketball championship, and when the lit mattresses started flying from upper-floor dorm windows, it seemed like a god time to get the hell out of Dodge, but there was no escape- Lancaster Avenue was blocked by a sea of humanity, frat boys were dangling from the traffic lights and lamp posts, and a three mile trek to my apartment took three and a half hours on a route that, if I recall correctly, went through several states and time zones. But who cared? We won! Same as the one-dead Patriots Super Bowl celebration, the set-the-cop-cars-on-fire riot after the Canadiens won the Cup in '93, the trucks overturned by UCLA revelers in Westwood in 1995. We are happy, ergo we want to destroy property and maybe even kill people.

Not all celebrations are like that, but too many are. This is what you get for assembling with large crowds, or even small bands of revelers. Take tonight, for example- RIGHT NOW, as I write this, groups of people are assembling to watch the final "Sex and the City," because, well, I don't know, they want to cry on each other's shoulders. They'll be guzzling Cosmopolitans and teetering on Manolo Blahnik knockoffs, and there's a better-than-even chance something bad will happen. Maybe they'll be so upset by Samantha's cancer or Charlotte being with a- gasp!- bald hairy-backed, you know, not-one-of-US that they'll emerge from their HBO-equipped living rooms and start attacking any man that comes along. I know I'll be staying indoors tonight.

I don't quite get the whole "Sex and the City" thing, actually. It always struck me as a) sad, depicting unlikeable, self-absorbed people with all the wrong ideas on how to achieve happiness, learning only at the very end- this season, in a mirth-free run of episodes- that they'd made a horrible miscalculation about life, and b) vigorously promoting the very unlikeable, self-absorbed lifestyle that a sharper, more visionary show would have skewered (well, there IS "Absolutely Fabulous," isn't there?). But that's thinking too much about it. It was popular because it was a soap opera, no more, no less, just like "Days of our Lives" or "Betty la Fea," except with four rich single women.

But it's over, and when it's over, look out. The thought of Sundays without Carrie and crew might send some folks over the edge. If I'm the police chief of a major city, I put huge video screens up all over town, tuned to Lifetime. A few "Golden Girls" reruns and order will be restored. Without that, there will be casualties. And no shoe store in town is safe.

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AllAccess.com is reporting that Bubba the Love Sponge was fired today by Clear Channel. Bubba, who was doing mornings in a few markets for Clear Channel rock stations, is the same guy who got hauled into court for a boar-killing on his show, and he's the same guy involved in that $755,000. proposed FCC fine not too long ago.

I never heard much of Bubba's show, and when I did, it struck me as kinda like Stern with a pickup truck, nothing I'd go out of my way to hear. Yet he was- is- undeniably popular in Tampa, and you can find plenty of people who'll tell you how much they enjoyed his show. But not anymore- he's gone, days before another Congressional witchhunt... er, hearing on "indecency." The world is safe from a scourge like Bubba the Love Sponge.

But aside from the hilarity of hearing Congresspersons say the words "Bubba the Love Sponge," this incident is troubling for reasons far beyond whether a wacky DJ with a wacky contrived name can be fired by his employer for whatever reason. He can. That's not the problem. The problem is this: we are rapidly becoming a country where you're not allowed to entertain adults with adult material. The politicians and pressure groups are ensuring that radio and television are 100% "safe" for 8 year old children. Looking for something more adult, more titillating, more interesting? Too bad. Radio Disney for you.

I think this comes from the kind of people we elect. You can go search this site for an entry where I imagined testifying before the same Congressional subcommittee, asking what exact harm would befall the child who espied a bare breast. I'll never have that opportunity, but I don't think it would matter. The people who get elected may- probably do- partake in adult activities, and from the kind of rumors you hear, some of them would make Bubba blush big time. Yet when one guy- ONE prudish guy- complains about some morning DJ talking about masturbation, Washington panics, fines and firings result, and we're one step closer to all-"Blue's Clues," all the time.

Is this what we want from our legislators? WHY WON'T THEY LEAVE US ALONE?

Why do I even need to ask that? As long as they think there's a vote to be squeezed from even one more undecided, they'll do stuff like this, because they know that the handful of people who get worked up over Bubba, over Stern or Mancow or Opie and Anthony make noise and the huge audiences who LIKE those shows won't go out of their way to show it, and they won't vote based on it.

And that's where we go wrong. We SHOULD vote based on issues like this. It's not a partisan thing- the loudest voices against "indecency" in Washington are presently liberal Democrats as well as the religious right. But if people don't want to see radio and broadcast TV return to 1956- if Howard Stern has ever made you laugh, if you've ever been in your car chuckling at some bizarre contest involving lesbians and glanced at the cars next to you in the traffic jam and seen other drivers obviously laughing at the same thing, if you don't want the entire dial to sound as desexed as Ryan Seacrest at a day spa, make your voice heard- write, call, e-mail, vote. We who like our entertainment on the edge are losing, and it's time to do something about it.

Nader, schmader. Bubba for President. Or Stern. Whatever. Couldn't hurt.

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Heads up- it's travel time again. If you're going to the R&R Talk Radio Seminar later this week in Washington, feel free to come on up and say hello. I might actually be in a reasonably decent mood by then. Miracles DO happen.

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Just got back from the dentist's again- maybe this is the last time for a while, but my face is nice 'n' puffy. I gotta go pack and get other stuff done before heading to D.C.; if I have time later, I'll regale you with more genius. If not, you'll live.

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After a long day of travel, being out of the loop for most of the day, I arrive in Washington (motto: "The City That Doesn't Work") and discover all Hell has broken loose in the radio business, namely that Howard Stern's show has been dumped by Clear Channel stations in Miami, Orlando, San Diego, Rochester, Pittsburgh, and Louisville, because, it appears, management just now learned what he says on the air.

This, of course, isn't quite the case- what changed was official Washington's sudden election-year zeal to enforce rules that nobody can quite figure out in the first place. And I understand why Clear Channel reacted as it did, given that a) it has licenses to protect, and b) adult-oriented entertainment, as I wrote earlier, has no friends in high places at the moment, not after Janet's Amazing Colossal Breast. But it's also a reminder that radio, ultimately, doesn't protect its own.

Other industries mount lobbying efforts and get things done in Washington. "Yes, sir, we DO dump toxic waste on playgrounds, and we'd like to CONTINUE dumping toxic waste on playgrounds, and here's why, and, oh yeah, who do we make the check out to?" Virtually anything can find a friend or five hundred on the Hill. Not so radio and especially not so those accused of "indecency"- nobody in government can quite bring himself or herself to admit that, for example, Howard Stern is not really a plague on society, that a kid hearing Stern's show will probably either turn the dial or ignore it or, G-d forbid, laugh.

But radio doesn't do anything to fight this perception. This current Puritan wave started with, of all people, a liberal Democrat, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who has been denouncing the "filth" on radio and TV since he arrived at the Commission. When the Republican majority's staff ruled that an incidental, accidental F-bomb wasn't serious enough to bother fining, Copps went on a campaign that fairly bludgeoned Chairman Michael Powell and the others into a competition to see who could be holier. And the radio industry's response?

"Sorry. Not our fault. Accident. Won't happen again."

But that wasn't enough- never is- and now we have "zero tolerance" and firings and panic. Nobody is willing to go to the House and Senate and ask them what damage they think a momentary breast baring or a Howard Stern lesbianfest does to children. Nobody is willing to say that the ratings and general public response indicate that for every offended individual, there are hundreds of thousands of listeners who enjoy the program content, and isn't that public service?

They won't say it. It's too hard. And they have to protect the stock price. Any hint of an investigation, let alone license revocation, and the stock takes a hit. So Stern and Bubba and whoever else get fired, the radio dial becomes blander than Rick Dees on sedatives, and commercial radio loses even more listeners, which means a revenue hit, which means a lower stock price.

They can't win.

And you wonder why I'm glad I'm not a program director anymore.

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I'm on Tom Bauerle's show on WBEN Buffalo RIGHT NOW (just before 11 am ET).

If you missed it, I guess you're out of luck. Or you have luck to spare, depending on your outlook.

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I haven't been to too many national capitals. London, Paris, Caracas, Washington- that's about it. But I imagine that most nations want to put their best foot forward when visitors come to the capital.

Not us.

I actually like Washington- I've probably been to DC more often than any other region in which I haven't lived, it's where Fran and I spent our first vacation away together, we have dear friends on the Virginia side, I know the area about as well as anyplace. But there's something sad about it, something depressing. I'm here because of a talk radio convention- the thing alternates between L.A. and DC, and when in DC it's always at one of the convention hotels downtown, in the blocks south of the Convention Center and west of Chinatown. The area is, to put it charitably, troubled. There's a lot of recent construction, including MCI Center and the new Convention Center (the old one, only a few years old, sitting dark and abandoned a block away), but at night, the place is just plain scary. You go for a two block walk to dinner and you wonder if you're asking for it- just tonight, walking back after a nice dinner at a trendy place around the corner, a homeless guy latched on and walked along asking for money for about 3/4 of a block. Even the newer buildings are grimy, and the constant construction and roadwork make things just look messier.

It's The City That Doesn't Work, and I think that's because the people here don't WANT it to work. It is, after all, where Marion Barry got re-elected AFTER his little drug situation, and, more importantly, after he proved that he could not effectively manage the city. He was roundly vilified for that, but the vilification came from outside DC. Inside, they took offense- yes, he's incompetent and possibly Satan incarnate, but he's OUR Satan. And that's how everything goes here, resulting in a city where crime is an accepted fact of life, educational standards are low, and nobody with a vote seems to care.

You can't force someone to do the right thing for themselves, but Washington may have to be an exception. In this part of town, at least, I think the city's crime 'n' grime has to be cleaned up, if only for the sake of tourism. Should visitors to the capital of the U.S. of A. have to navigate pothole-ridden streets, dodging panhandlers and drug dealers, walk along block after block of unlit sidewalks in front of dark, ugly office buildings? Is there another capital like this? Can't something be done?

I'd like to think the free market would fix this, but so far, the free market has brought the area a strip of chain restaurants on the block just north of MCI Center, and that's pretty much it. There has to be something better than this. I don't think pouring tax dollars into the problem will help- never does- but there needs to be a concerted effort to make the streets safe and clean (I'll settle for cleaner), the area attractive. Until there is, the primary impression the Capital of Our Nation makes on visitors is of a city where you don't want to leave your hotel after nightfall.

There are songs about London and songs about Paris, but I don't know any about Washington. It would be unfair to suggest that it adopt "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," but I hope it gets its act together someday.

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