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Spanish Radio has its own version of Howard Stern to wince at
"El Shock"
Rafael Mieses
Bronx Journal Staff Reporter
It
is an unseasonably warm morning in November. In Washington Heights, the
front door of a bodega is ajar and a group of children are bustling in
line, late for school and stocking up on candies before running off to
classes. While they’re waiting to get their sweets, they’re blasted
with a dose of the Hispanic talk radio show “El Vacilón de la Mañana”
(The Morning Jam) broadcast from WSQK 97.9 FM, known as La Mega.
El Vacilón isn’t kid stuff by
any stretch of the imagination. On this particular morning, the disc
jockeys have launched into their segment, “Caíste” (You Fell For
It) during which people are spoofed on air by prank phone calls. Epy Colón,
one of the DJs who recently left the show, is posing as a spiritual
counselor. He’s busy
convincing an unsuspecting woman that the best way to cope with the end
of the world is by breathing deeply and praying. Colón makes some odd
sounds, which are repeated by the woman on the other end of the phone
who’s in a pre-millennial fit of anxiety and more than willing to
comply with his absurd requests.
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El Vacilón is known for
stretching the boundaries of good taste even further. A bit of Looney
Tune music precedes co-host Luis Jiménez’s introduction to the next
segment. This time, Colón is inviting a woman to a big parade. And
again, a caller is the butt of one of the show’s many bawdy double
entendre games. Colón, it turns out, is using the word “parada”
(parade which in Spanish also means to stand erect.) in a lurid way. Colón
bursts into laughter and stuns the woman when he tells her the only
parade he's talking off will take place below his waistline.
A potent mix of poor taste and
outrageous humor has vaulted El Vacilón to the top of the ratings in
New York. Heard from 6 AM to 10 AM, the show competes very closely with
its English-language predecessor, shock-jock joker Howard Stern.
According to Arbitron, Stern’s
show had an average of 7.6% of the local audience, this past summer,
while El Vacilón averaged 6.3 %, a figure that put it in third place,
just a shade behind 1010 WINS which has a 6.4% share.
The success has been very
important for El Vacilón’s parent station, La Mega which fans across
the five boroughs as well as much of suburban New Jersey, Connecticut
and New York. In fact, thanks in part to the morning show’s draw, La
Mega is not just another radio station airing salsa and merengue music -
it is the second most popular in New York. According to Arbitron’s
overall summer radio ratings, which covered July through September, La
Mega averaged 5.1% of the audience trailing only WLTW (106.7FM),
known as Lite-FM, which was a runaway number one with 6.1% of the
audience. Nonetheless, for a stretch during the summer of 1998, La Mega
ranked first New York.
La Mega, located on West 56th
Street, is owned by the Spanish Broadcasting System, Inc. (SBS), the
second largest Spanish-language broadcasting company in the country. A
burgeoning giant, the company operates 13 stations and they recently
purchased eight additional outlets in Puerto Rico. It also owns another
station in New York called “Amor” (WPAT-93.1 FM) which plays a
format of soft Hispanic ballads.
But it’s in all likelihood La
Mega’s standing that helped SBS’s initial public offering last
October raise some $436 million in the stock market.
A
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Just as Howard Stern banters on
and on about sex, the guys from the morning Latin program, too, rely on
a heavy dose of carnal gossip, often peppered with crass and offensive
language. They perform parodies about sex, make crude references to the
human anatomy. In addition,
a woman’s voice - that of the morning traffic reporter - seems to
bless the bacchanalian morning ruckus with a chorus of laughs and
guffaws, El Vacilón’s answer to Robin Quivers, Stern’s sidekick.
Like Stern’s show, El Vacilón
also features a cast of characters, performed by the show’s disc
jockeys. An outrageous bunch, they are served up so frequently that many
have already become popular figures in the Hispanic community. Take
Findingo, for example. He’s a promiscuous guy that speaks like a child
and who does not hide his bisexuality. Then there is John Sperm (Juan
Leche in Spanish) a character that loves to call restaurants, flower
shops and the like and banter on and on in broken English. His mix of
Spanish vocabulary and an odd accent that’s sounds strangely like that
of a native speaker of Hindi is guaranteed to keep the air studio in
stitches.
There are some members of the
Latin community, however, that aren’t laughing at El Vacilón. “It
is disgusting to listen to those guys in the morning. They are too
vulgar,” says Joann Cruz,
29, the mother of two children. Cruz’s car radio is on while she
drives from Yonkers to the
Bronx to drop her children at the baby sitter. “How can I have El
Vacilón on when I have my two children in the back seat?” says Cruz,
a human resources specialist. She says that she might listen to La Mega
when they are playing music but when they start talking, it is a
turn-off. The reason: the stuff is just too racy for her two kids.
“Sometimes, we have La Mega on
in the store and those guys tell jokes that are so dirty that I feel
embarrassed for my customers,” says Luis Lara, 36, the owner of a
grocery store in the Bronx. Lara says he believes that a radio station
can be entertaining without insulting people. “I don’t think that
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is listening to La Mega,”
he says, surprised that a radio station could broadcast so much
obscenity without incuring fines or some sort of warning.
Some groups in the Latin
community, however, are stepping up efforts to get regulators in
Washington an opportunity to listen in. “El Frente Cultural
Puertorriqueño” (The Puerto Rican Cultural Front), a community
watchdog group, is filing a formal protest against the station and SBS
with the FCC, the branch of the government responsible for regulating
radio broadcasting. La Mega could be fined or even have its license
revoked by violating FCC rules regarding indecency, obscenities and
censorship.
El Frente is also receiving help
in its efforts to denounce El Vacilón from the National Hispanic Media
Coalition (NHMC), a civil rights group known for its recent campaign
against what it feels is misrepresentation of Latinos by the big
television networks.
Martha García, president of the
New York chapter for NHMC says that La Mega is being targeted for
violating rules banning on-air obscenity. “One of the arguments
presented by the NHMC and El Frente is that La Mega is broadcasting
obscene language when children are likely to be in the audience,” says
García. To that end, the NHMC is recording the morning show and
shipping tapes to its lawyers to be analyzed.
For its part, SBS says the show is
just another slice of a vibrant New York City. “The beauty of New York
is that we have different colors and tastes,” says Gabriel Pino a
spokesperson from the Promotions Department of SBS in New York. He says
that if you don’t like La Mega, you can just move your dial to another
radio station. Also, Pino says that he is not aware of any kind of
accusations or complains against the radio station.
What Pino isn’t sure of is
whether he’d allow his relatives' children to listen to “El Vacilón.”
“Well... ‘El Vacilón’ is not for children. It is the parents’
responsibility to look after them. They have to decide what’s best for
them.”
So far, El Vacilón hasn’t
turned up on the FCC’s radar, however. FCC regulators don’t have a
staff large enough to monitor every single radio station and every
program in the country. In fact, officials for the Washington agency
don’t make a point of listening to radio stations until a protest has
been filed against the station.
Until a complaint crops up, the
FCC depends on the good faith of radio station's owners to comply with
the rules. Additionally,
the agency leans on the audience at large to keep an eye or ear to
programming . In other words, the community has to keep vigil over what
serves the best interest of the people.
It seems the FCC also
waffles on just how much freedom of speech broadcasters have. The FCC
rule book says that “Obscene speech is not protected by the First
Amendment and cannot be broadcast at any time.” On the other hand, the
FCC says that indecent speech is protected by the First Amendment and
cannot be outlawed. The exception comes when any indecent material is
broadcast between 6 AM and 10 AM. Under those circumstances, radio
stations are subject to enforcement by the FCC. Any complaint has to be
documented. Obscene and indecent speech during that period of time when
children could be around are the main allegations by the Puerto Rican
Front and the NHMC.
Besides the protests of political
groups, there hasn’t been much in the way of public outcry against La
Mega’s programming. According to García of the NHMC the reason is
that people think that it is up to the FCC to decide what goes on the
air. “People are not aware of their rights. We need to inform them
what they can do,” says García.
To Flores of El Frente, it is not
a matter of turning off the radio station. It is more a matter of
disrespect toward the Hispanic community. “People are starting to
speak up,” says Flores.
Flores adds that people are outraged with La Mega’s programming and
they don't know what the procedures are to stop it.
La Mega seems quite aware that
they are being monitored closely. El Vacilón recently has included some
segments with information relevant to the community.
One day in November, for instance,
a doctor was invited to talk about male impotence. Another time, the DJs
had an interesting chat with a filmmaker who directed a movie about
immigrants’ struggles in the city.
Then, on another occasion in
October, the show’s hosts spent time during a lengthy segment
discussing incest and rape. One young listener, Rosie, went on the air
and admitted that her
father used to touch her. All the while, the two disc jockeys sound
strangely cynical no matter how serious they try to be. Jiménez and Colón
listen carefully to the girl’s confession. She is on the verge of
crying.
After spending 20 minutes on the
subject, the Djs advise young boys and girls to speak up in school if
they are being abused and to seek professional help. Minutes later,
women are recast as usually cheerful sex objects and men whose wives are
cheating on them become the target of a new skit.
Nevertheless, that could be an
indication that El Vacilón’s sworn enemies are starting to influence
the program. “The timing is suspicious.” says García of the NHMC,
who adds, “the crime has been committed and it is still committed
every day.” She acknowledges that the battle against vulgarity and
censorship is going to be a long and time-consuming process.
True to its form, El Vacilón’s
crew even jokes about been monitored on the air, in much the same way
Howard Stern pokes fun at the FCC. “Anyway,” says Jiménez, “it is
a good promotion after all.”
Vladimir García, 18, in his last
year at Gompers High School in Manhattan, says, that El Vacilón is
funny, “but they do go beyond the line.” In his opinion, the station
is paying attention to just one thing:
its bottom line and making money by any means necessary. “One
thing, though, I don’t want my four-year-old little brother near La
Mega. He picks up everything.” |
