In these days of shock jock morning radio, hearing something offensive on-the air is hardly surprising.  But what DJs discuss when the mics are turned off can be even more shocking.  I should know, after all I am a disc jockey, trading under the nom-de-radio of Erik Winston, co-host of the Williams & Winston: In The Morning show.  Our show is hardly shock-radio, being as how the radio station we work for is a soft-hits format aimed at babyboomer women.  That being the case, though, some of the off-air topics broached at our studio could curdle milk.  They sometimes come back to haunt us too.

    For instance: A few weeks ago my co-worker, Cathy Williams, and I found ourselves discussing an old episode of Donahue well off-the air.  On this particular episode, Donahue's guest was a woman who claimed to have the distinction of having had sex with upwards of 100 rock & roll musicians, (her 15 minutes of fame.)  Most memorable, though, was her claim that out of all the musicians she'd "played" Huey Lewis had by far the largest "instrument."  We laughed about this then and forgot about it.

    Well today we had a special guest interview on the show.  Our guest was a very wealthy looking woman who was promoting an organization she runs that auditions children around the country for use in commercials and TV shows.  We were doing the pre-interview chat thing with her and Cathy used the time to cue up our next song, which happened to be "This is it" by Huey Lewis & The News. 

    "Oh, was that Huey?" our guest asked upon hearing the first few notes.  "He's the man I'm seeing."

    There followed a very slight intake of air as Cathy and I both had the same horrifyingly funny thought at exactly the same time.  I nearly dropped my coffee as the whole Donahue instrument size rumor shot into my brain.  Fortunately I was standing behind Cathy and neither of us could see the other's face, otherwise we would have broken up with laughter.  We barely acknowledged what our guest had said and leapt immediately into chit chat, trying to avoid the subject of Huey Lewis, yet also trying not to obviously avoid the subject so as not to draw attention to ourselves.  

    "I think I saw him in a Reba McIntyre video recently, Cathy said quickly.

    "Oh yes, Huey's into acting these days," our guest said.  

    I tried like hell to remember anything I could about his acting career but all I could remember was a Huey Lewis appearance in Robert Altman's "Short Cuts."  Unfortunately in that movie his character is known mostly for a scene where he had to pee on camera, once again broaching the dangerous subject of instruments.  I decided it would be best if I just left the room and had a little laugh in the kitchen.  When I came back, the interview had already begun and our guest was giving out a toll free number for her children's star search service.  She said it was something along the lines of 1-877-55-STARS and we thought that was fine.  After the first part of the interview was over, a listener phoned us to say that she'd just tried the number our guest had given and that it was for a porn chat line.  We got scared and tried to call the number on our guest's cell phone but her roam didn't work right and the call wouldn't connect before the next interview segment had begun.  So they gave the number out on the air again before she could call her office and learn that the real number was 1-877-56-STARS.  Fortunately we had the correct number in the commercials we've been running, so it wasn't a total embarrassment.  

    After the interview was over and our guest had departed the building, Cathy and I completely dropped our calm exterior and burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter.  We didn't even have to verbally acknowledge what it was we were laughing about.