In the Good Ol’ Summit Time

Rock deejays tend to show more interest in Run DMC than in Ronald Reagan, so the upcoming Moscow summit is the last thing that commuters might have expected to hear about on morning drivetime radio this week.

But if they happened to punch up KLSX-FM’s (97.1) Phil Hendrie, they would have heard “Just Standing Here Watching the White House Grass Grow,” a jaded rap exchange between Mikhail Gorbachev and an addled Reagan, droned to the tune of Bob Dylan’s “Watching the River Flow.”

With his morning drivetime partner Marshall Phillips, Hendrie, 35, has been bucking the “shock radio” trend among morning rock jocks for more than a year. Instead of locker room tee-hees, Hendrie relies on a kind of comedy that went out of fashion 20 years ago with the fading of the Credibility Gap, Vaughn Meader and the young Mort Sahl.

“They said to me early on in my career, ‘Phil, don’t talk dirty on the radio,’ ” says Hendrie. “They told me I could do political humor, but no drop-your-pants jokes.

“Now they tell me, ‘Phil, don’t do political humor. Do drop-your-pants jokes.’ Radio in Los Angeles has degenerated to the level of the Three Stooges.”

When Los Angeles was buzzing this week about the KABC-TV Channel 7 four-part series addressing the question, “Is Elvis Dead?” Hendrie and Phillips polled their listeners to find out whether Ronald Reagan was dead. The overwhelming majority voted him dead.

“The audience reacts more negatively to political humor than they do to (drop your pants) jokes,” he said. “I mean, they’ll call up and complain about dirty stuff, but they listen anyway because it’s risque and cute.”

The upcoming national elections have put Hendrie in hot water from time to time. He did several spots on George Bush, “the conniving weasel,” only to be labeled as a biased liberal. Though he is quick to point out that he is just as disgusted with the Democrats--dating all the way to Jimmy Carter--Hendrie says he has had to deal with Federal Communications Commission regulations regarding equal time for political candidates and has had to pull back from such satires as his rap song “I’m a Bush,” sung to the tune of the old rock chestnut “I’m a Man.”

“I’d love to get Bush on for equal time,” Hendrie said. “Marshall and I had a bet as to who was more accessible, George Bush or Idi Amin. Marshall said Amin was more accessible. We both tried to get them on for a week, but we got neither one of them.”

They may try again soon, he said, though this time it’ll be a contest between Bush and Pia Zadora.