Host for XTRA Is No Stranger to Controversy

Since arriving at ratings-hungry XTRA-AM (690) in November, Randy Miller has spent a lot of time doing what he does best--making people mad.

Most recently, the well-traveled morning personality angered members of the local gay community with one of his phone pranks. He called phone numbers from the Gay-Lesbian Yellow Pages, posed as a prospective client and made thinly veiled jokes about gay stereotypes.

Later that morning he invited listeners to call up and name the person they would most like to “beat the hell out of.” When Michael Portantino, publisher and owner of the San Diego Gay Times, called to suggest Miller’s name, given his remarks about gays, Miller replied, on the air, “If you’re gay, you can’t make a fist anyway.”

It was a joke, Miller says. Portantino isn’t laughing.

“If (the gay community) doesn’t get some sort of apology, we’re looking at advocating a boycott against (the station’s) advertisers,” Portantino said.

Miller says it was a spontaneous gag, much like a dozen other skits he performs that poke fun at people. He likes “touching nerves,” making people sit up and take notice. It’s the trademark of his act.

“Some of the ads (in the Gay-Lesbian Yellow Pages) are obviously hilarious to my point of view,” Miller said. He also performs on air a character with an effeminate voice named “Les Manly of Hillcrest.”

“Even now I don’t see anything wrong (with calling) when I come across an ad for a moving company called Two Hunks Will Move You.”

The 31-year year Miller is more than willing to parody stereotypes of gays, blacks, Arabs, Jews or any other group--anything to provoke a reaction.

“I am an equal opportunity insulter,” Miller said.

Miller’s brand of humor is a sharp contrast to the bland style of Mr. Nice Guy Steve Garvey, who was XTRA’s morning personality a year ago. Miller is brash and controversial. And XTRA clearly has needed something to spark the lowly ratings of its new sports-talk format.

“From a radio standpoint, he (Miller) is a high-profile personality,” XTRA General Manager Judy Carlough said. “He stands out. He is memorable. Many of the things he does are compelling.”

There is no denying that Miller is an expert at attracting attention.

In 1987, Miller abruptly left his morning show with San Diego’s KSDO-FM, then known as KS103, to take a job in Atlanta after a long series of run-ins with local minority groups.

He angered Latinos with his “Illegal Alien National Anthem,” which was sung to the tune of “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.” He angered gays when he said a “a 22-foot-tall milkman with high heels, called the dairy queen” should lead a gay pride parade. And the Chinese-American community was upset when he invited people to call in with Chinese jokes, and then apologized by saying, with a mock Chinese accent, “I’m solly. Velly, velly solly.”

In stints in Richmond, Va.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., and Kansas City (at three different stations), he often invoked similar anger.

“People have to understand that we’re not trying to insult people, we’re not trying to make people mad, but we are trying to make them respond, to react in some way,” Miller said.

Miller lost his job at KKCI-FM in Kansas City when he posed as the station general manager when a woman called to complain about his show. He recorded the conversation then played it on the air, which angered both the woman and the owners of the station.

He was fired from a second job in Kansas City, at KZZC-FM, when he announced the day before April Fools Day that Bob Seger would be performing the next day at the mythical “Future Homeless Farmers of America Convention.” People tried to get tickets from a local record store and Miller lost his job.

“I like to think that, in any cases of controversy, there has always been something new involved, something with a little thought in it,” Miller said.

The Federal Communications Commission has received “several” complaints about Miller through his career, according to Ralph Blumberg, supervisor of the FCC department that investigates complaints.

Last July, a woman wrote the FCC complaining about Miller’s dialogue with a woman caller to KBEQ-FM in Kansas City, Miller’s last station. The woman complained about a broadcast that took place during her daughter’s swim team party. According to the complaint, Miller asked the woman to take off her panties and sit on the radio. Then he “simulated oral sex sounds.”

XTRA knew what it was getting in hiring Miller; Noble Broadcasting, which owns XTRA, also owns KBEQ.

“I’ve been in broadcasting for 14 years, and I’ve seen strong, controversial personalities evolve and mellow and pick their shots differently,” Carlough said. “I do believe that people evolve and they become smarter.”

On XTRA, Miller’s humor touches a wide variety of bases. He often does an impersonation of XTRA talk-show host and commentator Lee Hamilton. One morning last week, he had a psychic on the air to answer questions from callers.

Most of Miller’s act revolves about phone pranks, which is the standard fare of many morning shows. Last week, Miller called the phone-answering machine of Philadelphia Eagles coach Buddy Ryan and told the just-fired coach that a job was waiting for him at a doughnut shop.

The day Armand Hammer died, Miller told his audience that it was rapper M.C. Hammer who had died. When people called to ask him if it was true, including the representative of another radio station, Miller put them on the air and said, yes, indeed, M.C. Hammer had died.

Other routines have more of an edge.

Last week he posed as a hard-of-hearing senior citizen and called the American Assn. of Retired Persons to ask directions to its convention. During another show, a character in a television show was refered to as “a little Jap guy.” (Carlough said it was his producer, Kevin Flynn, a.k.a. “Mighty Max,” not Miller who made the remark).

The day after the Republican Party announced that it was going to hold its 1992 convention in Houston, Miller called a convenience store there. The clerk that answered had a Middle Eastern accent, and Miller and Flynn laughed at the man’s name and accent.

Miller says he tries to stay topical, and that often means dealing with ethnic groups or stereotypes. “Real life,” he calls it.

“I do enjoy touching nerves of ethnic groups, and I enjoy touching nerves of WASPs. That’s good radio,” Miller said. “If you can make people respond, to react, you’ve done your job.”

Not everyone sees it that way.

“I think what bothers me the most is the fact that he was making fun of gay people because they are gay,” Portantino said of the incident with the Gay-Lesbian Yellow Pages. “It’s like making fun of black people because they’re black, or Jews because they’re Jews.

“It’s fueling the anti-gay feelings that already exist.”

Carlough said she and Miller have “reviewed” the incident as part of their regular meetings. But she stopped far short of apologizing for it or even acknowledging that it was insensitive.

“What is insensitive?” she asked.

Carlough said she wasn’t going to “censor” Miller’s material. Nor was she going to try to decide what is funny and what is not. She said the prank was fairly typical of Miller’s act and not intended to “incite” any group.

“This is part of what makes Miller great radio,” she said. “Sometimes he can provoke negative reaction, and sometimes he provokes positive reaction.”

Carlough said it would be “irresponsible” to judge Miller “out of context,” without looking at his many positive activities. He does many charity events, she said. Last week he organized radio stations from around the country to simultaneously play the same song, Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” at the same time on Monday in a display of support for the U.S. troops in the Middle East.

In December, Miller helped arrange for sailors aboard a Navy ship to talk to their families, and he was known as a capable fund-raiser for charities in Kansas City.

Miller just wants San Diegans to give him a chance.

“It takes a while for people to get in on the joke,” he said. “Once they do, they can understand things in context.”