WJFK, a CBS-owned sportstalker serving the D.C. market, made a big announcement last week. LaVar Arrington, the former Washington Redskins star and longtime co-host of the station's afternoon show, LaVar and Dukes, had moved to Los Angeles to join the NFL Network. Instead of hiring a big-name replacement, management gave the four-hour daily block to Arrington's sidekick, Chad Dukes.
Dukes started out as an intern in D.C. radio years ago, so working his way up to the prime drive-time spot in such a massive market could make for a sweet story. But to promote Dukes's recent promotion, WJFK posted a sort of Tomahawk dunk reel of his finest moments on the air. The best, according to the list, was an appearance on WJFK's morning-zoo-ish Sports Junkies program in which Dukes and the hosts revel over a prank call he'd made to Elliot in the Morning, a show at rival station DC101, posing as Lance Armstrong.
There's no year given, but, it's an awfully hard listen in 2014. The takeaways from the vintage segment are: 1) Times have changed, and 2) nobody at WJFK vetted the clip before posting it. It's full of dated meanness and homophobic slurs that nobody—on air or off—uses for cheap giggles anymore.
You can listen to the whole thing here, but among the, um, highlights—captured in the reel above—are these:
1:08: Eric "E.B." Bickel, one of the Sports Junkies, says he's angry because somebody inside the WJFK studio had dialed up DC-101, so he was forced to hear the voice of "that faggot," meaning Elliot Segal.
2:43: Dukes says Segal bought into his Armstrong impression and was fawning. "Basically he was smoking my bone," says Dukes. "He was like, 'You're the greatest athlete ever!' And I'm like, 'Thanks, fag!'"
6:35: "They broke into traffic to go to me," says Dukes, "which is great, because you know over there, traffic and temperature and time! That's number one over there! Faggots!" The segment ends with Dukes saying it was hard to stay calm, given how much he hates Segal.
22:48: "Yeah, I hate him," says Dukes. "I'm very offended by him. And I'm very offended by him and I'm offended by the way he won't respond, and I think he's a faggot and I think he likes [BLEEP] sex."
Why whatever was bleeped was bleeped given what wasn't will remain an eternal mystery.
On Friday, a day before the gay-bashing bash was posted, Dukes went on the air with his first big guest as a solo act: Anthony Cumia, the former co-host of Opie and Anthony on satellite radio. Cumia made the news this month for repeated racist rants on Twitter, which wound up getting him fired. Dukes introduced Cumia as "one of the most talented radio personalities in the history of the medium." The pair then spent the next 14 minutes agreeing that radio hosts should be able to say whatever they want.
UPDATE: The CBS Washington web page featuring Chad Dukes's "career highlights" was removed after this piece was posted. But here is the entire Lance Armstrong bit that somebody doesn't want you to hear.