Broadcasting: Killer Joe

Insult, like any other minor art, attracts its not-so-artful practitioners. Currently the bluntest instrument of them all is a Los Angeles broadcaster named Joe Pyne, who has become simultaneously the industry's hottest property and, as New York Times Critic Jack Gould recently said, its "ranking nuisance." On his interview shows, Pyne often addresses callers and guests as "stupid," "jerk" or "meathead." An epileptic was once asked: "Just why do you think people should feel sorry for you?" Pyne's standard lines run from "Go gargle with razor blades" to "Take your teeth out,...