Of Asterisks, Black Swans, Thom Yorke, and D*ck

So, Thom Yorke has a haunting new song - "Black Swan" - to be released on his Eraser CD in July. You won't hear it on any radio station - at least, not the non-satellite kind.

Radiohead never did too well in airplay, anyway. But there's a more explicit, illicit reason you won't hear Yorke's plaintively beautiful song. "This is f*cked up, f*cked up," the refrain says, over and sadly sweetly over again.

The FCC was just empowered to increase fines for allegedly "indecent" broadcasting by 10 times their previous amounts. Even with the original amounts, no radio station would want to risk hundreds of thousands of dollars for repeated offenses.

But it's not just radio and TV. Our society is so provincial that you can't just come out and write "f*ck" in most publications - that is, you can write "f*ck" but not the actual word.

Which is interesting. Because, in addition to writing "f*ck," you can further write that the asterisk stands for a "u". You can say that on the air, too. You can also go the "freakin'," "f'ing," and "f-word" routes - in print or in speech - but you can't write or say the actual word. Even though "f*ck" and the other substitutions are all saying exactly that same thing.

Just who would be hurt by seeing or hearing the actual word? Kids? I bet it's a rare 9-year old in America these days who hasn't heard the word at least as often as your average man or woman in Congress. (Or maybe not - VP D*ck Cheney did tell Senator Patrick Leahy to "go f*ck" himself just outside the floor of the Senate a few years ago.)

Well, we can all hear "Black Swan" on the Web, and soon on the new Thom Yorke CD. We'll no doubt be able to hear it on Sirius Satellite Radio, too, where Howard Stern had to go to continue his show in the way he and his fans wanted. Except Sirius costs money. So, thank you, FCC, Congress, and President B*sh, for this new sin tax.

We'll also be able to hear "Black Swan" over the closing credits of A Scanner Darkly in July - Richard Linklater's rendition of the Philip K. Dick story. Thank goodness the F*ds haven't gotten to the movie theaters yet.

But the FCC is ushering in a new Dark Ages for non-satellite radio and non-cable television - programming them, in effect, out of cutting-edge artistic relevance. And they're sharpening their talons for cable and satellite radio, too. After all, it's unconstitutional - in violation of the First Amendment - for the government to go after broadcasters, so why stop there? Why let an artist paint the human condition with a full palette of options, when you can go in an outlaw the most vivid colors?

It's fucking ridiculous.