Shock Jock radio in Sacramento hit an all-time low two weeks ago, as hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States of KRXQ-FM’s “Rob, Arnie and Dawn in the Morning” spent a half hour trashing transgender youth and even calling for violence against them. At least ten national companies, including the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Wells Fargo, Nissan, AT&T, Verizon and McDonalds, responded by pulling their advertising on the station that airs Williams and States.

Then, Rob Williams issued a statement on behalf of himself and States that appeared on their website, saying that they will make things right this morning (Thursday, June 11, 7:30am). “We have reached out to various groups and asked for a chance to make this right,” Williams wrote, “to respond, with their participation, to the education that our audience has provided us.”

On the May 28th program, the two hosts went on a tirade against transgender children, describing them as “idiots,” and “freaks” and “freaks of nature.” They said that these kids are only looking for “attention.” They urged parents to punish children who are transgender by beating them and even sending them to get shock therapy, a cruel form of treatment that involves attaching electrodes and sending electricity through one’s body.

They referred to transgenderism as “a mental disorder that just needs to somehow be gotten out of them (children).”

States said that if his son touched a pair of high heels, he’d beat him, “because you know what? Boys don’t wear high heel shoes. And in my house, they definitely don’t wear high heels.”

“I’m going to go, ‘You know what? You’re a little idiot! You little dumbass!” States continued.

When the third co-host, Dawn Rossi, tried to intervene in the tirade on the side of the kids, one of the men snapped, “You’re actually defending allowing people to become freaks? A boy who wants to wear a dress is a freak. A nut.”

Williams and States are now singing a different tune. As Williams wrote, “our attempt to mask our comments as ‘jokes that would be understood by our audience,’ was unacceptable. I would say now that it was worse than that, it was cowardly.”

“The words apology appears nowhere in this letter for a reason,” Williams continued in the web posting. “We already hid from doing the right thing once and we’re not going to make that mistake again. Apologizing in a written, posted statement is a form of cowardice. We will say what needs to be said this Thursday.”

If you miss the broadcast this morning, you can check it out on their website.

Time will tell if you can teach an old shock jock new tricks.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca is co-editor of Avanti Popolo: Italians Sailing Beyond Columbus, and editor of Smash the Church, Smash the State: The Early Years of Gay Liberation, which will be published in June by City Lights Books. His website: www.avicollimecca.com