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Just when the FCC doubles the fines for saying naughty bits on the radio, just when even the accidental blurting of a bad word threatens to bring the wrath of the feds down upon broadcasting companies, Penn Jillette expands his media empire onto the radio.

After more than three decades of blasting through the conventions of the magic world -- in the stage and TV shows he does with his silent partner, Teller -- Penn Jillette has launched a daily, one-hour talk show that aims to poke holes in the pretenses and poses of the nation's cultural and political elites.

Onstage at the Rio hotel or on his Showtime cable show, Jillette plays the wizard who's going to give it to you straight -- a shtick that entails plenty of bad words in service of making the audience believe there is no bull in this performance.

Jillette, whose raspy, damaged voice comes off as welcoming and unrehearsed on the radio, goes on each day and riffs with his sidekick, Mike Goudeau, ''like we're at a dinner table after the meal with friends.'' They flit from politics to sex, practical jokes, monkeys, religion, science and the foolishness that suffuses modern life.

Growing up in Greenfield, Mass., Jillette listened late at night to WOR in New York, an AM powerhouse where the late, legendary storyteller Jean Shepherd spun his improvisations on themes of nonconformism and the power of the individual.

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