The Way Things Ought to Be..Chapter 2

behold my friends. the start of me fulfilling my promise. My commentary will be interspersed in bold. Yes these posts are long. I may end up breaking some of the chapters up between posts in the future.

People: think for yourselves. Or demonstrating absurdity by being absurd.

I have always been concerned that too many people are credulous, to willing to accept all of the propaganda that is showered on them daily by the media and politicians. That’s why I try to provoke any audience into thinking for themselves and not blindly accepting all they are spoon-fed by the media, my self included. How did do this? Psychologically. Each Friday I urge people to pursue their weekend with reckless abandon, and not to worry about keeping up with the news, because I will do it for them. They need only tune in to my show in Monday and I will tell them about any important events which took place over the weekend and as a bonus, will also tell them what to think.

This bewilders and confuses my critics, who shriek and moan that I am attempting to take over the country and poison people’s minds. Nope. That is what they do, with their political correctness and dominance of the media. My little offer to think for people motivates them to do just the opposite: to think for themselves. Kind of like Ross Perot saying he never wanted the presidency, that he wouldn’t give 3 cents for the job. We all know what happened. Millions of people literally begged him to run…just as he’d planned.. See how it works? In fact, I want people to think for themselves and not believe everything they hear or read…except what I say or write.

As I’ve said elsewhere in this book, I often illustrate my points with real life examples; stated another way, I like to demonstrate the absurd by being absurd. One vehicle I use sometimes to demonstrate the absurd is the Update feature of my show. Other times I demonstrate the absurd through my monologue or in bits I do on the show.

Glenn Beck if you listen to him will say repeatedly constantly, pretty much every day "Please, Don't take my word for it. Do your own research." In that he and Rush and others are similar.

The Rush Updates.

A lot of people have wondered where the updates on my show originated. In the Update feature of my show, I share with the audience an item from the news on any one of a variety of cultural and political topics. Each Update is introduced by an update theme which I have chosen for that particular topic. Often but not always, the updates are satirical in nature. There are updates on the homeless, animal rights, feminazi’s, Gov Mario Cuomo, condoms, victims and several other topics..

The updates were born 6 months after I began hosting my radio show in Sacramento, in 1985. 600 sons and daughters of rich democrats were going to march from Los Angeles to Washington in what was billed the Great Peach March for Global Nuclear Disarmament. Because I felt that the peace movement was inherently anti-U.S., yet was reported as substantive and morally correct by a willing and sympathetic media, I determined that I wanted to comment on it each day, to be persuasive and passionate about my views. For some reason I just decided off the top of my head to introduce each day’s commentary with a hokey peace song. I remember seeing and laughing at Slim Whitman’s vocal portrayal of “Una Paloma Blanca” in one of those irritating, two minute tv commercials offering Slim’s Greatest His on the pan flute. Music to use your Ginsu knife by. I found the tune , mixed some bomb sound effects in with it just to tweak any long haired maggot infested dope smoking peace pansies who might hear it. And voila, the Peace Update was born.

Well, after about 6 weeks I heard that an Ohio minister had called a news conference. He said that he had found a satanic verse in the theme from the tv show Mister Ed. He wanted that theme banned because it was poisoning the mines of America’s youth. When asked what was satanic about the Mister Ed theme the minister claimed that when you played it backwards on a turntable the part that goes “A horse is a horse of course of course” turned into “s-s-s-satan,s-s-s-satan.”

I thought this was too good to pass up, and I resolved to find a satanic message in “Una Paloma Blanca,” that song of peace, hope and charity I’d been playing. The next morning, a Tuesday, I told my listeners that I came before them that day with a heavy heart. I told them that I had tried to be righteous, honest, and truthful. I have never knowingly led them down the wrong path. But I had to confess that I had now been unwittingly co-opted by yes, EVIL.

Friends I said, I don’t know if I can continue as your host.. I have subjected you to an unspeakable abomination. I have poisoned this program, but I cannot tell you exactly how. It’s buried in the song “Una Paloma Blanca.” Even If I rid this show of this evil, can I ever in the eyes of God by truthful and honest with you again? If I didn’t know this time that I was co-opted by evil, it might happen again. I told my audience that I expected to resign from the program by the end of the week.

I went into a break, then opened the phones. My call screener came out and asked me how long I was going to go on with this gag.. He said callers were taking it seriously, saying that I must have been spreading devil worship and that I hadn’t been fair to them. They all wanted to know what I had done. He urged me to fess up to the joke before Friday.

I waited 2 days, until Thursday. Then I went on the air and said that the demands of listeners to know the evil I had subjected them to were overwhelming. Ladies and gentleman, I suggest that those of you who are weak in our faith not listen. Turn to another station. It will be at least five minutes before you can tune back in, then it will be okay. But I warn you, if you listen to this and your faith is weak, I won’t accept responsibility.

I then played Slim Whitman’s song. backwards. The devil himself was lurking in the record grooves. “Tell me, where did you get a turntable that plays backwards like this?” the devils voice asked. “My disciples and I have been waiting for this for years. We can only find them in ministers homes and we don’t like going there very much. Well I promise I’ll never forget you now that I’ve found you. Good to know you. We’ll be talking again.” The music faded away into silence. The phones were going crazy. My sides were splitting with laughter. By absurd parody, I had illustrated the folly of the Ohio minister’s claims.

The next caller said “Rush Rush, Ihave everyone of Slim Whitman’s records. Should I burn them?” I told him, Yes.

The funniest call that came in was from Rio Linda, the benighted armpit of Sacramento. This guy called in from his front porch. He had been listening to me ever since I came to Sacramento, and he hated me. He had been waiting to prove me wrong for months. He was convinced that I was a hypocrite, a liar and a phony. Now he had his evidence, ‘Hey I don’t believe this crap you’ve been saying about Slim Whitman,” he began. I asked him how he could say that, seeing that I had gone through torture for a whole week over it. “I don’t believe any of it. You can’t fool me. You think we’re all stupid out here.” I politely told him that I had risked my career to inform him of what had been happening with the record. He interrupted me. “Listen pal, you’re not dealing with idiots out here. I have that record. You understand? I have it. And my turntable don’t play backwards but I ain’t no fool. I just put that needle on the end of the record and spun it backwards. There ain’t no message in that song. What do you got to say to that?” By this time I was laughing so hard I had to to turn off the mike. I took a deep breath, put the caller on again, and asked him what year his turntable had been made. “What do you mean? You’re just trying to weasel out of it.” I told him no, and repeated the question. He said it was 1979 or 1980.

“Ahh..that’s the problem,” I said.. “You see, turntables made before 1983 don’t have the disgronificator.” “what the hell is this disgronificator?” my Rio Linda caller asked. “It’s new laser technology, sir. It expands the dynamic range and allows you to clip the high end of the trebles and the low end of the bass and expands the midrange where the satanic message is located. You can only hear it on a new turntable.” “You mean to tell me that if I went and bought a turntable made after 1983, I could spin that record backwards and hear that message. Is that what you’re saying?” I told him that he should ask for the disgronificator circuitry and if the turntable had it he would be able to hear the devils message. He said he would try asking for one.

By this time I had lost my composure. I forgot to tell him to go down to the local Philco electronics store, where they could make him a special deal. I would have known whether he actually tried to buy one.. I would love to have known if he really fell for the joke.

A year later, we repeated the whole bit, only this time we were honest about the gag. We told them exactly how the joke worked. Even then many people believed it, and I had to reassure several callers that the devil had not taken over the Rush Limbaugh show.

So that was the auspicious beginning of my Updates, which have now expanded to cover a multitude of topics I consider worthy of comment, lampooning, or observation. The updates rarely grow into the kind of episode I just described, but they are all intended to make a point about a political or cultural topic that is newsworthy at the time.

I miss the updates..he doesn't really do them anymore and I always got a kick out of them. Especially the songs he used. The animal rights report was funny as hell..it was the Song 'Born Free' with animal sounds and gunshots interspersed or overlaid into the song. Then there was the one he used for the Ted Kennedy update. The Philanderer..set to the tune of the classic song 'The Wanderer'. There's a chapter devoted to Kennedy and the lyrics are included so that will be one of the upcoming posts. I understand why he doesn't do a lot of the reports anymore. Kennedy is a corpsicle. AIDS..not touted as much anymore in the media, a few others like that. I think he should run the Kennedy Update themesong on the anniversary of Teds death every year...but that's just me.

*****edit by da curly wolf. Rush goes on to describe a few more gags he pulled to demonstrate absurdity by being absurd. He goes on to finish the chapter with the following final paragraph*****

First you should not believe what you hear or read simply because it confirms your preconceived notions. A lot of people believe whatever bad news about the environment they hear, simply because they’ve been taught that the planet is in imminent danger. There was a serious message intended with both of my stories. Both involved absurd suggestion which were believed by a surprising number of people, because much of the content of both messages, particularly the Tax the Poor routine, made total sense and were in fact good ideas. My hope is that people will be discerning and attentive. If, however, they choose to believe totally in me, don’t worry. They’ll be okay because I am, after all, almost always right 97.9 percent of the time. I do it for our future. Thank you. It’s a beautiful thing.

You know..contrary to popular liberal belief..Rush and others don't want to do our thinking for us..that's the left/liberal/ progressives try to do That's their belief system. We're children..too stupid and inept to think for our selves. Incapable of deciding how, who, where, when we want our healthcare. What we want to eat, what we put on or in our food..banning transfat and an attempt to ban salt, just to name 2...

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/03/11/2010-03-11_assault_on_salt_an_insult_chefs.html

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Legislation/Californian-trans-fat-ban-takes-effect

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16051436/

This kind of thinking doesn't sit well with me..or most Americans I believe. We're not children. We're free thinking, living adults. Quite able to make our own choices and live our own lives without the goddamn government sticking it's nose in to try and tell us how to do it, every time we blink.
Rush understands this. He also understands, I believe, that while most of his listeners are free thinking, and researching..his call to think for them will spur those that are feeling just a tad lazy to do exactly the opposite and do the research themselves as opposed to just taking his word for it. He also understands it will make liberal heads explode, because it makes it seem as if Rush[and others like Hannity, Beck, Barry, Doyle] are taking a page from the progressive playbook. Which they're not. Just the opposite. I've been listening to and enjoying Rush's radio program since I was 18 or so. He hasn't changed much. I really do miss those updates though.

Well...I'll see you with another 'Way things Ought To Be' chapter next week.

So until then....
I now return you to your regularly scheduled inanity and insanity