Preface To Danger: The Most Dangerous Radio Show Of All

It was in Africa, a long time ago. I was traveling with a group of hypochondriac male prostitutes who had taken a wrong turn at Scarsdale. We had boarded a steamer to hang out with some party animal/Woodstock burnout named Kurtz at the Heart Of Darkness Bar & Grill when a Belgian waffler with a transistor radio & dead flies in his hair tuned into a frequency that is apparently only available on the equator.

I was fortunate - I had a head cold, which I always get when I have a cold head, which is the case when you sleep under an air conditioner & then wake up & go outside & it's muggy & drippy & over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. So I didn't get the full dose of this radio show - it came at me muffled, like a radio show wearing mufflers, yet it still knocked me across the deck.

The prostitutes grabbed their ears & fell to the floor, writhing. They had been doing that all morning, but this time their ears were bleeding. I knew something was wrong. Summoning all the strength I could muster I began screaming the lyrics to "Macarthur Park" while simultaneously plunging my fingers deep into my ears (you know, exactly like Richard Harris). I rose with great difficulty, kicked the Belgian's spastic body out of the way, & stomped on the evil radio until it could broadcast no more.

I was safe, & other passengers, not close enough to the broadcast to actually hear it, but still suffering the damages, emerged from below deck to help me remove my fingers from my ears. No one could explain. No one, except the cragged & deaf boatswain who lit his finger to light his pipe & told us the story of the most dangerous radio show of all.

At least I like to think he did. He'd been deaf his whole life & never learned sign language, so he mainly made a lot of noise & laughed a lot. We were all very polite. He seemed to need to tell the story.

I never found out where the show came from, or even what it was called. I hope I never do. But I'm pretty sure the host was Dick Clark. Or someone who admired Dick Clark. Counting down hit records, stuff like that. Oh god. It was awful.