The First Time I Heard Rush

RUSH: Here’s David in Sacramento, my adopted hometown. Nice to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. Thank you.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: I wanted to tell you an interesting story I know you’ll be interested in. It’s the first time I heard your voice. It’s way before. I’d never heard of you, and you were local in Sacramento. I happened to have been reassigned up here in Sacramento with the Defense Department, and I had just finished doing a big investigation on a huge scandal in the Bay Area where I was confronting liberals at all levels, political, clergy, and all. And it just turned into an amazing big scandal — international, actually — and so I came up here, and then I was doing some surveillance on the pipeline calibration. The young operator was listening to you. He was a young black guy, heck of a nice guy, a Democrat, but he was listening to you — and that’s the first time I heard your voice. And I thought to myself… Well, the first thing was, ‘This man is understands everything I went through in the Bay Area,’ confronting all these crazy liberals that could not see what was going on in this major scandal. And it was just stunning because I finally found somebody who understood. Everything you were saying was what I was trying to tell people and how blind they were to see what was going on. For nine years I did this investigation. Actually the scandal was Jim Jones.

RUSH: Oh, the Kool-Aid!

CALLER: Yeah, and I know that you had mentioned and hinted at that. Well, I went through the whole thing in the Bay Area. But the key thing is when I first heard your voice, two things happened. What you were saying was just like a… I was so relieved I found somebody who could understand. Secondly your voice, and one of the reasons you really made it big I think is your voice is so distinctive and compelling, and that drew me also. But this young guy that was listening to you, he was inspired by your motivational aspects, too. He ended up leaving the job shortly thereafter and went out and did his own thing and did very well. And here is a young, black Democrat who turned me on to you.

RUSH: Imagine that.

CALLER: It was just astounding.

RUSH: What a story. It’s 1984, 25 years ago, and —

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: — it sounds like you remember it like it was yesterday.

CALLER: Well, I coauthored the definitive book on Jim Jones. It was published by Putnam.

RUSH: So you had a major publisher for this.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Well, you know, this is very nice of you to call and tell me this. I appreciate it — and you know what? You have helped me to once again explain to people the reason for this program’s success. The critics of this program said that people in this audience are just mind-numbed robots and I’m sort of like a pied piper, Svengali and you’re sitting out there starved every day until I tell you what to think and what to do.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: And the truth is you already knew what you knew. You already had the opinions and feelings that you had. What you didn’t have was somebody in national media validating and reflecting what you thought. Everybody you thought was against you.

CALLER: Exactly. I confronted Willie Brown’s office out here. They told me that it just didn’t happen, that he didn’t pave the way for Jones. And of course he was the major instrument that paved the way for Jim Jones. And of course, people, they just lied up a storm. I found the document that tied him to it. But anyway it was just astounding to find somebody that understood approximately. Well, actually I’ll give your screener an article that I wrote on a website out of San Diego State University which you will really appreciate.

RUSH: Well, thank you. I appreciate it. You gave Snerdley the heads up on that?

CALLER: No, I haven’t yet, but I will.

RUSH: Oh, okay. Well, we’ll put you on hold. I gotta take a break here anyway so we’ll put you on hold.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: Thanks, David, very much. I appreciate that.

CALLER: Well, thank you. It’s a pleasure to finally talk with you directly.

RUSH: I understand. (laughing) Have a wonderful weekend. We’ll be back here in just a second. Get on the phone there, Snerdley.