Few people realize the difficulty that radio personalities have each day coming up with fresh new ideas to speak about. Hour after hour, day after day their livelihood depends upon keeping their audience tuned in. Even the big honchos like Rush Limbaugh stumble about now and then. One day his buddy Sean Hannity told Rush his on air secret, "If you hit yourself in the head with a small ball peen hammer before going on air, it will increase your concentration and creativity." Rush knew he had to try it.
"You just want to tap yourself five or six times." Hannity told Rush, pointing to the back of his head. And that's exactly what Rush did.
And as Rush became more creative and more outrageous, his ratings went up. And the more the rating went up the more Rush hit himself in the back of the head. Before the show it was -tap-tap-tap-tap. During commercials -tap-tap. As Rush would admit years later, "It was like I was hooked on drugs or something, I couldn't get enough." And Rush couldn't get enough. One day he told his studio manager, "If a little hammer like this works wonders, why not try something larger." And that's exactly what Rush did.
But what Rush didn't know, and what Hannity failed to inform him of, was that the small ball peen hammer was a nasty little gateway tool, one that would lead to bigger and heavier tools, and more and more trouble. Before long Rush was using soft pine two by fours. Thump! And then he moved up to the jack from his armored Chevy Suburban. Whack! Whack! Until one day disaster struck. Rush Limbaugh, the biggest, baddest on air jock to hit the airwaves in years, hit himself in the forehead with a Roughneck 8-Lb. Sledge Hammer, Model# 70-602.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States died April 12, 1945. He was resurrected, or more correctly channeled, into the comatose skull of Rush Limbaugh as he lay splayed out on the cold floor of his studio. When Rush's eyes finally opened, Rush was a new man. He was FDR - a democrat.
In his former life Rush never much liked FDR. As a matter of fact he never met a democrat he truly admired. As a matter of fact2, Rush liked to say that he could tell a democrat by the way they walked, all slumped over, feet a-shuffling. God, how he'd laugh at the memory of that, if he had a memory.
Within days of the overdo, of that final Whack! Rush was back hard at work. But now he wasn't sporting the usual tight golf shirts he liked to ware. Now he wore a tailored silk suit with a tie each day. And instead of the easy chair that he enjoyed rocking back and forth in, now he took a fancy to a $18,000 custom made wicker and leather powered wheelchair. And when he talked, he talked with his jaw jutted out, a cigarette in a black ebony holder dangling out the side of his mouth, just like FDR.
God, how Rush loved to tease and harangue and rip apart the republicans, how he disparaged even his old friends.
God, how Hannity would laugh, all the way to the bank.