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Getting up at four in the morning to drive my daughter to the airport was not something I thought would give me fodder for a column. Funny how life works.
As I drove down the 405 in the dark, secretly fantasizing how great it would be if traffic on the freeway was always this light, I put on a talk radio program. Who listens to the radio at four in the morning? Then I had a better question: Who and what is being broadcast at four in the morning?
Based on the station I found, the answer is some interesting people on either end of the broadcast beam.
The show in question is one I had heard before on other early-morning airport runs or late-night drives after an extra-inning Dodger game. It is a nationally syndicated station specializing in the mysterious, the supernatural, and everything in between. It is not unusual to hear an “expert” on UFOs in one segment segue to a firsthand account of an encounter with a werewolf. The host always listens with abject objectivity, no matter what full-moon lunacy happens to be the topic of the day — or night.
I had not heard the program in a while and, much to my blurry-eyed daughter’s protest, I could not resist. How could I when the guest on the program claimed he was the singular link between the terrestrial world and a race of celestial beings known as “Acrons” (If I misspelled that, my apologies to the greater Acron community). According to this guest, these beings are intent on causing mischief and havoc in the world (for what reason he was a little fuzzy), but he was adamant they were a force to be reckoned with and he was the only one who knew about them.
The Acrons are apparently not happy that the guest goes on radio stations. The host, without a hint of judgment, let alone skepticism, asked if the Acrons’ unhappiness with the publicity resulted in hostile action. The guest proceeded to explain that it did, and then itemized a litany of personal problems he attributed to Acron interference and not any action or inaction he may have been responsible for. All his woe was the direct result of those pesky Acrons.
Things got even more entertaining during the commercial break. The show had a sponsor: a new kind of dating site. It boasted a membership of more than 150,000 people, and its niche is matching people who are into things like UFOs, Acrons, poltergeists, and all other manner of conspiratorial narratives with like-minded companions. Yes, you too can find true love and someone to share your belief in the fake moon landings or why the government keeps Bigfoot in a warehouse in Lompoc. Been abducted by the 8:15 express from Alpha Centauri? Have we got the girl for you!
When the host came back on with his Acron-tormented guest, the conversation switched to dragons. Why not? The guest was a polymath and well-versed on the subject of dragons too. But when he began to break down dragon husbandry into Chinese versus other kinds of winged serpents, I called it quits, much to my daughter’s relief.
If this was performance art, it was brilliant. If it reflected how the host of the show and his guest viewed reality, it was not so trivial or amusing. And if countless nameless people are lying in bed in the early morning hours listening to this with no healthy dose of skepticism, it is kind of sad. It shows how fragmented we have become as isolation was never something God planned for us.
If the host and guest were truly sincere, they are modern Gnostics — holders of secret information and answers to all that ails us. Again, not something God intended. Jesus’ message was to light candles, spread the word, and believe just what he said. When people lose sight of that, they will seek answers elsewhere, sometimes in the miasma of troubled minds.
If I could have called into the show — I was threatened with bodily harm by my daughter at that suggestion — I would have told the host that the truth is indeed “out there” and the truth will set them free.