“PREACHER IN THE NIGHT” 1996

“PREACHER IN THE NIGHT” 1996

Many of you during long trips by car have turned on the radio and heard religious speakers drone on about their peculiar hobby-horses. Some of the post-midnight programs can get pretty eerie.

Ray (John Getz) in the Cohen brothers debut film, Blood Simple, in a panic to get rid of a mostly dead body in the back seat of his car, turned on the radio and got a late-night preacher talking about the Jupiter Effect and it’s connection to the end of the world.

In Stephen King’s The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Trisha found herself lost in the woods. She “worked her way across the FM dial” on her Walkman. “She got faint classical music up around 95 and a Bible thumper yelling about salvation at 99. Trisha was very interested in salvation, but not the kind the guy on the radio was talking about; the only help from the Lord she wanted right now was a helicopter filled with friendly waving people.”

In 1996 I fell into a strange mood and spontaneously did an impersonation of a religious voice from the early morning hours, originally a nine-minute piece on a cassette. It’s called “Preacher in the Night.” I think it will resonate with many of you who have had late-night encounters with religious radio programs. Be warned, it’s not for the faint-hearted because things are only going to get worse and worse in the end days, as you will discover! — JZ, May 2016