IN RUSH, HE DIALS KINDRED SPIRIT

Ambition coincided with presence on Queens Plaza.

Radio stepped off the bus under the el at Queens Plaza and called
out:

"World, here I am. Just in time."

He was ready to replace Rush Limbaugh. "A junkie replacin' a junkie,"
Radio said.

It appears that Rush Limbaugh has been using Hillbilly Heroin. What
else could Limbaugh be using except something to do with
Hillbillies?

The bus Radio stepped off was from Rikers Island. Radio was wearing
only a T-shirt because he was busted for drugs back on a hot July
night. Now, upon his release, the wind was blowing across the plaza
and it caused Radio's shoulders to bunch up. Women, who like Radio had
been on Rikers on cheap drugs, ran off the bus and into a candy store
to buy Kit Kat bars.

Radio is called Radio because all he does is talk. In cells in
Ogdensburg and Attica, and out here, on the streets and alleys, Radio
is famous for talking. He does not stop.

He said he was going to take the el over to the city and try ABC for
Rush's job. He sounded crazy. But they just made a weightlifter the
governor of California and after seeing that, I'll believe anything.
Including that the Disney Company, which owns radio station WABC that
runs Rush Limbaugh and a pack of other brazen liars, is wide open for
a suit to take over the radio station's license. They deliberately let
junkies lie on the air.

Standing on Queens Plaza, Radio said, "I listen to Rush and copy him
all day when I was upstate. Talk away all day. It's too bad he wasn't
good enough to make television. That would be funny. Television has
the drugs knocked out of a lot of prisons. People sit in the cells
watchin' television instead of goin' around and dealin' drugs. Rush
says he wants all drug users in prison. Crazy. But we listened to him
on radio. The man next to me, old man bank robber, talked for two
hours one day on how bank counters changed. When he started robbin'
them, they had heavy wire all the way up to the ceiling. All you do
now is jump over the counter. The trouble is, he got arthritis so bad
he can't jump. He explained arthritis for an hour. That comes from
copying Rush."

Now Radio, who thinks he can replace Limbaugh, called out, "Talkin' is
my sport. And here's my report:

"Rush be in rehab twice. Now he's into a drug ring and the cops come
around. What you do when cops are lookin' for you, go where they
ain't. You got my money, you hide in a basement. You got his, you run
to the hospital, drug rehab. Good thing Rush Limbaugh wasn't shooting
heroin with a needle. You get a dirty needle, you be on your way to
the funeral home. Then when you need a clean needle, one of them
churches, Catholic church, stops them from giving them to you. They
say clean needles help people be junkies. I don't need no help. I'm
here on my own. I just don't want to die so quick."

"First news. Kobe Bryant. That be the last room he's ever in got a
chair in it.

"Second news report. Cops shoot 235 times at a man trying to sell them
a fake dime bag and they don't even kill him. They all should be like
the Diallo cops. They got it done. These people miss. I believe cops
need more time on the shootin' range."

Like all cons, Radio comes out of a joint half smart. He figures that
he'll please the radio station by turning upside down anything he
happens to know. He should scream about the cops shooting at an
unarmed man. Instead, he goes with the station: Why can't cops shoot
to kill better?

Until I found out Limbaugh was an addict on Hillbilly Heroin, which
means you can call him a junkie, I couldn't understand how he could
keep repeating the same lies day after day. Suddenly, we find that it
wasn't Rush the right-wing radical talking. This was just a junkie's
babble you're hearing. And in ceaseless, banal language.

How could it be a surprise to find something the matter with Limbaugh?
All these talk radio guys, or other phoney moralists, usually come up
lousy. You can't be as mean and willing to lie and not be lousy. This
fellow Bill Bennett wrote books about virtues. Sin not. Remain with
the family and pray. He goes sneaking off and blew millions in Vegas
and Atlantic City and stayed in suites the hotels gave him. Did he
stay there alone?

Lying, for hour after hour, leaves you feeling nothing. For days, Rush
Limbaugh said he could prove that Hillary Clinton and a Clinton
assistant, Vince Foster, were huddled in a safe love house until
Foster either killed himself or Hillary took Foster for a ride in the
park. When he was caught, Limbaugh just shrugged. Probably, he didn't
know what he was saying, anyway. Babbling on Hillbilly Heroin about
Hillary.

Telling this to Americans listeners. His people are hopelessly,
embarrassingly dumb. Or - sudden revelation! - they're all out there
whacked out on Hillbilly Heroin just like Rush. Only they can
understand his babble.