History Lesson 
Salvation Worries? Prostate Trouble?
"A raffish assortment offering everything from baby chicks to techniques of seduction to stock in gold mines."
(Page 3 of 3)
And another observer commented: "With a station of this power, the number of formats in which success is possible is limited only by the imagination and promotional ability of the operator...It is likely that a new owner might consider retention of an improved format of Spanish programming until sunset when the skywave effect makes the station really begin to reach out... Additional opportunities arise in an expansion of the religious category in the evening hours and a strong format after the religious block. The greatest opportunity exists for the station as an absolute maximum power operation, one which could become a legend in broadcasting within a short time. That the present owner is short-sighted in this regard is shown clearly by the fact that he chooses to sign off the finest night signal in North America at 12 midnight."
Short-sighted, just conceivably, but one wonders how listeners might ever feel short-rationed or vaguely deprived by premature signoffs of contemporary border programming. Take a quick, dial-spinning tour almost any evening and then reflect upon the losses. (See boxes.)
There is Reverand Ike, the free-wheeling black evangelist out of Boston who is almost continuously on tour (taped re-broadcasts heard on XERF) and makes no apologies for his preoccupations: "The lack of money is the root of all evil!" He goes on to celebrate the coin of the realm and anybody's steady accumulation thereof:
"I don't care what you say, money is wonderful stuff...Don't care how much holy ghost or holy goose you got, you need money! When people are broke and down and out, that's sickness and I'm against sickness...You don't think money is dirty or evil do you? Everybody give money a great big hand and say MONEY! That's right. Everybody needs money, and even I need money. It takes millions of dollars to keep this ministry going. Now I didn't say thousands, I said millions! One issue of our magazine we send out, which tells you how to use your mind power to get what you want, to attain financial success, one issue costs $350,000 for printing alone."
And Brother Carroll in Dallas plugs appearances on his Southern tour and on his "great crusade in Toronto, ministering under the big tent," before asking to support his worthy cause: "We're helping orphans and widows and the needy everywhere. Sit down right now and make out a check. You'll be prospered by it. You'll be blessed four fold. Look for the signs! Renewed strength and health, and a healing will come to your body, giving you an abundance of power...God bless you and keep you over Christmas."
It is almost a relief to come upon Don and Earl, who have been picking and singing gospel music on XEG for 20 years and have nothing to sell except a few more songs—101 songs, to be exact: "Now we gonna sang you 'nother song in jus' a minnit. We been on the radio twenny years and here's the biggest offer ever—we'll send you six different gospel record albums, featuring 101 songs by Don and Earl, for only $5, and we pay the postage!"
The Rev. George Cooper of San Antonio supports his programs with a grab-bag of items: calendars, ballpoint pens, 13 multi-colored Bible pictures, a biography of his life "from start to finish," an automatic needle-threader, and "a large-print red-letter Bible approximately one-inch thick."
Is there no relief from the seemingly rigid format, scarcely modified in 40 years? Well, change is not likely so long as those cards, letters and dollar bills keep coming. Yearly billings for English-language religious programs on XELO, for example, totaled more than $170,000 in 1971. There is the shift to after-midnight soul station formats, sponsored by the likes of "Hollywood Discount Records" and perhaps some merchandisers for Bikini underwear.
There's also Brother Human, barely hanging in there for 15 minutes a week (Fridays, 11:30 p.m., Station XEG), paid for and performed by a group of Austin provocateurs masquerading as the Church of the Coincidental Metaphor. Even Brother Human needs help to carry on his guerrilla raids against the old hucksters:
"Humble natives! I come here tonight as a messenger of your great white friend Brother Human, who has commissioned me to indoctrinate you, here in this last stronghold of ignorance, in the principles of humility and servitude which enable great men such as himself to lead you in prayerful obedience...
"And what a trip I been on! Permit me to enlighten you as to what is real and what ain't real...Every aspect of your life must be examined—what you eat, what you drive, what you sit on, who you walk on, what you live in, what you sleep in, who you give money to...I know there are lots of artificial things that Satan tempts you to buy...Says, that shiny, gas-eatin' car is better than the plain economy model, says frozen foods are better than fresh food, says two more inches of shag carpet can cushion you from the reality of everyday evil...Says pave those forests and level those trees...Says give that money to a flashy, pile-drivin', triple-clutchin', non-stop religion that only seeks to bankroll a few high-rollin' reverends.
"But stop right there, hallelujah brothers, for I'm bringing you the message that will unseat Satan! Brother Human and all of us here at the Church of the Coincidental Metaphor are askin' you for money. But in return we're givin' you that good-mileage economy religion, that natural divinity untainted by preservatives or man-made hype, that solid wood floor on which to build a real faith! Friends, our religion is no limousine; we got no continental kits; we're not white-walled evangelists with padded dashes. We're straight stick, standard shift, four-door everyday evangelists bringing you the non-polluted word. But even our little car burns gas, brothers, and we got no divine credit card. So help us out and send those dollars to Brother Human!"
Move over Marjoe, you ain't heard nuthin'!
LEAVE THE TITHIN' TO US
"ONLY BELIEVE, DEAR FRIENDS. All things are possible if you will only believe that Jesus is here...This is the Flame and the Sword program, broadcasting to you for the next 141/2 minutes. So turn up your radios real loud and listen here to the word of God."
And Brother Nolan Abernathy follows with this pledge: "If you're sick and afflicted, you will be healed! If you need help, let us know and we will pray for you...And if you like the results, sit down again and send us another letter and enclose us a good offerin'. It takes lots of money to keep us turnin' on God's sunshine...Just listen to this letter: 'Dear Brother Abernathy, thank you for the prayer cloth. I put it on my goiter and it is rapidly disappearing from my body!' "
Then there is Brother Mack Watson of Hot Springs, Ark., clearly a man of many parts, public and semi-private. He not only heals the sick and props up the emotionally infirm, he quite literally transports his followers. Brother Watson will pray for you, of course, but also encloses free bottles of holy anointing oil on request; he will even send along a prayer cloth to apply to your sore places. For $699, or approximately the cost of Brinkley's goat gland rejuvenation, he will take you with him on his "Holy Ghost Holy Land Tour" of Israel and Egypt:
"Folks, I don't know but I'll tell you something—God's movin' in this hour; there's a rustlin' in the mulberry bush; there's a shakin' in the earth...I'm holdin' a prayer cloth in my hand right now, and God wants somebody to have it, and it may be you. Yes, Little Sister, you're in trouble, you feel sometimes your mind is rippin' apart; you feel pressure on every hand. Little Sister, let me send you a prayer cloth today, and I'll personally pray over it, anoint it, lay my hands on it, for a miracle in your life...And let me talk about your tithin'. I desperately need your financial support. Maybe you're not in church, or maybe you've been thrown out of the synagogue. Why not send your tithin' to me? Maybe God will speak to you about it...And come with us to the holy lands next week..."
DID JESUS HAVE A HAIRPIECE?
DID JESUS WEAR LONG HAIR? Should whites marry Negroes? How Red is the National Council of Churches? These grave matters and myriad other spinoffs of social dislocation are confronted each evening on a program called "Pray for America," out of Riverview, Fla., by way of Station XEG in Monterey. A little apocalypse music, please:
"If a man has long hair, it is a shame—the Bible documents it! The mark of the effeminate! A woman's hair must be long enough to proclaim the glory of God, and a man's must be short enough to prove he's not a woman...Listen, these styles were started by dope addicts, perverts, draft-dodgers, and riffraff hippie cowards! Please believe me, the Reds think that if they can kill the national pride and patriotism of just one generation, by making readily available to them drugs, by praising their wildness, by strangling them with sex literature, they can destroy the whole nation. Now wouldn't you love to have a copy of this? Write to us asking for Package No. 11 and, we'll send it to you."
PASTOR EPLEY: HOLY SPIRIT, TINGLING FLESH
AN EVANGELIST IS ONLY AS irresistible as the viscera he is willing to provoke, and Brother David Epley of St. Louis, Mo., (and XERF, Villa Acuna) massages the tender sensibilities of his flock with equal parts of pop music, prophecy and quivering sensuality.
Epley plugs "one of the great songs on our new album, the Many Moods of Pastor Epley," ($5 postpaid), then gets right down to it in a manner reminiscent of Mick Jagger:
"Have you ever had the spirit of the Lord wake you at the midnight hour and begin to talk to you...when you felt the presence of another, so close to heaven you almost hear the fluttering of the angel's wings? I was walking up and down the aisles of the big Henry Ford Auditorium in Detroit, led by the Holy Spirit, and I felt my flesh tingling, felt the spirit reach down and anoint my eyes with holy eye salve...
"I could see beyond the flesh, beyond the spirit...Lady sitting way back there, come on down here, honey, the spirit is moving on me for you. Come down and let me wash your eyes. You've been praying for a spiritual touch, a spiritual anointing, and tonight you're gonna get a double anointing—we call it Elijah's Double Potion. A letter from me to you has had you all stirred up, hasn't it? Now get out your little blue wallet and I'll bless your wallet financially. And I'm going to wash your eyes with this water from the pool of Ceylon, and you're gonna feel Elijah's Double Potion come upon you..." Then there is only the sound of applause mixed with squeals of fear and delight.
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