Henry Catches Fire in Australia

Henry would go to the very ends of the English-speaking world through the miracle of radio to spread the bad word about Castro. Whether Jamaica, Zambia, Australia, Tutsi-land or Hoochie-Land, hell, even darkest Canada, he is always on call for a chat. I regard this as a point in his favor. It is certainly a more judicious expenditure of his time and polemical energies than is the Babalu [Faux] Radio [90-Minute] "Hour" with its 8 listeners, half of whom can't actually hear the broadcast. Presumably even the Australian desert has a wider audience.

Speaking of which, Henry appeared tonight on an Australian radio show whose complete title (which Henry did not give) is: Sunday Night Safran: Politics, Religion and Hoochies. The show is actually aimed at young people and is much more mature and less vulgar than would be one with a similar demographic on U.S. airwaves. Still, it's not exactly La edad de oro. John Safran himself is a conservative by Australian standards and very personable as most Australians are. Safran's sidekick is the exception. Father Bob MacGuire, who, according to the show's own webpage, "rambles on in a frenetic and loopy manner as a regular guest on SN," is in his 80s and pretty much addlebrained, a condition which may have nothing to do with his age. He's known as the "Bruce Ritter of Australia," or, at least, he was once known as that before Father Bruce was caught anointing street waifs in places he shouldn't have.

The first thing that we learned from listening to Sunday Night Safran was that Henry had not just been invited out of the blue but pressed for an invitation to the show. How such a cosmic confluence came about I hardly know. I imagine Henry listening on a shortwave radio all night to programs from exotic locales hoping to hear "Cuba" mentioned. He apparently stumbled on Safran's show last week when the guest was the president of the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society, which would have been more aptly named the "Australian Communist Party (A.C.P)-Fidel Castro Friendship Society." Henry reproduces today on Babalú comments from Safran's Guest Book generated by her appearance on the show which prove that Aussies are smarter about Cuba than Henry gave them credit for (at least those who are not academics).

While listening to Henry's rebuttal of the previous week's Cuba "expert" I reflexively made a list in my mind of possible objections to Henry's comments, but soon it became apparent that Henry was making sense on a rather sustained basis while his hosts sounded as if a Martian had dropped in their midst. Their intonation of "Miami Cuban" had just that inflection. My overall impression is that he acquitted himself well on the show. I must admit that I did kind of chuckle when he announced that his life's ambition was to resurrect the art of commercial advertising in Cuba. Really, I don't think you are going to need it in a free Cuba, at least for the first decade or so, because Cubans won't have to be persuaded to buy anything. But it is a harmless dream and Henry is welcome to it.

After Henry had done his segment and an awful Australian rap song was played (yes, it's everywhere), Father Bob remarked that "the bloke [meaning Henry] was a fascist." Safran rightly took him to task for not calling him that to his face (or eardrum) and asked him how he knew that for a fact. "The catch phrase 'Christ the King' [uttered by Cubans as they faced the firing squad] is a dead give-away for poor blokes in the Church like me because that's the catch phrase that declares that a person tends to be on the side of imperialism," which Father Bob declared to be synonymous with "fascism."

Henry has been invited back for next week's show to rebut the charge that he's a "fascist." If he plays his cards right he might just get a regular gig on the show, as did Father Bob who, before he was asked to co-host the show, was a regular caller.