For as long as I can remember, my instinct has been to seek balance. My parents were both very balanced people and carefully guided and molded me to be a well-balanced person. Moderation in all things was their motto, and I grew up thinking that moderation was the key to success and self-preservation.
As a devoted student and fan of music, I soon realized that a lot of great music was created by immoderate, or unbalanced people. I also realized that my talents were more suited to interpreting music than creating it. So I found work in writing about music, and especially presenting it on radio. I developed a talent for choosing music that was humorous and/or bizarre and talking about it in a manner that listeners found entertaining. A friend introduced me to a local FM DJ called “The Obscene Steven Clean,” who persuaded his station to hire me, and gave me the pseudonym “Dr. Demento.” Though I didn’t totally appreciate the name at first, associating it with mental deficiency, I realized that it was intended as a bit of irony, and was also connected with the widespread concept that humor was stupid, but that good humor was entertaining.
Come to think of it, my show has always tried to bring a bit of balance to an unbalanced world – though it’s often viewed (by its supporters and non-supporters alike) as the near-exact opposite, bringing a bit of mayhem to an orderly world.
