After he was chased out of the United States, Dr. Brinkley built the first “border blaster” radio station just across the Rio Grande in Mexico. At its peak XER ran at a million watts, beaming country music to the wide world for the first time, along with ads for things like Crazy Water Crystals, electric bow ties, rupture cures, “genuine simulated” diamonds, tomato plants, life insurance and Last Supper tablecloths autographed by Jesus Christ. First and foremost, it sent Dr. Brinkley’s huckster homilies winging across most of the Western Hemisphere, like this talk entitled Your Health or Your Funeral:
XER country gospel (fragment)
Brinkley Broadcast, October 1, 1939, including his reflections on Columbus: “When he left wherever he left from, he didn’t know where he was going when he started, and when he got over here, he didn’t know where he was till he got here, and after he got back he didn’t know where he’d been. And that’s the condition of many of us today.”
Brinkley on the balm of childhood memories: “As we are bewildered by vexing problems and saddened by testing trials, it is restful to fly to a nest of dreams made of tender vines and fragrant blooms plucked on a long journey down a trail of fond remembrance….”
Late 30s XER ads for Kolorbak (hair dye > lead poisoning) and Peruna Tonic (> drunk)