shining beacon of truth and investigative excellence, was born a humble baby in 1931 in a small Wharton, Texas maternity ward, in the miserable depths of the Great Depression. My mother named that little cherub "Daniel"—though my more astute fans will have noticed that I later changed my name to "Dan," as it's more newsy.

Our family was poor but proud. Growing up In Depression-era Texas meant one thing above all others: sacrifice. I forced my family to make many of them during the course of my upbringing, as I steadfastly refused to give up my day-to-day luxury simply because the economy was suffering. I stand by that choice.

By the time I was six, I knew I was destined for the Fifth Estate. At dinner I would commandeer the conversation, rattling off that day's top news stories and pausing for three-minute "commercial" breaks, during which time I would help myself to the mashed potatoes. Even at that early age, the call of the newsman sang in my young ears. I marvelled at the power I had holding my family in rapt attention as I dished out soundbites on the Hindenburg disaster or a recent lynching. Even more alluring was the fact that I didn't actually have to know anything about the news I was reporting; I quickly mastered the art of brevity, dancing to another late-breaking topic before my family had time to question whether President Roosevelt did in fact smell like rotten pears and have the ability to fly.

My father, sensing my journalistic dreams, quickly enrolled me in the Marines in the hopes of crushing them. I served for several years, and received many letters from my sweetheart Daisy during the course of my tour of duty. Upon my return to Wharton several years later, I married Daisy on the spot.

She quickly proved insufficient, however. I divorced and remarried within the year. My second wife, Esmerelda, proved as ham-handed as the first, and so it was that, at age twenty, I married my third wife, Desmonda. We have been happily married ever since, until 1952, when I divorced her and married Suzanne, the love of my life and bringer of happiness for nine long months, whereupon I divorced and married again.

In 1953, around the time of my fifth wife, I had graduated with a Journalism degree from Sam Houston State Teachers College. By then I had already secured a job as a reporter with KSAM Radio in Huntsville. The Director of Broadcasting there told me something that I would never forget: "Rather, you're the oilest man I've ever seen. I can practically hear you secreting hair oil right now. You're too oily to be a newsman. You're too oily to be human."

I sensed my days were numbered at KSAM. Luckily, I interviewed for a reporter position at CBS in 1962, and was told I was "just oily enough" for a segment they had planned. I was brought aboard that month, and my life would change forever.

I soon gained a small amount of fame trhough my "Oily Man in the Street" segment. Ostensibly sent out to garner opinions from passerby, I soon tired of the premise and began attempting more unorthodox approaches, actually tackling people to the ground. Once I had their full attention, I would pepper them with questions until they confessed every dark secret they possessed. It was an emotionally crippling process for the subjects, but it made for great goddamn news. I soon got a pay raise, and was able to buy my first apartment and stop sleeping in the CBS bathroom.

These were humble beginnings. My wife and I (whichever one it was by that time) moved into a small apartment the size of a closet. There I could be found hunched over a small typewriter writing news stories through the night, occasionally looking out our small window at the squalor and poverty of my neighborhood. It was a formative time for me—for, as I watched the teeming throngs outside my window, bravely fighting for their right to exist, I realized beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wanted nothing to do with them. They were smelly, uneducated riff-raff, and conflicted with my dreams of solid gold lobster dinners—served to me, in my imagination, by other lobsters, perhaps dressed as butlers. I wanted fame and fortune.

And there, in that humble apartment, I vowed that I would finally grasp the fame that had eluded me. I also made a vow to divorce my wife at the time, and did so later that month. It really freed up space in the apartment for my coats.