BellGab.com Archive

He doesn't care about Hollywood, he wants to know about physics and the big questions.  What made the show great is to contemplate some very weird stuff that was a tangent from something that you needed a few brain cells to rub together to get.  I mean, he has all kinds of scientists on and it's not boring.  Only Art could do that.

With some actual opinions of his own and some very sensible rules for good radio conduct, he presided over an orderly nut house.  Like a really good party that hovers right on the edge of chaos, but no one ever has to call the cops.

He travelled, he lived and he loved.  Only interesting people can do interesting radio.  Hence, the Noory problem.

Without them, there is little of the raw spontenaity that made C2C truly great.  There'd be no JC were it not for open lines, for instance.  People respect bravery if they realize it or not, and Art is the bravest man in radio.  He knew that on some level or another, the raw emotion made for good and compelling radio -- the sort that kept me tuned in every night since that first night I heard him talking about UFOs and taking unscreened calls while I tested out my new shortwave in a tent perched pecariously close to the Mendenhal Glacier (picking up a doubled freq from KOMO - 2M was the lowest freq on that box and Art asking someone about having sex w/ aliens the very first sound I ever heard out of it - I was in love w/ DX and C2C from the first).

And why'd he do it?  Becuse he loves radio.  Anyone who's ever done is knows how poorly it pays.  He had 500 affiliates and still drove a Geo Metro.  He wanted those calls unscreaned because, like Hunter S. describes in "Fear in Loathing in Las Vegas," he wanted to be right on the vein of the American Dream (or the very weird sub-conscious cousin of it).  He knew that the truth lies between prepared speech and gibberish.  What he got from his callers was raw and real.  Quite simply, he wanted to know and wanted to take us with him.  Together, we'd bust these mysteries open.  We'd call down the UFOs, force disclosure and determine if there's life after death.

AS for his calls being screened now, well, it sure didn't feel like it at the time, but the 90s sure seem like the halcyon days of another era now, don't they?  America isn't the same anymore, and maybe Art just feels a bit broken down by it all.   It was fun to take the ride up with him and Ramona.  Sometimes it just feels like I'm watching a reunion tour that exists only to make the yacht payment.  Maybe he feels the same way, too.

Regardless, that there ever were real open lines was giddy and exciting -- I'm glad I heard it.

If the colour purple, terrible artwork, flaming and spinning gifs and horrible HTML 1.0 sites were banned tomorrow, we'd be hard-pressed to find anything out about most guests.  What the heck is up w/ this?  Is the sort of mind that has an eye for design simply not the sort of person who gets into Forteana? 

I mention this because I'll hear a gues that sounds reasonable, go to their website and be visually assaulted with a bunch of crap I'd never even pass along to a like-minded friend.  It actually makes it kind of hard to take some of these folks seriously and even harder to actually get a proper discussion about the topic in question started.  What is up w/ this?

Any ideas? 

I enjoyed the hell out of the Ingo Swan interview a few years ago, but Dr. Doom and many of his coleauges are impressively deluded huckseters, IMHO.  However, the idea that this could be a real thing keeps nagging me.  Is there anyone out there who is actually doing some real RV work? 

I just heard the Mel's hole shows again, and I really want to know what happened to him. 

Yes, I know he doesn't exactly have the same style as Art, and he does do some very silly shoes, but he does ask some hard questions.  If his guests are waffling, he'll call 'em out.  In fact, he might actually be a bit better at exposing his guests than Art is.  Perhaps that's why some of the more frequents guests that GN (or Ass Hat, as I like to call him) has on don't get Ianized.

That said, I wish he treid a little harder during the first hour.  Still, I appreciate his midwestern sense of humour, that I know some others don't get.  I really like that he's freindly and rigorous at the same time.

What do y'all think about Ian?  I was really hopeful that he'd have been Art's replacement.  I occasionally listen to GN/AH shows when he's got an interesting guest, but can be heard to groan outloud whenever he asks one of his patently dumb questions.  It's like tortue, unless the guests actually make fun of him (George Ure and Cliff from 4 March 2008 leap to mind) and he doens't even get that he's just been smacked down.  Unlike GN/AH, that's good stuff.

You know, I'd really like to have Ian interview the banned guest, David John Oates.  I saw him shortly before he was banned and, I thought it was fascinating.  Some of his reversals of Bush Jr. and Cheney are super creepy.