BellGab.com Archive

Quote from: EvB on April 16, 2008, 09:16:38 AM

Is it possible she just annoyed everyone to death?  My least favorite thing about her was the way she cut off dissenters with some version of "Don't you know how to turn off your radio?  If you don't like it - go away!"

I didn't like her.  I was happy when she went away.

I didn't like her or dislike her too much either way.  She just disappeared.

Ian is for the most part a lightweight.  Way back in about 2000 or so in Ian's first C2C gig a caller dubbed him "churchboy."  Very apropos.  And you could tell by his reaction that Ian was hurt by it.  He didn't like it one bit.  But it fit.  That said, give him the right topic, like DB Cooper or the Happy Face Killer, and Ian does very well.

Ian was extremely rude to Steve Quayle.  Quayle has been a guest on C2C enough times that he's a known commodity.  Everybody should know that he's an end-times the world-is-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket kind of guy.  It's stuff he takes very seriously.  Ian had to know it.  Ian had him as a guest on the pretense of something else, but it was clear that it was just so he could pick a fight with him.  Quayle just said, look we see things differently, and if I'd known I'd never have agreed to come on here."  Ian wouldn't back off though.  He did come back next week and apologize profusely.

It was when Noory took over on a permanent basis that they went to the 10:00pm to 2:00am (Pacific time) format.  When I first started listening in the early 90s the show went from 11:00pm to 4:00am.  IIRC it was when Clear Channel bought it that they went to 10:00pm to 3:00am which is what it stayed until George took over.

It really isn't important except to make the point that in the early 90s Art loved doing the show and couldn't get enough of it.  What other talk show ever went for 5 hours?  Not only was he doing it for 5 hours, and once in awhile 6, but he was doing it with enthusiasm.  The point is also that by 1999 Art kept quitting and I knew he had enough.  The fun had clearly gone out of it for him.  Even now when he fills in he's much more subdued.  Not the same Art. 

I can agree with all that.  After he "retired" twice I knew that Art really didn't want to continue doing Coast.  The old Art, pre-1996, was on the air 5 hours a night and sometimes even 6 hours if he decided that he wanted to do an extra hour for the west coast.  He worked every holiday, Christmas, New Years, 4th of July, whatever.  Plus he did 3 more hours on Sundays on Dreamland.  He loved being behind the microphone and on the air.  He couldn't get enough of it.  It seemed obvious that you don't go from there to quitting twice unless you've lost that love of what you do.  I think it became hell for him.  While he wanted out, obviously there was something that has kept him involved so that the program didn't go down the tubes without him.  Maybe he has an ownership interest in it so it's in his best interests financially to help out.  Who knows.

I found it interesting when George said a couple of months ago that he's never met Art Bell.  I think he said that they have only talked on the phone once.

George is George.  He's no Art Bell that's for sure.  He's not very bright either.  But as poor a replacement for Art as he is, no one else has shown, overall, an ability to do any better.  If the network had somebody that could do it better and draw a bigger audience, they'd be doing it.

I'll admit it.  I listen.  I don't listen because I like George.  I listen for the guests, which sometimes are not half bad.  Of course it goes without saying that it's never anywhere as good as what Art did, but, hey, Art keeps doing his serial retiring thing.  It's the best we have.  What's the alternative at 3:00am?  On open line nights (Fridays) I do tune out.

Speaking of Art and how good he was, longtime listeners know that the Art after about 1997 or so was nothing like the Art before that.  I started listening in late 1992 and from then to Art's first retirement (1998) was the best of vintage Art.  After that he changed.  So many personal tragedies and other things went on in his life.  Oklahoma City he took personally.  Hale-Bopp and the Heaven's Gate suicides he took personally too.  He became much more sensitive to criticism. The whole thing involving his son.  The slander lawsuit.  All these things and probably even more that we don't know about happened one right after another.  That's when Art started retiring.  He was never as good again.  Not even now.

Can't we just sum it all up by saying that George isn't very bright?  That's what it is, isn't it?  He's supposed to be Art's replacement, but he isn't equipped for it.  He just doesn't have the brainpower.

I was born in Las Vegas and spent my childhood in the 50s and 60s there and in the desert around there.  There has always been all kinds of military aircraft flying around there, and not just because of area 51.  That whole desert has always been THE major aircraft and weapons testing area in the US.  So I say that if he saw something that's what he saw.

whatever happened to Rollye whatshername?  I didn't particularly care for her, just wondering what happened to her.