Do you remember your first taste of Art?

[OldTimeRadio]

Great thread!  I'm gonna ramble so this might be worth skipping for most of ya.  It may also contain language and situations somewhat objectionable to the average reader.  Fair warning.



The first "taste" of Art I ever got was at this amazing party house in...either 1990 or 1991.  In Eugene, Oregon.  The whole house was like an art installation for Jello Biafra.  There was a life-sized cardboard Marilyn Monroe standee with a real gas mask on and wearing a barbed-wire "feather" boa, a python in a big glass fishtank in one corner of the room, every surface in the house seemed to be covered either in empty beer bottles or full ashtrays and in the bathroom, right above the toilet was a dead kitten in formalin in a baby bottle with a post-it note that said "Help me, I'm in HELL!".  BTW, I found out it was stillborn because I was about to flip when I saw that.  Oh, and a copy of The Book of the SubGenius on the giant wooden table than dominated the livingroom.

Back in the Day we all used to party on our MODEMS (300 baud manual Originate switch Radio Shack in the hizzy) on a local bulletin board called The Machine.  This one dude had written a story (probably true) about fucking his Christmas turkey before serving it to his other roommates (his girlfriend and a dude who blew glass pipes and bongs) and at the ripe old age of 18 I was like "I...I must know this man who writes of fucking turkies.  This is the road less traveled that Robert Frost spoke about."  And it was.  We'd take acid, take acid, occasionally take shrooms and once in a while huff some ether he said he distilled from brake fluid.

And sometimes when we were done peaking on the acid, late in the evening (we'd actually dose around noon or so), he'd turn on Art.  I only heard two shows over two different jam sessions at that house to start- but if you've taken enough acid when you're on acid it's like you dipped your hand into the same river as the last acid trip.

Listening to- it HAD to be that Lear guy- one of those first two times, with girls walking around me high on acid with no pants or panties on, people marching through the house reciting lyrics from songs on Locust Abortion Technician and marching with bb guns like soldiers, people setting the spilled tequila on fire on that big hardwood table- during all that...

...during all that I remember being entraced and, high as a kite, I remember all that madness taking a backseat to one thought: "You...You mean there's a radio show about UFO's and bigfoot and shit like that?"  It was like someone explained that there was something more than height and width- that there was depth.  I was agog.

Didn't listen to it again for prolly 2-3 years but I've been hooked in a bad way ever since 94-95.  And that's a long time, ya'll.  My girlfriend and I used to get stoned out of our gourd and at least once she called Art and got through- he was doing the whole making one caller fight with another and she actually wound up speaking quite a while.  And were both naked and stoned, stoned, stoned and there she was on all fours (too stoned to even sit up) with her (beautiful) fat ass up in the air like a spaniel who just sniffed out a quail, talking to Art and me with my ear to the stereo speaker to hear the conversation and trying not to squish one of my balls as I shifted position.

In all the years I've listened to Art reruns I've never, ever heard that episode again.  Her name was Laura and she was from Eugene.

Since then, Art has been tied to some amazing memories.  Whatever was happening, Coast to Coast was playing in the background.

[Doomed]

The first time I heard Art, I was camping up in the Cascade mountains. I dont recall the exact date, but I believe it was in the early 90's. It was pitch dark and I was tuning the radio around trying to find something of interest.  I found a guy ranting about some stupid bill to be voted on. It took me a few moments to figure out he was in Neveda, but the signal was up and down like a yoyo, and I didnt get the stations call or the frequency. (Like I said...it was  dark). I did catch his name. Art Bell. Normally I wouldve moved on to a better signal but this fellow was so compelling I wanted to hear him take on some callers. Local politics from out of state. Seemed like a good idea. By the time he returned from a commercial break, the signal was more down than up, so I grabbed an Oregon station and listened to some old radio programs. (Stan Freeburgs When Radio Was)
Bump ahead a few years. Again camping in the mountains with my Son and best friend. Late night, dark as hell, and I stumble across this guy yakking about...bigfoot? The voice was familiar. That dude from Neveda. This time I had a rock solid signal and I settled in to listen. After a few moments my buddy said, "What the hell are you listening to?" Before I could answer, my Son adds, "He's talking about bigfoot. You know, susquatch, ahhh....yeti?" I offered to find another station but they both said, "Naw. Stay here."
Finally the Seattle market grabbed Art on a good station, and the rest is history. We were all hooked. The following summer we had no trouble finding Art on the radio when we were camping. There were at least 7 or 8 50 thousand watt stations we could pull in, and countless little stations echoing in the backround.
I could relate a number of stories about things that scared the hell out of me while listening to Art. But I wont as Im betting you folks have enough of your own. I will leave you with this one:
As Arts show progresses, it is interupted by the following. Only Art could give a play by play like this. And man, did he run with it! Here's what happened.
Lights in the sky spotted over the southwest United States. Military jets are being scrambled. Then there is a power outage stretching from Arizona and into the west coast. Then the lights went out in Seattle. As I was scrambling to fire up my battery powered radio, a low flying jet went over. There was no mistaking the sound of a military aircraft moving overhead at a breakneck speed. My wife was freaking out. Me? I got the radio going and I was glued to the window. No way was I going to miss the invasion.

[Doomed]

Just so you know, the power outage in Seattle that night, was limited to the northend of the city, and was unrelated to the "big" outage down south. (Or so they said...) As for the low flying jets, it was a flight from the Whidbey Island naval air station. One of the jets went a little too far to the east, and the pilot kicked it in the ass well below his assigned altitude. (Or so they said...)
The timing was perfect no matter how it happened. After that I never went to bed without first tuning in to The Art Bell show.
And hey, thanks for listening. 

[Sardondi]

...The whole house was like an art installation for Jello Biafra....

I might not have randomly encountered his name in 25 years....

[Marc.Knight]

1993: Night shift in a power control center in a hydro / diesel power plant.  There was added strangeness listening all night to Art Bell on an old radio amidst the whirring of turbines all night long...  The energy of Art's gravelly voice, style and paranormal topics seemed to eerily resonate with the electricity coursing through the environment I was in at the time.

[Usagi]

I might not have randomly encountered his name in 25 years....

Clearly, you don't hang out at Green Party or ISO events. 

[f noory]

Hey everyone as a new lurker member , I must say, "I HAVE FOUND MY PEOPLE"...this place is great, My new dickapedia of noory. After viewing the world famous flaming  comet pizza role masterpiece by the meastro P*B and the adventures of "jorch and tommy" ...pages 15 n 16 took a while, tears..tears..tears, spewage!!! more tears.., let alone all the other comedy gold that awaits me. I was thinking about this topic,  First thought was about the night Art glued his lips together. [Fond memory] after returning to the air to explain to us what had happened, with his lips  FRIGGIN!!!  glued together he was still more intelligble than the non-coherent narcissistic mumblings of the DOOSHHHbag noory that current listeners of that mess are stuck with,
                                                                                                                                ...the night Art fell off his own front porch was another classic.    rock on ... f noory   

[Sardondi]

Clearly, you don't hang out at Green Party or ISO events. 

Clearly not.

[stlcoastfan1985]

Rush Limbaugh has his "Rush Babies." I'd call myself an "Art Baby." My father was listening to him for as long as I can remember and despite the idea of UFO's, aliens, ghosts, and bigfoot giving me nightmares as a kid, I've grown to love it more than I ever could imagine, and miss and yearn for the glory days of the Great Bell even more. Thank God for the internet and bootleg shows!

"We don't have much depth." -Art Bell

[soulburner]

I can't exactly recall the first full Art Bell show I listened to, but it must have been around 2006-2008...

...but I want to write about something else. About something weird. When I listen to an old Art Bell show recording from the 1990s... I have this strange feeling. I feel like I *remember* listening to Art in the 1990s! But it's not possible, because I'm in Poland. In that time, I had no computer, the Internet was just a strange word and the only radio I listened to was a local Polish station. So there was absolutely no possibility I could even know about such a radio show.

Strange. But it makes listening to these old shows even more interesting.

[onan]

I can't exactly recall the first full Art Bell show I listened to, but it must have been around 2006-2008...

...but I want to write about something else. About something weird. When I listen to an old Art Bell show recording from the 1990s... I have this strange feeling. I feel like I *remember* listening to Art in the 1990s! But it's not possible, because I'm in Poland. In that time, I had no computer, the Internet was just a strange word and the only radio I listened to was a local Polish station. So there was absolutely no possibility I could even know about such a radio show.

Strange. But it makes listening to these old shows even more interesting.

It is weird, huh? I have a similar story... well kinda. I have a memory of my father telling me about "this radio guy who talks about occult stuff and he says he is from the kingdom of Nye." That memory is as vivid as many of my memories... thing is my father died in 75. So I know it isn't a real memory... but there it is.

[Pragmier]

Very strange SB & Onan, and good stories. Thanks for sharing!